Go Bush!
Posted on 11/02/2005 11:53:42 PM PST by goldstategop
Momentum in politics often shifts when a political leader or party overplays their hand. When Republicans rushed to pass legislation to prolong the life of brain-damaged Terri Schiavo earlier this year, I noted that much of the public saw it as grandstanding. I also wrote that the beginning of current GOP woes started with the party's Schiavo strategy.
Now the Democrats may be having their turn at costly misjudgment. Their closed-door meeting of Democrats-only in the U.S. Senate on Tuesday of this week was designed with drama in mind. They wanted to bring renewed attention to their claim that the Republicans are still stonewalling an investigation into the intelligence used to justify the Iraq war.
The stunt achieved nothing. If anything, it may one day be looked back on as the day the American public started to take a more positive view of President Bush and the Republicans again.
Yes, a White House indictment and a withdrawn Supreme Court nominee have Republicans on the run.
Even so, the public often senses when opportunistic politicians are trying to reach too far to score partisan blows.
There is now evidence that public support for the Iraq war may be making a slight comeback. Iraqis recently voted to approve a constitution. Now there are hints from the White House that modest numbers of U.S. troops might start to come home before Christmas.
Meanwhile, all the "who shot John" questions about prewar intelligence on weapons of mass destruction don't move the public. Most people know already that the weapons aren't there. Those who still support the war do so for other reasons.
Most who oppose it do so because of American casualties -- WMDs or not. Media have emphasized those casualties almost to the exclusion of any other news from the war front, good or bad. Others condemn the war because they say the American government is spending too much time and money helping other countries and not enough improving its own.
But even blood-happy media had to report the successful constitutional referendum; the one that even Saddam Hussein's Sunnis participated in. The subtext of these reports is that some form of democracy may actually be taking hold in Iraq. (And that voter participation in Iraq exceeds participation in America.)
The Democrats were handed Republican scandals and missteps on a silver platter. But they have managed to fumble them. Now the Democrats are appearing to many to be more concerned with being politically destructive than being policy constructive; and in failing to support American troops in the field in what may be the months of ultimate decision in Iraq.
Public political moods are cyclical. My guess is that last week -- with its indictment of Scooter Libby and Harriet Miers' withdrawal of her consideration for the Supreme Court -- was probably the nadir of the Bush presidency. From here, the White House may be about to enjoy the American people's instinct to rally around a beleaguered president when they think attacks on him have crossed over to the gratuitous.
A classic example of this phenomenon was the decision in 1998 by special prosecutor Ken Starr to make public his report on alleged misdeeds and possible crimes by then-President Clinton in the events leading up to Clinton's impeachment.
Top Republican leaders felt that by releasing the Starr Report's details, including fairly graphic descriptions of alleged sexual misconduct, Clinton's polling numbers would plummet and within a week he would be asked to resign by top Democratic leaders. (Let me assure you this scenario is fact, not speculation.)
The opposite happened. The public viewed the GOP as going too far in hunting for Clinton's hide. Most people sympathized with Clinton and subsequently awarded him with amazingly high approval ratings.
Did he deserve that new support of the people? Probably not. But that's the way it is in the game of politics and the people.
That brings us back to the Democrats' parliamentary temper tantrum this week. It was silly, pointless and transparently a cheap shot.
Worse for the Democrats, they may now have to rethink how stridently they should oppose Samuel Alito for the Supreme Court. They have to consider that they now may be seen as rock-throwers more concerned with poking around in the ashes of the past than in lighting fires for the future.
And President Bush may be the beneficiary. Just when he needs it most.
("Denny Crane: Gun Control? For Communists. She's a liberal. Can't hunt.")
This guy is joking right?? on the run??
("Denny Crane: Gun Control? For Communists. She's a liberal. Can't hunt.")
Heard that as well. But will have to wait/see. . .
Sensing a 'mistake'. . .perhaps Durbin is just making nice. . .laying the Dems low. . .until the smoke clears from the firey tantrum scene they perpetrated/orchestrated.
No reason for a Lib to tell the truth. . .
.My thoughts as well. . .I am assuming that he forgot to add or just a LOL. . .
hmmm. . .that was supposed to be. .'perhaps. . he forgot to add. . .a humor/off'; but I 'offed' it. . .
Golden Opportunity. . .only if one can take advantage.
The Dems. . .morally empty .. .void of anything genuine; least of all safe prescriptions for America's future. . .cannot fill that opportunity. . .such as it may be.
BUMP
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We're Know We're Dead Wrong.")
"GOP woes started with the party's Schiavo strategy"
Bush's poll numbers have never recovered from the Shiavo disaster. It made the reps look like a bunch of religious bible thumpers.
Go Bush!
Ahh, yes. The GOP took a stand against a jerk who had his wife killed in a nursing home. How shameful!
By the way, your derogatory smear of Christians by the use of the term "bible thumper" shows more about you than you realize.
Two thousand dead in exchange for twenty five million freed from a tyrant would historically be considered a justifiable use of American power, even aside from the fact that our willingness to stand and shed blood has erased the reason we were attacked to begin with, and thus made us safer here at home.
With the MSM stoking the anti-war fervor however, our world is functionally incoherent.
The public indeed knows generally that the WMD's were not found in Iraq as anticipated - but it needs to be constantly reminded that WMD's were very much there previously and were utilized on occasions.
And that it would have been suicidal not to act when we did.
And that we can be thankful that WMD's weren't there; because if they had been, they would have been used on the men and women in our armed forces.
The mind of much of the public has a retention span that has become unimpressive relative to the focus of people in the mid 20th century, i.e., the WWII era.
Its "news intake" is based on snips, and distortions, of two-dimensional reality on a TV screen comprising a few minutes between ads. The sheep analogy has overall become more applicable, not less.
Bloggers have admirably overcome this. But never underestimate the portion of the public who, numbly, day after day stare unceasingly and fixated at a flickering screen - brain waves at a minimum and receptive to whatever alarmist or inducing message of non-reality comes its way at a given moment.
Well observed and said.
well said, my friend
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