Democrat Bait and Switch: Post-Election Warriors

In 1992, Bill Clinton campaigned for president by promising tax cuts for the middle class. Fourteen years later, his Party ran on a similar “tell the people exactly what they want to hear” motif, this time the mantra being a speedy withdrawal of American troops from Iraq.

Though separated by almost a decade and a half, these campaign strategies were quite similar to a now illegal marketing scheme called a bait and switch – whereby a company advertises a product for sale at a cheap price to lure in customers. Unfortunately, the organization’s retail outlets don’t actually have the item in stock forcing anxious shoppers to consider more expensive products that are available.

I Dig a Phony

Much like this advertising scam, the 1992 and 2006 political campaigns had three things in common:

• They were hugely successful in garnering enough votes to assure victory
• They offered promises that weren’t remotely meant to be kept
• Their pledges would be rescinded before those newly elected would take office.

Surprisingly, the Democrats of 2006 were faster in retracting their campaign promises than Clinton. He at least waited a few weeks to tell the seemingly stunned populace that “suddenly” exploding budget deficits made tax cuts unfeasible, setting up the perfect ruse to raise them. By contrast, in 2006, the Democrats only waited nine days to betray their supporters.

This most recent backstabbing of the electorate is a little less obvious though – or, as liberal elites like to say, more nuanced – and came in the form of a coronation by House Democrats of Steny Hoyer (D-Maryland) as their Majority Leader instead of antiwar hero Jack Murtha (D-Pennsylvania).

Many in the media saw this as a vote of no confidence in the Congressman’s ethics background. However, buried deep under the surface was something far more telling. With this one vote, the left made it clear that regardless of what they said during the campaign, they fully understood how a capricious withdrawal from Iraq was not in the country’s best interest.

I Don’t Want to Soil the Party

To be sure, some well-timed comments by General John Abizaid on Wednesday, making it clear that he didn’t support any troop reductions at this time, proved quite fortuitous for Democrats in dire need of a Party makeover. This made supporting the currently more hawkish Hoyer the perfect tonic for those on the left looking to get this issue out of the way well before the new Congress was sworn in.

Equally timely was a Washington Post editorial published the day before adroitly explaining the need for the coming Democrat change of direction:

But [Murtha’s] descriptions of the stakes [in Iraq] have been consistently unrealistic, and his solutions irresponsible. Just last week he denied that the United States was fighting terrorism in Iraq, though al-Qaeda is known to play a major part in the insurgency. He said the United States should abandon even the effort to train the Iraqi army and should “redeploy as soon as practicable,” an extreme step that most congressional Democrats oppose. He claimed that “stability in the Middle East, stability in Iraq,” would come from such an abrupt withdrawal; in fact, virtually all Iraqi and Middle Eastern leaders have said that it would lead to a greatly escalated conflict that could spread through the region.

Obviously, achieving this necessary character switch would require Democrats to begin separating themselves from their campaign promises. After all, exit polls showed that 67 percent of voters felt Iraq was either very or extremely important in their election decisions. Of the 56 percent that said they disapproved of the war, 80 percent voted for Democrats. And, 82 percent of those that wanted all of the troops withdrawn (representing 29 percent of voters) supported Democrat candidates.

As a result, millions of Americans voted “D” in their districts and states exclusively due to the belief that this would lead to an expeditious withdrawal of troops. Once it became clear that such a move was not going to happen, the Democrats had to figure out a way to explain to the electorate that conditions had somehow radically changed in just nine days making their campaign promises implausible.

Of course, it’s likely that many Americans never bought into the Democrat pledge to withdraw troops quickly, and easily saw through the canard. Though appearing at this time to be a species facing extinction, many inside the Beltway refer to them not so affectionately as conservatives. Heartfelt congratulations go to all in that camp.

However, that doesn’t assuage the anger those who did get fooled again will feel when they discover that they fell prey to the same nefarious bait and switch scheme as they did back in 1992. Much as then, it is incumbent on the Democrats to make all those duped feel better about themselves, thereby making it easier to pull the wool over their eyes the next time this campaign strategy becomes necessary.

Johnny B. Bad

Step one in accomplishing this goal was for Democrats to distance themselves from the very man that almost single-handedly got the antiwar movement rolling back on November 17, 2005. Of course, it does appear a bit unseemly that Murtha’s “assassination” so to speak occurred almost exactly on the one year anniversary of his first well-publicized protestations about Iraq. Maybe that’s just icing on the cake, or, in keeping with the season, sauce for the goose.

Why was this essential? Well, if the Democrat Party were indeed going to backtrack from an antiwar position, how could their second in command in the House be the point-man for such pacifist tendencies? Certainly, it would be preposterous for a Congressman that had been such a strident and high-profile advocate for troop withdrawal to be in such a high position of power in a Party that is now going to take a less dovish posture.

Unfortunately, this raised other problems, as Murtha had been a darling of the media for the past twelve months. As Cybercast News Service reported on January 13, 2006:

Since Murtha’s Nov. 17, 2005, call for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, one CNN anchor has called him “one of the most highly respected members of Congress,” the Associated Press has referred to Murtha as “one of Congress’ most hawkish Democrats,” and ABC News has noted that he is “a decorated marine who served in Vietnam.”

Such praise came despite a huge Los Angeles Times expose about Murtha’s earmarking on June 13, 2005, and an October 18, 2005, Hill article on the same subject. Unsurprisingly, virtually no media outlet chose to report any of Murtha’s sordid past after he became the de facto spokesman of the antiwar movement. This was so obvious that even the Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz pointed it out on Sunday’s Reliable Sources:

[T]here was a big LA Times expose last year about Jack Murtha doing favors for companies that contributed to his campaign and that sort of thing. It got almost no national pickup until after the midterm elections.

The Media Reverses Course on Murtha’s Ethics Issues

As a result, to make this “assassination” work, step two was to get a previously adoring press quickly to alter its view of the Congressman, and comply with the need for a hit job. And, comply they did.

First out of the gates was NBC Nightly News, which on Thursday evening, just hours after the historic vote, fabulously threw Murtha under the bus. After playing the now infamous video of the Congressman discussing a bribe with an FBI agent – a video whose public display was totally verboten before the election – correspondent Chip Reid reported:

Murtha was investigated by the FBI in the Abscam bribery scandal 26 years ago, though he was never charged, and recently expressed frustration over a proposed Democratic package of ethics reforms.
Rep. MURTHA: (From MSNBC’s “Hardball”) And it is total crap that we have to deal with an issue like this when we got a war going on.

Reid concluded this segment by getting a quote from political analyst Norman Ornstein:

You can’t have the theme that you’re going to clean up the culture of corruption and then hand pick somebody who is a product of that culture.

Next up to kick the carcass of one suddenly despised by his caucus was the New York Times which published a scathing editorial on Friday that could have been found at either the Washington Times or the National Review:

The well-known shortcomings of Mr. Murtha were broadcast for all to see — from his quid-pro-quo addiction to moneyed lobbyists to the grainy government tape of his involvement in the Abscam scandal a generation ago. […]
Mr. Murtha would have been a farcical presence in a leadership promising the cleanest Congress in history.

All We Are Saying is Give War a Chance

With step two complete, it was next essential for the media to begin laying the groundwork for changing the public’s view concerning Iraq. The network morning news programs were willing accomplices as NBC’s Matt Lauer set up a segment on Friday’s Today Show:

Americans let Congress know loud and clear they’re not happy with the war in Iraq, but what would happen if the US just packed up and left?

Correspondent Richard Engel amazingly responded:

Well, I think what happened in southern Iraq yesterday is a good example of the kind of security situation that would develop. In those provinces in the south where those Americans were kidnapped, British and Italian forces have been pulling back and handing over authority to the Iraqi security forces. But instead of having a stable environment, it was handed over to militiamen and highway robbers, and a—probably a similar pattern would be repeated across the country.

Shocking analysis from a gentleman that was quoted in an October 26, 2006, Washington Post article as having said:

I think war should be illegal…I’m basically a pacifist.

Suddenly no longer so dovish, Engel continued with his report on Friday about what would happen if American troops withdrew from Iraq:

Iraqis overwhelmingly say it would push the country deeper into chaos. Three states would claw their way into existence in a civil war, creating an independent Kurdistan, opposed by Turkey, Iran and Syria; a Shiite south allied with Iran and in control of much of Iraq’s oil and access to the Persian Gulf; and a failed Sunni state run by tribunal war lords, some backed by al-Qaeda. […]
Osama bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has said one of al-Qaeda’s goals is to find a state or part of a state as a new homeland. Leaving Iraq with a power vacuum might just give it to him. So there is that danger, Matt, that a quick pullout could have just the opposite effect of the entire war, which is to create an al-Qaeda safe haven to launch further attacks.

War’s Not Over If You Want It

With the media now starting to toe the “give war a chance” line, the Democrats were well on their way to achieving a transformation that Bill Clinton could be proud of. However, there are still snakes lying in the grass, for the members of the extreme left who worked tirelessly on pushing the antiwar agenda as well as antiwar candidates are not likely to buy into this new posture. Or are they?

David Corn of the Nation wrote shortly after the Steny Hoyer vote on Thursday:

Moreover, Murtha, the candidate with the most ardent antiwar credentials, lost—and did so decisively. How will this be interpreted (or exploited) by pundits and politicos who oppose the Pelosi/Murtha call for the withdrawal of troops? Murtha champions did try to turn the majority leader race into a debate on the Iraq war. Can the vote be read as an indicator that many House Democrats don’t support Pelosi all the way on her opposition to the war?

Yet, less than 24 hours later, Corn published the following at the Nation’s website in a Friday blog post entitled “Democrats and Withdrawal from Iraq: Asking Too Much?”:

Pulling out American troops might remove a possible obstacle to a political accommodation among Iraqi parties that leads to less chaos and violence. The removal of troops, though, could cause the opposite and render it tougher for the Iraqi government (even with much U.S. assistance) to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure and to train a worthwhile military and police force—particularly if other nations, including those of the region, do not become more involved in repairing Iraq.

These opinions espoused by the Washington editor of one of the most liberal magazines in America were the byproduct of a breakfast meeting that incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) hosted for reporters on Thursday shortly before the House vote on Hoyer. If this is what Corn took away from such a gathering, and he is now advocating this nuanced Democrat approach towards Iraq, the country could soon be teeming with reformed antiwar zealots singing the same adulterated John Lennon refrain.

And the left thinks Karl Rove is a devious genius.

Here's a great read for a Monday.

INSIGHT OF A SERGEANT MAJOR

(The author, J. D. Pendry, is a retired Army Command Sergeant Major who writes for Random House.)

NO PUNCHES PULLED HERE

Jimmy Carter, you're the father of the Islamic Nazi movement. You threw the Shah under the bus, welcomed the Ayatollah, lacked the spine to confront the terrorists when they took our embassy and our people hostage. You're the Runner-in-Chief.

Bill Clinton, you played "ring around the Lewinsky" while the terrorists were at war with us. You got us into a fight with them in Somalia and then you ran from it. Your weak-willed responses embolden the killers each time you failed to respond adequately they grew bolder, until 9/11.

John Kerry, dishonesty is your most prominent attribute. You lied about American Soldiers in Vietnam. Your military service, like your life, is more fiction than fact. You've accused our Soldiers of terrorizing women and in Iraq. You called Iraq the wrong war, wrong place, wrong time. The same words you used to describe Vietnam. You're a fake. You want to run from Iraq and abandon the Iraqis to murderers just as you did the Vietnamese. Iraq, like Vietnam is another war that you were for, before you were against it.

John Murtha, you said our military was broken. You said we can't win militarily in Iraq. You accused United States Marines of cold-blooded murder without proof. And said we should redeploy to Okinawa. Okinawa, John? And the Democrats call you their military expert. Are you sure you didn't suffer a traumatic brain injury while you were off building your war hero resume? You're a sad, pitiable, corrupt and washed up politician. You're not a Marine sir. You wouldn't amount to a pimple on a real Marine's ass. You're a phony and a disgrace. Run away John.

Dick Durbin, you accused our Soldiers at Guantanamo of being Nazis, tenders of Soviet style gulags and as bad as the regime of Pol Pot who murdered two million of his own people after your party abandoned South East Asia to the Communists. Now you want to abandon the Iraqis to the same fate. History was not a good teacher for you, was it? See Dick run.

Ted Kennedy, for days on end you held poster-sized pictures from Abu Grhaib in front of any available television camera. Al Jazeera quoted you saying that Iraqis torture chambers were open under new management. Did you see the news this week Teddy? The Islamic Nazis demonstrate real torture for you again. If you truly supported our troops, you'd show the world poster-sized pictures of that atrocity and demand the annihilation of it. Your legislation stripping support from the South Vietnamese which led to a communist victory there. You're a bloated fool bent on repeating the same historical blunder that turned freedom-seeking people over to homicidal, genocidal maniacs. To paraphrase John Murtha, all while sitting on you wide, gin-soaked rear-end in Washington.

Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Carl Levine, Barbara Boxer, Diane Feinstein, Russ Feingold, Hillary Clinton, Pat Leahy, Chuck Schumer et al ad nauseam. Every time you stand in front of television cameras and broadcast to the Islamic Nazis that we went to war because our President lied. That the war is wrong and our Soldiers are torturers. That we should leave Iraq, you give the Islamic butchers - the same ones that tortured and mutilated American Soldiers - cause to think that we will run away again and all they have to do is hang on a little longer.

American news media, the New York Times particularly. Each time you publish stories about national defense secrets and our intelligence gathering methods, you become one with the sub-human pieces of camel dung that torture and mutilate the bodies of American Soldiers. You can't strike up the courage to publish cartoons, but you can help Al Qaeda destroy my country. Actually, you are more dangerous to us than Al Qaeda is. Think about that each time you face Mecca to admire your Pulitzer.

You are America's axis of idiots. Your collective stupidity will destroy us. Self-serving politics and terrorist abetting news scoops are more important to you than our national security or the lives of innocent civilians and Soldiers. It bothers you that defending ourselves gets in the way of your elitist sport of politics and your ignorant editorializing. There is as much blood on your hands as is on the hands of murdering terrorists. Don't ever doubt that. Your frolics will only serve to extend this war as they extended Vietnam. If you want our Soldiers home, as you claim, knock off the crap and try supporting your country ahead of supporting your silly political aims and aiding our enemies. Yes, I'm questioning your patriotism. Your loyalty ends with -self. I'm also questioning why you're stealing air that decent Americans could be breathing. You don't deserve the protection of our men and women in uniform. You need to run away from this war and this country. Leave the war to the people who have the will to see it through and
the country to people who are willing to defend it.

No Commander in Chief, you don't get off the hook either. Our country has two enemies. Those who want to destroy us from the outside and those who attempt it from within. Your Soldiers are dealing with the outside force. It's your obligation to support them by confronting the axis of idiots. America must hear it from you that these people are harming our country, abetting the enemy and endangering our safety. Well up a little anger please, and channel it toward the appropriate target. You must prosecute those who leak national security secrets to the media. You must prosecute those in the media who knowingly publish those secrets. Our Soldiers need you to confront the enemy that they cannot. They need you to do it now.

IMO, that about sums it up.

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