Posted on 12/01/2007 2:53:21 PM PST by mdittmar
Democrats have lost seven of the last 10 presidential elections in part because voters deemed them weak on national security. Could it happen again in 2008, when nearly every other issue is cutting in favor of Democrats regaining the White House? Yes, and for good reason.
First, for any who hadn't noticed, America is at war; in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and in a shadowy but lethal struggle around the world with terrorists determined to kill us. Second, the Democrats who control Congress and the Democrats running for president are, with only occasional exceptions, reinforcing the impression that their national security credentials are deeply suspect.
Discerning Democrats will note that it isn't only Republicans who are saying so.
Joe Klein, a politically astute columnist notably hard on George Bush, writes this in the Dec. 3 issue of Time magazine: "If the Democrats want to win in 2008, they can't be mealymouthed on issues of national security." Klein then proceeds to cite two matters, Iraq war funding and surveillance of terrorist communications, about which Democrats have been "foolishly partisan." Klein concludes by warning that if Democrats can't credibly promise to "protect the nation against enemies, foreign and domestic ... they simply will not win the presidency."
Similarly, the Democratic Leadership Council, founded in the 1980s to move the Democratic Party from the left to the center, has been warning for years that a failure to project strength on national security, especially in time of war, invites electoral defeat. Ditto for Sen. Joe Lieberman, Democrat turned independent, and any number of blue dog Democrats.
These voices of political reason, however, are barely heard and rarely heeded these days amid the Democrats' partisan fury on Capitol Hill and Bush-bashing frenzy on the presidential campaign trail. Instead, most Democrats seem far more driven by their party's MoveOn.org wing, which in saner times would be known as the looney left. MoveOn's extremism is defined by, for example, its sponsorship of infamous political ads equating George Bush with Adolf Hitler and Iraq commander Gen. David Petraeus with "General Betray Us."
Leaning left may be smart politics for Democratic presidential aspirants competing for support from their party's disproportionately liberal voters in primary contests. It would likely be fatal in a general election decided by the electorate's sensible center.
It doesn't appear to be playing well for congressional Democrats, either. Public approval ratings for the new Democratic Congress' performance are hovering around 20 percent, a third lower than Bush's anemic standing in the polls and among the lowest congressional ratings ever recorded.
Applying the Joe Klein test of national security fitness begins with funding for U.S. forces fighting in Iraq. By the latest count, the Democratic-controlled Congress has voted 40 times this year on legislation that would force a withdrawal of troops from Iraq, micromanage their deployments for the same purpose or condemn the surge in American troop strength in Iraq. All to no avail.
Democrats lack the votes to overcome either a Republican filibuster in the Senate or Bush's certain veto of any legislation rewriting the Constitution to make Congress, not the president, commander in chief of America's armed forces.
In their frustration, Democrats are now doing what they earlier vowed not to - refusing additional funding for American troops fighting on a foreign battlefield. What most Democrats concluded last spring would be politically suicidal is now the congressional weapon of choice to compel an American retreat, and defeat, in Iraq.
This budgetary game of chicken, with the safety and combat effectiveness of American soldiers and Marines hanging in the balance, is the handiwork of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. But the Democrats' leading presidential contenders, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, are complicit. Both voted in November against the Bush administration's request for $70 billion in emergency Iraq funding.
Last April, Obama said, "nobody wants to play chicken with our troops on the ground ... you don't want to play chicken with the president and create a situation in which, potentially, you don't have body armor, you don't have reinforced Humvees, you don't have night-vision goggles." During that same April debate, Sen. Clinton said "of course" she would eventually support legislation funding the troops.
Shades of John Kerry's "I actually voted for it before I voted against it," the revealing gaffe that helped doom his presidential campaign.
What makes this Draconian gambit by Democrats especially damaging to their political fortunes is its paradoxical timing. Just as the troop surge is, by every account, achieving remarkable military gains in Iraq, Democrats in Congress and on the presidential campaign trail continue to insist that we've lost and should retreat. The latest polls (Rasmussen and Pew) show that nearly half of all Americans, up from only a third earlier this year, now believes that the Iraq war is going very well or fairly well. Yet, the Democrats appear oblivious to the changing facts on the ground.
Hillary Clinton, the least dovish of all the Democratic presidential candidates, greeted Gen. Petraeus' cautious optimist last September by saying that believing him required "the willing suspension of disbelief." No word on what she thinks now.
Democratic Rep. John Murtha, the gruff ex-Marine who became the unlikely hero of anti-war Democrats by calling long ago for withdrawal from Iraq, just returned from a Thanksgiving visit there saying, "I think the 'surge' is working." But then, Murtha isn't running for president.
On terrorist surveillance, the Democrats had to be dragged kicking and screaming into reforming the antiquated Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The National Security Agency is back in business monitoring al-Qaeda's communications, including any with persons inside the United States. Bipartisan compromise accomplished this while protecting Americans' civil liberties, but no thanks to scores of congressional Democrats who still voted no.
Nancy Pelosi insisted on pushing a purely Democratic version that, in effect, gave terrorists the same constitutional protections as American citizens. In the Senate, Hillary Clinton backed a threatened Democratic filibuster of FISA reform despite a pending bipartisan compromise in the Senate Intelligence Committee.
The debate over terrorist surveillance is politically revealing because intelligence gathering is absolutely indispensable to preventing the next 9/11, or worse. Democrats ignore this at their peril.
In 2008, the Democrats' presidential nominee can expect to see all this played back to them in Republican campaign ads charging weakness on national security. Thus might Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama yet lose to a GOP underdog with one ace - undoubted credentials and commitment on national security.
Excellent book, btw.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Show the campaign add of terrorists talking about taking over our elementary schools and then show Hillary as President granting terrorists the same rights as American citizens by rejecting surveilance of these calls... follwed by pictures of schools blowing up....
What possibly can Hillary say?
OUCH!! That might leave a mark .. or two.
There, I fixed the title - too numerous to list.
bump
Unfortunately, the same may be said about the Republicans. They certainly managed to do so in 2006. It's very depressing--a political race between the two major parties to see who can be the biggest loser.
2006 was a wake up scream! We Republicans wanted Action and Victory in the War on Terror!!. The Rats won playing they were Conservative. But something very important happened, they got put in the driver’s seats by one vote in the Senate, an Independent Joe Lieberman and a few in the House.They have been a Traitorous Abomnation in both House’s and the Public is seeing it unfold more clearly than We could dream. The Republican Party will win thr Presidency and both House’s big time if We pull together, Get Inspired and Know We are Fighting For Our Nation’s Life and Freedoms. If the RATS win, GOD HELP US because Democracy as We know it WILL be Dead!
You are absolutely right, IF we unite behind a strong and credible candidate.
Unless the economy, stupid, overcomes war.
Democrats have a growing anti-American wing in their party. Scoop Jackson is just a rotten corpse to them. It’s no accident that Democrats have garnered less than 50% of the vote in every election since 1968. No Democrat can be nominated if they ignore this anti-American wing. They are spoiled brats with money, most of it inherited. Many of them-like Hillary and Howard Dean are the children of old Republicans. They are the peacenik children of the sixties and their children. They have taken over the once reliably Republican state of Vermont, which was one of two states that voted for Alf Landon in 1936. They are socialists. These folks “loathe” the military. It will be important to point out how these Americans want to destroy—not defend—America. Bernie Sanders leads them in Vermont. He is a Democrat in all but name. I say give Bernie his Class War. The people who make America work are vastly not of his class. Yes, Democrats are weak on defense. But they also have not given up on slavery. You work, and if you are at all successful, more than half of the fruits of your labor will be confiscated to promote dependent classes who wallow in Democrat-sanctioned immorality. The future is bright for conservatives. The Reagan landslides of ‘80 and ‘84 will be repeated in most of our lifetimes. The congressional landslide of 1994 will look mild compared to what will happen if Democrats just keep being who they are. Thankfully, they just keep obliging.
Not to mention that they’re
commie bastards.
Yikes! You just pushed my scaredy-cat button.
Schools...that's been my worst fear ever since 9/11.
Exactly... What possibly could a Democrat say after they make changes to Bush policies and we have another 911 type attack... The number one duty of our government is to protect the People everything else is secondary....
Another approach that John Edwards is already hypnotizing America with is the old “Ask not what your country can do for you” (Unless of course you are in the minority votin block or an illegal immigrant) Ask what you can do for your country in that we will all feel the pain of the Bush war policy... It will happen in rations and reductions in services to those of us not rich enough to overcome such burdens... Just wait if the rats get control millions will say remember those good ol days under George W. Bush..
Joe Klein, a politically astute columnist notably hard on George Bush, writes this in the Dec. 3 issue of Time magazine: "If the Democrats want to win in 2008, they can't be mealymouthed on issues of national security." Klein then proceeds to cite two matters, Iraq war funding and surveillance of terrorist communications, about which Democrats have been "foolishly partisan." Klein concludes by warning that if Democrats can't credibly promise to "protect the nation against enemies, foreign and domestic ... they simply will not win the presidency."
Sen. Reid’s stink bomb ... (the smell of failure)
Wash Times | December 19, 2007 | Editorial
Posted on 12/19/2007 8:04:53 AM EST by IrishMike
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1941648/posts
and the extremely sensible right...
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