Advice for the Democrats

A lengthy post, but very thought provoking. Interesting regardless of what side of the political fence you're on.

The author makes some excellent points, particularly with regard to homeland security. I tell you what: if this war were nearer to victory, I would seriously consider voting for a Demo who a) wasn't a human dung-beetle (as pretty much all of them this year are; as Herren Hillary is also), and b) promised to dismantle the Gestapo of Homeland Security.

The section on "solutions" says why I won't, of course. If we fail to pursue our current foreign policy, we will recapitulate the fate of Rome in a matter of decades at the most. For all intents and purposes, Europe's already gone.

July 17, 2003 / 12:01 PM ET

ADVICE FOR THE DEMOCRATS

I used to like the Democrats. Heck, I used to be a Democrat. But their handling of the whole Iraq war issue reminds me of why I’m not a Democrat anymore. On the other hand, I’m not a Republican, either. So here’s some advice for the Democrats on how they can more effectively criticize the Bush administration on this and other issues.

Intelligence Failures

Forget this “where are the weapons?” and “Bush lied!” stuff. It’s not flying. Heck, it’s even getting refuted, over and over, by the strongly pro-Democrat Daily Howler. This issue is a loser. As the Howler writes:

Let’s make this as simple as possible. If you’re going to accuse public officials of conducting a “hoax” (Nicholas Kristof), you can’t refuse to publish their explanation (Kristof) and you can’t bury their explanation at the end of a long, front-page article (the Post). You can’t pretend you don’t know what they’ve said. And no, you can’t make the kind of factual presentation made on Monday night’s Hardball.

Ouch. It’s a loser, and though it generated some sound and fury last week and over the weekend (conveniently eclipsing Bush’s enormously important AIDS and trade initiatives in Africa), it now seems to be a tale told by idiots, signifying nothing. As the Howler points out, Bush’s speech said that Iraq was trying to get nuclear material from Africa and that our information came from the British. The British still stand by this and there’s not much evidence that they’re wrong. Bush’s critics have conflated one bogus document relating to Niger with Bush’s statement about all sorts of other evidence relating to Africa, a continent of which Niger is, of course, only a small part. (You can read more on the subject at the Howler links above, and here.)

So where’s the administration vulnerable? Well, there are important process issues here: There may have been bad intelligence (with, tantalizingly, the possibility that the French were feeding the allies forged documents) and there’s a real question of why people fell for it. (It’s also possible that there were obviously-forged documents saying things that were, in fact, true, in order to discredit other evidence to the same effect: Such things are far from unknown in the world of espionage.)

But this is a side issue at best. More importantly, there’s the administration’s unwillingness to look into the intelligence failures leading up to September 11. That the September 11 attacks occurred isn’t, by itself, proof that people dropped the ball, but there’s reason to think so, and the Bush administration has been notably reluctant to look into the matter, or to have anyone else do so. But learning from failure is vitally important in wartime, as is accountability on the part of those who fail. We’ve seen precious little of either. Nor is there anything unpatriotic about raising such questions - though it would help to avoid cheap partisan shots in the process.

The Saudi Connection

It seems pretty obvious that the root of Islamist terror worldwide is in Saudi Arabia. That’s where the money, the ideology, and often the terrorists themselves come from. The Bush administration has been awfully friendly with the Saudis, as has the Bush family. It may be, as blogger Steven Den Beste writes, that we’ve gone easy on the Saudis as part of a longer-term strategy, and that the administration will start tightening the screws now that the liberation of Iraq reduces the Saudis’ leverage. I hope that’s true, but there’s no question that there’s a lot of room to criticize in the administration’s relations with the Saudis.

Homeland Security

Homeland security is, as I’ve written already, ripe for criticism. It’s about empowering bureaucrats, not about protecting America. From the pointless absurdities of airline security to the Homeland Security Department’s new focus on non-terrorist-related issues, it’s a happy hunting ground for people looking for idiocies to attack. You could make a good commercial based on tweezer confiscation alone, and millions of frequent fliers would laugh.

And here’s a wedge issue: The Bush administration’s Transportation Security Administration is strangling the popular armed-pilots program with bureaucratic folderol. This is likely to be especially unpopular with pro-gun swing voters in swing states like Tennessee and Pennsylvania, and raising the issue would put Bush on the defensive: Does he control his own bureaucracy, or is he anti-gun?

Communications

Lots of people are worried about media concentration. This can be put in more basic terms: There are lots of channels, but they stink. There are lots of movies, but they mostly stink too. And there are lots of radio stations, but they all play the same crap.

There was an effort a while back to make it easy for individuals and community groups to set up low-power FM stations (which, thanks to technology, now costs only a few thousand dollars), but commercial broadcasters and NPR shot it down claiming that there would be interference. Now a new study done for the FCC says that the interference issue is bogus. (You can read a short account here and a longer one here. The latter report notes that the FCC, which is controlled by Republican appointees, buried the report in the comment section of its Web site and made no public announcement.) This issue ties together two good themes - sympathy for the little guy, and widespread dissatisfaction with radio. The FCC can be cast in the role of the “Mr. Dickless” character from Ghostbusters, an interfering bureaucracy that’s really a tool of bad guys. And, given recent Democratic hostility to mega-broadcaster Clear Channel, a boost for independent radio would offer a bit of payback.

Solutions

My biggest advice for the Democrats is to come up with positions, not just criticisms. This is particularly true on the war, where, as blogger Ed Cone notes, the Democrats have had a real problem:

If a Democrat wins next year, what would be the future of Bush’s aggressive military strategy of addressing state-sponsored terrorism emanating from the Middle East? What will our message be toward Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Syria? How much time and money would a Democratic president devote to nation building? Those are answers I’d like to hear.

It doesn’t matter if you didn’t want to go to war, it’s done. We are where we are. Where we go next is the key. . . .

Screwing up on nation-building in Iraq will lead to more terrorism and undermine our status in the world. The same is true in Afghanistan. That’s why Democrats should lay off the trusty quagmire rhetoric and avoid politicizing the reconstruction process. There is no quick exit or cheap solution if we do it right.

Quagmire talk and after-the-fact finger-pointing doesn’t help. We need to hear solutions. We’re not hearing those. The same is true on the economy. You can savage Bush’s tax cuts, but if you want to make the deficit an issue, you’ve got to be willing to talk about spending cuts, too. If you’re not willing to do that, you’re not serious, and you’ll come across as a kvetcher, not a serious alternative.

Those are my main suggestions. Want more? Here’s one from James Morrow: Lower the drinking age. The increase in the drinking age from 18 to 21 was a federal encroachment on traditional state affairs, foisted on the country by a Republican administration. Democrats are having trouble firing up younger voters. This should help. And with a war on, the “old enough to fight = old enough to drink” argument seems a pretty strong one.

OK, that’s my advice for the Democrats. There may be better advice for them somewhere else, but judging by their actions they’re not taking it.

Monk