Catching Up: Of Warfare Internicine and Otherwise
An assortment of new & old. All lumped into one big mega post for your enjoyment ...
NO, MR. KILGORE, I EXPECT YOU TO DIE!: Daily Kos is promising that it will unveil a super-weapon to destroy the Democratic Leadership Council. The threats appear to be growing ever more comically megalomaniacal:Two more weeks, folks, before we take them on, head on.No calls for a truce will be brooked. The DLC has used those pauses in the past to bide their time between offensives. Appeals to party unity will fall on deaf ears (it's summer of a non-election year, the perfect time to sort out internal disagreements).
We need to make the DLC radioactive. And we will. With everyone's help, we really can. Stay tuned.
Isn't this really James Bond Villain/Dr. Evil type stuff? From the insistence that he has a foolproof secret plan, to the macho predictions that the enemy will beg for mercy and be denied, right down to the metaphor ("make them radioactive"--Bwahahahahaha!)
I just think that after this build-up anything short of a giant laser gun aimed at the DLC offices is going to seem kind of disappointing.
--Jonathan Chait
Indeed ... if there's no armaments involved here, this is a complete bust.
Let me mention just one single but maybe decisive problem. Again and again during the Bush presidency - and yesterday most recently - the president will agree to give what is advertised in advance as a major speech. An important venue will be chosen. A crowd of thousands will be gathered. The networks will all be invited. And after these elaborate preparations, the president says ... nothing that he has not said a hundred times before.If a president continues to do that, he is himself teaching the public and the media to ignore him - especially when the words seem (as his speech yesterday to the VFW seemed) utterly to ignore the past three months of real-world events.
Words from just another anti-American leftist who hates Bush? Not quite ... David Frum, former Bush speechwriter. Kevin Drum reads that and expresses some minor shock that Frum offers nothing of substance other than focusing on speechology. I don't think that should really register as a shock given Frum's trade and his lack of depth in policy.
For a more realistic view of Iraq, there's two good FT.com articles worth reading:
Categories
Politics-200517 Comments
Unfortunately, there are conflicting reports about troop levels and withdrawals in Iraq, as this report that the current levels will the same through 2009.
I personally have had a tough time with the issue of withdrawal, even disgreeing with folks at dkos that we had to stay in Iraq now there. But there are rational arguments and evidence that the violence is the same or even worse than immediately after the war. There's case to be made that the U.S. looks weak or ineffectual regardless: If we stay and violence continues, we look bad. If we withraw and callously leave Iraqis to violence, we look bad. I have my doubts that we'll do much to quell the violence without sending more troops (though even now may be too late to try and secure borders, as tenuous an objective as that might be).
When Britain broke the Iraqi revolution in 1920-22, they did so by using chemical weapons. Some, such as Michael Scheuer of Imperial Hubris, has said that such a violent, almost indiscriminate response is what's needed.
Will continuing to do what we're doing now make things any better in Iraq?
I'm still trying to come to grips with the mental picture of Markos and his Evil Death Ray.
At some point, what passes for the Democratic Establishment is going to have to cut people like Moulitsas loose. He's a nut, plain and simple. Al, Ed and company are about the only people in the party who have refused to kiss the Kos ring, and he keeps throwing this silly fits. It's time for our friends at the DNC and NDN to get rid of this pain in the ass post-haste.
Right on Peter.
Right on Peter.
Anybody wonder where Kos got his rather oddball "radioactive" metaphor? I saw this right way, but I haven't seen any of the blogs point it out. Do a google search on markos radioactive -dlc and one of the sites you get will be little green footballs:
I wanted to add, the wording is too similar to be coincidence.
It's not beyond Markos to be a petty lil bugger with a long (and sensitive) memory. Good catch, Rachel.
Yea, Good catch, too. I almost thought that it was a link to your blog.
Finally, KOS's megalomania has begun to make him act rather like a cartoon character, perhaps "Dr. Evil," with all his talk of rendering the DLC "radioactive." I guess you could say that the other denizens of DAILY KOS are competing for the title of "Mini Me." Well, since the far right in the form of Bush and Cheney seem bent on acting like evil villains in third-rate cartoons or comic strips, it is only appropriate that the loony left is acting likewise.
Wait, Armando over at DAILY KOS is zig-zagging again, and most erratically. After insisting that all Democrats should demand a cut-and-run strategy (if that can be called a strategy), Armando is now quoting the thoughtful and rational Gen Wesley Clark in a complimentary manner. Armando, of course, thinks that Clark should consult him before commenting on domestic and international politics (especially, matters of war and peace) and that he should be able to edit with impunity all of Clark's speeches, testimony, etc. Clark has the effrontry to insist that we should seek to secure US security interests in Iraq and strive to avoid leaving behind a dangerous political-military vacuum. As far as Armando is now concerned, however, this could be considered OK, because Clark argues that a failure to revamp strategy in Iraq will lead to a second Vietnam in the desert. In other words, Clark is repudiating Bush's failed policies and flawed military strategy. This just happens to be the same approach that most pro-Defense Democrats such as Hillary Clinton, Evan Bayh and Joe Biden, whom Armando and the Kossacks are attacking with all the vituperation they can muster, have been taking towards the war in Iraq. I also didn't hear Paul Hackett advocating a cut-and-run strategy. Wasn't Hackett a Kossack hero? I guess that Armando, a would-be Mini-Me to KOS, is developing a worrisome political schizophrenia. Yet, not to worry, Dr. Evil (KOS) and his denizens at the infamous DAIL KOS will doubtlessly return to their former rabid rhetoric tomorrow.
Ya know, I find the Kossack love for Clark to be puzzling. On a substantive level, Clark is basically a DLC-style Democrat, his odd dalliance with Michael Moore notwithstanding. Yet he seems to have a considerable amount of sway with the NetLeft.
I have a hunch Clark is about to learn how fickle the NetLeft can be. Look for the Kos types to take a shine to Russ Feingold. Whereas Clark was basically Bob Graham Version 2.0, an anti-war New Democrat, Feingold is an unrepentant lefty. While Clark is close to much of the Clinton circle, Feingold won't hesitate to throw cheap lines about the evil, corporatist and presumably radioactive DLC.
Yes, I agree with you, Peter. Clark seems like he ought to be a DLC-style Democrat. I grew concerned about him, however, when he accepted the endorsements of George McGovern and Michael Moore. Everytime I began to warm up to Gen Clark, he would begin pandering to the left wing of the Democratic Party, which certainly turned me off and would have left Clard vulnerable, if he had won the nomination. Moore should be run out of the Democratic Party, presuming he is even a registered Democrat.
Moore voted for Nader
He was also documented as a registered Democrat in two different states during the 2004 campaign.
The Greens can have him.
If you read Clark's policy proposals. he's generally far closer to the Lieberman/Bayh/Biden/HRC Grown Up Wing of the Democratic Party than he is to the Moore crowd. Clark's proposal on how to proceed in Iraq is a thoroughly sensible, coherent and pragmatic set of ideas. He explicitly rejects the Camp Crawford troops-out-now approach, and recognizes the need to develop a stable environment in which a genuine reconstruction can occur. At some point, the gang over at Kos is going to figure this out and look for a pound of flesh.
This is a trend that goes beyond Clark. There's a prospective candidate in my own primary who comes to mind. He's a retired Army National Guard LT Colonel (JAG officer), but he's definitely playing to the MoveOn crowd. Handing out copies of the Downing Street Memo at campaign events might gove some on the left a warm fuzzy, but it has more than a whiff of peculiarity about it.
Peter -- Before Gen Wesley Clark ran for President, he was "thoroughly sensible, coherent and pragmatic." Now that he is no longer a candidate, the same can be said. I just think that he sometimes kept the wrong company during his campaign (Moore, McGovern and some of the Kossack-style Democrats). If Clark had somehow gotten the nomination and won the Presidential elections, I think that he doublessly would have pursued sound defense and foreign policies. He clearly hadn't received enough "tutoring" on domestic policy issues, however, and sometimes it showed in his speeches and debate performances. No, Gen Clark is not a McCarthy-, McGovern-, Deaniac-, or Kossack-style "cut and run" Democrat. Moreover, as you say, the Kossacks may turn on Clark if he continues to talk in a sensible manner about Iraq.
With regard to your National Guard/LTC/JAG opponent in the primary up there in New Hampshire, I wish you the very best of luck. I have read your musings on foreign policy on this Blog and you are my kind of Democrat. In fact, I tried to look you up in the FEC fundraising records. How is your campaign going? How is your fund raising going? Good luck ...