Clever Desperation

(Note: this is the original email version of the post above, "The GOP Goes Down the Rabbit Hole." I include it here mostly for archiving purposes.)

Why is it that clever skullduggery works? Why is it that most can’t see (or do not bother to discover) that it so often masks witless desperation?


On Friday, the House put to vote a GOP-sponsored, nonbinding resolution. The House resolution was entitled “Declaring that the United States will prevail in the Global War on Terror, the struggle to protect freedom from the terrorist adversary.” Following a mirror image put forward in the Senate the day before, the House resolution combined the following elements: (1) praise of U.S. troops; (2) labeling the Iraq war part of the global war on terrorism; (3) rejection of an “arbitrary date for the withdrawal or redeployment” of troops. The House vote: 256-153 in favor (GOP: 214 Yeas, 3 Nays, 2 Pres, 12 NV; Dem: 42 Yeas, 149 Nays, 3 Pres, 7 NV). As for the Senate vote, it was 93-6 in favor.

Naturally, House and Senate Democrats were appalled at these self-admitted election tactic. Though it should be obvious to anyone who heard merely the name of the bill, CNN and Forbes reported on this attempt “to put all members on record in support of the president [sic] wartime policies.”

On the one hand, this is a brilliant idea. Your party is hurting in the polls, in large part due to growing dissent over the war in Iraq. You put a resolution to vote that places your opponents in a ridiculous paradox. If they vote Yea, they affirm (however vaguely) the president’s execution of a war that is terribly unpopular with their own constituents. If they vote Nay, they are on record as stating that (1) they don’t support our troops; (2) they don’t think that America will “prevail” in the war on terror. Therefore, when midterm elections roll around and you start making commercials, if she voted Nay you can portray your Democratic opponent as an enemy of America, or if she voted Yea you can count on the utter disarray of her party to pillory her for you. In sum, brilliant—as long as you have faith in the inability (read: unwillingness or ignorance) of your constituents to investigate the claims of your commercial to discover your bald misrepresentation and manipulation of the political process.

(If I sound cynical, cf. former Senator Max Cleland. For those of you who don’t know, Mr Cleland was a decorated Vietnam vet who lost both legs and an arm in the war. He lost his reelection bid in 2002 against current Senator Saxby Chambliss. Mr Chambliss produced an ad during the election that portrayed Mr Cleland side-by-side with bin Laden and Hussein. The ad questioned Mr Cleland’s commitment to protecting the homeland, due to some of his votes. It is generally assumed that the ad helped Mr Chambliss win the election. What was the basis for the ad? Mr Cleland supported the creation of the Dept. of Homeland Security, but voted against the bills put forward to create it several times in an attempt to get a better bill; for example, Mr Cleland opposed Congress’ successful attempt to strip Homeland Security employees of employment protections and benefits. As for Mr Chambliss, he was a law student during Vietnam, and after he graduated he complained to his draft board that a bad knee prevented him from service. Twice.)

On the other hand, coupled with recent events this cleverness looks more like desperation. On Thursday the Pentagon sent a 74-page “debate prep book” to sympathetic members of Congress on both sides of the isle. I’ve read some of the book. From what I’ve seen, It is loaded with a combination of thinly-veiled misinformation (remember: that’s different from incorrect information) and tired administration talking-points. The format, however, is startling. The index has such positive section titles like “we have a strategy for victory in Iraq,” “The world is safer without Saddam,” “Strategy for Victory: Democracy, Security, No Retreat.” It concludes with a section called “Rapid Response,” a series of ready-made rebuttals to complaints like “The President misled America into War” and “The terrorists are winning this war.” This bizarre move by the Pentagon belies terrible insecurity on the part of the GOP. When is the last time anyone heard of the military brass giving debate tips to Congresspersons? More importantly, from what I’ve read of the text, any Congressperson who could not come up with her own vastly superior arguments in favor of our present international political and military situation deserves to lose come November.

Personally, I don’t know what has got the GOP so worried. If they had a brain among them, they would just sit back and do nothing until November, save watching the Democrats run around like a band of idiots more appropriate to a Lewis Carroll novel than Capitol Hill. Oh, wait. I momentarily forgot. When one looks at the rest of their legislative agenda until November (the three-tiered docket hailed by Senator Bill Frist—Constitutional Amendment to ban gay marriage, ban flag burning, further curtail abortion—items universally recognized as doomed to failure and shameless bait for the so-called “Christian” neanderthal), it appears that this is exactly what they intend to do.



-W