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Washington Times ED 100306 Resign, Mr. Speaker http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20061002-102008-9058r.htm Conservative pundit George Will The Leaders
We Have: Woodward's new book does not demonstrate
that the president is in a state of denial, but it certainly undermines his
reputation as a realist…The book actually includes one heartening story that
should enhance Rumsfeld's reputation. On Veterans Day 2005, the president
traveled to a Pennsylvania Army depot to deliver a speech announcing the new
military policy for Iraq, the policy of "clear, hold and build."
Woodward says Rumsfeld, having read the speech, called Andy Card, the White
House chief of staff, a half-hour before Bush was to deliver it, and said,
"Take that out." Card replied that the three words were the centerpiece
of the speech, not to mention the war strategy. Rumsfeld replied, "Clear, we're doing. It's up to the
Iraqis to hold. And the State Department's got to work with somebody on the
build." At last, a
division of labor that uses the US military only for properly military purposes
and assigns
responsibilities in a way that will force Iraq's government to grow up. In the
name of counterinsurgency, there has been too much of what today's military
argot calls "full-spectrum operations" -- operations that go beyond
killing insurgents to building schools, connecting sewers and other civil
projects that keep the training wheels on the Iraqi government's bicycle and
keep the United States chasing the chimera of "nation-building." "Where's the leader?" Bush, according to Woodward, has exclaimed in
dismay about the Iraqi government's dithering. "Where's George
Washington? Where's Thomas
Jefferson? Where's John Adams, for crying out loud?" For a
president to ask that question about Iraq, that tribal stew, is enough to cause
one to ask it about the United States.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/02/AR2006100200936.html Things
Fall Apart
Right after the 2004
election, it seemed as if Thomas Frank had been completely vindicated. In his
book "What's the
Matter With Kansas? How
Conservatives Won the Heart of America,"
Mr. Frank argued that America's right wing had developed a permanent winning
strategy based on the use of "values" issues to mobilize white
working-class voters against a largely mythical cultural elite, while actually
pursuing policies designed to benefit a small economic elite. It was and is a
brilliant analysis. But the political strategy Mr. Frank described may have
less staying power than he feared. In fact, the right-wing coalition that has
spent 40 years climbing to its current position of political dominance may be
cracking up. At its core, the
political axis that currently controls Congress and the White House is an alliance between the preachers and the
plutocrats
- between the religious right, which hates gays, abortion and the theory of
evolution, and the economic right, which hates Social Security, Medicare and
taxes on rich people. Surrounding this core is a large periphery of politicians
and lobbyists who joined the movement not out of conviction, but to share in the
spoils. Together, these groups
formed a seemingly invincible political coalition, in which the religious right
supplied the passion and the economic right supplied the money. The coalition
has, however, always been more vulnerable than it seemed, because it was an
alliance based not on shared goals, but on each group's belief that it could
use the other to get what it wants. Bring that belief into question, and the whole thing falls
apart. Future historians may
date the beginning of the right-wing crackup to the days immediately following
the 2004 election, when President Bush tried to convert a victory won by
portraying John Kerry as weak on defense into a mandate for Social Security
privatization. The
attempted bait-and-switch failed in the face of overwhelming public opposition. If anything, the Bush plan was even less
popular in deep-red states like Montana than in states that voted for Mr.
Kerry. And the religious and
cultural right, which boasted of having supplied the Bush campaign with its
"shock troops" and expected a right-wing cultural agenda in return -
starting with a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage - was dismayed
when the administration put its energy into attacking the welfare state
instead. James Dobson, the founder and chairman of Focus on the Family, accused
Republicans of "just ignoring those that put them in office." It will be
interesting, by the way, to see how Dr. Dobson, who declared of Bill Clinton
that "no man has ever done more to debase the presidency," responds
to the Foley scandal. Does the failure of Republican leaders to do anything
about a sexual predator in their midst outrage him as much as a Democratic
president's consensual affair? In any case, just as
the religious right was feeling betrayed by Bush's focus on the goals of the
economic right, the economic right suddenly seemed to become aware of the
nature of its political allies. "Where
in the hell did this Terri Schiavo thing come from?" asked Dick
Armey, the former House majority leader, in an interview with Ryan Sager, the
author of "The
Elephant in the Room: Evangelicals, Libertarians and the Battle to Control the
Republican Party." The answer, he said, was "blatant
pandering to James Dobson." He went on, "Dobson and his gang of thugs
are real nasty bullies." Some Republicans are
switching parties. James Webb, who may pull off a macaca-fueled upset against
Senator George Allen of Virginia, was secretary of the Navy under Ronald
Reagan. Charles Barkley, a former N.B.A. star who used to be mentioned as a
possible future Republican candidate, recently declared, "I was a
Republican until they lost their minds." So the right-wing
coalition is showing signs of coming apart. It seems that we're not in Kansas
anymore. In fact, Kansas itself doesn't seem to be in Kansas anymore. Kathleen
Sebelius, the state's Democratic governor, has achieved a sky-high favorability
rating by focusing on good governance rather than culture wars, and her party
believes it will win big this year. And nine former Kansas Republicans, including Mark Parkinson, the former
state G.O.P. chairman, are now running for state office as Democrats. Why did
Mr. Parkinson change parties? Because he "got
tired of the theological debate over whether Charles Darwin was right." http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/100206F.shtml |
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