Daves-first-blog

EJ Dionne of the Washington Post and the Brookings Institution on why moderates like myself can not vote for George Bush:

The Intensity Gap

By E. J. Dionne Jr.

Tuesday, October 26, 2004; Page A25

In the torrent of polling information released over the weekend, the most significant finding was this one: John Kerry's supporters are more likely than George W. Bush's to believe that this year's election is the most important of their lifetimes.

According to Newsweek's poll, 37 percent of Kerry's voters felt this way, compared with only 27 percent of Bush's. Of the rest, 40 percent of Kerry supporters thought 2004 was more important than most other elections, while 35 percent of Bush's backers did.

As a political matter, this intensity gap suggests that even if Bush has been successful in mobilizing the Republican Party's political base, he has been even more successful in mobilizing Democrats.

The Bush camp followers are not happy with this state of affairs. They tried to dismiss the strong feelings against Bush as irrational. The phrase "Bush hatred" is invoked to imply a legion of citizens gone mad.

It's an odd argument when it comes from right-wing talk radio and cable television ranters who insisted in the 1990s that hatred of Bill Clinton was the highest form of patriotism. But their reaction is at least predictable. Anyone else who buys into the notion that the passions Bush has unleashed are primarily the product of unreasoning prejudices misses the central dynamic of this year's election.

The fervent opposition to President Bush is rational, and its intensity is a direct response to Bush's own efforts to discredit all opposition to his policies. Criticism of Bush comes not simply from the far left or from fans of Michael Moore movies, but also from political moderates, including Republicans, who see Bush's fiscal, social and foreign policies as decidedly immoderate. The passion comes from a conviction that the president would prefer to use the fear of terrorism and cast his opponent as a dangerous appeaser rather than risk the loss of power.

One antidote to the claim that Bush's opponents are nuts is the collection of endorsements of Kerry in the New Yorker, the New Republic and the Nation. The three magazines sit at quite different points along the center-left, yet their editorials are all serious, rational and sustained explorations of the dangers entailed in reelecting the president. You cannot come away from any of these without understanding why so many of Kerry's supporters consider this election so crucial.

These magazines speak for themselves. But it's worth considering why so many moderates in particular are alarmed at the prospect of a second Bush term.

They are, of course, affected by many specific issues. There is the fiscal mess created by Bush's oversized tax cuts and the president's insistence that we push on with the same approach. There is the prospect of a Supreme Court dominated not even by moderate conservatives but by a judicial approach rooted in right-leaning judicial activism. Add in Bush's permissive approach to environmental regulation, his anti-union approach to labor regulation, his dismissal of even the mildest civil libertarian criticisms of the Patriot Act. Most important, there is the question of the administration's incompetence in Iraq. Even among the war's supporters, many now doubt the president's capacity to deliver a successful outcome.

For those who favor moderation in governing, two questions predominate. The first is the president's conscious choice to divide a country that had been so united after the attacks of Sept. 11. He signaled the course for the rest of his term when, in a September 2002 speech aimed at electing Republicans to Congress, he said that the U.S. Senate -- meaning its then-Democratic majority -- was "not interested in the security of the American people." If you say your opponents don't care about the nation's security, aren't you accusing them of being traitors?

And this administration is desperately trying to have this campaign be about anything but the central purpose of democratic elections: to hold those in power accountable for what they have done. Bush does not want the election to be about his miscalculations in Iraq, his misleading statements before the war, his false predictions about the fiscal effect of his tax cuts. He wants to scare the country about terrorism and John Kerry. It is not an honorable approach to reelection. That is why moderate and independent voters are finding it so hard to support the president and why so many of Kerry sympathizers are so fervent in their commitment.

Barton Gellman and Dafna Linzer have an incredibly detailed ( and long) account of the Bush administration's fight against al-Qaeda since 9/11. Gellman et al portray many early successes against bin Laden's group. But the political trends are going in the wrong way. That, in combination with the looming election year and the fight in Iraq, have caused the Bush administration to lose focus and resources against al Qaeda while political leaders try to spin a rosy picture out of failure. For example:

_______________

In the second half of March 2002, as the Bush administration mapped its next steps against al Qaeda, Deputy CIA Director John E. McLaughlin brought an unexpected message to the White House Situation Room. According to two people with firsthand knowledge, he told senior members of the president's national security team that the CIA was scaling back operations in Afghanistan.

That announcement marked a year-long drawdown of specialized military and intelligence resources from the geographic center of combat with Osama bin Laden. As jihadist enemies reorganized, slipping back and forth from Pakistan and Iran, the CIA closed forward bases in the cities of Herat, Mazar-e Sharif and Kandahar. The agency put off an $80 million plan to train and equip a friendly intelligence service for the new U.S.-installed Afghan government. Replacements did not keep pace with departures as case officers finished six-week tours. And Task Force 5 -- a covert commando team that led the hunt for bin Laden and his lieutenants in the border region -- lost more than two-thirds of its fighting strength.

The commandos, their high-tech surveillance equipment and other assets would instead surge toward Iraq through 2002 and early 2003, as President Bush prepared for the March invasion that would extend the field of battle in the nation's response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks

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[Frances] Townsend, who inherited [Wayne] Downing's duties [as head of Counter Terrorism at the National Security Council] this spring, said the best evidence of Bush's success "is every day that goes by that America doesn't suffer another attack."

"By any measure, to me, we're winning, they're losing," she said. "We know for a fact that it's very difficult for them to raise money and move money around. We've made it increasingly difficult to communicate. It is harder for them to travel without risk. . . . Is there something that they absolutely, 100 percent guaranteed, can't do? I'm not going to say that. The point is we have degraded their capability to act across the board."

John A. Gordon, Townsend's immediate predecessor, said in his first interview since leaving government in June that those measures of tactical success are no longer enough.

"People in the business would say, 'We've done all this stuff, we know we've pushed back some attacks,' but what does it mean to be safer?" he asked. "You decrease the probability of a major attack, but you haven't pushed it to anywhere near zero. If it happens, nobody's going to care whether we 'significantly affected' [the threat] or not."

__________________

Classified tallies made available to The Washington Post have identified 28 of the approximately 30 names on the unpublished HVT [High Value Target] List. Half -- 14 -- are known to be dead or in custody. Those at large include three of the five men on the highest echelon: bin Laden, his deputy Ayman Zawahiri and operational planner Saif al-Adel.

More significant than the bottom line, government analysts said, is the trend. Of the al Qaeda leaders accounted for, eight were killed or captured by the end of 2002. Five followed in 2003 -- notably Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the principal planner of the Sept. 11 attack. This year only one more name -- Hassan Ghul, a senior courier captured infiltrating Iraq -- could be crossed off.

"I'll be pretty frank," Gordon said this fall after leaving the administration. "Obviously we would have liked to pick up more of the high-value targets than have been done. There have been strong initiatives. They just haven't all panned out."

As the manhunt results declined, the Bush administration has portrayed growing success. Early last year, the president's top advisers generally said in public that more than one-third of those most wanted had been found. Late this year it became a staple of presidential campaign rhetoric that, as Bush put it in the Sept. 30 debate with Kerry, "75 percent of known al Qaeda leaders have been brought to justice."

Although some of the administration's assertions are too broadly stated to measure, some are not. Townsend, Bush's homeland security and counterterrorism adviser, said "three-quarters" of "the known al Qaeda leaders on 9/11" were dead or in custody. Asked to elaborate, she said she would have to consult a list. White House spokeswoman Erin Healy referred follow-up questions to the FBI. Spokesmen for the FBI, the National Security Council and the CIA did not respond to multiple telephone calls and e-mails.

_______________________

George Bush became fascinted with Iraq because both he and his advisers all grew up in the Cold War and were out of power after it ended. As such, they did not see the danger in non-state actors and always assumed that al Qaeda had to have state sponsorship. They were wrong. Now they've flubbed Iraq, creating a haven for terrorists, have left the impression in much of the Middle East's mind that America is more dangerous than al Qaeda, and diverted attention from the fight against al Qaeda whil undermining their last reminaing justification for the Iraq War--promoting democracy in the Middle East. It could'nt have dbeen done worse if they tried.

Here are some points of advice from Marshall Whitman on the reincarnated (and Teddy Roosovelt inspired) blog, Bull Moose:

1. Construct a cabinet of national unity. Name Republicans to positions of prominence (and that does not mean HUD or Transportation).

2. Focus on legislative issues that have bi-partisan support and span the ideological divide such as drug importation, patient’s bill of rights and restraining congressional spending. The President should announce the formation of a Commission to End Corporate Welfare As We Know It (CECWAWKI).

3. Advance a bold reform agenda. Create bi-partisan working groups to offer the Administration ideas to reform the military, entitlements, the tax code and the health care system. Restrain federal spending by declaring war on appropriations earmarks and reform the budget process. Promote efforts at the state level for non-partisan redistricting and open primaries to de-polarize the political process. These ideas must be truly bi-partisan and the Administration’s charge is to think outside the box to reform these programs.

4. Challenge Americans, particularly young Americans, to “enlist in causes greater than their self-interest.” Make clear to the American people that JFK’s challenge to the America in the cold war “Ask not…” is applicable in the war against terror. Perhaps, also create a national security trust fund that will come from rolling back tax cuts for the very wealth. Expand Americorps, the Peace Corps and the short-term military enlistment option.

The Moose believes that we have a war to win against terrorist enemies that seek to destroy us. National unity is job number one. And for the new President, uniting the country should come before petty partisanship.

Who has been the biggest beneficiary of Bush's foreign policy? Pro-bin Laden political parties, that's who:

Given that Bush has ensconced the Christian right in many of his administration's policies, I suppose we should just check with Iyad Allawi as to whether "if free and open American elections lead to the seating of a fundamentalist Christian government," he would be willing to "accept" that.Really, the president cannot help patronizing the Iraqis. A while ago he talked about them taking off their "training wheels," as though high-powered Iraqi physicists, lawyers and physicians were somehow reduced to little children just because the US has 138,000 troops in their country.

I think it can be fairly argued that the Bush "war on terror" has actually spread Islamic fundamentalism. (Bush coddling of Ariel Sharon's harsh policies in Palestine has also contributed).Since Bush began acting aggressively in the region, the United Action Council of (often pro-Bin Laden!) fundamentalist parties in Pakistan has come to power by itself in the Northwest Frontier Province, in coalition in Baluchistan, and has 17% of the seats in parliament! Despite Pakistan's unwarranted reputation for "fundamentalism," in fact most Pakistanis are Sufis or traditionalists who dislike fundamentalism, and the latter parties seldom got more than 2-3% of seats in any election in which they ran. Until Bush came along.

In Iraq, a whole series of Muslim fundamentalist parties-- al-Da`wa, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the Sadrists, the Salafis, and now al-Qaeda, have been unleashed by Bush. They seem likely to win any election held in Iraq, since the secularists remain disorganized.

In the parliamentary elections in Afghanistan now slated for spring 2005, the Taliban or the cousins of the Taliban are likely to be a major party, benefiting from the Pushtun vote.We could go on (a similar story of new-found fundamentalist strength could be told for Indonesia, e.g.)

The real legacy of Bush to the Muslim world will likely not be secular democracy, but the provocation of Muslim publics into voting for the Muslim fundamentalists on a scale never before seen in the region.But then since Bush wants to subvert the separation of religion and state in the United States, with his theologically (!) driven stem cell policy and his hand-outs to cults like the Moonies, at least he is being consistent when it comes to his Middle East policy.

Yeah!!!! Go George!!!!

Ron Suskind has a marvelous story in this week's NYT Magazine about the presidency of George W. Bush. The thesis of the story is that Goerge Bush is entirely isolated from the outside world and that his self-righteous devotion to his own cause, his own beliefs, has led him to accept those beliefs as ascendent over facts. Thus Bush lives in a faith-based world as opposed to the reality based world.

The maximal quote is this one:

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

The Bush Administration is clearly out of touch with reality. Where will this lead us? To more terrible policy ideas. To wit, another quote from the same Suskind article:

"I'm going to come out strong after my swearing in,'' Bush said, ''with fundamental tax reform, tort reform, privatizing of Social Security.'' The victories he expects in November, he said, will give us ''two years, at least, until the next midterm. We have to move quickly, because after that I'll be quacking like a duck.''

And this in an interview in today's Salon:

As well, the president said, "I'm going to have an opportunity to name somebody to the Supreme Court right after my swearing in." That certainly suggests to me a quid pro quo, that there's been at least a passing of communication, if you will, between someone on the Supreme Court and the White House that immediately after the president's swearing in he'll have his first of what he considers, as he said at the luncheon, the first of four spots that he's expected to [be able to name] in his second term.

If he wins Bush is preparing to come out swinging. Lets hope he doesn't.

John Kerry won the debate last night, hands down. I didn't like all of the things that he said, such as his comments about spending $200b in Iraq we could have spent here at home. In the end the U.S> is the net beneficiary of foreign aid becuase we help build stable and prosperous areas where chaos had reigned before. I also wish he would have attacked Bush more forcefully about the conduct of the Iraq War, especially its aftermath, instead of engaging Bush on the silly "mixed messages" and "denigrating to our troops" debate. Kerry should have brought up Fallujah and Abu Graihb and the cost to the U.S. that these tragedies created. And I really wish Kerry would have stolen William Saletan's line: "If I were president Osama bin Laden would be in jail." That line encapsulates Bush's failures in so many ways.

Bush continued to insist that everything in Iraq is going well and that to say otherwise was dangerous to our troops. He is very much in that disgusting group of people who claim that any criticism of Bush means that more U.S. soldiers will die. Or even worse, that the criticiser wants the troops to die. Completely disgusting.

Many people have been discussing this letter that has been floating around the net recently from a WSJ reporter stationed in Baghdad. It deserves to be quoted in full. Also, keep in mind that she is describing areas of Iraq that the U.S. is supposed to be in control of .

From: [Wall Street Journal reporter] Farnaz FassihiSubject: From Baghdad

Being a foreign correspondent in Baghdad these days is like being undervirtual house arrest. Forget about the reasons that lured me to this job: a chance to see the world, explore the exotic, meet new people in far away lands, discover their ways and tell stories that could make a difference.Little by little, day-by-day, being based in Iraq has defied all those reasons. I am house bound. I leave when I have a very good reason to and a scheduled interview. I avoid going to people's homes and never walk in the streets. I can't go grocery shopping any more, can't eat in restaurants, can't strike a conversation with strangers, can't look for stories, can't drive in any thing but a full armored car, can't go to scenes of breaking news stories, can't be stuck in traffic, can't speak English outside, can't take a road trip, can't say I'm an American, can't linger at checkpoints, can't be curious about what people are saying, doing, feeling. And can't and can't. There has been one too many close calls, including a car bomb so near our house that it blew out all the windows. So now my most pressing concern every day is not to write a kick-ass story but to stay alive and make sure our Iraqi employees stay alive. In Baghdad I am a security personnel first, a reporter second.It's hard to pinpoint when the 'turning point' exactly began. Was it Aprilwhen the Fallujah fell out of the grasp of the Americans? Was it when Moqtada and Jish Mahdi declared war on the U.S. military? Was it whenSadr City, home to ten percent of Iraq's population, became a nightly battlefield for the Americans? Or was it when the insurgency beganspreading from isolated pockets in the Sunni triangle to include most of Iraq? Despite President Bush's rosy assessments, Iraq remains a disaster. If under Saddam it was a 'potential' threat, under the Americans it has been transformed to 'imminent and active threat,' aforeign policy failure bound to haunt the United States for decades to come.Iraqis like to call this mess 'the situation.' When asked 'how are thing?' they reply: 'the situation is very bad."What they mean by situation is this: the Iraqi government doesn't control most Iraqi cities, there are several car bombs going off each day around the country killing and injuring scores of innocent people, thecountry's roads are becoming impassable and littered by hundreds oflandmines and explosive devices aimed to kill American soldiers, there are assassinations, kidnappings and beheadings. The situation, basically, means a raging barbaric guerilla war. In four days, 110 people died and over 300 got injured in Baghdad alone. The numbers are so shocking that the ministry of health -- which was attempting an exercise of public transparency by releasing the numbers -- has now stopped disclosing them.Insurgents now attack Americans 87 times a day.A friend drove thru the Shiite slum of Sadr City yesterday. He said young men were openly placing improvised explosive devices into the ground. They melt a shallow hole into the asphalt, dig the explosive, cover it with dirt and put an old tire or plastic can over it to signal to the locals this is booby-trapped. He said on the main roads of Sadr City, therewere a dozen landmines per every ten yards. His car snaked and swirled to avoid driving over them. Behind the walls sits an angry Iraqi ready to detonate them as soon as an American convoy gets near. This is in Shiite land, the population that was supposed to love America for liberating Iraq.For journalists the significant turning point came with the wave of abduction and kidnappings. Only two weeks ago we felt safe around Baghdad because foreigners were being abducted on the roads and highways between towns. Then came a frantic phone call from a journalist female friend at 11 p.m. telling me two Italian women had been abducted from their homes in broad daylight. Then the two Americans, who got beheaded this week and the Brit, were abducted from their homes in a residential neighborhood. They were supplying the entire block with round the clock electricity from their generator to win friends. The abductors grabbed one of them at 6 a.m. when he came out to switch on the generator; his beheaded body was thrown back near the neighborhoods

The insurgency, we are told, is rampant with no signs of calming down. If any thing, it is growing stronger, organized and more sophisticated every day. The various elements within it-baathists, criminals, nationalists and Al Qaeda-are cooperating and coordinating.I went to an emergency meeting for foreign correspondents with the military and embassy to discuss the kidnappings. We were somberly told our fate would largely depend on where we were in the kidnapping chain once it was determined we were missing. Here is how it goes: criminal gangs grab you and sell you up to Baathists in Fallujah, who will in turn sell you to Al Qaeda. In turn, cash and weapons flow the other way from Al Qaeda to the Baathisst to the criminals. My friend Georges, the French journalist snatched on the road to Najaf, has been missing for a month with no word on release or whether he is still alive.America's last hope for a quick exit? The Iraqi police and National Guardunits we are spending billions of dollars to train. The cops are beingmurdered by the dozens every day-over 700 to date -- and the insurgents are infiltrating their ranks. The problem is so serious that the U.S. military has allocated $6 million dollars to buy out 30,000 cops they just trained to get rid of them quietly.As for reconstruction: firstly it's so unsafe for foreigners to operate thatalmost all projects have come to a halt. After two years, of the $18billion Congress appropriated for Iraq reconstruction only about $1 billion or so has been spent and a chuck has now been reallocated for improving security, a sign of just how bad things are going here.Oil dreams? Insurgents disrupt oil flow routinely as a result of sabotageand oil prices have hit record high of $49 a barrel. Who did this war exactly benefit? Was it worth it? Are we safer because Saddam is holed up and Al Qaeda is running around in Iraq?Iraqis say that thanks to America they got freedom in exchange forinsecurity. Guess what? They say they'd take security over freedom any day, even if it means having a dictator ruler.I heard an educated Iraqi say today that if Saddam Hussein were allowed to run for elections he would get the majority of the vote. This is truly sad.Then I went to see an Iraqi scholar this week to talk to him aboutelections here. He has been trying to educate the public on the importance of voting. He said, "President Bush wanted to turn Iraq into a democracy that would be an example for the Middle East. Forget about democracy, forget about being a model for the region, we have to salvage Iraq before all is lost."One could argue that Iraq is already lost beyond salvation. For those of us on the ground it's hard to imagine what if any thing could salvage it from its violent downward spiral. The genie of terrorism, chaos and mayhem has been unleashed onto this country as a result of American mistakes and it can't be put back into a bottle.The Iraqi government is talking about having elections in three monthswhile half of the country remains a 'no go zone'-out of the hands of thegovernment and the Americans and out of reach of journalists. In the other half, the disenchanted population is too terrified to show up at polling stations. The Sunnis have already said they'd boycott elections, leaving the stage open for polarized government of Kurds and Shiites that will not be deemed as legitimate and will most certainly lead to civil war.I asked a 28-year-old engineer if he and his family would participate inthe Iraqi elections since it was the first time Iraqis could to some degreeelect a leadership. His response summed it all: "Go and vote and risk being blown into pieces or followed by the insurgents and murdered for cooperating with the Americans? For what? To practice democracy? Are you joking?"

-Farnaz

Iraq is almost beyond repair. Full blame for that lies at President Bush's feet; for improper planning; for assuming we could do it on the cheep; for only listening to advisors who tell him everything is peachy and that we would be greated with candy and flowers; and for refusing to change course even thought the situation just gets worst by the day. Bush said last night that he hopes for a good outcome in Iraq. Well, Mr. President, hope is not a policy.

The Bush campaign insisted that foreign policy be the first debate topic because they saw it has strong suit. And rightly so, as most Americans, despite everything else, including evidence to the contrary, support Bush over Kerry in conducting U.S. national secutiry. That choice may have been a mistake. Kerry seemed poised, confident, and sure of himself. Bush had his confused chimp look out in full force, only this time he threw in anger and frustration when being confronted by his own policies. Kerry was definitely more presidential than the president.

Via Finnegan's Wake, a great American's attitude on support for the commander-in-chief in times of war

The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly as necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else. [Emphasis added]

-Theodore Roosevelt, May 7, 1918 [i.e. in the midst of WWI--ed.], as quoted on Howard Stern's website

Ezra Klein has a nice post up comparing the level of rhetoric used in this campaign. Basically, Kerry campaigns on ideas, with a few attacks. And when he does attack, Kerry usually goes after policies (ie Iraq) and not his opponent personally. BC04's only campaign theme is John Kerry's character.

This post nicely sums up the political parties as of right now. Republicans are most interested in maintaining political power, Democrats are more interested in promulgating policies that benefit the US. While Dems talk of succeeding in places such as Iraq, the GOP compares their political opponents to the terrorists while pushing policies beneficial to political supporters.