Thursday - November 09, 2006

Post-Mortem

I’m way beyond being sick and tired this morning. Posting will be a little light for the next few days while I gather my thoughts and regroup ... something a lot of politicians who will be leaving Washington in January also need to do. I’ll leave you today with this piece from Robert Tracinski of The Intellectual Activist. I look forward to each day’s mailing of TIA Daily because Mr. Tracinski and I have a lot in common, including an admiration of Ayn Rand and her philosophy as well as a shared view of the enemies we face abroad and at home. Read on ....

_{Steve Breen - The San Diego Union-Tribune}

He Who Hesitates Is Lost
-- Robert Tracinski, “TIA Daily” - November 9, 2006

This spring, there was a concerted attempt on the right to provide the arguments and emotional momentum for a military showdown with Iran, a trend we heralded in TIA Daily with the fanfare it deserved. But then President Bush put it all on hold, instead authorizing Condoleezza Rice to appease the Europeans by appeasing Iran.

Bush’s own statements and interviews with current and former members of the administration all indicated that Bush understands that Iran is now our primary enemy—but Bush was waiting until after the election to take action. As I pointed out, that was a foolish strategy, since it meant Bush was asking Americans to support the war, while providing no sign that he was on the offensive or making progress.

He hesitated, and he lost. He lost a friendly Congress, and he may have lost any ability to directly confront Iran, even if he is now willing to do so. He has a window of opportunity to act, if he does so boldly and is willing to face down a defeatist Democratic Congress. But his first press conference after the election, and his decision to replace Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld with a foreign-policy “realist”, do not bode well.

The American people, however, also failed to choose wisely. They were understandably dissatisfied with the progress of the war in Iraq—but they registered a blind dissatisfaction, in support of a party that offered no constructive plan for Iraq. For many of the “swing” voters who decided this election, it was an irresponsible venting of irritation at the war, with little regard for the unpleasant consequences.

Jack Wakeland sent me a message earlier sketching out what those consequences might be.

In addition to losing the majority in the US House and probably the US Senate, the Republican Party lost its majority in many state legislatures. And 28 of the nation’s governors are now Democrats.

The American people’s reaction to the stalemated war in Iraq has been a wave election defeat of the majority party similar in scope—but without a clearly defined ideological purpose—to the “Republican Revolution” of 1994.

While the Democratic majority did not get a clearly defined ideological mandate, they did get a clearly defined policy mandate: to end the war in Iraq even if that means defeat.

Attempts by the Democratic party leadership in the House and the Senate to produce this defeat—in whole or in part—will have malevolent effects on America’s strategic position in the world. Among the malevolent effects, Iran will be encouraged in its bid to knock over the government of Lebanon, the Sunni Salafists of Pakistan will be encouraged to try to unseat—or murder—General Musharraf, and the Taliban will gain more support.

If the Democratic majority in Congress is decisive in its influence—which is not a forgone conclusion—the US will precipitously withdraw from Iraq. That will lead to a smaller version of the post-Vietnam syndrome and malaise the US suffered in the 1970s, including:

1. The collapse of Iraq into civil war organized and perpetuated by Iran on the Lebanese model.

2. The exploitation of civil war in Iraq to create large scale (100,000-man) Islamist militias and new networks of terrorist cells on the Lebanese model of Hezbollah and the PLO.

3. The use of Islamic terror assets in Iraq against Israel and other nations.

4. An armed standoff between Shiite Iran and Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the other oil emirates.

5. The extension of armed Islamic chaos across the Saudi and Kuwaiti borders.

6. Ethnic cleansing that kills 100,000s and drives internal and crossborder refugee movements of millions of Iraqis.

7. A general military and civilian demoralization of the United States.

8. A broad reduction in the American military presence and the American political influence throughout the Middle East and Central Asia.

9. The partial return, in the American mind, of a pathological fear of any military engagement of any kind.

10. A reduction in volunteers for the US military.

11. A broad reduction in America’s military capabilities and a broad reduction of America’s influence throughout the world.

The malevolent effects of a Democratic majority do not stop with the potential that they might cause defeat in Iraq.

The Democratic majority in Congress and in the state governments will produce new welfare state initiatives on the old discredited socialist model and new regulations on the environmentalist model….

With the exception of a few areas—e.g., Iraq and the Middle East—and a few individuals who get caught in the jaws of the left’s program, these things will not lead to a general disaster and dissolution. The American Republic will survive intact. But the left is the primary destroyer in America. Handing the levers of government over to them will enable the left to wreck more things—attacking and injuring the good for being the good.

The fact that the Democratic Party victory drew in more centrists in order to win will mitigate their malevolent purposes. And the fact that the Republican minority will be more conservative, less religious, and more ideological will help things, too. However, these counterbalancing trends cannot convert the left’s victory into something good.

Nothing good can come of giving the Democratic Party a broad electoral victory. And nothing good will come of this election.

I agree, but I want to stress again that the full negative consequences of this election are not inevitable. Nothing good will come of this election, but something good can come from any attempt to oppose or reverse its consequences.

“Post Mortem,” Fred Barnes, Weekly Standard, November 8

This one is pretty easy to explain. Republicans lost the House and probably the Senate because of Iraq, corruption, and a record of taking up big issues and then doing nothing on them. Of these, the war was by far the biggest factor. Unpopular wars trump good economies and everything else. President Truman learned this in 1952, as did President Johnson in 1968. Now, it was President Bush’s turn, and since his name wasn’t on the ballot, his party took the hit.

The defeat for Republicans was short of devastating—but only a little short. The House seats the party lost in New York and Connecticut and Pennsylvania will be hard to win back. Just as Republicans have locked in their gains in the South over the past two decades, Democrats should be able to solidify their hold on seats in the Northeast, as the nation continues to split sharply along North-South lines….

Already the wails of the immigration restrictionists are rising, insisting Republicans lost because they weren’t tough on keeping illegal border-crossers out. Not true. The test was in Arizona, where two of the noisiest border hawks, Representatives J.D. Hayworth and Randy Graf, lost House seats. Graf lost in a seat along the Mexican border, where illegal immigrants flock….

[Y]ou have to give Rahm Emanuel, the House Democratic campaign chief, credit for recruiting an impressive group of candidates, including a few non-liberals like Brad Ellsworth in Indiana and Heath Shuler in North Carolina. The media, however, is exaggerating the number of these unconventional Democrats. They are a handful, and the pattern of moderate and conservative Democrats when they get to Washington is to pipe down.

Or, as losing Republican Congressman Chris Chocola said of his victorious opponent Joe Donnelly, they become “Nancy Pelosi.”

_{Copyright © 2006 by Tracinski Publishing Company
PO Box 8086, Charlottesville, VA 22906}

For more of Mr. Tracinski’s commentary, subscribe to TIA Daily.

Posted by The Skipper     on 11/09/2006 at 03:30 AM   
Filed Under: • Editorials • Politics •  
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It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

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