...but it's time to compare

...but it's time to compare and contrast.

{Oh, and by the way, ELECTION FREE ZONE RULE OFF}

Read this.

{...} The most celebrated images were from the wreckage of 9/11 when Bush spoke the only truly inspired off-the-cuff remarks of his presidency. The actual concrete details of his war-leadership - the fall of Kabul, the blitzkrieg to Baghdad, the aborted siege of Fallujah - were absent. So too the protracted negotiations at the U.N. or any images of Bush with foreign leaders, or the decision to advance the war by days to get Saddam (more bad intelligence) or even the speech that launched the Iraq war. What I think the Republicans have realized is that the war on terror is far more popular and winning an issue for Bush if it is stripped of its actual events, and setbacks and triumphs and difficulties. That's why the convention rhetoric approached propaganda - focusing not on what has happened, but on the virtues of a strong war-leader. The dynamics of both wars - of instant military success, followed by damaging and difficult follow-through - were deliberately obscured. This is good politics; but it strikes me as risky war-management. People need leaders who level with them about failures and difficulties in wartime - not gauzy North Korean-style biopics about the invincibility of the Great Leader. But then this war, vital as it is, has been exploited by the Bushies for political purposes since it began. How else to explain the "Mission Accomplished" photo-op or the bare-knuckled 2002 Congressional campaign? {...}In this, Bush is, of course, the opposite of Churchill, who brought in opposition leaders to play key roles in his war-cabinet. I know that's not the American tradition, but a little less politics might have gone a long way. And made the middle-ground voter a little more sympathetic to the narrative that the Republicans are now so effectively deploying.

Then read this.

But what the terrorists are also counting on is that Americans will not have the stomach for the long haul. They clearly know that the coming retaliation will not be the end but the beginning. And when the terrorists strike back again, they have let us know that the results could make the assault on the World Trade Center look puny. They are banking that Americans will then cave. They have seen a great country quarrel to the edge of constitutional crisis over a razor-close presidential election. They have seen it respond to real threats in the last few years with squeamish restraint or surgical strikes. They have seen that, as Israel has been pounded by the same murderous thugs, the United States has responded with equanimity. They have seen a great nation at the height of its power obsess for a whole summer over a missing intern and a randy Congressman. They have good reason to believe that this country is soft, that it has no appetite for the war that has now begun. They have gambled that in response to unprecedented terror, the Americans will abandon Israel to the barbarians who would annihilate every Jew on the planet, and trade away their freedom for a respite from terror in their own land. We cannot forsee the future. But we know the past. And that past tells us that these people who destroyed the heart of New York City have made a terrible mistake. This country is at its heart a peaceful one. It has done more to help the world than any other actor in world history. It saved the world from the two greatest evils of the last century in Nazism and Soviet Communism. It responded to its victories in the last war by pouring aid into Europe and Japan. In the Middle East, America alone has ensured that the last hope of the Jewish people is not extinguished and has given more aid to Egypt than to any other country. It risked its own people to save the Middle East from the pseudo-Hitler in Baghdad. America need not have done any of this. Its world hegemony has been less violent and less imperial than any other comparable power in history. In the depths of its soul, it wants its dream to itself, to be left alone, to prosper among others, and to welcome them to the freedom America has helped secure. But whenever Americans have been challenged, they have risen to the task. In some awful way, these evil thugs may have done us a favor. America may have woken up for ever. The rage that will follow from this grief and shock may be deeper and greater than anyone now can imagine. Think of what the United States ultimately did to the enemy that bombed Pearl Harbor. Now recall that American power in the world is all but unchallenged by any other state. Recall that America has never been wealthier, and is at the end of one of the biggest booms in its history. And now consider the extent of this wound - the greatest civilian casualties since the Civil War, an assault not just on Americans but on the meaning of America itself. When you take a step back, it is hard not to believe that we are now in the quiet moment before the whirlwind. Americans will recover their dead, and they will mourn them, and then they will get down to business. Their sadness will be mingled with an anger that will make the hatred of these evil fanatics seem mild.

{emphasis mine} I suppose the point would be is that Sullivan seems to have forgotten what he wrote the week after 9/11. And all the lessons therein. Notice in the first passage it's all about bringing "moderates" on board. And the only way, apparently, that Bush et.al. could do so was to admit they made mistakes in the running of the war. Well, ok. I suppose that could fly in a theoretical sense, but down here in the muck and mire that is a presidential campaign, if Bush took such an action he might as well have bared his chest and handed Kerry a sword and told him to have at the disembowling. What the hell is Sullivan thinking? You do not, under any circumstances, hand your opponent the means they need to win. That's not just politics. That's life. Yet the greater problem with Sullivan's attitude these days is that given the second passage, one would think that since he saw clearly in the days after 9/11 that it was going to be a long war, that people would need to realize this and support their government's efforts. That he'd understand that Bush, election aside, simply cannot admit there were any mistakes made---election or no election---because that would encourage the terrorists. Andrew's lost track of his priorities. I know why. Everyone who reads his site knows why. He was personally offended by the President's support of the FMA. Never mind that this was a political move by Bush, and that the proposed amendment was one Sullivan even admitted was destined to fail from the beginning, it was this act of betrayal that led Sullivan to start turning toward Kerry. Not because Kerry is the better alternative, or that he's proven with his outstanding four and a half months in Vietnam that he can win the war, but because he's anyone but Bush. In theory and in practice, the guy you disagree with can be voted out. That's the way democracy works. I fail to see, however, when presented with the two choices we have this year, how voting for Kerry is going to make all the problems disappear or make us safer. Furthermore, I would expect Sullivan to come to this conclusion as well. He's too smart for this garbage, particularly when he knew in the days after 9/11 how important it was for us to present a unified front. Dissent is all well and good, but when the Kerry campaign is attacking the President's ability to lead, is second guessing every move he makes in the War on Terror, and is constantly banging the AWOL drum, and the lefty media covers it incessantly, well, what message, exactly, do the terrorists get from that? I've long thought that this election year, while boring in the extreme for its lack of innovation, is probably the simplest election we've faced in years. This year the choice is clear. You either dance with the guy who brung you this far, or you look for a new partner, knowing full well that this guy might just get you killed in the meantime. If America fails to make the right choice come November 2nd, well, look for more terrorist attacks. It will happen. Not because we've been lucky this far in being spared, which I don't believe is the case, but because when an enemy smells a weakness they attack. In case we'd forgotten in the midst of all SwiftVets debacle, we do have enemies. And they want us dead. Sullivan seems to forget this in his betrayal. He's lost track of his priorites. He forgets that if we don't win this war on terrorism none of the rest of it matters. The economy won't matter because there won't be markets. The deficit won't matter because there won't be an American government to pay it off. The FMA won't matter because no one will be getting married in the first place. For all these other things to matter, we must win the war. And to do that, we must keep the guy in office who scares the ever living crap out of the people who want to kill us.

It's really quite simple.

And one would think Sullivan would realize this.

Posted by Kathy at September 1, 2004 11:48 PM | TrackBack