Outflanked in Iraq

In a press conference Thursday, the president labeled MoveOn's recent ad in the New York Times "disgusting" and questioned the patriotism of Democrats who refused to repudiate it. Those were disingenuous words from a president who was either silent or complicit in the whisper campaign against John McCain in the 2000 primary election (which suggested that McCain's years as a prisoner of war had left him a little unbalanced) and who said nothing as an "independent" organization attacked the metals of a decorated war veteran, John Kerry, in the 2004 election while American boots were on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Rather than calling attention to the president's faux outrage at attacks on a military man and the fact that the real outrage is his steadfast refusal to stop playing Russian Roulette with other people's children without a clear exit strategy or even a realistic definition any more of "success" that doesn't shift like the sand depending on which guidepost is no longer even visible in the desert, Senate Democrats took the bait. The same Congress that has never held anyone accountable for the policy that has left 30,000 American soldiers dead or wounded, largely by incendiary devices, suddenly mustered a rousing 72-vote majority to condemn an incendiary turn of phrase.

In a scene that is now all too familiar, Democrats were once again outflanked, playing checkers while the other side played chess, worrying about the next move ("They'll say we don't support our troops") while Republicans were thinking several moves ahead. For years they had allowed Republicans to elide the war on al Qaeda with the war in Iraq with the carefully crafted phrase, "the war on terror"--and they allowed them yet again to reinforce the association between the two by permitting General Petraeus to testify about Iraq on September 11. For years they have allowed the Republicans to blur the distinction between supporting our men and women in uniform and deploying them to referee a civil war in the desert with the phrase, "support our troops.'

Now, in hastily supporting a Republican-crafted resolution just like the ones used while the Republicans were in the majority to trap Democrats into unpopular stands readily taken out of context for campaign ads, Democrats yet again allowed Republicans to mix and match messages that have no logical relation to one another, eliding respect for Petraeus as a general, support for his conclusions, and support for our men and women in uniform: "To express the sense of the Senate that General David II. Petraeus, Commanding General, Multi-National Force-Iraq, deserves the full support of the Senate and strongly condemn personal attacks on the honor and integrity of General Petraeus and all members of the United States Armed Forces."

If the Democrats in the Senate were worried about the impact of the headline of the MoveOn ad, which attacked the general's recounting of the facts on the ground less effectively than the text of the ad, they have just amplified it by reinforcing that the central theme of the Republican message on Iraq from the start: that opposition to the war is an attack on the military, when in fact the Iraq war, by all accounts, has done nothing but weaken our military, strengthen the foothold of terrorists abroad, and undermine our national security. And they have done nothing but to reinforce the message that people who question administration policy on matters of war and peace are traitors. For the record, Americans have died for over 200 years defending, not passing resolutions against, free speech.

No matter that Petraeus had in fact taken the highly political step of publishing an op-ed piece just prior to the 2004 election designed to support the re-election of George W. Bush. No matter that the carefully sourced criticism of Petraeus' depiction of the Iraq War in the MoveOn ad has gone unchallenged, while its questionable headline has been seized upon by Republicans looking to reinforce their branding of Democrats as anti-military and un-American--and now by Democrats, who have lent the imprimatur of the United States Senate to the Republicans' branding campaign. No matter that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid himself had had to offer a convoluted message to describe the Democrats' response to Petraeus' purportedly independent testimony (which sounded eerily similar to the president's recent message on Iraq, including a similar number of troops dangled as potentially returning home at some indeterminate date): "I have every belief that this good man, General Petraeus, will give us what he feels is the right thing to do in this report, that is now not his report...It's President Bush's report. President Bush took final ownership of this when he landed in Anbar Province just a few days ago." After suffering one humiliating defeat after another at the hands of the Republican minority, the Democrats had to prove they could pass something, even if it was their own epitaph.

Last November, the electorate was angry but hopeful. When the Democratic Congress surrendered to the president in late May in an attempt to "support the troops before Memorial Day," however, they were surprised that the outrage had now turned on them. Within a week they found their performance rated unfavorably not only by Democrats but by the Independents who had swept them into power. That should have been a wake-up call that their strategic calculations were miscalculations, and that their attempt to craft a "middle ground" that would appeal to moderate Republicans in the Congress--and in the process make Democrats appear, as they had been for the last five years, like supplicants to their Republican colleagues, begging for crumbs and pleading for them to be reasonable--was not winning the middle in Middle America. After repeating the same strategy, punctuated by public hand-wringing and protestations of impotence (justified in terms of rules about cloture and filibusters arcane to the average citizen), they find themselves today with an approval rating at 11 percent.

The conclusion they should have drawn is that you can't project fear and have people trust you on national security. When voters perceive a mismatch between what their leaders say and what they do, they pay attention to what they do. And right now, they aren't listening to Democrats' positions on national security, which are difficult to discern (because they vary by the day, depending on whether they are preaching compromise, confrontation, or helplessness in the face of Republican intransigence). They're watching their posture, which seems anything but courageous and upright. They remember well how Republicans bullied the Democrats for five straight years in Congress and cowed them into relinquishing their right to use the same filibuster Republicans now threaten to use at every turn, and they get the message: that Democrats are weak in the face of aggression, and can barely put their hands in front of their faces to block the blows from a minority in Congress and from a bully sitting in his bully pulpit at 29 percent in the polls.

Since 2001, Democrats have repeatedly cast votes for things they didn't believe in because they don't trust the intelligence of the American people. They don't believe they can convey, or their constituents can grasp, the subtleties of the situation in Iraq, habeas corpus, torture and detention of foreign nationals (creating rules of the game that can be used against our troops and our children if the travel abroad), and warrantless wiretapping. But in so doing, they vastly underestimate the emotional intelligence of the electorate -- which happens to be a much better predictor of their voting behavior. People may not follow closely arguments about FISA courts, but they do follow the messages their elected representatives convey louder than words. They understood in 2006 what the Republican leadership really cared about when they discovered how long they'd known about Mark Foley's illicit interest in high school boys, and they understood what was happening in Iraq when George W. Bush was using the same words he'd used for the last three years as the situation visibly deteriorated.

Today, they understand that Democrats are afraid of taking a stand for fear of being branded. If Democrats really want to end the war, there is only one place to start: they need to stop repeating the Republican brand about what it means to "support the troops" and tell Americans what it really means to support the brave men and women who wear the uniform of the United States of America: to deploy every other weapon in our arsenal--including diplomacy--before we ask them to risk their lives; to enter into war only after an honest and judicious examination of the evidence, not to cherry-pick the data to justify a predetermined plan and demote and impugn any general who tells you that the plan offering the best opportunities for selling the war (i.e., no cost, no sacrifice) is not the plan offering the best possibility for success (as occurred with General Shinseki); to take care of our wounded soldiers when they return home, and to give them time with their families to recover, physically and psychologically, between tours of duty; to stop fighting at every turn increases in their combat pay and the survivor benefits to their loved ones should they perish in battle, and to shed a tear with their families at their funerals, so that they know our leaders are truly with them in their grief and so those who send them to war get a visceral feeling for the costs of war; to proudly display their flag-draped coffins when they return to shores they will never see, rather than to whisk their bodies into the country in the middle of the night and ban photographers from taking any pictures of them because it might be bad for "public relations"; and when it is clear that staying the course is no longer a viable option, to plan for their safe return to their country and loved ones rather than to justify further losses with past losses and to brand anyone who opposes an indefinite drain on our military as a traitor.

If Democrats really want to end the war, and to carry out the job the people sent them to do in November of last year, they need to tell the kinds of stories I'm hearing when I talk to servicemen and women every time I go to the airport, like the 23-year old mother of two who just got sent back for her second tour of duty, who had tears in her eyes as she described what it's like to abandon her three-month old baby and how her older child didn't recognize her when she returned home from her last deployment. If they want to end the war, they should put forward the most responsible bill they can propose, with whatever guidelines or timetables they believe are truly in the best interest of our nation and our soldiers, and if the Republicans filibuster, let them filibuster, and attach the names and faces of every soldier killed or maimed in the meantime to those who are obstructing the will of the people. That's supporting our troops, and that's what will bring this terrible chapter in American history to a close, as Americans start to see on television, live and on camera, who is supporting our troops and who is sending them to their graves while happily spending time with their own families or planning lavish White House weddings for their own children when we are allegedly engaged in a battle for our freedom and civilization.

If Democrats really want to end this war, they should make clear that our troops won this war valiantly and with remarkable efficiency in a matter of weeks in 2006, when they toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein, but that they have no business fighting in someone else's civil war, created by an administration that at every step mishandled the plans for peace and continually changed the definitions of victory when they needed to lower expectations. If Democrats really want to end this war, they will make clear to parents of teenagers that an indefinite presence in Iraq will likely require reinstatement of the draft, so that next time they vote with a realistic concern for the lives and well-being of their teenagers. And they should demand that the president and those who support what is now unambiguously a Republican war pay for their war and tell us whose taxes they are going to raise to pay not only for the next appropriation but for the last half a trillion dollars they spent while the Republicans in Congress charged the costs of their miscalculations to our children and grandchildren and generations yet unborn. If Democrats want to end this war that has for four years required no sacrifice from anyone but our troops and their families, they will refuse to appropriate another penny from our children's piggy-banks so voters can decide if they really think it's worth it when they feel it in their paychecks or portfolios. Perhaps then Republicans will decide it's time to bring our troops home--or the voters will bring them home in 2008.

Drew Westen, Ph.D., is professor of psychology and psychiatry at Emory University and founder of Westen Strategies. He is the author of The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation

Comments

[yurbud]

A Recent George Lakoff column hit exactly the right note Democrats in Congress should repeat everyday until it drowns out embarrassing, childish Bush narrative:

Bush betrayed our troops to enrich his big oil cronies.
http://professorsmartass.blogspot.com/2006/09/iraq-oil-war-resources.html

He used the attack of 9/11, which was manned and financed (as the Joint Congressional Inquiry found) by our supposed ally Saudi Arabia, as an excuse to kill Iraqis and take their oil.
Saudis & 9/11:
http://professorsmartass.blogspot.com/2007/02/probe-this-sen-bob-graham-said-two-911.html

Oil theft motive for Iraq War:
http://professorsmartass.blogspot.com/2006/09/iraq-oil-war-resources.html

He plans to do the same with Iran.

To the extent that Democrats aren't talking about this, I can only assume that they agree with Bush's real agenda, and are trying to prove themselves the better stewards of the wars for oil.

[Upcoming]

You are correct in your last sentence. That is why Lakoff's talking points aren't heard from democrats. Some of the democrats gain direct financial reward in the extension of the war. Feinstein's husband for example. It is time for a new party. Let the current "mainstream" democrats merge with republicans where they belong. A new progressive party can gain the presidency in 2012.

[mmccla]

This article is a good one, however, I can't agree with Mr. Westen on some points.
However emotionally satisfying it may be to blame Democrats for the outcome of last week's votes in Congress, it is neither fair, nor is it wise to suggest that the Democrats are inept or dishonest. Democrats who oppose the President in his role as Commander in Chief have a much harder institutional challenge than do Congressional Republicans who support him. The Republicans support the President in an area where he has been given broad powers by the Constitution. Democrats have not yet succeeded because the way our Constitution is framed, once set in motion, short of victory, wars are hard to end.
It is hard to bear -- and easy to forget -- that most Americans supported this war. Despite the war's unrighteousness, a bad outcome seemed very unlikely. Perhaps (we may have felt) the President had intelligence we didn't have. In any case, many Americans now vigorously opposed to this war were passive when it stared. We should question the relationship between the our emotional pitch in current denunciations of Democrats and our frustration at our earlier choices of inaction.
Finally, a serious discussion about supporting our troops cannot include a suggestion that "the names and faces of every soldier killed and maimed" be attached "to those that oppose the will of the people." Our injured and fallen soldiers and marines are not props in political theater, nor are even the most ardent supporters of the war indifferent to its human costs.
Americans who oppose the war should continue to pressure their Congressmen to vote for its early end, forcing pro-war Representatives and Senators to make tough, public votes. In 2008, we must turn out Congressmen who support Bush's war. We must elect a President who will get us out of Iraq as quickly as possible, using real, measurable time frames.
In the meantime, as emotionally satisfying as it is, accusing anti-war Congressmen of ineptitude or deceit won't end the war faster.

[kageorgia]

The best Democratic strategist in the country is in Georgia. I'm thrilled. I am reading and rereading your work to clarify the message for a congressional campaign.

Thank you!

[Dantheman99]

The Democratic Party leadership in Congress is cowardly. There is no other word than cowardly, unless it's incompetent. I support Sheehan running against Pelosi beause she needs to be held accountable, and there is no chance of tipping that district to the GOP when they cannot even get 20% of the vote in a good year. Pelosi's not the biggest problem right now.

Reid is the biggest problem. He is a weak and ineffective leader. What the Dems need right now is someone with the legislative master skills of Lyndon Johnson. Robert Byrd may not be the most telegenic member of the Senate, but we need a majority leader with his knowledge of Senate rules and a willingness to use them.

I'd be happy if Reid just used the same skills that McConnell used when he was in the majority. The Reps didn't play fair or nice, nor did they expect the process to be fair or nice. The Reps are filibustering everything. So let them wear themselves out flapping their jaws and sleeping on cots. At least let the American people see the obstructionists for who they are. The apologists want us to focus our gunfire on Reps. Well, if we had competent leadership in the Senate, it would make that easier.

But why would Reid even let the moveon.org vote to the Senate floor? The Reps would never allow votes like that when they were in the majority. I think it's because Reid himself is upset with the base of the party and he was venting off steam. He doesn't want to have to do anything of courage to end the war. He and most of the other Democratic Party Senators want to hide behind the 60 or 67 vote argument, hope your forget they can filibuster themselves and control the floor, and go away and then vote for them again in 2008 assuming you have nowhere else to go.

Sick and disgusting. Write you Dem Senators and ask them to replace Reid before it's too late.

[JKalos]

They are not incompetent and cowardly: they are competently and bravely carrying on the charade of a supposed opposition, when really they are just covert members of the one big party that represents the priveleged and powerful. Don't you get it yet? Dem senators, Repub senators, two sides of the same coin.

[hatcherlaw]

Great article - just have to point out that "attacked the metals" in your first paragraph is spelled wrong. It should be medals. (Even mettle would work somewhat, ha ha) Wrong-wingers just love to nitpick stuff like that to question our intellect and therefore the veracity of our claims, as with the Dan Rather facts being overridden by not having copies of original documents (which were destroyed already by Karen Hughes and Dan Bartlett so they KNEW there were no "originals" to copy).

Keep up the good fight...you are saving us...well, at least our sanity.

[UtahLiberal435]

Yawn, more self-hating 'netroots' Dems. It's like watching samurai commit seppuku before they (we) have even lost. Really, all you folks should be SCREAMING about GOP obstructionism and filibustering, which is the real problem. Of course, there's always the MSM which ignores Democratic efforts. And as several commenters have pointed out, AIPAC is indeed a bipartisan problem if one is interested in government by Americans for America, rather than Israel.

FYI to the mathematically challenged: You still need 2/3 majority to kill a filibuster, and WE don't have it in the Senate. You remember the Senate, don't you? And that both houses of Congress need to pass bills and then resolve any differences in committee?

So, troops, point your guns in the right direction, and keep 'em aimed that way until November elections are over, rather than shooting your own in friendly fire. Or is that too complicated for angry hoopleheads?

[KRANKY]

"FYI to the mathematically challenged: You still need 2/3 majority to kill a filibuster, and WE don't have it in the Senate. You remember the Senate, don't you?"

That's the point. Everyone knows the numbers, but this stupid strategy of throwing hands up and whining,"Wahhh! We don't have the numbers" just reinforces the image (and in way too many instances, the truth ) of Democratic weakness.
It is a strategy that simply does not work.
Reid, Durbin, and Levin allow this baloney to be pulled on them.
A change of tactics is required.
That would be to put these obstructionist Repukes in the box and MAKE them filibuster.
That has not been done. So far, the Pukes only threaten to filibuster. Make them do it! Bring in the cots, and the colostomy bags. Hell, most of the Pukes are older than Methuselah.
They need to be publicly humiliated and shown to be the heartless, mindless sycophants they are to the world.


BTW, your math is wrong. It is 3/5 majority to kill a filibuster, or vote for cloture to cut off debate.
It is 2/3 required to override a veto.

[JKalos]

Isn't there something to be said for standing up for what is right even in a losing cause? Civil disobedience? Even in congress and the senate? If soldiers like I once was were willing to die for our country, can't our representatives at least embarass themselves for our country? At least vote and speak up for what is right? But actions speak louder than words. They say they are against the war but they won't even try to embarass the war supporters by making them vote? I no longer believe the democratic party represents me: they represent the rich and the powerful, just like the republicans.

[WAdem]

With all due respect, Drew, we will be in Iraq for many years thanks to Bush's mistake. A troop redeployment and draw down to perhaps the 50,000 level, while changing the mission is about the best anyone can achieve now. There simply aren't any good options. Every life, every dollar from here forward is a grave waste, but Dems cannot be expected to jeopardize stability in the Middle East just to spite the GOP and Bush.
Hilary has it right; this is Bush's war. Having said that, the bad guys win if we don't maintain a presence. Voters can see that all of the GOP's candidates want to continue using the military ad nauseum. As Leno said, "some of them love this war and the others really, really, love this war!" Vote for Hilary.

[DatelessNerd]

Thank you, Dr. Westin! Tremendous post.

Congressional Democrats have placed their personal political careers above the welfare of this nation.

If they're not willing to do what's best for America, they should get the hell out of public service.

[mari2JJ]

Actually Democrats have no room to complain about the Democrats in the House and Senate.. If they studied U S Government, they know that it takes 60 votes in the Senate to overcome a threat of a filibuster, and 67 votes to override a Presidential veto. Until we send that many true Democrats to congress and gain the Presidency, we only have ourselves to blame.

[morphizm]

Brilliantly stated, and hard to argue. Joe Lieberman, Vice-President? Wrong then, and still wrong now. Stop catering to the other side and stand for something already.

[YankeeCanuck]

Not that many who commented seem interested in how the real work gets done, but here's a link: http://blog.joebiden.com/ Sorry I can't provide a link that's not tied to the candidacy. I watched Biden's speech on CSPAN, got the email message because I volunteer here in Iowa. There is Republican support already. There's a petition to sign to support a political solution for Iraq. You decide if it's worthwhile. It's a step up from gutless criticism on a blog of people who are out there trying to make a difference.
BTW, must we sink to the level of making "witty" puns on parties' or candidates names?This is not a time for name-calling, folks. It does not change anyone's mind. Look, we're going to need to work together if anything is to be salvaged of our contry's reputation in the world. Sometimes I ask myself why I am wasting my breath here. After all, I can skip across the border any time and have health care where parasites don't profit on it. No, I've never had to wait. Here, we've waited for an insurance company doc to approve chemotherapy for my partner. Sure,Canadian taxes are higher, but I've been paying in two countries all my adult life. Why? I've always wanted to come home. Only thing is, it may b=not be here after all. Since coming home to the US I've said "I'm a stranger in a strange land."
So, I'll do what I can here, but really -- it's worse than when I left. I was a young kid in the antiwar movement.Nixon was elected. Kent State happened. I left. Here's how it looks now: "Come home. Your room hasn't changed. Just change the poster to a different war.THis time, go to the mall to support your country."
I'm here to do what I can, but if I have to escape the craziness I have a place to go. The cool blue north.
Good luck and good night.

[SeekTruth]

How easy we make it on the Republicans. MoveOn makes a boneheaded pun guaranteed to elicit the despicable but effective kind of response we've seen from Republicans so many times before. Congressional Democrats take ineffective action to counter the awkward position they've been put in. The Blogosphere then concentrates its fire on endlessly attacking the Congressional Democrats,forgetting about derailing the war and leaving the Republicans to pursue their war with impunity.

When will we learn our duty is to find the most effective way to derail the war, not to express our outrage and prove our passion to the people who agree with us?

[naijaman]

I just sent in my papers to switch from a democrat to an independent....these fools are lame.

[Zhonni]

Don't loose hope, there is a message of hope out there are you listening?

[Qbear]

incumbent typo sorry

[Qbear]

Good advice, I hope Democrats follow it.
There's going to be an '08 Flush of Incombants, Democrats if they pay attention and ACT, don't have to follow Republicans down the porcelain facilities.

Members of Congress,
America is ENDING the Iraq War with or without YOU!

[johneb67]

It does not look good for those who want out of Iraq now. icasualties.org shows that September '07 could have the lowest US military casualties in Iraq for over a year and the lowest Iraqi casualties since they started keeping track in January '06. I guess the Surge is making a difference. There are eight days left in September though. Maybe Al Qaeda will have a Surge of its own.

[Tubby]

Boy, wouldn't that make you thrilled, eh?