McCain: From McBush to McNixon?

The Bush-McCain fusillades on Iran and appeasement may be providing cover for what is beginning of a strategic repositioning of McCain on Iraq. In his recent address bizarrely musing on what he would have done in his first term as president, McCain fantasized that by 2013, "America has welcomed home" most of the troops..."The Iraq war will have been won... Iraq is a functioning democracy...the Government of Iraq is capable of imposing its authority in every province of Iraq..."

This, I suspect, marks a strategic turn from unrelenting defender of Bush's war to champion of peace with honor, contrasting an honorable peace to a humiliating surrender. McCain may be moving from McBush to McNixon.

In Nixonland, Rick Perlstein's scintillating study of American politics in the 1960s, Perlstein shows how Nixon improbably transformed himself from a hawk on Vietnam to a "responsible" peace candidate. In 1968, against the hapless Hubert Humphrey, Nixon brandished a secret plan to end the war. More tellingly, in 1972, four years of war later, he still jockeyed to be the peace president.

Nixon's language is now echoed by McCain. Here is Nixon on Vietnam:

"This has been the longest and most difficult war in American history.
Honest and patriotic Americans have disagreed as to whether we should have become involved at all nine years ago.
And there has been disagreement on the conduct of the war."

And later,

"The South Vietnamese are fighting courageously and well in their self-defense... We are not trying to conquer North Vietnam or any other territory in the world...Let us bring our men home from Vietnam; let us end the war in Vietnam. But let us end it in such a way that the younger brothers and sons of the brave men who have fought in Vietnam will not have to fight against in some other Vietnam...

Let us therefore unite as a nation in a firm and wise policy of real peace - not the peace of surrender, but peace with honor, not just peace in our time, but peace for generations to come."

It was all nonsense, of course. Nixon already knew the war could not be won. He simply wanted to avoid the defeat before his re-election. Once the US troops left, the South Vietnamese army disintegrated.

Aping Nixon, McCain wants an argument not for or against the war, but for or against an honorable peace. If he heads down this route, he needn't joust with Obama about the judgment that got us into the debacle. He doesn't dispute it was waged badly. He already argues that the "surge" isn't simply a holding action, that it is the path to an honorable peace. Iraqis, like the South Vietnamese, are painted as increasingly able to stand on their own. Now, a peace with honor is presented as within reach in the next four years. In contrast, Obama's call for bringing the troops home is painted as a recipe for humiliating defeat that will embolden al Qaeda and weaken America.

And, with majorities of Americans desperate for change and lined up against McCain on war, economy, health care, McCain will have little choice but to reprise the Nixon strategy of running a campaign based upon cultural identity, seeking to appeal to Nixon's "silent majority," in Perlstein's words the "values voters, people of faith, patriots" in contrast to the "liberals, cosmopolitans, the intellectuals, the professionals...who look down on the first category as unwitting dupes."

So, as Harold Meyerson pointed out, McCain's first post-primary ads hailed him as the "American president Americans have been waiting for." Not the "strong president "or the "conservative president,"but the American president, as against, presumably, his alien opponent. And thus the Republican attack against Obama as an elitist, disdainful of working people, out of touch with their values.

This is straight out of the Nixonland playbook, and leads inevitably to an ugly campaign.

Will it work? Many Republicans now worry that voters are no longer eating the dog food, to use Rep. Tom Davis metaphor. Party leaders were stunned by the loss of the special election in Mississippi where the RCCC poured a lot of money into making the Democrat into Barack Obama, throwing everything in the book at him -- Rev. Wright, flag pins, elitism, scorn for the faithful, etc.

Moreover, McCain doesn't appear comfortable with this strategy. He doesn't dream about an honorable peace in Iraq; he dreams about winning. He doesn't have Nixon's simmering resentments against the elite that he was born into. There's a part of him that thinks he can win an argument about the war, unraveling employer based health care, sustaining Bush's economic priorities.

But McCain's advisors are clearly telling him he can't win a race as Bush's third term. They'd rather turn the race into Nixonland, and seek play on the divides of race and culture and class. To escape being McBush, McCain campaign may turn to McNixon.

Comments

[dgscol]

What could be wrong about wanting to resolve the war to our benefit? Wasn't that peace with Honor?
With this Nixon embarked on trying to win the war and concessions from the N. Vietnamese.

What would worry me more, smiling Demos, would be OBushs lack of experience which is already hurting him. There is a move afoot to work around him already and one can see it in the rider on the supplemental war appropriates bills for 5 yr Ag worker Amnesty. This was done by the Clinton camp, to cover a 1-term presidency for OBush. This is legislation he cannot veto. Tough luck domestic workers!
He may have preliminary votes, but he has no control. Only words ...

[feo]

McCain's military record shows very clearly that he was an incompetent warrior. We're supposed to trust his expertise? Better you should trust and follow me: a year in Nam and I wasn't captured.

[bogananda666]

McCain is a war criminal for bombing Vietnamese civilians and a traitor for violating the UCMJ, Uniform Code of Military Justice who wouldn't even protect his own family from the insults and abuses in 2000. He retaliated against Bush with hugs and praise. Furthermore, he's never taken a breath outside of government benefit from his birth in a military hospital, to the Vietnamese government and to the current time. His education at Annapolis was paid for by the government,yet McCain would deny similar such benefit to Veterans. McCain's voting record for funding the Veterans Administration[VA] is 20% while most women in congress vote 80% of the time to support VA funding. I had a cousin who was a POW in WW2 and he never talked about it.

[jayburd]

Fascinating analysis.

If the McCain campaign goes with the Nixon-esque "peace with honor" strategy he risks losing a good chunk of the over 50 vote, I think. Unless they have a collective short memory, that crowd should see right through a sham campaign like that

[ApolloSpeaks]

OBAMA'S FANTASIES

You fault McCain for fantasizing about bringing the troops home by 2012 and say nothing about Obama's fantasies that setting a date certain for withdrawing from Iraq will force the intransigent irredeemably Shiite Iraqi government to reconcile with Sunnis so that Barack can leave behind a stable Iraq? There isn't an once of reality in this view. It's George McGovern all over again.

[ApolloSpeaks]

OBAMA PLEDGING PEACE WITH HONOR LIKE NIXON

During his California debate with Clinton Obama, sounding much like Nixon, said that he wants to leave behind a peaceful Iraq and withdraw our troops with honor.

[wadenelson1]

Once again, this isn't a war. It's an occupation. You can't win an occupation nor can you have peace with honor. Just ask the British.

[ResidentChimp]

Marxists are experts in propaganda and Newspeak. This article is another example of trying to rebrand a marxist as just another middle of the roader. It's not going to work. Obama grew up as an appeaser and he hasn't changed his stripes now that he is runnung. Just read his books and you can see he is the Manchurian Candidate.

[ErnestineBass]

Marxists...propaganda...Newspeak...appeaser...Manchurian Candidate?

Dang, Chimpie, you just earned fifty nifty McCain Action Points!

Putz. heh heh

[NotesFromME]

Funny, I read both of Obama's books and didn't catch the part where Obama was was brainwashed as a POW in Asia. McCain, on the other hand . . .

[whatsthatsound]

Let's do the Time Warp agaiiinnnn!

[Uselessboy]

Have you noticed that all the media are owned by corporatists?

How exactly are these Marxists getting the patriotic corporatists to push their propaganda?

[Chazzam]

The funny thing is, you think you actually have an effective voting bloc that buys into your kiddie-pool political rhetorical frame. It must be frightening to discover that the country has grown up sufficiently to see relics such as yourself and the GOP as the anachronisms you are.

[booksnmore4you]

Okay, so McCain will flip-flop yet again on the issue. Contrast this with Obama who has been consistent throughout.

[whatsthatsound]

The Republicans got nuthin', so their one shot is to go with their, "hey, I'm the white guy" ace in the hole. They'll code it in a hundred different ways between now and November ("hard working", "American", "worthy of your trust", "average Americans") and whenever they get called on it, they'll deny it and claim that Obama and his supporters are being "oversensitive". Then the radio talk show guys will use the oversensitive epithet to suggest that Obama is asking for "special treatment" and "a free pass", which they, as justice loving Americans, can't in good conscience allow.

Will it work? I don't think so, but if it does it says a lot more about the electorate than the Republicans.

[Sciguy]

Agreed. I'm in Kentucky, where Clinton won handily - except in the big cities where there are more non-whites voting. In one rural county here, Clinton got 93% (not a typo) of the vote. All McCain has to do in places like that is be white.

[DaleB]

"And, with majorities of Americans desperate for change and lined up against McCain on war, economy, health care, McCain will have little choice but to reprise the Nixon strategy of running a campaign based upon cultural identity, seeking to appeal to Nixon's 'silent majority,' in Perlstein's words the 'values voters, people of faith, patriots' in contrast to the 'liberals, cosmopolitans, the intellectuals, the professionals...who look down on the first category as unwitting dupes.' "

Yes, and clearly, with good reason. 40 years later, has the nation learned anything?

[evangelicalatheist]

The idea of "peace with honor" is patently ABSURD. A lesson in logic: "Peace with honor" means you're involved in a war, there is NO honor in war - it's an abomination, peace is the ONLY POSSIBLE outcome - honor has NOTHING TO DO WITH IT!!! This smells of Karl Rove and the AEI - redefine the goal, repeat it ad nausea until the ignorant masses agree that it's fact, then offer your strawman (or Chimp) as the solution.

"Vietnamization" was propoganda - at the time, those of us throwing lead knew it; the Vietnamese knew it; as did Johnson, Nixon, AND Kissinger! Now, very much older, I think we should not have tried to impose "democracy" on a tribal society - we had absolutely no reason to expect nationalism of the South Vietnamese.

With respect to Iraq, it's deja vu all over again for me. Iraq is another tribal culture (with a fundmentalist religion thrown in) and here we are again trying to pound the square peg of "democracy" into the same old round hole.

Lyndon Johnson HIMSELF remarked to his press secretary, Bill Moyers (who probably coined the phrase), "Light at the end of the tunnel!!??? We don"t even have no tunnel; we don"t even know where the $#@&ing tunnel is!!!" We'd better learn to BEGIN calling a spade a spade or we're doomed to go on with ground-hog day. Time for the media to stop stirring the propoganda and start discussing the real issues.

[omahkohkiaayo]

I highly recommend the book "Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work by Paul Babiak and Robert Hare who go through and richly illustrate the "ABCs" of Psychopathy: No Anxiety; No Bonds; No Conscience. As Robert Hare, inventor of the PCL-R Checklist for Psychopathy put it: "I always said that if I wasn't studying psychopaths in prison, I'd do so at the Stock Exchange. Indeed it is not only the corporate world that is a "target rich" environment for psychopaths, any entities, increasingly corporatized, fit: educational institutions; politics; non-profits; NGOs; labor unions; religious institutions.

As Plato, the first recorded analyst of psychopathy put it: "Those who seek power are invariably the least fit to hold and wield it." Plato understood, perhaps instinctively, or perhaps from examples around him, that those who would self-annoint, self-proclaim, self-credential themselves as "leaders", to be parachuted "down" on and over, those they purport to "lead", demonstrate a certain level of hubris, absolute certainly, malignant narcissism and megalomania that is breathtaking and extremely dangerous. As an old Chinese aphorism goes: "Power is something a good person will not seek and a bad person should not have."

These are all lightweights in every respect: morality, intellect, preparation and substance. They only shine to the extent they can be protected from self-revealing scrutiny and an electorate blitzed-out on Jerry Springer and NAASCAR.

[nypoet22]

I think you mean sociopathy. psychopathy means they don't see reality, sociopathy means they see it just fine but don't care.

[booksnmore4you]

Awesome book, do recommend it!

[nypoet22]

McNixon would not be the end of the world. What I'm scared of is McCheney.

[ErnestineBass]

McCheney = McLieberman

[Hallucinocynic]

The GOP is at a crossroads. Their traditional strengths - national security and defense - have become millstones and the message that they are attempting to craft for Crash, that he is what America 'deserves,' underscores the contempt they hold for the country.

They have basked in the infighting between Democrats but now they're all too aware that this election year is going to be very, very bad for them.

[jayburd]

Two things need to happen for the misfotrunes of the Republican party to continue.

1. Hillary Clinton needs to concede to Obama by early June and not take this to the convention.

2. Obama has to be willing to brawl with the Republicans. They will try to paint him as weak and they will succeed unless he gives as good as he gets.

[Mike789]

The phrase about "the dog food" should be put on a billboard in every Southern township. Cripes! Wake up.! Did you not see the can of whitewash, the tap dance shoes, the dramaturgical finessing?
Send 'em to Hollywood.

[noneIn2008]

Bob Barr is clear, remove the troops NOW. Where are Clinton and Obama? Obama states, no precipitous withdrawal. Let's have Obama get as clear as Barr or Ron Paul.

[GabrielXL]

It's fine that Bob Barr has a clear message on this subject, but where is he in terms of the American voter? It's good to have a definitive message on a difficult issue, but suffice it to say that Bob Barr is on the outside looking in. What I mean is that there is very little movement in the American electorate towards the man and his issues. Same goes for Ron Paul. This is not to diminish their message or what they stand for. It's just stating a simple fact. So trying to hold Obama to a standard that isn't like that of a candidate who for all intents and purposes is a outsider might be considered "reaching". Your argument would have had more credence had you applied the same criteria to every candidate that didn't have the same mandate. I trust that you agree it's time to get away from the smoke and mirrors in politics.

[nyboomer]

Both Barr and Paul are exmplars of the old saw about the road to hell being paved with good intentions.