By the Way...

Joyeux Noel!

Screech!

James Wolcott is right.

The problem that the Democrats have been having over the past few decades has not, contrary to what the liberal media would have you believe, that Democrats are somehow outside of the mainstream, but that ordinary people cannot identify the Democratic party's core beliefs. (Yes, I get to call the media liberal. It's so liberal, it has an affirmative action program for submoronic rightwingers. How else can you explain Sean Hannity?)

Too many people have this bizarre notion that because Bush espouses these absurd rightwing notions that he's committed to a "conservative" philosophy. A lot of folks like myself see him as an opportunist, driven by spinmeisters and polling services, but he's believed by a great number, perhaps a majority, of Americans to "stand for what he believes in." It doesn't hurt that he talks about believing what he believes in an awful lot. This is how Bush won the last election. The flipflopper label worked because it feeds into a metanarrative about Democrats- that they are craven and will say or do whatever it takes to get elected. This was tried in the previous election, where Gore was frequently described by GOP flacks and their press allies as so ambitious, he'd say anything to get elected.

Here's something. Kerry may have lost, but he didn't lose because he's a liberal. Why? Because this last election was about character, or rather the projection of character. It wasn't about what people believed in, but that they believed it.

Democrats need to stop acting like they're afraid of their own shadows. It's not even 2005. I'm sure there are a few Democratic politicians who, instead of apologizing for belonging to a political party other than the president's, just let it rip, and say something along the lines of the following:

"I don't like President Bush. I never have. I think he's among the worst presidents this country has ever had. It's not just that his presidency has seen the most devastating terrorist attack on American soil, or that we've had some of the worst job growth since the great depression, or that he's done nothing as the deficit explodes and the dollar devalues, I don't think he's possesed of a very good character. I think he has a bad temper. I think he's intellectually over his head in this job. I think he's politically opportunistic. I think he has what the Greeks called hubris. I don't think he's sincere.

"I don't like the plans he has for this country, not only because I think he's incapable of making them work, but because they're bad plans. That's the way I feel about the war in Iraq. There are two reasons Iraq is a catastrophe. One is that it was planned by people like Donald Rumsfeld and Richard Perle, people who have no business within 100 miles of our foreign policy. The other is because that war wasn't necessary. Saddam was a bad man, but he had neither WMDs nor any real connections to the terrorists who are trying to destroy us. I care very much for the men and women of our armed forces in Iraq, but the policy of going to war with Iraq was a bad policy. And that policy is George W. Bush's.

"So we have a president who took our military into an unnecessary war. And now he wants to commit us to another disastrous mistake. He wants to wreck social security. Only he says he's trying to save it. Don't believe him. Remember he also said he knew Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. He was wrong. And he's wrong here, too. He thinks that he can fix Social Security by privatizing it. But in order to privatize it, he has to borrow 2 trillion dollars. I won't bore you with the specifics about how privatizing Social Security will, in general, mean you get a smaller check from Social Security. I just want you to know that the same man who took unprecedented surpluses into unheard of deficits wants to borrow another 2 trillion dollars from taxpayers to finance a rightwing pipe dream. He wants to take a program that keeps senior citizens out of poverty, a government program that runs a surplus every year, and torpedo the whole thing, all but ensuring that millions of people paying their social security taxes today don't get that money back in the future."

"George W. Bush is reckless, and his values are not my values. I believe that we need to keep our commitments. I believe we shouldn't spend money we don't have. I believe in the social contract, that there is much we owe eachother, and much we can expect from eachother. George W Bush believes it's okay to lie to you, to tell you Social Security is in such trouble, we need to let an army of rightwing ideologues tear it apart. What's more the entire Republican party is more than willing to aid him in voiding our commitment.

"I'm a member of the Democratic Party, and I will fight to make sure the president's crackpot scheme to destroy Social Security fails."

Oh, those British

I found an interesting quote in this article about Tony Blair's turkee moment in Iraq:

"We stand on the side of the democrats against the terrorists ... Whatever people felt about the original conflict, we the British aren't a nation of quitters...."

See, that's interesting. And, in fact, this whole story, unless I am mistaken, is looking like yet another rerun of the past. Of 1920.
I really don't know enough of my history to say, but I see in the future of Iraq some quitting on the part of both British and Americans that will be given some sort of figleaf, such that our largely Anglophone coalition will walk away confident that no quitting was done, and the Iraqis, though they will not in any real sense be free, can believe that the invaders have been beaten back.
Mostly I'm struck by how much Blair is like Bush. Reuters, in a fawning tone generally associated with state-run media and Fox News, informs us that the central Green Zone, where Blair stayed, is a favorite of insurgents. But it's the Green Zone! The best fortified area in the entire country! If Blair can't feel safe there, there is no feeling safe in Iraq. But back to the meat of it- the pre-Iraq Tony Blair of liberal Americans' imagination was a bright, articulate statesman who wouldn't be caught dead conducting swaggering macho photo ops and meaninglessly harping on staying the course. How startling to find he's just another idiot politician.