Clinton-Bush '08
David Weigel | October 23, 2007, 2:55pm
The Heritage Foundation set up a lunch with Washington
Examiner reporter/author Bill Sammon, whose new tome
The Evangelical President reports that 1)Bush believes Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee (not among history's boldest predictions) and that 2)the Bush White House has personally
appealed to both party's candidates to "modulate" their rhetoric and be ready to sustain our presence in Iraq.
"It looks now like Democrats are coming around on Iraq," Sammon said. "Both Clinton and Obama came out against the surge and said it was doomed to fail--people forget that. Earlier in the year Clinton was saying that she'd immediately end the war when she became president. But in the last debate you saw both of them say they'd keep troops in Iraq."
Following up on
Radley Balko's column of last week, I asked Sammon if Bush was more interested in electing a Republican successor or a successor who would stay in Iraq to win it.
When you look at Hillary now, it's gradually dawning on the Democratic base that she will not end the Iraq War, that she will continue to prosecute this war in some fashion. There's some amount of buyer's remorse there already. But Bush probably feels that a Republican would be more aggressive prosecuting the war he wants it to be prosecuted.
If you look at the Republican candidates there's not a lot of daylight between President Bush and them on the Iraq War. They've all criticized the misteps by the administration and I think Bush has acknowledged those misteps. But if you look at McCain--people talk like McCain got hurt because he was out front and the biggest backer of the president's Iraq policy, and that's why he imploded. That's total nonsense. Although McCain was the earliest advocate for the surge, there really wasn't any daylight between Bush and Romney, Bush and Rudy, on the prosecution of the Iraq War. Obviously, what happened to McCain is that conservatives disagreed with him on a host of other issues and those chickens came home to roost. If anything the Iraq War was what kept what little support that he had.
"This is an audacious president," Sammon said. "The candidates know there's no way we'll have less than 100,000 troops in Iraq by the time they take over. Bush has basically been able to perpetuate his policy past the end of his term."
joe | October 23, 2007, 3:30pm | #
As support for the war has collapsed, the hawks have found it to be in the interest to blur the distinctions between the two parties on the war.
Look at the shady language Heritage has to employ to try to do so:
Earlier in the year Clinton was saying that she'd immediately end the war when she became president. But in the last debate you saw both of them say they'd keep troops in Iraq. Hillary Clinton said, two weeks ago, that she would withdraw troops and end Bush's war upon being sworn in. What she has said is 1) this drawdown will be gradual, and 2) there may be some forces in place conducting residual operations.
So Hillary cuts troop levels from 130,000 in January 09 to, say, 50,000 in the Spring of 10, to less than 10,000 in 2012. She has also sponsored legislation to forbid the use of tax dollars to build permanent bases. In other words, no substantial troop presence beyond the short term, and the abandonment of the objectives for which the war was launched. Does that sound like George Bush's strategy to you?
In 2005, when the war still had majority support, hawks like those at Heritage called John Murtha a coward, cutting and running to surrender to terrorists, for advancing a plan like this. Today, they assert the continuity between George Bush's vision for the Iraq War and that very same policy.
They are doing this for the same reason political parties always try to blur issues when their position is widely unpopular - because planting confusion in the public's mind is the best way for them to be able to hold onto power and continue their policy.
If you want to see us pull out of Iraq, don't let them fool you.
joe | October 23, 2007, 4:33pm | #
Here's another one of the talking points the hawks are trying to use to cover their butts.
Hillary Clinton and Obama would not commit to having all US forces out of Iraq before the end of their term in 2013.
Think about the difference between 150,000 troops and a couple hundred, or even a couple thousand.
Think about the difference between forces occupying towns and cities among a hostile population, and trying to put down an insurgency, and forces stationed within a friendly population on a defensive mission.
Think of the difference between building and sitting on permanent bases in another country, and ending the construction of those bases.
Think of the difference between a Marine garrison at an embassy and several divisions fighting on ongoing insurgency.
For John's spin to have any real-world accuracy, one must believe that there are no differences between any of these scenarios.
You have to hind behind semantics, John, because your argument can't stand on its merits.
Further, what do you think Hillary wants if not a stable Iraq that is allied with the US? Does she really want Iraq to be a client state of Iran? I don't think so. I don't think that's the difference - of course Hillary, and everybody else, thinks that an ideal world would include a peaceful, stable, democratic Iraq allied with the US.
The difference is, are they willing to stay the course with Bush's Iraq policy to bring that about.
