Legal Fiction

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I would rather puke my guts out than be part of some coordinated spin team. I promise that I would not get up here and try to spin something I didn't think was true - and the remaining debates will be a testament to that. But that said...

Bush just got his ass kicked. Seriously, I feared that Kerry would be defending his Iraq stance and the 87 billion all night, but Bush hardly mentioned either. The key is that Bush was on the defensive almost all night - especially in the first (and most important) hour. I was surprised. Bush was clearly angry at having to defend constantly his Iraq positions. And it showed. Bush's strength is that people like him, and think he comes across as a good, decent man. That didn't come across tonight. He was angry and defensive - and that's not how Bush wins debates. He wins by being "minimalist" and smiling a lot. But there can be doubt - he was on the defensive all night. And didn't come across as particularly likeable, which he almost always does.

Second, it was clear that Kerry is a much better formal debater than Bush. I thought Bush stumbled, and had lots of awkward pauses and what not. To be sure, the "global test" bit won't help Kerry, but this one wasn't even close. Kerry also pretty clearly had a better grasp on nuclear proliferation, North Korea, and various other areas. This is a race again.

Kerry 1, Bush 0.

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I'm really nervous about tonight. I didn't think I would be, but I am. Generally, I only get nervous when UK is playing in the NCAA, or the fate of world history hinges upon a debate performance. Kerry shouldn't feel any pressure though . . .

[UPDATE: One more thing. It's a pretty good indication of how wobbly our democracy has become that the real battle has less to do with the substance of the debate (and there are some weighty issues to discuss), but with the post-debate spin. Apparently, legions of media warriors are standing ready on both sides to take orders from upon high to tell the American public what they should think about they just heard (via Josh Marshall). We have truly fallen into some sort of postmodern hell-hole where constructing reality is more important than reality. But I could possibly deal with that if our nation weren't facing such tremendous challenges, and so desperately in need of a democratic dialogue.

It really makes you wonder whether mankind is better or worse because of the rise of mass media. I honestly don't know anymore. Watching the bulls in Europe is looking better every day.]

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From today's Post:

The Bush administration, battling negative perceptions of the Iraq war, is sending Iraqi Americans to deliver what the Pentagon calls "good news" about Iraq to U.S. military bases, and has curtailed distribution of reports showing increasing violence in that country.

The unusual public-relations effort by the Pentagon and the U.S. Agency for International Development comes as details have emerged showing the U.S. government and a representative of President Bush's reelection campaign had been heavily involved in drafting the speech given to Congress last week by interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. Combined, they indicate that the federal government is working assiduously to improve Americans' opinions about the Iraq conflict -- a key element of Bush's reelection message.

. . .

But administration officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the prime minister was coached and aided by the U.S. government, its allies and friends of the administration. Among them was Dan Senor, former spokesman for the CPA who has more recently represented the Bush campaign in media appearances. Senor, who has denied writing the speech, sent Allawi recommended phrases. He also helped Allawi rehearse in New York last week, officials said. Senor declined to comment.

But of course, if you attack Allawi, that means that your patriotism should be questioned. And as for the new "good news" campaign, I think everyone should start comparing administration officials to Baghdad Bob - e.g., Baghdad Scott or Baghdad Don.

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Political Science 541/Humanities 502; Ancient Greek Tragedy and Modern Politics

Mid-term Exam
October 1, 2005

QUESTION # 1: Last year, President Kerry defeated George Bush, largely on the basis of the first debate (which we discussed in class). Analyze this debate – and/or Bush’s subsequent defeat – in the context of one of the plays we have read.



ANSWER TO QUESTION #1

I have chosen to compare Bush’s poor debate performance to the play Bacchae by Euripides. Specifically, I want to focus on the role that “reversal” (or “peripeteia”) played in both Bacchae and the aftermath of the debate. First, I will provide a brief account of the relevant portions of Bacchae, and then use them to assess Bush’s tragic reversal on the national stage, which ultimately cost him the election.

One of the great themes of Greek tragedy is the concept of reversal. In these plays, great men are suddenly cast down from power, often on the basis of characteristics that led them to power in the first place. For example, although Oedipus’s intellect led him to greatness, it was also the source of his downfall (or reversal) when it led him to see clearly what crimes he had committed. Similarly, although Bush’s stubborn resolve led him to victory and convinced a nation to go to war, that same unyielding resolve was the source of his tragic downfall (or reversal) after he refused to admit error or change course on anything. But the reversal in Bacchae was especially interesting, and especially relevant to the first debate in 2004.

Although the play has many interesting aspects, I am only focusing on the reversal. As you know, in the play, the king Pentheus denies that the Greek god Dionysus is actually a god, and wants to punish the women who are off in the woods worshipping him. To punish the king for his hubris, Dionysus enters the king’s city disguised as an effeminate young man wearing ivy and having long locks of hair. Pentheus, who is obsessed with projecting a macho image of strength and power, ridicules the young man for being such a sissy. He orders the young man to be chained, and threatens to kill him.

The reversal comes when the god, still in disguise, offers to take Pentheus to see the crazed, naked women out in the woods worshiping Dionysus. The god warns the king that he must go in disguise or they will kill him. So, he convinces the king to dress like a women. The whole thing, of course, is a trap. We know the great reversal has happened when Pentheus – the great, macho king – suddenly appears wearing a dress and wig. And sure enough, the women eventually rip his limbs off in a frenzy (as captured in this work of art). To the audience, it is indeed a shock to see this once mighty king physically embody the characteristics that he had previously ridiculed. In their eyes, the great king suddenly became the effeminate laughingstock.

Fast forward to 2004. Throughout the campaign, Bush projected images of strength, and strong wartime leadership. This “strength-in-wartime” was the theme of his convention, and it was repeated endlessly by the campaign itself. In other words, he was very similar to the macho Pentheus. And like Pentheus, he mocked his opponent for being weak, and French, and for lacking the strength and ability to be a wartime leader. The supposed weakness of Kerry in fighting the war and terrorism was the central attack that Bush used. The campaign was so sure of itself on this front that it demanded that national security be the subject of the first, and most important, debate.

At the debate, however, things suddenly changed – though I should give a little background. After months of drift, the Kerry campaign had recently sharpened its attack, and started focusing specifically on Bush’s greatest perceived strength – national security and wartime leadership. However, few people had tuned in yet. But millions and millions tuned in for the debate.

And during the debate, they watched as the supposedly weak, French-looking Kerry suddenly appeared very strong as he pounded away on Bush’s numerous mistakes and dishonesties in executing the war on Iraq (and this was pre-Gitmogate, which broke the following spring). Bush, relying on the same lines he always had, assured the national audience that things were getting better, and that he would have done nothing differently. But as Kerry presented more and more examples of Bush’s incompetence in executing the war (along with challenging his dishonesties), Bush’s lines rang increasingly hollow, and even dishonest. And as the night wore on, Bush appeared to be living in fantasyland with respect to Iraq. By the end of the night, Kerry had planted the seed of doubt by portraying Bush as hopelessly weak and incompetent in wartime – which, obviously, was the opposite of many’s previous perceptions of the president.

The press, perhaps guilty about the Swift Boat Vets, pounced on Bush. The conventional wisdom quickly became that Bush was either lying, or was too delusional to lead a nation in wartime. And within a week, the great reversal had set in – the great President became the laughingstock by becoming the reverse of his own projected image. Press clips and campaign commercials mocked the Pollyanna responses he gave in the debate. The press also seized upon a number of his debate statements and compared them with empirical reality in Iraq, and the more pessimistic statements made by other military and intelligence officials. Within days, it became clear that the great President had fallen. Just as once-macho Pentheus was seen in drag, so too was the once “strong-on-war-and-security” president now seen as hopelessly incompetent on war and security. The tragic reversal had set in.

Later on, Kerry advisors explained that they were convinced that Bush could be defeated only by striking at the very heart of his rationale for re-election. If they could reverse the public’s views on this critical issue, everything else would fall into place. And it worked. Bush was torn to shreds, so to speak, at the ballot box.
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And while I'm at it - "Today in the news, a grown man who pretentiously refers to himself as "Publius" won the lottery and inherited a small island in the Pacific. . ."

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Once again, the Post seems to have outsourced part of its editorial-writing duties to the Washington Times. In explaining why it doesn't object to Cheney's "Vote Kerry and Die" rhetoric, the Post explains:

But Mr. Cheney's remarks about the Kerry terrorism policy, while pretty rough, pertain to questions that are central to this campaign: What is the right way to fight the war on terrorism? Who is the enemy? Which president could keep the country safer? Mr. Kerry is arguing that the nation is less safe because Mr. Bush waged war in Iraq and paid too little attention to al Qaeda; that's a legitimate case to present to voters. Mr. Cheney is arguing that Mr. Kerry's voting history on the use of force and his shifting statements on Iraq foreshadow a leader who would not meet the terrorist threat vigorously enough, and he's entitled to make that argument.

The Post, however, is confusing logos-based arguments with pathos-based ones (I explained the distinction here). Yes, if Cheney were appealing to logic and engaging in a true policy debate, then that would be fine. But to characterize Cheney's hysteric Goebbels-isms in such a high-minded way is simply to ignore reality. Cheney - and the GOP convention - were appealing to base instincts of fear and anger, and doing so in the most hysterical of ways (see, e.g., Zell Miller). So spare me the bit about Cheney's "argument." There's no logos anywhere - and I don't the lawyerly use of the phrase "pertains to questions" gets you there.

Second, according to the Post, it seems that the Democrats are learning to love Goebbels as well.

John F. Kerry and his supporters are adopting President Bush's strategy of playing on the public's security fears and sometimes using incendiary charges to stoke them.

If they were acting on a blank slate, then I would roundly condemn this rhetoric. But it's not that simple. To use a perfect analogy from Kevin Drum, you can't blame England for fighting back in World War II. In other words, let's say you object to military aggression. Then, your country gets attacked, and only afterwards starts using the same tactics to fight back. If you support fighting back, it's not really fair if I turn around and say, "See, you're such a hypocrite. You were against force when the attacker used it, but now you're for it."

The Democrats have no choice but to use these Goebbels tactics. And there's absolutely no question who used them first. I mean, can you imagine what we would be hearing if Iraq had actually gone well?

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Sometimes I wonder if Atrios and Glenn “Genocide” Reynolds are reading the same newspapers. I mean, can the New York Times really be that biased against both sides at the same time? While I think press bias is an issue (though one that is often selectively perceived), I think that a much bigger problem with the press is its intellectual laziness and its "groupthink." Laziness refers to the reluctance to check facts and assess the “he said/she said.” Groupthink refers to the sort of herd mentality that the press often succumbs to. And while these flaws have generally helped Bush over the past four years, I think they might actually help Kerry if he has a decent debate – especially the groupthink.

With respect to groupthink and herd mentality, Jon Stewart captured the problem pretty well one day on the O’Franken show. He compared the national media to a pee-wee soccer team. Someone kicks the ball and the entire team chases after it. Then, the ball gets kicked elsewhere, and they all leave immediately and run to it. There’s something to that.

Perhaps the root of the problem is that there just aren't that many (significant) people in the national media (and this is an area where I think blogs can help). Thus, a single idea or explanation can spread pretty quickly across the entire press corps and become the prevailing view - which then gets repeated over and over. This is an especially annoying characteristic of the TV pundits, and I’m not just talking about Laci Peterson or Michael Jackson. Among political reporters/anchors on TV, I think there’s some pressure to show that you’re on top of the game. And nothing shows that more than peddling the latest “fad” theory that explains events, and simultaneously shows your insider understanding.

The recent craze over “security moms” is a perfect example of what I’m talking about. Kerry is losing ground among women. Bush is talking about security. Thus, someone came up with the theory that there are all these pro-gay, pro-choice women who are turning to Bush because they’re obsessed with security (which, for the record, should make you vote against Bush - but I digress). And bingo, you’ve got the new fad for the fall – “security moms.” It lends itself so well to CNN stories. And the very incantation of the phrase makes it sound like you know the real dynamics of the election. The problem, as Noam Scheiber explained persuasively, they don’t exist. Or if they do, there is no empirical evidence of their existence. But that doesn’t matter – the groupthink has set in.

The same thing happened after the 2000 debates. Someone decided Gore lost because of the sighs, and that became the conventional wisdom. And the networks discussed and played them over and over. Same deal with the Dean scream – a complete media creation. And same deal with the theory that the Swift Boat Vets were destroying Kerry’s campaign. It was groupthink that spread like wildfire among people who should have been more critical.

For the past four years, these particular failings have helped Bush because his media strategy (and the greater GOP/Murdoch strategy) depends on them. The people over at Spinsanity have written a book showing how the Bush team has consciously exploited these standard press habits to gain an advantage. For example, the Bush team relied on the “he said/she said” format to counter the objectively devastating attacks from hawk Richard Clarke. The goal wasn’t so much to discredit him, but to throw enough counter-accusations around that people would think it was just another partisan squabble. And it worked.

Whatever flaws they may have, Bush and the GOP media empire are ruthlessly efficient at picking a few simple themes (or attacks) and pounding them home, day after day. And from the spring on, we’ve heard the press echo the Bush charges that Bush is strong and steady, that Kerry is a flip-flopper, that he voted for and against the war, and so forth. In other words, the press has been Bush’s unwitting ally (though Kerry has contributed too). Just look at what the Post said yesterday:

Voters routinely describe Kerry as wishy-washy, as a flip-flopper and as a candidate they are not sure they can trust, almost as if they are reading from Bush campaign ad scripts.

Anyway, it is possible that the same uncritical echoes from the herd could actually help Kerry if he has a good debate. We have all heard that Kerry is a good closer, even though that’s really just based on one race in 1996. In Iowa, I think Kerry’s victory had less to do with his closing, then with Dean and Gephardt’s implosion. But still, the “Kerry is a closer” myth is one of those superficially appealing themes – like “security mom” – that seems to have settled in. And to be fair, Kerry has finally come out with a consistent message and line of attack – though the reality is that he unveiled it forty days from the election. But reality doesn’t matter – media perceptions matter. And I’m getting the sense that the press is ready to interpret everything through the lens of “Kerry is a closer” or “Kerry is surging.”

Just look at the NYT today – “A Fast Finisher's Reputation Now Faces the Ultimate Test.” Noam Scheiber adds that all the elements are there for an “imminent Kerry-is-surging storyline”:

--Kerry staff shakeups and the hiring of old Clinton hands, which gives reporters a handy inside-baseball explanation for how things got turned around.

--Kerry's engagement on Iraq, which puts the actual situation there front-and-center rather than Kerry's position on it.

--The intellgience report [this summer's pessimistic National Intelligence Estimate], the [equally pessimistic] CSIS report, and all the bad news from Iraq (that was there all along but vanished for a while).

--Guilt over overhyping the swift boat story and letting Bush be unaccountable for past dishonesties (or do I overestimate their conscience?).

If Kerry has a good debate, and can win the post-debate spin, then I think this storyline could really sink in with the herd. The coverage would be more favorable, and the assessments of Bush more critical (especially if Kerry successfully hammers him on Iraq). I can hear Wolf and Judy now. And though some will interpret this new storyline as bias, it’s not. It’s groupthink, and to some extent, it’s intellectual laziness as well. But Bush has gotten more than his share of benefits from the press, so I won’t be shedding that many tears.

Then again, there’s also the possibility that Bush will tell some stupid joke about flip-flopping and then give us the smirk – and that will get played over and over again as the “decisive blow.” You just never know with these people. But get ready. If you think the GOP echo chamber has been well-coordinated so far, just wait until the day after the debate.

[UPDATE: For those who want to read more on the game theory aspects of herd mentality, you can read my post from January.]

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Matt beat me to the punch on this one. I too had been annoyed at the title of the Post's series on being young and gay in "real America" (though I suspect it was ironic). Anyway, he has a good discussion of it here. And though I'm definitely from "real America" (rural Kentucky), I object strongly to the label. The problem is essentially a linguistic one - and this is yet another area where conservatives have won the linguistic war that is so vital in shaping people's thoughts.

The problem with the notion of a "real America" is the same problem with the notion that Republicans are the party of "values": The specific is masquerading as the universal. Here's an example of what I mean by that, taken from Southern history. During the civil rights movement (and after), we heard a lot about how modern Democrats or liberal judges were hostile to Southerners. The word that was generally implied, but missing, was "white." Ronald Reagan (yes, that great man) even called the Voting Rights Act "humiliating" to Southerners. Again, the missing word there was "white." It wasn't so bad for black Southerners, who got excluded from being "Southern" even though they made up roughly one-third of the population (though it varied across states). In other words, the label that actually applied only to a specific group - the white South - was presented as applying to a universal group - the South.

Something very similar has happened with the conservative hijacking of the words "values" or "real America." In broad sections of the country, there is little ethnic or religious diversity. Wide swaths of America are very white, very Protestant (or Catholic), very supportive of Christianity in the public schools (which makes more sense when you're living in a homogenous community), and very hostile to abortion and homosexuality. Thus, it's not surprising that the God they worship seems to share the social norms of the community they happen to live in. It's the "God looks just like me" principle. And you know, progressives should be more respectful of that (to the extent the views are actually based on sincere religious differences, and religion isn't being used to legitimate hatred or racism). I mean, we preach tolerance for diverse cultures, but sometimes fail to extend that same courtesy to our own religious diversity at home.

But that said, we need to call a spade a spade. Hostility towards abortion and homosexuality is not a universal "value." It's a value of a very specific segment of the population that is largely white and largely fundamentalist (or orthodox Catholic). Their values are not universal (let alone objectively more moral), they're specific to a narrower segment of the larger population.

But that's the linguistic genius of conservatives. They've managed to convince America that those who share the arbitrary, contingent values and social norms of all-white, fundamentalist Christian areas should be deemed to have "values." What's implicit is that more secular, ethnically diverse populations of urban areas and blue states lack "values." The truth is that they have different values.

So too with "real America." A very specific part of America - and one that has many values that I find distasteful (though many that I love and admire too) - gets transformed into "real America," rather than the "really white, Christian part of America." The characteristics of the specific get transformed into the universal. Their characteristics are more "American." They are "real" America. This linguistic triumph gives their own contingent values added legitimacy, which is one of the reasons why Bush and the GOP aren't getting crucified for making gay-bashing part of their campaign strategy. After all, they're just fighting for "values" and "real America."

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Regular readers know how much I adore Billmon’s Whiskey Bar – I consider it the best blog on the Internet. But the more I thought about his argument in the LA Times this week, the more it troubled me. It also bugged Steve Gilliard, and I’m sort of riffing off of his response to it. Specifically, what troubled me was this notion that the blogosphere is selling out, or is destined to. As I’ll explain, I think that Billmon may be making a conceptual error that is too common among the "Left" – and that error is interpreting the entire world through the tired Romantic prism of “rebel versus oppressive authority.” Here’s what he wrote in the LA Times:

[T]he idea of blogging as a grass-roots challenge to the increasingly sanitized "content" peddled by the Time Warner-Capital Cities-Disney-General Electric-Viacom-Tribune media oligopoly [may be dying]. . . . Even as it collectively achieves celebrity status for its anti-establishment views, blogging is already being domesticated by its success. What began as a spontaneous eruption of populist creativity is on the verge of being absorbed by the media-industrial complex it claims to despise. . . . There's ample precedent for this. America has always had a knack for absorbing, and taming, its cultural revolutionaries. The rise and long, sad fall of rock 'n' roll is probably the most egregious example, while the music industry's colonization of rap is a more recent one. . . . Bloggers aren't the first, and won't be the last, rebellious critics to try to storm the castle, only to be invited to come inside and make themselves at home.

There are many possible responses to this. For example, Gilliard and Kos both explain that money can create freedom just as it easily as it can take it away. Indeed, if I could live off this blog, I have no doubt that it would become much better. But I want to focus on something different – the romanticization of the “rebel,” which I consider to be an exhausted theme. To be more precise, I want to focus on the conceptualization of the world in terms of some oppressive, soul-sucking authority in conflict with Romantic rebels whose quest to overthrow the existing order should be celebrated. The 60s are over people. Let’s move on.

The celebration of the “rebel” against oppressive authority has a long, rich history throughout Western culture – from Napster, to Jim Morrison, to rock-n’-roll, to the Beatniks, to Percy Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound, to the Romantics, to the American/French Revolutions, to Milton’s Satan, to Jesus, to as far back as Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound. The current strain of rebel celebration – “be yourself” or “resist authority” – is a relic of the Romanticism that flourished from roughly 1790 to the 1830s or so. It was revived and re-translated in the critiques and slogans of the newly energized American Left in the 1950s and 60s, and was subsequently co-opted by corporations like Taco Bell and Nike whose used the slogans in its commercials. And you can hear it today from bands like Good Charlotte.

But the revolutionary potential of the original 60s language – and indeed, that movement – has been grossly overestimated. It’s more aesthetic to see it as revolutionary – and it’s certainly cool to hear All Along the Watchtower or Five to One juxtaposed with videos of student protest. But let’s not kid ourselves. Nixon won handily in 1968 and 1972.

To be honest, despite the ravings of conservative talk radio, there has never been a real revolutionary Left in American history – though perhaps the 1890s came the closest. But even then, McKinley (the nominee of the Monty Burnses of the 19th century) won in 1896, which ushered in thirty years of rule by other Monty Burnses.

And maybe that’s a good thing (not the rule-of-Burns, but the lack of a revolutionary Left). For every rebel worthy of admiration (Gandhi), there is another that became a tyrant (Mao). History has shown that revolutions swallow their children, and often lose sight of the ideals that inspired them – and that’s true whether we’re talking about the French Revolution or smaller fish like the so-called Republican revolution of 1994. My point is that even assuming the “rebel/tyrant” narrative is an accurate reflection of reality, we should be more ambivalent about the rebel him or herself, and look instead to what the rebel is preaching. For example, I adore the rebels of the Enlightenment, not because they were rebels, but because I adore empiricism and the freedom from primitive superstitions that it offered. I condemn the rebels of Communism because they were advocating an ideology that is inherently flawed and repressive-in-practice (though admittedly beautiful as an idea). Whether or not these people were “rebels” isn’t really relevant.

But in America, I simply don’t believe that the “rebel/corrupt entity” narrative reflects reality. Billmon obviously does. It’s infused throughout his writing, and especially his LA Times piece (an earlier version can be found here). Perhaps it’s because I’m younger and my generation has “60s exhaustion,” but I’m tired of viewing aspects of American politics and culture through that particular lens. I have no doubt that Romanticism will rise again, just as it has throughout history, and be a source of inspiration once more. But for now, let it sleep. It’s tired. It’s had a rough half-a-century. Let’s stop aiming for revolutions, and let’s start winning elections that will actually help people and stop getting them killed.

I’ve strayed a bit – here’s my point. Billmon’s critique of blogs only works if you assume that the “rebel/corrupt entity” narrative reflects reality. But do blogs have to be revolutionary? Do the options have to be "successful revolution" or "failure"? Will blogs only succeed if they overthrow the mainstream media? The answer is no, no, and no. Don't get me wrong, blogging is great – I consider it a beautiful manifestation of little-“d” democracy. It’s a return to the often nasty days of pamphleteering in the Revolutionary era. But we need to be realistic about what it can and can't do. Blogging doesn’t have to usher in a revolution to be a success. It will be a success for democracy if it makes democracy work better. And I think it already has, and has the potential to do a lot more.

First, there’s the fund-raising capability, which I discussed in more detail here. Just look at how much money Kos has raised for House races from people who never would have given otherwise. This is how democracy works – government reflects the interests of those who vote or those who give money. Conservative groups like the Club for Growth have a big head start, but Kos (and others) will help level the playing field.

Second, I think the blogosphere acts a watchdog for the press, which creates a market incentive for the press to get better. Third, the blogosphere helps more people get informed, even if it’s a small number of people right now. It also hosts and creates discussion, which is another vital aspect of a functioning democracy. And finally, it opens the debate up to people like me, who don't write for a big magazine and who don't have valuable "real estate" on an op-ed page. Who knows, maybe blogs will be the source for future op-ed positions. Personally, I would love to see some bloggers get a spot on the NYT or Post op-ed pages.

Obviously, there are downsides too, and I haven’t thought out all the societal implications of our “computer wizardry” as Giblets would say. But I think it’s unfair to evaluate the blogosphere according to its ability to be an effective rebel. And even though the American press certainly has its problems, it’s still a remarkable force for democracy when you use world history as your baseline. In other words, it’s not a corrupt tyrant that needs to be overthrown. It’s a democratic tool that needs to be improved. Again, this whole “rebel/tyrant” world-view needs to be discarded. As I explained here (and I would urge people who enjoyed this post to go read it), the Left has been obsessed about “deconstructing” things for the past few decades. Perhaps it’s time to start “constructing.” Here’s what I wrote:

This philosopher [Latour] believed that criticism [meaning “deconstruction”] was a tired concept. Instead of deconstructing everything, he argued that the Left should try constructing for once. I may be mischaracterizing Latour’s argument (it’s a, uh, tough read), but I think I know what he’s getting at. Instead of trying to tear down everything, the Left should use its intellect and energy to construct new ideas and new narratives.

Blogs can’t save the world. But they can make it a little better. And that's how they should be judged.

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First, I want to welcome Julie Saltman to the blogosphere. She's a second-year at Michigan Law School and has an interesting post up today on religion in American politics. Check it out!

Second, this blog entitled "Bush Campaign Lies" is doing some heavy lifting in assessing the President's pants-on-fire problem.

And finally, don't forget to check out the blogs from two of my favorite commenters here - Total Information Awareness and Not a Pipe.

If you have a new blog, please let me know. I'm trying to make this a more regular feature, and would encourage bigger blogs to do the same.

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It was nice to hear from Billmon again – you are missed. And after reading his criticism that the blogosphere is becoming too timid to go where the mainstream media will not, it inspired me to return to a topic that I think has gotten far too little attention in both the mainstream press and the blogosphere – the odd “glitches” that resulted in the exclusion of Hispanics from Florida purged-felons voting list. I’m writing in the hopes that the blogosphere – or even a journalist or columnist – might revisit this issue. Because it stinks. And it’s quite possible that it was a flagrant violation of the Voting Rights Act that is getting swept under the rug.

For those unfamiliar with the story, let me explain the background very briefly (I learned of the story from Billmon and wrote about it here). Florida permanently bans felons from voting unless they successfully petition to get their rights back. (Seven states do this – five are Southern, which makes sense because these laws trace back to the disenfranchisement of blacks after Reconstruction.). Anyway, in order to avoid the debacle in 2000 in which many black non-felons were denied the right the vote because they shared the same name as a felon, Florida created an updated felon list, with the assistance of a private company. The list included just under 50,000 names. Several local newspapers and CNN sued to get the state to release the list after state officials refused to do so. Finally, on July 1 of this year, a judge ordered it to be released. Within days, reporters from the Sarasota Herald-Tribune (or "SHT") discovered something rather odd: there were almost no Hispanic names on the list. There were lots of African-Americans, but only 61 Hispanics on a list of 48,000 – which is one-tenth of one percent. Hispanics make up about 17% of the population in Florida – and 11% of the prison population. Oh yeah, and they tend to vote Republican – especially the Cuban-Americans.

After initially denying any error, the state officials conceded that they had overlooked a “glitch” that resulted in the exclusion of Hispanic voters from the list. Under pressure, they scrapped the list (which is bad news for Bush). That’s as far as I got when I wrote about this issue earlier in the summer. I was studying for the bar, so I never went back to see what the alleged “glitch” was. Well, now I know. And it stinks too. Obviously, I don’t know if there was any foul play. It will take some investigative journalism – or a criminal investigation – to find out. It is possible that it was an honest mistake, though I doubt it. Below, I’ll provide the official explanation, and then explain why I’m skeptical of it. I report, you decide. (I’m relying almost entirely on some damn good reporting by Chris Davis and Matthew Doig at the SHT in July – 7/7; 7/13; 7/14; 7/17; 7/18; [the 7/20 article - the most important one - is only on LEXIS, but you can see another version here]).

The official explanation deals with discrepancies in the way race is recorded by the Florida election offices and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE). The former allows registered voters to include the designation “Hispanic” as their race. The FDLE, however, does not include this category and classifies all Hispanics as “whites.” The way the felon purge list worked was that it matched names taken from the voter registration lists with names from the list of felons. To qualify as a “match” (and thus be purged), there had to be a perfect match between two individuals’ name, gender, date of birth, Social Security number, and race. If any one of these did not match, the individual was not included. This essentially eliminated Hispanics from the purge list because the individual’s “race” category would almost always be different on the two lists (“white” versus “Hispanic”).

That’s the official explanation. Just a glitch. Sounds innocent enough, right? Perhaps, but perhaps not.

First, you need to understand two very important points about Florida – blacks vote overwhelmingly for Democrats, and over 80% of the Cuban population (which is itself 800,000 strong) voted for Bush in 2000. Because of the Cuban pro-GOP tilt, Hispanics in Florida tend to vote more Republican than the national average. The SHT explains:

The decision [to scrap the purge list] means that 28,000 Democrats who might have been banned from voting can cast their vote in November. By comparison, the list contained only 9,500 registered Republicans.

The second, and most critical issue in this controversy, is whether the Florida election officials knew beforehand that including race within the “match” criteria would create problems with the list. If so, someone should go to jail. The officials, of course, denied knowing about the problem. But the SHT reporters dug deeper and found that several people involved did in fact know about this precise problem well before the list was created. I’m not sure why the national media isn’t devoting more attention to what these two reporters have found. Again, this is the key question, so I’ll just quote what the Florida reporters wrote this past July (this is the 7/20 article - I couldn't find a non-LEXIS link, but it's cited almost verbatim here):

As far back as 1997, state election officials knew that using race to create a felon voter purge list could mean Hispanics wouldn't be included in the purge, the Herald-Tribune has learned. Elections officials studied the race issue for the purge conducted before the 2000 election, and again in 2001 as they developed the latest version of the list designed to keep felons from voting.

. . .

"The secretary of state [Hood] had absolutely no knowledge before recalling the list," Department of State spokesperson Nicole de Lara said. De Lara pointed out that Hood was not in office when the list was designed and that she has called for an audit of what led to the Hispanic flaw. Although Hood took office after the list was designed, many of her employees worked on the current list and the one used in 2000. Election officials were aware of matching difficulties involving Hispanic felons when they worked with DBT, a private company that helped build the 2000 purge list. DBT, which was later bought by ChoicePoint, discussed the issue with data experts in the secretary of state's office in late 1997 or early 1998, ChoicePoint spokesman Chuck Jones said. ChoicePoint and state officials analyzed the data together and recognized that using race would create an inaccurate list, he said.

"It was not part of the criteria because most of the data sets didn't support matching race," Jones said. "It was not reliable because of Hispanic or Latinos. We determined jointly that it was not reliable."

Jones cited Janet Modrow as one of the secretary of state employees who would have known about the race problem. Modrow also played a central role in developing the latest purge list. Modrow told the Herald-Tribune on Friday she needed permission from a secretary of state spokesperson before she could answer a reporter's questions.

Department of State records show that the issue of race came up again in October 2001, less than eight months before the unveiling of the Central Voter Database. That database of the state's registered voters was partly designed to allow election officials to identify felons who were registered to vote. Technical advisers charged with developing the database discussed race at the October meeting and concluded that Hispanic could not be used as a separate race category in creating the match, meeting minutes show. The minutes show that the committee planned to group Hispanics with whites for matching purposes. That step would have allowed Hispanics to be included in the felon list because Hispanics are reported in the white race categories in many voter registration databases and by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

Chuck Smith, a Hillsborough County elections supervisor employee who served on the technical advisory committee, said he remembers a meeting where concerns about the use of race were raised. Smith said the concern came up because the committee knew that voters couldn't report their race as Hispanic in most counties before 1994." Prior to 1994, everybody was considered to be white or black," Smith said. "It was kind of a weird merge thing."

Paul Craft, voting systems chief with the Division of Elections, said he also remembers discussing concerns over relying on race to match felons and voters. But Craft said he forgot to mention those concerns to Clay Roberts, his boss at the time. Roberts, the elections chief in 2002, made a decision that ultimately created the data flaw that omitted Hispanics. In May 2002, just days before the voter database was unveiled, Roberts ordered a rewrite of the matching procedures.

He insisted that a registered voter's race match exactly with someone in the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's database. Because the FDLE classifies Hispanics as white, Roberts' decision virtually ensured Hispanics would be excluded from the felon list.

Clay Roberts said Monday that he did not remember being at a meeting where the issue was addressed, but that he "vaguely" remembers there being some concerns about how race was kept in voter registration records before 1994.

He "forgot" to mention them. That makes sense. I mean, it's not like issues of race and disenfranchisement had come up in the past few years in the context of a presidential election. But anyway, here’s where it gets really good. Clay Roberts was the Division of Elections Director at the time the list was assembled, and he was appointed by Jeb Bush. Just days before the initial list was to be completed by Accenture (the company hired to help), Roberts stopped it and instructed them to create a more strict matching process that included race. To be fair, this was during litigation stemming from the 2000 debacle and perhaps Roberts wanted to be extra careful. But maybe not. Again, it just sounds fishy. Sorry for the long quotes, but this is important stuff (from the 7/17 SHT article):

In a May 2002 letter that Accenture wrote to the Division of Elections, a company official warned that making changes so close to the June 1 rollout date could cause problems.

"Any change to the application is high risk at this late date, even more so a change like this that has a significant impact on such a crucial part of the process," wrote Meg McLaughlin, a partner in Accenture. "We would prefer not to make the change at all ... but we understand Clay's concerns and the implications of not making this change."

At that point, the company had designed a "loose" matching system that did not require an exact match from one database to the next. But Roberts wasn't satisfied. He required Accenture to change the system so that a person would only show up on the felon list with a 100 percent match to the voter database. The changes nearly eliminated Hispanics from the list because the database of felons kept by the state doesn't offer Hispanic as a race category.

. . .

Roberts said Friday that his insistence on the changes were hardly last minute. He said he told Accenture early in the project that he expected them to use exact matches. "When they started sharing the databases with me, I said, 'This isn't what I asked for,'" Roberts said. However, the documents obtained by the Herald-Tribune indicate otherwise. In fact, the state had to pay Accenture an extra $7,000 to make the changes Roberts ordered. McLaughlin, who was involved in creating the latest central voter database, did not return repeated calls this week.

Long before Accenture laid out its concerns in the letter, state officials knew there would be problems with the central voter database and the felon purge list, according to Paul Craft, voting systems chief for the Division of Elections. In an interview Friday, Craft said he believed that the Division of Elections knew in the summer of 2001 that FDLE's database did not offer Hispanic as a race category. A year later, when Roberts demanded the stricter matching system, no one, including Craft, remembered that, he said. If they had, election officials would have realized that changing the matching requirements would eliminate most Hispanics -- who tend to vote Republican -- from the purge list.

It wasn't an issue in the beginning under Accenture's "loose" matching system because a person could be placed on the purge list even if their race didn't match. Roberts saw that model as too close to the one used for the 2000 election, which led to a class-action lawsuit against the state and a Justice Department investigation.

The third part of this puzzle is that the company mentioned above – Accenture – was hired to create the politically sensitive voter lists even though it had substantial ties to Republicans (as detailed here). Accenture subcontracted some of its work to Election.com. Both companies had a lot of experience in this area. You would think that companies with this much experience would notice the pretty obvious fact that no Hispanics were being included on a list in a state where they make up nearly 20% of the population. That's a pretty big oversight, and one that the SHT noticed on July 3 (no link), just days after the release of the list.

Fourth, you have to remember that the state never wanted to release this list publicly. Had news organizations not battled the state in court, this list would have been applied on November 2. This is a critical point.

Finally, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights was concerned enough that it requested a formal investigation by Ashcroft’s Justice Department. I searched for quite some time, but couldn’t find any indication that the DOJ agreed – which makes sense given that the odds of Ashcroft approving an investigation of Jeb Bush’s election activities are literally zero. But hopefully I’m wrong – please let me know if I am (I’ve emailed some reporters to try to confirm this - or if there is some other recent development that my amateur journalism missed).

Again, there’s no smoking gun, but there’s enough smoke that someone needs to start checking for fire. Let’s hope the blogosphere will start.

__________

As I mentioned earlier, I got to see Outfoxed (the documentary about Fox News) on a theater in Old Town this week. It started slow, and I didn’t buy all of the claims (e.g., the attack on O’Reilly’s use of “shut up” was weak), but it is definitely worth seeing. You can buy it here for ten bucks.

Obviously, everyone knew Fox News was not, um, fair and balanced – that’s nothing new. What I found interesting though is that the movie outlined the various (and often ingenious) tactics and tricks that Fox News uses to implement its slant. I won’t list them all, but there were a few that stood out, largely because I had observed them many times without consciously registering what was going on.

First, there’s the selective news coverage. That’s not earthshaking – you can influence people’s views by choosing to cover – or not cover – certain stories. But what Fox News does – again, which is something I have observed even though it never registered – is that it relentlessly covers “culture war” stories (i.e., guns, God, and gays). These are the types of stories that play on the cultural fears and prejudices of “middle America” – prejudices that are, in my opinion, responsible for the current Republican majority. For example, there are endless number of stories about the removal of the Ten Commandments, or "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance. O’Reilly has these “anti-religion” stories on all the time, usually with wormy-looking liberals. Same deal with gay marriage. During the recent controversy in San Francisco, Fox consistently showed gay men or lesbians kissing. It’s all part of conscious effort to solidify hostility to “liberal cultural values.” It’s the exact same strategy that we saw in the recent RNC mailing about the liberal desire to ban the bible. And that strategy is to get people to hate – on an emotional, non-rational level – Democrats.

Second, there is the “Fox News Alert.” If you don’t watch Fox, the alert is announced in big letters with loud, attention-grabbing audio. The creator of the “Alert” explained that it was originally used for big events like Columbine. But now, it is used to draw attention to very trivial events. For example, the Fox News Alert sirens are now followed by something like, “Cheney Attacks Kerry for Being a Flip-Flopper.” In other words, it’s used to help communicate the talking point of the day from the RNC.

The last point deals less with Fox News than with the entire right-wing media. You can’t underestimate how effective their collective voice is. It’s amazing, and I have a grudging respect for its efficiency. Each day there is an “issue for the day” (e.g., Kerry’s medals, or Swift Boats). And thus, you’ll see that issue covered again and again on Fox. Then, you’ll see the congressional leadership bring it up. Then, you’ll hear it on talk radio. Then, you’ll read it on Drudge and Instapundit. You have to think about this mathematically. For each issue, the combined message reaches millions and millions through the collective efforts of these various branches. For the people who don’t watch Fox News, there’s talk radio, or Drudge. But the key is getting your single talking point out to the maximum number of readers. And they do this masterfully.

Anyway, I’d encourage people to see the movie. There are more - these just stood out to me.

___________

I'm taking today off (as usual), but I would urge everyone to read the LA Times' rather bleak assessment of our progress against Islamic fundamentalism (i.e., "the war on terror"). It provides some strong support for what I argued in my lengthy post on why we were losing the misnamed "war on terror." If you're a newer reader, I'd encourage you to read it here.

___________

Lately I’ve been trying hard to avoid shrillness. After reading Dana Milbank’s collection of quotes today, I’m convinced that shrillness is the only proper response.

Before I get to that, let’s start with the latest Glenn Reynolds/Andrew Sullivan outrage – Joe Lockhart’s disparaging comments about Allawi being a puppet. Sullivan is outraged by them – Reynolds is as well. Now, I will agree that under normal circumstances, the following comments would be irresponsible:

The last thing you want to be seen as is a puppet of the United States, and you can almost see the hand underneath the shirt today moving the lips.

But these are not normal circumstances. Allawi was brought here – forty days from the election – as part of the Bush re-election strategy, and everyone knows it. This was supposed to be a victory lap, further solidifying the themes presented at the Republican Convention – until Kerry and reality intruded. Indeed, Allawi even adopted Bush talking points about how much progress Iraq was making, and that the terrorists were "getting more desperate." So, let’s dispense with the little charade about how this trip was beyond politics. It was entirely about politics.

Second, given that Bush is so radioactive in Iraq right now, I think that trotting out Allawi in the Rose Garden does little to help his legitimacy in the eyes of American-hating Iraqis. On this point, Lockhart is right on. The more Allawi is seen as a puppet of Bush (which was pretty much confirmed this week), the less chance of success he – and thus we – have. If I'm right, then Bush is sacrificing Allawi's legitimacy for the sake of his re-election.

I also want to address some of the despicable quotes listed in Milbank’s article today in which he describes the clearly coordinated attack that Kerry’s criticisms are hurting our troops and helping the enemy. Here are a few:

Bush: “You can embolden an enemy by sending a mixed message. You can dispirit the Iraqi people by sending mixed messages. You send the wrong message to our troops by sending mixed messages.

Cheney: John Kerry is trying to tear down all the good that has been accomplished, and his words are destructive to our effort in Iraq and in the global war on terror.

The surrogates were even more explicit. Milbank lists more. My favorite was Orrin Hatch: “[Democrats are] consistently saying things that I think undermine our young men and women who are serving over there.”

I’ll tell you what undermines our troops – getting troops killed undermines troops, Mr. Hatch – not criticizing the failed policies that got them killed in the first place. Bumbling an occupation and having no plan undermines troops. And Mr. Cheney, I’ll tell you what’s destructive to our effort in the global war on terror – your invasion of Iraq, which was Osama’s wet dream. And Mr. Bush, I’ll tell you how to embolden an enemy – invade the second-holiest land of Islam for no reason and then execute the war without a shred of competence. Lying about our progress also sends the wrong message to the people who are actually fighting your terrorist-aiding war. Let’s not forget that. We know exactly who – and what policies – have emboldened our enemies and undermined our troops. And it’s not John Kerry, or his criticisms of your failure. Nice try, though.

And last thing, Glenn Reynolds wins the Hermann Goering Award today. If you’ll remember Goering’s famous line:

Gilbert [the interviewer]: "There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."

Göring: "Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

And now, Glenn Reynolds:

This is behavior that is absolutely unacceptable coming from a Presidential campaign in wartime, and it's not an isolated incident but part of a pattern of such behavior. Joe Lockhart should apologize for these remarks, and Kerry should fire him. Otherwise you're going to hear a lot of people questioning Kerry's patriotism. And they'll be right to.

I for one am sick and tired of hearing attacks on those who attack failed policies that got our troops killed, destabilized the Middle East, and have been the biggest gift ever to militant Islam. Don’t blame the messenger, buddy.

__________

Kerry just hit one out of the park. I just watched his speech outlining his plan to win the war on terror, and it was right on. You can read the speech here. Anyway, as regular readers know, the following was music to my ears:

The invasion of Iraq was a profound diversion from the battle against our greatest enemy – Al Qaeda -- which killed more than three thousand people on 9/11 and which still plots our destruction today. . . . To destroy our enemy, we have to know our enemy. We have to understand that we are facing a radical fundamentalist movement with global reach and a very specific plan. They are not just out to kill us for the sake of killing us. They want to provoke a conflict that will radicalize the people of the Muslim world, turning them against the United States and the West. And they hope to transform that anger into a force that will topple the region’s governments and pave the way for a new empire, an oppressive, fundamentalist superstate stretching across a vast area from Europe to Africa, from the Middle East to Central Asia.

Read the whole thing.

On an aside, I want make a couple of other random observations. Although I flirted with Dean, but actually favored Edwards in the primary, the selection of Kerry makes a lot more sense when you remember how prominent national security was going to be this year. Edwards and Dean could not have given the speech I heard today. Perhaps Wesley Clark could have. Regardless, Kerry is - despite certain political weaknesses he may have - extremely qualified and credible to attack Bush in this area, which is the area that will decide the presidency.

Second, I watched Outfoxed last night (the documentary about Fox News). I'll have more to say about the movie later today. But as I watching the speech on CNN, I thought, "Hmm... I wonder if Fox News is covering this Kerry speech live." I flipped over, and it actually was. Or so I thought. About two minutes later, and while Kerry was still in the middle of his speech, a talking head popped up to tell us how busy Bush had been that morning attending to the actual business of the nation, rather than campaigning. Then, amazingly, it cut away from Kerry and started covering Bush instead. Though I turned the channel quickly, half-laughing at the sheer obnoxiousness, I'm pretty sure he was standing with children (perhaps from Beslan? - again, I turned it so quickly I couldn't tell). But I did turn back a few minutes later and Bush was still on. That network is a pathetic joke.

__________

If you want a good reason why I’m hesitant to trust conservatives to fight the “war on terror,” just read Andrew McCarthy’s NRO piece here (it’s a bit long, but worth the read). Quite simply, they just don’t understand it. Now, I should give McCarthy some credit – with respect to some parts of his argument, he’s dead-on right. But the other parts are so troubling – and so wrong – that they undermine what could be a very insightful and powerful argument.

First, to his credit, he understands that we are not fighting a war against terror, but a war against militant Islam. Kudos – I wish more people understood that most basic of points (and I one I elaborated on at length here). Second, he rightly points out that Bush is going to have hard time responding to Kerry’s new charge that Iraq was a diversion from the war on terror.

Senator Kerry's claim is not frivolous. Yes, bottom line, he is wrong, but only insofar as the war, properly framed and understood, is concerned. That is why the challenge Kerry appears, finally, to have settled on for the electoral-stretch run will find some traction.

McCarthy urges Bush to argue that Iraq is indeed part of the war, but not the war on terror - the war against militant Islam. But here’s his key move – he then tries to explain why Iraq was actually related to the greater war against militant Islam. And that’s where I get off the train.

Iraq was a diversion, regardless of whether you’re talking about the fantasy war, or the real one. It frustrates me, because McCarthy is almost so right. But for someone who obviously understands the true enemy we’re facing, it’s borderline insane to argue that Iraq was somehow connected to this particular fight. In reality, and as I explained in the post noted above, the invasion of Iraq was precisely the wrong thing to do once you realize who you’re actually fighting – and especially when you understand the religious nature of the fight.

A lot of this argument depends on what I said in the earlier post, so I won’t repeat it all again. But the bottom line is that militant Islamists wanted Saddam out of power. Indeed, Saddam was part of the larger Saudi-Egyptian-Syrian-Jordanian axis of regimes that Osama desperately wants to overthrow. People must understand – Osama hates these regimes too. And that’s not even considering the way that the invasion of holy Iraq validated Osama’s claim that the U.S. was attacking Islam, which in turn provided the religious justification (indeed, religious obligation) for a defensive jihad. The "terrorists" pouring into Iraq consider themselves as defending Islam - the same thing happened when Russia occupied Afghanistan.

But McCarthy rattles off several supposed links between Saddam and al Qaeda to make his point that the invasion of Iraq was connected - and indeed, helped - the fight against militant Islam. To do so, he must ignore the conclusions of the 9/11 Commission, which flatly contradict him. But then he lists several other alleged “links” that supposedly justify his conclusion. Some I’ve never heard of (and I read the 9/11 Commission Report), so maybe readers can help. Some I know are false, and some are just ridiculous.

First, he makes a big deal of the supposed “contacts.”

[T]he IC [Intelligence Community] said well, sure, but there was no meaningful relationship, just unconsummated flirting. That, naturally, couldn't bear scrutiny either: Al Qaeda is a full-time terrorist organization dedicated to the destruction of America, and Saddam was a virulently anti-American tyrant.

Umm, no. First, what we know as “al Qaeda” was an inchoate organization when Saddam had “contacts” in Sudan in the mid-1990s. Go read the 9/11 Commission Report on p. 59: "[I]t would be misleading to apply the label 'al Qaeda operations' too often in these early years [i.e., 1992-1996]." That's an important point. Second, McCarthy should know that al Qaeda is a world-wide Islamic insurgency. As such, one of their most immediate goals is to remove certain regimes such as the Sauds’ - the same regime that Saddam also hated for obvious reasons. The idea that a “contact” meant Saddam wanted them to destroy America is simply wrong.

I don’t want to get into a point-by-point refutation of the article - if you read my earlier post, you'll understand why I think he's wrong. The main thing, though, is that “contacts” is a ridiculous metric to apply when you - as you must - use al Qaeda’s relations with other regimes as the baseline for comparison. Using McCarthy's metric (or criteria), we should replace almost every regime in the Middle East, and Iraq would still be on the bottom of the list. Yes, if you are firmly committed to finding a link before you assess the evidence, you can come up a shard here and there. But that’s not how empiricism works – that’s how advocacy works. And that’s what McCarthy is doing. The distinction is critical.

As for the rest, the most egregious errors are saying that Saddam harbored al-Zarqawi, when the latter was purposely hiding out in the no-fly zone, where Saddam had no control. And McCarthy also tries to link Saddam’s support of Palestinian bombers with Islamic fundamentalism. Please understand that the Palestinian conflict is a nationalist movement, not an Islamic fundamentalist one, though the latter gets support from the perceived abuses in the former.

In short, I’d encourage people to go read my post to see why McCarthy is wrong (or half-wrong). His argument is especially curious given that McCarthy displays a much sounder knowledge of the overall war than most conservatives I read and talk to.

__________

John Kerry is sitting alone, thinking about the election, when he looks up in the mirror and sees a reflection of his younger self looking back.

KERRY ’71: You’ve forgotten me.

KERRY ’04: I talk about you every day.

KERRY ’71: That’s not me. You’ve forgotten about me.

KERRY ’04: I’m losing.

KERRY ’71: Of course you are.

KERRY ’04: It’s because of the war.

KERRY ’71: It’s because you’ve abandoned me. This war was wrong, John.

KERRY ’04: What would you have me do? Reality doesn’t matter. It’s what people perceive. Do you think people in Ohio and Pennsylvania are going to vote for me if I say this war was a mistake? You have no grasp on political reality. You never did. You should never have spoken to the Senate about the atrocities.

KERRY ’71: You don’t believe that.

KERRY ’04: I can’t come out against the war.

KERRY ’71: Then you have betrayed me, and everything you fought for.

KERRY ’04: You have to be realistic about these things.

KERRY ’71: You have forgotten me, but I remember you, John. You were young once. Full of passion. Enraged about the lies that sent children to their graves – and almost sent you to yours. You watched leaders lie and send young men to be slaughtered even after they knew the war was hopeless. And you fought back the best you could, though you were powerless then. But you remember what you said, John? You said, “By God, this will never happen again.” You swore it. You thought you were spared for a reason. You said, “By God, never again,” and you said it with blood in your eyes.

KERRY ’04: I remember.

KERRY ’71: And now here you are. You have a chance to stop another Vietnam. You can punish lying leaders who sent troops to die carelessly, and continue sending them even after they’ve given up on the war. You asked God for this opportunity, John. You said, “Send me, and it will never happen again.” God and Fate have kept their end of the bargain. And here you are – but you are silent.

KERRY ’04: I must win first. I cannot help them if I don’t win. And this is the only way to win.

KERRY ’71: But you’re losing. This war is wrong John.

KERRY ’04: What should I say?

KERRY ’71: What you believe. This war was wrong.

KERRY ’04: The war is supported in Ohio.

KERRY ’71: Goethe wrote, “Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid.” The polls will come to you. People have given up on this war. But you must make the case, and you must take the risk.

KERRY ’04: You’re right.

KERRY ’71: You had a mission, John. You swore to God that you would never let this happen again. You swore. And God has put you here – you are the only man on the planet who can remove this president. You must fix the war, John. This president is lost in delusion and fantasy.

KERRY ’04: And if it can’t be fixed?

KERRY ’71: You must bring them home, no matter how loudly the Weekly Standard squeals.

KERRY ’04: So many have died.

KERRY ’71: And many more will, and for nothing other than political calculations. Tell the truth, and you will win. Stop running from me, and you will win. Remember me, and you will win.

KERRY ’04: I remember.

KERRY ’71: The hell with the Swift Boat Vets, the ghosts of Vietnam are with you John. They know they died for lies, and that you tried to stop future deaths. Your name was spared from the black wall for a reason, John. You swore to God, “never again.” You said, “not when I get up there.” And you were spared.

KERRY ’04: And if I lose?

KERRY ’71: Do you remember One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest? Do you remember what McMurphy said when he tried to lift the fountain to break out of the asylum? It was too heavy, so he dropped it. But you remember what he said?

KERRY ’04: He said, "But I tried, didn't I? God-damn it. At least I did that."

____________

John Kerry, last Monday at NYU:

It is never easy to discuss what has gone wrong while our troops are in constant danger. But it’s essential if we want to correct our course and do what’s right for our troops instead of repeating the same mistakes over and over again.

I know this dilemma first-hand. After serving in war, I returned home to offer my own personal voice of dissent. I did so because I believed strongly that we owed it those risking their lives to speak truth to power. We still do.

_________

After reading some of the thoughtful comments to last night's post, I did want to make one thing clear. I do not support "democracy promotion" if that entails imposing it by military force. Again, as I explained last night, this is the problem with arguing about such a vague and abstract concept - no one knows what it really means.

But just because I reject democracy promotion through the barrel of a gun (sounds too much like Rousseau's infamous "forced to be free" line), that doesn't necessarily mean that progressives should completely abandon the goal. For example, I have strong reservations about our support for Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Putin's latest power grab. I also am inclined to agree with Boot's claim that terrorism is less likely to happen in places where people are free to air and channel their frustrations through the political process. [For the record, this is why the "right to life" groups developed and are so militant - the Supreme Court prevented them from venting their anger through the ballot box.] I'm convinced that Palestinian terror is inextricably bound to the Palestinians' political disenfranchisement. In fact, I would be more inclined to support parts of the neocon foreign policy if it supported democracy promotion on both sides of the dispute.

Anyway, the question here is one of details. If adopting a neocon foreign policy in the name of democracy promotion means bravely sending others' children to die, then the hell with democracy promotion. If it means providing economic carrots and sticks to encourage reform, then I'm listening. But again, that's the problem - it could mean anything. It's a void upon which people project their own preferences, much like an inkblot test. That's why we need to know exactly what people mean when they say they want a democracy promotin' foreign policy.

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A while back, Kevin Drum linked to neocon Max Boot’s column and explained that it provided “a pretty good summary of the neocon case for democracy promotion as a primary imperative of U.S. foreign policy.” Critically, Boot (and the forthcoming book he cites) argues that successful democracies can arise before economic development, as the former stimulates the latter. Whether you agree or disagree, this question cuts to the very heart of the debate over Iraq. And I suspect it will be the central front in the battle for the soul of American foreign policy. As for me, I’m skeptical of the neocon (formerly Wilsonian) vision, but I’m not yet willing to toss it entirely. In fact, I wonder if the Left is making a mistake by entirely rejecting the neocon vision because of the failure in Iraq. More on that in a second.

The reason I say this cuts to the heart of the Iraq debate is because our mission in Iraq rested on the premise that democracy could be imposed upon a nation that (arguably) lacked the pre-existing economic foundations necessary for democracy to work (markets enforced by rule of law; educated populace; strong middle class; etc.). When Iraq fails, the million-dollar question will be whether it could have ever succeeded in the first place. In other words, was it possible to create a successful democracy in Iraq? Or was the idea itself so fundamentally flawed that Iraq would have failed even assuming infinite competence? In many respects, the direction of our foreign policy will depend on the answer to this question. And personally, I’m skeptical of the neocon/Wilsonian dream for several reasons, despite my lingering infatuation with the neocons’ French Revolutionary idealism.

First, I explained here why I doubted that democracy (generally) could succeed without prior economic development. The people Boot cites disagree, and can probably present a strong empirical case for why I’m wrong. If their argument holds up, perhaps I’ll change my mind. But my skepticism is rooted in my economic materialism, which means that I agree with Marx’s argument that economics makes the world go round. (I disagree strongly with his economic theories and remedies, but I agree with him about the centrality of economics to politics and culture.). I laid out my thoughts in that earlier post, so I won’t rehash them here.

So, the first point is that I am very skeptical that democracies can succeed without pre-existing economic development. I believe quite literally that money is power, and the right to vote will mean little if the money isn’t spread out widely enough among the people voting (see, e.g., Russia).

But let’s assume I’m wrong. Let’s assume the central idea of the neocon foreign policy – democracy promotion – is not inherently flawed. And after all, for as much bashing as they’ve received from the Left, there is a great deal of romantic idealism in the neocons' foreign policy vision. In fact, I often wonder why these people are in the same party with traditional conservatives like George Will who believe (perhaps correctly) that man is bad and cannot be changed or made better by abstract ideas or government intervention. I mean, when you stop and think about it, the neocons are the intellectual heirs of the French Revolution, a decidedly un-conservative event. The central intellectual premise of their foreign policy suggests that they should favor more government intervention in the domestic arena. (I didn’t read Brooks’s NYT Magazine manifesto yet – perhaps I should).

For those who are willing to give democracy promotion a chance (and I suspect that more people on the Left would be if the neocons hadn’t been so obnoxious about Iraq), the question isn’t so much the correctness of the goal, but the means by which that goal should be implemented. In other words, the devil is in the details. The concept “democracy promotion” seems OK on the surface, but it’s so abstract that it’s hard to say what it actually means.

I guess what I’m saying is that any debate over “democracy promotion” in the abstract is both meaningless and pointless. The wisdom of any democracy promotion policy must be debated within the context of some concrete background. Arguing about the wisdom of democracy promotion in the abstract is a debate about nothing. Instead, we should argue whether democracy promotion – in the form of “Specific Policy X” – will work in this or that specific country or region and why.

And if the policy-in-question doesn’t work in one region, that doesn’t necessarily mean that we should abandon the whole idea of democracy promotion. But it does mean that we shouldn’t try to force it where it has no chance of being successful. In fact, I think the neocons’ greatest error was not their idea of democracy promotion, but their desperation to ignore concrete reality and engage in an excessively abstract debate in order to implement their grand idea – which they just knew would work.

Take Iraq, or even Afghanistan for that matter. Even if democracy promotion is a proper goal, it was clearly improper to test the theory in these two countries. More precisely, it was foolish to try to promote democracy in the specific way we did – by imposing new, secular, Western democracies through military force in places where democracy had little chance of taking root.

Obviously, I’m not saying that Arabs or Muslims aren’t capable of self-governance (though I wonder sometimes if we are). What I am saying is that the foundation of successful democracies depends upon certain pre-existing conditions being met. For example, democracies won’t do well in nations where the hostility among rival ethnic groups is so strong that they are unwilling to submit to the results of the ballot box. Even in pluralistic America, we forget that our own unique, contingent democracy was only established after one rival ethnic group was exterminated and another enslaved. I think the neocons also forget that Iraq, like many of the nations in the Middle East and Africa, isn’t an organic country. It was drawn up on a table in 1919 by Europeans. Accordingly, it included three ethnic groups that have no business being in the same country. They hate each other, they have slaughtered each other, and they will never submit to the rule of the other. I mean, do you think the Kurds are going to submit to a majority decision made in Baghdad over Kirkuk? In my opinion, real democracy promotion would require completely redrawing the map of the Middle East that was created in Paris after World War I (or at least in those countries that aren’t ethnically homogenous). But regardless, Iraq was a horrible choice for the democracy promotion experiment. Horrible.

As for Afghanistan, it's an even worse choice. I don’t think that it’s racist to say the millennia-long tribal culture of Afghanistan is simply inhospitable to a Western-style, liberal democracy. Anonymous makes this point over and over again in Imperial Hubris – Afghanistan is very fundamentalist, and has been for a very long time. And in the end, hard-line Islamic fundamentalists will rule in Kabul. The Russians learned it. We will learn it. And Bush’s fantasy-land speeches won't change it.

However, the failures in Iraq and Afghanistan don’t necessarily mean that we should abandon democracy promotion as a goal – though that may be the result. But it does mean that we shouldn't have reduced the arguments relating to the invasion and occupation into a simplified, abstract debate over whether to support democracy promotion itself.

So, I'm honestly not sure where I stand. I'm skeptical of the neocon vision, largely because of Iraq. After all, idealism seems a bit obscene next to the concrete reality of 1,032 dead soldiers. But I would be willing to reconsider it if we could get the debate out of the clouds.

[Update: Haloscan is a bit screwy today. It's not registering that there are any comments - and it (or Blogger) erased some of the edits I made to this post last night (so I added some of them back). But there are some very good comments below, and I'd encourage people to check them out (especially the Fukuyama quote provided by Eric Martin).

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As I noted yesterday, the Bush team will attack Kerry's opposition to the invasion by pointing out past statements where Kerry supported the invasion. Just look at the following bit from the NYT today:

Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's chief political adviser, seemed gleeful at the engagement, saying, "The guy seems to have this belief that every time he speaks it's a blank sheet, and he doesn't have to worry about contradictory things he's said in recent days, weeks and months."

And I'm sure this will come up in the debate. If it does (and it surely will), here's how Kerry should respond:

BUSH: Senator Kerry now says the world would be safer with Saddam in power. There he goes again twisting in the wind. For example, Senator Kerry said just the opposite in 2003. He said, "I think it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein." Freedom. . . madman . . . strong, steady . . . etc.

KERRY: Yes, Mr. President, I did say that. And the reason I said it was because I thought you could be trusted. You cannot. I believed you when you said Saddam had WMDs. You were wrong. I believed you when you said Saddam had links to al Qaeda. You were wrong. I believed you when you said we would be welcomed. You were wrong. And I believed you when you said Ahmed Chalabi could run a new, democratic Iraq. You were wrong. A lot of people supported your policies until they realized you cannot be trusted to tell the truth about Iraq. And for that reason, this country needs new leadership and a new direction. You had your chance to lead in Iraq. You have not led. I will.

Then I get up and dance around in front of the TV, quoting Smoky from the movie Friday - "You just got knocked da f*** out.!"

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Kevin Drum asks whether Congress has the power to remedy gerrymandering. The answer is a pretty clear "yes," at least with respect to congressional races. Article I, Section 4 states:

The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.

And I agree with Kevin that any gerrymandering reform must be a national effort, given the quite large collective action problem. So yes, Congress can do it. But the reality is that Congress will never do it, at least until the two-party system collapses (and it's held up pretty well for a long time).

I wrote about this problem in one of my earliest posts back in January where I argued that the courts are the only possible hope we have for fixing gerrymandering. I provide a more complete argument there, along with some statistics for those who are interested.

To briefly recap that post, the problem with gerrymandering is that it has become a "political process" problem. In other words, it is a defect that cannot be remedied because the defect has become entwined with deeper, more fundamental flaws in the structure of the political process.

The most classic example of a political process problem was the disenfranchisement and discrimination against blacks in the pre-civil rights era South. This problem could not be remedied by the southern legislatures (are you listening Judge Bork?) because the people affected couldn't even vote in the first place. The process - and thus the text produced by the process - was inherently flawed. It took some long-overdue action by Congress and the Supreme Court to step in and fix the flaw. Incidentally, this is the same reason why the Israeli government does nothing to remedy the plight of the Palestinians - the latter can't vote and so there are no rational incentives to help them.

Another example of a flaw that cannot be fixed is the malapportionment of the Senate, and the incorporation of this malapportionment into the Electoral College. As I've noted before, if the Electoral College calculations were made without including the two Senate points, Gore would have won. For those who want to learn more on this flaw in the process, you should read another early post of mine here. I explained:

Let's look at the data another way - Texas, NY, and California have 74 million people and six Senators. The following states have about 35 million people collectively (less than half the amount of the former three): Alabama, Alaska, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Utah, Wyoming, Arkansas, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, Iowa, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, and New Mexico. These predominantly rural states also have 38 Senators. THIRTY EIGHT. The implications are obvious for any issue that pits urban and rural interests against each other in the Senate.

You might respond that the Framers knew this would happen and that Senate malapportionment was part of the deal. And perhaps you're right. But, at the time of the Framing (1790), Virginia was the largest state with roughly 750,000 people. Delaware was the smallest with around 60,000 people. So, the biggest state was about 12 times larger than the smallest state. Today - California is the largest state (34 million) and Wyoming is the smallest (500,000). So, California is 68 TIMES more populated than Wyoming.

This is ridiculous by almost anyone's definition of democracy. But it will never be changed. To get rid of the Senate would require a new Constitution altogether since the current one explicitly forbids removing equal representation without a state's consent. But even a more modest goal - removing the two Senate "points" from the Electoral College calculations - would require a constitutional amendment and thus support from 3/4 of the states. You can see where I'm going. The states that benefit from this malapportionment will always have veto power over any amendment because more than 25% of the total number of states benefit from the malapportionment. Thus, because of these structural flaws in our political process, the Electoral College will never be made more democratic.

And that brings us back to gerrymandering. The problem is that fixing gerrymandering would require supermajority (actually, majority) support from a legislative body whose members are themselves elected from gerrymandered districts. If anything can unite the House in this polarized age, it is support for the structure of the political process that puts - and keeps - the Representatives in office.

Admittedly, this is not as intractable of a political process problem as, say, black disenfranchisement or the Electoral College, but there are many structural obstacles to reform. First, in a two-party system, one party will always be in the majority. Do you really think that the majority would risk its status for the sake of a more pure democracy (especially in light of how fond both parties are of each other these days)? Hell, even a good share of the minority party legislators depend upon gerrymandering too (see, e.g., the California delegation). Second, you must remember that this is an age of centralized national parties where both individual Representatives and state legislators depend upon the national party leadership for funds, campaign advice, and high-level visitors. I doubt that we can find that many Republicans willing to incur the wrath of DeLay to pass reform that will make them have to work harder to win their seat. And the state parties - where there is some hope, I suppose - are often subservient to the national parties. Third, I doubt that the gerrymandered districts themselves will ever punish their Representatives for opposing reform out of fear of losing the district to the "other" party. Remember too that gerrymandering can frustrate the will of the centrist majority by varying the levels of partisans in each district. And even if a gerrymandering referendum proceeded on a state level (rather than as an issue in a single race), there is the collective action problem that Kevin discussed.

The only path to legislative reform that I can envision would require a massive mobilization of single-issue voters across the nation. And because I suspect the overwhelming majority of Americans don't know what "gerrymandering" means, I'm skeptical that it will ever happen.

That's why I favor judicial activism in this one area (and I'm generally very skeptical of an active judiciary, much like the old Progressives were). Courts should take a greater role (ex ante - no Bush v. Gore please) in fixing flaws in the political process (e.g., restoring voting rights to ex-offenders who can't vote).

But I doubt that's going to happen. The Court has come to the very edge of saying that gerrymandering is a "political question" that should be left to the legislature, which of course is the whole problem in the first place - the legislature can't or won't fix it. And so, gerrymandering will continue for the same reason that rural areas will continue to be grossly overrepresented in Congress and continue to have disproportionate influence over the White House. And that reason is that our much-revered democracy has some pretty severe structural flaws.

By the way, with respect to the presidential race, it's easy to forget how much that the structural cards are stacked against Democrats and urban interests more generally in any national election these days. It's not just that Kerry ain't an ideal candidate. He's fighting within a system that is structured in a way that hurts his chances - namely, by giving less people more voting power than they should otherwise have (which is a different question than the standard math model question of which states' voters have more influence in the Electoral College).

[Update: This is another example of how the existence of two centralized political parties hurts our democracy and contradicts the design of the Framers. As I've explained before, the Senate and the House were intended to have a natural friction - and they still do, to some extent. But the political parties reduce that friction, and often for the worse. For example, if the Senate weren't artificially connected to the House through shared political parties, it could push for gerrymandering reform fairly vigorously. But it won't do that. That's because Frist - and many others - gets his marching orders, or at least coordinates them, with the House leadership and the White House. That's why Bush has never vetoed a bill. But even if the Democrats controlled the Senate, I'm not sure that any gerrymandering reform bill would ever reach the floor. There would be too many Democrats in the House whose political existence depended upon the gerrymandered districts.

I suppose reform is possible, but I honestly don't see how the reform could ever get passed as long as the districts are shaped the way they are - which of course is the problem that needs to be reformed.]

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Like I said earlier, I liked almost everything about Kerry's speech today. He disaggregated Iraq from the war on terror. He explained that Iraq has made us less secure. He questioned Bush's honesty and judgment (with an assist from Robert Novak, who reported today that Bush is going to "cut and run" almost immmediately after the election). And he offered a response to Bush's gross simplification that removing Saddam justified everything:

Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator who deserves his own special place in hell. But that was not, in itself, a reason to go to war. The satisfaction we take in his downfall does not hide this fact: we have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure.

But most importantly, he finally offered a very clear position on the invasion of Iraq. Knowing what we now know, Kerry would not have invaded - which of course is an extremely clear contrast with Bush who confidently asserts every day that he would have done nothing different.

Yet today, President Bush tells us that he would do everything all over again, the same way. How can he possibly be serious? Is he really saying that if we knew there were no imminent threat, no weapons of mass destruction, no ties to Al Qaeda, the United States should have invaded Iraq? My answer is no – because a Commander-in-Chief’s first responsibility is to make a wise and responsible decision to keep America safe.

This position is risky, but it's about time Kerry started taking some risk. And even if Bush wins, we can sleep better knowing that Kerry went down hitting him on his greatest and most catastrophic failure. The risk, of course, is that the Bush administration can claim that Kerry is taking a new position on Iraq, and thus flip-flopping again. And to some extent, they're right. But even so, I think the "flip-flop" might not be fatal for reasons I'm about to explain.

First, I should say that almost everything Kerry has said and done is consistent with the position of "supporting authority" but "opposing the execution of the authority." That's a perfectly logical position, and Kerry's (now clear) opposition to the invasion in light of what we know now fits in with that position nicely. The problem has been that Kerry has been wishy-washy on the actual invasion until today. However, not everything Kerry has said has been consistent. Take, for instance, the Democratic debate in May 2003 when Bush was (literally) flying high:

[MODERATOR]: Senator Kerry, the first question goes to you. On March 19 President Bush ordered General Tommy Franks to execute the invasion of Iraq. Was that the right decision at the right time?

KERRY: George, I said at the time I would have preferred if we had given diplomacy a greater opportunity, but I think it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein, and when the president made the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact that we did disarm him.

No two ways around that - it's inconsistent with what he said today. That's true regardless of whether we're talking about actual "flip-flops" or perceived ones in the minds of less-informed voters (the latter is of course more important). But still, I think that if Kerry will take this new line and stick with it for the last two months, this "flip-flop" won't be fatal.

The main reason why I think so is that the American people have done a great deal of flip-flopping themselves. As I explained here, the word "flip-flop" is sometimes wrongly used to describe rational reassessments of one's position based on new facts. And based on what we now know - no WMDs, no terrorist links, unviable postwar strategy, increased insurgency, etc. - it's perfectly rational to have had one position in May 2003, and another in September 2004. Indeed, a very large percentage of the American people have done just that. And it makes sense that they should. They were told that we were going to war because of Rationale "X" and "Y," at Cost "Z." However, "X" and "Y" have now been completely discredited, and the brand new retroactively-applied rationale ("democracy-building") is also dead (just read Novak, the recent intelligence assessment, or the CSIS Report). Also, "Cost Z" was an absurdly low estimate in terms of both money and human life and limb. Given that all the rationales are dead, and that the war is far more expensive than advertised, and especially that it seems to have helped terrorism (and certainly Iran), the American people aren't "flip-flopping," they're being empiricists. New facts have entered their calculations, which logically imply that a new conclusion will be reached.

While Kerry's statement today contradicts an earlier one, it won't have as much resonance as a "flip-flop" as Rove would desire. That's because it's consistent with the evolution of thought that many other Americans have experienced.

To be sure, the inconsistency won't help Kerry. The real issue is how much it will hurt him, and hinder his new, strong attacks. I would like to think that it won't hurt him much, so long as he sticks to this new position clearly and lives or dies by it. I can't remember where I read it, but I remember that Rove told some reporter (with glee) that Kerry was all over the place on Iraq. And they've hit him hard on that ground, but you can bet they expected the race wouldn't be close right now. After all, if Iraq had turned out well, Kerry's vote against the $87 billion - along with his various other statements - would surely have destroyed him. But because Iraq has been such a colossal failure, it's not getting the traction they hoped (that traction being a decisive knock-out blow). What's worse, from their perspective, is that because Kerry has now come out with such a clear contrast, Bush is going to have to spend the next two months lying about the progress in Iraq and the correctness of his decision. And the press and even some Republican Senators have been calling him out for it.

Of course, there is the possibility that people will think he's flip-flopping again. That might be true, but Kerry has to take that risk at this point. Still, I think that most people wish that we had never invaded, or at least feel pretty lukewarm about the wisdom of the invasion. Hopefully, it's not too late for Kerry tap into that.

And finally, let me add one thing about the Novak column. If Bush really does intend to pull everyone out after the election, then he and his team have concluded that the mission has failed. And if he has already reached that decision, then he should withdraw troops now. He won't, but he should. If Novak is right, then any American who dies between now and the date of withdrawal was sacrificed for Bush's political campaign. And that's inexcusable and undeniable.

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It's about time. Via Kevin Drum, here's the text of Kerry's speech delivered today. And it's good - real good. Kerry gets it - Bush can only be defeated by pounding him on Iraq and national security. One interesting bit, though, is that Kerry stood by his initial vote, but has finally come out and clearly said that the invasion was wrong. Here's the money quote:

Two years ago, Congress was right to give the President the authority to use force to hold Saddam Hussein accountable. This President… any President… would have needed the threat of force to act effectively. This President misused that authority. The power entrusted to the President gave him a strong hand to play in the international community. The idea was simple. We would get the weapons inspectors back in to verify whether or not Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. And we would convince the world to speak with one voice to Saddam: disarm or be disarmed.

. . .

Instead, the President rushed to war without letting the weapons inspectors finish their work. He went without a broad and deep coalition of allies. He acted without making sure our troops had enough body armor. And he plunged ahead without understanding or preparing for the consequences of the post-war. None of which I would have done.

Yet today, President Bush tells us that he would do everything all over again, the same way. How can he possibly be serious? Is he really saying that if we knew there were no imminent threat, no weapons of mass destruction, no ties to Al Qaeda, the United States should have invaded Iraq? My answer is no – because a Commander-in-Chief’s first responsibility is to make a wise and responsible decision to keep America safe.

Now there is some risk in adopting this position. I'll have more to say about this precise point later today.

[On as aside, I should apologize for my erratic postings. As you know, I'm in the middle of moving. My computer won't arrive until Thursday, and I've been without a high-speed connection for nearly three weeks. It's been a pain to work without it, and the library only gives me an hour per day. So, it's a bit of a miracle that I've been posting as much as I have. But hang in there - this should be the last crazy week. And I'll have more on Kerry later this afternoon.]

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I’m away for the weekend, so I probably won’t post again until Sunday night or Monday morning. I did want to urge everyone to go get a copy of the October 2004 Vanity Fair. It includes a must-read article called “The Path to Florida,” which is a comprehensive look back at the 2000 judicial coup d’etat better known as Bush v. Gore. While the entire article is good, what’s especially interesting (from a legal standpoint) is that the journalists managed to get many of the Supreme Court clerks to talk – and their story is a juicy one. For those who don’t know, it’s exceedingly difficult to get clerks to discuss the internal workings of the Court and the individual Justices. So this article is a rare treat in that it provides us with a window into the way the Court really works.

For example, for all the crap about how conservative jurists are all about “rule of law,” you’ll quickly see how much that politics was driving the Justices’ actions during the entire controversy. Second, the article confirms that "GOP, Inc." has successfully incorporated the judiciary into its vast, interconnected, and well-funded machine that now includes both houses of Congress, the White House, a media empire, and wealthy private groups and think tanks. Third, and in a related point, you’ll see what an absolute and pathetic moron Justice Kennedy is. This passage is especially interesting:

Conservatives, however, were not always happy with Kennedy, either. They had never forgiven him for his votes to uphold abortion and gay rights, and doubted both his intelligence and his commitment to the cause. Convinced he’d strayed on abortion under the pernicious influence of a liberal law clerk – a former student of the notoriously liberal Laurence Tribe of Harvard Law School, who was representing Gore in this case – they took steps to prevent any reoccurrences. Applicants for Kennedy clerkships were now screened by a panel of right-wing stalwarts. “The premise is that he can’t think by himself, and that he can be manipulated by someone in his second year of law school,” one liberal clerk explains. In 2000, as in most years, that system surrounded Kennedy with true believers, all belonging to the Federalist Society, the farm team of the legal right. “He had four very conservative, Federalist Society white guys, and if you look at the portraits of law clerks on his wall, that’s true 9 times out of 10,” another liberal law clerk recalls. “They were by far the least diverse group of clerks.”

Wow. And there’s more where that came from. Most of the quotes come from the more liberal clerks, so take that for what it’s worth (though some conservative clerks also contributed). Overall, it’s a startling look at what was essentially a bare-knuckled, political battle masked by a legal façade with esoteric language. In short, it was a judicial coup.

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Although I have a grudging respect for its political effectiveness, I'm getting really really tired of this line in Bush's stump speech - and one he delivered in his acceptance speech as well:

Do I forget the lessons of September 11th and take the word of a madman... or do I take action to defend our country? Faced with that choice, I will defend America every time.

There are so many different levels of dishonesty here (blatant and obvious dishonesty) that it's hard to know where to start. First, you should keep in mind that this line is 100% pathos. In other words, it's an appeal to emotion, not logic. For example, notice how he throws in "September 11th" and the evil-sounding "madman." And once again, Bush is implicitly connecting 9/11 to Iraq, even though no connection ever existed - and it's highly dishonest to suggest otherwise. Of course, he can say that he's doing no such thing because he is merely talking about the "lessons" of 9/11. But even if he can claim that he's not technically lying, he's still being very dishonest - and that's the word people should be using to evaluate him.

Second, notice the clever use of the "Rove dichotomy." It's a classic rhetorical tactic to reduce what is, in reality, a range of options into a clear, easy-to-understand, either/or dichotomy. In Bush's new "either/or" world, there were only two roads he could have taken. He could have trusted the word of a madman, or he could have defended America. Luckily for us, when faced with this difficult choice, he chose to defend America. The option of threatening force while waiting for inspections to conclude disappears from the menu of options in this new black-and-white fantasy world.

But it's not just that Bush reduces the world into two choices, it's that he also misrepresents what those choices actually are. For example, he equates the invasion of Iraq with "protecting America," even though that particular rationale had almost nothing to do with the original motivation for the war by the people (like Wolfowitz) who dreamed it up. In addition, option #1 was not "taking the word of a madman." That's why we, um, had inspections - because we didn't want to take Saddam's word. Bush could have waited for the conclusions of Hans Blix. Now I don't want to glorify the UN (I have some strong criticisms of it), I just want to point out how Bush's rhetorical world is a fantasy world.

It's not a bad gig - reduce everything into an either/or choice between two fantasy options whose very terms are defined in a way that serves your political interest. These guys are good.

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As I’m sure you know, the assault weapons ban (AWB) expired this week. And while many of you will see the expiration as further proof that Republicans are insane, the truth is a bit more complicated. To me, the real dispute here doesn’t involve the AWB, but whether – and to what extent – we want to embrace the harsh reality of the Second Amendment (right to bear arms). And that question depends upon whether the Second Amendment still has relevance to modern society, or whether it is a historical anachronism that should be read as narrowly as possible. The answer is not as clear as you might think.

The Second Amendment says: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” The traditional debate has been whether the Second Amendment creates a collective right (i.e., state militias protected) or an individual one. I’m not going to get into all that, but I will add that the text presents problems for both camps, which suggests that the amendment is – like so much else in the law – indeterminate. For those interested, Akhil Amar has an excellent textual analysis of this question [sorry, the link on his homepage no longer exists – you’ll have to use Lexis to read it - it's the "Leary Lecture" given in Utah]. Anyway, because the text is indeterminate, I think it’s appropriate to consider policy in determining how broadly or narrowly to construe the right. For example, many think the AWB is blatantly unconstitutional, though the federal courts didn’t agree. Others think that it’s a relic of a bygone day (like the quartering-of-troops amendment) and should be read narrowly. While there’s no right answer, the answer you reach will – and must – be informed by your view of the continuing relevance of the amendment to modern society. (Just saying the “text says so” gives no guidance on what exactly the text means.) With that in mind, let’s look at the purpose served by the Second Amendment.

First, and I’m borrowing heavily from Akhil Amar again, you need to understand that the Constitution’s amendments aren’t just about protecting individuals from tyrannical majorities. Many are about protecting majorities from corrupt government. The right to a jury trial, for example, protects the people from corrupt judges. The Second Amendment should be understood in this way as well. It’s a structural protection, by which I mean that it gives states a way to protect themselves. It provides a deterrent against corruption or overreach by the federal government. And this makes perfect sense when you remember how fresh the American Revolution was in the Framers’ minds.

But here’s what I’m getting at – and I was inspired on this point by my favorite paleocon, Plainsman. The Second Amendment is not pretty. Its very existence is a reflection of the extreme pessimism about human nature shared by the Framers. It assumes that power can be abused, and that guns will sometimes be necessary to keep that power in check. Plainsman captures the point nicely:

The Second Amendment, considered as it should be, as a structural check on authority, is strong medicine indeed. . . . Statecraft ain't beanbag, and nothing worth having is free. Republican government is historically a rare phenomenon. Power tends to be abused. As a result, any structure of separated and limited powers that has a decent chance to permit a republic to take root and flourish is also likely to incorporate some dramatic provisions. So it is not an illusion that our Constitution, by its terms, entails sobering conclusions.

As you can see, many conservatives support guns not because they’re crazy, but because they see guns as a legitimate civil liberties issue. Guns protect civil liberties by deterring government abuse, or so the argument goes. You may disagree, but it has a certain logic to it.

My traditional response had been that these people are living in 1789. First, I had assumed that the notion of armed revolt in the 21st century seemed absurd. Our government would never do anything to justify that. And as a matter of probability, I’d rather take my chances with a narrow Second Amendment rather than allowing urban areas to become infested with lethal weapons in the post-9/11 era where much havoc could be wreaked. Besides, in the age of nuclear weapons, there wasn’t a whole hell of a lot we could do about it anyway. If the government wanted to take us out, it would.

The paleocon response to my point was that I was assuming that just because things have been a certain way for a long time, there’s no reason to believe they will continue being that way. In other words, just because the government hasn’t grown corrupt yet (and I mean to the point of justifying armed revolt), that doesn’t mean it never will. Just look at history. Second, the point of bearing arms is more about the credible threat than revolt itself. From an economics perspective, it raises the costs of potential abusive policies, thus making them less likely to happen.

As you can see, there’s a strong strain of paranoia implicit in this thinking, but paleocons would call it reasoned skepticism based on a pessimistic view of man informed by centuries of history. They might say that the Second Amendment helps prevent an American Putin from centralizing power after a massive, catastrophic nuclear terrorist attack on several cities. I'm not so sure, but that's the argument.

Anyway, that’s the crux of the dispute. If you think that the credible threat of armed revolt has a role in modern society (or more precisely, could have a role), then you will read the Second Amendment broadly and find the AWB unconstitutional. If you don’t, then you will read it more narrowly with an eye to modern crime and urban reality.

I tend to fall into Camp #2, but I can see the logic of the other side’s arguments, especially if I lived in Russia right now. But again, the conservative view is not crazy – it just starts from radically different assumptions about the potential of corruption in the American government. Don’t get me wrong – the conservative view openly contemplates armed rebellion. That seems really harsh, especially when you try to work out who gets to decide when to exercise that right. In fact, I think we fought a war over that. But then again, if it seems harsh and terrifying, then the problem may not be conservatives, but the Second Amendment itself.

Perhaps if I've been unfair to the conservative argument, someone will do a better job articulating why maintaining a credible threat of force has relevance today in our modern, urbanized society. Plainsman?

[Update: After reading the comments, I realized I should clarify one point. Yes, many people support gun rights because of hunting and self-defense. But under these rationales, assault weapons (a poorly defined term - but that's for another day) make no sense. If the purpose of the Second Amendment were only self-defense, then we should not read it to include assault weapons, just as we don't read it to include rocket launchers.

The only reason to read the Second Amendment in a way that makes very-dangerous assault weapons legal is to make sure your militias have bite. And again, that raises the question of whether such a rationale continues to have any practical relevance in modern society.

And again, this is not saying we should read plain text out of the Constitution. The precise question before us is how broadly or narrowly to interpret it given the indeterminacy of words like "arms."]

[Update 2: On an unrelated note. . . once again, the best terrorism analysis is coming from Fafblog.]

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I liked every single bit of this article. Kerry has started hammering Bush on Iraq and on his dishonesty, which are extremely fertile grounds for attacks. I don't have much to add, I just want to revel in these words:

If today's speech to the Guard is any indication, the challenger is not content to cede the commander-in-chief image to the president. . . . "He did not tell you that with each passing day, we're seeing more chaos, more violence, more indiscriminate killings," the senator said. "He did not tell you that with each passing week, our enemies are getting bolder — that Pentagon officials report that entire regions of Iraq are now in the hands of terrorists and extremists. He did not tell you that with each passing month, stability and security seem farther and farther away."

Mr. Kerry cited a report in The New York Times that a classified National Intelligence Estimate prepared for President Bush in late July painted a dark forecast for Iraq's future. Mr. Kerry said the report in The Times showed that "his own intelligence officials have warned him for weeks that the mission in Iraq is in serious trouble."

"You deserve a president who will not play politics with national security, who will not ignore his own intelligence, while living in a fantasy world of spin, and who will give the American people the truth about the challenge our brave men and women face on the front lines," Mr. Kerry said.

That's exactly right big John. If you go down, then go down swinging on this issue. And don't cede an inch of the commander-in-chief issue to this president who has been a horrid military leader. Keep him on the defensive about Iraq, and the news will make your case for you. If you force him to defend himself, we can look forward to more ridiculous statements like this from people like move-it-forward Scotty:

[Scott McClellen] added that "Iraqi leaders and the Iraqi people have proven the pessimists wrong every step of the way."

They have? I'd like to push Scotty a bit on this one. What exactly is he referring to? If anything, the pessimists have been the only ones right about the entire war. Optimism has not been our greatest asset. What we needed were some good old-fashioned pessimists who could be counted on to plan for not only the best-case scenarios (Prime Minister Chalabi; oil line to Israel; flower; chocolates), but the worst-case ones as well.

For the first time in about a month, I'm starting to feel good again about this election.

[Update: By the way, I'm really enjoying Kerry's newest supporter Andrew Sullivan these days. And he certainly has zeroed in on the most important issue of the campaign:

I do not despise Bush; and I think it's highly unhelpful to conflate criticism of this president with hatred. . . . I'm angry at the way in which he has clearly botched a war I believe in and want to succeed. I'm mad that he has ended fiscal conservatism for a generation, attacked gay civil rights and empowered the religious right. But that doesn't mean I despise him. . . . I just think he has failed in the most fundamental task set before him: to win the war in Iraq - the primary front in the war on terror. I think he failed to prepare sufficiently, has been too slow to correct error, and has a dangerously out-of-touch attitide to the growing crisis. My anger is deeper because I once believed and hoped. But it is not hatred.

That's right. Wars are tragic. If you lead one successfully, you're a hero for all time - and that can never be undone. But if you fail, and especially if the failure can be traced to your own incompetence, then you will pay the price - forever. Risk cuts both ways - and you don't get second chances.

Bush is now in the midst of his tragic, MacBethian fall. The only question is whether the American voters will realize that before or after the election.]

[Update 2: (Via the Corner). The new Pew poll looks good:

Sept 8-10 (RV) Bush 52; Kerry 40; (LV) Bush 54; Kerry 38
Sept 11-14 (RV) Bush 46; Kerry 46; (LV) Bush 47; Kerry 46

I have no doubt that Judy Woodruff will soon be asking if the Bush campaign is on the verge of collapse.]

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In Part 1, I argued that Bush should not be reelected because his policies clearly indicate that he and his administration don’t understand the Islamic insurgency known as the "war on terror." Essentially, I made three points (relying heavily upon Imperial Hubris): First, there is a great deal of discontent among Muslims worldwide that stems from specific, concrete policies of both this country and others that they perceive as being hostile to Islam or Muslim populations. Second, bin Laden has shrewdly re-interpreted these polices as a worldwide attack on Islam and infused them with the religious concept of “defensive jihad.” Third, he has convinced much of the Muslim world that the United States is at the root of this alleged worldwide attack on Islam – e.g., our support for Israel; support of other nations oppressing Muslims; our support of Arab dictators; Iraq; Afghanistan; etc.

Today, I want to focus specifically on the first point – the nature and depths of Muslim discontent. I focus here because I firmly believe that any long-term strategy for winning the war on terror must include addressing this discontent, which is the source of bin Laden’s power and appeal. And in this critical area, the Bush administration has once again illustrated its uncanny ability to act in precisely the opposite way that reason dictates.

To begin, I think it’s essential to keep in mind that Muslims across the Middle East harbor a deep resentment about the colonial abuses by the West and other nations like Russia and China. There’s also a strong sense of powerlessness (which creates rage) at the hands of stronger forces, whether those forces be Israel, Putin, the Sauds, or the U.S. Finally, I think that the Islamic Middle East has a massive – massive – inferiority complex towards the West that results from both its colonial history and the material condition of its society. This inferiority complex comes through again and again in Orhan Pamuk's novel Snow, which is must-reading (reviewed here and here). In Snow, the critiques against the secular West by the fundamentalist character named "Blue" reveal a deep sense of inferiority towards the West. [My copy is in storage – I’ll try to add a quote here later.]

To help understand the dynamics of the inferiority complex, consider the American South. There are some striking similarities. First, the region has a collective, clan-like identity, or at least more collective than any other part of America. Second, the region suffered a humiliating military defeat that has become part of its collective identity. Third, it has generally been the poorest, least educated part of the nation, and collectively suffers from the humiliation of its sordid racial history. I can personally attest to this. Though I find Southern “nationalism” distasteful, even I feel the irrational pricks of shame, anger, pride, and even rage when I hear people like Bill Maher assail the entire South in the most condescending of ways.

That’s why the Confederacy is so appealing to many sincerely non-racist Southerners. It’s hard to explain, and one day I’ll do it better, but white Southerners are great at repressing things when it comes to the Confederacy. While some clearly fly the flag because they’re despicable racists, others block all that out their minds completely. Their sin is not racism, but willful ignorance. They see in the flag Southern strength, honor, and values – in other words, they see a remedy for the inferiority complex. That’s why Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee are so revered. If you think it’s just racism, you’re not quite understanding the complexities of the Southern mind. The generals are people who, in their eyes, whipped the condescending Yankees with far few resources and great cunning – and that’s the source of their appeal.

Compare that to what the 9/11 Commission Report had to say about Osama:

Seizing on symbols of Islam’s past greatness, he promises to restore pride to people who consider themselves victims . . . .

You can’t understand the appeal of Osama without understanding many Muslims’ inferiority complex and feeling of powerlessness. To people who feel that the United States is the enemy, Osama struck a blow for the weak. Now that interpretation seems obscene to you and me, but remember that the appeal of someone like Stonewall Jackson seems repulsive to many of you as well. Sometimes you have to try to get into the other person’s head to understand what you’re really dealing with.

Anyway, the point I’m getting at is that any long-term strategy to stop terrorism must be extremely, yes, sensitive to Muslim opinion, which is itself extremely sensitive to perceived sleights and perceived humiliation. In particular, long-term success requires convincing Muslims that our foreign policy is not an attack on Islam or Muslims. You can kill all the terrorists you want, but if the anger remains, they’ll simply pop right back up. Bin Laden will win so long as he can maintain the perception in the Muslim world that America is hostile to, and is actively attacking, Islam and Muslims. And when you realize just how deep the resentment runs from past colonial abuses, and how sensitive Muslims are to the perception that they (or Islam) are being attacked or humiliated, you can better understand how truly devastating some of Bush’s actions – and non-actions – have been.

The most perfect example is Abu Ghraib. I honestly don’t think people understand how devastating that was. Consider it from the eyes of a young fundamentalist in Fallujah with an inferiority complex towards the West. You’ve just watched America (whom you don’t like anyway) invade your country and humiliate your pathetic military. Your country just happens to be oil-rich and the second-holiest place in all of Islam, next only to the Arabian Peninsula, which is also oil-rich and currently being occupied by American troops. Then, you hear that American soldiers pulled innocent people off the street and sent them to Abu Ghraib, where secular Saddam once tortured fundamentalists. Then, and this is critical, you see pictures of soldiers who are not merely torturing your countrymen, but torturing them in very specific ways deeply inconsistent with the tenets of Islam (nakedness, homosexuality, women controlling, etc.). In fact, it seems that the soldiers were deliberately forcing these men to violate their religious beliefs in order to get information out of them. And just to top it off, the administration has fired no one in response. Let me repeat that - the administration has fired no one. If I sat down and tried to think of clever ways to humiliate Iraqis and attack Islam at the same time, I would be hard-pressed to think of an idea as perfect as Abu Ghraib. To be blunt, it may have cost us the war (remember that it broke around the time of the April insurgencies, thus lending them more credibility in the eyes of Iraqis).

[Update: And you've got to see all of this in context of other images that Arabs have been seeing in Gitmo and the post-9/11 roundups.]

And that’s only the most compelling example. The invasion of Iraq itself played perfectly into bin Ladin’s grand narrative about how the West wants to again humiliate Muslims and attack Islam. And it's going to take a long to undo the damage. But it wasn’t just the invasion of Islam’s second-holiest nation, it was also various aspects of that invasion that seemed oblivious to Arab sensitivities. For example, we guarded oil wells while the Mesopotamian museums were looted. We fired weapons near holy shrines and cemeteries in Najaf. We invited countries like India to join us, who are seen as Arab-oppressors. We fired the military (which angered and embarrassed, oh, half a million armed, trained Iraqis). We tried to impose a secular Western democracy and install leaders who are the most like us and share our secular values (we’re making this mistake in Afghanistan as well). You get the point.

As this post is getting long, I’ll mention one other issue that weighs heavily upon the Muslim inferiority complex – Palestine. Americans simply don’t understand the prominence of this issue in the minds of Middle East Arabs. It’s huge. But its significance is largely symbolic. In other words, I don’t think many Muslims suffer directly or have friends or family that do. I think it’s sort of like the Ten Commandments controversy in America. Posting or not posting the Ten Commandments will have approximately zero effect on 99.999999% of Americans. But regardless, people go absolutely insane about it. I think that’s because the Ten Commandments controversy has become a proxy for the much larger culture war. It’s not so much the Ten Commandments – it’s what it's perceived to represent. And it has come to represent the perceived attack on God and religion by those accursed atheist 60s-luvin’ liberals. Same deal with Palestine. The Palestinians have become a proxy for the woes and grievances of the Arab world. And the Arab world goes insane about it. But what they fail to understand is that Americans aren’t hostile to the cause, they simply don’t think about it.

Bill Clinton – of course – understood this perfectly [You should consider voting for Kerry just in the hopes he would be the Middle East envoy]. In his fabulous speech at the U.S.-Islamic World Forum in Qatar (please read it – notice too how he addresses the inferiority complex by praising Islam’s historical achievements), Clinton said:

The only point I want to make today is: People in the Islamic world should not look at America solely through the prism of the current state of the Middle East peace talks. . . . [Before September 11, Americans were not] hostile toward you. They didn’t think about you one way or the other. And a lot of what they knew was wrong. And we wrong in that. But if you want to criticize us, know what we really did wrong. We bore you no ill will. We had no hostility to the Palestinians. We didn’t want the Islamic world to be disrespected in any way. We had a lot of people who never thought about it. . . .

Clinton, of course, is aware that many Muslims interpret everything through the prism of Palestine. But Palestine also allows people in groups like al Qaeda to rataionalize and justify slaughtering innocent people barbarically (which Clinton also strongly condemned in the speech). For example, the 9/11 Commission reported that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, planner of the 9/11 attacks, became radical in response to the Israel-Palestine dispute, as did Mohammed Atta.

Obviously, there are no clean hands in the Middle East, and the Palestinians and Arafat certainly deserve their share of the blame. But again, Bush seems to have no grasp of the sensitivities in the region. For example, one can stand strongly with Israel and not refer to Ariel Sharon as a “man of peace” when your troops are exposed and fighting an Islamic insurgency next door. Similarly, even if you are right to overturn a decades-old policy that settlements will be awarded in negotiations, only an idiot would announce this new policy (or someone who is ignorant and incompetent) at the same time we have 140,000 troops fighting an insurgency that relies entirely upon public support. I’ll say it again – I would send troops to defend Israel’s existence. But that doesn’t mean we should continue supporting illegality. If my best friend steals, I won’t stop being his friend, but I’ll express my disapproval - in order to help him. Bush – and America – have to realize that allowing blatantly humiliating and illegal actions - such as bulldozing houses and using the wall to divide communities and essentially steal land in the West Bank – are full-blown national security threats to the United States. Every time we veto a UN resolution protesting an illegal action, bin Ladin laughs. And he laughs because it helps him. And it helps him because it feeds into the inferiority complex that fills his ranks.

Obviously, there will be times when angering others is unavoidable. That's life. The problem, though, is that the Bush administration has shown an almost criminally negligent disregard of Arab perceptions even though those perceptions are vital to winning the war on terror, defeating the Islamic insurgency, and making us safer.

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I moved into my new house yesterday (in Old Town, which seems very cool so far), so I'm dealing with various odds and ends this afternoon. I expect that I'll be blogging later tonight.

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Though I'm heartened that much of the progressive blogosphere is focusing attention on Iraq, I'm still not sure the Kerry camp understands how to use it to attack Bush effectively. For example, I completely agree with Andrew Sullivan and Josh Marshall that Kerry should stop using fiscal arguments to attack the war (i.e., what the $200 billion could have been spent on at home). This poor strategy traces back to a more fundamental error that I find repeated over and over again (and one I that have been guilty of as well) - namely; Democrats must shift the debate to economic issues to win. No. The debate will be about national security this year and the Democrats will either win or lose on that issue.

Of course, because Democrats won in 1992 by arguing economics does not mean that the Clinton strategy is always the way to go. In short, 1992 is overrated. I realized this after reading Kevin Drum's astute post that makes a similar point:

Yes, Bill Clinton was unusually articulate and charismatic, but he also ran in a pair of elections in which national defense wasn't an issue. During the 80s, when the Cold War was uppermost in people's minds, Republican candidates won three elections in a row. And in 2000, George Bush won a squeaker only by convincing people he was a compassionate centrist who was practically a Democrat himself.

And don't forget that even in that year, Clinton only got 43% of the vote.

In other words, if the Democrats have any hope of becoming a more permanent majority, they must start winning (or gaining serious ground) on national security. It's that simple. And this election provides a perfect opportunity to do just that.

And that's why I'll say it again - Iraq is the key to beating Bush. But don't believe me, just look at what neocon Francis Fukuyama thinks about our current situation (via Brad DeLong).

And if I were advising Kerry, I would urge him to fire away on Bush's flip-flop in Fallujah. I would say, "George Bush voted for invading Fallujah before voting against it. And it jeopardized our mission and got troops killed." As the Post reported yesterday, the outgoing Marine general (someone with more knowledge than say, George Bush) was opposed to invading Fallujah. Perhaps he knew that one of the most standard tactics of guerrilla warfare is to sucker your opponent into a disproportionate response that turns public opinion toward the insurgents. Anyway, the general said:

We felt like we had a method that we wanted to apply to Fallujah: that we ought to probably let the situation settle before we appeared to be attacking out of revenge. . . . Would our system have been better? Would we have been able to bring over the people of Fallujah with our methods? You'll never know that for sure, but at the time we certainly thought so.

But he was overruled, and Bush must have (surely) given or at least approved that order (has anyone asked him - I've been away from the news today). But then, unbelievably, the general was ordered to stop after the invasion had begun. So, Bush skillfully managed to get the worst of both worlds - he inflamed public opinion without doing any damage to the insurgents. That's strong leadership.

Seriously, the Fallujah flip-flop is a major chink in the armor and it should be ridiculed and exploited.

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I will continue my series on why the Bush administration is losing the war on terror later today or tonight. For now, I want to talk about the truly frightening developments in Russia, and more generally about the inherent dangers of using fear as a justification for a nation's policies.

For those who haven't heard, you can read here and here about how Putin is essentially eliminating what little democracy still exists in Russia and consolidating his own power - all in the name of fighting terrorism. Essentially, he's moving closer down the spectrum toward dictatorship. Here's the lede from the NYT article entitled, "Putin Issues Plan to Tighten Grasp, Citing Terrorism":

President Vladimir V. Putin ordered a stunning overhaul of Russia's political system on Monday in what he called an effort to unite the country against terrorism. If enacted, as expected, the proposals would strengthen his already pervasive control over the legislative branch and regional governments.

I think this pretty much speaks for itself, so I want to move on to discuss the proffered rationale. Besides, I'm sure our democracy-promotin' president will take a strong, morally clear stand for freedom. I mean, didn't Bush just say: "I believe that America is called to lead the cause of freedom in a new century." Well, I guess we can still admire the craftsmanship of his pretty words.

What is most interesting - and disturbing - is that Putin justified these, literally, tyrannical actions by citing terrorism. While I feel obliged to say I'm not equating Bush with Putin (for those incapable of adult discussions), Putin's actions show all too clearly why we should be skeptical - not completely dismissive, but skeptical - of any drastic policy change taken in the name of fighting terrorism.

The problem traces back to the fact that we humans are still essentially monkeys with iPods. As such, we are extremely susceptible to emotions that served us well in the wild (such as fear), but are extremely ill-suited for rational discussions of anti-terrorism policy. Because terrorism generates so much raw fear, we have to be especially cautious and make sure that any proposed anti-terrorism policy (such as, say, invading Iraq) has a logical relation to reducing terrorism. The problem, though, is that anti-terrorism proposals are almost always pushed on the population after a terrorist attack has happened - and usually immediately after. Thus, drastic anti-terrorism policies are debated and enacted when the populace is least able to analyze them rationally because their primitive survival instincts and emotions (i.e., fear of death; anger; aggression) cloud their minds.

The point is that when people are afraid, they will adopt anything that their leaders can plausibly link to fighting terrorism. And because people are thinking about terrorism emotionally rather than rationally, it is very easy to establish a "plausible link." In other words, the problem with citing terrorism as a justification for some policy is that there is almost no inherent logical limit on what a leader can get enacted so long as the populace is sufficiently scared. If you doubt it, just turn on your TV and watch some commercials more closely. In a post a while back, I explained that a standard marketing strategy is to create a fear and then advertise a product as a way to alleviate that fear. I called it the "Head & Shoulders" strategy. The old Head & Shoulders commercial began by threatening you with the fear of social embarrassment if you had dandruff flakes on your shoulders. With the fear established, it then offered the shampoo as a way to eliminate that fear. The link between product and fear was essentially emotional, not logical. It exploited emotions that were developed for living in the wild.

This exact same strategy was also well known by the fathers of modern political propaganda in the media age - the Nazis. [WARNING - The following analogy does not equate George Bush with Adolph Hitler. If you are incapable of seeing that, please stop reading and come back tomorrow. The following analogy deals with propaganda strategies that can be used by murderers, labor unions, or shampoo corporations.] In an interview with Hermann Goering (thanks to a commenter for pointing this interview out), Goering explained all too clearly just how susceptible the public was to being manipulated by fear and emotion.

Göring: "Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."

Gilbert [the interviewer]: "There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."

Göring: "Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

He's right. Even the Framers knew he was right - and that's why we have divided government and staggered elections. People do stupid things when they get scared. Or more precisely, they allow stupid things to happen.

And I hate to say it, but the GOP convention borrowed heavily from the Head & Shoulders strategy. By trying to scare everyone and invoke our more primal emotions surrounding 9/11, they tried to forge a "plausible link" between George Bush (the advertised product) and anti-terrorism. In doing so, they distracted the nation from the empirical reality on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq, which should be the focus of this election. The GOP pursued this exact same Head & Shoulders strategy in the mid-term elections in 2002 and in the lead-up to Iraq. In fact, Iraq is an almost perfect example of the Head & Shoulders marketing strategy in action. Because we were still in an emotional state surrounding 9/11, we believed that attacking Iraq would make us safer. We were wrong.

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I suspect Josh doesn't read Legal Fiction, but he seems to understand the point that I've been hammering home for the past three days - Iraq is the key to beating Bush. Josh links to a Post article showing Bush's incompetence in the execution and writes:

More tomorrow about how Iraq -- i.e., the actual Iraq as opposed to the rhetorical 'Iraq' -- has disappeared from the 2004 presidential campaign.

Yes. Yes. Yes. And we need to help make it reappear.

[Update: Yes, Josh gets it. He elaborates on this exact point in a more recent post. And to that I say, thanks. I know that big-shot journalists and Democratic consultants read that blog. I hope they take it to heart. Iraq is a failure - whether you're talking about the execution or invasion. Kerry and his surrogates - and the blogosphere - should continue pounding that home. Get it back in people's heads. And most importantly, make Bush defend the obvious failure for the next fifty days. Marshall makes the following point, which is what I have been desperately pleading for the past few days:

[Kerry's] emphasis should be on the undeniable fact that though the way forward may be murky, the last person you want to lead the country down that foggy path is the guy who screwed everything up so badly in the first place.

As my friend John Judis noted recently, the key to winning an election is often simply a matter of bringing to the surface of the public consciousness what voters already really know. They know Iraq is a disaster. They know it's President Bush's fault.

Amen. Bloggers of the Left unite.]

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The 9/11 Commission Report includes a puzzling passage on page 191. Apparently, after the Cole was attacked in 2000, a source explained that bin Laden “complained frequently that the United States had not yet attacked. According to the source, Bin Laden wanted the United States to attack, and if it did not he would launch something bigger.” Hmmm. Now why in the world would bin Laden want us to attack? And assuming it’s not propaganda, why would al-Zawahiri say in 2003, “We thank God for appeasing us with the dilemma in Iraq after Afghanistan.” You’re about to find out.

Before I get going, I want to offer a couple of disclaimers. First, the post-to-come relies heavily upon the 9/11 Commission Report and especially Anonymous’s Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror (though the two are sometimes in tension). I will update these posts as I continue to read the bibliography that I’ve assembled. As for Anonymous, I would encourage everyone to read his book. I started flagging things to mention to you, but I ended up flagging every other page. So, today’s post is an attempt to summarize some of his main points. I certainly have problems with aspects of his argument – in fact, his proposed remedy (i.e., kill ‘em all) seems to contradict much of his book – but he clearly makes some strong, frightening points. He is also attacking Bush’s (and Clinton’s) policies from the right as not being hawkish enough, so I think conservatives should pay special attention to what he has to say.

Second, the overall point I want to get across this week is that Iraq was quite possibly the worst possible action we could have taken in the war on terrorism – and we should be pounding Bush with this very argument every single day (as I explained here and here). In fact, there was little we could have done that would have helped al Qaeda more, as I will argue. And so, without further ado...

It’s really hard to say what the most ignorant line was in President Bush’s acceptance speech with respect to fighting terrorism. There are so many great candidates. But for reasons I’m about to explain, this one takes the cake:

The terrorists are fighting freedom with all their cunning and cruelty because freedom is their greatest fear. And they should be afraid, because freedom is on the march.

If you think the terrorists are “fighting freedom,” you need to get that out of your head immediately. In fact, most people need to wipe the slate clean and forget everything they think they know about the war on terrorism. If you think bin Laden is a madman, or that he’s unpopular, or that he hates us for our freedom or values, or that this isn’t a war about Islam, you are wrong. Bin Laden is as brilliant as he is deadly. If we understood him as well as he understood us, then we’d have a much better shot at eliminating him and his movement. Perhaps the central conceptual flaw (as Anonymous pointed out) is that Americans always view the world through an American-centric lens. We are simply unable or unwilling to get into the minds of those who wish to kill us. And I’m not trying to be a flower child here. We must understand bin Laden if we are to destroy him (or more precisely, his following). And preventing the ascent of his movement is the most important challenge our generation faces.

So the first thing we must understand is that the misnamed “war on terror” has everything to do with Islam. Not nothing, everything. Specifically, we need to understand the role that the religious concept of “jihad” (or holy war) plays in al Qaeda’s global chess match. According to Anonymous (who cites others like Bernard Lewis), there are many types of “jihad.” Some have peaceful connotations (e.g., jihad of the mind) and some don’t. Two that don’t are the so-called offensive and defensive jihads. Offensive jihads are calls to conquer “pagan” lands for Islam. They are irrelevant to us, as they are collective duties that must be ordered by a Caliph – who no longer exists. What is relevant to us – and what we are currently facing – is the defensive jihad. The defensive jihad is “the military reaction triggered by an attack by non-Muslims on the Islamic faith, on Muslims, on Muslim territory, or on all three.” (IH, p. 7). What’s important to remember is that the Koran calls upon all Muslims to join the defensive jihad. It is individual duty required by God. Anonymous explains:

In this scenario, it is doctrinally incumbent on each Muslim – as an unavoidable personal responsibility – to contribute to the fight against the attacker to the best of his ability. . . . [I]ndeed, [Muslims] would be guilty of sin if [they] did not respond as best [they] can.

Thus, in their own heads, people who kill or die in a defensive jihad are not acting out of some nihilistic rage. They think they're doing God's will.

The second thing we need to understand - and what makes the first thing so scary - is that Muslims take their perceived religious duties far more seriously than Americans do. Yes, we have our evangelical nutcases, but they aren’t calling to repeal the First Amendment or taking up arms. They’re secular too, relatively speaking. Americans are simply unable to understand this. As Anonymous explains, Americans need to understand that to kill or die in defense of Islam is an honor. Just because it’s inconceivable that an American would kill or die for religion doesn’t mean that’s true for the whole world. Thus, if devout Muslims believe that they, Islam, or their lands are being attacked, then it is a sin not to fight back. The trick, of course, is creating the PERCEPTION that Islam is being attacked. Without that perception in place, there would be no defensive jihad, and thus no support or manpower for al Qaeda. And that’s where bin Laden comes in.

Anonymous, who clearly has a curious admiration for bin Laden's ability as a military strategist (as does the 9/11 Commission), states over and over again that the "genius" of bin Laden is the creation and exploitation of this perception, which in turn necessitates the jihad.

Bin Ladin’s genius lies not in his call for a defensive jihad, but in constructing and articulating a consistent, convincing case that an attack on Islam is under way and is being led and directed by America.

Here, then, is the heart of the matter. If you remember nothing else, remember Anonymous’s central argument – bin Laden hates us not for what we are, but for what we do. Make no mistake about it. The ability of bin Laden to convince others to kill us is rooted in the worldwide perception among Muslims that our foreign policy is, quite literally, a massive attack on Islam that necessitates a defensive jihad. Bin Laden isn’t trying to destroy us, he’s trying to change the Middle East and much of the world’s foreign policy. We must understand that. There is no war on terror. There is only a war for the Middle East. Terrorism is a tactic. It is politics by other means – and religious-inspired politics at that. It is a tool being used to reshape the Middle East and our foreign policy. Period. It has nothing to do what we believe or value. It has everything to do with our – and the world’s – foreign policy toward Muslim nations and populations.

Anonymous explains repeatedly that bin Laden’s innovation was to internationalize the jihad by focusing Muslim discontent upon concrete policies and actions that are widely condemned throughout the Muslim world. In short, he seized upon things that piss Muslims off and argued that America was culpable. And while bin Laden has certainly exploited this discontent to gain support for the mass murder of innocent non-Muslims, Muslims are surely justified in being angry about at least some of the stuff I’m about to list. Remember, perceptions are the key. We must imagine how things look to Muslims across the Middle East.

Anyway, here’s what the Muslim world sees when it looks across the world - and Anonymous lists even more examples. First, it perceives that minority Muslim populations are under attack by several nations including Russia, China, India, the Philippines, Uzbekistan, and Israel. America sides with all of these nations in these disputes, or at least does little to stop them. Israel is especially problematic given its egregious abuses and our absolute refusal to ever condemn anything it does. Let me add that I would support sending our entire military to defend Israel’s existence. And I get furious at the barely concealed anti-Semitism within some parts of the American Left. But that said, support for Israel is not the same as supporting Likud, Sharon, or the blatantly illegal and immoral actions these people have taken. Palestinians have lived in squalid refugee camps for three generations. They are having their land seized by an illegal wall, and their homes are bulldozed. And we do nothing but call Sharon a “man of peace.”

Second, America supports horrible and repressive regimes in countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan. These regimes are widely seen as enemies of Islam, as was the secular Saddam (our former ally). Thus, by supporting them, bin Laden can shrewdly cast us as attacking Islam as well. These people also know that we desperately need oil and they see us as propping up the corrupt dictatorial regimes in order to keep getting cheap – too cheap in their eyes – oil. Third, the Muslim world has seen us impose sanctions on numerous Arabic nations including Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Iran, and others. Obviously, some of these are for good reasons, but in the eyes of the Middle East, these sanctions hurt people. Fourth, America is perceived as either helping to carve up Muslim land (East Timor in Indonesia) or flat-out occupying it (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Afghanistan, and now Iraq).

You also have to keep in mind that Muslims also have a long and deep resentment about the imperial conquests of Muslim land over the past few centuries. Juan Cole talked about this resentment here, and specifically referenced the Russian debacle in Afghanistan, which we are doing our best to repeat.

Anyway, the point is that even those Muslims who find terrorism abhorrent have a lot of legitimate gripes about our foreign policy. Bin Laden has seized upon that discontent, linked with an international defensive jihad, and directed it toward America. Thus, the success of bin Laden’s movement requires intense hatred of America. More precisely, it requires maintaining the perception that America is attacking Islam (thus necessitating the jihad). Bin Laden is uniting the anti-Mubarak Muslims with the anti-Saud Muslims in a way similar to Marx’s old goal of uniting the workers across various nations. Bin Laden wants to unite the Middle East under a new Taliban-like government. American foreign policy has served as his foil. It’s what he uses to both gather resources and maintain support.

And that brings us back to Iraq. Bin Laden wanted us to occupy Afghanistan because he was convinced we would suffer the same fate as Russia, and would radicalize Muslims across the Middle East. An actual occupation of a Muslim country – (Anonymous says we shouldn’t have tried to install democracy, we should have just blown everything up and left) – would (in bin Laden’s mind) do wonders for recruitment. It would provide concrete evidence to support everything he had been saying – America hates Islam; America will occupy Muslim lands and kill Muslims, etc. But never in his wildest dreams did he think we’d be stupid enough to invade oil-rich, holy Iraq – and do so without world support. Anonymous called the invasion a "Christmas gift." Indeed, Saddam was like the Saud family (our BFFs) in that he was an obstacle to Islamic fundamentalism – and had suppressed it brutally. What’s tragically ironic – and absurd – is that Bush is now claiming that he toppled Saddam to combat terrorism when Saddam was himself an obstacle to al Qaeda’s goals for the Middle East. Here’s how Anonymous put it:

The U.S. invasion of Iraq is Osama bin Laden’s gift from America, one he has long and ardently desired, but never realistically expected. Think of it: Iraq is the second holiest land in Islam; a place where Islam had been long suppressed by Saddam; . . . where order was kept only by the Baathist barbarity that prevented a long overdue civil war; and where . . . Iran and Saudi Arabia would intervene, at least clandestinely, to stop the creation of, respectively, a Sunni or Shia successor state. In short, Iraq without Saddam would obviously become what political scientists call a “failed state,” a place bedeviled by its neighbors and – as is Afghanistan – a land where al Qaeda or al Qaeda-like organizations would thrive.

The invasion also fits bin Laden’s propaganda perfectly. He can plausibly claim (to devout Muslims) that holy Islamic lands are being occupied, and Muslims killed, by a leader who refers to Ariel Sharon as a “man of peace.” He can claim that we infidels are stealing oil. (Again, we’re talking perceptions, not reality – which is all that really matters in this game.) He can say we’re trying to impose secular rulers (same deal in Afghanistan) because we’re hostile to Islam.

Even better from al Qaeda's perspective, we knocked off an enemy of fundamentalist Islam and unleashed the chaos that was held in place only by his barbarity – chaos that al Qaeda (at other fundamentalists) can now exploit, and are exploiting. And while we were at it, we managed to add a very big notch to the long list of real or perceived grievances by an already angry Arab world.

In short, the invasion of Iraq is destined to become one of the stupidest actions America has ever taken. And our idiot President is running around claiming he should be re-elected because of it.

And I faced the kind of decision that comes only to the Oval Office, a decision no president would ask for, but must be prepared to make: Do I forget the lessons of September 11th and take the word of a madman... or do I take action to defend our country? Faced with that choice, I will defend America every time.

The fact that Bush - not Kerry, Bush - isn't getting crucified for saying he would have done the same thing all over again boggles the mind.

George W. Bush – steady, stupid, incompetent leadership in times of change. I prefer a different slogan - "Wrong-Way George: Losing the War, Wrecking the Economy."

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Let's see. Iran just rejected the EU's nuclear deadline. North Korea is apparently about to test a nuclear weapon. All in all, a pretty strong case that "going on offense" in Iraq has frightened the world and made it safer.

Seriously though, I think these events are a perfect example of how Kerry (and surrogates) could adopt a simple, but effective line of attack for the remaining fifty days - and one that focuses heavily on Iraq (as discussed in last night's post). Here is my free advice about how to formulate this message. First, the overall message should focus on the "wrong choices" theme, especially on the domestic front. Second, and I suppose this is a subset of the "wrong choices" strategy, Kerry and team should pound home the fact that Iraq has made the world less safe and helped the terrorists. That's it. Wrong choices at home. Wrong choices in Iraq. Obviously, Kerry himself will have difficulties given his past statements. But, I think there's a way out. Basically, Kerry has to limit his critiques to the "execution" of the war. He needs to say that he supported the authority to ensure Saddam would comply. He disagrees strongly, though, with the way Bush chose to execute that authority. Essentially, he needs to incorporate all anti-Iraq arguments within the "faulty execution" line of attack. It's not ideal, but it's his only way out of the mess he's made. Perhaps he could even pull a Cheney and say that his statements on Monday were a reference to the execution of the war. Again, not ideal, but it's the only possible way to attack Bush for his worst mistake.

But you can see the potential of pounding Bush for Iraq. Almost everything can be linked to it. For example, when the North Korea story came out, Kerry (and especially his team) could blame it on Bush's choices in Iraq. Bush's wrong choices have tied down the military and made it harder to present a credible threat of force. Also, the rush into Iraq has sparked a nuclear arms race - North Korea wants to get them as fast as possible because of Bush's wrong choices. The exact same two points can be made about Iran. Iran knows we can't do a thing to stop it. And thus, the invasion of Iraq - or the choices made in executing it - have made the world less safe.

Say it over and over again. Iraq has made us less safe. Iraq has helped the terrorists. And don't forget one thing - it's true. You simply can't knock Bush off unless you find some way to attack him for his worst mistake - the invasion and/or execution of Iraq. Put him on the defensive. I'll have more to say later tonight when I begin my "war on terror" posts, but for now, just look at the recent Atlantic Monthly article by James Fallows (via Brad DeLong):

A]mong national-security professionals there is surprisingly little controversy... America's response to 9/11 [was] a catastrophe. I have sat through arguments among soldiers and scholars about whether the invasion of Iraq should be considered the worst strategic error in American history—or only the worst since Vietnam.... "Let me tell you my gut feeling," a senior figure at one of America's military-sponsored think tanks told me recently, after we had talked for twenty minutes about details of the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. "If I can be blunt, the Administration is full of shit. In my view we are much, much worse off now than when we went into Iraq. That is not a partisan position. I voted for these guys. But I think they are incompetent, and I have had a very close perspective on what is happening. Certainly in the long run we have harmed ourselves. We are playing to the enemy's political advantage. Whatever tactical victories we may gain along the way, this will prove to be a strategic blunder."...

. . .

"Are we better off in basic security than before we invaded Iraq?" asks Jeffrey Record, a professor of strategy at the Air War College and the author of the recent Dark Victory, a book about the Iraq War. "The answer is no. An unnecessary war has consumed American Army and other ground resources, to the point where we have nothing left in the cupboard for another contingency—for instance, should the North Koreans decide that with the Americans completely absorbed in Iraq, now is the time to do something."

If Bush is going to go down, it's not going to be because of deficits. It's going to be because of Iraq. We've gotta start hammering this home. And more importantly, Kerry and DNC have to start hammering it home. Again, not for hippy anti-war reasons, but for hawkish anti-terror reasons. Iraq made us less safe. More to come tonight.

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As I explained yesterday, I think Kerry's new strategy of stressing Bush's "wrong choices" is very promising. Implicit in this strategy is the view that for Kerry to win, the debate must be shifted to the economic front. That's why Kerry has been focusing so heavily on the $200 billion price tag - he's trying to link the failures in Iraq to the economic problems at home. While I agree that Kerry should try to increase the focus on economics, it's going to be impossible to avoid a debate on national security and terrorism. And that's where the blogosphere and Kerry's surrogates come in. We have to open up a new front against Bush and hit him smack dab in the heart of his greatest perceived strength - national security and the war on terror. And to do that, we have to start hitting him harder and more directly on Iraq. Specifically, we need to do a better job articulating why the Iraq invasion was such a monumental blunder in fighting terrorism. It's pretty simple - it's exactly what Osama wanted. When you understand why, you'll understand why Bush's supposed greatest strength is actually his greatest liability. But let me back up.

As the GOP convention showed, the Republicans desperately want the election to be a referendum on national security in the age of terrorism. And they've done an exceptionally good job of defining the debate so that terrorism has become the primary issue in this election. In fact, a friend of mine made an interesting argument last night that Cheney's absurd lies and exaggerations about al Qaeda and Iraq reflect conscious calculated efforts to keep national security in the news. In other words, there may be a method to Cheney's madness. A day spent discussing al Qaeda is a day not spent discussing deficits.

But this could backfire - I think. After all, if you agree with me, it's cosmically absurd for Bush to run on the war on terror given that its execution represents his greatest failure - and the failure with the most extreme harmful consequences. I would love to see the Democrats turn the tables by attacking Bush within the terms of the debate that Bush himself established. Here's an analogy. Imagine a guy at a bar who thinks he could beat you up. Because he's so confident, he picks at you and picks at you, trying to provoke you into a fist-fight. Then you suddenly get up to fight - giving him exactly what he wants - but you break his jaw and leave him on the floor. That's what the Democrats need to do. Go for the jaw - strike at the very foundation of Bush's case for a second term. And the road to a broken jaw begins with pounding on Iraq. Over and over again; every single day. Iraq was wrong. Iraq was wrong. Iraq was wrong. And not for hippy reasons. Iraq was wrong because it helped the terrorists. Iraq was wrong because it made us less safe. It's that simple.

For obvious reasons, Kerry can't come out and say, "Invading Iraq is what Osama wanted. It was a colossal blunder and one that is causing us to lose the war on terror." Kerry needs to stick with the new primary "front" - the emphasis on "wrong choices" and economics. But not me. I can hammer home the idea that the Iraq invasion is what al Qaeda wanted, and was thus a tragic mistake. And better-known bloggers, pundits, and surrogates can too. That's how the other side does it. Some argument gets raised (e.g., Swift Boats) and then the willing soldiers on Fox News, talk radio, Drudge, and parts of the Right Blogosphere keep pounding on the issue again and again until the mainstream press picks it up.

Obviously, the argument is not that new that Iraq hurt the war on terror. But often this argument is raised emotionally, and on a very general level, without an understanding of the nature of al Qaeda, terrorism, or the greater Middle East. We need to do a better job of explaining clearly and concisely not just that Iraq hurt the war on terror, but why. We need to do a better job of laying the intellectual foundation for why Osama was so happy about the invasion - and why it fit so perfectly into his grand long-term strategy. The blogosphere can provide the intellectual grounding that will in turn justify the more simplified political slogan for the masses - "Iraq helped al Qaeda." "Iraq helped al Qaeda." "Iraq helped al Qaeda."

Iraq is, ironically, both the stated justification for re-electing Bush and the most persuasive justification for giving him the boot. If people can just be made to understand how disastrous it was in our struggle against terrorism, I think it could break Bush's jaw. That's why I aim to devote much of this week to a thorough discussion of many aspects of the war on terror, with a heavy focus on what I've learned from the 9/11 Commission Report and Anonymous' Imperial Hubris.

Fortunately, I think that bloggers like Juan Cole and Kevin Drum were on exactly the right path yesterday. The third anniversary of 9/11, along with the CSIS report and the 1,000th lost soldier, provide an excellent opportunity for everyone across the entire political spectrum to step back and reflect on what the past three years have accomplished. For example, Drum links to Professor Cole's retrospective yesterday, which I encourage everyone to read. Cole begins:

In order to evaluate the aftermath of September 11, we first must understand that event. What did al-Qaeda intend to achieve? Only if we understand that can we gauge their success or failure.

Yes, that's exactly right. Later on, however, I think Cole may not be right. He says:

The attack on the World Trade Center was exactly analogous to Pearl Harbor. . . . [A]l-Qaeda was attempting to push the United States out of the Middle East so that Egypt, Jordan, Israel and Saudi Arabia would become more vulnerable to overthrow, lacking a superpower patron. . . . Bin Laden hoped the US would timidly withdraw from the Middle East. But he appears to have been aware that an aggressive US response to 9/11 was entirely possible. In that case, he had a Plan B: al-Qaeda hoped to draw the US into a debilitating guerrilla war in Afghanistan and do to the US military what they had earlier done to the Soviets. . . . The US cleverly outfoxed al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, using air power and local Afghan allies (the Northern Alliance) to destroy the Taliban without many American boots on the ground.

I'm not sure that's right. As I will explain in great detail this week, while al-Qaeda surely wants us out of the Middle East over the long-term, the 9/11 attack was intended to do precisely the opposite - it was intended to draw us into the Middle East. Far be it from me to dispute Professor Cole, but I think that "Plan B" was actually "Plan A." And I also think that it's just not right to say that we "outfoxed" anyone or "destroyed" the Taliban in Afghanistan. We have not. Someone has been outfoxed in this so-called war on terror, but it ain't al Qaeda. To find out why, you'll have to tune in tomorrow - and I'll elaborate on why I think Cole may be partially wrong.

But again, the goal of this week is to offer a reasonably informed, though amateur, perspective on the poorly named "war on terror." I'm not pretending to be an expert, but instead I want to play the role of the public intellectual - to disseminate what smarter people have said in order to help educate other smart people who haven't had time to read this stuff. And by the end of the week, I hope I will have made it clear why Iraq can and should be used as a hammer on Bush's head. I want nothing less than to break his jaw with his ill-conceived invasion, metaphorically speaking of course. To defeat a candidate by directly attacking his or her supposed greatest strength within the terms of the debate supplied by that candidate would be so deliciously . . . Rove-ian.

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I've been thinking a lot about whether my recent, angry post on Kerry was appropriate. I completely stand by the substance of what I said, though I've really been questioning the timing and the tone of the post, especially when I read this piece by Michelle Cottle over at TNR. The more I think about it, the more I regret the post. Here's why.

First, no matter what you or I may think of Kerry, we need to keep the big picture clearly in mind - this election is about removing George W. Bush. The administration has been a colossal failure on almost every front - and the long-term damage from the past four years cannot be undone. From terrorism to Iraq to taxes to deficits, this administration has consistently made the wrong choices - choices that we will be suffering from for many years to come. And there is little sign that the next four years will be any better. In fact, there is every reason to think these things will get worse.

Can you imagine the message America will send to the world if Bush is re-elected? I think much of the world hasn't completely given up on America because it thinks we didn't know what Bush was really like in 2000. If we re-elect him, the world will give up on us. And it should. A second Bush term means that America has endorsed the botched war on terror; endorsed the Iraq debacle (invasion and/or execution); endorsed Abu Ghraib; endorsed abandoning international institutions; endorsed runaway deficits; endorsed stem cell research restrictions; endorsed the lack of any coherent domestic or fiscal policy; endorsed an economic policy that is blatantly concentrating wealth at the top; endorsed the complete lack of health care policy; endorsed the various unfunded mandates; endorsed the lies; endorsed Cheney; endorsed horrible environmental policy such as increased logging and mountaintop removal; endorsed the torture memos. And on and on.

Whatever one thinks of Kerry's flaws, they pale in comparison (and pale exponentially) to the policies of this administration and the damage it has already inflicted. That's why I'm putting my Kerry-bashing on hold until after the election. There will plenty of time for angry criticisms of his campaign, but now is not that time.

Let me clear. I am not - and have no intention to become - a Democratic Party hack. One critique I have of otherwise excellent bloggers like Kos and Atrios is that they sometimes focus too heavily on being cheerleaders for the party. I don't want to do that. I want to call a spade a spade. But even disgruntled anti-Democrat progressives need to realize that John Kerry is the only hope the nation and the world have for removing George Bush. And that's all that should matter for the next two months.

So, it's time to shut up and fight. Is Kerry an ideal candidate? No. Could he have developed better strategies. Of course. And if his mistakes cost him the election, we'll have all winter to blast him. But now is not that time, now is the time to fight. That's not to say we can't offer constructive criticisms, but the tone of my criticisms - and especially those of top Democrats who actually matter - needs to change. Falling into line behind Kerry is not an expression of one's undying and uncritical loyalty to the Democratic Party, it's what's necessary in the last two months to remove a failed administration.

Even if you share my frustrations with the Democratic Party, it's important to remember what's at stake. Billmon - where have you gone??? - expressed it perfectly during the Democratic convention:

What was important to me was what I saw when the camera panned the delegates - black and white and every shade in between, male and female, gay and straight, young and old, union guys from Cleveland and lesbian couples from San Francisco, Irish pols from Boston and Hispanic pols from East L.A. Asian American businessmen from Seattle and African American teachers from Harlem.

God knows that's not the full picture of the Democratic Party - not even close. I'm sure there was no shortage of vile hacks and corporate fat cats in the audience. And when it comes to actual policies, it's pretty clear the party has about as much progressive backbone as a bowl of corn meal mush.

But compared to the sea of sour-looking honkies and fundamentalist zealots that have filled the seats (if not the stage) of every GOP convention I've ever watched, there's no question in my mind which side I'm on in this fight. It may not be my party, but those are my people, my America.

Damn right. I'm in on this fight. This is my America too. I've spent the last four years watching the country that I love become an object of ridicule and hatred. I have watched as it has turned its back on everyone except those who need the least help from government. And so, for the next two months, I'm a Democrat. And you should be too - even if you're a libertarian-leaning Republican who believes in things like civil liberties, humble foreign policies, and fiscal sanity.

It's time to fight. If Bush wins, I don't want to look back and regret that I didn't do everything in my power to get him ousted. I don't want to remember that I spent the last two months bashing the only hope America has to turn things around - that hope being John Kerry and the Democrats. On November 3, I'll go back to skepticism of the two-party system. But for the next two months, I intend to fight as a Democrat. And you should too. If you're a blogger, we need to help Kerry either by defending him, offering suggestions, or attacking Bush (sort of like free opposition research). If you're a voter in a swing state, for God's sake, register and set a goal to get twenty of your friends to vote. If you're not in a swing state, give money or go volunteer in a swing state. At the very least, you can give money to a 527, or a Congressional candidate.

If we're going to go down, let's at least go down fighting. Let's not go down as rats attacking each other. Let's get some renewed resolve. The polls aren't that bad. And I really like Kerry's new "wrong choices" strategy - it's a simple and effective way to unite almost every criticism that we've been voicing over the past four years.

We can still win this thing. If things look bad, let's stop whining (and I'm talking to myself too). Let's redouble our efforts. Let's fight - and let's fight for John Kerry.

I'm sorry to be such a partisan cheerleader, but George Bush isn't going to wreck my America without a goddamned fight. And by God, we have not yet begun to fight.

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Although the presidential election is clearly the most important, we shouldn't lose sight of the overall Senate picture. After all, the Senate Democrats (and a few moderate Republicans) have been the last - and only - defense against some truly horrible laws (energy bill, for instance). I just looked at the Hotline's recent rundown, and I think the Dems have some cause for optimism. For a while, I feared the GOP could get very close to the magic number of 60. Anyway, here's my very non-expert rundown.

If you count Jeffords as a Dem, the GOP controls 51 to 49. Some might disagree, and things could change, but I think there are currently eight races that can be considered as plausible toss-ups. Before I begin, let me explain what races I have excluded. First, I think it's certain that the Illinois and Georgia seats will be a wash - the Dems will pick up Illinois (Obama) and the GOP pick up Georgia (Isakson). Second, I think the GOP will safely win in KY, PA, and OH, while the Dems will win in WA, CA, and WI.

So that leaves eight questionable races. Three of these seats are held by the GOP - AK, CO, and OK; and five are held by Dems - FL, LA, NC, SD, and SC. Based on what I saw from the Hotline, and have heard elsewhere, I think the Dems (Bowles) look pretty good in North Carolina, but look bad in South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana. Dascle is slightly ahead in South Dakota, but that one will be a nail-biter. So, assuming Bowles and Daschle win, the Dems will lose three of their seats.

But, the Dems are running surprisingly strong in Alaska, Colorado, and Oklahoma. They could, in theory, win all three - or lose all three.

So here are my tentative best and worst case scenarios. I think, at worst, the Dems will win one of the five seats they're defending, and then lose all three of the GOP seats. That will be a net gain of 4 for the GOP, and the Senate would be 55 to 45. That would be pretty bad. At best, I think the Dems will hold two of their five seats (NC and SD), and then win two of the three GOP seats. That would only be a net loss of one.

Obviously, I could be missing some other races that will become competitive. And it is still possible that the Dems could win back the Senate, though I think it would require winning in Florida or Louisiana, along with holding NC and SD, and then winning two of the GOP seats.

Anyway, I think the Democrats will, at best, lose one seat - and, at worst, lose four. I really don't know as much about the House, but I'm told that it's almost mathematically impossible for the Dems to win until the next round of gerrymandering in 2010. Quite a democracy we have here.

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I wanted to apologize to those who have sent me emails over the past couple of weeks. I will respond to all of them. It's just that things have been so hectic over the past two weeks that I haven't had a chance to respond. But I will. And as always, I appreciate all the emails/suggestions/scathing criticisms I receive.

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Ok – I’ll say it. I’m sick of the Kerry campaign. I’m sick of trying to use every bit of my lawyerly powers to excise some consistent position on Iraq. I’m sick of the new themes and strategies. I’m sick of watching quite possibly the worst President in American history – and I mean the A-fucking worst (Andrew Johnson excepted) – gain ground when he should probably be impeached for his postwar Iraq "planning." But most of all, I’m sick of John Kerry. I know that this is, umm, not entirely on-message for the remaining two months. And I know I’ve written some positive posts about Kerry and his “closing” potential. But today, I’m going to vent. Consider the following as my list of grievances. I’ve criticized Bush for nine months, and I will continue to do so as long as he is President (and probably long after). So I feel like I have earned enough credibility to criticize Kerry for a day.

Themes and Strategies

With the help of the Clinton people, Kerry unveiled a new campaign strategy this week that focuses on Bush’s “catastrophic” choices. It’s simple. It’s effective. It lends itself to a very simple, easy-to-understand dichotomy – “Do you like the way things are going or do you want a new direction?” Who knows, maybe it will work. But here’s the million dollar question – why has it taken him two years to develop a simple compelling theme for why he should be president? I mean, the man has been running for President for two years. TWO YEARS!! There was no hint of such a theme during the entire Democratic primary. He got lucky in Iowa because Iowa voters (by some miracle of God) realized that Dean and Gephardt would be completely unelectable. He rode the “momentum” of Iowa (which is a kind way of saying “herd mentality” – whose game theory dimensions I discussed here) to victory without ever presenting any compelling reason why he should be in the Oval Office other than his Vietnam service.

Throughout the spring, we were promised that a theme was on the way. We waited and waited – we endured Adam Nagourney’s articles. But still no theme. Then the convention came. Finally, we got a theme – sort of. It was “A Stronger America.” Don’t get me wrong, I thought the convention was sound political strategy. And I liked "A Stronger America" to the extent one can like these one-line logos. The problem was that there was absolutely zero strategy attached to it. I didn’t realize that when I first wrote about the convention. I mean, what’s the point of stirring up everyone’s emotions about patriotism, faith, and the military (which I think the Dems needed to do) if it’s not incorporated into some kind – any kind – of broader political strategy. By “strategy,” I mean both a strategy to sell yourself and attack your opponent. The “theme” is a subset of one’s larger strategy. Kerry waited until the convention to adopt a theme and waited until this week to develop a strategy (or a decent one anyway). Two hundred million dollars should buy more.

Compare it to the ruthlessly efficient Bush campaign – both in 2000 and 2004. They do their heavy work up front and far in advance. They settle on an exceedingly clear strategy very early in the game. They then develop two or three easy-to-understand themes or lines of attack and they stick with them throughout the campaign. Just look at how well they’ve attacked Kerry. They did their homework and concluded that the flip-flop thing would be the most effective line of attack. About one minute after he accepted the nomination, they attacked him with it. And they’re still attacking him with it. And it has worked. The same is true of the argument for Bush. From day one, they’ve pounded the drums of terrorism, 9/11, and national security. And they're still doing it. And it seems to be working. The GOP convention was certainly heavy – too heavy – on fear and emotion. But unlike the Dems’ excessively emotional convention, the emotion evoked at the GOP convention was linked to some broader reason about why Bush should be President – he’ll keep us safer in the war on terror and that other war that everyone seems to think was related to it. As regular readers know, I think the main argument against Bush is precisely the opposite – he has utterly failed in the war on terror, not to mention Iraq. As absurd as Bush’s proposed reason for a second term is, it’s better than no reason – politically speaking.

Bureaucracy

I’m also sick of the organization of the Kerry campaign. From what I can gather, it’s an internal nightmare. Unlike Bush’s streamlined corporate-like campaign structure, no one really knows who’s in charge over there. I’ve heard that simple rapid response often requires approval on an absurd number of different levels (which makes it less, um, rapid). Does Mary Beth Cahill now have to get stuff approved by the Clinton people? Or vice-versa? Who knows? I don't know, but let's hope they do, or someone does.

If I'm right, then at some point you have to lay the blame for the disorganization at the feet of Kerry. As I heard Joe Klein explain on CNN, Kerry doesn’t like to fire people. Instead, he just brings in a new layer of people on top and marginalizes the other ones. While I appreciate his humanity, I’m not sure it’s an effective way to run what is essentially a multi-million dollar corporation in a very high-stakes competition.

Iraq

We can all try to close our eyes and clog our ears and dream up some possible world where Kerry has been consistent on Iraq, but it’s just not true. For a while, I was convinced that Kerry could say, “I supported the authority, but opposed Bush’s misuse of the authority.” That’s a fair argument, and it makes sense of most everything up until this week when he stated (strongly) that Iraq was the “wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time.” I’m sorry, but that won’t do. Here’s why.

First, that line was a significantly stronger indictment of the entire war, not just the "execution." If he felt that strongly at the time of the initial vote, then he shouldn’t have voted for the authorization in the first place. But to be fair, things have changed. No weapons have been found. Central Iraq is now a set of independent fundamentalist fiefdoms. Every single rationale for the invasion is now rotten to the core. So, if Kerry had recently come around to that view, then that would be fine. But, the new Howard Dean language sure seems strange in light of what he said just last month at the Grand Canyon (and other statements noted by Rove and friends). I suppose one could try to twist all these things into coherence by invoking the whole “for-authority/opposed-to-execution” narrative, but that puts us deep in the heart of Cheney-land (“What I really meant when I said that terrorists would attack us if Kerry won was . . .”).

Maybe people like myself (and the liberal blogosphere) have been too hard on the American public for not grasping the alleged simple coherence of Kerry’s position. Maybe we're wrong - or are only seeing what we want to see. Maybe in this case, the people's gut-level instinct is closer to the truth - Kerry has not been consistent.

Even if coherence is plausible, it’s almost certainly not right. Obviously, I don’t know for sure, but I strongly suspect that Kerry voted to authorize force when he didn’t want to. Then, he voted against the $87 billion, when he didn’t want to. Then, he said he would do the same thing all over again without demanding greater assurances, which was surely a lie. And finally, we get the Howard Dean language, which is closer to the truth than anything else he’s said. And I suspect he was probably the most sincere in this last statement (which was, for once, 100% right on).

Obviously, some of the blame lies with the very nature of politics. Voters punish those with unpopular convictions, which gives candidates rational incentives to shift with the political winds, so to speak. Some of the blame also lies with Bush, who exploited the nation's fear and anger surrounding 9/11 to push for a war that people like Doug Feith have supported for nearly a decade (for reasons unrelated to those offered in 2002). And finally, some of the blame lies with the war-hungry proclivities of the American people who know nothing about war, yet are really really excited about sending people to get killed in them. Personally, I wish we could all find ways to compare the relative sizes of our genitalia that didn't include sending others' children to war. But I digress. . .

Back in 2002, Kerry thought he couldn’t be a serious contender if he voted against the war. And sadly – and tragically – he was probably right. Americans don’t like voting for anti-war candidates for reasons I don’t completely understand. Wars may be wrong, and they might kill a bunch of people, but it’s apparently better for politicians to send young people off to die in vain than to be branded as the next McGovern - or at least such views are rational, from a strictly political perspective. Regardless, after Kerry voted for the authorization, the die was effectively cast and he has been forced to twist and turn ever since.

In retrospect, it was a choice of truly tragic dimensions. Should he have supported a war he knew was wrong and lose his once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be president? Or should he have done what he felt was right and opposed a war that he knew was unnecessary and would probably be screwed up? If Kerry voted against the war, he might well have won the nomination and become another Mondale. I don’t know. I really don’t. I would like to think that there are at least some situations where honest principles will eventually win out over political expediency. But maybe I’m just naïve. Maybe I'm young and unlearned. Still, you would think that a two-year candidate for president would have developed clearer talking points - and some coherent position - on the central issue facing our nation.

Bush is So Awful

It should go without saying that there is nothing short of murder that Kerry could do to lose my vote. To be blunt, he’s irrelevant to my equation. But it just amazes me that Kerry can’t gain more ground when we have a President this dumb, this incompetent, and who has fucked up every single thing he’s touched from Medicare to Iraq to Afghanistan to Abu Ghraib to deficits to tax cuts to tariffs to assault weapons to stem cells and on and on. I mean, the news just gets worse and worse. Iraq is probably hopeless. Afghanistan is lawless. The Abu Ghraib scandal just gets bigger and bigger. The deficit is skyrocketing with no realistic policy in place to contain its cost. More than a million people fell into poverty last year (take a step back and think about that for a second – see the humanity behind those numbers). There hasn't even been an attempt to do anything about health care. It just goes on and on.

So why isn’t the Democrat coasting to victory? The sad truth is that John Kerry is not a good candidate. I know that Democrats panic too much, but this isn’t panic. I’ve thought this about Kerry since February. I just kept my mouth shut in the hopes he would change my mind. He hasn’t. He has my vote only because of my intense dislike of the policies of the Bush administration. And if I had to make a bet, I would say that’s true for about 90% of the Kerry supporters in America as well.

[Update: When I read the comments, I realized that I misspoke when I said that Kerry was "irrelevant" to my decision. I think Kerry would be an infinitely better President if for no other reason than his ability to critically assess the reports of policy experts. That said, I have just been amazed at how poor his candidacy has been. I'm not just talking about the ridiculous weight given to Kerry's "warmth" - which is completely irrelevant. I'm talking about the inability to develop and execute an effective media and political strategy. The twists and turns on Iraq are merely a subset of the larger failure. And let's not forget how vulnerable Bush is given the monumental failures in the first four years.

So, I should have been more clear. My frustration has been with the candidacy of Kerry, which I would rate as very poor. But in the sound-bite age of politics, it's kind of a moot queston whether a bad candidate would be a good President. They never get that chance.]

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Yes, I'm still here. Unfortunately, I've been in a hotel looking for housing all week - and for some reason the computer won't publish my posts (and neither did my dial-up). Anyway, I think I may have finally found a house in DC (well, Old Town, VA actually - I'm now a swing voter, maybe) - I'll know for sure tomorrow. If that goes through, I can stop running around the city and start writing about the election and our increasingly hopeless war. I just haven't had time to read up on everything yet. But again, hopefully things will be back to normal later this weekend. I appreciate everyone's patience.

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Sorry about the lack of posts recently. I'm still in NYC, and will be moving to DC tomorrow for good. So, the posting could be erratic this week. I hate my dial-up, so everything will depend upon finding a decent connection at a library or cafe until I get the connection to my house put in.

So stay tuned - I have quite a bit to say about the election and other topics.

[Update: I do want to say one thing (sorry I can't provide links on this computer). Kevin Drum and Josh Marshall have mentioned that the latest Gallup and Rasmussen polls show that that race is within one point among registered voters. Josh Marshall claimed that both parties' internal polls showed Bush up by four.

If that's true, maybe prominent national Democrats could stop losing their minds and giving quotes about how out of focus the campaign is. I mean, yesterday's NYT was just fucking ridiculous.

As for the recent conventional wisdom that Kerry focused too heavily on national security and Vietnam, that's a bunch of crap. It's the most important issue of the election. Kerry doesn't have to win on it, but he needed to show that he passed a certain threshold of acceptability on the subject. His summer strategy and convention were successful in that respect (in my opinion). Now, he can turn to economics, which is where the Dems have an advantage. Despite all the recent lunacy, this was sort of the plan. Establish himself as "strong enough" on national security, and then try to hammer away on economics. Yes, they need to be more clear, and yes, it's great that they're hiring Clinton people. But the level of panic I saw this weekend was completely unjustified - and yet another reason why the Democrats keep losing.]

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This post is going to be limited because I'm working on a dial-up on an old laptop that could crash at any moment (sorry if there are errors - the Blogger "preview" doesn't work on this computer). But I did want to share some quick thoughts on the convention and the election more generally.

While I think that Democrats are (as usual) hitting the panic button a little too quickly, there's no denying that Bush is in a very strong position to win in the fall. You know, I could go through and analyze the speech and talk about the lack of specifics, the cheap sentimentality, and all that. But none of it really matters. It all comes down to a pretty simple truth - Bush is more likeable than Kerry, in terms of perceived personalities. Yes, one's personality has exactly zero relevance to policy and the challenges we face, but it's what many people base their vote on in the TV age.

Bush's speech was thus effective in that sense. The vagueness and amnesia are irrelevant. Bush gave a speech that made people like him, and projected a personality that people associate with "strong leader" - even though the projection, again, has almost zero relation to the real world. He spoke of his family, his children, and praised the military. He peppered his speech with folksy sayings and warm smiles. He played to people's emotions. From a strictly politial perspective, it was good stuff. And by good, I mean that it appealed to people's juvenile, irrational bases for voting for one candidate over another.

Let's face it - Kerry simply is not a great candidate for the TV age. He would be one million times better as a president in terms of domestic and foreign policy, but he's not considered "warm." Yes, that's absurd and insane, but unfortunately, it's reality. And I simply have no idea how Kerry's advisors can get around it. People like Bush. People liked Reagan and Clinton - and they won. People didn't like Daddy Bush and Gore - and they lost. I suppose I'm simplifying things, but I don't think modern politics is much more than getting people to like you personally. That's what the culture wars and the Swift Boat Vets ads were all about - making you dislike someone - or some party - on a personal level.

But getting away from all that, I want to look briefly at Iraq. What strikes me was how Bush is allowed to portray Iraq as a success. Iraq has become an example of the alleged reason why we need Bush - strong, decisive leadership that protected America. But Iraq has not been a success. Francis Fukuyama (one of the more thoughtful neocons) captured the point very well in a critique of how Charles Krauthammer portrayed the war in Iraq (no link - it's in the National Interest).

The 2004 speech is strangely disconnected from reality. Reading Krauthammer, one gets the impression that the Iraq War-the archetypical application of American unipolarity-had been an unqualified success, with all of the assumptions and expectations on which the war had been based fully vindicated. There is not the slightest nod towards the new empirical facts that have emerged in the last year or so: the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the virulent and steadily mounting anti-Americanism throughout the Middle East, the growing insurgency in Iraq, the fact that no strong democratic leadership had emerged there, the enormous financial and growing human cost of the war, the failure to leverage the war to make progress on the Israeli-Palestinian front, and the fact that America's fellow democratic allies had by and large failed to fall in line and legitimate American actions ex post.

Throughout this week, Iraq was offered a reason why we should re-elect Bush. But so far, Iraq has been a failure based on any metric other than whether Saddam was removed. Fallujah has not been liberated - it's Taliban-ized. But the abstract idea of "liberating" Iraq serves the whole theme of presenting Bush as a strong leader. The empirical reality contradicts this theme. Bush acted, and acted wrongly. Even if you supported the war (which would make you wrong as well - sorry to say it, but it's true), clearly the execution of the war makes it clear just how bad Bush's leadership has been. And this is not even including the fact that we shortchanged Afghanistan in order to send forces to Iraq.

Strength and leadership should not be measured by one's willingness to send others' children to die to vindicate policy papers of think tanks - and to do it badly at that. Especially when the consequences of following those policy papers have been a "catastrophic success" at best, and a failure at worst - and one that has made America and the world the opposite of safe.

But again, leadership isn't measured empirically. It's measured by projecting personality traits that are perceived as being associated with leadership. On empirical leadership, Bush couldn't have done much worse. But in projecting leadership on TV, there are few who do it better. Bush reigns supreme in Fantasyland, but that's where the voters vote. In the words of the waiter in Ferris Bueller, I weep for the future.

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I'll be driving for much of the day today, on my way to a wedding in NYC. Whether or not I can blog tonight (and this weekend) will depend on whether my friends have a decent Internet connection. So, hopefully I'll be blogging tonight after Bush's speech. But it's possible that I might not be back until Monday.

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Did I say I hated this convention? Forget that - I love it. And I love Zell. Democrats have been way too hard on this guy. After all, he may have single-handedly changed the dynamics of the campaign last night.

Seriously though, this speech was a public relations disaster. I bet Peggy Noonan and Karen Hughes were having seizures backstage. Hell, when you get Wolf Blitzer and Judy Woodruff attacking you, you know you've gone too far. Just like Andrew Sullivan, I think tonight may represent a pivotal moment in this campaign. I mean, this was the Republicans' choice for keynote speaker on primetime - and it was the angriest, ugliest, nastiest thing I've ever heard (as far as convention speeches go). It was much nastier than Buchanan's. What puzzled me was that it seemed so off-message. I thought the point of this week was to project moderation and warmth, while getting in plenty of stabs at Kerry (delivered with a smile, of course). Cheney's speech - though riddled with deceptions - was delivered smoothly and powerfully.

But Zell not only attacked, he was angry the entire time. That's like the first commandment of politics in the TV age - Thou shalt not project anger on primetime. During a convention, when you twist the knife into the opponent, you have to do it with a smile - at least on primetime. Just look at Rudy.

But anyway, because there were so many blatant lies and falsehoods in the speech, I think it presents an opportunity to go on the offensive. For example, it would be nice if a journalist asked Bush (or anybody) whether he agreed with (or would condemn) this statement:

Senator Kerry has made it clear that he would use military force only if approved by the United Nations. Kerry would let Paris decide when America needs defending.

Or this one:

Motivated more by partisan politics than by national security, today's Democratic leaders see America as an occupier, not a liberator.

Or this one:

But don't waste your breath telling that to the leaders of my party today. In their warped way of thinking, America is the problem, not the solution. They don't believe there is any real danger in the world except that which America brings upon itself through our clumsy and misguided foreign policy.

Let's see if the administration will endorse its party's keynote address. They should also ask whether the Bush team vetted it, or approved it beforehand. And you know they did. I heard David Gergen say that there was no way that the speech was not pre-approved. I wonder if perhaps the text was written under the assumption that Zell would deliver it in a folksy, aw-shucks sort of way - like Rudy. If so, Zell blew it.

I also think that Kerry could use Zell's speech as a way to cast himself as the optimist, and the GOP as being nasty and negative. Just compare the quotes above to Obama's:

Yet even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America — there's the United States of America. There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America. The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.

Nah, I like Zell's better:

This is the man who wants to be the Commander in Chief of our U.S. Armed Forces? U.S. forces armed with what? Spit balls?

That Zell has such good values. President Bush - I have two requests. More Zell, and more of the twins.

[Update: The intellectual decline of Glenn Reynolds continues:

It's funny that the purest voice of Jacksonian America at this Republican convention -- in fact, at either convention -- comes from a Democrat.

Hmmm. I'm not sure it reminded me of "Jacksonian America." But I have heard this tone somewhere. Let me think. Demonization of opponents. Lies. Jingoism. Simplification and celebration of war. I can't quite place it. Maybe it will come to me later.]

(Via a commenter at Eschaton). Well well well. Salon just posted some details about Ben Barnes' upcoming interview with 60 Minutes in which he admits that he pulled strings to get Bush into the National Guard. Bush, the straight-shooter, has always claimed that he received no preferential treatment.

Now, given the uncritical acceptance of the Swifties, I want to wait before I join the Barnes choir. But still, there are several reasons to suspect that Barnes' story is credible. First, as the Salon article notes, it's consistent with what he said five years ago in 1999. Second, Barnes has always gone out of his way not to raise the issue. In fact, he only raised the issue in 1999 because of a legal action. Third, the story that a Bush family friend just happened to intervene without any knowledge by the family itself fits the Bush modus operandi, which is letting others do your dirty work. Anyway, go read the Salon article.

Let me be explicit - I'm withholding judgment until I hear the objections. But I think this is going to hurt him. And if it does, then perhaps there really is a just God up there.

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I must concede that last night's post (along with other recent ones) have reflected a pretty intense distrust of voters. Because I've always considered myself something of an anti-elitist populist, I thought I should explain where my populism stands right now.

Growing up in a rural southern town, I have always had a bit of a chip on my shoulder. Indeed, southerners in general have a massive inferiority complex towards the rest of nation - something which has been exploited to perfection first by blatantly racist politicians and more recently by the culture warriors. But because I grew up in a factory/farming town, I've always had very little tolerance for the strands of elitism present in elements of both the Left and the Right. There are few things that make me madder than to see people who have benefited from fortunate upbringings and good education making fun of people for characteristics based on poverty or lack of opportunity (such as bad grammar, accents, or even particular religious beliefs or practices).

I suppose my politics are a bit paternal. I make no apology for that. I've seen poverty up close. I know that there are many poor and working-class people who simply have no lobbyists or special interests looking out for them. They're who I fight for. To me, that's much more consistent with the teachings of Christianity than Republican economics. And I will continue to argue for economic policies that help these people even if I disagree strongly with them on cultural issues. In the past, I haven't faulted people for not being informed. After all, people who work and raise families don't always have time to read newspapers and magazines. In general, I always felt that the people had a sort of collective wisdom, and that they generally did the right thing when push came to shove.

But the war in Iraq has made me much more skeptical. In that sense, Iraq has been a defining, formative experience for me and my political thought. In particular, I was struck - and dumbfounded - at how easily a top-down war was imposed on a public who really didn't even think about invading Iraq before September of 2002. I was also struck at how effective the most child-like emotional appeals were to sway public opinion. It was Julius Caesar on steroids. I mean, this was war we're talking about. Unfortunately, the word "war" doesn't accurately reflect the horrors of combat, and the consequences for the individuals and families affected. It's horrible, only to be done in the most pressing of circumstances. But we rushed into it and were almost happy to do so. A thought kept popping up from my subconscious as I watched the march to war in stunned silence - These people don't understand what they're doing. They don't understand the horror they're about to unleash on our soldiers and on the Middle East.

And then there's Bush. He's still getting nearly 50% of the vote. Now, there are conservatives who are voting for Bush for sound intellectual reasons. But I think the only reason that Bush is even close is because of the gross ignorance ("uninformed," not dumb) of much the American public - as I explained in the last post.

So, here's the question. How can I stop myself from feeling elitist when popular ignorance is getting people killed; when it's losing the war on terror; when it's allowing the whoring of the administrative state; when it's wrecking our long-term fiscal health? I don't want to be so angry at the lack of knowledge, but dammit, it got a lot of people killed, and it seems to be creating a new wave of fundamentalism across the Middle East. And now, the most divisive, war-mongering, cruel, economically heartless administration ever is trying to hide everything by slapping a few pro-gay rights moderates in prime time and showing pictures of Bush at Ground Zero. And people seem to be buying it. After all, "He's a straight shooter" and "I'd identify with him at a bar" and "He's so warm and optimistic."

I really really really don't want to abandon populism. But Iraq and this election are really tugging at me.

In short, I'm still really mad about the war. So maybe I'm letting that color my thoughts too much. I hope so. Because I have always had a deep faith in the wisdom of the American people, and I'd hate to lose that.

[On a totally unrelated note, the best coverage of last night's speeches comes from Giblets over at Fafblog:

Well Giblets has a message to those pussies straight from the Governor of California: stop worrying about growing the economy and start growing a penis and testicles! 'Cause real men flush economies down the toilet, let terrorists escape, invade the wrong countries and go on to beat the Predator in a knock-down drag-out no-holds-barred fight! Giblets, like all real-men Republicans, is wrestling a giant squid as he writes this in his press box.

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Via the Washington Monthly and Unfutz, I just read an absolute must-read article in the New Yorker by Louis Menand. It's a political-science piece about what people rely upon (or are influenced by) when they cast their votes. And it's extremely depressing. Actually, "depressing" is not strong enough of a word. Given the gravity of the issues we now face at home and abroad, it's more like "soul-suckingly debilitating." But, it also explains why the GOP convention is smart politics. [This post was heavily influenced by an excellent post by Ezra Klein who is guest blogging at Wash. Monthly.]

I agree with Ed over at Unfutz - it's really hard to find a passage to excerpt because you need to read the whole thing. But I'll try. Essentially, the article examines some seminal political science literature that surveyed what exactly influences people to vote the way they do. It relies heavily on a famous work from the 1960s by Philip Converse. Converse found that only 10% of Americans vote on the basis of any coherent ideology - which means they displayed a "reasonable grasp of 'what goes with what' - of how a set of opinions adds up to a coherent political philosophy." More than twice as many (i.e., nearly 1 in 4 Americans - 22%) vote without any "discernible issue content." Menand added:

Non-ideologues may use terms like "liberal" and "conservative," but Converse thought that they basically don't know what they're talking about, and that their beliefs are characterized by what he termed a lack of "constraint": they can't see how one opinion (that taxes should be lower, for example) logically ought to rule out other opinions (such as the belief that there should be more government programs).

And if that doesn't help you sleep, check out his other findings:

[A]fter analyzing the results of surveys conducted over time, in which people tended to give different and randomly inconsistent answers to the same questions, Converse concluded that "very substantial portions of the public" hold opinions that are essentially meaningless - off-the-top-of-the-head responses to questions they have never thought about, derived from no underlying set of principles. These people might as well base their political choices on the weather. And, in fact, many of them do. . . . Seventy per cent of Americans cannot name their senators or their congressman. Forty-nine per cent believe that the President has the power to suspend the Constitution. Only about thirty per cent name an issue when they explain why they voted the way they did, and only a fifth hold consistent opinions on issues over time. Rephrasing poll questions reveals that many people don't understand the issues that they have just offered an opinion on. According to polls conducted in 1987 and 1989, for example, between twenty and twenty-five per cent of the public thinks that too little is being spent on welfare, and between sixty-three and sixty-five per cent feels that too little is being spent on assistance to the poor.

On the basis of these findings, some political scientists have argued that voters base their vote on literally nothing, and thus that elections aren't really expressions of the popular will, but are inherently arbitrary. Others have argued that people vote by employing a "heuristic," or a shortcut that substitutes for actual knowledge. For example, one heuristic might be Dean's scream, which became a shortcut to knowing that he was "unstable" or "unelectable" and thus unworthy of one's vote. Or take Daddy Bush's infamous encounter with the scanner - which became a shortcut to knowing that he didn't identify with real Americans. But even if the latter is true (meaning that people rely on heuristics rather than nothing), there is still the question of whether the heuristics that people rely upon are rational. And the answer seems to be no. Menand offers the example of the estate tax - which affects 2% of the population but is opposed by 67% of Americans. That ain't rational.

As Ezra Klein explains, this idea of heuristics provides an answer to the question posed by so many utterly exasperated people like myself - How in the hell could people still believe Bush has been a good President? The answer is because they're relying on heuristics - bad heuristics. But before I get into that, please remember that only 10% of people demonstrate a tendency to vote according to some coherent ideology. Klein speculates that blog readers, bloggers, and pundits are overwhelmingly within this 10% (according to Converse - obviously, this post is only correct if Converse's study was correct). Thus, it's almost impossible for these people to understand how so many voters could support such incoherent policy. The answer, of course, is that those voters aren't basing their votes on ideology. They're basing it on something else - which is either a heuristic of some kind (at best), or nothing (at worst).

So here's the problem - and I promise I'm getting close to tying this in to the GOP convention. The heuristics and shortcuts that people use are often completely unrelated (logically speaking) to the wisdom of any policy. For example, people vote on the basis of a candidate's perceived warmth, or optimism, or the temperament of their spouse, or upon some well-hyped event such as Dean's scream. But even people who at least try to base their vote on something important often fail to be rational about it. This includes people who vote only on, say, the war on terror, but base their vote upon Bush's personality traits rather than upon any rational assessment of the Middle East, or our policies there. Menand explains:

That it is hard to persuade some people with ideological arguments does not mean that those people cannot be persuaded, but the things that help to convince them are likely to make ideologues sick - things like which candidate is more optimistic.

This is consistent with what Nixon's speech-writer claimed:

Nixon's chief speechwriter, Raymond Price, was even more explicit. For most voters, he said, the decision to support a candidate was a "gut reaction, unarticulated, non-analytical, a product of the particular chemistry between the voter and the image of the candidate." It's "not what's there that counts, it's what's projected."

Finally, at long last, we can apply these insights to the GOP convention, and then understand why the GOP is simply better at politics than the Democrats right now. Ezra Klein expresses it perfectly:

The Republican Party has become masterful at rigging these heuristic signposts into pointing in the opposite direction from the party. Bush's affability, apparent values and general normality signals good president despite the incoherence and incompetence defining his policies.

Do you see the genius of the non-stop appeal to Bush's personality, and to the emotions around 9/11? Do you now understand why the convention has said exactly zero about policy? It's because people don't vote on the basis of policy. They adopt these little heuristics and base their vote entirely upon them. That's the point of talking about Bush at Ground Zero, or hugging construction workers. People will base their vote on the fact that he showed up to Ground Zero three days later. That photo-op is about 1 million times more important than any policy proposal he could offer. That's because it's a heuristic that signals strength in the war on terror, courage, [name your ridiculous association here.]

That's also why pundits who say that Kerry should have talked more about specific policies at his convention, or that Bush or Kerry should be laying out their visions on Iraq and Iran, just don't get it. The lack of policy influences only a tiny sliver of the voting population. Emotional appeals that convey no real information are far more effective.

That's why the Democratic convention was as good as it could have possibly been, given the candidate. It was all intended to project an image of strength, faith, and patriotism. No policy anywhere, of course. The emotion-evoking projection was all that mattered. That's why Kerry went up in the polls. And I suspect that the Swift Boat Vet ads are the reason he's declining. Again, they're total lies, but knowing that they're lies requires one to read papers and dig a little. It's much easier to stir emotions by watching an ad (played relentlessly on Fox and then the mainstream media) claiming that he lied, or showing footage of his 1971 testimony. [Thus, I may have been wrong when I thought the ads would backfire - I was assuming a rational audience.]

There's a reason why the GOP controls every branch of government - they understand how voting works in the digital age - and they exploit the emotions and voter ignorance relentlessly. Klein places a lot of blame for this sorry state of affairs on the media. And he is right. He explains:

So long as politicians can consciously manipulate heuristics for their advancement and the media will report on that level, there's no chance that such glancing political involvement will lead voters to rational decision making. And that means the media must step up and drill through to the issues or Americans must step up and do the work themselves. Either one would be fine, both would be terrific, but neither would be disastrous.

In the Laci Peterson age, I think there's little hope for either. And I'm getting dangerously close to complete despair because of it. But not yet. I'm not giving up on the American people yet. I'm giving them until the election. But if Bush wins, then his tactics will be mimicked. And that means that democratic deliberation in this country will consist of nothing more than meaningless, information-less appeals to emotion. Hell, we may be there already.

[Update: A good example of this phenomenon can be seen in the reaction to Bush's now-controversial comments about whether the war on terror can be won. He said:

I don't think you can win it. But I think you can create conditions so that those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world.

Now that's the first goddamned thing he's said right about the war on terror in four years. And it's also the first sign that I've seen that he has anything other than the most child-like conceptual grasp of the war, though his policies don't reflect it (to say the least). But still, I find it frustrating that this line was so viciously attacked. I understand completely, as a matter of political tactics, why they're doing it. And the GOP - which ruthlessly mischaracterized any nuanced statement made by Kerry - certainly deserves it. But again, it's just another example of how adult-level policy discussions always get reduced to emotional nonsense on the intellectual level of a Disney movie.]

[Update 2: Wow - I just finished this WP article on Bush's backtracking, and found this:

The "Today" comment was the second time since August that Bush's remarks had indicated he was thinking about terrorism more deeply than his regular sound bites might indicate. "We actually misnamed the war on terror," he told the Unity: Journalists of Color convention. "It ought to be the struggle against ideological extremists who do not believe in free societies who happen to use terror as a weapon to try to shake the conscience of the free world.

Maybe Bush has been reading Legal Fiction. Seriously though, if Bush wins, I really really really hope - for the sake of the world - that his administration understands this, and most importantly, adopts policies that reflect that understanding. Of course, given all the controversy, I'm guessing this will be the last time you hear Bush say anything remotely similar to the more introspective quote above. And that's a shame.]