Last refuge of the scoundrel

Bush is trying to convince the American people that Iraq is the WWII of our time, and Democrats are craven defeatists. Both claims are absurd.

By Gary Kamiya

Read more: Gary Kamiya, Opinion, Iraq War, Harry Reid

May 1, 2007 | According to the Bush administration and its supporters, the Democrats and a majority of the American people are a cross between Benedict Arnold, Neville Chamberlain and Tokyo Rose. What set the Bushites off was a one-two punch from the Democrats -- the bill that would require American troops to begin withdrawing from Iraq by Oct. 1, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's statement, "As long as we follow the president's path in Iraq, the war is lost." The words were barely out of Reid's mouth when the Bush dead-enders -- a peculiar group now consisting of less than a quarter of the American people, two GOP congressmen and two GOP senators -- began Googling "great traitors of history." Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., called on Reid to resign. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the spending bill amounted to a "surrender" to al-Qaida. White House spokesperson Dana Perino said, "Tonight, the House of Representatives votes for failure in Iraq, and the president will veto its bill."

The right's rank and file followed suit. "Dem Senate Votes for Retreat and Defeat," screamed the headline on the conservative Web site Townhall. Prominent right-wing blogger Hugh Hewitt called Reid a "defeatist cheerleader." Another conservative commentator, Rich Galen, said Reid is "invested in failure." On the Free Republic, a post called on "fellow Freepers" to denounce Democratic "traitors" and "treason."

In a column titled "Losers," Iran-Contra rogue Oliver North, whose tireless efforts to assist the Contras apparently qualifies him as an expert on fighting terrorism, said America would reject the Democrat's Iraq stance because Americans hate losers. "If the Democrats continue their current course, we may well lose this war -- and they will have embraced defeat and all that comes with it," North wrote. In a programmatic tactic of the Bush administration, Ollie rallied his argument around World War II. He quoted a soldier in Ramadi as saying, "Good thing this guy Reid wasn't around in 1940 when Winston Churchill promised the people of Great Britain nothing but 'blood, toil, tears and sweat.'"

Bush supporters have been labeling war critics defeatists, appeasers and surrender monkeys ever since 9/11. Chickenhawk conservatives discovered they could attack even decorated war veterans with impunity, as the shameless smearing of triple amputee Vietnam War vet Max Cleland proved. Who could forget that glorious day when newly elected Rep. Jean Schmidt, R-Ohio, attacked Rep. John Murtha, a war hero, by saying, "Cowards cut and run, Marines never do"? Congress and the media's gutless reaction to these attacks is one of the main reasons they rolled over during the run-up to the war in Iraq.

But those who live by bogus patriotic fearmongering die by bogus patriotic fearmongering. Having cast its lot irrevocably with Bush, the GOP is now condemned to play out the dismal endgame in Iraq by his all-or-nothing rules. They have no choice but to pretend victory is at hand, attack those who say otherwise, and make up apocalyptic scenarios about what al-Qaida will do to us if we don't stay the course.

The problem is, no one believes any of this anymore -- probably not even the people who are saying it. The gap between reality and Bush spin, always large, has become a Grand Canyon. As a result, the Orwellian rhetoric so beloved of the Bush administration is rapidly becoming devalued. "War is peace" just doesn't have that inspiring ring it once did.

Until this year, the Democrats were cowed into silence by the GOP's attacks. No more. Like Murtha, who was the first Democrat to directly challenge the GOP's fear-and-smear tactics, Reid and House leader Nancy Pelosi have realized that the best way to respond to a blustering bully is to hit him in the face. After Cheney attacked Reid, Reid not only defended himself but also gave Cheney a sharp kick in the snout. He called the vice president an "attack dog," then added, "I'm not going to get into a name-calling match with somebody who has a 9 percent approval rating."

The GOP's overwrought response represents its realization of how potentially politically damaging his counterattack was. If Reid's contemptuous dismissal of Cheney was allowed to stand, the Bush administration's flag-draped aura of intimidation and invincibility -- which is all that it has left -- would be removed. This could not happen. Under no circumstances could the great and powerful Oz be exposed.

Riding to the GOP's rescue was Washington Post columnist David Broder, the "dean of American political correspondents" -- a epithet that apparently refers to his status as the Platonic ideal of establishment-unto-death thinking. Broder blasted Reid as an amateurish loose cannon and, incredibly, compared him to Alberto Gonzales. Reid's act of lèse-majesté in saying "the war is lost" was too much for Broder, who as the voice of Beltway probity pronounced that it was unacceptable for the top Democrat in the Senate to state what most Americans believe to be true.

If the American public were still playing by the genteel Broder rules, the GOP's attempt to demonize Reid and the Democrats might have worked. But it isn't. Broder's column, which was rebuked in a letter signed by all 50 members of the Senate Democratic caucus, has instantly became a symbol of the vacuity and conformism of establishment thinking. The previously irresistible force of patriotic conformity has run into the immovable object of democracy. The overwhelming majority of Democrats, and a sizable minority of Republicans, no longer believe anything Bush or Cheney say about the war. They believe it is lost, they want the United States to get out, and they want their voice to be heard. And more and more of them have had it with the rigged game in which the Bush administration is given carte blanche to issue one highhanded and false statement after another about the war, while the Democrats are expected to tug their forelocks, salute the flag, and speak in an manner approved by their betters.

Next page: Churchill called for blood and sweat. Bush called for more shopping