This post by Hindrocket takes a very bleak look at Bush’s chances in 2004. He argues that Bush will be associated with troubled times, and that Iraq and the deficit will hurt him in the election. It’s worth examining these arguments in greater detail.
The first argument I find the weakest of all of them. I don’t believe that the American people reject political leaders just because they are associated with bad times. Abraham Lincoln led the country through the darkest hour in its history then or since and still won re-election (in fact, I believe the election on 1864 is the best historical analogue to 2004 for reasons I’ll go into later). A President isn’t hurt by the times he is in, he’s hurt by how he leads in that time. The one point in the last few years that the nation was unified was in the post-September 11 period, and the President’s handling of that period remains a benefit to his image rather than a liability.
Furthermore, the issue for many voters will be “which person do I feel will do the best to safeguard this country?” In nearly every poll taken, the Republicans have traditionally led in that question by wide margins – and this election will be no different.
The second issue is not as good for Bush. The lack of WMDs does hurt him, but in the end this is a dead issue. The lines have already been drawn on this war a long time ago. Those who see Bush as having “misled” the country into war aren’t going to change their minds, and the 60% who supported the war did so for more than just Saddam’s WMD capacity. The humanitarian situation in Iraq provided more than enough of a ex post facto rationale for war to offset the WMD issue. When the questions about the decision-making process in Iraq are laid out, Bush clearly took the most responsible course of action. This issue may hurt Bush some, but not enough to significantly hurt his campaign.
The final issue of the deficit is also a negative for Bush, but I disagree that it’s the mortal wound that Hindrocket argues. The Democrats are not the party of fiscal restraint, and arguing that Bush is spending too much while arguing for spending more and more on everything is a position that’s quite easy to turn around and use as ammunition. At the end of the day, I can’t see a large number of conservatives staying home on Election Day. Furthermore, I can also see the conservative defections being balanced out by Bush Democrats voting for Bush on the basis of the Democrat’s weak security policy.
Hindrocket also argues that the viciousness of the groups arrayed against Bush will hurt him. I’m inclined to disagree. The American people react very negatively to vicious campaigning, and the things being said by groups like MoveOn and others are so patently over the top that they are only persuasive to those who already hate Bush. To anyone else they sound shrill and unhinged. To steal a quote from John Kerry that was stolen from the President: “bring it on.” The more times Bush is compared to Hitler the more people become disgusted.
Hindrocket also argues that we’re a more liberal society than we were 20 years ago. Perhaps in some ways, but not in others. 20 years ago there was no blogosphere, talk radio was in its infancy, and Fox News didn’t exist. The sources of news were all uniform in their desire to portray the Republicans as the party of greed, avarice, and downright evil. That echo chamber has been burst open with the proliferation of new media that provide, if not a “fair and balanced” perspective, at least one that doesn’t share in the same biases as the others. The media is certainly not conservative, but the media as a whole is less monolithically liberal as it once was.
Then there’s John Kerry himself. The Democrats see Kerry as some kind of savior that can defeat Bush. Then again, the same was said about Howard Dean, Wesley Clark, and John Edwards all in turn. Kerry is sonorous, long-winded, and boring. He’s not a dynamic campaigner, a debate between Kerry and Bush would be much like the Bush and Gore debates in which Bush’s common touch defeated Gore’s arrogant elitism. Kerry now has the benefit of a relative media honeymoon, but that will end soon. Kerry hasn’t had to endure much criticism while he was in the shadow of Howard Dean. That is soon to end, and already the first cracks in the “Real Deal” veneer are starting to show. The man who decries special interests was the Senate’s biggest shill for them. The man who paints himself as a war hero later turned his back on his fellow troops and accused them of atrocities they never committed. The man who wants to be Commander in Chief voted against the first war in Iraq, and later was caught lying about it after the fact.
As I’ve said before, there’s little room for complacency in this election. However, there’s little room for undue pessimism either. Bush can win, and despite a week of bad poll numbers, he hasn’t even begun the fight. Declaring his campaign DOA now is far too premature – there’s a long and difficult fight ahead, but I’ve every confidence in the world that Bush can pull this off.
I don’t really want to join this debate on the campaign. I only know that Bush was a cocaine addict, that he left the army without a note, a drunken driver, a guy with ties with the largest financial scandals of the last years, and a deficit recordmen. That is enough for me to say that he shouldn’t be ruling the US. Kerry may not be any better. I still don’t understand how a simple “yeah” can have put Dean so down? I heard it, and it really wasn’t that horrible…
Anyhow, there is an issue that I like to stress on your post:
“The humanitarian situation in Iraq provided more than enough of a ex post facto rationale for war to offset the WMD issue” !!!
If this sentence is true, why don’t you just go with the chart of the UN showing “most terrible countries to live in” to help? That would start with Bangladesh, then comes Nigeria…Irak wasn’t so bad in comparison to many other countries!
Moreover, why did C.Powell went to the UN to argue the case with the WMDs arguments if those weren’t the right ones? Why is the “coalition of freedom, democracy, peace and love” built on the idea that they are fighting terror and not poverty as you say it?
Sorry Jay, but you are wrong. The WMDs is not an issue anymore because it was a lie to push countries in a war nobody wanted. Democrats can spend a lot of money, but not 455 billions for the defense, plus 75 billions for Irak, while schools are rotting with the cadavers of the kids “left behind”!!
Maybe your country is best defended with a republican at his head, but maybe it wouldn’ t be endangered if republicans’ ideology wasn’t running it.
“la parole est d’argent, mais le silence est d’or”. Je pense que les républicains se satisfont de l’argent. Le silence sert notamment à écouter!
For those who don’t read French Vincent wrote in his last paragraph above: “Then again, I usually prefer to suck shit out of a goat’s ass most of the day, so take anything I write with a grain of salt!”
I think that anyone intent enough on finding out what those words mean to actually use their computing abilities might perhaps come across this:
“speech is silvern, but silence is golden”. I think that the republicans are satisfied money. Silence is in particular used to listen!
Even though it is certainly not “good English,” this translation from this commonly used site makes at least one thing clear: it does not contain the words suck, shit, goat or ass. These were brought to you only by ct.
Wow. Jay compares Bush to Lincoln. Of course the difference is that Lincoln freed some slaves, whereas Bush opposes civil rights for some Americans.
I’d say Jay’s case of “Bush-fellation” disease has finally come to a head. (So to speak.)
And now you need to engage in lies in order to slam someone. Nice way to take the intellectual high ground there. Any more propaganda you’d like to swallow from the odious likes of Michael Moore.
Bangladesh has a better standard of living than most countries and a freely-elected government. You’re thinking of Burma. Nigeria isn’t very well off, but I’d rather be a Nigerian than living in Zimbabwe, which is a dictatorship.
I thought Europeans were supposed to have been educated about the world… both the countries you named aren’t even dictatorships.
‘
No, I compared the election to 1864 with 2004, and the circumstances between Bush and Lincoln. I know you’d rather show everyone who reactionary, mean-spirited, and idiotic the Bush-haters are, but we already got that from Michael Moore.
Yes, what he meant to say was “Cay dy geg, a dos i ffwcio dy gath i fyny’r pen ol.”
Well, according to the 1860 Census there were a little under 4 million slaves in the US in 1860. The population of Afghanistan is 28 million, and Iraq about 25 million. Considering that both of those countries were held in bondage to tyranny, one could make an argument that numerically Bush did better than Lincoln… furthermore over 620,000 people died in the Civil War, while fewer than 1,000 US soldiers and 10,000 civilians have died in both Iraq and Afghanistan, so not only did Bush free more people, he did it with fewer lives lost on all sides.
so not only did Bush free more people, he did it with fewer lives lost on all sides.
On the other hand, when Lincoln freed them, they stayed free. Whereas by all indications Afghanistan is experiencing a resurgence of violent, militant Islam.
I don’t think comparisons to Lincoln are any more appropriate than comparisons to Hitler. The only accurate comparison is maybe King Midas – in reverse.
Cay dy geg, a dos i ffwcio dy gath i fyny’r pen ol
Welsh, Jay? I trust that you are also able to pronounce that? I, surely, am not. I may have to take some lessons there. For the time being, I do not think that the English translation sounds as richly as I imagine the Welsh version does:
“Shut your mouth and go fuck your cat up the arse.”
Oh well.
I was wondering when someone would try and Google that… 🙂
Welsh isn’t hard to pronounce, you just have to speak as though you were gargling oatmeal…
Googling that was the first thing I did upon coming home this night… At least I found that sweet web page where that line is listed.
J.
“I thought Europeans were supposed to have been educated about the world… both the countries you named aren’t even dictatorships.”
precisely stupid! Your point was that the US went to Irak for HUMANITARIAN, not political, reasons!! If this was true, then you should help countries with a pure problem of poverty!! This is obviously not the case. The foreign aid of the US is one of the lowest of industrialised countries (in percentage). Thanks to Bush, the foreign aid money goes directly to american biotach corporation!
“precisely stupid! Your point was that the US went to Irak for HUMANITARIAN, not political, reasons!!”
Read slowly: The U.S. took down Saddam’s regime as a part of a deliberate strategy post 9/11 to right the imbalance that had developed where these medieval dirtbags had got it into their heads that they could attack America with impunity. First step: take out the terrorists and their camps where the 9/11 plot originated. Next step: take down one of the most obvious regimes that supported terrorism and could in the future support terrorism and that would send an unmistakable message to the other rogue dirtbag regimes that if you fuck with America you pay. Message sent. Job done. The imbalance has been righted. An on-the-mark strategy executed directly and forcefully.
that would send an unmistakable message to the other rogue dirtbag regimes that if you fuck with America you pay.
How, exactly, did Iraq “fuck with America”?
If you met a guy at the bar who beat another guy to death because he “fucked with him”, would you drink with that guy? Or consider him a dangerous bully?
Sure, we have the right to defend ourselves. But you have to establish a threat first. Bush and Co. spectacularly failed to do that, and as a result, sent the message “give us what we want or we’ll fuck you up.” That’s not the America I grew up in.
Iraq was a dirtbag regime supporting terrorists. What about that don’t you comprehend? That alone makes them fair game to take down. You also talk as if we took down the Iraqi people themselves. No, dipshit, we LIBERATED them. Only left wing shit worms like you consider living in the devil’s conditions is where people should be. Now go back to sticking your Chomsky up your ass.
ct: Please be respectful to other posters, even when they’re blatantly wrong.
As for the issue of Iraq being a threat, they had only been funding terrorists from Hamas, Hizb’Allah, Islamic Jihad, Ansar-i-Islam, Muslim Brotherhood, etc. It’s not like firing at US warplanes is a provokation either. Oh, and those constant threats that he was going to use nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons on us – well, we should just have assumed he was bluffing. After all, the Clintons thought bin Laden was bluffing when he threatened to attack the continental US, and we all know that nothing happened… (Except for the largest terrorist attack in history and the first attack on the US capital since 1814…)
No, dipshit, we LIBERATED them. Only left wing shit worms like you consider living in the devil’s conditions is where people should be. Now go back to sticking your Chomsky up your ass.
I love getting psycoanalyzed over the net. I always learn so much about other people.
Iraqis live in a country occupied by a foreign army. Doesn’t sound liberated to me. If they’ve got a democracy when we leave, I’ll join you in that sentiment. Assuming it doesn’ t almost immediately devolve into a fundamentalist theocracy.
Honestly I hope that things work out for the Iraqis. Thanks to the damage done to American credibility this is the last positive thing we’ll be able to do on the international stage for a long time. I hope it was worth it to you.
“Iraqis live in a country occupied by a foreign army. Doesn’t sound liberated to me.”
This is just typically too stupid to even contend with.
This is just typically too stupid to even contend with.
Is there a foreign army in Iraq, or isn’t there? I realize that civil debate could be a challenge for somebody who gets his news from Fox but I implore you to at least attempt it.
Of course you could actually try listening to what the Iraqis are saying.
Let’s do a very simple review of what conditions are like in Iraq compared to what they were like under Hussein.
– No more secret police/Mukhabarat
– No more random rapes from Uday/Qusay
– No more mass graves being filled.
– No more sanctions.
– No more suppression of free expression.
– No more systematic oppression of Kurds and Shi’as.
Of course, to the worldview of Chet and the like, the Iraqis would be better off being killed by the hundreds rather than the US do anything that might expose the bankruptcy of international institutions like the UN.
Yes, it damaged US credibility so much that Libya just up and decided to unilaterally disarm. It damaged our credibility so much that North Korea agreed to multilateral talks rather than their demand for strictly bilateral talks. It damaged our credibility so bad that Syria and Iran are both seeing their pro-democracy movements emboldened. It damaged our credibility so bad that the German government is seeking to get back in our good graces and even the French are trying to convince us that they’re really our friends after all.
The only people whose credibility has been damaged are those who put their faith in worthless institutions like the UNSC and the doctrine of America bound by terror-supporting states like Gulliver bound by the Liliputians.
“Gulliver bound by the Liliputians”…
if this is your vision of the world…there’s really a lot to worry about for all of us in the rest of the world, the midgets under your boots.
Setting international rules where the “biggest threat” rules (that is what your saying with your examples of -by the way without military coercition- syria, lybia…) is very dangerous.
I sincerely hope “Gulliver” realizes that China and the EU are a lot larger and richer than the US, or soon will be. That day, you may be very annoyed for creating this precedent of “pre-emptive” war…
whatever right? just like the Kyoto protocol: “short-term gains are good enough” (to say with the mouth full of food while resting in a swimming-pool). Who cares about the world in a century? None of us will still be there!
“Gulliver bound by the Liliputians”…
if this is your vision of the world…there’s really a lot to worry about for all of us in the rest of the world, the midgets under your boots.
Setting international rules where the “biggest threat” rules (that is what your saying with your examples of -by the way without military coercition- syria, lybia…) is very dangerous.
I sincerely hope “Gulliver” realizes that China and the EU are a lot larger and richer than the US, or soon will be. That day, you may be very annoyed for creating this precedent of “pre-emptive” war…
whatever right? just like the Kyoto protocol: “short-term gains are good enough” (to say with the mouth full of food while resting in a swimming-pool). Who cares about the world in a century? None of us while still be there!
Economically, militarily, and spiritually… And the Vincent’s of the world are doing their damnedest to make sure those three pillars are weakened…..God bless their little goat’s feet…
Yes, I quiver in fear at Europe’s awesome 1% GDP growth and military might. Why the Charles de Gaulle could kill thousands… of its own sailors. By 2050 if current trends keep up, there won’t be a Europe – the economic and demographic trends hardly inspire any worries that Europe will catch up to the US any time soon.