Webb, The Blame for Iraq

Letter sent to TPM re: The blame the American people for Bush's screw-ups meme

Dear Josh,

1. In reference to the new GOP/Conservative talking point (Stanley Kurtz, Morton Kondracke) about blaming the American People for not letting Bush fight the war. I could give a long answer to this, refuting this disgusting accusation & complaining about how terrible Bush and his proxies are, but we already know all that. The short answer is that the American people knew about the price of the war in Iraq and paid for it: in the 2004 election.

If you remember, Bush won the 2000 election because his team successfully convinced the American Voters that he was just slightly ideologically to the right to Gore. He was another 'moderate' (which they called a 'compassionate conservative'). This pose was so convincing that the far-left consumed it whole and voted for Nader, thinking that there was no real difference between Gore and Bush. The American people back then wanted a moderate and before 9/11 Bush had low popularity numbers because Rove quickly ripped off the face-mask and shoved a hard-right agenda down America's throats. Rove needed to do this - because the country was teetering on the 50-50 edge in 2000 and Nader's people made the difference so Rove needed to galvanize the Christianists to offset the Greens.

Then 9/11.

And the American people, who disliked the Conservative crap, rallied behind Bush because we had just been savagely attacked on our own soil. And Cheney and Rumsfeld and the rest of the whackos from Nixon/Ford felt that the time had come to create the New Executive Branch, and to get even with Saddam, all in one fell swoop. So we attacked Iraq. But I think we need to remind ourselves, and everyone, that the American People went ahead with that war because they were told that Saddam was seeking nuclear weapons, already owned chemical & biologicals and had used them before on Kurds, was an old enemy, and was a state sponsor of Al Queda. That's why we attacked Iraq and if it was all true - the WMD, the nukes, the Al Queda link - then the war would have been the moral equivalent of the war in Afghanistan (which nobody really disputes, do they?)

The 2004 election was the American voter biting the bullet and sacrificing themselves for the greater good. It wasn't a validation for Conservatism, it was in spite of that. It was the American voter thinking that they hated the Conservative politics but needing to vote for Bush anyway because the war in Iraq was still being depicted by the MSM as a necessary part of our 9/11 reaction and Kerry was a feckless, talentless, cipher. As we saw with the botched joke, if Kerry would have run against Bush in November 2006, Bush would have won.

After Katrina and after the war became exposed for its nonsense and after the American Voter was asked to give up more and more freedom (wire-taps?, torture?) the price they paid in 2004 just seemed to be too steep to pay in 2006.

2. About the Webb question: I agree with a watered-down JS. I don't think Webb was avoiding Bush as part of a sophisticated ploy. Webb reminds me of the Andrew Jackson form of politician - the straight-talk economic populist military man. And Americans would vote for Andrew Jackson over and over and over - historically I think he's the most significant president because he's the first non-Founding Father and the first American stereotype, the first non-elite, the first populist. Webb, as far as I can tell, seems to walk around as a ball of barely contained rage against all those who've slighted him in person and in the abstract. And his abstract enemies include draft-avoiders like Clinton and Bush. His hatred for Clinton is known (see that recent New yorker piece) and I imagine he hates Bush even more because of the class issue.

Bush, as we know, is a bully. He doesn't have an ounce of compassion in his putrid soul. He asked Webb about his son because he was picking a fight with someone he thinks he can beat. But as we've seen over and over, Bush underestimates his resources and strength. He doesn't know that Webb is going to mop him up. Webb truly scares the GOP because he has a better executive branch record than Cheney and Rumsfeld (who would America rather have, Sec of Defense under Ford & Bush or Sec of Navy from Reagan). Webb makes Bush look to be the wonder-wimp that he is.

And remember what Andrew Jackson (Webb) did to John Quincy Adams (Bush).

all the best, JC

Backpost put up on 2009-12-08.