There probably is no chance of an ideological, or even strategic, opposition derailing the the escalation. The only good things we know so far are that Obama has gotten maximum input and taken his time deliberating the options and that he has insisted on an exit strategy.
Opposition is being expressed primarily in the form of proposals to impose a "war surtax."
Yesterday, on George Stephanopolis' This Week, two Republicans had an exchange about it. Dan Senor, a neocon war hawk, called it a backdoor effort to derail the troop increase. Matthew Dowd, Bush's director of communications, said it was unfair to increase troops without any sort of shared sacrifice.
On the Sunday morning show, George Will had just declared that there will be no surtax. Dowd's response hit the right notes that should have been front and center in our deliberations all along:
I agree with you. There is not going to be a tax. But I think this goes to a fundamental value that I think we lost, which is that we can get things for nothing. That we can go to war and not have to pay for it either by cutting the budget or doing something else. We have a war; we don't have a draft. All of these sorts of things, that we think, 'Oh, by way, we can go fight the most important war in the history of our country, but we're not going to have a draft, we're not going to pay for it, we're not going to do anything that causes anybody to sacrifice.This began with Bush's not only not asking for a draft or budget cuts, he even refused to put the costs of war in the budget and instead always had it in a supplemental bill to avoid thinking of it in terms of what needed to be cut.
The biggest deterrent to war would be a draft. Next would be a surtax or major budget cuts. We did neither under Bush. Is Obama going to continue that? Watch his address tomorrow night with that in mind.
Ralph
It's not so much better as we hoped before the economy collapsed, but things are at least a lot clearer. To quote myself, "What has come before is a comedy of errors that became a pitiful tragedy - an inertia of mistakes." Lets hope that he's able to break the chain of misadventure that preceeds him.
ReplyDeleteHealth Care is important. Our future in Afghanistan is important. Economic reform is paramount. But right now, the central issue is very simple - JOBS. As pundit James Carville said, "It's the economy, stupid." So, I'm hoping that Obama has a plan for the simple things too.
Remember one of the most memorable lines from Obama during the campaign, when McCain wanted to suspend everything and rush to Washington to oversee Congress' handling of the financial crisis: Obama said "Presidents should be able to handle more than one thing at the time," and went on with his campaign, while conferring daily with the leaders in their effort.
ReplyDeleteDavid Plouffe details this in his book about the campaign. It really did come from Obama who, he says, thought McCain's idea was another example of his erratic way of responding to things.
But Obama's hand was forced when Bush reluctantly (as Plouffe tells it) responded to McCain's call for a summit meeting with Congressional leaders and the two candidates. So Obama went; and he shone in the meeting, while McCain sat there sullenly and hardly said a word.
Here's the problem with Dowd's call for "shared sacrifice." He's a hypocrite. Just hearken back to Dowd's break with Bush over Iraq. It coincided with the deployment of his son there, which suddenly led him to rethink his allegiance to the President he helped get re-elected. I guess to Matthew Dowd, every American should share in the sacrifice, except him of course.
ReplyDeleteRichard: ( this sounds like you, though unsigned)
ReplyDeleteI'm no fan of Mathew Dowd either. But isn't it just possible that his son's being deployed to Iraq was what made him aware of the sacrifice he then shared with all the other families with young people going to Iraq?
And isn't that exactly his point?
Yes, it would have been better if he had realized this sooner, but at least he did experience it and changed. I'm not sure how this makes him a hypocrit -- maybe this was his becoming aware rather than an example of hypocricy.
That Anonymous is not me. It's another Anonymous. I always sign mine. I log in as anonymous because I forgot my log in and am too lazy to look it up.
ReplyDeleteI may have more on Afghanistan later after we hear the details. But it's still Bush's Sec of Defense and Bush' corrupt Afghan president, so I'm not too hopeful. If the rumors being floated are true - go into one area with limited forces(one source put it at 9,000, and even highlighted the area and the arrival time) - I have a basic concern. If you go into one area, isn't the Taliban simply going to move to a different area? DUH!
This still seems like the wrong war at the wrong time to me for the wrong reasons. It still looks like a quagmire.
richard