posted on April 20, 2003 02:22:59 PM newAnd this, from all places, CBS
It’s morning in America. Sort of.
The terror alert is back to a warm yellow. The endless winter is over and so is the war.
But the sun isn’t shining on the Left side of America.
For opponents of the war, times are hard.
Even anti-ideological wafflers who could never decide whether they were for or against the war (that would be me) have to fight an unattractive impulse to keep looking for a vindicating black lining to this apparent silver cloud. Thankfully, none of worst nightmares that could have come from what is for now seen as the liberation of Iraq materialized.
American troops were not gassed. Their casualties were light. Civilian casualties, always unforgivable to some, seem to be less than most forecast. There wasn’t sustained door-to-door street fighting in Baghdad. The Arab street has not erupted in an epic anti-American riot. International alliances and institutions do not appear to be irreparably scarred. The Turks are not at war against the Kurds, North Korea hasn’t invaded anyone and al Qaeda hasn’t struck again.
With most of the shooting over, the “doom and gloom crowd” (to swipe a phrase from Bush the Elder) is still looking down dark alleys.
The big new worry: U.S. soldiers are going left from Iraq into Syria or right into Iran. Or worse, the imperialist American war machine is going to conquer the whole region – and then the world.
“There is no confusion about how the Bush administration and its neocon pals see the Iraq war: this is just the beginning, wrote David Corn in the Nation magazine. “It's on to Damascus or wherever the crusade leads. At the end of this war, hubris has not been beaten into humility. It reigns and grows fat on the sweet nourishment of victory.”
In the last days of the combat, David Moberg writing in the very progressive In These Times magazine, took the pessimistic cake: “No matter how the war eventually ends, the long-term consequences are likely to be damaging... But the fallout looks bad for both the world as a whole and the majority of people in the United States.”
Democrats and The New York Times editorial page is worrying that President Bush will use his war popularity to invade the American economy with tax cuts. “With the blitz-like speed of his generals, President Bush has come out fighting for his disastrous plan for more upper-bracket tax cuts, which will only stoke the nation's record levels of deficit spending and deepening debt well beyond his incumbency.”
Infuriatingly, no one has captured the scolding negativity of this moment in the liberal zeitgeist than it’s most shrill and relentless nemesis, the editorialists of The Wall Street Journal.
An editorial called “Pessimistic Liberalism” skewered the liberal elite – or at least a good caricature of it: “The puzzle is why some Americans, especially media and liberal elites, continue to wallow in pessimism about this liberation.”
“Two weeks ago these elites were predicting a long war with horrific casualties and global damage. Then at the sight of Iraqis cheering U.S. troops in Baghdad, they quickly moved on to fret about ‘looting’ and ‘anarchy.’ Now that those are subsiding, our pessimists have rushed to worry that Iraqi democracy and reconstruction will be all but impossible. What is it that liberals find so dismaying about the prospect of American success?”
OK, that’s gloating that trivializes legitimate issues. Many Democrats supported the war.
But this sharp pen does have an honest point that liberals or leftists or progressives – whatever term you prefer – should ponder: “America's liberals weren't always so dour about their country's purposes. As recently as the 1960s, their favorite son (JFK) offered to ‘bear any burden’ to extend the promise of freedom.”
It’s sloppy to lump Democrats, liberals, lefties, progressives and foes of the Christian right together, admittedly. But I do think it’s a problem when you a great swath of the political map essentially rooting for bad outcomes. Democrats are hoping the economy doesn’t improve before the 2004 elections. They hope the tax cuts they helped pass two years ago fail.
Painted broadly, the temperament of left is pessimistic and the right is optimistic.
There’s deep tradition for this. Al Gore didn’t try to ride a wave of economic good times into the White House; he tried to exploit a class resentment that someone told him was lurking outside the Beltway. He was drawing from the lineage of Michael Dukakis, Walter Mondale, and Jimmy Carter. Roosevelt, Kennedy, Humphrey and even Clinton worked from the other lobe of Democratic brain.
George Bush, of course, has optimism and assurance inherited from Reagan and Eisenhower that makes Democratic intellectuals barf and most everyone else vote for them. There is also a tradition of Republican darkness and worry – Taft, Nixon, Atwater, and Dole.
The optimistic idealism of classic liberals and progressives is that the world can be changed and improved; that becomes pessimistic negativity when the promise of better, more perfect times disparages and scolds what is satisfactory in the present.
The pessimistic curmudgeonliness of classic conservatives is that change is bad; but their optimism comes from seeing opportunity in the present and in the traditions of the past.
Often lately it seems that that the politicians we label as conservative are actually the optimistic advocates of change.
Optimism sells in America. Pessimists that lean left might do well to look for a silver lining in the silver cloud of Iraq without Saddam.
Dick Meyer, a veteran political and investigative producer for CBS News, is Editorial Director of CBSNews.com based in Washington.
E-mail questions, comments, complaints and ideas to Against the Grain
posted on April 21, 2003 11:12:30 AM new
"In and of itself, the anti-war/anti-American movement does not pose a threat. Less than 30% of the American people agree with it on the war -- and most of them are repulsed by its antics. But the movement reflects the mentality of the Left -- which exerts an influence in this country out of all proportion to its numbers. The ideologues of the anti-war movement have their counterparts in Hollywood, academia, public education and the news media. Multiculturalism is their invention. They are the reason American history is no longer taught in American schools. They are why depictions of the American military went from 'Sergeant York' and 'The Sands of Iwo Jima' to 'Platoon' and 'Full Metal Jacket.' Their dogma fills our airwaves, newspapers, public school classrooms and college lecture halls. Ladies and gentleman, I urge you to support our troops by fighting for America on the home front -- by confronting and refuting the toxic lies of an anti-American elite that cloaks its evil in idealism.As our troops are willing to brave bullets on the battlefield, you must be willing to brave scorn and derision to tell the truth about America and help to raise up the next generation of patriots" --Don Feder
posted on April 21, 2003 11:39:42 AM new
That's a hoot junque. Instead of news conferences, they should just put that up on the screen - it says more than the officials do.
posted on April 21, 2003 11:42:26 AM new
Debasing patriotism and being soft or a non-starter on the defence of America is the death of the left. Taking the same position of foreign nations against America hasn't helped either.
posted on April 21, 2003 11:58:18 AM new
I think the most damage to what you call "the Left" has been from watching their Knights in shining armor shift at a moment's notice when theiir political noses detected something in the wind. The previous darling politicians seem to have had their support eroded. The Democratic Party's constituency is splintered and who knows if they can piece themselves together for the next election.
And if you read ,what the 1st Bush said about Iraq,wouldnt "He" make for your version, of anti American?
Excerpt from "Why We Didn't Remove Saddam" by George Bush [Sr.] and Brent Scowcroft, Time (2 March 1998):
While we hoped that popular revolt or coup would topple Saddam, neither the U.S. nor the countries of the region wished to see the breakup of the Iraqi state. We were concerned about the long-term balance of power at the head of the Gulf. Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in "mission creep," and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible. We had been unable to find Noriega in Panama, which we knew intimately. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well. Under those circumstances, furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-cold war world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the U.N.'s mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the U.S. could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different--and perhaps barren--outcome.
posted on April 21, 2003 12:14:16 PM new
junquemama, the cartoonish page of the Iraq Meter, showed about 1,935? Civilians dead.
(I'm not sure of where they got the stats, it didn't have any more 'clickable' links for that) and I am not doubting that stat at all. (wondering how many of the civilians were Iraqi military dressed in civilian clothing though...)
BUT where was the outrage, where was Hollywood, and where is the count of the civilian casualties in BOSNIA? Do we know? Do we care?
Where was the outrage when President William Clinton ordered the bombing over Iraq in 1998? Where was Hollywood then? Why were they not screaming about the civilian population when bombs were dropping then?
I don't understand this, none of it.
Art Bell Retired! George Noory is on late night coasttocoastam.com
posted on April 21, 2003 12:32:16 PM new
NTS,I am speaking of Iraq,we went in to take their Country...98 slick William, bombed Iraq for #1 Bush FROMbeing a terroist hit and miss.We didnt try to take the country.
All the numbers from the first Gulf war is still hidden.
All the numbers from Afghanistan are being with held,you dont hear about the daily skirmishs and killing of our Marines.No the public cant stand to hear the truth,there would be no war.
Its wrong to kill innocent people,I dont care what excuse is to be found, and works for some.
Where is "Osama?"Where is "Saddam?"..ask the people who died,if they where shocked and awed before death.
Poor Bastards had no where to hide,they were a turkey shoot,all those precision bombings were a joke,theres nothing pricision about cluster bombs.
posted on April 21, 2003 12:53:09 PM new
So Pres. Clinton bombed Iraq for Terrorist Bush #1. (Thats the first time I've heard of our previous President being called a terrorist, I heard that Bush present is a 'regime' )
No, I don't like to see or hear of innocent civilians being killed anywhere
I asked: How may civilian casualties were there in Bosnia, as that was during the Clinton Admin, or am I wrong here? They wouldn't cover anything up for President Clinton.
Art Bell Retired! George Noory is on late night coasttocoastam.com
posted on April 21, 2003 01:17:41 PM new
NTS,I added a word,in the last post,maybe you will understand what Im saying.
And why are you asking about Clinton?
"I asked: How may civilian casualties were there in Bosnia, as that was during the Clinton Admin, or am I wrong here? They wouldn't cover anything up for President Clinton"
Don't you know who the President is now?
Im sure you know how to do any research and will bring it here.Since I dont like Clinton,(either),I would like to see what you find.
posted on April 21, 2003 01:32:37 PM new
"How many more thousands of Iraqis dancing in the streets as Saddam's statues are pulled down would it take for the naysayers to admit that they were mistaken?" --David Stolinsky
posted on April 21, 2003 01:34:02 PM new
bear49,You said this was said:
1) Thousand of Americans will be killed.
2) It will take months to win the war.
3) Badhdad will fight to the last person before it falls.
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I sure didnt say any of that silly stuff.
Who didnt know, it would be a turkey shoot?
I knew the major assault would take a couple of weeks.
Baghdad fell,and its not over by a long shot.Too many factions are trying to establish themselves in power,the same is happening in Afghanistan.
posted on April 21, 2003 01:40:21 PM new
bear49,Iraqis arent dancing in the streets,They are protesting our being there,by the thousands.They may have been for the liberation,from Saddam,but they dont want us to park our fannies there.
posted on April 21, 2003 01:47:28 PM new
Anti-leftests?? Ahahahahaha!!! Great line bear... almost as good as the term "pro-abortion". Ahahahahahahahaa!!
Look at some of what the anti-leftests stated prior to the start of the Iraqi War.
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Wouldnt anti leftests mean the right?..LOL
posted on April 21, 2003 01:54:21 PM new
junquemama, as everyone can see, how posts can be miskewed, like yours in leaving out one word, I see what your saying now ... ok
Why am I bringing up Clinton... ok TAKE CLINTON out of it, but it was OUR (USA) military in Bosnia. carpet bombing and I ask where the outrage was then, as there is NOW, about the civilians killed in Iraq.
Sarcasm I can take (I am not thin skinned on these boards, to me, they are just that, 'internet discussion boards') its not like you are my neighbor and we are screaming over the fence about this. (btw I do believe people wouldn't be saying things they do here, if they were face to face )
Yes I know who the President is right now.
Ok without doing any 'google searching' on the subject of Bosnia.... there were thousands upon thousands, far more than any killed in Iraq this last month. Much more, uncountable numbers. (which does not make the deaths of the Iraqis any better)
Because I see so many 'up in arms' over civilian casualties in Iraq, why were they not in Bosnia? Or the bombing of Iraq in '98? That is all.
Is it because George Bush IS the President? I believe its as simple as that, that is the answer, because Geo. Bush is President.
And the protestors are not the majority of what people think in this country. They are a small minority.
Even with people who agreed with this war do NOT like to see civilian casualties in Iraq.
As much as the majority did not agree with the 3000 killed on 9-11.
Art Bell Retired! George Noory is on late night coasttocoastam.com
posted on April 21, 2003 02:10:37 PM new
NTS,..9/11 is well embedded in people as to any actions our Government makes.
Slick Willy,was a draft dodger,I didnt consider him much of a leader for our military.
George Jr.was AWOL for almost 2 years,which would have been a deserter status, had he not been protected.I dont feel under those circumstances he deserves anymore respect then slick Willy.
And the AWOL status for Mr. Bush had it been followed up on,was changed by law in 2002.LOL,guess he thought someone would file on him.
