Why GOP's winning war - of words As Democrats divide..

[fencesitter]

...the White House banks on the Republicans' resolute stance on Iraq.
By Dick Polman
Inquirer Political Analyst

This seems to be recurring subject today.

Here's the 2006 Republican message on Iraq: "Stay the course."
And here's the 2006 Democratic message on Iraq: "?"

No wonder the Bush White House seems eager to campaign on Iraq this year - despite 2,500 American deaths, persistent sectarian violence, and the documented administration failures of planning and execution. The Bush team is clearly betting that a party with a resolute, decisive stance on Iraq will still be more attractive to voters than a party that seems irresolute and indecisive.

The Democrats' failure thus far to forge a consensus policy on Iraq is a big reason why, in polls, they have been unable to capitalize on public disenchantment with Bush and the GOP. Democratic strategists are concerned that unless the party finds its voice on America's No. 1 issue, voters might decide that Democrats are too feckless to be trusted with the nation's security - thus complicating the Democratic efforts to capture the House and Senate in November.
<snip>
The problem is, Democrats are profoundly divided about what to do in Iraq, and Bush's political team - backed by GOP congressional unity on the war - is mapping plans to exploit that. Indeed, Democrats have been divided since long before the war began; back in 2002, Charlie Cook, who runs the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, quipped that "they couldn't find a unified message if it was tattooed on their butts." Does Cook still believe this? On Friday, he replied, "Absolutely."

This problem persists because Democrats seem trapped between the need to please their liberal base (which favors troop withdrawal) and their need to win over swing-voting independents, who dislike the war but nevertheless have long perceived the Democrats, fairly or not, as insufficiently strong on national security.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/14842936.htm

[otohara]

1. I Say We Pack Up & Go Home, Apologize Profusly to the Iraqi

people for invading in the first place. Give Iraq back to the Iraqi's.

[Name removed]

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[gaspee]

6. And what we're doing now

Is working so well. It's too late. The Iraqi version of the Taliban is already in power and the best part is that we put them there.

The answer is not to keep the bloodbath going, then have to leave in ten years when we are completely bankrupt. Kind of like what the Soviets did in Afghanastan.

It's not cutting and running. Mission is accomplised.

No WMD's -- check
Hussein out of power -- check
Democracy -- check, well except for the little part about them voting in the mullahs.

what are the other reasons we're told we're in Iraq? I think I covered them all.

mission accomplished, right?

[Name removed]

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[gaspee]

11. Nice talking points

[Name removed]

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[otohara]

24. Maybe if Halliburton, Inc.

wasn't building all the infrastructure and Iraqi's were allowed to work, they might not hate us so much. FDR was against war profiteers like Halliburton. Bush on the other hand & especially Cheney are thrilled their friends are making gobs of money.

Bush never had any intention of leaving - thus building the largest US Embassy in the world. His intentions are not for the good of Iraqi's, but for the good of US corps. and OIL.

We owe the Iraqi's trillions of dollars in reparation for all the death and destruction we've cause.



President Franklin Delano Roosevelt who, in the aftermath of WWII said, "I don't want to see a single war millionaire created in the United States as a result of this world disaster."
http://www.corporatepolicy.org/topics/war.htm

[kenny blankenship]

16. Your perspective is rectally skewed

We were never IN Afghanistan --not in any capacity to permit or deny the Afghani mujahedeen to do or not do anything. We didn't "pack up and leave". We just gave them loads of arms, encouraged them to fight the USSR and the Kabul gov't., and monitored their progress with a few CIA field officers. The Taliban were associated with some of the Islamist elements we funded and armed. They didn't come "IN". They were a movement within the Afghani "native" population to which the Afghani people turned in desperation when the tribal warlords we backed proved unable to run Afghanistan as anything but a heroin factory and vendetta happy free-for-all. The warlords were given Afghanistan on a mirrored coke tray, but no matter what we asked them to do then, or ask them now to do, they are going to run it like Pablo Escobar ran Colombia.

The people we're backing now in Iraq pattern themselves and even call themselves after the Islamic revolutionary government of Iran. We back them SOLELY BECAUSE we're--or rather Bush is-- too fucking embarassed to admit our gargantuanually proportioned mistake. The only thing we've accomplished and are EVER going to accomplish by invading Iraq is to empower a Shi'ite led government which is in league with the revolutionary Islamic government of Iran. That is a "goal" for which I am willing to spend not one American life or U.S. dollar.

And if my party will not join me in rejecting Bush's insane and historic errors then they can go fuck themselves too.

[Name removed]

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[kenny blankenship]

22. No? Bullshit. Thanks for revealing your complete ignorance

I'm sorry but you're completely out-FOXing yourself here. The Taliban are and were a native Pashtun led Islamist outfit, (the Pahstun being one of Afghanistan's local ethnicities) which took hold first in Afghanistan's networks of village religious scholars (Mullahs and Talibs whence comes the term Taliban). Where do the Pashtun come from? Afghanistan. And where else? The border areas of Pakistan. (Pakistanis aren't Arabs either).
Did the the Taliban attract Islamic militants from elsewhere? Certainly, but it is totally incorrect to insinuate that they are some kind of foreign invasion.
You watch too much FOX to be a Perfect Lady.

[BillZBubb]

21. Hogwash. Where do you get this shit?

We were never a big factor on the ground in Afghanistan. We were never in a position to direct events there. Are you suggesting after the Russians left we should have occupied Afghanistan until it was stable? Please.

The Soviet invasion is what brought about the Taliban. Just like the US invasion of Iraq will bring about an equally bad crowd.

[AndyTiedye]

2. GOP Wins War of Words Because They Own All the Microphones

[Name removed]

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[gaspee]

8. The NYT and CNN

are not even close to being liberal. If CNN were liberal, they wouldn not have given a microphone to Glenn Beck. That would be like Fox giving a show to Randi Rhodes. Puh-leaze.

Have you ever even *read* the NY times? It's not liberal biased by a long shot.

[Name removed]

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[gaspee]

12. I don't accept your premise

The NYT is no more liberal than the Wall Street Journal.

Though, reality does have an acknowledged liberal bias if that's what you mean by leaning to the left. Unfortunately, newspapers report truth, which gives them a liberal biaas, according to the right.

Well, they report the truth unless the office of propaganda pays off a few columnists. Name Judith Miller ring any bells?

[Joe Bacon]

14. The New York Times is RABIDLY RIght-wing.

Go to the Daily Howler and see how the Screw York Times repeatedly lies for the Republican Party

http://www.dailyhowler.com

[Name removed]

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[Sarah Ibarruri]

7. Yes, microphones are there more for the GOP, BUT when the mikes go to Dems

They are confused, don't attack the GOP, they're polite and even silly. I'm not understanding it. I've begun to believe that they're just protecting their political careers, want to guarantee they'll be there next year, and no longer care about this country's future.

[AndyTiedye]

25. They Never Give a Microphone to John Conyers or Russ Feingold

The MSM wants to paint us at a party with no ideas, so they
only talk to Dems like Biden and Lieberman who…

[Sarah Ibarruri]

28. It depresses me intensely that the mike has to be given *only* to specific

Democrats in order to hear Democrats fight back, because the majority of them refuse to. It's quite sad.

[AndyTiedye]

29. The MSM ONLY Gives Microphones to the DINOs

Lieberman and Biden seem to be their favorites tame Democrats.

[xchrom]

5. this is meant merely as a supposition.

if it's true that the gop is winning the war of words re: the war in iraq{and by extension national security}, i would suggest that the issue isn't whether dems have forged a an ''identity'' on the issue of the war -- but that dems have have failed to emerge as a party unable to yet cope with the propaganda plastering the republicans have labeled the dems with since reagan.

it's perhaps the prime example of what it is that dems have to do to be a vital force in the minds of the publc.

it's not different from running away from the word ''liberal'' -- or being so reluctant to embrace wholesome ''leftist'' politics.

[kenny blankenship]

13. Consider it a warning--

but I'm not sure this party deserves any MORE warnings.

[Freedom_from_Chains]

15. Divide and conquer, the oldest strategy known to man

And obviously, it still works.

[msongs]

23. attention dems: we WON, mission accomplished, time to come home

and quit dying. let the iraqis be responsible for their own.....freedoms.

Msongs

can you sing?
www.msongs.com/vocalistwanted.htm

[Demeter]

26. Winning WHAT War?

The war on Terror? The War on Iraq? The War on Drugs? The War to keep from being indicted, jailed and RICOed? I don't see the GOP winning any of those wars.

I see them losing it all in a bloodbath that will cleanse the country for a century of their greedy, evil, lawless fascism, with spill-over effects throughout the world with the possible exceptions of Africa, China and Indonesia, whose problem are so great, that the US couldn't contribute to them.

[depakid]

27. More stupid conventional wisdom

from lazy "journalists."

Hard to believe that this person got paid to write that tepid, uninsightful piece.