Replies to post #29772 on Discover GOP Opprobrium

[teapeebubbles]

To their credit, Sens. Clinton and Obama had the courage to vote the right way on the war-funding bill, rejecting a bad bill that gives the president practically all of what he wanted, with minimal strings attached. The right, predictably, is apoplectic.

* Don Surber: “Clinton and Obama were among the 14 no votes. Clinton voted to send the troops in. Now she votes not to fund them. Presidential. NOT!”

* Jules Crittenden: “That’s what you want in your commander-in-chief. A vote against troops in the field fighting al-Qaeda and anti-American Iranian stooges.”

* Blogs of War: “Now we’ll have to listen to [Clinton and Obama] make the rounds claiming to support the troops - while denying them the funds they need to fight.”

Um, guys? I hate to sound picky, but didn’t George W. Bush veto war funding less than a month ago? I don’t recall reading far-right blog posts about how outrageous this was at the time. Maybe I overlooked them?

Indeed, Bush decided to send troops into war, but then decided to reject a measure funding them. Does Surber think that makes him less presidential?

The president rejected resources the troops needed while they were in the field fighting al Qaeda and anti-American Iranian stooges. Does Crittenden think that makes Bush a poor commander-in-chief?

Bush denied U.S. forces the funds they needed to fight in the midst of combat. Does Blogs of War believe the president can no longer claim that he supports the troops?

Or is it more likely that rejecting funding for the troops in a time of war is perfectly acceptable to far-right war supporters, just so long as they think there’s a good reason to do so?

This need not be complicated. Policy makers on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue basically had a choice between two approaches:

* Fully fund the troops, but include a withdrawal timeline that reverse a failed policy and would get U.S. forces out of the middle of a civil war. This approach enjoys broad national support amongst the electorate.

* Fully fund the troops, but stick with the Bush policy, at least in the short term. This approach hasn’t worked, and enjoys very little national support.

If a lawmakers embraced the prior, the right thinks the lawmaker is unpatriotic, unpresidential, and anti-military — even if they had already voted to fund the troops in the field. A number of adjectives come to mind to describe this belief, but “coherent” isn’t one of them.

Of course, it’s not just conservative bloggers who think it’s wrong to reject funding for the troops except when it’s not; the official GOP machine is in high dudgeon today.

“I was very disappointed to see Senator Obama and Senator Clinton embrace the policy of surrender by voting against funds to support our brave men and women fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Arizona Sen. John McCain said in a statement. “This vote may win favor with MoveOn and liberal primary voters, but it’s the equivalent of waving a white flag to al Qaeda.”

First, Bush rejected funds to support our brave men and women fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan — and McCain applauded it.

Second, opponents of the Bush policy go well beyond “MoveOn and liberal primary voters,” and actually make up a strong majority of the nation.

And third, far from waving a white flag to al Qaeda, the terrorist network is only too pleased to see the U.S. government continue to give al Qaeda exactly what it wants.

Is a little consistency too much to ask?

[teapeebubbles]

About a year ago, the AP’s Jennifer Loven wrote a terrific item about the president relying on non-existent straw men to get through most policy arguments. As Loven explained in March 2006, when the president “starts a sentence with ’some say’ or offers up what ’some in Washington’ believe, as he is doing more often these days, a rhetorical retort almost assuredly follows…. In describing what they advocate, Bush often omits an important nuance or substitutes an extreme stance that bears little resemblance to their actual position.”

At the time, conservatives were outraged that a reporter at a major news outlet would have the audacity to report on something that … is entirely true and newsworthy. How dare a journalist engage in fact-checking when the president is trying to mislead people?

With this in mind, the right probably won’t care for today’s Loven piece, either.

Confronted with strong opposition to his Iraq policies, President Bush decides to interpret public opinion his own way. Actually, he says, people agree with him. […]

[At a White House press conference last week,] Bush said: “I recognize there are a handful there, or some, who just say, ‘Get out, you know, it’s just not worth it. Let’s just leave.’ I strongly disagree with that attitude. Most Americans do as well.”

In fact, polls show Americans do not disagree, and that leaving — not winning — is their main goal.

In one released Friday by CBS and the New York Times, 63 percent supported a troop withdrawal timetable of sometime next year. Another earlier this month from USA Today and Gallup found 59 percent backing a withdrawal deadline that the U.S. should stick to no matter what’s happening in Iraq.

The AP’s list of recent examples is rather long, with the president and his aides consistently fabricating public support that simply doesn’t exist.

Bush could say, “The public and I are on different pages, but we all want what’s best for the country. I’m the president (The Decider) and I have to stick to my policy whether Americans support it or not.” There’s a certain honor in this approach. It’s still wrong, but if he stuck to this line, at least it would be honest.

But the White House prefers a different path. When the polls show results they don’t like, they make up new ones.


Bush aides say poll questions are asked so many ways, and often so imprecisely, that it is impossible to conclude that most Americans really want to get out. Failure, Bush says, is not what the public wants — they just don’t fully understand that that is just what they will get if troops are pulled out before the Iraqi government is capable of keeping the country stable on its own. […]

Independent pollster Andrew Kohut said of the White House view: “I don’t see what they’re talking about.”

“They want to know when American troops are going to leave,” Kohut, director of the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, said of the public. “They certainly want to win. But their hopes have been dashed.”

Kohut has found it notable that there’s such a consensus in poll findings.

“When the public hasn’t made up its mind or hasn’t thought about things, there’s a lot of variation in the polls,” he said. “But there’s a fair amount of agreement now.”

I don’t think the White House line is a result of dishonesty so much as it’s just denial. I suspect Bush, Cheney, Tony Snow, Karl Rove, and others simply can’t imagine a strong majority of the country rejecting the president’s policy this forcefully. They make obviously false assertions about public opinion probably not to deceive, but because it’s more in line with what they want to believe.

It’s kind of sad, actually.