The Politics of Pessimism
Daniel Henninger quite rightly points out that many in the US seem as determined as possible to talk us into defeat in Iraq.
How insane. What they're suggesting is that, through the use of improvised explosive devices, some terrorist insurgents are capable of vanquishing the mighty US military -- the greatest in the history of man -- and sending the world's preeminent superpower home with its tail between its legs.
Put that way, the narrative is patently ridiculous, but it's propagated because almost every Democrat has decided that it's in his (or her!) political interests to see President Bush's efforts fail. What's more, they're willing to drive down the country's morale, the military's spirit, and the US's standing in the world in order to do so.
Henninger writes:
As a political strategy, unremitting opposition has worked. Approval for the president and the war is low. The GOP lost sight of its ideological lodestars and so control of Congress. But the U.S. still occupies a unique position of power in the world, and we are putting that status at risk by playing politics without a net.
The Democrats are pursuing a very risky strategy. Pessmism may work in the short term, but it isn't a defining characteristic of the American personality. Heaven help them if they succeed in driving us to defeat in Iraq, and that defeat is followed by new, bolder terrorist incursions. Or if any other evidence emerges that would show that they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
What's more, to the extent that we are squandering our influence and power in the world by coming across like a glass-jawed warrior, we're running the risk of creating a power vacuum. Some of the hard leftists don't mind that, at all . . . they like almost any other nation that would rise to fill it more than they love America. But that doesn't go for the rest of us.
How insane. What they're suggesting is that, through the use of improvised explosive devices, some terrorist insurgents are capable of vanquishing the mighty US military -- the greatest in the history of man -- and sending the world's preeminent superpower home with its tail between its legs.
Put that way, the narrative is patently ridiculous, but it's propagated because almost every Democrat has decided that it's in his (or her!) political interests to see President Bush's efforts fail. What's more, they're willing to drive down the country's morale, the military's spirit, and the US's standing in the world in order to do so.
Henninger writes:
As a political strategy, unremitting opposition has worked. Approval for the president and the war is low. The GOP lost sight of its ideological lodestars and so control of Congress. But the U.S. still occupies a unique position of power in the world, and we are putting that status at risk by playing politics without a net.
The Democrats are pursuing a very risky strategy. Pessmism may work in the short term, but it isn't a defining characteristic of the American personality. Heaven help them if they succeed in driving us to defeat in Iraq, and that defeat is followed by new, bolder terrorist incursions. Or if any other evidence emerges that would show that they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
What's more, to the extent that we are squandering our influence and power in the world by coming across like a glass-jawed warrior, we're running the risk of creating a power vacuum. Some of the hard leftists don't mind that, at all . . . they like almost any other nation that would rise to fill it more than they love America. But that doesn't go for the rest of us.
posted by LadybugUSA at 9:03 AM
1 Comments:
The "power vacuum" filled by whom?
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