Classical Values :: Never find faults in a perfect storm!

May 14, 2006

Never find faults in a perfect storm!

The current political situation consists of a massive wave of deferred and repressed anger coming from all directions.

I don't know whether to call this elemental force of nature a wave (a political tsunami is more like it), an earthquake (political rupture along creeping fault lines), or a cyclone, but it has grown larger and larger as it gathers momentum and strength. Many Republicans have been simmering with rage for many years. Around here, the old-fashioned country club Republicans never liked Bush, they never liked Iraq, they never liked the moral conservatives (whom they see Bible belt anti-abortionists who want to imprison their wife's hairdresser), but they just gritted their teeth and held their noses. Add to that the old-fashioned economic conservatives who believe in balanced budgets but avoid social issues as beneath them, and there's lots of nose holding by Republican blue noses.

Move further South, and the Bible-belters have been holding their nose for pretty much the opposite reason. They think Bush is in bed with sodomites and abortionists but won't admit it. He's failed to deliver on their agenda, and while they supported the Iraq war, fatigue has set in. It's the kind of fatigue that really can't speak its name though, because patriotic war supporters cannot admit to anything which might smack of antiwar-ism. For some reason, "North" and "South" are the poles which always seem to drive the political polls. Moving Midwest and West, whether it wants to or not, the rest of the country resonates predictably -- reflecting varying shades of purple along the politically dominant Red-Blue, North-South bipolar theme.

Sigh. (No wonder I fled to California, a never-never land which used to seem so charmingly unpredictable.)

I'm a longtime supporter of the war in Iraq, but I'd be dishonest if I didn't admit that the "we are at war" and "we are under attack by terrorists" mantra is getting a little long in the tooth.

In short, America ran out of patience. And across the spectrum.

Not that anyone particularly cares now about the left running out of patience. It isn't newsworthy. They've been out of patience for so long that the conservative side ran out of patience just listening to them. And now, the left is in a perfect position to scream "I TOLD YOU SO!" at the top of their lungs. The downside of that is that if they do so loudly enough, they might manage to lose an election which has finally become theirs to lose. However, I think it's worth looking at the left to understand what is now happening on the right.

For a short time, the 9/11 attacks united this country around the flag in a manner almost evocative of World War II. People put aside their differences, and overwhelmingly supported Bush and the then war against terrorism. Going after the Taliban, bin Laden, and invading Afghanistan was a no-brainer. This patriotic groundswell lasted into the initial stages of the Iraq war, and then things began to sour. The left was quick to develop war fatigue, but what stands out in retrospect (for me at least) is that the country had been as united as it was -- even if only for a couple of years. War fatigue is war fatigue, though, and it always activates denial. For Americans with war fatigue who never liked war anyway, this denial took the form of wishing the war away. What better way to wish away war than to label it a phony war started by Bush for his own reasons? If Bush unnecessarily invaded Iraq, the war didn't need to exist. So, as if by magic, many of the liberals who had initially supported the war saw that the way out of it was to attack Bush.

War fatigue on the right is different, and much more subtle. The earlier variety took the form not of antiwar-ism, but of isolationism. But time was not on the side of the war. War fatigue, like any other fatigue (including, I might add, blogger fatigue) supplies its own fuel. But when fire is added to that fuel in the form of a relentless stream of bad news on top of bad news, editorial after editorial, the fatigue becomes overwhelming. Conservatives are, as it turns out, human beings. I believe that many of them finally had their fill -- and kept having their fill -- of the Iraq war, but the majority of them couldn't bring themselves to admit it, for that would not only appear unpatriotic, but they'd feel humiliated and degraded by having to agree with the sneers and insults of a most unwelcoming liberal chorus of louder-than-ever Bushitler I-told-you-so-itis.

All the elements for a perfect political storm were there, and better yet, their very suppression caused pressure to build and build.

Oddly enough, in this case it didn't take anything new to trigger the release of suppressed energy. Neither the nuclear threat from Iran nor the uncontrolled Mexican border were new, but they acted as triggers anyway. It's almost as if the pressure built up by the underlying and relentless Iraq war fatigue was looking for a way to release itself. Were it to have happened today, Hurricane Katrina might also have supplied such a trigger, but it was too early. A similar storm this summer might work either way, because people are as fickle as the weather. (See Bush's popularity jump in the face of the latest spying program "scandal.")

Iran reminds Americans that there is a real, possibly nuclear war that's being neglected, and Mexico reminds Americans that their own country's territorial integrity is being neglected.

I don't expect too many people to call this war fatigue, though. War fatigue is a disease caused by uncomfortable weakness that will not admit of itself. It can only be expressed through strength.

When such accumulated weakness finds expression through strength, the result is a perfect storm like the one we're having. Analyzing a storm is one thing, but trying to fight it is a waste of time.

(Just have to wait it out. Or is that ride it out?)

UPDATE: I hasten to add that when I used the word "fickle" above I did not mean to suggest that Americans are fickle about national security issues; only about their support for Bush. When Bush is attacked for doing something they feel the country needs, his polls go up. What this means is that if Bush takes a hard enough line on closing the border to get attacked by the left for it, public opinion could change, and rather quickly.

Regarding the latest NSA scandal, Jeff Goldstein has an excellent analysis. My own take on this is that it's nothing new, and I was more upset when it was done under Clinton when we weren't at war. While I am not entirely sure rules were broken, in times of war, rules are always broken. (Inter arma, silent leges.)

(Better to break rules than get rid of them, I always say.)

MORE: Whether this conservative malaise arises from the war or is political battle fatigue, conservatives like Mark Tapscott have weighed in. Says Mark:

Other than that concerning the War on Terror and its associated issues, there is no more important political discussion in America right now than that beginning among conservatives about what in coming months and years should be our proper course of action to restore the vibrancy and effectiveness of the age-old struggle for individual liberty and limited government.

While that sounds more like Goldwater classical liberalism than conservatism, I long ago tired of labels. Individual liberty and limited government don't sound Republican anymore.

Vik Rubenfeld thinks it's both war fatigue and political fatigue:

Under the constant drumbeat of MSM propaganda, Conservatives feel disappointed that everything in Iraq didn't go flawlessly. If MSM had been reporting GWB's achievements in Iraq -- damaging Al Qaeda, eliminating a government that supported terrorists, and bringing Democracy to the Mid-East -- we'd all be cheering and every Republican candidate would be likely to win election -- which of course is why MSM is so wildly anti-Republican.

GWB has refused for far too long to trumpet his achievements publicly, and to speak to the public about his key initiatives. This is probably the most important of all -- Conservatives feel GWB has dropped contact with them.

As Noonan argues, Conservatives have been out of touch with the Conservative base on important key issues of immigration and budget.

Do these reasons justify Conservatives in letting our own candidates lose our support?

(Via Glenn Reynolds.)

Vik goes on to site John Podhoretz (who thinks conservatives need to chill out) and concludes that "we have to give ourselves a week off to rest up, and then get back in the game."

(For me, the game has consisted of holding my nose and voting, and being disappointed too many times to count.)

posted by Eric on 05.14.06 at 11:43 AM

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Comments

I believe the fickleness is borne of my generation of Baby Boomer everything is Vietnam all over again schizophrenia. The current MSM is dominated by people shaped by the Vietnam era, and that was when the media found it profitable to be opposite whatever the government wanted to promote.

There has been, tragically, approx 2500 American military deaths in Iraq in three years. Yet, in the context ... in 30 days battle at Iwo Jima we lost 6900 Americans.

GW has governed as a domestic moderate with a strong national defense agenda, and has been a classical JFK liberal where it concerns foreign policy.

If the Republicans deliberately sabetoge the Nov. elections...well, it is said that people get the government they deserve and with Pelosi in charge of the House, look forward to a huge dump of ice cold water on a thriving economy, the castration of our intelligence services, and huge media fawning and coverage of "investigative committees" on the scale of Joe McCarthy of the Bush Admin. in order to bring Hillary in as President in 2008.

Darleen · May 14, 2006 01:25 PM

Good post, Eric. I think that a lot of the anger from war supporters has to do with the administration's inability to to publicize it's successes in Iraq or agressively defend its actions via the NSA wiretaps. I personally think that they shot themselves in the foot with that program. I don't see what was gained over and above what intelligence they could gather via the FISA program. It seemed like an unnecessary assertion of executive priviledge, almost a flaunting of priviliedge just to prove that they could. If the secret NSA wiretaps gave us better intelligence than FISA I'd be more inclined to support his position, but I don't think it was. He brought media and political scrutiny upon the administration for no benefit.

Duck · May 14, 2006 01:48 PM

Duck

The catch 22 on the NSA intel gathering is that we know of at least one person who was caught with it..but any further revelations may, indeed, be giving more clues to the terrorists than is prudent.

What you have with the "scrutiny" is people within the CIA who believe they "know better" when it comes to foreign policy and are leaking to the press in order to hobble the Admin. They are, in essense, conducting foreign policy on their own.

I'm sorry that GW ever let one past admin holdover remain.

Darleen · May 14, 2006 02:08 PM

Darleen,
The point is that there wouldn't have been anything to leak if they had stuck with the FISA court. Have you seen any analysis of why the FISA court process hindered the NSA's ability to carry out it's surveillance program? I'd be interested in reading it.

Duck · May 14, 2006 03:06 PM

What exactly are classical values?

Wannabeleader · May 14, 2006 03:52 PM

Ah but Duck

Congress cannot pass a law that infringes on the Constitutional functions of the other two branches of Fed Government. Those sections of FISA that try to usurp the Exec's powers inherent in Article II are DOA.

Darleen · May 14, 2006 05:35 PM

With the considerable strength of the US military
the problems in Iraq are inconcievable until you consider;
Warning in advance of any and all raids.
Using only the force required to maintain the situation.
Trying to protect and minimise injury to civillans.
Being unable distinguish terrorists from civillians until attacked.
If the military could use a fraction of the available technology Iraqui civillian casualties would skyrocket, but the war would come to an abrupt end as WWII after Nagasaki.
Hugh

Hugh · May 14, 2006 05:41 PM

You wrote "Oddly enough, in this case it didn't take anything new to trigger the release of suppressed energy."

I disagree. Something very new happened - hundreds of thousands of Mexicans marching in our streets demanding that we change our laws to suit them. Scenes of waving Mexican flags on American territory, especially that unforgetable scene of the Mexican flag above the upside-down US flag on that school flagpole in California.

We've never seen such brazen, insulting, unsettling behavior by foreigners here before. Perhaps never in our history. And it woke people up like they've never been woken up before on this issue.

So the common theme is that when America is threatened, Americans come to her defense. It happened on 9/11 and resulted in real unity for a while. And it's happening over the Mexican invasion, except this time Bush and the Senate Republicans are on the wrong side of the issue.

Regarding Iraq, I felt from the beginning that we would ultimately have to leave there with our tail between our legs because fundamentally I do not believe that arab/islamic culture is ready to conduct itself in a manner necessary to foster real, sustainable, peaceful democratic self-governance. But I supported the invasion because we needed to demonstrate to thugs like Saddam that we are capable of action to defend ourselves, and because we had to get the nation-building, convert-Iraq-to-a-democracy thing out of our system. We had to try it once. Is there any doubt that we will not be trying it again anywhere else anytime soon?

The real solution to islamic terrorism, and the one that I believe will eventually be implemented, is not to allow muslims in our country at all. If we don't let them in, they can't hurt us. And if we let them in, we can't defend ourselves against them - at least not without turning our government into Big Brother and spying on ourselves - spying on our conversations, our financial transactions, our internet conversations, our travel arrangements, our firearms transactions or transactions in any other material that could be used in terrorist operations, and so on. If there were no muslims here, there would be no need to do any of that. Eventually muslims will kill more of us here in our homeland, in large enough numbers, that the politically correct niceties will be set aside and islam will be banned.

After all, I don't believe Islam is a true religion. No true religion that actually came from divine inspiration would advocate killing like Islam does. Islam is more accurately described as a personality/death cult a la Charles Manson, that has lasted for 1400 years. We have no need to give Islam special consideration any more than any other cult.

Mark · May 14, 2006 09:11 PM

Frustration brings out the worst in any of us. We want to see progress, but the MSM insists on presenting the worst, and the Bush administration doesn't know how to best present the good news. Or, for that matter, empower the American people to access the good news for themselves. This is the first blogger war, and nobody really knows how to best utilize the blogosphere.

Though the worst thing the MSM has done is not presenting bad news, it's giving us the impression that this whole thing should've been finished and done with a long time ago. But in life there is no "should", there is only "is".

The war is taking a long time. The enemy is still a threat. Iraq is taking a long time to develop the military infrastructure she'll need to defend herself from enemies foreign and domestic. All around the world we are involved in a war that will take perseverence and endurance to win. It's about damn time we started emphasizing this.

We're in this for the long haul, the boys won't be home for Christmas for years to come.

Alan Kellogg · May 14, 2006 09:30 PM

The Tsunami you write about - "The Perfect Storm" - may well be something entirely different than you think. This past week on
Channel 2, Oakland, California, there was a report of a raid on a house with a field hospital in the basement. Of course the pictures were of Hispanic males arrested. It seems that the person who set up the hospital acquired the equipment by stealing it from a hospital where he worked near Stanford.
A lot of automatic weapons were also confiscated.
And to drive the point home, I was standing in line at a convenience market just yesterday.
A dark skinned, obviously Mexican male was in front of me. He moved to the back of the line where two of his frineds were lined up. He said in clear Spanish: "It's their world now so we can wait in the back of the line. But not for long."
Damn my high school Spanish.

Frank · May 15, 2006 01:14 AM

Darleen says: Congress cannot pass a law that infringes on the Constitutional functions of the other two branches of Fed Government. Those sections of FISA that try to usurp the Exec's powers inherent in Article II are DOA.

That's the argument, but not everyone agrees that the law usurps the exec's powers. The administration can challenge the law and take it to the Supreme Court, if necessary. But why bring on a constitutional dispute when they can acheive the same surveillance via FISA? What have they gained by circumventing the law? If there was real incremental intelligence value to be gained, then it would be worth it to make a constitutional challenge. I think that it was a dumb political move.

Duck · May 15, 2006 11:56 AM