Fred Sneesby - Observations on Culture, Faith and Politics

Bush’s War

June 13, 2007

During the debate among the Democrat candidates a couple of weeks ago, the only contest that took place was the candidates’ scrambling over one another to see who could dump on George Bush the most. The Republican debate was only dissimilar by whatever margin there is between denouncing and distancing.

The only thing George Bush lacks is a bell around his neck. Lepers had those to warn others of their approach. People are running away from him and he’s not even in town.

To say that this scapegoating of George Bush is unfair is, to some degree, true. The state of the country is, actually, pretty good. How much of that has to do with George Bush, I don’t know. Hanging over a healthy economy, improving education, better health coverage for the elderly, and a healthy debate about immigration is the Iraq War.

(As an aside … George Bush was calling for immigration reform right after he became President in 2001. It was an unpopular stand with many in his party and the Democrats at the time would not touch the immigration issue with a ten foot pole. No one remembers that. No one gives him credit fore that.

A few years ago, Hilary Clinton began to talk about immigration because she very astutely saw that she could use this issue to grab some voters who might not otherwise vote for her. I don’t think she has any particular conviction about immigration; her policy will be led by focus groups.

Continuing the aside … the Democrats’ deep-seated cynicism is apparent in their treatment of immigration. Rather than trying to figure out what’s right, they say whatever will win them votes. For example, they’ve latched onto the shift in eligibility rules from bringing in family members to using knowledge and skills as a basis for entry into the country in order to play upon people’s emotions instead of trying to determine what is in the best long-range interest of the country. Always rhetoric; never solutions.)

The Iraq War taints everything. In the Democrats’ debate, Hilary Clinton insisted that it was George Bush’s War. Let’s quote her from the debate. Hilary said, “This is George Bush's war. He is responsible for this war. He started the war. He mismanaged the war. He escalated the war. And he refuses to end the war.”

It’s a great sound bite. It’s a stirring rallying cry, drawing people together against a common enemy (the President). Unfortunately, it is not true.

Of course, it is not surprising that Clinton says things that are not true. We already know from her Rose law firm days and how she handled the investigation into Arkansas influence-peddling that she is a liar. It may be that she wants to get back into the White House to see if she can find any other Rose law firm papers in the drawers.

Hilary is deploying the Clinton standard of truth that was perfected by her and her partner in the 1990’s: the truth is whatever you can get the most people to believe. We can see it at work in her debate remarks.

Only part of this quote is an outright lie. To say that George Bush is responsible for the war and that he started the war is not true. The vast majority of the US Congress, including Senator Clinton herself, voted for the war and has continued funding for the war. She bears responsibility along with all the other members of Congress but she refuses to take responsibility.

The rest of the quote is simply deceptive by reducing a complex conflict with a history that spans decades and several Presidents (including her husband) to the whims of one man. When candidates do that, it makes it very easy for them to talk about the war because they do not have to deal with the thorny and intractable issues involved.

Although all the candidates love to speak about “Bush’s War,” they must know in their heart of hearts that after the 2008 election it will be “ Clinton’s War” or “Giuliani’s War” or “Huckabee’s War.” The new President will own this war just like Nixon owned Vietnam after Johnson. I hope they have better solutions than what they have proposed.