LiberalOasis: Archives For The Week Of January 25, 2004

...In '98, when Osama bin Laden issued a fatwa against the United States, there should have been, at that point, measures to go and get Osama bin Laden.

I'm told that there were such measures that were attempted to be undertaken. Why they didn't work, what they are, and so forth, I don't know.

But I will say this: that when the Bush administration came to office, the Bush administration was told the greatest threat to America is Osama bin Laden.

And yet almost nine months later, when the United States was struck, there was still no plan as to what to do with Osama bin Laden.

The Bush part is solid, but you can't show complete ignorance about the Clinton years.

Why? Because you can expect GOPers to continue with their oversimplification of Clinton's record -- "Clinton treated terrorism as a law enforcement matter, rather than warfare."

(Not to mention other distortions the Right flings around.)

However, if they have an opinion of the Clinton record, and you don't, then it looks like you're ducking, you're ignorant, or both.

Furthermore, you'd be letting them frame the parameters of the debate as "law enforcement vs. warfare".

Instead, you need to display knowledge, and offer a vision that reframes the debate.

John Kerry, earlier in the debate, tried to do that.

He was basically right on substance, but treaded on dangerous rhetorical ground:

The war on terror is less -- it is occasionally military, and it will be, and it will continue to be for a long time.

And we will need the best-trained and the most well-equipped and the most capable military, such as we have today.

But it's primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation that requires cooperation around the world -- the very thing this administration is worst at.

And most importantly, the war on terror is also an engagement in the Middle East economically, socially, culturally, in a way that we haven't embraced.

Because otherwise we're inviting a clash of civilizations.

To read it as a whole, it's fine.

But GOPers will not hesitate to pluck out, "primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation" and say the Kerry way is the failed Clinton way.

This will be particularly problematic if bin Laden is captured or killed before Election day.

How should the Dems avoid this trap?

1. Show your understanding of the issue by candidly assessing the Clinton record.

Acknowledge that he may have been slow the grasp the importance of fighting terrorism early on in his Administration.

But remind voters that later, Clinton made fighting terrorism a priority, stepping up resources.

And he had big successes, like stopping the millennium plot.

2. Then segue into the Clark argument:

While Clinton prioritized terrorism, and urged Bush to continue the effort, Bush put it on the backburner until 9/11.

3. Finally, akin to the Kerry line, say what you would do different than Bush, but avoid the "law enforcement vs. warfare" trap.

"Law enforcement" sounds reactive, like you're going to wait until the damage is done to only arrest low-level folks.

And clearly, that's not what Kerry is trying to say.

Instead, say something like:

"We need improved intelligence and international cooperation to cripple Al Qaeda's leadership and stop attacks before they are launched, not just in America but abroad as well.

(That last part makes it a little harder for Bush to callously claim success by merely pushing terror attacks into other countries.)

"But Bush has abused the intelligence community and weakened international cooperation.

"We also can't let Osama pit us in a disastrous clash of civilizations.

"If we don't win the hearts and minds of the Arab/Muslim world, we could kill 100 Osamas and we wouldn't end the scourge of terrorism.

"And the last person you want to try to win the hearts and minds of the Arab/Muslim world is George W. Bush."

Clinton himself actually put this very succinctly two years ago:

A law enforcement and military solution alone isn't the answer.

I don't want you to substitute the walls we've torn down with barbed wire.

QUICK HIT

The Koufax Awards

You only have a couple days left to cast your vote for the finalists in the 2nd Annual Koufax Awards, celebrating the best of liberal blogosphere.

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January 29, 2004 PERMALINK
We Were Right
Does It Matter?
(posted Jan. 29 1:15 AM ET)

Former WMD hunter David Kay's stunning admissions completely vindicate the heart of the anti-Iraq war argument made before hostilities began.

1. Liberals argued that a pre-emptive strike, without evidence of an imminent threat, was unprovoked aggression.

The retort was we knew there was WMD in the hands of an evil man.

But now we know his hands were empty. Guess what? Evidence counts.

2. Liberals argued we had not exhausted all the other options, particularly inspections.

The Bush Administration mocked the effectiveness of inspections.

While the Bushies let inspections resume late in the game, it was done begrudgingly.

They pooh-poohed the inspectors all along the way, and didn't respect the findings.

But now we know inspections did work. From the NY Times:

[Kay] said it now appeared that Iraq had abandoned the production of illicit weapons and largely eliminated its stockpiles in the 1990's in large part because of Baghdad's concerns about the United Nations weapons inspection process.

He said Iraqi scientists and documents show that Baghdad was far more concerned about United Nations inspections than Washington had ever realized.

"The Iraqis say that they believed that Unscom was more effective, and they didn't want to get caught," Dr. Kay said, using an acronym for the inspection program, the United Nations Special Commission.

Guess what? You don't need Shock & Awe to disarm a nation.

So we were right. They were wrong. Time to crow, yes?

Unfortunately, it's not the best political environment to do that.

Howard Dean is pretty much the only guy out there who has been regularly saying "I told you so."

And many Dem voters who were against the war are saying "So what?"

With Dem focus elsewhere, there just isn't going to be chorus of crowing in the media that to its core, the war was simply wrong.

Does that make the Kay admissions politically useless? No.

Even Dems who voted for the resolution did not sign on to the Bush Doctrine of pre-emption.

And now, they can run right at it.

Pre-emption can only make theoretical sense if your intelligence is certain. Now we know it isn't.

Even if we improve it (and we obviously should), it doesn't change the reality that intelligence is an "art not a science" -- something which is better understood now than two years ago.

Therefore, Dems can argue that the inherent uncertainty of most intelligence makes "aggressive pre-emption" fundamentally reckless -- unnecessarily putting our soldiers at risk and destroying our nation's credibility.

(Stressing "aggressive pre-emption" still leaves on the table pre-emption for clearly imminent threats.)

And having established that they feel Bush intentionally or inadvertently misled them that the intelligence was certain, a Kerry or Edwards (as well as a Clark or Dean) would be positioned to make that case.

Yes, Kay is pulling the heavy-duty spin that everyone was wrong -- us, the French, the Germans, etc. -- and so the problem is in the intelligence community, not the White House.

And Dems should certainly fight that notion, and not let Bush and Cheney off the hook.

But the notion that Bush is a liar can't be expected to win swing voters. They won't be as predisposed as the base to believe it.

However, swing voters are not warmongers either. They have shown to be discomforted by casualties and high price tags.

In turn, putting pre-emption squarely on the table and forcing Bush to defend it, may raise the question in their minds:

Is there more of this to come, and will that really make us safer?

QUICK HIT

LiberalOasis Faces Sean Hannity

Yesterday, LiberalOasis Executive Editor Bill Scher heard that Sean Hannity was airing the Bush In 41.2 Seconds spoof ad created by Mark Spittle.

Hannity was trying to argue that since LO raises money for the DNC via the ePatriots program, the DNC has a responsibility to renounce the "ad".

(Earlier in the day, Scher was contacted by the Associated Press on the same matter, making it clear that someone fed both entities this spin. Not clear yet if the AP will run a story.)

So, Scher called in the Hannity program to correct the record, for better or for worse.

Here's an abbreviated recap.

Scher said, "The ad was a spoof of the MoveOn Bush in 30 Seconds contest," not a real ad, noting that you couldn't understand that without first reading Spittle's introduction. (Spittle explained this in a recent Salon piece.)

Hannity said, "I think you're lying. I think you're full of crap."

A stalemate ensued.

Finally, Scher attempted to score a gift certificate to Hannity sponsor Ruth's Chris Steak House. He did not succeed.

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January 28, 2004 PERMALINK
Can Kerry Close The Deal?
(posted Jan. 28 12:45 AM ET)

Back in August, LiberalOasis said:

If Dean wins Iowa and NH...and has the most money...he'd be damn near unstoppable.

Except for incumbent presidents and vice-presidents, nobody has won the early deuce since Jimmy Carter in �76.

Now, John Kerry owns the deuce.

And maybe he doesn't have the most money at the moment, but it's going to roll in now, and Kerry has no federal caps to worry about.

Damn near unstoppable? Just about.

It's easy to see how this could now be like '76, with Kerry running the table and locking it up early.

However, there's still a chance this could be like '92.

LO mentioned recently how after losing to Paul Tsongas by 8 points, Clinton nevertheless called himself the Comeback Kid, and "the rest was history."

But there's a little more to that story.

The week after NH was the 7-state "Junior Tuesday."

Tsongas won 3 states, the most of anyone, including two outside of his home region, Utah and Washington.

But that wasn't enough to put it away.

Clinton won only 1. But it was an early time zone state, Georgia, and he won it big.

The media was friendly to Clinton back then.

So even though three other candidates won a state each that day, the press made Clinton the story.

His campaign had already begun to go furiously negative on Tsongas. They stepped it up, then crushed him on Super Tuesday, winning 8 of 11 states.

And so, Tsongas was history.

With that in mind, and this year's "Junior Tuesday" set for next week, these are the questions going forward:

1. None of NH's losers acted like the campaign was over. They will all fan out and try to cherry pick a Junior Tuesday state or two.

Will Kerry win enough states to put it away?

Or just a handful, letting one or two others find a lifeline?

2. Dean is no longer the frontrunner because he was mercilessly attacked, and Dean let the attacks get under his skin.

(And he partially recovered yesterday after handling criticism in a more good-natured way.)

Now, the cold reality for the also-rans is that Kerry's the nominee unless they do the same to him.

Does anyone really go at him? Or are they running for VP and cabinet positions? (It's pretty much one or the other at this point.)

And if someone does go at him, how does Kerry hold up?

We got an idea what a Dean-Bush race would be like because the Dems threw GOP-style attacks at him.

We've only had a small taste of how Kerry would face the GOP (and in LO's view, it was a mixed bag).

Before Kerry closes the deal, and stakes the claim as the most electable, we should hope we get to see more.

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January 27, 2004 PERMALINK
Trust Your Gut
(posted Jan. 27 1:15 AM ET)

Today's NY Times quotes one torn NH voter that troubled LiberalOasis greatly.

"My heart still belongs to Howard Dean because of his passion, but my head says Kerry is the one who can get elected," said Pradipto Bagchi, 30, a financial analyst from Nashua, at a Kerry event.

"It hurts to vote this way, but I think George Bush has been a disaster, and if my cat had the best chance of winning the election, then I'd vote for my cat."

The Anybody But Bush attitude is absolutely correct.

But voting against your heart is absolutely not. It shouldn't hurt to vote.

This is not to say that Dean is the only "heart" vote, and Kerry the only "head" vote.

There are plenty of people who are inspired by both of them, as well as the rest of the field.

There are probably folks that like Kerry but worry he'll get tagged as another Massachusetts liberal.

Folks that like John Edwards but worry he'll be derided as an inexperienced ambulance chaser.

Folks that like Wesley Clark but are worried (now) that the media will nitpick him to death.

And folks that like Dean but worry he'll be seen as too far outside the mainstream.

While it's worth considering how a candidate is going to play with voters who aren't hard-core Dems and liberals, nothing is more important that your own gut assessment.

Don't forget the lesson of 2002.

Too many Beltway Dems assumed that voting against war and denouncing the Bush tax cut wouldn't play with regular voters.

They didn't trust that voters would respect them for standing on principle and making their case.

They didn't trust their own instincts. They were afraid to take a risk.

And the party paid a price for it. At the polls. In the fundraising coffers. And in public opinion generally.

And don't forget Florida in 2002.

A lot of folks thought Bill McBride was the most electable choice to beat Gov. Jeb Bush, and that Janet Reno was a sure loser.

Maybe Reno would have lost too. We'll never know.

But just because McBride made sense on paper didn't mean he was a lock.

Every Dem wants to put up the best candidate, the most electable candidate.

But we won't get that if we don't trust ourselves and trust our own judgments.

Kerry made an important point on Face The Nation this Sunday: "The South is not a foreign country."

Now, the electability discussion is not just a North-South matter.

But Kerry's point is: we're all people, with similar, basic goals and desires, and similar human reactions.

If a candidate makes a connection with you, it's more likely that candidate will connect with others.

Yes, read the position papers, know the biographical background, research their records, watch them on the stump, see how they handle attacks (very important in LO's book), factor in all the superficial personal qualities.

All that matters.

But you can't know everything, and you can't predict everything.

At the last moment, all you have is your gut.

Trust it, and you'll feel good walking out of that voting booth.

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January 26, 2004 PERMALINK
The Sunday Talkshow Breakdown
A weekly feature of LiberalOasis
(posted Jan. 26 12:45 AM ET)

John Kerry largely owned the Sunday spotlight, hitting Fox News Sunday, CBS' Face the Nation and ABC's This week (in addition to 60 Minutes in the evening).

It was somewhat of a daring move, risking a high-profile grilling while sitting on a lead.

But it looks like he concluded that he must show he can face down the attacks (and that national face time would help him for the Feb. 3 contests, where he has skimped on resources).

Also, he probably figured he knew what today's attacks would be, as they were laid out in a Friday speech by RNC Chair Ed Gillespie, and a Sunday NY Times frontpager.

How did he handle the attacks? In some ways, very good. In other ways, some fixes are needed.

But there's nothing that isn't fixable.

What was most promising was his demeanor -- confident and prepared. (Arguably, that's more important than the words.)

He knew what was coming and he didn't flinch or act defensive.

He even sent a defiant signal to the GOP, telling Fox's Chris Wallace:

They're emptying out the wastebasket, and it's great. We're going to be able to deal with each of these, and I'm happy to.

Also, on 60 Minutes, he gave a sharp answer to the question, how can a Mass. liberal win the South:

I think what people are looking for is not regional, where you come from. They're looking for what's in your gut.

The people in the south that I talk to want jobs just as much as people in the rest of the country.

They want health care. They want to drink clean water and breathe clean air.

(Yes, he's ripping off Howard Dean. But frontrunners always rip off the best aspects of the insurgents. Doesn't mean it's not smart.)

What was most problematic? His long-standing problem: long-windedness.

It's merely boring when explaining your views.

But when responding to attacks, it's more damaging.

Long explanations can come across like evasion, even when that's not the intention.

The worst example of long-windedness was on Fox. He was asked about his calls for better intelligence after 9/11, even though he proposed to cut funding for intelligence in 1990s.

First, he offered a confusing anecdote about how he saw Moscow in disrepair after Communism's fall, prompting an interruption by Wallace.

After that, he got around to his main point:

I was on the Intelligence Committee.

What we were trying to do, some of us, was push the funding not into technical means � there was a fascination always with satellites and listening devices, not with human intelligence.

I've always been somebody who has felt that we needed human intelligence.

That's our failure. That was the failure with respect to 9/11. That remains the greatest gap in our intelligence.

So I wanted to reduce some spending from the national technical means and change the culture of our intelligence gathering.

There's stuff to work with in all that, but it's still too long, even without the tangential anecdote.

First, he just needs to get to the point, for example: "Back then, money was being wasted on silly gadgets while crucial human intelligence was neglected."

Then, he needs to say why it mattered: "If my reforms had passed, we may have infiltrated Al Qaeda and stopped 9/11 from ever happening."

One other key concern: as he tries to appeal to the middle, he needs to be careful to keep his language consistent with past statements.

In particular, Kerry has to watch himself on the issue of partial-birth abortion.

Kerry surely knew that the GOP wants to use partial-birth abortion against him, because on Friday, Gillespie attacked him for saying:

There is no such thing as a partial birth. It is a late term abortion.

On Fox, Wallace didn't pull out that quote, but asked Kerry about his past votes against banning the procedure. Kerry responded:

I'm against partial-birth abortion, as are many people.

But under the law of our land, I believe it is a constitutional right for a woman to be able to make a choice with respect to her health...

...The Republicans didn't want that because they wanted, again, to drive a wedge issue.

Now, exposing the GOP for refusing to include a constitutionally mandated health exemption is smart, because it exposes their lack of compassion.

But straining to say you're personally against partial-birth abortions when just a few months ago you said they didn't exist (which the GOP noted just a few days ago), is not smart.

No one called Kerry on it yesterday.

But the GOP has done its oppo research. They will nail Kerry with a flip-flop charge unless he finds a way to square the two statements.

This should also serve as a cautionary tale for Kerry.

He's better off making a proud case for his liberal positions to the nation's swing voters, then trying to contort them.

Because as he said himself yesterday, what voters are really looking for is what's in his gut.

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The Sandbox
Humor Column by Mark Spittle

Polling: It's Not Just for Morons Anymore

USA Today ran poll results in its 1/15 edition that showed 56% of those asked felt Democrats should nominate a moderate, versus 26% wanting a liberal and 14% wanting a conservative.

In effect, the poll was asking Democrats where they, themselves, sat on the issues.

The problem is that the poll, like most polls, is inane.

The pollsters didn't offer any definition of what such terms as "liberal," "conservative," or "moderate" mean, so they are really asking folks to label themselves using arbitrary, subjective tags.

Should anyone be surprised that the majority of people see themselves as "moderate" in an age when "liberal" is still the "L-word"?

(Although after a few seasons of that new lesbian show, that may change.)

Or where "conservative" rings more GOP-sounding, and being a Republican isn't a nice thing to be in the Democratic Party? (Unless you're Wes Clark, of course.)

Somewhere in the world there is a little, beady-eyed mad scientist who is gleefully rubbing his hands at the genetically-deformed creatures he has unleashed on the world.

Devoid of any soul or any mental connection to the real world, our evil geneticist calls them homunculi. We call them pollsters.

So, in that vein, I did some of my own polling using Zogbyism and Gallupaganda to reveal some remarkable things about the American people. Here are the results:

BUSH APPROVAL RATINGS
4,568 registered voters were asked the following questions, and then given ice cream:

"Do you feel that President Bush has done an acceptable job in office despite his obvious mental handicaps?"

Yes: 55%
No: 25%
Couldn't fill out the poll form: 15%

"If President Bush were revealed to have been convicted of a DUI, which (face it) we all know he was, would you be surprised?"

Surprised: 2%
Not surprised: 89%
Lay off drunks already!: 1%

"Do you agree with the overwhelmingly popular opinion that Bush is a saint, a man sent from God Himself, and is incapable of doing wrong?"

Yes, agree with popular opinion: 75%
No, but I'm open to listening in case he is sent from God: 13%
No, but I'm a godless atheist and you shouldn't listen to me anyway: 3%
Can't answer, too busy shooting abortion doctors: 1%

OPINIONS ON DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES
2,932 registered Democrats were asked the following questions and then rudely told to leave:

"If Joe Lieberman switched parties and ran as a Republican, would you be surprised or just say to yourself, �aw, heck, I knew it all along'?"

Surprised: 5%
Not surprised, because I knew it all along: 54%
Who's Joe Lieberman again?: 25%

"Would you consider switching to the Republican Party if we gave you a thousand dollars right now and promised you free porn for life, or are you still a hardcore, baby-eating Democrat?"

Would switch faster than a gecko on a hotplate: 89%
Throw in chocolate chip cookies, and it's a deal: 1%
I'm hardcore Dem, and eat babies: 0.3%
I'm Australian and feed babies to crocodiles, so can't answer: 0.5%

"Given the fact that Dick Gephardt has been the leader of the House Democrats during a period of declining Party power, should we really give him the control of the White House, or instead let him have a talk show on public access cable where we can throw apples at him?

Elect Dick: 32%
Throw apples: 32%
Elect Dick, then throw apples: 32%

"Isn't that Howard Dean angry, angry, angry? And wouldn't it be better if he wasn't so gosh-darned angry? Doesn't that make you angry? Grr!!!"

Yes: 25%
No: 23%
What?: 15%
Huh?: 11%
Can you repeat the question?: 14%

Mark Spittle is one half of the political satire duo Spittle & Ink. He is a former Washington lobbyist and congressional assistant.

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