Political Wire Asks: Can Cheaters Run for President?

Under normal circumstances the question, Can Cheaters Run for President?, wouldn’t even come up. However, given the context of past decade, where the politics of personal destruction have been elevated to ever increasing levels, I think it’s only fair to probe the potential ‘08 GOP (God’s Own Party) presidential candidates for their moral rectitude, being that they claim to be the party of traditional family values.

PoliticalWire.com asks:

Can Cheaters Run for President?

While the media regularly dissects Sen. Hillary Clinton’s (D-NY) personal life and the infidelity of her husband a decade ago, Steve Benen notes in the Washington Monthly that adultery may be a bigger problem for Republicans in the next presidential campaign.

"Lurking just over the horizon are liabilities for three Republicans who have topped several national, independent polls for the GOP’s favorite 2008 nominee: Sen. John McCain (affair, divorce), former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (affair, divorce, affair, divorce), and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani (divorce, affair, nasty divorce). Together, they form the most maritally challenged crop of presidential hopefuls in American political history."

"Just a few years after infidelity was considered a dealbreaker for a presidential candidate, the party that presents itself as the arbiter of virtue may field an unprecedented two-timing trifecta."

Rove/Gingrich Envy

We do envy Republicans sometimes, it’s true.

Well, Liberals and Democrats don’t envy their policies, much less their policy results, just look at some recent Republican accomplishments: failed Iraqi nation building project, a nuclear armed Iran and North Korea (remember the “Axis of Evil” line?), record deficits, the 6′4″ Osama Bin Ladin still plotting against the U.S., the Taleban is regrouping in Afghanistan, multiple Republican officials are under investigation for accepting brides, money laundering, leaking a CIA agent’s name and for many other illicit schemes betraying the public trust.

And yet, we suffer of Republican Operative/Strategist envy — otherwise known as Rove/Gingrich envy. In these two men, Karl Rove and Newt Gingrich (and, actually, let’s add a third man, Grover Norquist), we have the architects of the Republican electoral successes of the past 10-15 years. Meanwhile, as these men, with the eager help of their allies in conservative circles, impeached a Democratic president, stole a presidential election (2000 and, some argue here and here and here, 2004), and exploited a national tragedy (i.e., 9/11) to advance their conservative/Republican agenda, the Democratic Party establishment largely stood by — too afraid to punch back, and punch back hard.

Unfortunately it’s not just the Democratic Party establishment that’s too afraid to got toe-to-toe against these Republican thugs. Sometimes we of the grassroots are too afraid to hit back with all we’ve got. Now, clearly, more of us, the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party, have grown tired enough to not want to take it any more and have started to punch back. That said, I recently came across a post at DailyKos.com where a diarist suggested that members of the Bush administration should be routinely described as:

[I]ncompetent, Liars, or both.

[and, too]

The Republican congress is unAmerican because it is not performing its constitutional duty to be a check and balance to the executive.

The executive branch continues its unAmerican activity by any number of activities that are not supported by the constitution or bill of rights.

The diarist’s suggestions may be completely wrong headed, I frankly don’t know. However, what struck me was the response the diarist’s suggestions illicited from another user:

What good does it do to name-call?

[...]

[Rumsfeld and others in the Bush administration will] be gone with the lame duck President soon enough, and [they'll] not be on the ballot, so there’s no point attacking [them].

The unAmerican line lost its popularity a long time ago, and I’d rather not be the party to bring it back. And I’d rather not have this charge brought against us when we have the House and the Presidency and they work together.

I was so struck with the reflexive dismissal of the diarist’s suggestions by the other user, that I responded to the dismissal with the following:

This is just a quick reaction after reading your response: you sound like a Democratic party insider (or at least with direct ties to an elected member’s office in some capacity), more interested in the immediate tactical gain; rather than on the long term goal of building a “progressive movement.” Again, this is my immediate reaction to your reply, without taking too much time to “ponder and digest” your take on the diary. Now, the diarist’s talking points I’m sure can be refined and retooled; however, the diarist premise and main point is sound: negative language used to tarnished the opposition does work — just ask Newt Gingrich to provide his list of words he suggested be used in association with Democrats:

“Anti-flag, anti-family, anti-child, anti-jobs, betray, coercion, collapse, consequences, corruption, crises, decay, deeper, destroy, destructive, devour, endanger, failure, greed, hypocrisy, ideological, impose, incompetent, insecure, liberal, lie, limit(s), pathetic, permissive attitude, radical, self-serving, sensationalists, shallow, sick, they/them, threaten, traitors, unionized bureaucracy, urgent, waste”

Now, I’m not a supporter of Gingrich, but the man is a visionary and a transformational “movement” leader, adept at using all tools at his disposal to provide his party with a political advantage — unfortunately for us Liberals and Democrats, Republicans seem to have monopolized the market on Gingrich’s type of party activist and leader (willing to reach into the operative’s tool bag for whatever is necessary to gain advantage over the opposition). Now, your point about not wanting to revive certain attack lines (i.e., un-American) is well taken; regrettably we, Democrats and Liberals, don’t have a choice on that matter, since the enemy (Republicans and conservatives) consistently pelt us with that very epithet. It seems to me that our only recourse is to wrestle the very notion of what it means to be American away from the opposition, and restore it to its rightful heirs: Liberals and Progressives that, with sweat, tears and blood, have welcomed previously excluded citizens into the American family — and, of course, all the while, the enemy blocked school house doors, blocked workers from organizing and generally could be heard from the sidelines chanting We don’t care, We don’t care.

Again, I’m sure that the diarist’s suggestions can be refined so that they are more than mere “personal attacks” against the administration; however, as I intimated in my response to the user that objected to “personal attack”: negative or attack language used to frame the opposition does work — just see how well it has served Rove and Gingrich, and their Republican/conservative causes.

Perhaps this is why some Liberals and Democrats, myself included, sometimes feel Rove/Gingrich envy: because these men don’t stop to ask themselves, Uh, perhaps we’ve gone too far. We don’t really need to attack them. In stead, these men and their Republican allies are always willing to go for the jugular to advance their cause. It’s about time we do the same; besides, it certainly isn’t a stretch to say that the Bush administration lied us into war, and it certainly is un-American for our Congress to ignore their Constitutional duties.

PNAC & the Bush White House

I’m always amazed to learn that some people are still not aware of the players inside the Bush administration. Recently, I was asked this question, What does The Project for the New American Century have to do with the Bush administration?

The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) is composed of a group of men (I frankly don’t know whether there are any women in it) that had long advocated the overthrow of Saddam Hussein for various reasons, including oil, the necessity to project American power in the Middle East, the need to protect an ally (Israel), and to prevent Hussein from developing weapons of mass destruction. On January of 1998 the group sent a letter to president Clinton urging him to remove Saddam Hussein:

“In your upcoming State of the Union Address, you have an opportunity to chart a clear and determined course for meeting this threat. We urge you to seize that opportunity, and to enunciate a new strategy that would secure the interests of the U.S. and our friends and allies around the world. That strategy should aim, above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime from power. We stand ready to offer our full support in this difficult but necessary endeavor.” [letter]

Moreover, the same group sent another letter to the then majority leader in the House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich, urging that Congress exert pressure on the White House to persue the removal of Saddam Hussein.

Please note that this is five years before Mr. Bush warned us of the “grave and gathering danger in Iraq” if we did not do something soon. Now, if you scroll down, you’ll see the list of signatories on the letter addressed to president Clinton. If you’ve followed the events and players surrounding the Bush White House over the past couple of years, there ought to be a couple of names that immediately jump out at you, for example: Richard Perle, Donald Rumsfeld & Paul Wolfowitz — just to name some of major players.

Furthermore, if you were to do a search on the signatories to the letter, you’d find that many of them ended up working in the Bush administration, in various governmental positions*:

Elliott Abrams
http://uscirf.gov/cirfPages/bio_Abrams.php3?scale=1152s

http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Elliott_Abrams

Richard L. Armitage
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/biog/2991.htm

http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Richard_L._Armitage

William J. Bennett
http://www.mediatransparency.org/people/wbennett.htm

Jeffrey Bergner
http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Jeffrey_Bergner&redirect=no

John Bolton
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/02/20010221-6.html

http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=John_Bolton

Paula Dobriansky
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/03/20010312-9.html

http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Paula_Dobriansky

Francis Fukuyama
http://www.bioethics.gov/about/fukuyama.html

http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Francis_Fukuyama

Robert Kagan

Zalmay Khalilzad
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/05/20010523-7.html

http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Zalmay_Khalilzad

William Kristol
http://www.mediatransparency.org/people/bill_kristol.htm

Richard Perle
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/04/text/20010406-7.html

http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Richard_Perle

Peter W. Rodman
http://www.dod.mil/policy/isa/bios/peter_w_rodman.html

Donald Rumsfeld
http://www.defenselink.mil/bios/secdef_bio.html

William Schneider, Jr.

Vin Weber

Paul Wolfowitz
http://www.defenselink.mil/bios/depsecdef_bio.html

R. James Woolsey

Robert B. Zoellick
http://us-mission.ch/BIOS/Zoellick.htm

(*Note that for those individuals without links I could not find any relevant information.)

Moreover, some — here and elsewhere — contend (me among them) that the Bush administration exploited 9/11 and exaggerated the threat that Saddam Hussein posed in order to pursue an elective war against Iraq. Many point to the Bush administration’s appointment of many of the above individuals to key posts, as a sign that there existed in the administration a predisposition to see Iraq as an enemy — even when it did not pose a threat to the US. Futhermore, many point to a document published by PNAC, which hints at a “larger plan” involving Iraq, the Middle East and the US military. That document includes this graft:

“Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event � like a new Pearl Harbor.” [Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century, p. 51. PDF]

The above statement is offered in the context of “transforming” the US military into a more “mobile” and “nimble” fighting force; however, when placed in the context on 9/11 and its Pearl Harbor like psychological affect on the nation, one can understand how the authors of the document — that is, the members of PNAC — saw 9/11 as the opportunity to enact their plans for the Middle East, Iraq and the US military. For example, one of PNAC’s goals was to transform the military, and to do so they needed to illustrate how a more “mobile” and “nimble” force could be effectively used in combat. Now, if you recall, before going into Iraq the administration (namely, Rumsfeld) argued that we would need less troops than what the Pentagon was asking for. Now, the Pentagon lost that argument, so we went into Iraq with a lot less troops than was required to secure the country after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Of course, we’re now paying for this blunder. However, Mr. Rumsfeld, as a member of and signatory to the PNAC letter, for ideological reasons, chose to go into Iraq with less troops than what the Pentagon had originally requested.

Finally, the signatories to PNAC’s Statement of Principles include the following: Dick Cheney, Jeb Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and others.

To say that the Bush administration did not have plans for Iraq long before 9/11 is simply not borne out by the record. Now, “absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event � like a new Pearl Harbor” who knows when the Bush administration would’ve invaded Iraq; however, it’s clear that 9/11 presented the Bush administration the perfect rationale to go into Iraq and then enact the plans laid out by PNAC to remove Hussein, transform the military and project US power in the Middle East.