Craig Crawford’s 1600: Stubborner Than a Donkey

[babylonsister]

http://www.nytimes.com/cq/2007/05/25/cq_2798.html

Craig Crawford’s 1600: Stubborner Than a Donkey

By Craig Crawford, CONGRESSIONAL QUARTERLY
Published: May 25, 2007

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Faced with nothing but bad news from Iraq, coupled with the enduring and widespread fear that his strategies are showing little or no hope of producing a turnaround on the battlefield or in public opinion, an unpopular president has been able to secure unfettered financing to maintain an unpopular war with no end in sight. How has Bush done this?

For starters, he’s taken the advice of Aaron Burr a major step further. More than two centuries ago, before he was Thomas Jefferson’s vice president, Burr famously offered this guidance to young attorneys: “Law is that which is boldly asserted and plausibly maintained.”

Bold assertion has been the hallmark of Bush’s rhetoric on the war. But he’s prevailed without heeding Burr’s admonition that one’s assertions must be “plausibly maintained.” From pre-war claims about an Iraqi nuclear threat and continuing insistence on ties between Saddam Hussein and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, to his warnings last week of Iraq being used as a base for more violence around the world, there is little that is overtly plausible about the president’s descriptions surrounding the war.

At best, Bush was telling a half-truth last week when he announced that newly declassified information proved that Osama bin Laden, the al Qaeda mastermind of Sept. 11, told counterparts in Iraq to prepare more attacks against the United States and other countries. It could only be called new information because it had been conveniently declassified only a day before the president made his assertion, in a graduation speech at the Coast Guard Academy. But it was based on two-year-old intelligence about bin Laden’s communications to an Iraqi ally who died a year ago.

Bush seems to believe that if he says it, then it must be true — and anyone who says otherwise is not supporting the troops. MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann, who has become an influential icon among anti-war viewers, compared Bush on his show last week to a child who “holds his breath, and threatens to continue to do so, until he turns blue.” But however petulant it might seem, the president’s approach is working. Democratic congressional leaders backed down precisely because they feared Bush’s threats to accuse them of abandoning the troops.

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[Rydz777]

1. KO is wrong about one thing: Bush is not turning blue. However,

the country is. The longer Bush holds his breath, the bluer the country will get - and that will show up on the electoral maps in 2008.

[mwb970]

2. I hate counting on Republicans to do the right thing.

Holding Republicans in line has been the key to Bush’s success against Democratic aims to wrest control of the war away from him.

Despite GOP grumbling, which included a high-profile delegation of party moderates going to the White House to urge retreat, the lack of defections in roll call votes on Capitol Hill made it impossible for Democrats to win the day. Until Republicans start casting votes that sync with their public and private complaints about the president’s war policy, he will continue to get his way.

In other words, until Republicans put their country ahead of their party, we're stuck. Great.