This article in the New Republic is the best analysis I’ve seen yet as to how the Republican nomination battle is likely to turn out. To sum up, it looks increasingly likely that Giuliani, Romney and Thompson will all have hundreds of delegates. If none of the candidates drops out, this means the Republican candidate will likely be chosen at the convention itself. This is, of course, how it was done in the old days, but recently candidates have nabbed the nomination before then. The GOP candidate may not be chosen until September 2008, leaving less than two months to campaign against Hillary. Ouch.
I still think there’s a possibility of Romney gathering momentum after early wins in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and Michigan, but Giuliani’s strategy is to wait until Feb. 5, where he hopes to win California and other large states. Thompson looks likely to win South Carolina and perhaps Florida (although a poll published yesterday shows Romney inching up in Florida and within striking distance of Thompson).
Anyway, a very good analysis on a very competitive nomination process.
Every four years, somebody writes an article predicting a brokered convention (usually for the Democrats), and they are always wrong. I think they are wrong this time too, although I haven’t a clue as to how Guiliani, Thompson, or Romney actually sews up the nomination.
I will make one prediction. If there is a brokered convention, Mike Huckabee will be the nominee (instantly transforming the race from Senator from New York vs. Mayor of New York to wife of the man from Hope vs. the other man from Hope).
LL, a million things can happen between now and January, but based on the polling now, it’s very reasonable to see all three leading Republican candidates having hundreds of delegates before March. California, where Rudy is leading the polls, has a proportional delegate system, so Mitt Romney and Thompson could both pick up delegates there. All three candidates look like they will win some states. That creates a very unique situation.
As I said, I still think there is a chance for Romney or another candidate to “catch fire” after the January primaries and caucuses. I hope that is what happens. But I think the NR article makes a very convincing case it may not.
I don’t agree with you on the Huckabee candidacy, but his stock rose a bit after the Ames straw poll.
I’m afraid I have to agree with today’s George Will column about Thompson:
Fred Thompson’s plunge into the presidential pool — more belly-flop than swan dive — was the strangest product launch since that of New Coke in 1985. Then the question was: Is this product necessary? A similar question stumped Thompson the day he plunged.
Sean Hannity, who is no Torquemada conducting inquisitions of conservatives, asked Thompson: “When you look at the other current crop of candidates — Republicans — where is the distinction between your positions and what you view as theirs?” Thompson replied: “Well, to tell you the truth, I haven’t spent a whole lot of time going into the details of their positions.”
Bill, that’s one of the reasons I support Romney.
As for Giuliani, the Daily News thinks that if Romney wins Iowa and NH the Giuliani campaign will fade:
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2007/09/13/2007-09-13_why_americas_mayor_will_not_be_the_gops_.html
Giuliani is already fading in the national polls, but there is still a lot of time. It will be interesting to how much Romney’s strategy of focusing on the early primary states will vault him above the ten percent he is currently registering in the national polls.
The albatross hanging around the necks of all these candidates is the shadow of George W. Bush. Somehow, none of them can bring themselves to repudiate him and they are all in one way or another running as his heir.
Romney comes across as the shallow glad-hander who came from a privileged background, whose family was in politics, and who can work with the other party. He pretends to speak the language of the Christian right even though he’s not really one of them, and likes to posture and talk tough. He has a Harvard MBA, but unlike the current president, has been successful in some business ventures, but he does share with Bush a superficial understanding of foreign affairs.
Giuliani is running as the Cheney-style authoritarian who will carry the big stick and not let anyone intimidate him. He also plays the part of a competent executive who wouldn’t have fallen asleep during Katrina, and who would whip the Dept. of Homeland security into shape.
McCain is the one who would have actually listened to the generals and planned for the aftermath of the invasion. He would also have spent more time in Baghdad and less time on a ranch. Bush’s failures have hurt him the most.
Thompson is the folksy buffoon who would spend a lot of time on vacation, letting subordinates fulfill his vague decrees. He is running on nostalgia for Reagan, the main difference being that Reagan really had a coherent philosophy and was smarter than he pretended to be.
It’s too bad that these fellows, who in normal circumstances might have been adequate to good candidates, have been reduced to trying to justify the administrations many mistakes, and in some cases, actually cheerleading for them.
I’m still hoping that Bloomberg will get into the race, maybe with non-candidate Hagel as running mate.
Sorry about the apostrophes in comment 5, I resent it as 6, corrected. I originally sent the comment and it disappeared as the server was temporarily down. So I retyped it in Word and recopied it later. You can delete this comment and the redundant one with bad apostrophes above.
Bloomberg? Whoa.
Romney isn’t a foreign policy wonk, which I think we need. But he’s more well versed than many seem willing to admit. Plus he’s been successful in most he has done. (Bush’s background should have been a clue) The big problems are his apparent pretending to be a social conservative. (At best pandering and at worst pretty dishonest) The other is that his record as governor seems more mixed than it first appears. I really wanted to like him but his flip flopping on some key issues really bugged me.
Giuliani, to me, is authoritarian without any experience or much of a clue on foreign affairs. George Bush part II in my opinion. Plus his way socially liberal.
McCain I just don’t trust. Big temper. Although he’d probably do better than most on foreign policy. Sadly, as much as I dislike him I think he’d do better than most except for…
Thompson. A lot of the naysayers haven’t been reading his writing from over the last six months. He seems to have a pretty coherent view to me. Yeah, he’s trying a bit too hard to be Reagan pt. 2. And some things, such as his social life and first marriage problems, may come back to haunt him. But he has experience in the senate, which frankly is probably a plus this year rather than a negative. He’s very charismatic and can actually communicate. (One can’t help but wonder what Bush could have done had he been able to communicate anything) The downside, as with all Senators, is a lack of executive branch experience. Still he’s probably the strongest of the bunch.
Sadly though I’m slowly coming over to the view that the best thing for the world and for the country is Clinton to win. Don’t get me wrong. I can’t stand Clinton. But if a Republican wins the Democrats (who will undoubtedly pick up more seats in the Senate and House) will oppose him every step of the way. We need unity and the only way to reign in the far left and get Democrats and Republicans working together is probably Clinton. She appears pretty pragmatic (unlike Obama and Edwards) and from what I can see probably wouldn’t end up varying from the Bush policy. Arguably she would do it more competently as well. Yeah, we’d probably be stuck with some domestic policies we conservatives wouldn’t like. But let’s be honest. The Congressianal Republicans haven’t exactly been acting very Republican despite their loss. Say what one will about the Clintons, but they are policy wonks and might actually reign in all the pork that the previous Republican congress and now the Democratic congress are going overboard on.
Don’t get me wrong. There’s a bit of bile in my mouth when I say that. And I hope Thompson turns out to be more than he appears. But I’m not sure he can united the country and get Europe lined up in the war on terror. Clinton can I think.
The problem with all these fellows is that they’re indistinguishable from Bush. There’s absolutely no way any of them can win the election while holding hands with the current, unpopular, unconservative Republican leadership.
As far as the nomination goes, I don’t necessarily believe enough Republicans will wake up to the abuse they’ve taken from ‘their’ party to vote for someone with backbone, but at this point that’s what I want to do. Ron Paul is looking good to me so far. I’ll be watching…
Bill, I deleted your bad apostrophe post, so #6 is now #5. You need to take another look at Bloomberg. Serious nanny state guy, thinks he knows more than everybody else. He would be a horrible president. But I think he should run because he takes votes away from Hillary.
Clark, I understand the point you’re trying to make about Hillary, and I even sympathize with part of it. Two words to consider: “Federal judges.”
Warning to Miguel and other Ron Paul fanatics: this post will not turn into a Ron Paul campaign advertisement (as have other posts). Short, respectful discussion will be tolerated. Ron Paul cheerleading will be deleted. Thanks.
All candidates think they know more than everybody else. A few of them actually do know more than most people. The problem is when you get a guy like GWB who thinks he knows better despite all the evidence, and will refuse to countenance any advice that he didn’t already want to hear. This arrogance problem also applies to Giuliani although obviously his knowledge is a little deeper than Bush’s.
If you actually look at how Bloomberg has governed in NYC the past six years the differences between him and Giuliani become clear. Giuliani chased away all the competent advisors who had helped him achieve his early successes until there was nothing but lackeys and sycophants remaining. By the time of 9/11 most New Yorkers were still partly grateful to Giuliani for his achievements, but had begun to despise him for his need to constantly pick fights that were totally unnecessary. His subsequent self-glorification after the events of 9/11 has further evidenced this megalomaniacal need to hog all the credit to himself.
Bloomberg sees no need to destroy his enemies. First, he doesn’t make a lot of enemies by needlessly offending people. Second, he coopts many adversaries by actually listening to them and responding to their concerns. He is happy to share credit with others and so accomplishes much more. He pragmatically gathers around himself the most competent and qualified advisors.
Perhaps he has a few nanny state tendencies, but if my liberties have to be curtailed, I would rather have it be in the fight against lung cancer and obesity, the results of which my taxes would have to pay for, rather than bogus Patriot Act style concessions.
It’d take a lot for me to get over McCain’s Senate record long enough to vote for him. I suspect either he or Guiliani will get Ohio’s delegates, unless Thompson starts pulling out a whole lot of miracles or Romney gets some very impressive (Limbaugh level) popular Republican endorsements. Hewitt squared, basically.
Thompson needs to fire or reign in at least one adviser, Romney’s campaign needs to remember that there are more than five states in this country, and Guiliani’s record in NY after the big criminals were taken down worries me. Before this week I was Romney-Thompson-Guiliani. Thompson’s campaign has annoyed me a whole lot, though; he’s in McCain (“I might just vote for Obama or whoever the Libertarians have put up”) territory with me right now.
Incidentally, I consider it a bad sign that every campaign has annoyed me this much this far in advance of the actual election. Forget the 2004 Democratic “every candidate has lost steam except Kerry and it isn’t even March” problem — I’m already mostly sick of the whole field, and March is six months away. On the other hand, in 2000, I could work up so little enthusiasm for or against anyone that I was ambivalent even after I’d voted.
I’m hoping for some really dynamite person who shows up late enough that he has to be made the VP candidate, and makes me happy enough that I won’t be annoyed voting for one of the front-runners other than McCain.
Geoff, I agree that the judge issue is the biggest problem with a Clinton win. Especially the Supreme Court. I’m anything but a Bush fan – but I’ll give him props for the two successful appointments he made. (I’ll try to forget Meiers as a bad dream, much like Gonzales as was for heading the DOJ)
The question then becomes which is more important? I think at this stage the war on terror is. Especially since anyone Clinton replaces will probably be a liberal judge anyway.
I don’t understand why conservatives are so freaked out by the specter of liberal judges; in my experience, most judges try to make fair decision based on the case and evidence in front of them, Bush v. Gore notwithstanding.
I just can’t see the prospective case that freaks you out. Actually, I take that back: it’s probably a declaration that not permitting gays to marry is unconstitutional, or the continuation of Roe v. Wade. Either is, in my opinion, overblown. Although the constitutional cases appear the most sexy, and get by far the most press, they don’t generally have much far-reaching effect. Far more important in virtually everybody’s life are the cases that deal with the agency regulations or the tax code or other mundane, specialized areas of law that are too complicated to be digested in soundbytes. From what I’ve seen, most judges work to be completely fair on these (important) points.
Geoff #9:
Thanks for the warning! [g]
I happen to agree somewhat with Clark’s #7. With 75% of Americans opposing the war, and all but one of the GOP candidates offering no change from the Bush strategy, I don’t think the Republicans have a prayer of taking the White House next year. The dissatisfaction with Bush is high enough to overcome even the general public’s distaste for Clinton.
This isn’t cheerleading, but an actual news story: Ron Paul is currently polling 5% in New Hampshire. I think we’re seeing him break out of 1-2%, now that he’s getting more attention from the MSM. There’s a chance (and I admit it’s a slight one) that he could continue to rise as more people become aware of him and the difference he offers from the other GOP candidates.
http://www.usaelectionpolls.com/2008/articles/ron-paul-now-at-five-percent-new-hampshire.html
I think Ron Paul might have been interesting had he focused more on traditional libertarian issues rather than being a one note on the Iraq war. (Basically aping the MoveOn.com position, from what I can see) While I’m no Libertarian I think having their positions echoed more in the debate can only be a good thing.
Sam, while both liberal and conservative judges try to be honest and fair they do have differing judicial philosophies. And those philosophies count. A lot. Having said that though in terms of judicial activism there are unfortunately a lot of conservatives who only mind it when it’s liberal judicial activism. Personally I’m for strong judicial restraint and frankly not all judges are. “Fair” is simply seen in many different ways.
Traditionally the big looming issue is always abortion, even though for me (as for you) that’s a more minor issue. But there are other issues, as we’ve seen the past four years, over executive power. To me the real big issue is the 2cd amendment as an individual right. But of course even a lot of liberal judges think that. It’s not clear how a liberal President would view a judge with such a view though.
Clark:
How much of Ron Paul’s campaining have you followed? He’s far from a “one note on the Iraq war”, and hitting all the libertarian principles (as you recommend).
He’s actually spending much more time on issues that most Americans don’t know or care anything about, like monetary policy and moving away from the Federal Reserve system. (It’s the first item on his “Issues” page.)
http://www.ronpaul2008.com/issues/
“GOP candidate may not be chosen until September 2008, leaving less than two months to campaign against Hillary. Ouch.”
That could be a very good thing for the GOP should it happen. Suppose Senator Clinton is her party’s de facto nominee before March and the GOP nominee is up in the air until September. In that assymetrical situation, she has to campaign against all the GOP candidates; not against a sole individual, but against half the country. That sounds like a tough way to win over voters. There’s also the fatigue that will have everyone thoroughly sick of all the candidates by summer. That may be lessened for a party without a decided candidate yet.
John #17, great contrarian analysis. You make some good points. The only thing I would say is that it takes time in today’s modern media campaigns to build up an image. Hillary would have six months to build up hers as the uncontested candidate before the Republicans can even concentrate on one candidate. You may be right that people will be sick of her by then, but most Dems I know are not likely to change their minds about Hillary. It’s the undecideds you want to go after, and most people have made up their mind about her (except for Clark, above in #7).
Clark, re your #7, you need to keep in mind that the reason Sept. 11 happened was eight years of the Clintons ignoring terrorism and hoping it would go away (the first Twin Towers attack, USS Cole, African embassies and on and on). If history has shown us anything it is that tyrants must be defeated, not appeased, not ignored. Hillary makes us significantly less safe. We’ll see how you feel on this issue in Nov. 2008 after reconsidering all of the wonderful things from the Clinton years (scandal after scandal, pardons of some of the worst criminals out there, no moral center, presidency via opinion polling, etc, etc.). Don’t get me wrong, I think Hillary will probably win, but I simply can’t stand by and let it happen without trying to do something about it in my own (very) small way.
Geoff,
Your second paragraph in #18 is, of course, the neocon/Fox News explanation for 9/11. It has the advantage of playing to an audience who is blissfully ignorant of decades of U.S. involvement in the Middle East, as well as the inaction of the first 8 months of the Bush administration. But I suspect it won’t fly here; most of us know better.
Mike, no, this is the explanation I have arrived at myself after reading literally dozens of books on the Middle East, reading the Koran, reading OBL’s many writings. Wow, people like Bernard Lewis, Robert Spencer and Daniel Pipes — people who have actually lived in the Middle East and studied it and come to the same conclusion I have — are certainly ignorant in your all-knowing eyes. Your Ron Paul/Noam Chomsky blame American first policy is hateful, dangerous and horribly ignorant. Centuries of history and studying the actual words and actions of people who have declared themselves our enemies show this — unfortunately many people are duped into not believing it, just as they were with Hitler and Stalin in the 1920s and 1930s. How many attacks must we suffer until you and others with their heads in the sand wake up? This is why the Clinton policy is so dangerous — it turns many well-meaning people like yourself into unwitting accomplices to the deaths of others.
Mike, it occurs to me that you may never have heard of Bernard Lewis, Robert Spencer and Daniel Pipes. Here are some links to more information on them. Once you have read a bit more, perhaps we can have a more intelligent discussion. Thanks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Lewis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Spencer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Pipes
Geoff,
Your condescension is duly noted.
As usual, you grossly mischaracterize my position. I actually have a great deal of antipathy toward Noam Chomsky, and I do not believe in “blame American first.” (And neither does Ron Paul, BTW.)
This is yet another propaganda tool from the neocon crowd — anyone who doesn’t think the U.S. is on a God-sanctioned crusade to protect American freedoms and make the Middle East safe for democracy is a treasonous, America-hating weasel.
For your information, I am familiar with Lewis, Spencer, and Pipes. But (shockingly!) I happen to disagree with their analysis of the historical and cultural situation we face. For every expert called on by pro-war right to justify military aggression in the ME, I can produce three or four experts who dispute it. So please don’t start with the logical fallacy of appeal to authority.
You need to look up the definitions of “blowback.” Then perhaps we can have a more intelligent discussion.
Mike, you need to do a lot more studying about what Ron Paul has actually said about foreign policy and the effects it will have on our ability to protect ourselves and pursue policies that are even halfway humane. Ron Paul appeals to the kind of isolationism that would have kept us out of World War II (have you even studied what Republicans were saying up until Dec. 1941, the same Republicans Ron Paul lauds as his heroes?) and would have made sure that the Soviet Union took over even more of the world than it did, enslaving additional hundreds of millions. Ron Paul’s foreign policy is one of ignoring the world so we can get ours while everybody else dies and is enslaved. It is a shameful, immoral foreign policy.
You also need to talk to some more libertarians, many of whom are just as embarrassed by Ron Paul’s isolationism as I am.
http://rgcombs.blog-city.com/ron_paul_doesnt_speak_for_all_of_us.htm
The blowback theory with regards to espionage and our foreign policy has been completely and utterly discredited. Noam Chomsky and his ilk believe in such filth. I am sorry to see that you do too.
And, by the way, the condescension was started in your #19. The implication that I get my talking points from Fox News (which my satellite package does not even include, btw) is unnecessary. You have been spoiling for a fight on this issue for weeks now. You may want to consider the possibility that there are people who are just as informed (and possibly much more informed) as you are who have simply come to different conclusions.
Geoff writes:
Physician, heal thyself.
In this thread alone, Geoff, you have:
To correct you:
There is a vast difference between “blaming America” and stating the obvious fact that actions have unintended consequences. Muslim fanatics do not hate us because we’re free or prosperous or not Muslim. They hate us because our military has for decades been involved in actions in their lands. They hate us because we have troops on the Arabian peninsula. They hate us because we have overthrown their governments when we didn’t like them (e.g., 1953 in Iran and 2003 in Iraq). They hate us because we are uncritical of Israeli atrocities against civilians.
Now, there may be very good reasons in the minds of many for doing these things. But don’t think we can do them and not expect repercussions. You state — completely without evidence — that “the blowback theory has been completely and utterly discredited.” But that is EXACTLY what Osama bin Laden’s beef with America is all about! His fatwa of 23 February 1998 lists three grievances that drive him and his followers:
What you call “filth” is, in fact, reality. This righteous indignation on the part of Americans like yourself is myopic and dangerous.
The really bizarre thing is that the rise of Adolph Hitler is widely regarded a classic example of unintended consequences. We defeated the Germans in World War I and the proceeded to humiliate them by letting their economy go down the toilet. The German morale was crushed and hyperinflation caused widespread suffering. All of this set the stage for Hitler to rise to power under the pretense of blaming Jews, homosexuals, Gypsies, and anyone who wasn’t part of the “master race.” We paid the consequence in World War II of our own short-sightedness at the end of World War I. And now the same thing is happening in Middle East — after decades of what they see as American occupation and atrocities, they’re trying to get even. The Iranians are after nuclear weapons because they see that as their only defense against overwhelming U.S. military power in the region.
I AM NOT SAYING THEY ARE RIGHT. I am saying that a little more common sense and a more humble foreign policy (the one Bush campaigned on in 2000) will go a long way toward preventing future unintended consequences. This is not “isolationism,” nor is it “blame America first.” It’s just the kind of wisdom that has been sorely lacking in the White House for a long, long time.
Oh, one other thing: As a believer in the Bush interventionist doctrine, I could easy accuse YOU of being an “unwitting accomplice to the deaths of others” and believing in a “shameful, immoral foreign policy.” But I realize that you hold your beliefs in good faith and shouldn’t be blamed for the deaths and displacements we’ve seen in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Unintended consequences stink, huh?
Mike, you are the one who picked this fight, not me. You have tried to threadjack every possible discussion with your theories. I have resisted until now but it’s time to try to set the record straight.
Let’s start with some basics. If you are going to have a large, powerful country (which the United States very quickly became), it is going to have to be involved with the world. This is simply reality. Americans are by nature not inclined to become involved in world affairs (some De Toqueville noticed in the 19th century), but we continually get dragged in, whether we like it or not. Throughout American history there has been a conflict between the desire to ignore the rest of the world (from Adams, to Taft, to Pat Buchanan and Noam Chomsky today) and the realities that the United States is IN the world and cannot ignore it.
A great example is Jefferson, the first real Libertarian president. Jefferson believed in an extremely limited government and campaigned for a limited foreign policy. But he also was involved in our first foreign war, the campaign against the Barbary Pirates. You can read more about it here:
http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_2_urbanities-thomas_jefferson.html
Interestingly, Adams took the Ron Paul position, which is that we should just ignore and pay off the Barbary Pirates, and Jefferson was dragged into involving the United States for moral, trade and defense reasons. Apparently, hundreds of thousands of Westerners were turned into slaves by the Barbary Pirates, and it was justified by Islam by its practitioners.
The debate over the Iraq war is just the latest manifestation of the tension between those who want to ignore the world out there and hope bad problems go away and those who want to engage the world and create stability, which is in the end in U.S. interests
MORE
Engaging the world means creating some kind of intelligence unit. People who have criticized the CIA have a weird “Jason Bourne” unreal view of what the CIA actually does. Most of its agents do nothing more than meet with local sources, read the newspapers and generally gather “intelligence” that is not sinister in any way, simply a necessary part of running a large country with foreign interests. “Blowback” is nothing more than an excuse for people who want us to ignore the rest of the world.
A lot of things would be different if we had completely ignored the Middle East, as Ron Paul and his ilk argue we should do. It’s impossible to know for sure what would have happened, but Israel may never have been founded, which I think would have been a tragedy. I firmly believe, and history I believe bears this out, that U.S. involvement overwhelmingly improves the climate in other countries, for the people there and, consequently, for us.
You quote OBL’s 1998 fatwa but conveniently ignore the 1992 “Encyclopedia of Afghan Jihad.”
(here’s the link: http://www.unl.edu/eskridge/encyclopedia.html)
As this Atlantic article explains:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200201/gerecht
OBL and his followers had been planning on attacking the United States and the West long before Desert Storm and the temporary presence of American soldiers on Saudi soil. OBL clearly used that presence as a pretext, and you have bought his propaganda hook, line and sinker. OBL has very clearly stated several times that he wants the reestablishment of the caliphate and then worldwide imposition of a Taliban-style government. He and his followers would not stop if we were to pull out of Saudi Arabia, Iraq and stop supporting Israel. They would see it is as a clear sign of weakness and step up their efforts to follow us here.
Please don’t tell me you actually believe that our leaving the Middle East would somehow appease the Islamists? Such thinking is below even the Democratic presidential candidates.
Isolationists and dangerous appeasers constantly come up with excuses about why we should not engage and fight evil when it is fighting against us. The fact that Ron Paul supporters have learned nothing from history is, frankly, frightening to me.
Your theory about Adolph Hitler is pretty common among leftist revisionists, and, once again, completely discredited. Wow, Japan attacked us because we crushed Germany’s economy after WWI? C’mon, don’t tell me you actually believe that. Germany and Japan were expansionist, totalitarian states that had been allowed to think about world domination because of our isolationism and weakness. If we had sent clear signals to Japan and Germany in the early 1930s that we would destroy them — and if the appeasers in Europe had not had their way — World War II would have been avoided. You should read a bit more about Churchill’s many, many warnings — as early as 1932 — about Hitler and his expansionist plans.
I have not even gotten into the issue of a morality-based foreign policy because I don’t want to belabor the point. But suffice to say that my position is that a moral foreign policy, one based on Christian values, involves engagement with the world and attempts to make it a better place. Sometimes this involves confronting tyrants who oppress and try to reign with blood and horror on the Earth. Hoping they will go away is a dangerous, short-sighted policy.
As for your #27, you are correct that it’s a zero-sum game to try to blame people personally for supporting foreign policies with which you disagree. I’m pretty sure I won’t be held accountable at Judgment Day for supporting the Iraq war, and I’m pretty sure you won’t be held accountable for supporting appeasement.
I will argue, however, that appeasement is, in the end, a more dangerous policy than making the difficult but necessary decision to go to war. So far, we’ve had fewer than 4,000 soldiers killed in Iraq. How many were killed in WWII?
Alright, can we make an agreement here:
I would really not like to spend this weekend going back and forth on this issue. Weekends are for my wife and four kids and for doing my Church calling. You have been itching for weeks to go at me on this issue, and I’ve given you the forum. I will give you the last word if you can frame it in such a way that I don’t have to spend the whole weekend on this. Thanks.
Bush is no foreign policy wonk either. In fact, I don’t think he can distinguish the difference between APEC and OPEC, or Australia and Austria. That pretty much explains why we’re in the worst foreign policy quagmire we’ve ever been in decades. Don’t you think we need one who knows a little bit more than Bush? One who won’t embarass the Dixie Chicks on an international scale?
GeoffB, if you think Mormons should vote for Romney, then give us good reasons to do so. In another thread, I did ask you and other Romney fans here to tell me any “innovative idea” from Romney because you claimed that he was a candidate that can lead with innovation. None of you ever responded back. Had you done so, I would have stopped talking about Ron Paul.
Personally, I think Romney is an embarassment if measured according to our gospel standards. There are people who worked closely with him during the SLC Winter Olympics that are not going to vote for him.
False. This simply nothing but rehashed neocon propaganda. Inasmuch as I like to believe that you are a well-read person, but reading neocon propaganda the likes of Daniel Pipes won’t help you much. The official 9-11 report has already told us why Bin Laden attacked us. Just like Rudy Ghouliani, you may want to read the report to update yourself.
But if you hate reading reports, then you may want to watch “Iraq: Occupation Dreamland”, a DVD documentary that tells of US soldiers’ first-hand experiences in Fallujah. It’ll tell you exactly what it is that the US govt does in other countries that makes us earn their hatred.
After invading Iraq and deposing Saddam, is our country now much safer from terrorism than before we did?
If Gen. Petraeus cannot answer that question himself, I don’t think you can. I don’t know what history books you are reading, but it seems clear that you are not drawing the correct historical lessons.
You can’t do that by promoting Romney either. Romney won’t mind bombing Iran just like Clinton. In a country that’s already sick and tired of the Bush’s war in Iraq, the only hope for America is Ron Paul.
Thanks for the vigorous debate and the opportunity to respond.
First, it wasn’t me who brought up Iraq — it was Clark back in #15. I actually tried steering away from that in my #16, but you came back in #18 with the “blame Bill Clinton” thing. So please don’t accuse me of threadjacking.
Second, I agree with you that the United States needs to be “involved with the world.” This constant accusation of “isolationism” is getting terribly tiresome. For the last time: I AM NOT AN ISOLATIONIST. RON PAUL IS NOT AN ISOLATIONIST. The only way his platform could be considered “isolationist” is by people who are total interventionists, so committed to interfering in every aspect of world affairs that anything less than that looks isolationist.
What Ron Paul stands for — and what I agree with — is that the U.S. should not go to war unless the Congress declares war. Stick to the Constitution. That way armed conflict is thoroughly debated and the costs weighed, and Presidents don’t have the authority to send troops anywhere they want on a whim. Consider that Ron Paul voted FOR the Afghan action back in September 2001.
So please stop with the false caricature of “those who want to ignore the world out there and hope bad problems go away [vs.] those who want to engage the world and create stability.” Not only does it do a disservice to Constitutionalists, but it also misrepresents the results of Bush’s “engagement” with the world, which has hardly brought anything remotely resembling “stability” (quite the opposite, in fact).
Likewise please quit using the word “appeasement.” This is another distortion that amounts to pure propaganda. It appears that, to your mind, anything less than full-scale military engagement in the Middle East is “appeasement.” This is the same old Bush-style two-dimensional thinking — the logical fallacy of the false dilemma. There are lots of shades of grey in between those two areas.
I’m frankly stunned that you appear to believe 1930s Germany just sprang up spontaneously. Of course Hitler was expansionist — I never said he wasn’t — but look at the conditions in 1920s Germany that set the stage for the German people to accept his rule. The very reason for the Marshall Plan was to prevent the same thing happening post-WW2 that happened post-WW1.
You speak of a “morality-based foreign policy,” but I ask what is moral about being responsible for the deaths of at least 100,000 Iraqis? What is moral about the displacement of 2 to 4 million Iraqis? What is moral about American forces being responsible for more civilian deaths in Afghanistan in the first half of 2007 than the Taliban were? And again, the alternate is not “hoping they will go away,” but engaging them with a sense of realism and a respect for sovereignty and innocent life.
I’m sorry this issue so deeply divides us. But I’m not surprised — it’s deeply divided our nation. Americans have come to find out (the hard way) in the last 4 years the total folly of trying to realign the world to our interest. More and more Americans have come to oppose this unjust, unwise, and unconstitutional war. The fact that a majority of Republicans still support it saddens me immensely, partly because it means President Hillary in 2008, but more so because it seemingly means that reality is anathema to the GOP faithful.
I hope you have a great weekend with your family. I will try to do likewise.
Geoff B., I don’t want to cut into you’re family time either, but the second paragraph of comment 18 is really so provocative that it’s difficult to let slide unchallenged.
I am no fan of Clinton and was a supporter of his impeachment. But to blame everything on him is really most unfair. It was not Clinton who ran away in Beirut in the early 1980s, after all (actually, probably a much wiser and saner policy than getting further involved in the war over there). So the “appeasement”, such as it was, had been going on for several decades before Clinton came on the scene.
The 1993 Trade Center bombing took place little more than a month after Clinton was inaugurated. Should we blame it on the inaction of Bush 41? By comparison, Bush 43 had eight times longer a blissfully innocent honeymoon. Except as we know, it wasn’t blissfully innocent since their was a lot of intelligence going around.
I expect you don’t want to grant Clinton any credibility at all, but I think for fairness sake we ought at least to consider his account (from this month’s Atlantic) If nothing else, Clinton was a least not “ignoring terrorism”:
We prevented an enormous number of attacks. The Republicans, let me remind you, when I tried to get Osama bin Laden, based on good intelligence, they accused me of “wag the dog,”� and they made fun of me, and they said we shouldn’t be doing anything about this. And one of the reasons I thought President Bush was disserved is a lot of his neocon advisers said that we were crazy when we told him in the transition that the biggest problem was bin Laden. They said any fool knew that Saddam Hussein was a bigger threat to our security than Osama bin Laden.
… So the same people that are criticizing me now criticized me then, because I was obsessed with bin Laden. We dealt with him four or five days a week, every week, for the last four years I was president. I did not turn down one request for the use of force. We tried to mount a CIA operation to go in and take him out; they couldn’t do it. We contracted with tribals to try to take him out; they couldn’t do it. I was willing to use whatever power I could–we didn’t have, until 9/11, any kind of basing rights, remember, in Uzbekistan or anyplace else; the logistics of doing this were much different.
I would’ve attacked him at the end of my presidency, even though they would’ve accused me of trying to affect the outcome of the presidential election, but the CIA and the FBI had not jointly certified that he was responsible for the USS Cole bombing, even though we all knew it. If I had been president in the spring of 2001, when they did confirm that, I would’ve given the Taliban an ultimatum … But I wasn’t there then.
… I don’t think there’s any question that we were far more obsessed with him–and I don’t mind using the word–than the Bush administration. Their obsession was Saddam. You can draw your own conclusions about who should’ve done what when; I don’t think we should be in the business of blaming anybody for 9/11.
Mike: (#16) You’re right, I’ve not followed Ron Paul closely nor even gone to his website. So that’s probably an unfair comment. I already know I’m anything but a Libertarian and thus disagree with him. I’m more close to the Libertarian side of things than the Statist side – but real Libertarians give me the shivers…
So I’m more going by the parts of the debates I’ve heard. Which, realistically isn’t that fair and you’re right to call me out on it.
Geoff: (#18) I think that while the Clintons have had scandals they don’t hold a candle to the scandals Bush has had. And arguably most of Bush’s have affected us more. Seriously.
The places the Clintons screwed up royally came mainly from them being so poll driven and pragmatic. A little idealism can be a good thing but I think Clinton got that driven out of him after his health care debacle. So Clinton wasn’t going to risk political capital on Al Queda. Yes, in hindsight that was a huge mistake. And I’ll definitely give Bush the bravery quality. Now if only he had the competence quality.
However in 2008, assuming Hilary follows her husband’s pragmatism, the result will be not having an expedient pull out from Iraq (since that would cause chaos she’d be blamed for) and not doing anything overly hasty. Probably focusing more on Afghanistan, but in a measured fashion. That’s a good thing.
At this stage I think even those who supported Bush’s initial changes in American foreign policy want less radicalism and more just good competent implementation of what we do have. Bush had some good ideas. He was just wildly incompetent at implementing them. Say what one will about the Clintons, but they are policy wonks and fairly competent. At this stage I’m always willing to forgive their many moral failings if we can get some competence and get the Congress actually engaged in the War on Terror.
It’s a practical issue.
John: (#17) While there’s some truth to the idea that a delayed GOP candidate would make it hard to figure out who to campaign against, one should realize that all Clinton do will use that time to run against Bush and define the GOP. Plus, at this stage, no GOP nominee has really taken that radical a position. This isn’t Ford vs. Reagan or Bush vs. Reagan. Everyone seems oriented towards the same “mold.” Unfortunately. (Newt Gingrich had a great interview today on this – I’m not Gingrich fan, but he has a lot of good analysis on this stuff)
Maybe once candidate stop dropping out things will solidify more. Realistically the issue is whether McCain can come back (and has enough money); how Thompson is taken (and he seems to be doing better than some expected); and whether Romney’s money can make up for a lack of excitement about him by the base in many states. Guiliani is the wild card since I think most of the base isn’t excited by him in the least but he polls strong nationally. But Guiliania (like Romney) has been backing off from most of his political positions to appeal to the right. That of course provides the Clintons with tons of ammunition.
At this stage, unless something really radically happens (i.e. the Hsu situation gets much worse; Thompson really energizes the GOP; or the is a big Clinton scandal) I think things are pretty well inevitable for a Clinton win. The bigger question (and perhaps more important) is what happens in the House and Senate. Where it’s a hugely depressing situation all around. (Oh how I wish the GOP leadership could get their heads out of their collective nether regions)
Mike: (#32) What Ron Paul stands for — and what I agree with — is that the U.S. should not go to war unless the Congress declares war.
Actually I tend to agree with this, although there are often murky areas. But I really think Bush needed to seek an outright declaration of war that was clear. That was the first of many mistakes that set the stage for later mistakes. One of the worst things Rove and Bush decided to do was go for quick and easier short term wins at the cost of the long term. They did this because they honestly (and inexplicably) thought the war would be 100% over in less than a year.
You know, Bill makes some good points.
Was Ronald Reagan an “appeaser” when he pulled the U.S. Marines out of Beruit following the car-bomb attack?
How about the Republicans in 1999 when they criticized Clinton’s participation in the Bosnia campaign? Were they “appeasers”?
Sounds like a lot of appeasing to me.
Geoff wrote (#29): “But suffice to say that my position is that a moral foreign policy, one based on Christian values, involves engagement with the world and attempts to make it a better place. Sometimes this involves confronting tyrants who oppress and try to reign with blood and horror on the Earth. Hoping they will go away is a dangerous, short-sighted policy.”
I hope I’m not the only one who sees a disconnect here.
Clark #35: Wow, that was awfully decent of you. Your generosity is a great example to me.
The problem with the GOP debates I’ve seen is that the Three Anointed GOP Candidates get most of the time and broad range of questions. Everyone else gets much less time and only questions that focus on the issues that the moderators believe are of interest. So in the last debate (Fox News), Ron Paul waited for 30 minutes and through 3 questions each to the Three before he got his first one, which was (of course) about the war.
I’ve been very unhappy with the structure of the debates thus far, because there’s been no back-and-forth between the candidates, just loaded questions and 30 seconds to give the soundbite answer. The closest we got to a real debate was the Paul-Huckabee exchange last week.
Mike, I will not even get into how wrong it is to make this comment after I had already given you the last word and I asked you in the nicest possible way to let me have some family time.
The appeasers of the 1930s did not know they were appeasers either. They were the same as today’s “give peace a chance” people marching with big peace signs. But they were wrong, horribly, terribly wrong, and their naivete cost millions of lives.
So, of course Ron Paul supporters don’t think they are appeasers, just as the Europeans of 1930s did not walk around saying, “yes, we are appeasers.” But that is exactly what they are. And isolationists. I understand why you don’t want to be called that, because, yes, it is a short-sighted foreign policy position to take. But that is what Ron Paul’s policy is: modern-day appeasement and isolationism, just like Taft of the late-1930s up until Dec. 1941. And at least Taft had the decency to support his country and its war effort when it finally was attacked because of its isolationist and appeasement policy, but the days of a decent opposition is long gone, I’m afraid.
I cannot speak for Republican anti-Bosnia rhetoric of the 1990s. I didn’t agree with it then, and I don’t agree with it now. Bosnia was one of the few correct foreign policy maneuvers by Clinton. I supported it then, I support it now.
Reagan’s Beirut pull-out was one of his few foreign policy blunders. Bin Laden cited this example — and Somalia, for which Bush 1 has most of the blame — in his writings as examples of what he wants to happen throughout the Middle East. By pulling out after the Beirut terrorist attack, we spurred OBL and his supporters to new attacks. We should have tracked down the people responsible and brought them to justice. Once again, appeasement does not work.
With that, I am closing comments on this thread, which has gone far away from its original purpose. Have a good weekend everyone.