I'm not as optimistic as Gelernter

David Gelernter writes in his Los Angeles Times column, “Americans won’t let Democrats lose Iraq.” Gelernter points at promoter of doom Democrat Senator Patrick Leahy’s threat to try and cut off funds to fulfill our commitments in Iraq unless we abdicate our commitments and withdraw.

Gelernter reminds us that “Leahy’s words lighted up a deep, dark secret that this nation would rather forget:” The last time Democrats did this, reaping electoral reaction to the downfall of Nixon, 30-million Indochinese were treated to tyranny, several million were murdered, and millions more fled with hundreds of thousands dying in the effort.

“But, for left-wing Democrats, it was a triumph. Forcing the mighty U.S. military to run away was the greatest victory they have ever known. That triumph broke a levee that sent a flood of left-wing ideas pounding across the U.S. landscape.” President Carter’s defeatist foreign policy was the outcome in 1976. Respect for Western culture and for U.S. willingness to defend against tyrannies were overthrown in favor of moral relativism, abdication of defense responsibilities, and even reflexive anti-Americanism in much of our universities, our media, and our foreign policy.

America has been digging itself out of that deep hole ever since, and the sides are kept slippery by the anti-Vietnam generation in positions of power. John Kerry almost won in 2004, if not for the marginal difference to a few percent of the electorate contributed by his exposure as a fraud by the Vietnam veterans who knew the truth and were willing to go to war again to uphold it.

Gelernter points to the progress made in Iraq, to the overwhelming vote in favor of the new constitution, to the reluctant but promising Sunni participation, to polls showing that most Americans don’t want to cut and run even though wishing we’d never gone in.

Sorry David, that’s not enough.

Analogies are misleading. However, as Democrats assuming Congressional power in the wake of Watergate fulfilled their anti-anti-communist ideology, if Democrats assume Congressional power in 2006, they will fulfill their relativist ideology again. Most, simply, are not willing to fight for Western morality or the West.

John Kerry, a year after the election, finally clarified his policy on Iraq a few days ago: Let’s start withdrawing. Other leading Democrats will start speaking out along these lines.

The perceived weakening of support for President Bush is their encouragement.

“The fear factor is gone” as to Bush’s power to influence says former Democrat Senator John Breaux, one of the few Senators willing to break with his Party to support Bush on many occasions, reflecting on the consequence of the face-down by conservative oppositionists to Bush’s Miers nomination.

Most of the conservative oppositionists to Miers perceived a higher calling -- outright power -- in bringing her and Bush down than the principles of Constitutional process and fairness they are now exposed as only conveniently espousing when Democrats imposed ideological litmus tests.

I’ve been involved in defending our commitments to South Vietnam since 1964, including Marine service there. I’ve kept track of who said and did what over the past 40-years. I’ve watched many of the same conservatives waffle whenever the going gets tough in debates over a firm foreign policy, and during the Iraq engagement.

These rear-guard armchair generals and claimers of after-action kudos are weak allies of what is most at stake today.

They shout for a Congressional war between conservatives and liberals over the next Supreme Court nomination, but their hypocrisy has weakened the man they send into battle – George W. Bush. The result, whomever wins, may energize some partisan conservatives, but will alienate many in the decisive middle, and energize the liberal base.

A shift of a few percent of the electorate kept Kerry out of the White House. A shift of a few percent in 1994 overthrew the formerly perceived impregnable Democrat majority in Congress. A shift of a few percent may reverse that in 2006. Electoral experts say this is possible.

If so, bye bye a democratic Iraq, bye bye a more benign Middle East, bye bye reforming the U.N., bye bye any Republican legislative agenda, hello even more assertive North Korea, Iran, France, Russia, and maybe hello whomever today’s Carter will be for the Democrats in 2008.