2008 Uber Alles

I don’t know how to get an umlaut above the U on my keyboard, but the phrase is easily recognized: (something) above all.

For most of those in Washington, Democrat or Republican, the 2008 elections are -- above all other concerns -- dear to their hearts and actions.

We’ve all heard arguments, before and now, why this should be so: judiciary, budgets, and so forth. Those certainly are important, especially so to certain interest groups. In some discrete – relatively few -- cases, there are clear and wide divides between the outcomes depending upon which party or politician is in power. But, for most instances, there’s at best only differences of degree. Further, there’s at worst only differences of whose pocket and campaign warchest is enriched by lobbyists.

Most important, in virtually all cases, ultimate prices of life and death aren’t at issue. Some may be inconvenienced to greater or lesser extent, but not irreparably or viciously.

This isn’t the case with national security or foreign policy issues.

In most cases, actual lives will be tolerable or miseries, and actual lives will be brutally ended. In many cases, the numbers are staggering, millions and millions. In some of those cases, in turn, the fates of many millions more will be affected by the international power and confidence consequences.

At home, for those Republicans that go down this path of 2008 Uber Alles, the consequences will be to lose their core voters. If any imagine they will be seen as preferable to Democrats who don’t waffle about Iraq be darned, they are delusional.

Democrats have clearly staked out their negative turf, only offering withdrawal and the heck with consequences as their platform for Iraq, as it has been before for whenever the going is tough – as it inevitably is in armed conflicts. Leave it to Hillary Clinton to epitomize the motive, albeit inane, and the irresponsibility. As the AP report read:

Hillary Rodham Clinton said Sunday that President Bush has made a mess of Iraq and it is his responsibility to “extricate” the United States from the situation before he leaves office.
It would be “the height of irresponsibility” to pass the war along to the next commander in chief, she said.

For current pandering, while campaigning in Iowa, Hillary ignores – the real “height of irresponsibility” -- that there will be inescapable consequences from any course to be dealt with by the next president, not to mention to be dealt with or died because of by many millions in and near Iraq.

David Broder highlights Hillary’s speechifying, rather than questioning, during the hearing to confirm Lt. General Petraeus:

She had no questions to ask.
Judging by all the polls, Clinton is the leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination. Sen. John McCain of Arizona, a leading candidate for the Republican nomination, is also a member of the Armed Services Committee.
McCain asked Petraeus 14 questions, ranging from the political situation in Iraq to the morale of the troops to the timeline for the planned "surge." He ran out of time before he ran out of questions -- quite a contrast to Clinton.

Broder considers several nonexclusive possibilities for her grandstanding. One particularly displays the appreciation of what sort of mentality she brings to major public issues:

The third, less benign possibility is that Clinton is reverting to the mode of her ill-fated 1993-94 health-care initiative, when she gave members of Congress and other interested folks the impression that she thought she had all the answers -- so please just do as I say.

Let’s sum this up: Make Iraq and reality go away, don’t offer constructive or workable alternatives, and do what I say anyway. Quite a platform for a potential “commander in chief”!

It’s not much better among some Republican senators. Senator Warner’s posturing about his “conscience” requiring that he offer a resolution disagreeing with the “surge” and suggesting the president go back to the drawing board ignores the foreign and military policy impacts of undercutting the “commander in chief”, especially without detailed practical alternatives, represents the epitome of vacuous micromanagement of the battlefield by congressional committee, and is nothing less than self-serving prattle for his re-election in the Virginia that slimly elected Webb. The reaction of some Republicans that it is the senate’s role to express opinions is in the same vein of ignoring the realities of both command and practicality in favor of something like the senate being a transitory polling body rather than a careful, responsible deliberative arm of government, and one with secondary constitutional powers during war.

Robert Novak, along with Broder an astute observer of Washington, offers his view of the crass 2008 calculations among some leading Republicans:

While many Republicans want to give their president what they call "one last shot" at a military solution in Iraq, there is pervasive pessimism about prospects for the new strategy. Republicans feel withdrawal of troops must begin in the next six months for their party to have any chance at retaining the presidency in 2008…

In light of the behavior of leading figures from both parties, little wonder that more and more national security voters are turned off to either in 2008, and that will impact Republicans more than Democrats.