by Andrew
Alex over at Inactivist has a good post up about President Bush’s speech yesterday conflating Iran and Nazi Germany. As Alex notes, the President is walking a fine line with the current situation in Iran: he’s got to convince people that Iran is a serious problem, but he also has to convince them that despite the fact Iran has become a threat on his watch, he should be trusted to deal with it. I concur with Alex’s point, and I won’t waste time embellishing it, as Alex’s post is quite thorough.
I will note, however, that while President Bush’s tactics are inappropriate, they are hardly unusual in the current political climate. Reasoned debate is not rewarded in America today. The media rarely if ever bothers to get into the details on political issues today. Instead the debate focuses almost exclusively on the horse race: how will issue X affect candidate Y? In the past decade and a half we’ve see the Clinton administration’s attempt to improve health care and the Bush administration’s attempt to revise Social Security both go down in flames. While some people certainly disliked the respective plans on policy grounds, what shot them down was not arguments about why they were bad ideas, but massive fearmongering. Republicans attacked the Clinton health care plan by warning that the health care system would collapse and we’d end up with no health care at all, while Democrats warned that President Bush would eliminate Social Security entirely if he wasn’t stopped. Of course, the sad fact is that these techniques work, otherwise people would stop using them. But that doesn’t make the tactic any less reprehensible.
Regrettably, I cannot offer a solution. Were we all to get together and not respond to such tactics, politicians would stop using them. But several hundred years of democracy suggest that appealing to people’s fears is one of the most effective means of convincing them to give you the power you crave. Until and unless we figure that out, we will continue to get the government we deserve.
Fear of a Populist Planet
Max Sawicky gave DeLong a lot of grief for this (full BDL article available thru Max):
“The aim of governance, I think, is to achieve a rough consensus among the reality-based technocrats and then to frame the issues in a way that attracts the ideologues on one (or, ideally, both) wings in order to create an effective governing coalition.”…BDL
Max, OTOH:”By contrast, the populist idea is that masses of disenfranchised people, to be sure influenced by intellectual leaders, create pressure for change that makes it possible for politicians to make better deals, with the technical support of technocrats, as well as to elevate better politicians. Insofar as the current state of politics, public opinion, and Brad’s bete noir, the media, are unsatisfactory, we need the public to make some huge waves, turn over tables, break china, to shock politics into more constructive directions. As soon as an idea is reduced to a technical discussion, all the political energy drains out of it and the party’s over.” …MS
In either case, voters don’t do nuance and should not be expected to. Now excuse me while I go read Strauss on Machiavelli.
But Bush did want to phase out Social Security. He said the program was going bankrupt, and then proposed a new system that would have accelerated its rate of bankruptcy. There’s no question that instituting the Bush model of “private accounts” would inexorably lead to the elimination of Social Security as we know it. Of course, that doesn’t preclude anyone from arguing that the new system would be better than Social Security, but they bear the burden of persuasion.
Talking about how the Bush plan would leave seniors to starve to death, etc., that would be fearmongering. It was the GOP’s fault for making a dishonest presentation of its program, trying to claim they were “strengthening” Social Security, arguing that the Treasury Bonds which comprise the Social Security Trust Fund are nothing more than “worthless IOUs” in a file drawer, seeking to mislead people into thinking that unless we adopted the Bush plan, Social Security would magically disappear in the year 2047. It’s truly sad to see someone claim that the fearmongering came from the DEMOCRATIC side.
Well, that’s one way of looking at it. The other would be that the Republican effort to change Social Security was an attempt to portray a healthy program as desperately needing reform, and deserved nothing less than what it got.
Of course, that doesn’t preclude anyone from arguing that the new system would be better than Social Security, but they bear the burden of persuasion.
In fact, IIRC Bush [or possibly Snow?] was finally backed into a corner and admitted that the new accounts had nothing whatsoever to do with “fixing” Social Security at all.
Andrew, you’re a great guy, and a credit to the blog.
However.
Again and again, you have shown a predilection for the MSM disease of false equivalencies. You are willing to criticize the Republicans, but only if you can criticize the Democrats in the same paragraph.
But as several people have pointed out here, the Democratic response to Bush’s attack on Social Security was NOTHING LIKE the Republican attack on the Clinton Health Care plan.
You see, telling the truth is not the same thing as telling lies.
Bush pretended that he wanted to “fix” SS, when not only he but all of his backers, supporters, and ideological bed-mates had been making it clear for decades that they intended to kill Social Security. So then he tried to lie with a bunch of numbers, until even that got so pathetic that his Republican back-benchers revolted and gave it up.
By contrast, the Clinton team did not try to lie about what they were doing with health care. Instead, it was the Republicans–aided by the New Republic–that lied about what the Clinton team was doing.
Not equivalent, see?
When the Swift Boat people lied about Kerry’s record, this was not the same thing as when people from the Texas Air National Guard went on record saying that Bush had been missing and had not performed his duty. You see, some people were trying to tell the truth about Bush, and other people were telling lies about Kerry.
Not equivalent, see?
Look, I’m happy to join you in a head-shaking lament about the decline of civility in American political discourse. But this decline really has one and only one source.
It runs back through Rove, through Atwater, through Safire, to the the Nixon White House. You can trace it further back if you like, but you will find that it is a uniquely Republican pathology.
If you want to give an accurate picture of the decline of civil discourse, you will get nowhere painting false equivalences.
Slightly apropos was this piece that originally appeared in the WaPo (but this link is to the Heritage Foundation)
In fact, IIRC Bush [or possibly Snow?] was finally backed into a corner and admitted that the new accounts had nothing whatsoever to do with “fixing” Social Security at all.
You might recall that every speech by Bush or another Republican supporting the talking points went as follows:
1) Social Security is facing a financial crisis and will be bankrupt by 2047;
2) Accordingly, I support this great new plan for private accounts.
The problem, as you note, is that (2) simply has nothing to do with (1). When called on this, Bush flatly admitted it, and then went right back to making the same old sales pitch.
The balance between money coming into SS and money being paid out by SS would, if anything, get WORSE if Bush’s plan were adopted. Individual recipients might or might not end up with more money under Bush’s plan – depending on whether private accounts actually appreciate enough to make up for the shortfall – but that’s a debatable question, whereas it’s undebatable that the health of Social Security itself would not be helped by Bush’s plan.
This may be tangential to Andrew’s post, but I happened to hear a fairly large chunk of President Bush’s address today. I was struck by the consistent incoherence of it. It was filled with the sort of logical veering that appears in the post to which Andrew linked. Time after time Bush said things like the terrorists were evil, so A, therefore B, because we need to protect the American people. It was like a perverted version of the Iliad or Kalevala, except the repetitive parts were “The terrorists are evil . . . in order to protect America.” His speaking style was unpleasantly awkward in the way we are all used to, making him sound both confused and unbelieving in what he said. All of it added up to a completely unconvincing and unworthy piece of rhetoric. I mean unworthy in the sense that I felt insulted in having to put in mental labor to actually figure out all the underpinnings of what he was saying, sorting out the dross, and so forth.
Anyways, it strikes me as related to Andrew’s post in the sense that lazy language of this sort is a kind of incivility as well–you are abusing your audience by wasting their time with vacuities and not dignifying your actions with honest explanations. It reminds me of newspapers in authoritarian countries–in order to get any actual information out of them, you always have to read between the lines. At the same time, it’s pretty irritating to always have to do so. And here, it shouldn’t be necessary to always do so.
I would also propose that those who want to short-circuit serious thought to keep the public in the mood for war are far too dangerous to be trusted with power.
This is the conclusion from the link, which I assume you endorse.
False rhetoric in the service of warmongering is a great threat to our democracy — it has no parallel like the social security or health care debates, and its a uniquely Republican sickness.
Regrettably, I cannot offer a solution.
Speak out loudly and consistently about this evil — give it no quarter. At the moment since its Republicans in power, they get to be the target. And there is no recent historical parallel of Democrats exhibiting the same degree of dishonest corruption that now grips our government. Drawing false parallels simply serves the evil.
Clintonian healthcare reform vs. Bushist Social Security reform is a false equivalency.
But don’t take our word for it, Andrew.
Look at the reforms that were offered, and look at the attacks on them.
Was there anything intrinsic to the Clinton healthcare plan that would have led to the alarming outcome described by the GOP, Harry and Louise, and TNR? Anything intrinsic to the actual plan, that is; not to the charicature of it offered by its opponents.
Was there anything intrinsic to the Bush Social Security plan that would lead to the alarming outcomes described by its opponents? Again, use the actual plan as it was offered by Bush.
In the latter case, you run into one problem right away: there never was an actual, specific plan offered by Bush. “Private accounts paid for by diverting funds from Social Security” was as concrete a plan as we were ever told about. There were never any specific details about what would happen to current and future Social Security recipients; there was never a specific plan to pay the estimated $2 trillion cost of switching over; there were never any specifics offered about what happens if the Private Retirement Accounts were wiped out by a stock collapse, or if people just made foolish investments.
So you don’t have to rely on us to tell you comparing the two is a false equivalency. You can take a critical look at it yourself, using what the plan(s) actually consisted of, and what their proponents and critics actually said about them.
You can do the same thing when confronted by any tricky bit of rhetoric anyone offers in an attempt to sway you using appeals to strong emotion. Ignore the appeal to emotion, and look at the facts. If there are no facts to look at, ask yourself why.
Just for old times’ sake, here are some wonky things about Bush’s social security “plan”. It’s worth trying to figure out hwere they’re wrong or hysterical. (As best I can tell, they aren’t. CBPB and EPI have views, but their numbers and analyses are generally very good, and very trustworthy):
WHY THE PRESIDENT’S SOCIAL SECURITY PROPOSALS COULD ULTIMATELY LEAD TO THE UNRAVELING OF SOCIAL SECURITY
HOW THE INDIVIDUAL ACCOUNTS IN THE PRESIDENT’S NEW PLAN WOULD WORK
THE IMPACT OF THE PRESIDENT’S PROPOSAL ON SOCIAL SECURITY SOLVENCY AND THE BUDGET
Proposed Social Security price indexing would slash benefits
Privatization fix for Social Security is worse than doing nothing
And just because no one else will ever link to it again, my own contribution to mass hysteria: the post where I tried to explain what Price Indexing is. I have a secret soft spot for my wonky posts, and this was one of the wonkiest.
The thing is, I really don’t think the Democrats were particularly hysterical. I credit Josh Marshall with a good chunk of sinking the President’s non-plan, and all he did, really, was make good arguments, and explain the basic points, again and again and again. Bless his heart.
I wasn’t actually speaking old English, so ‘hwere’ should be ‘where’. Also, sorry about the caps: pasting names is quicker 😉
As Alex notes, the President is walking a fine line with the current situation in Iran: he’s got to convince people that Iran is a serious problem, but he also has to convince them that despite the fact Iran has become a threat on his watch, he should be trusted to deal with it.
And – though Alex doesn’t make that point in the post you linked to – Bush has the unique problem that having dumped Afghanistan at the beginning (the beginning of serious work in Afghanistan) in favor of attacking Iraq, and having led the US into chaotic defeat in Iraq, he’s supposed to try and make the case that he should be allowed to pick another country to attack, despite his track record of total lack of success so far.
“he’s supposed to try and make the case that he should be allowed to pick another country to attack,”
Bill Arkin continues to say
“I’m not making an argument that the Bush administration has some secret plan to attack Iran – my reporting says they don’t.”
Which leads me to believe Iran is not imminent.
People like John Podhoretz of NRO are saying an attack on Iran is inevitable…but it is election season. Many people think Bush’s character and words have committed him.
I will be surprised if it doesn’t happen.
bob: I will be surprised if it doesn’t happen.
So will I. Relieved, but surprised.
I am pleased to see I am learning the ways of the ObWings commentariat. As soon as I posted that last night, I told myself that the discussion would quickly move to the question of my pointing out that the tactics used to go after health care reform and Social Security reform were similar. After so many times being caught off guard by what the commentariat chose to engage with, perhaps I’m finally getting the feel of the place.
Andrew: At a guess, I’d imagine that that’s partly because no one saw anything else to disagree with in your post.
I told myself that the discussion would quickly move to the question of my pointing out that the tactics used to go after health care reform and Social Security reform were similar.
So, how do you support your notion that the two are similar or were any good points made here? (There is a further point that has been overlooked, and that was that the participation of Hillary in the health care reform seemed to be a flashpoint for opposition. I tend to think that there was some truth to the notion that Hillary was a bogeyman (bogeyperson?) to the right, though Brad DeLong suggested that Hillary brought serious problems to the enterprise, though this is from 2003, but I’m not sure if this remains Brad’s pov)
While you are watching, Andrew, I’m wondering about your Winds of Change gig and what you think about its position vis a vis ObWi.
And wow, just saw Blair on CNN and man, he was stammering and looked completely blindsided and tongue-tied. Here’s the Guardian article, though there’s been stuff since then.
Andrew: As soon as I posted that last night, I told myself that the discussion would quickly move to the question of my pointing out that the tactics used to go after health care reform and Social Security reform were similar.
Well, yes — because it’s wrong. And it’s wrong in a way that plays directly into a trope that I and numerous other commenters have remarked is seriously detrimental to the (political) health of the country. We can rehash those arguments again if you’d like, I just don’t think it’s a particularly productive use of anyone’s time.
As it happens, pace hilzoy I also disagree with other parts of your post. F’rex, this appears to be flatly incorrect:
As Alex notes, the President is walking a fine line with the current situation in Iran: he’s got to convince people that Iran is a serious problem, but he also has to convince them that despite the fact Iran has become a threat on his watch, he should be trusted to deal with it.
Alex doesn’t say anything of the sort, at least in that post. He restricts his commentary purely to the rank manipulation of the rhetoric and the larger point that there are bad people out there needing to be stopped and wouldn’t it be nice if we had a government that dealt with the threats that actually existed; Iran doesn’t get so much as a cameo. I didn’t remark on it earlier because I was busy and I was worried I’d missed something. I don’t believe I have, however, although it’s possible he says something like that elsewhere.
If he says too much about what they’re actually capable of, somebody might say either “Um, that’s hardly comparable to fascists” or “Shit, you’ve had 5 years since 9/11, why haven’t you done something about that?”
Yeah, I don’t know where I got that idea, Anarch. What was I thinking?
Andrew: For what it’s worth, I thought about how to respond to this post — paeans to informed discourse sounded, well, obvious; specific suggestions about what we could do sounded somehow both obvious and implicitly self-congratulatory in a way I didn’t at all want; finally, I ended up just linking.
I completely agree with you about the larger point, and I think that now especially, we have not just to try to understand stuff ourselves, and not to be part of the problem, but also to help other people do so, when we can. I mean: we all have areas that we understand better than others, for whatever reason; we need somehow to make those available.
One of the reasons I love blogs: it makes that easy.
lj,
The only similarity I drew between the two issues was that opponents were happy to use fearmongering to undermine support for them. I don’t think that’s a particularly extreme position.
I’m not sure I follow your question regarding WoC. Could you be more specific about what you are wondering? Thanks.
hilzoy,
There really isn’t much more to say. My post was really more an expression of frustration, because I am concerned that we will be doing something militarily in Iran soon and I feel utterly powerless to prevent that. And blogs are also great platforms to vent one’s frustration.
I just find the responses amusing; perhaps it’s just my odd sense of humor. But I am often caught off guard by what people choose to focus on when I write a post, so getting this one right was a small personal triumph. 😉
Keep that amusement, Andrew; try not to let it turn to annoyance. Because dogs can smell annoyance.
Yeah, I don’t know where I got that idea, Anarch. What was I thinking?
I have a guess, about which more below. The key is the word “they”: it doesn’t refer to Iran, it refers to “the terrorists”, viz the larger quote:
Like I said, Iran doesn’t even get a cameo here; this is entirely phrased as “the terrorists”. It’s certainly possible that Alex intended “the terrorists” to refer to Iran specifically in which case the error is his (or perhaps more accurately, Bush’s, which is I suspect the ultimate source of this mistake), and I’d suggest a rewrite to the his post. It’s likewise possible that although he didn’t mean to equate “the terrorists” with “Iran” here he nonetheless adheres to that viewpoint in general; I’ve never read the guy so have minimal idea of the relevant context. As things stand, though, your summation is simply incorrect.
My post was really more an expression of frustration, because I am concerned that we will be doing something militarily in Iran soon and I feel utterly powerless to prevent that.
This, however, I’ll sign on to 100%.
WOOF!
The Republicans spent a lot of time and effort making sure that the Democrats would get the blame for “losing” VietNam. Their politicians understand that to many Americans the question of who won a war outweighs all other considerations. By making the Democrats be the losers they claimed superiority on foreign affairs and they have kept that faux aura of superiority now for thirty years. Facts of history have nothing whatever to do with it. The conventional unwisdom became that the Republicans were strong on defense because the Democrats lost VietNam.
Now the Republicans are in a terrible dilemna. Polls show that this conventional unwisdom is eroding. They are desperate to disguise the fact that they have lost Iraq. If they don’t do SOMETHING, the Republican party wil be remembered for generations as the party too incompetent to be trusted with foreign affairs.
Hense the hysteria.
I don’t think a military action against Iran will help them.
Dang. Apparently I really do have Iran on the brain. Sorry, Anarch…clearly I need to work on my reading comprehension skills.
If the Republicans deserve the blame for how Iraq has turned out, in what sense do the Democrats not deserve the blame for how Vietnam turned out? No one claims that, had Humphrey been elected instead of Nixon, everything in Vietnam would have turned out just peachy.
Hi Andrew,
I’m just curious about your thoughts on WoC, how that got started, and where, if you think of political positions, the commentariat there is and if it (insofar as a group can be reduced to a position) has moved over time. Just something I’m curious about, so only if the spirit moves you.
If the Republicans deserve the blame for how Iraq has turned out, in what sense do the Democrats not deserve the blame for how Vietnam turned out?
They did.
This has been another in a series of simple answers to unnecessarily complicated questions.
Sorry, Anarch…clearly I need to work on my reading comprehension skills.
No problem; I had to re-read the dang thing about three times to make sure I hadn’t missed an indirect reference myself.
lj,
My connection to WoC is rather tenuous; I joined them to help do the regular Winds of War feature, which eventually spun into an Iraq Report separate from the WoW report. So I’ve been doing the Iraq Report there since 2003, if memory serves. But I’m not otherwise a regular contributor there, so my experience with their commentariat is not very extensive. I would assume that their commentariat leans to the right, as the site tends in that direction, but I could easily be wrong. I don’t read WoC religiously; as with so many other blogs, it’s just a matter of time. Between trying to keep up here and at my own site, there are very few blogs I read routinely.
Steve: If the Republicans deserve the blame for how Iraq has turned out, in what sense do the Democrats not deserve the blame for how Vietnam turned out?
Since the Vietnam war was from 1959 to 1975 (both slightly arbitrary dates) it was presided over by two Republican presidents (Eisenhower and Nixon, with a touch of Ford) and two Democratic presidents (Kennedy and Johnson). As far as I’ve ever been able to see, though the death rates were higher for Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, Eisenhower is as much to blame as any individual, for siding with the French colonialists instead of with the Vietnamese who wanted independence. (And, come to that, it was Truman, another Democratic president, who first sent military aid to the French against the Vietminh, even if it was Eisenhower who came up with the “domino theory”.) I think trying to blame one political party rather than another for Vietnam is a mistake: it was an all-American, cross-party disaster.
Unlike the Iraq war, which has Bush and the Republican party written all over it.
Again, this is – or ought to be – Bush’s real problem in attacking Iran: Afghanistan is in a mess because Bush was never interested in allowing the US to focus attention there: Iraq is in a mess because the Bush administration refused to plan for anything other than “it’ll all go fine, we don’t even need to bother making sure we have forces to secure/destroy those WMD stockpiles we claimed were there, then we’ll sell off the assets to the highest bidder, make sure Chalabi is appointed the new dictator, and get Bush to prance around in a flight suit with a big banner that says Mission Accomplished”.
Eventually, even Bush I’s friends got tired of bankrolling Bush Junior through yet another business disaster and risk of federal prosecution: the last company he was ostensibly running, he was on the board with no right to make any business decisions whatsoever.
Presumably, whoever’s bankrolling him now is quite happy with how things are going in Iraq, and will be still happier when a further mess is created in Iran.
Because dogs can smell annoyance.
Yeah, the liberal and left commenters here are just a bunch of “ankle-biting” dogs, aren’t we? A real thigh-slapper, there, Slart.
The war in Viet Nam shuoldn’t have been fought in the first place. Since “winning” would have meant nothing more than the successful imposition of one dictatorship rather than another, winning wasn’t important. The bloodbath argument isn’t valid either. Yes, our pullout resulted in a bloodbath–exacerbated by the Republican’s failure to plan and organize the pullout–but the bloodbath necessary for “winning” would have been far worse. After all we killed tens of thousands of civilians before the pullout. No one knows how many thousands more would have been killed so we could “win”. The argument that we should have won amounts to nothing more than the immoral proposition that we should ahve killed as many civilians a necessary to impose our will so we could have the vanity of winning.
No “blame” should be attached to democrats who took the moral highground and refused to continue the war. The notion of blaming for losing is relevant only if one takes the immoral position that winning is the only thing that matters about a war. Winning should only matter if there is actually something of merit to fight for. Wars aren’t footbal games and they shouldn’t be fought for reasons of national egotism.
Iraq is similar to Viet Nam in that it is a war that didn’t need to be fought in the first place. The question now shouldn’t be how to save face and win. it should be whether or not there is something worthy to continue fighting for. If there is, then, and only then, does it matter if we win.
In any csase the indisputable incompetence of the Republican paty is justifiably undermining that reputation for being strong on defense. And I think that the hysterical response to this slippage is based far more on the desire to feel like winners and look strong than on a desire to promote some kind of reasoned policy.
“Since the Vietnam war was from 1959 to 1975 . . . it was presided over by two Republican presidents (Eisenhower and Nixon”
As I recall, Nixon’s negotiations in the late 1950’s were crucial in promising American military involvement, which is one of the reasons the “At least he got us out of Vietnam” trope has always stuck in my craw. Fool got us into it, it’s the least he could do to get us out.
Lily: After all we killed tens of thousands of civilians before the pullout [from Viet Nam]
Make that hundreds of thousands.
No one claims that, had Humphrey been elected instead of Nixon, everything in Vietnam would have turned out just peachy.
“Just peachy”, no, but I think most people would agree that Vietnam would have turned out very differently post-68 had Nixon not been in power. There’s also the question of, in what sense, “the Democrats” or “the Republicans” deserve “the blame” for the results of Vietnam. Which Democrats? Which Republicans? Over which timeframe? Do we start with Eisenhower sending over advisors? With Kennedy’s escalation? With LBJ’s serious escalation? With Nixon broadening the war still further, followed by ignominious withdrawal? I think it’s fair to say that pretty much everyone was to blame, fwiw, and that it represented a failure of our government and foreign policy as a nation rather than any one specific group or political organization.
Contrast this with Iraq, which was an entirely Republican-brainstormed, Republican-originated and, with the exception of good ol’ Zell Miller and Joe Lieberman, Republican-driven war at pretty much every level. [Not to mention Republican-politicized and -polarized, which may be the worst of all.] A number of Democratic Congresspeople signed on to the war — to their everlasting shame — but there’s nothing like the same level of bipartisan f***-uppery spanning more than two decades that characterized our Vietnam policy. This has been a GOP operation, top to bottom, and it’s time they paid for their crimes.
Steve,
For the most part, what Jes said.
I’d agree that some Democrats deserve a lot of blame for Vietnam (e.g. LBJ), but there simply wasn’t the sort of party-wide support for Vietnam that we’ve seen with Iraq. Many Democratic politicians opposed the war in Vietnam, almost no Republicans have done so with Iraq. LBJ’s Vietnam policy drove a wedge into his party, Bush’s failures in Iraq have not. Like it or not, Iraq belongs to the Republicans in a way that Vietnam never did to the Dems. I suppose that this could change, say if a Democratic president were to be elected and then got us deeper into the quagmire, but as it stands I don’t think they’re comparable.
I am, however, impressed by Steve’s spectacular threadjack. Kudos!
Yeah, the liberal and left commenters here are just a bunch of “ankle-biting” dogs, aren’t we? A real thigh-slapper, there, Slart.
That was meant in humor, Nell. But how could you possibly know that, given my recent spate of deprecatory comments about liberals and lefties?
If the Republicans deserve the blame for how Iraq has turned out, in what sense do the Democrats not deserve the blame for how Vietnam turned out?
Eisenhower started the American Military involvment in Vietnam.
I think it’s fair to say that pretty much everyone was to blame, fwiw, and that [Vietnam] represented a failure of our government and foreign policy as a nation rather than any one specific group or political organization.
This seems right to me. LBJ certainly was responsible for major escalation, with strong Republican backing. Even before his election in 1968 Nixon strongly supported escalation. Mainstream Democratic opposition did not become meaningful until fairly late. And there was only one vote in the Senate against the Gulf of Tonkin resolution.
Call me humorless, then. I understood it was supposed to be funny.
“…because I am concerned that we will be doing something militarily in Iran soon and I feel utterly powerless to prevent that.”
…I am assuming you have little more information than the rest of us, maybe just a little more, but simply on the basis of your experience and judgement this mightily depresses me.
Now I am reduced to hoping that I am overestimating the consequences, the fallout, the aftershocks, etc.
I share Bob’s general sense of dread and angst about this situation, by the way. I’m doing a lot of things right now more out of an itnellectual determination to do the right thing as much as I can anyway than out of a belief that it can help much. I would prefer to feel much less like a Camus protagonist than I do.
Bob,
I should point out here that my concern regarding Iran is not based on anything I’ve seen in the professional arena. Which is not surprising, as my unit’s mission has been training units going to Iraq for several years now, so even if we were heading into Iran, it would be very unlikely for me to know about it any sooner than the rest of you. The Army is generally pretty careful about compartmentalizing that information. So, if it makes you feel any better, I have no inside information I can point to regarding an imminent attack on Iran; my concern is based strictly on open-source information.
I understood it was supposed to be funny.
Yet you still managed to read insult into it.
There was of course none intended, but…well, this is starting to look like much-trodden ground, so let’s leave it at that. You are not a dog. Katherine: also not a dog. Bob: not a dog. None of us are dogs. I guess if I’d said “squids can sense annoyance” the joke would have been more clear, but more likely we’d have someone or other protesting that they’ve got no tentacles.
I am, however, impressed by Steve’s spectacular threadjack. Kudos!
Thanks! Nobody seemed to want to get wonkish with me on Social Security so I had to chart a different path.
Unlike Iraq, Vietnam is an enterprise that I think was entered into in good faith (I have in mind the “domino theory” here), not that it makes it any less of a terrible mistake.
What’s stunning to me is that today, with the benefit of hindsight which tells us that the “domino theory” never played out in practice, there are still people who believe that Vietnam was worth “winning” even at the cost of hundreds of thousands of additional casualties.
It’s one thing to argue that we should pay any price to make sure Communism doesn’t take over the world; it’s another thing to argue that we should pay any price just to make sure the good old USA doesn’t take one in the L column.
Classic Nazi propaganda relied on demonizing foreigners so as to find a source outside the nation to criticize.
Afghanistan – too easy Iraq – WTF ?
Iran – No bloody way
Pseudo religion played its part also.
Thugs kept the people from open protest.
Spying on the civilian population was systemic.
Fear. Um. People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
Slarti: Yet you still managed to read insult into it.
You must surely be aware it’s possible to make insulting jokes that seem funny to the person telling them, but that are not funny to the people who are the target of the “humor”.
Ah. There were targets. Ok, then.
Statement and apparently-lame foray into jokedom retracted, and targets hopefully untargeted.
And if anyone was offended by this retraction, there may be more retractions to follow.
It’s at times like these I feel compelled to recall Meg Ryan’s immortal question: “Is one of us supposed to be a dog in this scenario???”
Slarti: And if anyone was offended by this retraction, there may be more retractions to follow.
I hope you’re going to retract that. 😉
Steve: It’s at times like these I feel compelled to recall Meg Ryan’s immortal question: “Is one of us supposed to be a dog in this scenario???”
It’s at times like these I feel compelled to recall what my old dad used to say to me:
What the hell are you doing in the bathroom day and night? Why don’t you get out of there and give someone else a chance?”
Jesurgislac: I had a feeling that someone might start quoting like that. Call it…a hunch.
We’ve gotten wonkish on Social Security before. I think we’re just exhausted.
Here
Here
There are dozens of other discussions of the topic on this blog that can be found via google (these were just the first I found).
The general problem I have in discussions on Social Security is the unwillingness of participants to stick to stated rationales for their arguments. Generally the cycle goes something like:
(Some real arguments may have been damaged in the production of this movie). 😉
Basically bundling together an anti-poverty program with a sort-of retirement program (with the rarely mentioned disability program) and using insurance rhetoric to boost it makes discussing Social Security difficult. Old age anti-poverty is severable from old age retirement considerations is severable from any age disability. Discussing them as all exactly the same thing just because they are administered in the US under the rubric of “Social Security” doesn’t make for good analysis. This tends to make for muddled discussion.
I think we’ve been abducted by aliens.
I think Sebastian has just executed the rare and dangerous double threadjack with a twist. Lets see if he can land it.
“On the internet, no one knows you’re a dog.”
I think Sebastian has just executed the rare and dangerous double threadjack with a twist.
Piker position? Tuck? Layout?
Definitely piker.
I go on vacation for ten whole days and you lunatics track up the place! I’m telling mom.
re: Soc.Sec.
A. SS is a pension program. You get paid when you retire, for as long as you live. Like some other pension programs it has a disability component (which is essentially very early, mandatory retirement).
B. But lots of other people say it’s lots of other things.
A. So what?
B. As a pension, the rate of return sucks.
A. Yup. And as soon as you can figure out a way to eliminate (i) the stranded debt problem and (ii) the Baby Boomer bulge problem, then the rate of return will get better. You’ll also probably win a Nobel prize or two.
B. I know a way! The market always beats Treasury bonds.
A. Umm. Actually, it doesn’t. and what happens to people who make bad investment decisions? and you still haven’t solved that whole stranded debt problem.
B. But I don’t want to pay into this pension program.
A. And I don’t like the size of the DOD’s budget. Being an american citizen has obligations. Or you could work for a county government; those employees are exempt from soc. sec.
B. But SS is a ponzi scheme.
A. No, it’s not. Ponzi schemes by definition collapse. Depending on the rate of growth of the american economy, SSA can meet its current obligations in perpetuity.
B. But SS means that poor people are paying in while rich people are getting paid.
A. I’ll bet that GM’s ex-CEOs get really big pension payments while poor workers are paying in. So what? And, since the most recent hike in SS rates was about 30 years ago, the rich people getting their payout paid their dues. The people who caused the stranded debt are now dead; their legacy lives on.
“If the Republicans deserve the blame for how Iraq has turned out, in what sense do the Democrats not deserve the blame for how Vietnam turned out? No one claims that, had Humphrey been elected instead of Nixon, everything in Vietnam would have turned out just peachy.”
Because honestly, Vietnam was a bipartisan failure. The people who “lost” Vietnam were the South Vietnamese; we could never “win” it for them.
I’ve written at length about this here (and elsewhere) before, as has Dr. Ngo, and, of course, as countless people have in innumerable books and monographs.
But although Vietnam was essentially un-“win”-able for America, putting it on the Democrats, when Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford were in power for the last eight years of the war, and Nixon and Kissinger overtly knew and said that the war couldn’t be won, merely put off with a “decent interval” for South Vietnam’s collapse after the American withdrawal, is ludicrous to the point of either insanity or pure mendacity.
One can naturally put a vast amount of blame on JFK for expanding American involvement in, and the rhetoric over, Vietnam after Eisenhower dug the roots of our effort and commitment, and LBJ hugely expanded it, deserving the most and worst blame of all for the hugest wrong decisions in American policy as regards Vietnam, but they certainly didn’t “lose” the war any more than anyone else did.
As I said, Vietnam was, at least until approximately 1968-70, a bipartisan, American, folly.
“I’d agree that some Democrats deserve a lot of blame for Vietnam (e.g. LBJ), but there simply wasn’t the sort of party-wide support for Vietnam that we’ve seen with Iraq.”
In 1960-64? That’s just false.
Slart:
I didn’t see any insult at all. I think somone looking to start a fight with someone and find an insult so hidden that it’s invisible to at least some of us isn’t being helpful.
“I think Sebastian has just executed the rare and dangerous double threadjack with a twist. Lets see if he can land it.”
I was always very good at the twisting dives.
Normally they are performed in the “free” position unless you doing some very small number of twists compared to the number of somersaults. In the difficult twisting dives category, people with lots of gymnastics experience tend to do small number of twists with large number of somersaults–e.g. Forward 2½SS 1 Twist (DD 3.0). They do this because it is difficult to relearn the differences in twisting between gymnastics and diving. (My understanding is that the diving method of ‘boxing’ your arms around your head is more stable but is more suitable for landing on your head, which is somewhat discouraged on the floor exercise. This may or may not be an urban legend). Someone who didn’t spend lots of time in gymnastics is much more likely to perform something like a forward 1½SS 3 Twists (DD also 3.0).
I came from an all diving background–my best twisting dive was the Reverse 1½SS 1½ Twist (DD 2.6) which I found strangely easy–I could regularly score 7s on it which for non-amazing athletes is very respectable. I did compete with the Reverse 1½SS 2½ Twist (DD 3.0) but that was much more risky for me (scores tended from the 3-6.5 range though I did nail one for 7.5 once).
This has been an Inward 1½ ThreadJack with a double twist.
My high school swim-team co-captain was a diver, and a far better diver than the guy who actually won state. The other guy had a very good day, and got some generous scores, while Mark had a bad day and got clobbered. So, Mark got second place. Mark was great at the twisting dives, too.
Odd that I never remember that I was captain.
“Odd that I never remember that I was captain.”
I think you just did.
In the single diving course some thirty-plus years ago, I was instructed to sit on the high board and pivot forward while rigid, and this would give me the natural rotation. I chickened out right at the pivot point, attempted to recover, and bellyflopped into the pool at nearly mach one.
The red is finally starting to fade a bit.
Gary, you’ll note that I referred to LBJ’s Vietnam policies, which would mean 1964-on. Judging by your 3:57 comment, you seem to agree with my point, so I’m not sure why you feel that this is a nit that needs picking. I suppose everyone needs a hobby.
Incidentally, my question was whether the Democrats ought to be held responsible for Vietnam, as opposed to whether the Democrats ought to be held responsible for losing Vietnam, which strikes me as a rather loaded question.
As Gary correctly points out, there are an awful lot of assumptions bundled up in the implication that Vietnam could have been “won” somehow. It’s similar to how people have always struggled to hold a constructive discussion on whether we’re winning or losing in Iraq, because no one can even reach agreement on how to define those terms.
“Gary, you’ll note that I referred to LBJ’s Vietnam policies, which would mean 1964-on.”
No, you didn’t. You wrote this: “I’d agree that some Democrats deserve a lot of blame for Vietnam (e.g. LBJ), but there simply wasn’t the sort of party-wide support for Vietnam that we’ve seen with Iraq. Many Democratic politicians opposed the war in Vietnam, almost no Republicans have done so with Iraq.”
That’s false, as put.
Later, you wrote about LJB. Ex post facto statements don’t change prior statements absent a time machine.
Moroever, Democratic splitage didn’t start to become significantly serious until about 1967, and didn’t become majority opinion until about 1970.
Basically, your above characterization is simply false. It would be nice if it were true, but it isn’t. Democratic support for the Vietnam war was, in fact, party-wide, even considerably more so than that for the Iraq war at any time.
If you’d like to withdraw your above quote and revise it, that’s fine. If you feel you put what you meant badly, that’s perfectly understandable.
“It’s similar to how people have always struggled to hold a constructive discussion on whether we’re winning or losing in Iraq, because no one can even reach agreement on how to define those terms.”
I read this assertion with some frequency, and it always baffles me. There’s no mystery. The Iraq conflict(s) would be “won” according to the intent of the intervention were a reasonably peaceful, democratic, whole, Iraq, with a reasonable level of human rights, to emerge at the end of the process.
Where’s the mystery? I don’t get it. (Note: such an outcome seems extremely unlikely any time in the next five years, but what the desired outcome is is perfectly obvious and utterly uncontroversial.)
Steve: It’s similar to how people have always struggled to hold a constructive discussion on whether we’re winning or losing in Iraq, because no one can even reach agreement on how to define those terms.
Of course not. The pro-Bush side want to count “winning in Iraq” as “anything that happens to look achievable in Iraq at the time Bush is making this particular speech”. This means that “winning in Iraq”, for Bush and his devotees, has (and has to have) an endlessly flexible meaning.
For those of us pro-reality, the US has definitively lost the Iraq war: it’s just a question of how many more people die for it.
Sock puppets are a pain when you forget to clear the browser after they used it. 🙁
“Incidentally, my question was whether the Democrats ought to be held responsible for Vietnam….”
I should have responded to this: no. As I said, it was purely bi-partisan. Eisenhower began our true commitments to Vietnam, and initially France, in 1954, as I’ve written at length about here before.
That continued for approximately seven years, and Kennedy inherited it, and prosecuted further escalation of the war with full Republican support and urging, as did LBJ, who was also almost entirely motivated out of fear of “losing” and being “the first American President to lose a war” and what that would mean for his personal reputation, for his country, and for his party.
For it to have been largely a Democratic responsibility, Republicans would have to have been objecting; instead, they either accused Johnson of not doing enough, or fully supported what he was doing. Therefore there can be no question of blame put only, or even largely, on Democrats alone, even setting aside Eisenhower and Nixon’s role.
This was American policy and America failing, and who the President happened to be, until the election of 1968, was purely coincidental and irrelevant. Tragically.
(Yes, there’s argument about what JFK would have done in a second term, but I don’t believe any of those who argue that They Know, because the fact is that they don’t; Presidential intent and actions change in response to events, and we simply will never know what decisions JFK would have made in the event.)
The Iraq conflict(s) would be “won” according to the intent of the intervention were a reasonably peaceful, democratic, whole, Iraq, with a reasonable level of human rights, to emerge at the end of the process.
You really think there has been bipartisan agreement on this point, running throughout the conflict?
The Iraq conflict(s) would be “won” according to the intent of the intervention were a reasonably peaceful, democratic, whole, Iraq, with a reasonable level of human rights, to emerge at the end of the process.
When’s the end of the process? 5 years? 10 years? 25? More? How do we know when we’ve reached the end? What if Iraq satisfies your “winning” criteria and then slides back into chaos a a few years later — will we still have won?
And Steve wasn’t asking about how to know if we’ve won but about how to know if we’re winning — how can we reasonably keep score in a way that’s predictive of the “final result” (to the extent that it exists)? Iraq is a big, complex place — do any of us here really have enough knowledge to say that in the current situation, the probability of “losing” is higher than that of “winning”?
Finally, out of curiosity, why do you stipulate that Iraq has to be whole for us to have won — if there’s a three-state solution that otherwise satisfies your criteria, why would you say that we lost?
In the world according to me:
(a) there was bipartisan support for Vietnam well into LBJ’s term (e.g., say, through 1966.)
(b) Slarti’s statement was funny and not insulting.
(c) No dive more difficult than a jackknife is possible. And I tried. I took a class once. No dice.
(d) Andrew’s concern about Iran is very depressing, not because I suspect he has the inside dope and has uncharacteristically blabbed, but because I trust his judgment. I myself vacillate between thinking: come on, surely they can’t think this is a good idea! and thinking: based on what track record of noticing even very obvious things, exactly?
I myself vacillate between thinking: come on, surely they can’t think this is a good idea! and thinking: based on what track record of noticing even very obvious things, exactly?
There’s only one tiny bit of consolation that I can think of: with one thing and another, it seems certain invading Iraq was on the Bush administration’s wish-list even before 9/11, and by the afternoon of September 11 2001, it was a definite decision made.
No such certainty has filtered out about Iran.
Of course, that doesn’t mean they won’t do it. An administration that thinks like the Bush administration might think that a brand new product would look good in advertising and make everyone forget about that rather trashy, scuffed-up product of war in Iraq.
And Steve wasn’t asking about how to know if we’ve won but about how to know if we’re winning — how can we reasonably keep score in a way that’s predictive of the “final result” (to the extent that it exists)?
I should have been more clear about this point, really. Thanks for clarifying.
We can’t check the position of the retreating German army to know if we’re winning. We can’t look at how many islands in the Pacific we’ve captured from the Japanese. We can’t even really look at kill counts in a meaningful way. Instead, the discussion of whether we’re “winning” in Iraq has been dominated by meaningless anecdotal evidence about how many schools have been painted or how many car bombs have gone off.
Part of this is due to the administration’s refusal to set any kind of measurable benchmarks for success, because of course, they knew that we weren’t making any progress towards such benchmarks. Part of it just lies in the nature of a complex occupation/counter-insurgency effort.
Later, you wrote about LJB. Ex post facto statements don’t change prior statements absent a time machine.
So long as we’re picking nits, we never had a President during the Vietnam era whose initials were LJB.
No the Iraq war was lost as soon as the pricetag went above the promised $1 billion.
“why do you stipulate that Iraq has to be whole for us to have won”
I don’t; I was relaying my understanding of the criteria originally put forward.
“if there’s a three-state solution that otherwise satisfies your criteria, why would you say that we lost?”
I never said any such thing, of course. We’re not discussing my opinions about Iraq.
Double threadjack with a lindy
Maybe, but probably not as much as you think. There aren’t that many people in their 70’s and above with enough income to make it into the middle class, at least not without Social Security.
If you’re going to do it by assets, you’re going to create a lot of pain for people who have big, but non-income producing assets like homes or land or whatever. They’ll have to divest themselves of those assets if they want to collect. In fact, I could see that being an issue, seniors transferring assets to their children so that they can collect SS, unless SS benefits are so poo that they aren’t worth worrying about.
Yes, I’m sure that would work out well. Lets say we said that everyone turning 40 in (to pick a totally random, not related to me at all date) November of this year or younger will not be getting SS if they’re in the middle class or better. I could imagine that I, I mean they, would be pretty damn pissed after paying 12.5% of their income into this program for 22 years or more, with a promise of a retirement benefit at the end of it, only to find that the government isn’t going to keep its end of the bargain because they made or saved too much money.
They keep my money and I get…what exactly?
Really? How much more am I going to get back considering that we’re still going to have to pay for vast number of people older than us who are going to get the non-means tested benefit. I’ll get 20 years of an extra two or three percent of my salary to save, invest and try and make up the loss of my SS benefits. I doubt even Warren Buffet could pull that off.
It’s a floor wax AND a dessert topping.
If you’re going to do it by assets, you’re going to create a lot of pain for people who have big, but non-income producing assets like homes or land or whatever.
Yes, that’s a very serious problem. Of course there are plenty of people receiving Social Security who don’t “need” it, but that doesn’t mean it’s trivial to identify those people. As a practical matter, what happens is that you end up requiring my grandmother to provide a full statement of her assets and liabilities each year in order to qualify for Social Security.
It’s not as easy to means-test Social Security as one might think, since we’re largely talking about people with no income to speak of, and that doesn’t even consider the fact that keeping Social Security universal is most likely what’s preserved its political viability all these years. If it were just a welfare program for old people, it likely would have gone the way of welfare.
“If you’re going to do it by assets, you’re going to create a lot of pain for people who have big, but non-income producing assets like homes or land or whatever. They’ll have to divest themselves of those assets if they want to collect.”
You also (as I pointed out in one of the threads Sebastian cited) have a huge problem valuating the assets to determine eligibility. Even real estate would likely cost more to get an accurate value for everything owned by seniors than the potential savings would be, and when you start evaluating antiques, artwork, etc., it becomes clear this would never work.
Patriotic Americans oppose means-testing. Means-testing wastes valuable government resources and fragments the unity of the nation. Means-testing encourages greed on the part of evaluators and dishonesty on the part of those being evaluated. Means-testing encourages disinterest on the part of the rich and envy on the part of the poor, and ignorance of the “other half” in both. All of this is directly contrary to the national interest in times of crisis like this. We need all Americans to have reasons to feel secure and united, not at risk and separated. Means-testing of social services is un-American, reckless, and foolish.
“Means-testing of social services is un-American, reckless, and foolish.”
Nonsense. We must punish the undeserving, and root them out wherever they can be found. This is the most important priority.
It’s up there with throwing acid in the faces of the beautiful.
Here I missed a whole threadjack into the Vietnam War just because while crawling around in the attic looking for microscopic leaks in the latest storm I stupidly put my foot through the ceiling below (which consisted of some kind of sheetrock scarcely capable of holding my 200+ lbs) and so spent today hosting contractors who came in and at least had the grace to point out that this sort of misstep was common (apparently especially among Verizon men) …
Drat.
Only not so much, because Gary Farber & Anarch and others made most of the points I would have made. Vietnam was a bipartisan f**k-up, though if you spend enough time covering the whole 30 years of US involvement (1945-75) you can have fun balancing comparative up-f**kery. (FWIW I personally regard Nixon as a greater f**ker-up than LBJ, because he widened the war into Laos and Cambodia, and because, coming later, he knew better that the war was unwinnable. But it’s a close call.)
A number of nits have also been picked (thanks, GF), but not this one:
there was only one vote in the Senate against the Gulf of Tonkin resolution.
Actually, there were two: Senators Wayne Morse (D-Ore) and Ernest Gruening (D-Alaska). But there were no votes against it from any of the 400+ Congressmen (it was a joint resolution of both houses), so the proportion of legislative dissent in 1964 was even worse than the original post implies!
You may now return to your regularly scheduled programming.
Steve: Instead, the discussion of whether we’re “winning” in Iraq has been dominated by meaningless anecdotal evidence about how many schools have been painted or how many car bombs have gone off.
I’d say the number of car bombs going off is pretty much the exact opposite of “meaningless anecdotal evidence”.
dr ngo: Vietnam was a bipartisan f**k-up, though if you spend enough time covering the whole 30 years of US involvement (1945-75)…
Wait, how was the US involved in ’45? Was this part of the general peace-making process ending WWII or did the US have an actual hand in post-colonial Indochina before Eisenhower sent the advisors in?
But there were no votes against it from any of the 400+ Congressmen
Representatives, ya?
“Wait, how was the US involved in ’45?”
As I recall, we had an OSS man in country, who met with Ho Chi Minh, and Ho Chi Minh sent a letter to Truman through him asking for support, and quoting the Declaration of Independence, and Truman ignored it.
See here, for instance.
And later:
Here is a copy of one of Ho’s telegrams to Truman, 02/28/1946.
Here are more letters from Ho to American Presidents and Secretaries of State.
I didn’t want to pick nits, but for that matter, they weren’t all men, either.
Interesting anecdote about Vietnam in ’45, after the Japanese surrendered, they were rearmed and used to ‘maintain order’ because the French didn’t have spare troops and the British Gurkhas were far too few to control the Viet Minh.
Since all that appears to be left is nits, I would tend to agree with Gary, but go one step further and say that just because Democrats could not be held solely responsible for Vietnam doesn’t mean they aren’t responsible.
Ditto for Republicans. Lack of partisan responsibility doesn’t imply lack of responsibility/blame/guilt/whatever you want to call it. Not saying Gary said otherwise, mind, just filling in parts that, for me, were un-filled.
Barbara Tuchman uses the Vietnam War as one of her subjects in The March of Folly, and her definition of “folly” for that purpose includes policy contrary to self-interest pursued in the face of alternatives known at the time to be available, across multiple administrations. That about covers it for me – a whole lot of smart people in both parties made and developed the mess.
GF: Representatives, ya?
I didn’t want to pick nits, but for that matter, they weren’t all men, either.
Quite correct, but in my defense, this was 1964, before Phase II Feminism had really taken off, and so it was thought OK to ignore women and refer to “Congressmen” ;}
LJ: Interesting anecdote about Vietnam in ’45, after the Japanese surrendered, they were rearmed and used to ‘maintain order’ because the French didn’t have spare troops and the British Gurkhas were far too few to control the Viet Minh.
Also correct, with the addendum that the Northern half of Vietnam was officially “liberated” by Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang troops, as merry a bunch of looters as the country has ever seen. Ho Chi Minh was forced to accept French reoccupation of the North just to get the damn Chinese out (at which point he cracked his famous line “I prefer to sniff French shit for five years than eat Chinese shit for the rest of my life” – Karnow, 153).
there was only one vote in the Senate against the Gulf of Tonkin resolution.
Actually, there were two: Senators Wayne Morse (D-Ore) and Ernest Gruening (D-Alaska).
Aaargh. Nailed by Dr. ngo.
I was thinking of Morse, who was a colorful sort of guy with a reputation as an independent-minded fellow.