What if the left believes Petraeus?
July 21, 2007
The rumblings, and in some cases, the actual interviews by now are making it clear that, come September, General Petraeus will give a stay-the-course pep talk to the President and Congress, stating that we are finally doing what it takes to win, and that the results are coming in. This has drawn the lamentable, but all too predictable attempts to pre-emptively assassinate the General's credibility.
Now, to hard core partisans, there is no news in the above paragraph, and no information about how the war is actually going; of course the General appointed by Bush will claim what his CIC wants claimed, says the true-believing left. In similar fashion, of course they're trying to get ahead of the report by making sure nobody believes it, say the hawks on the right. So where does the Bradley track hit the Iraqi road in September?
A productive line of examination may be to consider how true believing the true believers on either side actually are. After all, only a fool believes his own propaganda; I have to think that, even among the most distant partisans, there are at least a few with the sense to at least consider what happens if they turn out to be wrong.
Lets start with the easier of the 2 possibilities, since 2 they are: that is to say, someone will indeed turn out to be wrong in the end:
Right wing is wrong
Well, what can you say? Nobody believes Petraeus. It may even turn out that he gets caught up in some obvious falsehood during his testimony. Let's go so far as to say some Biden or Murtha tags him with the 'gotcha' that political nightmares are made of.
No, I don't think it'll happen. But we are assuming the left is right, the General is the President's stooge, saying what he has to even though he knows it ain't so. If you followed the second link above, you know this is what the left is claiming, so let's consider it. What happens?
Well, they get what they want, politically speaking: The war gets ended, since Pelosi and Reid will have the cover they need to end the war without getting stuck with the political bill for the defeat. San Francisco throws a party that makes Mardi Gras look like a high society cotillion. And, of course, the GOP is out of business for a generation. They'll go quietly -- they're Republicans.
Now, to whatever degree the right is considering this possibility, I suspect that most of the right-wing hardcore is less concerned about the political ramifications than the freedom our pullout will afford the terrorists. That Democrats will be leading the way for the forseeable future, while awful to contemplate, would not be the primary problem under the stated circumstances.
OK, that was pretty bad. But what if the Right is right?
What if Petraeus makes a good case, and regardless of the best efforts of the left blogosphere and the politicians they support, everyone believes it. Let's suppose a sort of 'reverse-gotcha'- the General supports his case, and it is manifestly supported by the bulk of the evidence. Maybe there are dramatic developments between now and then. However you want to slice it, let's say that, come September, it is quite clear that we are indeed winning. Let me put this another way: What if the Sullivans and Kos folks secretly believe the advance information on how things are now going, and believe that the longer Gen. Petraeus stays at it, the more likely this will all end in star spangled parades?
It's clear we're winning
I posit that this scenario makes it more, not less, likely that Democrats will bite the bullet and de-fund the war. After all, as John Edwards recently said, the war is just a bumper sticker slogan, which means the political equation is all that there is. And the one thing that would be worse than having defeat hung around their necks in the next election, would be the spectacle of Johnny coming marching home covered in glory just in time for that election.
The cries of "We can't win" have been getting progressively more shrill, and more naked. The Democrat investment in this so-called fact is by now pretty much complete. In different circumstances, of course, the left could simply do what they do in the cartoons, namely to brazenly claim they knew we'd win all along, and of course they support our troops, too. God knows, politicians are by no means above acting like cartoon characters, and as whoppers go, it would hardly be the worst that has ever been presented to the public by a politician as if they would actually believe it. But there's the rub -- nobody would. Too much ink has been spilled and too much video recorded showing otherwise to saturate the airwaves through a dozen election seasons.
Going into Autumn '08 being blamed for defeat is one thing. You can at least argue that defeat was a foregone conclusion as soon as Bush sent in the troops, and a lot of people would believe it. The Dems would by no means be doomed. But only if the defeat sticks. As soon as the parades start, everything they've said for the last 5 years is suddenly laid bare as not just nonsense, but also the rooting for the enemy we all knew it to be all along. Their sour pusses through all those parades would continue to hammer the point home - they wholeheartedly bet against us in war, and lost.
I think that, faced with that, pulling the funding and risking the backlash that has kept them from acting up to now, will actually seem the better of two evils.
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