The Trouble With "Strength"

Shadi Hamid makes an obvious yet weirdly neglected point about Democratic efforts to look "tough":

The problem is that many Democrats fall into the trap of “overcompensation,” that, fearful of being painted as soft on security, we take public positions that appear contrived, because they are in fact contrived, a function of our obsession with polls and focus groups more than a function of deeply-held liberal values. [emphasis added]

This is not to be naïve and just say that any genuine position of conviction is going to be sellable. Nevertheless adopting positions that are obviously motivated by narrow political considerations doesn't do much to improve things. "Appearing to be principled" is an important part of politics as well. What's more, it's helpful to at least understand principles so that when you need to talk about Topic X in July you don't wind up saying things that will be inconsistent with what you say when Topic Topic Y suddently becomes hot in September.

Comments

Nevertheles as obviously motivated by narrow political considerations.

I can't figure out what this means.

Posted by dj moonbat | November 6, 2006 9:44 AM

Ford's support for the Patriot Act is a problem, but backing Bush on torture doesn't rate a mention? It's not quite straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel, but it does bring that vivid metaphor to mind.

When Frist came out for torture I regretted that I ever voted for him. Tomorrow I will vote for another torture enabler, this time knowingly, because the Republicans are worse.

What our country has come to.

Posted by David Tomlin | November 6, 2006 9:48 AM

Isn't "looking tough" really meant to merely persuade and assure various defense industries and contractors you're going to keep the money tap open? The party apparatus needs the contributions of Lockheed, Boeing, TRW, Seimens, Raytheon, Hughes and all the rest. The biggest fear isn't that the U.S. will fall into a position of weakness and diminished leverage, but that it will spend less money forestalling it. Actually the weaker we are diplomatically and militarily the MORE money there is needing spent on weapons. The above businesses probably wouldn't mind if we were stuck in 4-5 Iraq size wars all the time. Once the U.S. collapsed from the combined efforts of fighting several wars they could just move all their factories overseas (at least the ones that aren't already there) and sell their weapons to our adversaries. Money is money and who gives a shit who is writing the check, right?

Posted by steve duncan | November 6, 2006 10:00 AM

"Appearing to be principled" is an important part of politics as well.

It's not just that. There's a difference between sounding tough (e.g., DLC) and acting tough (e.g., Dean), and it's unclear to me which the average voter looks at to determine whether a party or a candidate is, in fact, tough. My suspicion is that he looks at the latter. Democrats have, for the most part, focused on the former.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | November 6, 2006 10:09 AM

Don't kid yourself. Few Republican candidates are giving voice to coherent positions either. The Newt Gingrich School for the Dissimulation of America guaranteed that.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | November 6, 2006 10:16 AM

I'm not sure the Democrats can form a coherent, unified, strong-sounding foreign policy until they hold the White House. That way, they can actually do some of this stuff, and the congressional dems and dem activists will, whether they like it or not, have some investment in it. You can't just draw up The Princeton Project on National Security, take it to a caucus that ranges in foreign policy views from Joe Lieberman to Russ Feingold, from Ike Skelton to Barbara Lee, and just say, "Okay, here's what everyone stands for. Got it? Good." Maybe a presidential nominee would be able to coax some degree of unity for political purposes, but you've still got the first 18 months of the '08 election cycle where these issues will be publicly up for grabs somewhat.

Posted by Chris | November 6, 2006 1:36 PM

This totally misses the point. You don't need consistant positions or authentic ones. You just need simple, repeated bits of rhetoric so you can get something into people's heads. Republicans are "tough on defense" when they are being "lets not bomb Osama/lets not do anything in Kosovo" and when they are invading iraq.

Posted by yoyo | November 6, 2006 3:31 PM

I don't know man. That Johnny Edwards line about wanting to kill Osama made me hard.

Posted by Linus | November 6, 2006 11:03 PM