Deanless

The column definitely has a more in sorrow than in anger tone to it, but it seems that John McCain's Iraq antics have lost David Broder, who apparently was expecting McCain to indicate that there was some level of Iraqi political dysfunction he wouldn't be prepared to tolerate as president.

In the real world, though, if your goal is an enduring American military presence in Iraq, you need political dysfunction. If Iraq were to emerge as a stable country with a government responsive to its citizens' wishes, they'd tell the Americans to take a hike. Its sectarian tensions and instability that make the continued, unpopular presence of a huge number of American boots on the ground viable.

Comments

So we're all Broderists now. What a terrible fate.

Posted by John J Emerson | March 20, 2008 9:59 AM

"If Iraq were to emerge as a stable country with a government responsive to its citizens' wishes, they'd tell the Americans to take a hike."

They'd still want some level of American presence, most likely, as a security guarantee. If the majority of Iraqis disagree, they can vote for parties that share their view in their national elections next year.

Posted by Fred | March 20, 2008 10:08 AM

Wishful thinking about McCain "losing" Broder. The "Dean" will contort his way to supporting McCain in the end.

Posted by raul Martinez | March 20, 2008 10:13 AM

Wishful thinking about McCain "losing" Broder. The "Dean" will contort his way to supporting McCain in the end.

Posted by raul Martinez | March 20, 2008 10:15 AM

What raul said. If one too many times.

Posted by ed | March 20, 2008 10:27 AM

I second raul and ed. Broder will fall in line, as will Ignatius, Brooks, possibly Sullivan. They all love them some maverick Senator from Arizona.

The single most dispiriting thing to emerge from the Jeremiah Wright controversy is how the MSM has ignored McCain's embrace of Hagee and (could anyone have made up this name?) Rod Parsley. And McCain will have to court others like Tony Perkins and Richard Land and others, as the social conservatives will demand it. And not one goddamned non-leftist pundit will say boo.

In a recent column Brooks mourned the passing of the Reagan Coalition -- I predict that Coalition will roar back to life at the GOP convention this summer, especially if McCain does enough photo-ops with the mandarins of the Religious Right. And trust me: he will. The past isn't dead, wrote Faulkner, it isn't even past.

Posted by BryklynLibrul | March 20, 2008 10:51 AM

Is there anyone left apart from the respective campaign workers who thinks that, with all that is happening on the Democratic side, Obama or Clinton can beat McCain?

Posted by gregor | March 20, 2008 10:53 AM

Its sectarian tensions and instability that make the continued, unpopular presence of a huge number of American boots on the ground viable.

It is the continuing pretext for "American boots on the ground" somewhere - indeed anywhere, that justifies the continuing ridiculous levels of American military spending.

Posted by Mazoplp | March 20, 2008 10:54 AM

Its sectarian tensions and instability that make the continued, unpopular presence of a huge number of American boots on the ground viable.

It is the continuing pretext for "American boots on the ground" somewhere - indeed anywhere, that justifies the continuing ridiculous levels of American military spending.

Posted by Mazoplp | March 20, 2008 10:55 AM

SEEDS OF DESTRUCTION by F. William Engdahl

There is no future for America UNDER THE CURRENT CONDITION/s OF TOXIC SHAME due to NON FULL DISCLOSURE, e.g. TRANSPARENCY = FREE MARKET TRADE RULES.

Those who began the quasi-monopoly strangleholds on the U.S. have been very busy in destroying the birds, bees, and other natural resources which are our BIRTHRIGHT!

FOOD, WATER, AIR. Why do we pay for these?

Worse yet, why do we pay for AIRWAVES that do nothing but zombie us into test subjects for the technology of greed, greed and more greed?

The digitized debt sold as credit/money is NOTHING compared to the fraud of broke back country in its drive to make smaller brains, livers, lungs, etc. and let us not forget the immune systems of defunct capacity.

COMMON STOCK.

McCain is a fraud as well as every PRESIDENTIAL.

A LEADER who cannot talk about the future of our country in real time; i.e., WEALTH vs. POVERTY

is not worth voting for.

Digitized debt sold as credit and rejected in the global free market is the wealth of the USA and we do not hear one Presidential Candidate speaking freely, transparently or clearly about this abomination now coming home to roost and there is only one thing for America to do ...

sing the Swan Song with the fools or get educated and become intelligent consumers like the rest of the global purchasers of "life."

http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net

and

http://www.webofdebt.com

Ignore these masterful teachings at your own peril.

Jawboning for years on end as Rome burns.

Read the truth cause it really does set us FREE.

SEEDS OF DESTRUCTION by F. William Engdahl &

WEB OF DEBT by Ellen Hodgson-Brown

Posted by Biloxi | March 20, 2008 11:03 AM

SEEDS OF DESTRUCTION by F. William Engdahl

There is no future for America UNDER THE CURRENT CONDITION/s OF TOXIC SHAME due to NON FULL DISCLOSURE, e.g. TRANSPARENCY = GLOBAL FREE MARKET TRADE RULES.

Those who began the quasi-monopoly strangleholds on the U.S. have been very busy in destroying the birds, bees, and other natural resources which are our BIRTHRIGHT!

FOOD, WATER, AIR. Why do we pay for these?

Worse yet, why do we pay for AIRWAVES that do nothing but zombie us into test subjects for the technology of greed, greed and more greed?

The digitized debt sold as credit/money is NOTHING compared to the fraud of broke back country in its drive to make smaller brains, livers, lungs, etc. and let us not forget the immune systems of defunct capacity.

COMMON STOCK.

McCain is a fraud as well as every PRESIDENTIAL.

A LEADER who cannot talk about the future of our country in real time; i.e., WEALTH vs. POVERTY

is not worth voting for.

Digitized debt sold as credit and rejected in the global free market is the wealth of the USA and we do not hear one Presidential Candidate speaking freely, transparently or clearly about this abomination now coming home to roost and there is only one thing for America to do ...

sing the Swan Song with the fools or get educated and become intelligent consumers like the rest of the global purchasers of "life."

http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net

and

http://www.webofdebt.com

Ignore these masterful teachings at your own peril.

Jawboning for years on end as Rome burns.

Read the truth cause it really does set us FREE.

SEEDS OF DESTRUCTION by F. William Engdahl &

WEB OF DEBT by Ellen Hodgson-Brown

Posted by Biloxi | March 20, 2008 11:05 AM

Is there anyone left apart from the respective campaign workers who thinks that, with all that is happening on the Democratic side, Obama or Clinton can beat McCain?

Look, I'm on record here and elsewhere as being quite negative about the prospects for beating McCain after the Democratic party bloodbath. But "can" one of them beat McCain? Of course. Heck, I'm kind of surprised, given recent events, and the fact that the Dems are too distracted to start hammering McCain yet, that his current poll lead isn't bigger. Now, in both cases, Obama and Clinton, victory would probably require a large dose of bad news on Iraq and the economy - but unfortunately such bad news seems increasingly likely on both fronts.

Of course, Clinton faces another problem; she would have to somehow win the nomination in a manner seen as legitimate by Obama partisans to have a chance in November. And, short of Obama being caught in bed with the proverbial live man or dead woman, I'm still not seeing how she could manage to pull that off.

Posted by LarryM | March 20, 2008 11:05 AM

SEEDS OF DESTRUCTION by F. William Engdahl

There is no future for America UNDER THE CURRENT CONDITION/s OF TOXIC SHAME due to NON FULL DISCLOSURE, e.g. TRANSPARENCY = GLOBAL FREE MARKET TRADE RULES.

Those who began the quasi-monopoly strangleholds on the U.S. have been very busy in destroying the birds, bees, and other natural resources which are our BIRTHRIGHT!

FOOD, WATER, AIR. Why do we pay for these?

Worse yet, why do we pay for AIRWAVES that do nothing but zombie us into test subjects for the technology of greed, greed and more greed?

The digitized debt sold as credit/money is NOTHING compared to the fraud of broke back country in its drive to make smaller brains, livers, lungs, etc. and let us not forget the immune systems of defunct capacity.

COMMON STOCK.

McCain is a fraud as well as every PRESIDENTIAL.

A LEADER who cannot talk about the future of our country in real time; i.e., WEALTH vs. POVERTY

is not worth voting for.

Digitized debt sold as credit and rejected in the global free market is the wealth of the USA and we do not hear one Presidential Candidate speaking freely, transparently or clearly about this abomination now coming home to roost and there is only one thing for America to do ...

sing the Swan Song with the fools or get educated and become intelligent consumers like the rest of the global purchasers of "life."

http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net

and

http://www.webofdebt.com

Ignore these masterful teachings at your own peril.

Jawboning for years on end as Rome burns.

Read the truth cause it really does set us FREE.

SEEDS OF DESTRUCTION by F. William Engdahl &

WEB OF DEBT by Ellen Hodgson-Brown

Posted by Biloxi | March 20, 2008 11:07 AM

"Is there anyone left apart from the respective campaign workers who thinks that, with all that is happening on the Democratic side, Obama or Clinton can beat McCain?"

Yes, of course -- and you would, too, if you weren't a typical Eeyore Democrat.

Bill Clinton's position in Spring 1992 was FAR worse than either candidate's today -- running double-digits behind GHWBush, ridiculed by the press as a hopeless loser after the kamikaze campaign Jerry Brown had run against him in NY, openly asked to surrender the nomination to someone "electable". That's right, Bill Clinton -- now thought of as the greatest candidate Democrats fielded since JFK, universally dismissed as a sure loser.

Clinton came back for the same reason (only moreso now) that either Hillary or Obama will thrash McCain this Fall: because the GOP brand is in the toilet. Because an unpopular war, a deepening recession and years of scandal and incompetence do not lead to an incumbent party holding the White House, no matter how mavericky and press-adored the GOP candidate is.

Thanks to Obama, everybody's using that Faulkner quote about the past this week. But at the same time, they're failing to even look at the past. If they did, they wouldn't make sweeping, uninformed comments like this.

Posted by demtom | March 20, 2008 11:12 AM

Senator McCain's box on Iraq is simpler than you make it out. If you adopt the position that our patience is not unlimited in Iraq and that we can't give the government there a blank check, that makes the Democratic view of Iraq acceptable. It's not that the Democrats want to lose in Iraq, it's just an argument about when the patience is exhausted and the checking account is overdrawn. If the argument is about how much to spend in Iraq, that's bad for McCain. An argument about winning or losing in Iraq is also bad for McCain, but less so as the base gets firmly on board.

Posted by windshouter | March 20, 2008 11:18 AM

I AGREE (gee, it's fun to write all caps) with demtom.

McCain hasn't been HIT HARD YET. There are MONTHS left to do it in (assuming the Dems get someone nominated before the CONVENTION).

Remember '92 -- "Change Vs. More of the Same" We get to be ON THE SIDE OF CHANGE. "More of the Same' McCain DOESN'T.

Good POLICY is good POLITICS, and the Dems have that.

Posted by Delicious Pundit | March 20, 2008 11:21 AM

Demtom, dude, don't get me wrong: I think McCain has enormous vulnerabilities in the general. I just wish the Versailles press corps would scrutinize them to the degree they've subjected us all to the words and intent of Wright's sermons. The Washington MSM seems rock-solid in its determination to ignore any possible McCain controversy, whether it's foreign policy gaffes or tax flip-flops or adultery or embracing militant white evangelical preachers. Such has been the nature of McCain's relationship with the Washington press corps since 2000; and in that sense the Faulkner quote seems relevant.

Let's focus on the religious stuff, though. As a Southern evangelical "in recovery" in the blue fortress of Brooklyn, I know that McCain has to do more than solicit the full-throated support of hate-mongerers like Hagee and Falwell -- he's going to have to suck up to Land and Perkins, both of whom (unlike Dobson) have left the door open for him to come and kiss the ring. In private he'll have to promise the overturn of Roe v. Wade (the Holy Grail of the Christian Right), recant his votes on embryonic stem-cell research and the FMA, etc. even while in public he'll avoid aligning himself with their extremist positions.

All the while, there'll be much talk of "principle" and "character" and "straight talk" and "maverick" and on and on it will go . . . it will never stop. It never does. The past isn't even past.

Posted by BryklynLibrul | March 20, 2008 11:33 AM

BryklynLibrul, I don't doubt anything you say. The question is, is that stuff really what turns elections? I know it's universally held in journalistic circles that that it is -- these are people who believe Clinton only won in '92 because Lawrence Walsh indicted Caspar Weinberger, or that Bush II was denied a landslide win because of the DUI story; or, on a bigger scale, that GHWBush beat Dukakis on Willie Horton and the Pledge of Allegiance. Many Dems have clearly bought into this idea.

I simply don't see it that way. I think Clinton won in '92 because the economy was thought crappy by most, and because the Reagan coalition had started to come apart; that the favorables of the second Clinton administration made Gore a narrow favorite, and that Bush's alleged big lead was a poll illusion; and that the huge second-term popularity of Reagan (booming economy, landmark deals with Gorbachev) made Bush a shoo-in to succeed him -- a stance I held firmly during the heady days of Dukakis' 17-point lead.

There'll always be after-the-fact rationalization for why an election turned out a certain way, but truly looking at the factors that have turned them in the past -- policy, not mere politics, as Delicious Pundit says -- can give you a pretty good idea upfront. Some elections are closer calls on this score -- '04 was one -- but this election isn't a squeaker: it's the worst set of circumstances for an incumbent party at least since 1980, and maybe 1932. To expect press love for McCain to overcome that is to assume that voting is a totally irrational activity...a premise I reject, based on the evidence of 150 years of two-party election results.

Posted by demtom | March 20, 2008 12:06 PM

"Its sectarian tensions and instability that make the continued, unpopular presence of a huge number of American boots on the ground viable." Don't you think that's been the plan all along, ever since that Chalabi thing didn't pan out?

Posted by rj | March 20, 2008 12:37 PM

One often hears the claim from the right and even (self-proclaimed) moderates that what happens in Iraq is America's responsibilty. This statement is usually made in the context of critisizing the Democratic candidates' plans to withdrawal from Iraq, because if something terrible happens, like, say, a civil war breaking out between the Sunni's we've been recently arming to the teeth and the Shiites we've been supporting in the government, then it is up to the U.S. to stop it.
But I want to know why this is our responsibility. The fact is the Iraqi people do not want us there, and since that is the case our only responsibility, it seems to me, is to respect their wishes and leave. If they are going to have a civil war, there isn't much we can do about it, and allowing ourselves to be used by both sides to obtain money and weapons isn't helping anyway.
After all, you can't barge into someone's house, take control of their stuff, and then refuse to leave despite their protests because they and their stuff are now "your responsibilty." Responsibility would have to be voluntarily deferred by the owners and accepted by the conservators, so to speak, (and it's not like a court has declared the owners incompetent and assigned a conservator, because the court and the conservator can't be the same party).

Posted by Jack | March 20, 2008 12:52 PM

But I want to know why this is our responsibility. The fact is the Iraqi people do not want us there, and since that is the case our only responsibility, it seems to me, is to respect their wishes and leave.

Paternalism and hegemony are the chocolate and the peanut butter in the Reese's of American foreign policy.

Posted by James Gary | March 20, 2008 1:04 PM

McCain doesn't seem to want to fess up to the facts about Iraq. Check out Joe Conason's column about McCain playing dumn. The link is Here.

Posted by BK | March 20, 2008 1:16 PM

McCain doesn't seem to want to fess up to the facts about Iraq. Check out Joe Conason's column about McCain playing dumn. The link is Here.

Posted by BK | March 20, 2008 1:17 PM

Broder begins his column, "These are salad days for John McCain..."

When Shakespeare first coined the phrase in "Antony and Cleopatra," it was used to refer to a period of immaturity or inexperience. Cleopatra explains her dalliance with Julius Caesar by saying that it was in

My salad days,
When I was green in judgment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salad_days

Both Broder and McCain are in their seventies. Neither should be thought to be in their salad days.

Posted by Vadranor | March 20, 2008 1:18 PM

"Is there anyone left apart from the respective campaign workers who thinks that, with all that is happening on the Democratic side, Obama or Clinton can beat McCain?"

Yeah, McCain does look like a shoe in. That is why the Republicans in the house are retiring at sort of the rate Sunnis are fleeing Baghdad. That's why the Democratic party has consistently drawn in four times the number of voters that the Republicans have in the primaries in a year when the Republicans had a freaking real contest, which is a first for the GOP since 1980. It must be the policy of embracing Bush, now in the high twenties in approval. Or perhaps it is the robust defense of tax cuts for the rich, privatizing social security and staying in Iraq for another 600 billion dollar play.

On the other hand - I think the white male contingent that supports Bush and the war, but has grumbled a bit recently, is coalescing, as they inevitably would, around McCain. They talk to each other and think, wow, everybody I know is gonna vote for McCain! Yes, those who drool and sit before Fox News are going to jump up and down and do the ape dance whenever the name Wright comes up. Otherwise, though, they look pretty much like history.

Posted by roger | March 20, 2008 1:45 PM

Matt, so true about dysfunction being necessary to sustain influence in Iraq--this is why the US and Iranians are backing the same people, the most un-nationalistic side, the people the Iranians financed and prepared, because they are the only people that need both Iranian and US support to maintain themselves in power.

Posted by Chris Dornan | March 20, 2008 3:35 PM

What is so painfully frustrating is the way those who support the war have those of us against this shameful, wasteful, disastrous intervention over a barrel:
If things get "better," we are told that we must stay to "soldify those gains so Al qaeda doesn't fill the void."
And if things stay bad, then we are told we must stay to "stablize the situation and give the Iraqi gov't breathing room."
To further obsfuscate the matter, I've even been told in discussions with those of a pro-war bent that I'M the one being selfish because I want to see our boys and girls pile in the first C-5's out of Baghdad.
To those who support this madness, I ask again: When will it be enough? When the WMD's are gone..check!...when Saddam is gone...check!...when a government is elected...check! when a new batch of terrorists is created (oops)...check! When we spend $40B...no, $100B...no $600B...check!

War is Peace. Ignorance is Wisdom. Woohooo!

Wishing a Peaceful and Blessed Easter to you all.

Posted by C. Fountain | March 20, 2008 6:18 PM

"If the majority of Iraqis disagree, they can vote for parties that share their view in their national elections next year."

Which is exactly what al-Sadr and the nationalist Iraqi groups are planning to do.

And when they win - and they are likely to since they're the only ones who are speaking to Iraqis rather than factions (even al-Sadr, who has reached out to Sunnis before even while his militia was fighting them) - the US is going to face a nationalist coalition that wants it OUT of Iraq NOW.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | March 21, 2008 6:31 PM