War: It's a Real Issue!

Via Neil Sinhababu, Rep. Tom Davis (R)'s twenty page strategy memo for Republicans observes that the Iraq War is "the ultimate cultural issue, fueling and giving oxygen to the cultural left, as well as planting doubts in many swing voters' minds about the direction of the country."

Of course it's also an actual war in which over 100,000 Americans are risking their lives, in which tens of thousands of Americans have been wounded, millions of Iraqis displaced, many people killed, hundreds of billions spent, etc., etc., etc. But maybe that goes without saying?

Comments

Many, many jobs depend on the U.S. waging war and selling weapons and hardware to others wanting to wage or dissuade war. Just how upset with war are the hundreds of thousands of people punching a time clock in these industries? I think the truth is the electorate will tolerate a few thousand deaths and several times that in injuries for their paychecks. Even those deaths and injuries create industries and product/service demands of their own. Additionally, tens of thousands of otherwise unemployable young people can enlist and have three squares, a roof over their head and either learn a transferrable blue collar skill or go to college on the U.S. dime. Contrary to what Democrats think and Republicans fear Americans love death, destruction and war. It's a twofer when it can be waged on non-caucasians who are also non-Christians. The Left would do well to keep the majority of their eggs in some other basket because for Americans blowing stuff up is just too much damned fun.

Posted by steve duncan | May 24, 2008 11:21 PM

I don't think the Chaldean Catholics of Detroit are on the 'cultural left'. They appear to be not exactly big fans of a war that has led to the destruction of their entire community and that is in the process of making Iraq a Christian-free nation for the first time in 2000 years.

Posted by Hector | May 24, 2008 11:25 PM

Notice the wording used by Davis: it reeks of a marketing memo, without regard to what Matt alludes to: that this is a real war with real costs in terms of lives and money.

It seems the Republicans are in denial of the fact that they are on the wrong side of so many issues. They cannot bring themselves to admit that the Iraq war was a mistake, or that McCain's strategy for endless involvement is a real loser.

Posted by cm | May 24, 2008 11:43 PM

I think Duncan is both right and wrong.

There is a subset of the US electorate who loves war. There is also a subset that doesn't. Which subset has the most influence on a given political campaign is the question.

I don't think many of the people working in various industries realize just how much their industry supplies to the military-industrial complex, or how big the military-industrial complex is, or how this country was, according to Chalmers Johnson, deliberately set up to have an economy based on war and imperialism.

If they did, maybe the situation would change. But we have an educational establishment and a media establishment that goes to great lengths to make sure that doesn't happen. Not to mention the political establishment itself, which relies on bribes and campaign contributions from those corporations to insure that they retain their power.

Besides which, there is basic primate behavior to be considered, namely, "I'm right and you're wrong - and I'll kill you to prove it." This applies to the US electorate as much as any other country.

Finally, aside from the families in the US who have lost relatives or had them injured in the Iraq war, out of 300 million people, who exactly in the US has been significantly affected by this war?

Practically no one. Aside from the rising gas prices and falling economy, which haven't hit critical mass yet.

Now, once the Iran war starts, and oil goes to $200-250/barrel and gas at the pump goes to $10/gallon, and the Chinese dump the US dollar, so the US economy evaporates into a severe recession or depression, THEN maybe you'll start to see some serious discontent.

Unfortunately, it will be too little, too late.

I mean, that's why FEMA has constructed all those detention camps around the US, right? And Bush has signed that regulation allowing the Feds to take control of the states National Guard in an "emergency", right? And we have all that research into "non-lethal" "crowd control" weapons, right?

Or we can have that long-expected "nuclear terrorist incident" to drum up more support if that doesn't work.

As Chancellor Sutler said, "I want EVERYONE to remember WHY THEY NEED US!"

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | May 24, 2008 11:44 PM

In Davis's defense, the Democrats also had a hard time realizing that the war was a significant electoral issue, as well, until late 2006 when Lieberman lost his primary fight. Republicans are mostly in denial... talk to the Republican relative of your choice, and he'll tell you how the 2006 elections were really close, the Democrats won by shear luck, and in any case their victory was due to out-of-control domestic spending and sex scandals by the Republicans.

Posted by Tyro | May 24, 2008 11:47 PM

Silly Matt, for both political parties, gaining and keeping political power is ultimately more important than mere issues of war and peace.

Posted by Alex Broner | May 24, 2008 11:56 PM

Re: Many, many jobs depend on the U.S. waging war and selling weapons and hardware to others wanting to wage or dissuade war.

A (relative) handful of jobs depend on the Iraq War. To be sure there are lots of Miliary-Industrial complex jobs, but these will exist war or no as long as the US maintains a huge military.

Re: Besides which, there is basic primate behavior to be considered, namely, "I'm right and you're wrong - and I'll kill you to prove it."

I really don't think it's fair to our primate cousins to blame them for our sins. Maybe change that adjective to "It's basic HUMAN behavior..."'

Re: out of 300 million people, who exactly in the US has been significantly affected by this war?

Everyone paying today's gas prices?

Posted by JonF | May 25, 2008 1:01 AM

Virginians will not miss Congressman Davis.

Posted by CrazyDrumGuy | May 25, 2008 1:08 AM

Why would a retiring congressman take the time to write a 21 page strategy memo about how to market the Republican party and then circulate it to news organizations?

Methinks we haven't heard the last of Mr. Davis.

Posted by southpaw | May 25, 2008 1:14 AM

JonF: "Everyone paying today's gas prices?"

What part of "Aside from the rising gas prices and falling economy, which haven't hit critical mass yet" didn't you read?

And, yes, our "primate cousins" are precisely to blame for our sins, since a conceptual processing brain is basically worthless controlled by the emotional centers of a chimpanzee.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | May 25, 2008 5:57 AM

Hillary Clinton's support for the Iraq war and subsequently to bomb Iran was what galvanized my love for her.

Posted by Tim K | May 25, 2008 7:42 AM

Re: What part of "Aside from the rising gas prices and falling economy, which haven't hit critical mass yet" didn't you read?

???
So you're suggesting that the public doesn't mind today's gas prices? But more to the point the public has turned decisively against the Iraq War, in fact did so quite some time ago. It's a defect in our political system that that opposition is effectless.

Re: And, yes, our "primate cousins" are precisely to blame for our sins, since a conceptual processing brain is basically worthless controlled by the emotional centers of a chimpanzee.

Animals will kill for food or fear, then they go about their peaceable business when the immediate need is past. They do not plot prolonged mass murder on a grand scale across vast distances. That takes a human mind to entertain.

Posted by JonF | May 25, 2008 8:03 AM

But more to the point the public has turned decisively against the Iraq War, in fact did so quite some time ago.

Baloney. Where, exactly are the widespread protests against the war?

Why, exactly, are be constantly being barraged with all this "Support the Troops" crap? From so-called "liberal" bloggers who want to waste college money on these characters who still - to this day - brutalize civilians, torture, and think they are on some Crusade.

When, exactly, is the Defense Budget going to be downsized permanently to a level proportionate to that spent by the rest of the world? Which means about $150 billion - and that includes things like the CIA and Homeland Security as well as DOD.

Posted by McGurk | May 25, 2008 8:42 AM

This is the same Davis who described the Roger Clemens steroid hearing as "a new definition of lynching", right?

He's a tool.

Posted by tinisoli | May 25, 2008 9:28 AM

Davis's memo identifies the culture war that will arise after the Iraq war(if there is an "after"). Both parties understood this from the outset. Indeed, it is my view that domestic politics were the primary motivation for the invasion. The Republicans cynically manipulated information to justify the invasion hoping that they could use success in the war to brand the Democrats as soft on terror, just as they had branded the Democrats as soft on communism. Only the failure of the war prevented this from occurring. The Democratic Party recognized this strategy for what it was, but could not stop the propaganda (Republican control of the White House assured a bully pulpit for warmongering). Fearful of the political extinction that would result from being branded soft on terrorism, the Democrats dutifully supported the war.

As the Davis Memo further demonstrates, failure of the Republican invasion of Iraq will not deter the Republicans from implementing their strategy of branding the Democrats as soft on terrorism and asserting that only Republicans can protect us from terrorists (I thought about leaving out all nouns in "terrorists" to capture Bush's pronunciation--"trrsts"). This essentially resurrects the Republican's revisionist history (actually an inaccurate fantasy) that the end of the Vietnam War was the product of liberal Democratic perfidity at home. Thirty more years of culture wars impugning the integrity and patriotism of any sentient human being with the integrity to oppose them.

By the way, McGurk is right, the protests against the war have not been widespread. That was part of the Republican strategy from the outset. No photos of body bags, no draft, pay for the war by borrowing so the financial costs will be absorbed by future generations. No cost to the American people equals no protests. The other lesson the right learned from the Vietnam War. People began opposing the war only when middle class kids were subject to the draft.

Notice how little of this has anything to do with the costs, or even the putative geopolitical benefits of invading Iraq?

Posted by scdrawe | May 25, 2008 9:36 AM

By the way, McGurk is right, the protests against the war have not been widespread. That was part of the Republican strategy from the outset

Thanks, but let's be clear on one point: The Republicans can strategize as much as they want. It would get them nowhere without the willing cooperation of not only the Democrats but of John Q. Public as well.

Meanwhile, note how Yglesias has posted a note about McCain vs. Webb. How marvey. Our noble vets.

Posted by McGurk | May 25, 2008 10:46 AM

Re: Baloney. Where, exactly are the widespread protests against the war?

A non sequitur. You can be opposed to something without street-theater protests. Note that the GOP was voted out of their congressional majority by a very sound margin back in 2006 largely on the public's opposition to Iraq. There seems to be a certain weird I-hate-Americans attitude (not just I hate-the-GOP) on the Left, so of course those who subscribe to that idiocy would like to portray the American people as a bunch of warmongers, but that does not hold water. The Bush administration basically snuck us into Iraq by telling people to go shopping and don't bother worrying about foreign policy because it was being taken care of intelligent folks who knew waht they were doing. We never did have a public debate about the wisdom of going into Iraq (much as was the case with Vietnam in the 60s), we basically railroaded into it wit ha mix of lies and soporfic bromides. The American people woke up to this several years, but our system of government is such that the executive has almost complete control of foreign policy and military actions, the public being fairly powerless on these matters. In a Parliamentray system Bush would have been dumped, perhaps by his own party, over two years ago. So put the blame for Iraq where it belongs: on George Bush, Dick Cheney, Tony Blair (and other foreign enablers), Don Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice, all the Neocon numbskull theorists, and that brain-dead or hypnotized minority of the people who to this day think George Bush is the Lord's anointed.

Posted by JonF | May 25, 2008 11:39 AM

And let's be clear on one point--John Q.Public will not protest unless and until he or she will be forced to pay a price--something the Republicans have assiduously avoided.

The Democrats were railroaded into lukewarm support for this war. While I would prefer a party that was principled enough to stand up to bullying from the right, they were looking at potential political oblivion. A Hobson's Choice is far less morally reprehensible than manipulating the country into war for domestic political advantage.

The public is only slowly coming around to a more judicious view of the war--too late in my estimation. However, that will not prevent the right from offering a revisionist fantasy of the tough good militaristic Americans willing to pay the price for freedom only to be undermined by weak liberals. What crap. But we get what we deserve.

Posted by scdrawe | May 25, 2008 12:03 PM

The Bush administration basically snuck us into Iraq by telling people to go shopping and don't bother worrying about foreign policy because it was being taken care of intelligent folks who knew waht they were doing.

Drivel. Nobody sincerely believes this.

But make no mistake, if perchance the American public indeed were such cretins as actually to have believed Bush's "go shopping" message, then they have been a sorry lot indeed.

Posted by McGurk | May 25, 2008 3:17 PM

Re: The Bush administration basically snuck us into Iraq by telling people to go shopping and don't bother worrying about foreign policy because it was being taken care of intelligent folks who knew waht they were doing.

Since I wasn't a child or on crack in 2002-03 I remember the run-up to the Iraq War. There was virtually no public involvement in it. Certainly nothing like a rational debate. The "go shopping" remark was a bit of a snark, but it is absolutely true that Bush took the country to war on the sly, without mobilizing the nation or preparing the people (whom he no doubt feared would reject the whole idea if given time and space to think about it). Many people, including politicians on both sides I suspect, figured it would be yet another quickie police action, in and out and over with in a few weeks and so didn't bother to pay the attention they should have to the business. A sorry state of affairs I agree, but the buck comes to rest in the Oval Office, where else?

Posted by JonF | May 25, 2008 4:38 PM

A sorry state of affairs I agree, but the buck comes to rest in the Oval Office, where else?

Obviously Bush is a war criminal, but that does not excuse the American public.

I repeat, where are the antiwar protests. And when is this "Support the Troops" malarkey come to an end and the "troops" start getting treated like the war criminals that they, also, are?

Posted by McGurk | May 25, 2008 5:42 PM

Re: Davis's memo identifies the culture war that will arise after the Iraq war(if there is an "after"). Both parties understood this from the outset. Indeed, it is my view that domestic politics were the primary motivation for the invasion.

If so, then the GOP made a huge strategic blunder. Every major war in which the US has participated has led to serious and generally uncontrollable and unpredictable upheavals in domestic politics and often enough in the larger culture as well. Two major political parties (the Federalists and the Whigs) collapsed as a result of a war or its aftermath. This is true, by the way, whether the war was successful or not.

Re: . That was part of the Republican strategy from the outset. No photos of body bags, no draft, pay for the war by borrowing so the financial costs will be absorbed by future generations.

Pretty much my point too: the GOP tried to do this war quietly so as not to involve the American people in it too deeply.

Re: It would get them nowhere without the willing cooperation of not only the Democrats but of John Q. Public as well.

Cooperation or toleration? The Democrats (for the most part) held their fire because they expected (or perhaps better: feared) that they would suffer in the aftermath of a seccessful war if they opposed it too strenuously, the example in their minds being the Gulf War, which example also allowed them to hope that even a successful war would not give the GOP much political capital if they didn't make it a political flashpoint. As for the public, apart from the tub-thumping rightwingers, and the much smaller shrieking anti-war Left, we were not consulted or involved. Note that the election of 2002 involved lots and lots of "soft on terrorism" rhetoric but no "soft on Iraq" rhetoric. The campaign ju-jitsu that year (masterfully executed) was to tar the Democrats with bin Laden, but not to raise a peep about the looming war with Iraq. And of course once a war gets going it has a momentum of its own that can not be slowed easily, let alone stopped with a mere bark of command. Remember Vietnam went on for seven years after the public turned decisively against it complete with protests and upheaval. This is a highlight on a dangerous defect of our governmental system: the warmaking power of the executive is far too independent of any checks and balances.

Re: I repeat, where are the antiwar protests.

Why do you obsess over that? There is no identity of the sort "opposition to war = protest march". This isn't the 60s. Most political activism happens online now, not in the streets. (And there have been some protests you know). And even the Vietnam protests were quite impotent in their day. It wasn't until the great mass of middle-class and often midle-aged people, people who would never carry a sign in a protest march, turned against the war, and the White House had changed hands, that the war began to wind down. And even then (as I mention above), it took years to end our involvement in Indochina.

Re: And when is this "Support the Troops" malarkey come to an end and the "troops" start getting treated like the war criminals that they, also, are?

The troops (by and large) are not war criminals. Where there are specific cases where specific individuals have committed atrocities by all means charges should be brought and action taken under US law. Or possibly under Iraqi law as the acts were committed there.

Posted by JonF | May 25, 2008 6:37 PM

JonF: "So you're suggesting that the public doesn't mind today's gas prices?"

Where did I say that? Go reread it AGAIN. What I said was that any opposition over gas prices hasn't materialized because those prices haven't reached "critical mass" where the average person can't drive hardly at all. That's coming.

"They do not plot prolonged mass murder on a grand scale across vast distances. That takes a human mind to entertain."

Only because humans have the conceptual processing ability to do that. Otherwise, humans have exactly the same territorial and competitive reactions to other species and members of their own species that most animals, especially primates, have. They also have the exact same hierarchical behavior, which is why we have politics at all.

What humans have is the ability to conceptualize. Tie that to massive amounts of FEAR and you have a real problem. Ninety nine percent of human behavior is based on fear. Ninety nine percent of human philosophy, religion, social and personal behavior is based on fear.

Read Alan Harrington's "The Immortalist". He laid it out in detail. The fear of death IS the "root of all evil." And that humans can conceptualize their own deaths - animals probably can't except when directly confronted with threats - is why humans react as badly as they do to fear.

It's even been theorized that the neurological source of religion is an evolutionary necessity to avoid humans going insane by being aware of their own deaths.

There are only reactions to the threat of death in the animal kingdom: flight or fight. In humans, it's mostly flight. And by that, I mean that humans construct elaborate mental constructs to avoid acknowledging that they die or what needs to be done to avoid dying and that their aggression and fear of the other members of their species is based entirely on that fear.

All human social and cultural organization, all religion, all philosophy, and all of the state are all mechanisms to avoid dealing with the bottom line: physical death.

An appropriate fight response is either improving yourself or trying to understand the universe so that there is no need to treat it as a zero-sum game. Very few humans comparatively are committed to either of those approaches.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | May 25, 2008 6:48 PM

JonF: "The troops, by and large, are not war criminals."

That's debatable. When you invade a country illegally, whether on orders or not, you are part of a criminal enterprise. In the US military, you are required to disobey illegal orders.

That means the entire Pentagon crew are war criminals. They were required to disobey the President's order to invade Iraq. They didn't.

It's that simple.

Worse, quite a few of them know goddamn well what many others of them are doing - shooting civilians for no reason other than just to raise the body count. Dropping bombs on civilian neighborhoods. Incarcerating scores of thousands of civilians with no charges - and torturing them. Occupying a country the population of which despises them.

And they aren't disobeying the orders about Iran now, either, although some clearly are pushing back against the idea. And many of the retired officers are criticizing both the Iraq war and the upcoming Iran war.

The United States government at this time is a criminal enterprise. Anybody in the US electorate who can't see that is "aiding and abetting."

I got nine years in the Federal joint for doing one hell of a lot less than Bush has done. $14,000 and nobody got hurt (except me) vs. three trillion dollars, a million dead Iraqis, 4,000 dead US troops, another 20,000 or so crippled, a third of the one million troops over there have PTSD, and Bush isn't done YET.

And one third of this country AT LEAST STILL support him.

Do you begin to have a clue why I wanted to be a terrorist and crash this country? The ONLY way this country is going to be set right is if somebody burns it down and starts over. That is a law of history.

Of course, history also shows that such a country invariably does the same thing all over again - which is why I'm not bothering to be a terrorist any more. I've got bigger fish to fry.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | May 25, 2008 7:00 PM

Re: Re: Davis's memo identifies the culture war that will arise after the Iraq war(if there is an "after"). Both parties understood this from the outset. Indeed, it is my view that domestic politics were the primary motivation for the invasion.

If so, then the GOP made a huge strategic blunder. Every major war in which the US has participated has led to serious and generally uncontrollable and unpredictable upheavals in domestic politics and often enough in the larger culture as well. Two major political parties (the Federalists and the Whigs) collapsed as a result of a war or its aftermath. This is true, by the way, whether the war was successful or not.

Response: You may be correct. This war has unleashed a torrent of unintended consequences. You take a broader view of history than the Republican strategists. (I.e., Federalists and Whigs. However, the Whigs did not start the Mexican War, and in the short run benefited from it--the first post-war President was a Whig and a poor VP choice--Zach Taylor died, replaced by erstwhile Democrat John Tyler, rather than the War was more significant in the evolution of the Whigs into the Republicans.) The Republicans learned two lessons from Vietnam. First, Americans are pro-war, but only if they can bask in the glory without paying the price. So no draft or tax increases. Second, even a failed war can be politically successful if you can blame the failure on traitors within. That these are not the correct lessons of Vietnam (if there are any such correct lessons), explains their failure. But you can expect a repeat of this tactic--the Democrat who ends the war will be branded an appeasor, and perhaps even a traitor.

Posted by scdrawe | May 25, 2008 7:16 PM

Re: Only because humans have the conceptual processing ability to do that.

Right. That's why warfare is a human reaction. And this is not just a matter of technological capacity: animals, even intelligent ones, lack the space and time awareness that we humans do. For animals their here-and-now is all that's real. They are capable of great brutality when confronted with an immediate threat or need, but once the threat is gone they do not plot revenge. And yes, our emotions go back a long, long ways in our evolutionary past (a lot further back than the primates, even further back than mammals), but its our ability to entertain realities beyond our immediate circumstances that make us so dangerous. No animal can feel an abiding hate. That takes homo sapiens.

Re: What I said was that any opposition over gas prices hasn't materialized because those prices haven't reached "critical mass" where the average person can't drive hardly at all. That's coming.

No it isn't. Sorry to burst your bubble. There is no potential future that holds that in the near-term horizon.

Re: The United States government at this time is a criminal enterprise

LOL. All governments are criminal enterprises. They indulge in behaviors that would put any individual in the dock. See: "Monopoly on violence"-- a hallmark of a successful government! But alas, no one has found a way to live without government, so we are doomed to put up with such evils.

Re: Do you begin to have a clue why I wanted to be a terrorist and crash this country?

Now who's engaging in "emotional primate behavior"? Why not seek a more congenial reality Elsewhere? You speak about some sort of "transhuman future". Why would a transhuman give any more of a damn about these things than we humans care about turmoil in an anthill?

Re: The ONLY way this country is going to be set right is if somebody burns it down and starts over. That is a law of history.

The lesson of history in that regard is that what follows such a Ragnarok is always worse. Quiet and careful (and, alas, partial) reform yields better results, for those who are patient. Again, if your transhumans are beyond humans, what's wrong with taking a POV that extends over generations or centuries, rather than demanding everything all at once?

Posted by JonF | May 25, 2008 10:38 PM

Re: You may be correct. This war has unleashed a torrent of unintended consequences. You take a broader view of history than the Republican strategists.

Here's the history I am basing this on.
Gulf War--> George W Bush is defeated in 1992 and the Clinton 90s (very unexpectedly) dawn. Not a huge change, I'll agree, but then the Gulf War was the smallest and briefest of the major wars I am considering.
Vietnam--> um, need any discuss this one?
WWII + Korea (considered together due to their proximity)--> Civil rights revolution and the rise of Feminism 2.0
WWI--> The Roaring 20s
Spanish-American War--> The Progressive Era is ushered in (again, quite counter to the expectations of the GOP manipulators of that day).
Civil War--> Reconstruction
Mexican War--> Crisis over slavery and the collapse of the Union
War of 1812--> Collapse of the Federalists, Era of Good Feeling
The Revolution--> Self-explanatory

Re: Second, even a failed war can be politically successful if you can blame the failure on traitors within.

The GOP could benefit from Vietnam for the simple reason that a Democrat started (or at least hugely escalated) it. And a Republican ended it. Nixon tapped into anti-war sentiment with his "Secret plan" to end the war, while throwing the "Peace with honor" bone to the pro-war types. That sort of virtuosity is not possible for them with a GOP-branded war. Though a shrewd Democrat could possibly attempt it. By the way, the only place I have encountered the "Stab in the back" Vietnam theory is in the rightwing echo chamber where dwell people who would not vote for a Democrat if Jesus Christ himself advised it. I don't remember this being a public theme at all in the 80s and 90s, and Reagan stirred up a small storm of incredulity and criticism when he once quipped that Vietnam was an honorable cause. To the extent that the Democrats suffered long-term damage on foreign policy it was mainly due to Carter and the Iran/Afghanistan fiascos. The GOP was lucky there; Carter was mainly a victim of events outside anyone's control and I sometimes wonder how history would have played out had Gerald Ford presided instead over the debacles of the late 70s. Coming on the heels of Watergate I rather think we would have seen the fortunes of the GOP crater in the 80s and Ted Kennedy serve two terms in the White House.

Posted by JonF | May 25, 2008 10:44 PM

JonF: "Why would a transhuman give any more of a damn about these things than we humans care about turmoil in an anthill?"

Well, from the long view, I don't. Which is why I'm not bothering to be a terrorist now, as I said.

That said, I still see no reason why I shouldn't point out the correct view. It might lead to the development of Transhuman allies.

"Again, if your transhumans are beyond humans, what's wrong with taking a POV that extends over generations or centuries, rather than demanding everything all at once?"

Because it's not going to take centuries. Transhumans will replace humans in THIS century - by the end of it at the outside. So I expect to live to see it - perhaps even to take part in it - if I can take advantage of the life extension technology developed over the next twenty years.

"There is no potential future that holds that in the near-term horizon."

So you think gas prices are not going to reach $5-10/gallon or more? Why? You don't think Bush will start the Iran war? Or that Iran won't manage to freeze oil shipments in the Gulf? Why? (I know they've said they probably won't even try, but that will fall by the wayside pretty quickly once the war starts - not to mention that ship captains aren't going to take their tankers through a mine-infested Gulf when Iran does take on the US Navy there.)

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | May 26, 2008 12:34 AM

Re: So you think gas prices are not going to reach $5-10/gallon or more?

$5 is a possibility, but gas will fall to at or under $3 by fall (to some extent this depends on what happens with the dollar). The current bubble is unsustainable.

Re: Why? You don't think Bush will start the Iran war?

Nope. He's had every opportunity to do so (and some in his admnistration like Cheney have no doubt urged him to), but he does seem to realize that it would be a bad idea. That, or the military has dug in its heels and informed him that the US does not have the resources for yet another war. Or the GOP powers-that-be have explained to him that an Iran war would be an election-loser.

Posted by JonF | May 26, 2008 7:18 AM

From the Davis memo:

"Even with Medicare, Part D, the Democrats won the sound bite by making it look like we cut a sweetheart deal with the drug companies.... Even Waxman's investigation showed the program works, so he dropped it like a hot potato."

As far as I can determine, Davis is lying. A report by Waxman's committee, saying that the give away to the drug and insurance companies amounted to almost $15 billion in 2007, can be found at http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20071015093754.pdf.

Posted by Kenneth Almquist | May 26, 2008 5:43 PM