qrayjack
08-26-2006, 09:31 AM
Will We Choose to Win in Iraq? The war is frustrating. That doesn't mean we ought to get out. - William J. Stuntz, Weekly Standard
Thirty-eight years ago, American politics was rocked by another politically controversial war. Then, as now, liberal Democrats competed for the allegiance of an increasingly powerful antiwar left. Then, as now, that constituency flexed its muscles in a key Democratic primary that seemed to turn American politics upside down: In March 1968, Eugene McCarthy almost defeated President Lyndon Johnson in New Hampshire; earlier this month, Ned Lamont triumphed over Senator Joe Lieberman in Connecticut.
And there may be one more parallel. According to Michael Barone, the gold standard in political commentary, many of the voters who pulled the lever for McCarthy were dissatisfied with Johnson's conduct of the Vietnam war not because they believed the war was wrong or wasteful, but because they believed America was losing it. As Barone puts it in Our Country, voters dissatisfied with Vietnam wanted to "win or get out."
In Lamont's speeches, as in the antiwar rants on Daily Kos, the first half of that phrase is missing. The pattern extends beyond the angry left. George F. Will and William F. Buckley Jr. have both written columns basically endorsing the current John F. Kerry view of the Iraq war: that it isn't worth fighting. Across the ideological spectrum, one hears and reads arguments for pulling back or pulling out. Instead of "win or get out," the critics' standard line is simply: Get out.
MORE (http://www.weeklystandard.c om/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/615hksxa.asp)
Thirty-eight years ago, American politics was rocked by another politically controversial war. Then, as now, liberal Democrats competed for the allegiance of an increasingly powerful antiwar left. Then, as now, that constituency flexed its muscles in a key Democratic primary that seemed to turn American politics upside down: In March 1968, Eugene McCarthy almost defeated President Lyndon Johnson in New Hampshire; earlier this month, Ned Lamont triumphed over Senator Joe Lieberman in Connecticut.
And there may be one more parallel. According to Michael Barone, the gold standard in political commentary, many of the voters who pulled the lever for McCarthy were dissatisfied with Johnson's conduct of the Vietnam war not because they believed the war was wrong or wasteful, but because they believed America was losing it. As Barone puts it in Our Country, voters dissatisfied with Vietnam wanted to "win or get out."
In Lamont's speeches, as in the antiwar rants on Daily Kos, the first half of that phrase is missing. The pattern extends beyond the angry left. George F. Will and William F. Buckley Jr. have both written columns basically endorsing the current John F. Kerry view of the Iraq war: that it isn't worth fighting. Across the ideological spectrum, one hears and reads arguments for pulling back or pulling out. Instead of "win or get out," the critics' standard line is simply: Get out.
MORE (http://www.weeklystandard.c om/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/615hksxa.asp)