Eleanor Clift is at her most head-shakingly obtuse in a column on MSNBC.com, via Real Clear Politics. Curiously entitled "Hand-to-Hand Combat," the column is designed to advise Democrats on what should be their strategy to win the mid term elections. Her first piece of advice is to avoid the suggestion in the title.
Sept. 8, 2006 - Let the talking heads and the lawyers debate the new U.S. Army field-manual rules about interrogation. Democrats should play rope-a-dope, absorb the blows and put the spotlight on President Bush’s empty rhetoric about winning the war against terrorism.
I'm curious, Ms. Clift. Is it your position that we not win the war against terrorism, or is this just poorly phrased? In addition, far be it from me to advise Democrats, but practically the entire Clinton administration has gone ballistic because an ABC miniseries allegedly makes them look weak and feckless in the struggle against terrorists. Don't you think failing to address national security during a campaign could be seen as "weak" against terrorism?
Democrats have no power. It’s not up to them to draft the exit strategy.
No, you're right, it's not up to them to do that. Scurrying around desperately in search of an "exit strategy" and not talking about winning, even if you define it differently, tells us enough. But don't fret, Ms. Clift, you're not the only directionless pessimist out there on the left.
Republicans are trying to “seduce Democrats into a debate about the future as opposed to a judgment on the past,” says Thomas Mann, a congressional scholar at the Brookings Institution. Democrats should keep from “getting snookered” into offering a detailed plan of their own. “There’s no good alternative in Iraq,” he says.
It's best not to offer any more plans when the leader of your movement, Congressman Murtha, was giggled back into silence after suggesting that troops be relocated from Iraq to Okinawa. I mean, how could you top that?
Strangely, the column then drifts into a consideration of the Republican presidential nominee for 2008 in a section that's nearly as long. Don't worry, that section doesn't advise confronting Republican ideas on national security intellectually either. Let's pull out just one more segment relative to the initial premise. Ms. Clift quotes a Republican pollster, Bill MacInturff.
But if they’re going to win back at least one house of Congress in November, they need to raise the comfort level among the American people with their party. Republican pollster Bill McInturff says it doesn’t take long in focus groups to get people talking about whether Democrats are resolved and tough enough.
By dodging the questions and refusing to take principled stands, by playing "rope-a-dope" on the tough questions on national security, Democrats demonstrate the lack of courage and resolve that makes folks wonder.
