Wa****ngton Post columnist Richard Cohen treats us to some inadvertent
comedy
today, arguing that--get ready for this--a Republican could win the White
House in 2008! Of course, given that the election is still 497 days away,
and
that neither party has yet chosen a nominee, we certainly hope the outcome
hasn't already been determined.
In warning Democrats against overconfidence, Cohen uncorks a vintage
whine, to
wit: "The GOP is adept at painting Democrats as soft on national security.
It
is equally adept at saying so in the most scurrilous way." He cites two
examples. For one, he reaches back all the way to 1972, when President
Nixon
characterized George McGovern "as something of a sissy." Nixon did this by
focusing on "the way the Democrats would handle the war" in Vietnam rather
than on McGovern's record as a war hero three decades earlier.
But of course Cohen is really bitter about 2004:
The Bush-Cheney ticket consisted of two Vietnam slackers.
George W. Bush had served in the Air National Guard, and
Dick Cheney had obtained five draft deferments. Their
opponent was the much-decorated John Kerry--Silver Star,
Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts. Yet during the campaign,
the Republican ticket and its allies in the Swift boat
veterans movement managed to paint Kerry as a quivering
liar. The character attack was so bold, so outrageous, that
it of course worked.
Of course, Kerry might have done better if he'd had something to run on
other
than his dubious war-hero claims, and also if he'd pre-emptively
apologized to
veterans for his 1971 calumnies against them. And it's not as if Democrats
haven't beaten war heroes with Vietnam slackers before. Does anyone
remember
1992 or 1996? Besides, as Reuters notes, all of the current Democratic
presidential candidates are Vietnam slackers. (So are the Republicans,
except
John McCain.) "Voters aren't likely to care very much, experts say,"
Reuters
re****ts.
What voters will care about, one hopes, is actual war policy, and Cohen
despairs:
Antiwar Democrats in key primary and caucus states,
particularly New Hamp****re and Iowa, will not vote for
a lukewarm antiwar candidate. This explains why [Hillary]
Clinton recently reversed herself and voted to end funding
for the war...
As if to suggest what an issue this will become, Rudolph
Giuliani called [Mrs.] Clinton and [Barack] Obama's vote
a "significant flip-flop." Since then the Republicans have
mostly trained their fire on each other. You can bet, though,
that if either candidate gets the nomination, this vote will
be hung around Clinton or Obama's neck, and the hoariest of
cliches will be trotted out: weak on defense. It will have
added resonance for Clinton because she is a woman.
The real reason it'll have resonance, though, is because it is true.
--
"You know, education--if you make the most of it, you study hard, you
do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you can do
well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq." JFKerry
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