I have been pointing out the rather obvious fact that many Democrats have acquired a taste for news of defeat in Iraq. This is not, of course, because they have any sympathy for the insurgents, or because of any antipathy toward America or its armed forces. It is, rather, that they are willing to pay any price and bear any burden to see George W. humiliated. The same goes for making sure that a Republican does not succeed him next year.
It is rather a shock to discover Kurt Anderson making the same points in New York magazine.
For these next eleven months, in other words, I will become crypto-quasi-Jewish—that is, involuntarily asking as I scan each day’s headlines not Is it good for the Jews? but rather Is it bad for the Republicans?
And he gives us lots of good examples. When even the New York Times had to acknowledge that violence was declining dramatically in Iraq in the wake of Bush's surge policy, and that U.S. troops were already being pulled out, Anderson has mixed feelings.
All excellent news! And also worrisome news for those of us who don’t want another Republican elected president in 2008. The sudden pacification of Iraq is an October Surprise a year early.
But the longing for dismay is not limited to Iraq.
There was the other big piece of profoundly good news on the Times’ front page: “Scientists Bypass Need for Embryo to Get Stem Cells... If the technique proves safe and reliable, the Christian right’s opposition to embryonic-stem-cell research will be moot. Awesome. Except, of course, it will also eliminate one powerful reason for independents and progressive Republicans to vote Democratic.
Whereas Conservatives have been skeptical that signs of progress at the Annapolis peace talks are genuine, Anderson admits that Democrats are afraid they may be genuine.
In the unlikely event that the jump-started peace process actually does produce a treaty a year from now, with credit going to this administration for making it happen, won’t we and even the Kos mob welcome it as a miraculous world-historical achievement? It’s arguable that such an outcome, if it were to affect the 2008 election, would help Democrats—by reducing the general geopolitical fear factor and reminding Americans that diplomacy can actually work. But even then … some celebrations of the news would be grudging. There are still those on the left, after all, whose pleasure over the end of the Cold War is tainted by the fact that Ronald Reagan helped make it happen.
So what is left for the left to hope for? A recession.
Last week, former Treasury secretary Larry Summers rocked his world with a Financial Times piece in which he wrote that “the odds now favor a U.S. recession,” and the New York Times’ front-page lead on Thursday warned of “intensifying worries that the economy may be headed for recession.” Total bummer, right? Yes … um … unless you’d prefer that a Democrat be elected president next year.
In itself this does not constitute an argument against voting Democrat. A reasonable person votes based on what he or she expects a candidate to do, not on what the candidate hopes for. But it is rather irresponsible of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to deny that the surge is working. If violence is coming down and troops are slowly being withdrawn, it pulls the rug clean out from under the Democratic policy preference.
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