The Best Defense: How the GOP Should Fight Back
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In light of recent events and media portrayals, it seems that a veritable “perfect storm” has struck the Republican Party. The GOP seemingly took a beating in the recent off-year elections, Democrats continue to insist that President Bush lied to Americans about Iraq, and the Republican Congress seems to have lost its nerve. However, all of these problems can be fixed, and before the 2006 elections at that. What it will take is a GOP willing to regain the offensive in order to reinvigorate itself and its base.
On November 8, it seemed that the GOP had taken a mighty blow when it lost the governorships of Virginia and New Jersey, and the California special election was a bust. However, there is more than meets the eye here. In Virginia, the problem was not President Bush’s last minute visit, nor was the election a de facto referendum on the War in Iraq or the state of the domestic economy. Rather, this was a local race focusing on local issues. The reason that former Virginia Attorney General Jerry Kilgore lost was because of mistakes that he himself made, rather than because of any discontent with the Bush administration. Kilgore handled the debates poorly, chose the wrong issues to berate his popular opponent on, and fumbled in nearly every conceivable way, causing his strong early lead to evaporate into a 52%- 46% defeat. Despite this defeat, the Republicans won the Lieutenant Governor’s seat, as well as the Attorney General’s.
In New Jersey, it appeared for a moment that West Windsor Mayor Doug Forrester had a chance to win the governorship, but he lost to Senator Jon Corzine by a margin of 53%- 44%. However, this should not be considered a blow to the GOP. There never really was much of a chance for a Republican to win the governorship of this deep blue state. This situation has happened before. In 2003, pundits thought that the public was fed up with Bush as the Democrats won the governors races in these two states. Yet, we all know how the 2004 election played out.
In California too, the GOP was hit hard, as all of Schwarzenegger’s reforms, as well as prop. 73, were defeated. The culprit here, however, is not national discontent, but rabid spending by unions to resist any meaningful reform in California. The California Teacher Association, for example, spent so much that it had to take out a mortgage on its headquarters. What is a defeat for the governor may be a pyrrhic victory for the unions, who spent far more than they should have, possibly leaving themselves broke and thus vulnerable in future elections.
The point is that these election defeats hardly spell the end of Republican control of government. The more we act like it, however, the more demoralizing it becomes. The Republican Party, then, must be able to move on and reassert itself in order to retake the advantage.
When the administration embarked on the War in Iraq, the left and the media embarked on a war on the administration. Their hostility has gone past the point of “loyal opposition.” We now hear nothing but Democrats calling Bush a liar, claiming that he fabricated evidence and pressured analysts. There are myriad problems with this assertion. First, Bush and many members of the Senate, including members of the Senate intelligence committee, saw the same intelligence and reached the same conclusion regarding Saddam’s WMD’s. Second, Bush and others in the administration have been cleared of any wrongdoing when it comes to intelligence. Third, WMD’s were not the only impetus for war.
To say that Bush was the puppet master and the U.S. Senate was the marionette is to assert a lie of epic proportions. Hillary Clinton said at the time of the vote, “If left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capability to wage biological and chemical warfare and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter the political and security landscape of the Middle East, which as we know all too well, affects American security. This much is undisputed.” Others prominent Democrats have said similar things, most of who reached the ultimate conclusion that war with Iraq was absolutely necessary.
Today, Democrats moan uncontrollably that Bush lied to them and manufactured evidence. However, this too is a fallacy. In March of this year, the Robb-Silberman Commission said as much. This commission, headed by former Senator and Governor Charles Robb (D-VA) and senior federal appellate court judge Laurence Silberman, and including other notables from John McCain to NSA director Bill Studeman, was created to analyze what happened with the pre-war intelligence. The commission faulted a massive failure of the intelligence community and unanimously agreed that after “querying in detail those analysts involved in formulating pre-war judgments about Iraq’s WMD programs…these analysts universally assert that in no instance did political pressure cause them to change any of their analytical judgments.” They furthermore stated that the commission “did not find any evidence that Administration officials attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change their judgments related to Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction capabilities.” The Butler Commission in Britain reached the same conclusion.
Then where did the problem really lie? The Robb-Silberman Commission found that CIA Director George Tenets’ National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) made vast miscalculations. Tenet, by the way, served as a top aide to Senator Pat Leahy (D-VT) and to former Senator and Intelligence Committee Chairman David Boren (D-OK). He was then nominated by Clinton for the National Security Council, then to Deputy Director of the CIA, and finally to the role of Director of the CIA.
Additionally, Bush stated years ago that WMD’s were only one problem with Iraq. It is not disputed that Saddam was a vicious ideologue responsible for the murders of thousands of his countrymen, and that a peaceful Iraq was a keystone in forming a peaceful and more democratic Middle East. We seemingly hear nothing about these arguments from the Democrats or the media, and every time progress is made, we only hear endless pessimism about how civil war in Iraq is inevitable, or each day’s update on the death toll.
If Bush has such a strong argument in defense of the war, why doesn’t the public know about it? The real problem is that a vacuum has virtually developed. The Republicans’ arguments are being drowned out by the left’s shouting tactics. Their strategy is to follow Lenin’s stratagem that “A lie told often enough becomes the truth.” So what is the solution? Bush needs to appear strong and resolute about his position and continue to get his message out. Acting passive and letting the hits come undefended is not a winning strategy. Bush has always been lauded as an excellent communicator to the people, and this is a skill he should utilize now. His Veterans’ Day speech was a superb first step. He exactly framed the issue surrounding pre-war intelligence by stating “I also recognize that some of our fellow citizens and elected officials didn’t support the liberation of Iraq. And that is their right, and I respect it. As President and Commander-in-Chief, I accept the responsibilities, and the criticisms, and the consequences that come with such a solemn decision. While it’s perfectly legitimate to criticize my decision or the conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began.”
This is exactly where we need to start. The administration must regain an active role in defending its policies across the board, rather than acting apologetically about conservatism. The nomination of and upcoming hearings on Samuel Alito will certainly get the GOP base back into the ring to fight for the future of the court. Additionally, Republicans in Congress need to find a way to rein in moderates who have recently been a thorn in the side. Getting these moderates to agree to cut spending, keep tax cuts, and create strong immigration laws (all things they have obstructed of late) will help this Congress create reforms and thus show its strength. Moreover, the moderates have forced Republicans into inaction. This then blurs the lines between Republicans and Democrats, making it more likely for voters to change their minds about who can best run the country. If the GOP can find a way to implement such an approach of Presidential and Congressional counter-attack and reinvent itself on a range of core issues, recent defeats will be but a distant memory by the time of the 2006 elections.
