thedrifter
04-03-08, 08:36 AM
Hearts and Minds, Again
April 3, 2008
Is it uncharitable to suggest that when the fighting erupted in Basra last week between Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army and the U.S.-trained Iraqi army, some opponents of the war hoped it would become George Bush's Tet Offensive? That is, a battle whose military details are largely irrelevant, but whose sudden violence "proves" to voters that a U.S. military commitment is unwinnable and should be abandoned?
It was hard not to miss the antiwar spin coming off reports of the fighting, after a year of unmistakable gains from the Petraeus surge strategy.
An Obama foreign policy adviser, Denis McDonough, said it "does raise a handful of concerns as it relates to the surge and, more importantly, about the prospect of political reconciliation." The New York Times noted that Hillary Clinton, campaigning in Pennsylvania, said the Bush commitment to keeping up troop levels in Iraq is a "clear admission that the surge has failed to accomplish its goals."
The Democrats appear so invested in a failure that a half-week of violence erases a year of progress. What is the source of such instincts?
Walter Cronkite's Feb 17, 1968 broadcast about the Viet Cong's Tet Offensive concluded with words that remain famous even now: "[I]t is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could." Attend an Obama or Hillary rally and the message in those 40-year-old words echoes loudly, and are cheered again.
Democrats have a love-forget relationship with the politics of the Vietnam years. The current tranche of congressional leaders is proud of its youthful opposition to John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. It is generally agreed, though, that the antiwar legacy damaged Democratic credibility with voters in presidential elections. After the Carter interregnum, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush trumped their opponents on national security.
Most of the time, the national Democratic party is at pains to avoid the label "San Francisco Democrats" that was coined by Jeane Kirkpatrick in her devastating "Blame America, First" speech to the 1984 GOP convention. Bill Clinton's famous 1996 triangulation strategy was designed in part to avoid this national-security virus, which is thought to sit dormant in the brains of blue-collar Reagan Democrats, always alert for an excuse to bolt right. John McCain will offer himself as that excuse. On the handling of Iraq alone, Gallup recently gave Mr. McCain a 14-point lead over either opponent.
The Democratic left never apologized for its antiwar politics. It abhorred Clintonian centrism. The newest generation of "progressives," unabashedly descended from the San Francisco Democrats, wants the party rooted in the worldview and attitudes that came to prominence during Vietnam.
One can rediscover that worldview by watching the Academy Award winning 1974 documentary about Vietnam, "Hearts & Minds." This film, by director Peter Davis and producer Bert Schneider, stands as a useful, explicit demarcation for an American political culture that broke in half during the 1960s and '70s.
Toward the film's end, Daniel Ellsberg, of Pentagon Papers fame, casts off the preceding generation when he tells the camera that Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon all "lied." He adds: "We weren't on the wrong side" in Vietnam. "We are the wrong side." By this, the movie makes clear, is meant in part that America had become dangerously enamored with a culture rooted in martial values. The problem isn't the military, which is inevitable. The problem is militarism.
"Hearts & Minds" makes associations between the war and a gung-ho high-school football team in Niles, Ohio; uniformed marching bands; young boys (Scouts) in formation in parades, and displays of tiny flag-waving. The father of an aviator killed in Vietnam is allowed to speak at length in admiration of his son's heroism in war and of military values generally. The viewer is clearly expected to be galvanized by this scene into a new truth: This father is sad, foolish and wrong.
With the constant talk from Sens. Clinton and Obama about how Iraq has "failed," one must ask, Why at this point, with Iraq's post-Saddam government forming, would one want to ask the American people to ratify, with a vote, that a commitment by their men under arms had failed? This means the military too has failed, not just George Bush. Rather than leaping on "failure," as with Basra, why can't one of these candidates or party leaders find examples of nobility, accomplishment or martial courage in what the troops have done in Iraq?
Because the martial ethos rubs this generation of the party the wrong way. Not all, but many. They don't much like it and won't say what they don't believe. Nancy Pelosi has just announced that party strategy for the Iraq supplemental bill this year will be to argue that Iraq is diverting "desperately needed" money from spending on children, infrastructure and health care "for millions." Last week, 42 House Democrats said they would run for reelection on an Iraq withdrawal that leaves "no residual U.S. troops" there "beyond the minimum needed for standard embassy protection." Presumably that includes helicopters on the roof.
The battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama over her vote "for" the Iraq war lies at the center of this. Hillary may have seen "Hearts & Minds" 10 times, but she knows cold the percentage of voters in her working-class, deer-hunting voter base who won't buy into its politics.
Barack Obama, one guesses, has not seen "Hearts & Minds." No need. His Democratic class absorbed its political grammar on this subject like a first language. This is why Democratic officials aren't blinking at throwing a party trooper like Hillary off the train. While Obama in his March 19 Fayetteville, N.C., speech made bows to our "brilliant" troops and said his beef is over "strategy," I think the issue is warfighting, period.
John McCain? Hard to say if he's seen "Hearts & Minds." If not, he should. Yes, the economy may be the top voting issue this fall. An historic line, however, runs from South Vietnam to Baghdad. The debate about that heritage will define for a generation the elements of American power that lie behind this country's commitments. Let's get to it.
Write to henninger@wsj.com
Ellie
April 3, 2008
Is it uncharitable to suggest that when the fighting erupted in Basra last week between Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army and the U.S.-trained Iraqi army, some opponents of the war hoped it would become George Bush's Tet Offensive? That is, a battle whose military details are largely irrelevant, but whose sudden violence "proves" to voters that a U.S. military commitment is unwinnable and should be abandoned?
It was hard not to miss the antiwar spin coming off reports of the fighting, after a year of unmistakable gains from the Petraeus surge strategy.
An Obama foreign policy adviser, Denis McDonough, said it "does raise a handful of concerns as it relates to the surge and, more importantly, about the prospect of political reconciliation." The New York Times noted that Hillary Clinton, campaigning in Pennsylvania, said the Bush commitment to keeping up troop levels in Iraq is a "clear admission that the surge has failed to accomplish its goals."
The Democrats appear so invested in a failure that a half-week of violence erases a year of progress. What is the source of such instincts?
Walter Cronkite's Feb 17, 1968 broadcast about the Viet Cong's Tet Offensive concluded with words that remain famous even now: "[I]t is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could." Attend an Obama or Hillary rally and the message in those 40-year-old words echoes loudly, and are cheered again.
Democrats have a love-forget relationship with the politics of the Vietnam years. The current tranche of congressional leaders is proud of its youthful opposition to John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. It is generally agreed, though, that the antiwar legacy damaged Democratic credibility with voters in presidential elections. After the Carter interregnum, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush trumped their opponents on national security.
Most of the time, the national Democratic party is at pains to avoid the label "San Francisco Democrats" that was coined by Jeane Kirkpatrick in her devastating "Blame America, First" speech to the 1984 GOP convention. Bill Clinton's famous 1996 triangulation strategy was designed in part to avoid this national-security virus, which is thought to sit dormant in the brains of blue-collar Reagan Democrats, always alert for an excuse to bolt right. John McCain will offer himself as that excuse. On the handling of Iraq alone, Gallup recently gave Mr. McCain a 14-point lead over either opponent.
The Democratic left never apologized for its antiwar politics. It abhorred Clintonian centrism. The newest generation of "progressives," unabashedly descended from the San Francisco Democrats, wants the party rooted in the worldview and attitudes that came to prominence during Vietnam.
One can rediscover that worldview by watching the Academy Award winning 1974 documentary about Vietnam, "Hearts & Minds." This film, by director Peter Davis and producer Bert Schneider, stands as a useful, explicit demarcation for an American political culture that broke in half during the 1960s and '70s.
Toward the film's end, Daniel Ellsberg, of Pentagon Papers fame, casts off the preceding generation when he tells the camera that Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon all "lied." He adds: "We weren't on the wrong side" in Vietnam. "We are the wrong side." By this, the movie makes clear, is meant in part that America had become dangerously enamored with a culture rooted in martial values. The problem isn't the military, which is inevitable. The problem is militarism.
"Hearts & Minds" makes associations between the war and a gung-ho high-school football team in Niles, Ohio; uniformed marching bands; young boys (Scouts) in formation in parades, and displays of tiny flag-waving. The father of an aviator killed in Vietnam is allowed to speak at length in admiration of his son's heroism in war and of military values generally. The viewer is clearly expected to be galvanized by this scene into a new truth: This father is sad, foolish and wrong.
With the constant talk from Sens. Clinton and Obama about how Iraq has "failed," one must ask, Why at this point, with Iraq's post-Saddam government forming, would one want to ask the American people to ratify, with a vote, that a commitment by their men under arms had failed? This means the military too has failed, not just George Bush. Rather than leaping on "failure," as with Basra, why can't one of these candidates or party leaders find examples of nobility, accomplishment or martial courage in what the troops have done in Iraq?
Because the martial ethos rubs this generation of the party the wrong way. Not all, but many. They don't much like it and won't say what they don't believe. Nancy Pelosi has just announced that party strategy for the Iraq supplemental bill this year will be to argue that Iraq is diverting "desperately needed" money from spending on children, infrastructure and health care "for millions." Last week, 42 House Democrats said they would run for reelection on an Iraq withdrawal that leaves "no residual U.S. troops" there "beyond the minimum needed for standard embassy protection." Presumably that includes helicopters on the roof.
The battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama over her vote "for" the Iraq war lies at the center of this. Hillary may have seen "Hearts & Minds" 10 times, but she knows cold the percentage of voters in her working-class, deer-hunting voter base who won't buy into its politics.
Barack Obama, one guesses, has not seen "Hearts & Minds." No need. His Democratic class absorbed its political grammar on this subject like a first language. This is why Democratic officials aren't blinking at throwing a party trooper like Hillary off the train. While Obama in his March 19 Fayetteville, N.C., speech made bows to our "brilliant" troops and said his beef is over "strategy," I think the issue is warfighting, period.
John McCain? Hard to say if he's seen "Hearts & Minds." If not, he should. Yes, the economy may be the top voting issue this fall. An historic line, however, runs from South Vietnam to Baghdad. The debate about that heritage will define for a generation the elements of American power that lie behind this country's commitments. Let's get to it.
Write to henninger@wsj.com
Ellie