BS: David Frum: Waterloo

Subject: BS: David Frum: Waterloo
From: meself
Date: 02 Apr 10 - 12:17 PM

I'm breaking my self-imposed exile from BS to pass this along, since I don't think anyone else has mentioned it.

David Frum is a Republican best-known as a former speech writer for GWB. This article got him fired from the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank.

I'll leave you with this, and disappear back into the night:


Waterloo
March 21st, 2010 at 4:59 pm by David Frum | 251 Comments |Share Conservatives and Republicans today suffered their most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s.

It's hard to exaggerate the magnitude of the disaster. Conservatives may cheer themselves that they'll compensate for today's expected vote with a big win in the November 2010 elections. But:

(1) It's a good bet that conservatives are over-optimistic about November – by then the economy will have improved and the immediate goodies in the healthcare bill will be reaching key voting blocs.

(2) So what? Legislative majorities come and go. This healthcare bill is forever. A win in November is very poor compensation for this debacle now.

So far, I think a lot of conservatives will agree with me. Now comes the hard lesson:

A huge part of the blame for today's disaster attaches to conservatives and Republicans ourselves.

At the beginning of this process we made a strategic decision: unlike, say, Democrats in 2001 when President Bush proposed his first tax cut, we would make no deal with the administration. No negotiations, no compromise, nothing. We were going for all the marbles. This would be Obama's Waterloo – just as healthcare was Clinton's in 1994.

Only, the hardliners overlooked a few key facts: Obama was elected with 53% of the vote, not Clinton's 42%. The liberal block within the Democratic congressional caucus is bigger and stronger than it was in 1993-94. And of course the Democrats also remember their history, and also remember the consequences of their 1994 failure.

This time, when we went for all the marbles, we ended with none.

Could a deal have been reached? Who knows? But we do know that the gap between this plan and traditional Republican ideas is not very big. The Obama plan has a broad family resemblance to Mitt Romney's Massachusetts plan. It builds on ideas developed at the Heritage Foundation in the early 1990s that formed the basis for Republican counter-proposals to Clintoncare in 1993-1994.

Barack Obama badly wanted Republican votes for his plan. Could we have leveraged his desire to align the plan more closely with conservative views? To finance it without redistributive taxes on productive enterprise – without weighing so heavily on small business – without expanding Medicaid? Too late now. They are all the law.

No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed. Even if Republicans scored a 1994 style landslide in November, how many votes could we muster to re-open the "doughnut hole" and charge seniors more for prescription drugs? How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they discover a pre-existing condition? How many votes to banish 25 year olds from their parents' insurance coverage? And even if the votes were there – would President Obama sign such a repeal?

We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat.

There were leaders who knew better, who would have liked to deal. But they were trapped. Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio had whipped the Republican voting base into such a frenzy that deal-making was rendered impossible. How do you negotiate with somebody who wants to murder your grandmother? Or – more exactly – with somebody whom your voters have been persuaded to believe wants to murder their grandmother?

I've been on a soapbox for months now about the harm that our overheated talk is doing to us. Yes it mobilizes supporters – but by mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead. The real leaders are on TV and radio, and they have very different imperatives from people in government. Talk radio thrives on confrontation and recrimination. When Rush Limbaugh said that he wanted President Obama to fail, he was intelligently explaining his own interests. What he omitted to say – but what is equally true – is that he also wants Republicans to fail. If Republicans succeed – if they govern successfully in office and negotiate attractive compromises out of office – Rush's listeners get less angry. And if they are less angry, they listen to the radio less, and hear fewer ads for Sleepnumber beds.

So today's defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry. Their listeners and viewers will now be even more enraged, even more frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the responsibility-free talkers on television and radio. For them, it's mission accomplished. For the cause they purport to represent, it's Waterloo all right: ours.

Waterloo

Subject: RE: BS: David Frum: Waterloo
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 02 Apr 10 - 12:28 PM

I brought up the topic on March 26.

But I'm not sure it got due consideration.

Subject: RE: BS: David Frum: Waterloo
From: meself
Date: 02 Apr 10 - 01:02 PM

Sorry, Jack, I missed that somehow. Maybe a clone can delete this thread.

Subject: RE: BS: David Frum: Waterloo
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 02 Apr 10 - 01:07 PM

Nah, Leave it.

I think the subject is worth talking about.

Subject: RE: BS: David Frum: Waterloo
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Apr 10 - 01:20 PM

It's amusing to hear David Frum finally criticizing the most idiotic and extreme aspects of the political movement he subscribes to. He must have experienced some sort of revelation.

Subject: RE: BS: David Frum: Waterloo
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Apr 10 - 01:33 PM

I think he just hates losing. He realizes that the Republican party is pursuing a losing strategy and he wants them to win.

Subject: RE: BS: David Frum: Waterloo
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 02 Apr 10 - 01:59 PM

Or to put it another way... He is upset that the cool, thoughtful, sneaky, devious hatemongers of his movement, such as himself, are being displaced by the more honest straight-forward ones like the people who made this.

He is dismayed I am elated.

Subject: RE: BS: David Frum: Waterloo
From: Ebbie
Date: 02 Apr 10 - 05:22 PM

It is stunning to me that a person who can think and speak as clearly as he does in that article is not capable of thinking clearly enough to become non-Conservative.

Subject: RE: BS: David Frum: Waterloo
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Apr 10 - 05:29 PM

Well, his core beliefs about how (and why) society should be organized make him a conservative, that's why. To be a conservative in no way presupposes that one is not capable of thinking clearly. It indicates that one subscribes to a specific type of social philosophy.

There have always been some extremely bright people in conservative ranks. That doesn't mean that the extremely bright people in progressive ranks will agree with them.

Subject: RE: BS: David Frum: Waterloo
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Apr 10 - 05:33 PM

I don't know if he could accurately be called "conservative". He's a neo-conservative, and they're kind of the opposite of conservatives. They're radicals.

Subject: RE: BS: David Frum: Waterloo
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Apr 10 - 10:32 PM

Yeah, that's true. You don't hear much from traditional conservatives these days, because the neo-conservatives have grabbed most of the media's channels of "conservative" rhetoric.

Eric Margolis (the columnist) describes himself as "an Eisenhower Republican", and he disagrees radically with the neo-Conservative movement. I find myself in agreement with almost everything he writes, and that's interesting, because I don't think of myself as a conservative at all.

Subject: RE: BS: David Frum: Waterloo
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Apr 10 - 11:03 PM

For instance, Carol, read Eric Margolis column here from last week:

RENT-A-RAMBOS
March 22, 2010
A fascinating scandal has erupted in Washington that is exposing the sordid underbelly of the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan.
According to a "New York Times" investigation and other Washington sources, the Pentagon and US intelligence agencies have fielded covert mercenary networks in Afghanistan, Pakistan (aka "Afpak"), and Iraq whose mission is to murder tribal militants and nationalists opposing Western occupation.

US law forbids murder or using mercenaries. But, as Cicero said, "laws are silent in times of war."

A former senior Pentagon official specializing in murky foreign operations, Mike Furlong, set up a company, International Media Ventures(IMV), to supposedly provide the US military with "cultural information" about Afghanistan's Pashtun tribes. Codename: Operation Capstone.

Two obscure, Orwellian-named Pentagon outfits, "the Cultural Engineering Group" of Florida, and "Counter-Narcoterrorism Technology Program" of Virginia funded Furlong with $24.6 million.

Furlong hired a bunch of former special forces types and assorted thugs. These rent-a-Rambos's real mission was to assassinate Pashtun leaders in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and target tribal compounds for strikes by US Predator drones. Another heartwarming example of free enterprise at work and how to win Muslim hearts and minds.   

In short, a 2010 version of the Mafia's contract killers, known as "Murder Inc."

Thickening this plot, retired CIA types, including the flamboyant Dewey Clarridge, whom I well recall from the 1980's Afghan war, were reportedly involved. IMV's CEO came from major defense contractor L-3, long involved in top secret operations.

It is uncertain if Furlong's Murder Inc had time to go operational. But its exposure is causing a huge ruckus. In best US government tradition, the Pentagon has cut Furlong adrift. He is now under criminal investigation.

Shades of CIA agent Ed Wilson, whose frightful case I long followed. Wilson was set up as a deniable "independent" by CIA to supply arms and explosives to Libya and Angola. When this intrigue blew wide open, Wilson was kidnapped by US agents, convicted on the basis of lies by the government, and buried alive in federal prison.
   
This latest guns-for-hire scandal recalls the brutal, 1980's guerilla war in El Salvador, which I covered, where the US became involved with government death squads. It also reminds me of the long-forgotten 1968-1972 Operation Phoenix in South Vietnam in which CIA and South Vietnamese special units killed from 26,000 to 44,000 suspected Communists or sympathizers. US Special Forces were heavily involved in these liquidation operations.

The Furlong scandal comes at a time of growing criticism of the US government's use of over 275,000 mercenaries (aka "private contractors") in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.   These hired gunmen and logistics personnel operate without any accountability, legal structure, or oversight.

Intelligence sources in Pakistan say that US mercenaries are likely behind some of the bombings of civilian targets, particularly those in Peshawar. Indian intelligence agents are also spreading mayhem in an effort to destabilize Pakistan.

Private mercenary firms like Xe (formerly Blackwater) and DynCorp have raked in fortunes running private armies for the US. They are major donors to the far right of the Republican Party. Deeply worried civil libertarians warn these private armies are only a few goose-steps away from resembling the Nazi Brownshirts of late 1920's Germany.   

Amazingly, it seems US Special Forces in Afpak have not until this month been under the control of supreme commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal. They apparently reported to his rival, Central Command chief Gen. David Petraeus in Tampa. These Rambos have been rampaging around, killing at will and committing atrocities against civilians, reports the UN.

This is ironic since McChrystal rose to his high rank by leading US Joint Special Operations Command's special forces on campaigns of liquidation and intimidation in Iraq, and later, Afghanistan.   

To the Pentagons's fury, CIA has long run its own killer paramilitary units and drone assassination operations, 90% of whose victims are civilians, according to Pakistani media investigations. Such "wet affairs" undermine the agency's basic mission of intelligence-gathering.

CIA's paramilitaries report only to Langley which does not talk to the Pentagon.   Pakistan's feeble rent-a-government is not even informed in advance of Predator strikes and assassinations on its own territory.   

How many of the 15 other US intelligence agencies are running their own little illegal private armies? Add special forces from NATO contingents, whose operations remain a deep secret. Australia, for one, has come under heavy criticism for attacks on civilians by its SAS units. Britain's renowned SAS and SBS commandos are very active in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The US brands all al-Qaida suspects and Taliban "illegal combatants," denying them due process of law and the Geneva Convention's prisoner protections. It's ok to murder and torture such "terrorists," says Washington.

But what, then, about the army of US mercenary Rambos that are running amok, who wear no uniform, kill at will, and have no legal oversight? Or America's Special Forces?   

Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2010

Subject: RE: BS: David Frum: Waterloo
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Apr 10 - 11:52 PM

Thanks for posting that, LH.

Subject: RE: BS: David Frum: Waterloo
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 03 Apr 10 - 12:01 AM

Frum was on Colbert last night. Its on the colbertnation website now.

Subject: RE: BS: David Frum: Waterloo
From: DougR
Date: 03 Apr 10 - 01:11 AM

Yes, L.H., I think Frum did, indeed have a revelation. However, I doubt it will sell well among conservative Republicans. As far as they are concerned, Frum is history. He may find a home, though, among moderate Democrats.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: David Frum: Waterloo
From: CarolC
Date: 03 Apr 10 - 07:35 AM

You mean right-wing, neo-con Democrats, DougR. There's no way he fits in with moderate Democrats.

Subject: RE: BS: David Frum: Waterloo
From: Bobert
Date: 03 Apr 10 - 08:01 AM

Yes, add David Frumm to the long list of folks who have tunneled outtta the Repub Concentration Camp and are now ready to tell the truth...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: David Frum: Waterloo
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 03 Apr 10 - 07:05 PM

I would never never accuse Frum of being truthful.

But in the case of this opinion, he has made an interesting point.