The Truth Will Set You Free

James Poulos:

... instead of fearing a revolt that will never come, Republicans running for president should do Ron Paul one better and carry out the smartest preemptive attack ever conceived -- pledging as a central part of their campaigns to abandon Bush on Iraq, immigration, and big government. Within the party, only Iraq will be a pill that goes down sideways, at least at first. But watch. Repudiating the president is so firmly grounded in fact and prudence that it will be contagious. What the candidates have already gotten away with, in the way of tepid criticism of tactics in Iraq, has gone over like a dream. Mitt Romney's more adventurous knocks against Bush's leadership have gone unanswered. This is because everyone knows they are accurate. They want more. They want to stop living a public lie. Instead of the national reign of fear predicted by the president's leftist critics, it is the political right that suffers silently in dread. This is a needless shame and waste, and the clock is ticking. Repudiating Bush everywhere he has erred will be something like going to confession. The great wave of relief to come will power the energy needed to turn from defending the indefensible by awkward half-measures to promoting in full measure true conservative government.

No Republican candidate who hopes to win the nomination can join the Dick Lugars of the world in hinting at phased withdrawal from Iraq, not so long as the base still believes in victory as strongly as it does. But one could imagine a leading contender at least taking a line suggested by this Rich Lowry post - defending the current military strategy in Iraq and holding out hope for victory, that is, while simultaneously attacking not only the President's handling of the war (as McCain has done explicitly, and others have implicitly) but his unconservative ideological premises as well. Yes to Petraeus, in other words, but no to Bush. It's not the full Poulos, but it's something.

Comments

'Yes to Petraeus, no to Bush' makes absolutely no sense, and is a political loser to boot.

It says something about the content of this line that it is heavily favored by Bush himself.

Posted by matt | July 17, 2007 8:31 PM

Really silly. Yes to the current military strategy is yes to Bush. It is also yes to the massive unpopularity that comes with the current military strategy.

It also has all the unprincipled cowardice of hiding behind the ACUs of Gen. Petraeus and, by extension, the troops --- if you're criticizing me, you're criticizing the saintly Petraeus! --- while defending a strategy that was born in Washington, chosen by the President against the better judgment of Abizaid and Casey, and midwifed by the Kagans.

Posted by tequila | July 18, 2007 5:44 AM

Awesome...because clearly what the Republic needs is more talking about how we really don't like the strategy that's been in place until now, but that the strategy in place now is exactly right.

You are right to point out that Poulos' suggestion is almost certain political suicide for a Republican candidate. But how is what you are suggesting substantively different from McCain's strategy? How's that been working out for him so far?

Posted by David S | July 18, 2007 11:02 AM

Well duh.

Try being a Democrat and argue that the war is good. How's that working for Joe? Oh, I forgot - they steamrollered him.

P-a-r-t-y-l-i-n-e.

Posted by Liam Colvin | July 18, 2007 3:11 PM

The GOP is going to sink or swim with Bush on Iraq. They are so deeply implicated in this whole policy that trying to backpedal would just make them look even more ridiculous. I've been a Republican supporter for most of my life but I left them over this a very long time ago. I think this and the whole Rovian construct of lurching right and identifying the party with the wrong side of a whole raft of issues that are out there is going destroy us in 08. Basically I hoped we get our butts kicked so badly that it forces a re-examination of where we've gone wrong over the last ten to 15 years because the seeds of the Bush debacle were sown before he ever appeared on the scene. Gingrich's recklessness was probably the start of it, and without 9/11 there is no way Bush would have won a second term. In fact how anyone voted for him after watching that first debate with Kerry is a mystery, but as a recent book points out. Voters are not rational.

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