It is good to occasionally get an insider’s peek at the inner cogs of government clanking away. One such peek is being offered by ThinkProgress, an impressive site that has obtained a “Confidential Messaging Memo” from Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), to his caucus on how to deal with Iraq. Here is the bottom line, our new Iraq strategy:
1. Exploit 9/11. The two page memo mentions 9/11 seven times. It describes debating Iraq in the context of 9/11 as “imperative.”
2. Attack opponents ad hominem. The memo describes those who opposes President Bush’s policies in Iraq as “sheepish,” “weak,” and “prone to waver endlessly.”
3. Create a false choice. The memo says the decision is between supporting President Bush’s policies and hoping terrorist threats will “fade away on their own.”
To summarize the above summary:
1. Lie
2. Demean people who disagree
3. Do not consider whether the presence of the US military in Iraq is causing more problems than it is solving.
You can read the complete pdf version of this confidential memo here
None of these Republican tactics surprise me (this is actually a comment on my low expectations for our current leaders). The above ideas certainly don’t inspire me. They aren’t the sorts of ideas that give me any confidence that there is any end game in Iraq. In fact, point #1 is downright evil given the lack of any connection between 9/11 and Iraq.
It’s a good thing our current leaders are God-fearing people who regularly say the pledge of allegiance. Think about how much worse this Iraq strategy memo would have been had it not been written by people so strongly guided by God and Country.
These tactics don't suprise me either, not only because I have no fair in the current leadership, but because we've seen the same tactics used for the last six years.
1. Bush made countless stump speeches associating Hussein and bin Laden. The guise of "War on Terror" made it nigh effortless to connect Iraq to 9/11. This follows the current Republican method that, "if you repeat if often enough and with enough certainty, people will believe it." And they do.
2. These particular insults sound very familiar, like "flip-flopper", "waffle", and so forth which helped do John Kerry in.
3. Since opposition to the War in Iraq appeared, conservatives have tried to make it apparent that we have no choice but to stay in full force. "Stay the Course" became a mantra.
This leads me to conclude that conservatives, while lacking desperately in logical support for their own actions and positions, possess the ability to learn from their past success in misleading Americans. The manipulative masterminds have brains…if only they'd use them.