UPDATED: JUL 24, 2007

“THE MOST SUCCESSFUL AMERICAN PRESIDENT:
            GEORGE W. BUSH, PART 4:  WHAT DO THE DEMOCRATS DO NOW?” 

In my column on this subject last week, I noted that from the beginning of his Presidency (or Cheney’s, however you want to look at it) Bush set out to achieve what I have on more than one occasion termed a “coup d’etat in slow motion.”  Upon gaining the office this man first embraced the powers truly vested in him by the Constitution.  Then, starting with The “Patriot” Act, he proceeded to gradually and steadily expand them way beyond their Constitutional limitations (see Articles I, II, III, and VI).  It should be noted that when that Act was introduced, Bush did not have full control of the Congress.  The Democrats still held the Senate. But at the time they were “lead” by the totally spineless Tom Daschle.  They thus meekly acquiesced to the passage of what on more than one occasion I have noted is this essential element of the US equivalent of the Nazi German Enabling Act of March, 1933 that made Hitler a dictator.  To my recollection, only Sen. Gene Feingold of Wisconsin had the cojones to vote against it.  Then came the disaster of the Kerry/Shrum Presidential campaign, the “Military Commissions Act,” and etc.  

And so, what do the Democrats do now in terms of the Presidency?  This is a question that I have dealt with numerous times since I first began writing this column almost 3 ½ years ago.  Nobody in any position of consequence has ever paid the slightest bit of attention to what I have had to say, but that has even to this day not convinced that I have been wrong.  Time and BushCheney (or CheneyBush if you will) march on. I become more convinced than ever that when the next Presidential campaign gets underway, the Democrats must make major changes their approach (and the change should take place even now in the pre-primary season as well).  If they do not, they will lose again.  If they do, and especially if “I’d-like-nothing-better-than-to-be-dictator” Giuliani wins it for the Republicans, we might not see another Presidential election for a long time, even if in the first instance the Democrats were to retain control of one or both Houses of Congress.  So let’s have another go at the subject. 

First and foremost, the Democrats have to seriously examine the work of the two brilliant political strategists whose combined efforts have given the Republicans the Executive Branch dominance that they have enjoyed for the last six-plus years.  First, is Lee “Willie Horton” Atwater.  Over and over again, I have talked (and will talk again, many times leading up to Nov. 4, 2008) about his primary mantra: “Always Attack, Never Defend.”  Democrats just don’t know how to do this.  The current perfect example is their response to the Republican attack on them on the Libby commutation thing.  Like Captain Renault, the Claude Rains character in the Humphrey Bogart/Ingrid Berman movie “Casablanca,” they were “shocked, shocked,” that Bush could do such a thing.  After all, hadn’t he said he would fire anyone in his Administration found guilty of wrongdoing?  And now he has commuted the sentence of the convicted felon, even before his appeal is heard?   

Well, first of all they shouldn’t have been shocked.  Bush has been doing such things and much worse all along.  Second, they opened themselves right up for the typical Republican counter-attack.  And yes, it was counter-attack.  There was no defending Scooter Libby here.  Right into the Big Lie Attack mode.  First of all, they said, there was no crime.  Everyone (sic) knew that Valerie Plame was CIA (no, not true, but what the hey).  Second, “everyone” knew that she sent her husband Joseph Wilson on the Niger expedition (no, not true, but what the hey).  Third, “everyone” knew that the report he came back with showing that the “Yellowcake-to-Saddam” thing was a fiction was itself a lie (no, not true, but what the hey).  Fourth, “everyone” knew that Scooter’s incorrect recollection of the events (like that Tim Russert told him that Plame was an undercover CIA agent, not the other way round, as Russert testified to in open court, under oath) stated before the Grand Jury was simply the product of a faulty memory, not lying.  Well, the jury didn’t believe him, but what the hey.  

Then, just a couple of days later, given the opening by none other than Hillary Clinton, they are right into their classic “Two Wrongs Make a Right” Attack mode: “Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah. Bill Clinton pardoned this one and that one and this one and that one.”  Clinton actually granted 140 pardons at the end of his Presidency, although none were to felons convicted of obstructing justice in an investigation of a violation of national security law.  But Clinton was really into the pardoning thing, for all of the reasons Bush gave for giving the commutation to Libby: upstanding citizen, national service, family considerations, illness, and etc.   

Of course, Bush, as Governor and President, to date has almost never seen a commutation/-pardoning opportunity he liked.  All of those defense attorneys who are now trotting out the reasons Bush gave for his Libby-action should not hold their breaths waiting for him to accept them in any other cases (except of others of his staff who committed similar crimes, or worse, of course).  And so, oh boy, did the Republicans have a field day with the Clinton record.  Fascinating that it came out a couple of days later that the lawyer for the number one Republican Clinton-pardon poster boy, one Marc Rich, was none other than, guess who?   I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby.  But, while I don’t sample the Republican Scream Machine across the country, I doubt that that fact has shut them up on the Clinton pardon-thing. 

So what to do?  Attack, baby, attack.  One, go for the “two wrongs make a right” argument.  Show how they use it over and over again to distract the American people from the real issues at hand.  Ask how the supposed Party of Probity can possibly make that argument.  Cut to the chase: Libby was convicted, fair and square.  Bush never commutes or pardons.  This one smells to high heaven of possible cover-up.  And what is the White House doing in its presence?  Covering up even more on even more issues (you can supply the list).  Don’t touch Clinton’s pardons and “why they were different,” “Clinton had a different standard throughout his Governorship and Presidency,” and so on and so forth.  Keep the focus where it should be: on Libby and Bush, not on Clinton and Rich. 

Second, on what the Democrats must do for 2008 is that they must learn Karl Rove’s principal political lesson: the key to winning elections in control of the agenda.  (Actually, he learned this one from Atwater too: Willie Horton, Dukakis-in-the-tank, and so on, but Rove has become the past-master of it.)  And so in 2004, for example, we had the Swift-boat massacre, Kerry-on-the-windsurfer, the state Gay Marriage amendments, Kerry-the-flip-flopper, in fact anything but the Bush record.  Kerry/Shrum just let this happen.  No response, no attack, all defense, all generalities, all fighting the battle on Rove’s turf.  If the Dems do that again, the outcome will be the same, no matter how low Bush’s poll ratings sink this time.   

Almost all of the Republican candidates are running away from Bush as fast as their little legs can carry them (without, of course, running away from any of Bush’s policies except immigration).  So first on the Democratic agenda must be to hang dear old George (and Dick too, now) around the neck of every single one of them.  Sure, he ain’t running, but the Dems have to make it out as if he were, just as the Republicans are going to be running against Bill Clinton, especially if the candidate is Hillary.  Overwhelmingly the American people have had enough of Bush, and not only on Iraq.  To win, the Dems must place him front and center on the Republican ticket, even if he ain’t there. 

Second, the Democrats must begin realizing now that they may not have what many of them think will be their number one issue, Iraq.  The Republican pressure is building on Bush to “do something” about Iraq. And he probably will.  That “something” will not be withdrawal.  After all, as I think I have proven in the pages previously, the number one goal of CheneyBush (and in this case it really is CheneyBush) in Iraq is the creation of Permanent War.  But Permanent War does not require the number of American troops now on the ground.  They could be reduced significantly as CheneyBush once again move the goal posts and redefine “victory.”   

So, there will still be troops on the ground in the fall of 2008, but it could have been made to appear as if there had been a change of policy, based on “new information.”  Republican strategists have been talking for quite some time about the “need to keep troops in place,” to avoid “certain disaster for the Iraqi people,” as if the Iraqi people certainly have not already been smitten with disaster by BushCheney policy.  But there could be few enough troops to create confusion in the minds of certain American voters and to enable the Republicans to say to Democratic critics “we gave you what you demanded [when they didn’t, of course] so what are you complaining about.”  The answer to this is three-fold.  First, the Democratic position must be that of Gov. Bill Richardson: no American troops on the ground in the region and no US bases in Iraq.  Second, the position must be that no Republican policy for Iraq has worked to date, re-visiting, the chain of Bush “definitions of victory,” so why should this one.  Third, the Democrats must begin to use the theme: “Republican policy is nothing but a recipe for Permanent War.” 

So, if “Iraq, modified” is second, what then should be the third major agenda item after Bush?  Nothing other than what BushCheney have done to Constitutional Democracy in our great country (see Part 2 of this series, July 11, 2007, for the overview on that one as well as numerous previous TPJ columns of mine; see the list below).  Yes indeed, it is going to take some doing to make the Constitution the co-number one agenda item for the Democrats with Bush.  But think about this.  There is a sign in my dentist’s office that says, “If you don’t take care of your teeth, they will just go away.”  If we don’t take care of our precious Constitution, it will just go away too. 

Are there additional agenda items for the Democrats as they seek to take control of the agenda for 2008 and keep it?  There surely are.  And they will surely be the subjects of future columns. 

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