The American people have spoken, the question is, what have they said?
The Democratic leadership says we've "sent a message" to the President about the war in Iraq (i.e., we hate it, want it to stop, never wanted in the first place, etc...). They neglect of course to reflect on the fact that most of them voted to support the operation in the first place, and continued to vote to fund it all these years as well. They further neglect to reflect on the small-but-significant number of races that ended in Republican defeat in decidedly GOP territory, where voter dissatisfaction may have had as much to do with corruption, scandal, write-in-confusion and profligate spending as with dove-like loathing of the war in Iraq.
But what about the message being sent to the extreme left? There were Democrats who lost their seats too. Not as many, to be sure, but some, and those who gained were--practically to a man--centrists. The not-so-subtle message to my ears was "Come back from the brink Ms. Pelosi, we're giving you the rope, just please don't hang our party with it, 'mmmmkay?"
And finally, what about the Republican voters and the message they sent yesterday? Sure, we turned out, we always do! Everyone expects that we will, we're the most informed block of voters in the nation, despite being so busy at work that we aren't home when the pollsters call. But we didn't come our yesterday as we usually do. We didn't show up to vote for parental notifcation in California, and we didn't show up in strong enough numbers in our own stronghold of Missouri to defeat the embryonic stem cell initiative that goes against everything we usually hold dear, the protection of innocent life itself.
Yes, the American people have spoken, but it would be a mistake to sum up what we've said as "It's the war stupid."
Don't get me wrong, it is the war that has most Americans pissed at the administration, but what I fear is that the Democrats will take these results and lump our anger all into one bucket and call it "anti-war sentiment," and I believe nothing could be further from accurate.
Yes, plenty of people voted against the war altogether yesterday, but plenty--especially those in traditionally pro-military, pro-war areas--were probably voting against the way the war is being faught! Some of us want to win, and not just in Iraq either. Iraq is the Sudetenland for us. Losing it would merely give the Mullahs in Iran more "lebensraum" in which to plot their "final solution to the Jewish (and Western) problem."
Some of us "get" this, and some of us are frustrated at what appears to be an administration brave enough and far-sighted enough to see the forest and enter it willingly, but not bright enough to avoid bumping into the tree trunks as they pass through.
With Rumsfeld gone, it would appear that the President has heard at leat this part of the message, now the question is will Rummy's replacement hear it too, and will the Democrats in power now stop campaigning for '08 long enough to realize it's been sent?
Posted by insomnomaniac at November 8, 2006 9:05 PM | TrackBack