Precisely Who Is On First In Iraq?

Click for the audio version of this article.

We are cynical about politicians, right? Pretty much all of us regard politicians as having no actual firm opinions of their own. Everything is said for effect. Sincerity is a wonderful thing, goes the old joke. A politician who can fake that will go far.

Like everyone else, I think of politicians as mostly gutless wonders, for whom integrity is an odd curiosity. I kind of expect politicians to act like leaves in the autumn wind, blowing along with the political breeze.

Still, I have to admit there are other possibilities.

If a politician opposes a war, can it be because it seems like a dumb, destructive, bad, bad war? Can an opponent who supports that same war actually believe some vital aspect of national interest is at stake? Can differences be real, not simply attempts to appeal to some bloc of voters?

Some authentic positions are expressed with actions, as well as words. John Kennedy publicly expressed more than casual interest when he called the family of Martin Luther King after Dr. King’s arrest and long disappearance from view in Georgia. Speculation was that the disappearance might turn out to be permanent. Bobby Kennedy made phone calls to law enforcement officials where the civil rights leader had been arrested, harshly demanding assurance of Martin Luther King’s safety.

The pastor of the house of worship that I attend sometimes reminds us of a formula for living that he credits, perhaps incorrectly, to Francis of Assisi.“Preach the Gospel always. When necessary, use words.”

If other political figures are like the New Coke, I look back to President Reagan as the real thing. He was the genuine article.

In 1980, candidate Ronald Reagan made his first stop as the Republican nominee. He and his team had deliberately scheduled it in Philadelphia, Mississippi, a famed focal point of white supremacy, the site of the 1964 kidnapping and murder of three civil rights workers. Candidate Reagan did not express any particular feeling about the celebrated killings. He simply voiced his strong, unwavering support for states rights.

I have little doubt about the authenticity of the gesture of respect by the future President for Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price and his band of racist killers. The candidate’s intentional signal of disrespect for James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, the three victims, was unmistakably genuine.

I don’t regard myself as a simpleton. I suppose few simpletons do. I don’t see all political gestures, or even most, as representing real conviction. Political calculation is a predictable consequence of popular democracy. You can usually trust them to be untrustworthy.

I like to think my own tidal wave of distrust does not prevent me from considering a policy position on its own merits. And there is another benefit from listening to a candidate for office. How well can the politician think through and articulate a position? Even softball questions serve a function, in an odd sort of way.

Some questions are so predictable a candidate has to be ready with exactly the right words, whether those words are authentic or not. Questions that can be seen coming a light year away set the bar so low it is like wondering whether a world champion track star can jump over a high jump 2 inches high. What’s the phone number of 911? Where can I find a word that means the same thing as “thesaurus”?

Or can you name a newspaper?

I’ve read most of them again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media, coming
But like which ones specifically? I’m curious that you
Um, all of ’em, any of ’em that, um, have, have been in front of me over all these years.

– Sarah Palin, September 30, 2008

Obvious questions can be truly revealing if a candidate fumbles spectacularly.

So I listened to future Presidential candidate Jeb Bush as he answered a question about the Iraq war.

“On the subject of Iraq, very controversial, knowing what we know now, would you have authorized the invasion?”

“I would have.

Huh? He what?

I heard his later explanation of his initial answer. He had misunderstood the question. A lot has been made of his trying to walk back his answer. But I think the words that followed make it clear. Would he have invaded Iraq?

“I would have. And so would have Hillary Clinton, just to remind everybody, and so would almost everybody that was confronted with the intelligence they got.”

Unless he missed the part of “knowing what we know now,” mentioning Hillary Clinton and talking about the intelligence available at the time makes no sense at all. It would have been the logical equivalent of looking past the startled interviewer into the camera and blurting “How many sides of a duck? One leg is both the same.”

It is clear he had carefully thought out his response to a very different question. How could he reconcile his loyalty to, and his faith in, his brother, President George W. Bush, with the disaster that Iraq became.

I would give him a pass on that answer. His later clarifications? Not so much.

“If we’re going to get back into hypotheticals, I think it does a disservice to a lot of people who sacrificed a lot.”

then, the next day

“I don’t know what that decision would have been. That’s a hypothetical. The simple fact is mistakes were made.

And finally:

“If we’re all supposed to answer hypothetical questions, knowing what we know now, I would not have engaged. I would not have gone into Iraq.”

So President Jeb Bush would go into Iraq, oops he misunderstood. It’s hypothetical so he won’t answer. And he won’t answer because it’s disrespectful to the troops to answer, and he doesn’t know if he would have invaded, and no he most definitely would not have invaded.

The question about Iraq is a serious question. It is relevant because a President makes decisions that can have lethal results. It is important to know what value a President places on the human lives those decisions will put at risk.

And whether we should have invaded Iraq, knowing what we know now, is about as easy a question as it is possible to invent. Continually bobbling the answer is painful to watch.

Mr. Bush is not alone in generating doubts about his presidential acuity.

Florida Senator Marco Rubio had more than enough warning. He had time to prepare some perfect answer to whether he would have put us into Iraq if he knew then what he knows now. He had very little excuse for an answer that eventually lapsed into vaudeville.

Was it a mistake? Was it a mistake to go to war with Iraq?

It’s two different, it wasn’t, I

I’m asking you to

Yes, I understand, but that’s not the same question.

But that’s the question I’m asking you, was it a mistake to go to war?

It was not a mistake for the president to decide to go into Iraq, because at the time, he was told…

I’m not asking you that. I’m asking you…

In hindsight.

Yes.

Well, the world is a better place because Saddam Hussein is not there.

So, was it a mistake or not?

But I don’t understand the question you’re asking…

Well then who’s on first?

Yes.

I mean the fellow’s name.

Who.

The guy on first.

Who is on first!

I’m asking YOU who’s on first.

This just might be an interesting, a compellingly interesting, campaign.

This article is a collaboration between MadMikesAmerica and FairandUnbalanced.com.

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