Part of the problem, or part of the solution?

Oh dear. Mike, in comments, is frustrated with yours truly:

...a sure antidote for the bile that's been collecting around here over the past couple of weeks. Did I say bile? I meant to say "ChimpyBushitler Haliburton-manufactured sickle-cell plageon"...

Damn it, Fouro! Get off the Howard Dean Paranoiagoround. You're definitely not acting like part of the solution.

AND IT REALLY PAINS ME TO SAY THAT, knowing what sort of man you are. Savage me if you like, but that's my hoenst opnion.
Mike | 09.14.05 - 1:26 am | #

Well, I figured you'd been keeping out of the way because of the "bile." But, please, you'll find no Godwin's Law here.

Mike, I'd never savage you for your opinions, no matter how much I disagree. But dude, put your history hat on. Only Nixon could go to China. And only Barry Goldwater could deliver the bad news to Nixon.

What are you doing?

You see Mike, "I" can't be part of the "solution" because my motives are suspect due to my affiliations and my obvious displeasure. You did not listen to me when I said "Don't do this--not this way." Why on earth would you listen now? The solution is simple (and I'm being way too candid for my own good here): To poke and prod at opportune moments, to lift rocks, but mostly, to let the raging narcissism and persecution-complex that is this hybridized-conservatism demonstrate it's abject soullessness. To let it euthanize itself and pray the country outlasts it. All I can do is what I'm good at. Fighting, for what I think is right, and teaching others how. As you know, I think Faith Hope Charity Prudence Justice Fortitude Temperance Truth Merit and stuff like that are "right." And I get an embolism when I see anyone coopt them, pretend to them, and twist their meaning.

George Bush, yesterday, did what should be instinctive for any leader: He took responsibility, a huge step for him, as anyone who watched last year's painful debate moments of similar opportunity can attest. Good for him. Let's see if it's good for us, if it will last.

You know I've scrawled plenty around here on what I think would be wiser paths for your Republican brethren to take, if they truly view governance as an ennobling and enabling and coalescing thing. But by and large they don't. They suffer from a cynicism that disgusts me; one that I know from practical experience causes people to fail their potential as leaders of men and women and businesses. Conservatism, as practiced by the pros, has devolved into an ugly "hooray for me, fuck you, I got mine" Mardi Gras. And don't give me any of that rally round the leader stuff--he had his chance. Democrats turned the other cheek, laid down their weapons, stood down from any criticism--and, 3 weeks after 9-11, he and congress began taking them apart and shutting them out of any meaningful role. They believed the brochure copy about unity and common purpose for the most part. Republicans, the people whom I suppose represent your beliefs and desires, cold-cocked them; turned Democratic willingness to let him have his lead at a grave and momentous time and framed it as fecklessness or timidity. Or as traitors or givers of aid and comfort to the enemy. They behaved as predator in a previously declared safe zone. I know that animal when I see it. That turned my switch.

You know my philosphy on business governance, and it varies not one bit from what I see as the role for political leadership. Being boss is hard shit. But it's the compensations that draw many to it, not the cause or the responsibility. Many of us are in way over our heads, not because we've failed to learn something, but because we don't understand our job. We've been sold a bill of goods that feeds our baser instincts and creates distance rather than closing it. A bill of goods, instead of a list of requirements:

* Lower the barriers to entry, raise the bar of expectations.
* Treat people like adults: Invite criticism and, in turn, be willing to to critique.
* Admit fault early, embrace failure as the natural by-product of stretching.
* Make people your priority. If you don't understand them, find someone who does, or learn.
* Create structures that venerate "We" as a means to "Me."
* Reject solipsism, reward selfless courage.
* Be first in, last out. Take your reward after the least have been recognized.

That list is apolitical, merely human, sublimely powerful.

Mike, I have written here how some Democrats don't get "America," the idea of it. And I've offered half-baked speeches and spelunked Howard Dean's and John Kerry's missteps. We didn't know each other then, but back in the Lewinsky zone I banged fist to table that "owning up" was the easiest and most virtous, most natural thing to do. And that doing so, as for this administration, would not be the end of the world, but rather, a cleansing exhalation and fresh oxygen to start righting things.

But just as only Nixon could go to China, only Republicans can be the solution to this current man's problem. Only Goldwater could go to Nixon and say, "Enough's enough, Mr. President." No, you and others must come to your own peace, wrestling with Kubler-Ross along the way as you bury your embarrassment. I'll be happy to listen, non-judgementally, until you're done. Or, I'll just wait quietly. But until the euthanizing of my country stalls, I will be here fighting whenever necessary.

My question is, what do you want from me that you can't do for yourself? Goldwater went to Nixon. What are you doing?

If you or I were advising this organization just like we do others from 9-to-5, we would have been screaming at them at the top of our lungs by now, or we would have walked some time ago. .

Finally, it seems, some very smart conservatives are realizing the self-inflicted damage they are doing to their ideals and their party by backing this man as he walks them and himself into the propeller of history. On 9-11, America had an historic chance to reset the machine. Had a man, or men and women, of larger character been in office at the time, whatever party, a new and doable horizon could have been mapped. And no, that doesn't mean excusing acts of horrific violence or psychoanalysing enemies. Just the opposite. It meant TRUE Promethean measures, a willingness to ratchet things violently upward in the name of ACTUAL and UNADULTERATED benevolent gain for all. It meant real leadership of the walk softly, carry a big stick kind.

Instead, we got the grossest kind of incrementalism that devolved from a war, seemingly like all his policies, derived from the limbic urge of a small man, fed lies by smaller, more focused and probably more malevolent men. Men, willing to feed him more and more ridiculous justifications which he parrots back at us--belittling him, hurting America, and making anxious fools of those who believed in his reindeer games in the first place. I say this defiantly, being no pacifist, the son of umpty-ump generations of soldiers going back to the 1700s. 2005 Ponzi America is a broken place, becoming an hourglass not a bell curve; armed to the teeth, falsely pious and childishly reactive.

Mike, I'll take your frustration with me for what I presume it is: Frustration with the way things are. The way things are cruelly devolving for many. I can't think of anything else to say other than to ask to you read this from last October....

Introducing: Dan Drezner as Gypsy Rose Lee

Having spilled my guts all over this blog more than a few times, I'm still not the least bit bashful to say Dan Drezner's slow-motion fan dance of "come-hither and seduce me to vote Kerry" posts makes me wanna find a whiffle bat. Some praise him for thinking out loud. I wanna report him for public indecency, or, at least, very bad vamping....

Some commenters have suggested that Bush secretly recognizes that mistakes have been made, and there will be changes after the election. I'm glad they're confident of that -- this David Sanger story in Sunday's NYT makes it clear that even insiders aren't sure about this:

"Honestly, I can make a more reliable prediction about what Kerry's foreign policy would look like than I can about our own,'' said one senior American diplomat who has spent considerable time with President Bush over the past three years. "I could argue that you'll see Dick Cheney's revenge, or that the President will determine that the hawks got him in deep, deep trouble, and he'd better turn this around.''

So where am I now? I'm unpersuaded by arguments saying that Bush's foreign policy has been a greater success than commonly thought, and I'm not convinced that he would ever be able to recognize the need for policy change.

However, the responses to the previous post have fed my doubts about Kerry's bad foreign policy instincts -- enough to slightly lower my probability of voting for Kerry to 70%. So it's now up to Kerry's supporters to make their case -- how can I trust that John Kerry gets the post-9/11 world? How can I be sure that Kerry's policymaking process will be sufficiently good so as to overwhelm Kerry's instinctual miscues?

That's not serious inquiry, it's familial enabling and wobbliness--the mark of someone unable to face the pure academic truth of their untenable position. The fan Drezner's blowing kisses from behind is made of ostrich feathers.

1. Post-cold war global power-shift concentrated to the US, combined with WMD proliferation and the events of 9/11 were a perfect storm of foreign policy possibility. Bush screwed the pooch--but it's a screwing Kerry can make right. (Details below.)

2. Just to clarify point #1 above: BUSH DOESN'T GET THE POST-9/11 WORLD. At least, he doesn't get it right. (Details below.)

3. Using the above administration official's quote, Drezner asks, answers, then asks again (because he doesn't like the answer), how Kerry's process orientation beats Bush's? Again, using the quote: Kerry demonstrates an actual familiarity with decision-making as a process; one needing something beyond a divining rod. (Varied input, cross-referencing, feedback loops, awareness of stovepipe effects, etc. Details below.)

There's lots more junk Drezner dangles about domestic policy and whatnot: I respect Bob Rubin, and Dick Holbrooke, etc--but what if Kerry doesn't use those guys? Hmmmm. Dan has two choices of life preserver--one in flames, one serviceable--and he's checking the tag on the useful one, worried it might have been made with union labor.

POINT 1: Muscular common sense. What was [and is still] needed [in the weeks following 9-11] was a highly necessary and, conveniently, highly visible rebuild of US forces to meet the demands of assymmetrical threats--guerillas, insurgency, terrorism, middle east foment. Threats that were not news on September 10th. While commencing your highly visible build-up, you leverage post 9-11 (good)will by firmly planting both feet in the Middle East--one in the Mediterranean, one in the Gulf--and saying:

Enough. Your problem is now our Dead. Time to fix or time to fight–fight us. These are our bombs, planes and tanks; and these, these over here are our bonds, bricklayers and business professors. You choose. We're here to help, but we're done with half measures, and you will fix this. Take what you admire, leave what you don't, keep your autonomy. Think about it. Hard. If you say no, you will not like the alternative.

End the press conference, cue the airlift/sealift, alert pre-positioning. And wait for the phones to ring. And ring they would. And not a soul would have blamed us. Now, that is what Bush should have done. Addressed to the whole Middle East--yes, even the bit with names like Haifa and Tel Aviv.

Fantasy? Not at all. You see, all the Realpolitik once had its place, but it is true, 9-11 changed everything. The main thing it changed was the need for bullshit and parlor language in the realm of Middle East diplomacy. (You certainly can't argue that that suggestion is "risky" and "just not done" on the world stage, at least, you can't given the quixotic things done in America's name over the last 3+ years by the "we create our own reality" administration.) Ipso facto, rules were meant to be broken, and usually are where things actually get done. I've posted here before [1, 2, 3, 4] that Bush would be being measured for Mt. Rushmore right about now, had he acted appropriate to the magnitude of the situation--with a clearer understanding of the global and tribal metaphorical GASP that he had at his command. A large measure. A simply understood statement of fact: enough is enough. Olive branches in one claw, arrows in the other. Hell, it's our logo and our brand. There is no false advertising in the claim, no surprise at it's clarity regardless of whence you came. Yet Bush is all mexed missage R-Complex. Fight or Fight [sic] on Iraq; Fight then Flee on Chinese intercepts of US recon planes over international waters, on steel tariffs, on NCLB, on Drug Benefits, on Fiscal policy, on everything. Ergo: Bush fucks up, regularly; he didn't and doesn't get the pattern language manifest in the War on Terror. Kerry gets exactly the limbic nature of the current situation and can actually explain it, full well knowing we, and they, must climb higher up the cortical and gonadal chain for practicable resolution, although Bush has probably squandered the above profound Middle East Colossus opportunity. Let us hope not.

Dan, come on. Cleanup's a bitch. And you can't complain about the mess, nor keep whining that you'd really really like to fix it, using your ideas and your words, and that you'd feel so much better about your worldview and your past declarations if you could fix it, but that, hey, you're just not sure how. We'll rub your shoulders later. Meantime, Kerry's got to make some plane reservations to go smooth things over with some very anxious and very useful old friends.

POINT 2: Forget point 2. There's no need. Keep fanning, Dan. And vote your conscience. See ya November 3.

Could Kerry have done it, Mike? Who knows? But I know this: It would have given us a restart; a plausible recalibration without losing face. A second chance at grace. Today, there are many who would like a second chance at November; a chance to repossess their vote. Too bad. Avoiding "losing face" at all costs, at the expense of truth and balance, is losing face. We don't notice this key difference because, without a mirror, we cannot see it. And all those who would tell us, our friends who would hold that mirror, we have turned away.