Let the Good Times Roll

The Democratic party is on a roll. The public wants the war to be over and Democrats want to end it for them. You’ve got to think it’s good news when the electorate wants what you want to give.

There has always been an appetite for pacifism on the left. Sometimes it was a guilty little secret pleasure to be ignored. Sometimes it has been an irresistible hunger. Today the Democrats are like a chocoholic being told that Mama’s Triple Fudge brownies are not only good for you, but you’re going to get paid to eat them.

Yup, it’s good times. They are going to let their anti-war side run wild and the public is going to love them for it.

…so why do Democrats look so scared?

The party leadership that was around during Vietnam remember what happened the last time they let loose into a full anti-war frenzy and for all the arguments about whether Iraq is another Vietnam, the political situation does have amazing similarities: An unpopular war with a large majority of the public wanting our troops to come home, an activist minority pushing the party to the left and party leaders in an “I’m more anti-war than you are” contest.

In the early 70’s Democrats heard the voice of the people and gave them what they wanted. They ended the war and expected the public would reward them. It made perfect sense, and it didn’t work.

In 1976 Jimmy Carter was able to win the White House thanks to the hangover from Watergate, but how many seats did Democrats pick up in the House and Senate? Zero. And just 4 years later Republicans had a landslide for President, a pickup of 35 seats in the House and control of the Senate for the first time since 1954.

Democrats were asking “What the [expletive deleted] went wrong?”

The problem was that they gave the public what they wanted, not what they needed. Americans don’t like seeing their neighbors get hurt, so their ‘want’ was for the war to stop, but after they got what they wanted they took a step back and realized that what the Country needed was to win. In short order, the American people decided that the Democrats could not be trusted with national security and it took the party a generation to repair the damage.

The same political dynamic is playing out in the nation today. The war has been longer and harder than the public expected and they want it to be over, so the Democrats are again yielding to their anti-war instincts and rushing to give the public what it wants.

If we succeed in Iraq the anti-war crowd will look foolish and the Democrats will suffer for it. If we fail in Iraq, just like the late 70’s the public will soon shift focus to the fact that they don’t like America loosing a war and will be looking for someone to blame. The country will again turn against the anti-war movement and the Democratic party will pay the price.

Democrats have ignored the lessons of history. They think they are flying high. That’s how falling off a cliff feels until you hit the ground.