DNC's Unbearable Bushism

By Steve Hynd

I'd just like to add a hearty "ditto" to Robert Naiman's latest:

when Democratic National Committee spokesman Brad Woodhouse accused Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele of "betting against our troops and rooting for failure in Afghanistan" after Steele criticized the Afghanistan war, Woodhouse wasn't just attacking Michael Steele; Woodhouse was attacking me and every American who is against the war.

That would be wrong, even if there were only five of us. But, in fact, there are many of us, and Brad Woodhouse has wronged us all.

In June, the Washington Post reported that 53 percent of Americans say that the war in Afghanistan is not worth its costs; 41 percent feel that way strongly. Two-thirds of Democrats, 53 percent of independents, and 35 percent of Republicans say the war is not worth its costs.

...In his attack on Steele, Woodhouse seemed to be encouraging Republicans to enforce "party discipline" on Steele to support the war: "The likes of John McCain and Lindsey Graham will be interested to hear that the Republican Party position is that we should walk away from the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban without finishing the job." Enforcing Republican Party discipline on Republicans to support the war in Afghanistan is not in the interest of the majority of Americans and the super-majority of Democrats who oppose the war.

...Imagine if Michael Steele were now caught on tape expressing his support for abortion rights and freedom from discrimination for gays and lesbians serving in the military. If Brad Woodhouse put out a statement denouncing Steele and demanding that Republicans compel Steele to adhere to Republican discipline, would Woodhouse not catch hell from Democratic supporters of abortion rights and the civil rights of gays and lesbians? If you care about issues, it's not in your interest for someone to "police the boundaries" of the other side. Red rover, red rover. Let another Republican refusenik come over.

Woodhouse is entitled to his views, but as a spokesman of the Democratic National Committee, he is not entitled to take actions that run counter to the interests of the overwhelming majority of Democrats, if the DNC wishes to be perceived as institution that represents Democrats and is entitled to their support.

In saying that Steele was "betting against our troops and rooting for failure in Afghanistan," Woodhouse engaged in a tactic that Democrats have justly and bitterly complained about when Republicans used it against them. By engaging in this sort of attack, Woodhouse helps to foster a climate in which critics of this war or any other can be marginalized with attacks on their patriotism. This is unacceptable whether done by Republicans or Democrats.

The way in which Woodhouse and others cynically manipulated the anti-war movement over Iraq to bash Republicans while essentially giving Democrats a pass on their many enabling votes for that war has been well documented, particularly by Matt Taibbi.

Worst of all is the case of Woodhouse, who came to Hildebrand Tewes after years of working as the chief mouthpiece for the DSCC, where he campaigned actively to re-elect Democratic senators who supported the Iraq War in the first place. Anyone bothering to look � and clearly the Post and the Times did not before penning their ardent bios of Woodhouse � would have found the youthful idealist bragging to newspapers before the Iraq invasion about the pro-war credentials of North Carolina candidate Erskine Bowles. "No one has been stronger in this race in supporting President Bush in the War on Terror and his efforts to effect a regime change in Iraq," boasted the future "anti-war" activist Woodhouse.

With guys like this in charge of the anti-war movement, much of what has passed for peace activism in the past year was little more than a thinly veiled scheme to use popular discontent over the war to unseat vulnerable Republicans up for re-election in 2008. David Sirota, a former congressional staffer whose new book, The Uprising, excoriates the Democrats for their failure to end the war, expresses disgust at the strategy of targeting only Republicans. "The whole idea is based on this insane fiction that there is no such thing as a pro-war Democrat," he says. "Their strategy allows Democrats to take credit for being against the war without doing anything to stop it. It's crazy."

There's an echo of that two-faced manipulation in Obama's presidency, where we've seen him double down on one war while allowing leaked muttering about extending the other past it's due-by date. Somehow, though, he still has a reputation among Dem voters as a man of peace.

One has to ask: will there ever be a point at which Dem voters get so sick of being shafted that they take their votes and go form a new party, cutting the grassroots out from under self-serving Dem elite? Or are these grassroots the kind that can be mown to make hay every year, forever?

Update: Several anti-war groups have signed on to a letter by Naiman calling for the DNC to make a statement which should:

1. Acknowledge that accusing Mr. Steele of "betting against our troops and rooting for failure" was unjust, not only towards Mr. Steele, but towards all American critics of the war;

2. Commit that the Democratic National Committee, and anyone speaking on its behalf, will not represent support for the war in Afghanistan as the position of Democrats; and

3. Commit that the Democratic National Committee, and anyone speaking on its behalf, will not attack the patriotism of critics of the war, nor accuse critics of the war of "rooting for failure," nor of "wanting to cut and run," nor of "not supporting our troops," nor engage in any other attack which impugns the motives of critics of the war.

The ball is firmly in the DNC's court now. They must respond "if the DNC wishes to be perceived as institution that represents Democrats and is entitled to their support."