What the Attack Machines Create
First, defeat the enemy’s strategies,
Second, defeat the enemy’s allies,
Third, defeat the enemy’s armies,
Only lastly, siege the enemy’s fortresses.
- Sun-Tzu, “The Art of War”
Whether its Frist, DeLay, Blunt, or Daschle, Reid or either Clinton, it is astonishing to me how much of the opposing Party's energy and rhetoric, and therefore funding, is now taken up in the attack aspect of politics. It would make a fascinating pie chart, I bet. My (optimistic) theory is that this is probably cyclical and that we are now in the "ideas trough" of the American political parabola. I feel quite confident that Democrats are quite capable of creating a viable national security agenda. Democrats like Henry Jackson can emerge and lead the Party away from the leftist cliff, without giving up core social beliefs or a belief in government-as-positive. A conservative myself, I don't necessarily agree with all of those beliefs, but I don't see them as Cindy Sheehan lunacy either. And any true conservative (yes, even Rush) would rather have an argument over ideas than dirty laundry. As a conservative, I wouldn’t mind seeing Republicans punished for the spending free-for-all.
A true intellectual conservative or liberal actually believes that his or her ideas are better and will stand up to scrutiny, and are therefore perfectly willing to debate the finer points right out in the open. They would rather persuade than attack. This is sort of my idea of what an "intellectual" is. With this I am able to place Reagan and Clinton into the intellectual category, (what a wonderful debate that would be!) but not either Bush or as of yet, Hillary. The Party attack machines are now self-perpetuating mechanisms. A weapon seeking a victim. Each party has long had a volunteer corps of attack machinery that could be activated, sometimes deploying surprisingly quickly. Now both parties maintain a standing army. I am perhaps naive, but this feels shocking to me. Speaking with a well-respected moderate Republican congressman the other day on the DeLay situation, I remarked that in the melee he might find himself being bumped up. But in his eyes becoming a leadership position was like putting a bull’s-eye on your chest. He said to me that if the leadership came to him wanting a majority leader, he would have to tell them to hold off for a few weeks.
“Because I know Rahm would instantly drop a bomb on me, and so I need two weeks to drop a bomb on him ahead of time.”
The Sun-Tzu quote above is not irrelevant to the discussion. It is often more difficult to defeat a strategy than a fortress, because it is intellectual warfare. But it remains the best tactic. Now we must preemptively attack just to have a chance to be heard.
Second, defeat the enemy’s allies,
Third, defeat the enemy’s armies,
Only lastly, siege the enemy’s fortresses.
- Sun-Tzu, “The Art of War”
Whether its Frist, DeLay, Blunt, or Daschle, Reid or either Clinton, it is astonishing to me how much of the opposing Party's energy and rhetoric, and therefore funding, is now taken up in the attack aspect of politics. It would make a fascinating pie chart, I bet. My (optimistic) theory is that this is probably cyclical and that we are now in the "ideas trough" of the American political parabola. I feel quite confident that Democrats are quite capable of creating a viable national security agenda. Democrats like Henry Jackson can emerge and lead the Party away from the leftist cliff, without giving up core social beliefs or a belief in government-as-positive. A conservative myself, I don't necessarily agree with all of those beliefs, but I don't see them as Cindy Sheehan lunacy either. And any true conservative (yes, even Rush) would rather have an argument over ideas than dirty laundry. As a conservative, I wouldn’t mind seeing Republicans punished for the spending free-for-all.
A true intellectual conservative or liberal actually believes that his or her ideas are better and will stand up to scrutiny, and are therefore perfectly willing to debate the finer points right out in the open. They would rather persuade than attack. This is sort of my idea of what an "intellectual" is. With this I am able to place Reagan and Clinton into the intellectual category, (what a wonderful debate that would be!) but not either Bush or as of yet, Hillary. The Party attack machines are now self-perpetuating mechanisms. A weapon seeking a victim. Each party has long had a volunteer corps of attack machinery that could be activated, sometimes deploying surprisingly quickly. Now both parties maintain a standing army. I am perhaps naive, but this feels shocking to me. Speaking with a well-respected moderate Republican congressman the other day on the DeLay situation, I remarked that in the melee he might find himself being bumped up. But in his eyes becoming a leadership position was like putting a bull’s-eye on your chest. He said to me that if the leadership came to him wanting a majority leader, he would have to tell them to hold off for a few weeks.
“Because I know Rahm would instantly drop a bomb on me, and so I need two weeks to drop a bomb on him ahead of time.”
The Sun-Tzu quote above is not irrelevant to the discussion. It is often more difficult to defeat a strategy than a fortress, because it is intellectual warfare. But it remains the best tactic. Now we must preemptively attack just to have a chance to be heard.
posted by JCH | 10:05 AM
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