August 6, 2007

Overconfident Democrats Don’t Hide Desire for Defeat in Iraq

The left is in trouble, precisely because it thinks it is invincible. Democrats are starting to do what they always do when they win one of their rare electoral victories. They are beginning the process of blowing it by overconfidently assuming the country actually agrees with them.

With President Bush’s approval ratings mired in the muck, and headlines every day about a scared Republican jumping ship (even if it’s really just recycled headlines about the same three or four people), the left is feeling its oats, and you can see it.

The latest example is the pronouncement of Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) that a positive report out of Iraq in September, which they now fear will be forthcoming from U.S. commander Gen. David Petraeus, “would be a real big problem for us.”

That’s right, progress in Iraq would be good for Iraq, good for U.S. troops, good for U.S. national security, good for the long-term prospects of the Middle East — but a real problem for Democrats. And they have no qualms about saying so.

He’s right. It would be a big problem for them. The Democrats have built much of their present ascendancy on their successful effort to convince the American people that the war in Iraq is a lost cause. Granted, the spend-happy Republicans who controlled Congress in recent years made the job a lot easier for them, as the Republicans could point to very few achievements that argued for letting them stay in control.

But the notion that we are losing in Iraq is the central component of present left-wing political strategy. The strategy is a huge gamble. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid declared in April that the war was already lost. Democrats have been screaming for U.S. troops to be withdrawn throughout the early stages of the presidential campaign.

Victory is not a thought on any of their minds. The whole idea of victory is ridiculed.

Uh oh. Trouble. Reports are coming in that the surge is working, and that U.S. and Iraqi forces are making progress in Iraq. Even two top scholars at the liberal Brookings Institution recently returned from Iraq and wrote an op-ed for the surely disappointed New York Times titled “A War We Just Might Win.”

Good God. What happened? Everything had been going so well. How did the Democrats find themselves facing this potential quagmire?

Because they forgot who they are, and what they have to do to win. Democrats only win elections when they pretend to be moderates (see Clinton, Bill) and when they put the kibosh on all the anti-American talk that is so common on left-wing message boards and blogs. Even if you are rooting for America’s defeat in a war, you don’t say so. That reminds Americans of why they rarely elect you.

There is a reason only one Democratic presidential candidate has won 50 percent or more of the popular vote in the last 10 presidential elections – and just barely, the post-Watergate Carter’s 50.1 percent in 1976.

There is a reason Democrats who gain power never hold it for long. Remember the conservative nightmare of 1993 when the Dems suddenly controlled the presidency and both houses of Congress? It lasted two years.

Once they pretend their way into office, Democrats invariably delude themselves into believing the country actually thinks like them. Clinton ran as a moderate, took office and tried to impose socialized medicine on the country. It cost him his majority in Congress. Democrats won in 2006 by criticizing the management of the war, and became apoplectic if anyone suggested they wanted to “cut and run.”

Now they’re falling all over themselves to hoist the white flag, and their cover is the poll numbers showing Americans believe them when they say the war is already lost.

So what happens if we start winning? What happens if the surge works, and Petraeus makes a convincing case in September that it is working? What happens if we start gaining control of more territories, casualties continue to decline and political progress moves forward in Iraq?

What if Americans sense the momentum and start getting behind the effort emotionally? What if Bush’s vision of a secure, democratic Iraq happens after all? What if the mission is accomplished, after Democrats used all their political capital mocking the very idea?

They’ve become overconfident again. They’ve gone so far out on the limb of defeatism that all they can do is pray for a much-predicted defeat to come to pass. If it doesn’t, they’re screwed, because they’ll never make it back from the edge of that weakening limb.

Crack!