Published on Saturday, March 1, 2008 by The Capital Times (Wisconsin)
Clinton Cuts a McCain Commercial by John Nichols
http://www.madison.com/tct/opinion/column/274961
When a candidate gets desperate to win a primary campaign, he or she often
engages in
irresponsible attacks on the front-runner for the party’s nomination.
Unwittingly, the losing
candidate often ends up framing the themes that will be used by the
opposition party in the fall
campaign to attack the party’s eventual nominee.
In 1972, even after it was pretty clear that South Dakota Sen. George
McGovern would be the
Democratic nominee for president, former Vice President Hubert Humphrey
continued campaigning
for the nomination. The two came up against one another in a bitter
California primary that saw
Humphrey and his sup****ters savage McGovern for being soft on drugs,
abortion and amnesty for
draft dodgers.
McGovern won the primary pretty easily and went on to secure the
nomination. But the damage had
been done. Throughout the fall campaign, Republicans reprised the themes
raised by Humphrey and
his sup****ters. They often quoted Democratic criticisms of McGovern.
You would think that Democrats might have learned.
They haven’t.
To understand how the old game is playing out this year, consider the
following prospective
scenario involving a commercial that Hillary Clinton’s campaign has begun
airing in advance of
the March 4 Democratic primaries in Texas and Ohio:
It is November 2008. Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama are
locked in a tight
contest for the presidency.
In the closing days before the election, a new campaign commercial begins
to air nationwide.
“In a few days, you, the American people, will choose the next president
of the United States,”
begins the distinguished senior senator from Arizona. “As someone who has
served this country in
combat and in the Congress for the past quarter century, I believe that
the first responsibility
of the president is to protect the American people. I believe I am best
prepared to do that.
What of my opponent? Barack Obama is a good man, an inspiring man. But, my
friends, I ask you to
consider this commercial that was put together not by my campaign but by
the campaign of Hillary
Clinton just a few months ago.”
On the screen comes a Clinton campaign commercial that aired before the
March 4 primaries in
Texas and Ohio. It features images of children sleeping peacefully as a
soothing male voice
says, “It’s 3 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep. But there’s a
phone in the White House
and it’s ringing. Something’s happening in the world. Your vote will
decide who answers that
call, whether it’s someone who already knows the world’s leaders, knows
the military — someone
tested and ready to lead in a dangerous world. It’s 3 a.m. and your
children are safe and
asleep. Who do you want answering the phone?”
An image of Clinton holding a phone appears on the screen.
Again comes the voice of the Republican nominee: “I’m John McCain, and I
approve this
commercial, just as United States Senator Hillary Clinton did earlier this
year. I respect
Barack Obama, but I believe Hillary Clinton was right to ask: ‘Who do you
want answering the
phone?’ And I am here to tell you that I am prepared to answer that phone
and to protect you.
God bless you, and God bless America.”
John Nichols is associate editor of The Capital Times, Wisconsin’s
progressive daily news
source, where his column appears regularly. Nichols is a co-founder of
Free Press and the
co-author with Robert W. McChesney of TRAGEDY & FARCE: How the American
Media Sell Wars, Spin
Elections, and Destroy Democracy — The New Press.
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Finally, the campaigns of 1793 and 1794 set Clausewitz on the path of
recognizing war as a
political phenomenon. Wars, as everyone knew, were fought for a purpose
that was political,
or at least always had political consequences. Not as readily apparent
was the implication
that followed. If war was meant to achieve a political purpose, everything
that entered into
war — social and economic preparation, strategic planning, the conduct of
operations, the
use of violence on all levels — should be determined by this purpose, or
at least accord
with it. Even though soldiers had to acquire special expertise, and
function in what in some
respects was a separate world, it would be a denial of reality to allow
them to carry on
their bloody work undisturbed until an armistice brought their political
employer back into
the equation. Just as war and its institutions reflected their social
environment, so every
aspect of fighting should be suffused by its political impulse, whether
this impulse was
intense or moderate. The appropriate relation****p between politics and war
occupied
Clausewitz throughout his life, but even his earliest manuscripts and
letters show his
awareness of their interaction.
The ease with which this link — always acknowledged in the abstract —
can be forgotten in
specific cases, and Clausewitz’s insistence that it must never be
overlooked, are
illustrated by his polite rejection toward the end of his life of a
strategic problem set by
the chief of the Prussian General Staff, in which every military detail of
the opposing
sides was spelled out, but no mention made of their political purpose. To
a friend who had
sent him the problem for comment, Clausewitz replied that it was not
possible to draft a
sensible plan of operations without indicating the political condition of
the states
involved, and their relation****p to each other: ‘War is not an independent
phenomenon, but
the continuation of politics by different means. Consequently, the main
lines of every major
strategic plan are largely political in nature, and their political
character increases the
more the plan applies to the entire campaign and to the whole state. A war
plan results
directly from the political conditions of the two warring states, as well
as from their
relations to third powers. A plan of campaign results from the war plan,
and frequently - if
there is only one theater of operations - may even be identical with it.
But the political
element even enters the separate components of a campaign; rarely will it
be without
influence on such major episodes of warfare as a battle, etc. According to
this point of
view, there can be no question of a purely military evaluation of a great
strategic issue,
nor of a purely military scheme to solve it.’
Everyman’s Library, 1993 ISBN: 0679420436 On war /by Clausewitz, Carl
von, 1780-1831.
Knopf, 1993. From the introduction by Peter Paret, Pg7
_____________________________________________________________________
The U-2 is a jet-powered reconnaissance aircraft specially designed to fly
at high altitudes
(i.e., above 70,000 ft [21 km]). It was used during the late 1950s to
overfly the Soviet
Union, China, the Middle East, and Cuba; flights over the Soviet Union,
the primary mission
for which the plane was designed, ended in 1960 when a U-2 flown by CIA
pilot Gary Powers
was shot down over the Soviet Union. This event was a major political
embarrassment for the U.S.
http://www.espionageinfo.com/Te-Uk/U-2-Spy-Plane.html
Soviet Prime Minister Khrushchev's reaction to the overflights which
were discovered
just before a summit conference in Paris with President Eisenhower: "It
was as though the
Americans had deliberately tried to place a time bomb under the meeting" .
. ."How could
they count on us to give them a helping hand if we allowed ourselves to be
spat upon without
so much as a murmur of protest?" The only solution was to demand a formal
public apology
from Eisenhower and a guarantee that no more overflights would take place
. . .
But the apology Khrushchev was looking for would not come. Despite
having trespassed
on the Soviet Union for the past four years with scores of flights by both
U-2's and heavy
bombers, the old general still could not say the words, it was just not in
him. . . A time
bomb had exploded, prematurely ending the summit conference. . .
Back in Wa****ngton, the mood was glum. The Senate Foreign Relations
Committee was
leaning toward holding a closed door investigation into the U-2 incident .
. . In public,
Eisenhower maintained a brave face. He "heartily approved" of the
congressional probe and
would 'of course fully cooperate,' he quickly told anyone who asked. But
in private he was
very troubled. For weeks he had tried to head off the investigation. His
major concern was
that his own personal involvement in the overflights would surface,
especially the May Day
disaster. Equally, he was very worried that details of the dangerous
bomber overflights
would leak out. The massed overflight may in fact, have been one of the
most dangerous
actions ever approved by a president.
pg. 51-55 ~Body of Secrets; Anatomy of the Ultra Secret National Security
Agency
James Bamford
----------------------------------------------------------------------
"Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform. The whole history of
the progress of
human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims,
have been born of
earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating,
all-absorbing, and for the time
being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does
nothing. If there is
no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and
yet depreciate
agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want
rain without
thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its
many waters."
"This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may
be both moral and
physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a
demand. It never did
and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to
and you have found
out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon
them, and these will
continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both.
The limits of
tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. In the
light of these
ideas, Negroes will be hunted at the North, and held and flogged at the
South so long as
they submit to those devilish outrages, and make no resistance, either
moral or physical.
Men may not get all they pay for in this world; but they must certainly
pay for all they
get. If we ever get free from the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us,
we must pay for
their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and
if needs be, by our
lives and the lives of others."
http://www.buildingequality.us/Quotes/Frederick_Douglass.htm
Frederick Douglass, 1857
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