As you say, starting Thursday, the House of Representatives will hold a debate on the Iraq war. We're pretty savvy here at dkos. We know that the goal will be to get:
1) Juicy soundbites for Republican opponents, and/or...
2) Democrats to declare muddied positions on the war that will get them in trouble with us
As I'm sure you're already aware, Think Progress has released some details...
ThinkProgress has obtained a "Confidential Messaging Memo" from Boehner instructing his caucus to conduct a very different kind of deliberation. Here's a quick summary:
1. Exploit 9/11. The two page memo mentions 9/11 seven times. It describes debating Iraq in the context of 9/11 as "imperative."
2. Attack opponents ad hominem. The memo describes those who opposes President Bush's policies in Iraq as "sheepish," "weak," and "prone to waver endlessly."
3. Create a false choice. The memo says the decision is between supporting President Bush's policies and hoping terrorist threats will "fade away on their own."
Rep Slaughter, we have been framed in the Lakoff sense of the word. We are in a box labeled "post 9/11 world," built out of the failure of George W Bush to fulfill the primary duty of a president.
But I for one am concerned that you and your colleagues have accepted the right's framing of 9/11 for too long, and I bet that the House Republicans are betting that will continue. They will create a debate around the assumption that 9/11 was a teleological event, predestined by fate. You and the House Dems know it wasn't, right?
If so, that leads us to a fundamental choice for you and the rest of our Dem reps -- we will only get ourselves out of that box when you call 9/11 what it really is:
1) In the clear light of day, 9/11 was a massive failure of this country's Commander in Chief to protect the United States.
And that leads to the corrollary:
2) Any new attacks -- especially between now and November -- will be even more massive failures of the CinC to protect the United States.
The sneer I'm sure you hear the most from the right is that 9/11 was bin Laden's fault, not Bush's. Here's a good response to that:
1) Bush was not responsible for bin Laden's attempt to attack America on 9/11
2) Bush was absolutely responsible for making sure bin Laden didn't succeed.
I hope during the debate that you or another House Dem points out that there is at least a decent chance under a President Gore that there would not have been a 9/11. And thus no post-9/11 world and so on.
Perhaps this time someone on our side can point to the July 4th 2001 warnings or the August 2001 PDB. Maybe someone on our side can declare that if President Bush would have had the same response to those warnings that Clinton/Gore had to the 2000 Olympics warnings or the 2000 Millenium changeover, the heightened alert might have stopped the attack. Might even have caught the attackers.
You -- and thus all of us -- are going to get hit with this again and again for the next five months. So doesn't that mean it's finally time for the folks on our team to hammer back? Isn't it high time we pointed out that the "post-9/11 world" exists only because of massive failure of leadership on the part of George W Bush, his administration and those Republicans who have failed to hold him accountable?
Again, I hope so. Because that kind of boldness on the part of House Dems might even help us win.
Politically Yours,
cvcobb01