Why Strong and Wrong seems right to the Right

The war in Iraq has been so mismanaged that it has become a disaster. The President's party was hammered in the last election. There were many issues in the mix but Iraq was persistently at the top of the list. Then the Iraq Report was published, rubbing salt into the President's wounds. What's a President to do?

There are three options that are being discussed.

1. Get out. Some Americans see this option as just facing reality. The President has bungled the war so badly it cannot be salvaged so why send more money and kill more Americans. It is time to cut our loses. The President views this as Cut and Run. Giving up when we should go for Victory. It would also require that George Bush admit the war was over and lost. Only his administration is to blame. Admitting failure doesn't seem to be his strong point. It is understandable that the President will never willingly follow this route.
2. Change course and continue to try. This approach would probably follow the Iraq Report. Some Americans support this as a centrist position. Losing Iraq will hurt the US and saving Iraq is worth one more try. However, to the President it looks like other people have to tell him how to win the war because he doesn't know what he is doing. On top of that the ball is still in his court. This new course forward means he is now has the chance to lose the war a second time in a whole new way. The odds of success are long. Too risky. Too much responsibility. It looks like the President has already decided this course is not for him.
3. Double down. This is a gambling term. An appropriate choice of words. Throw 20,000 - 50,000 more troops into Iraq. (Why not? Our troops that are there now are showered with flowers and hailed as liberators.) Invest more money. $400,000,000,000 so far hasn't done the job. $2,000,000,000 each week isn 't enough. Maybe now is the time to pull out all the stops. The President talks about this as a way to victory.

It is about perception. We may have lost the ground war, but the President may not have lost the spin war. Any good manager learns how to take credit for successes and transfer the blame to someone else for failures. That is why Strong and Wrong seems right to the right.

Americans like strength. Americans like to win. That's what the President says he stands for. So when he fails it becomes really important to blame the Democrats (and maybe the American people, but only because they are being hood-winked by the Democrats.) Blaming the Democrats for a war the President prosecuted without checks and balances, without restrictions, won't be easy.

The first step is to develop an outlandish plan. Something that involves big talk but that will never be executed. Strong and wrong. More money. More troops. Take a military approach when everyone agrees it is diplomacy that offers hope. Take what doesn't work and do more. The nuttier the better. Be so outlandish that the Democrats will quit cowering in the corner and actually step up and block the President.

The President loses wars but he is usually pretty good at winning the blame game. His explanation will go like this: We could have won but the Democrats cut and ran. I wanted to change directions but the Democrats wouldn't let me. The Democrats were for the war, then they were against the war. Their flip flop gave the victory to the terrorists.

By going Strong and Wrong the President tosses the ball into the Democrats' court. He gets to blame them for the war he lost. He might be brighter than we thought.

Rick

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