Politics Blog

The New York Times shows its true colors again. Eight major European countries throw their support behind the United States. Their leaders write a letter of support and publish it in the Wall Street Journal. How does the New York Times treat this event? With an article that begins as follows:

Assuming a somewhat frayed mantle as global diplomat, Prime Minister Tony Blair set off for the United States tonight to meet with President Bush, bearing an unusual pledge of support on Iraq from eight European leaders but leaving behind a continent ever more divided over the need for war.

Remember when the Axis of Weasels, consisting entirely of Germany and France, broke with the US last week? The Times trumpeted the news for all it was worth. Now that Britain, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Denmark have come down squarely on the other side, the Times feels compelled to use phrases like “frayed” and “unusual” to describe their support. I wish the editors of the Times would just come right out, declare their feelings and join the Free Mumia/Stop the War rallies organized by Stalinists.

The Harris poll has an enormous (13,000) sample size and charts the change in GOP and Democratic self-identification over the years.

For the second year in a row, those who think of themselves as Democrats (regardless of how they actually vote) declined in 2002. The Democratic lead in party identification over Republicans has fallen from eight points in 2000 to five points in 2001 and only three points in 2002. Those who think of themselves as Democrats now outnumber Republicans by only 34% to 31% with 24% describing themselves as Independent, with the rest as not sure (6%) or something else (5%). This is the smallest Democratic lead we have recorded since we began measuring party identification in 1969, when Democrats enjoyed a 17-point lead over Republicans.

These numbers are based on replies to 13 nationwide surveys of adults surveyed between January and December 2002. These surveys were conducted by telephone with a total of over 13,000 adults (ages 18+). The numbers for previous years, since 1969, were all based on 10,000 or more interviews each year.

In the polls conducted in the 1970s we found, on average, a 21-point Democratic lead over the Republicans, with a peak of 25 points in 1975, the year President Nixon resigned. In the 1980s and 1990s, this Democratic lead declined to 11 and seven percentage points, respectively. In the first three years of this decade (2000 through 2002) the Democratic lead has averaged only five points.

If you’re a political junkie, read the whole thing. Other polls show similar changes.

Nelson Mandela’s ultra-leftist roots are showing. At a “Women’s Forum” he lashed out at President Bush in a truly repulsive way. Some quotes:

If there is a country which has committed unspeakable atrocities, it is the United States of America. They don’t care for human beings.

Where was your outrage, Mr. Mandela, when the Soviet Union, China, North Korea and Cuba were jailing, torturing and murdering millions of their subjects?

One power with a president who has no foresight and cannot think properly is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust.

…

Is it because the secretary-general of the United Nations is now a black man? They never did that when secretary-generals were white.

…

All Bush wants is Iraqi oil, because Iraq produces 64 percent of oil and he wants to get hold of it.

Do I even need to dignify any of that with a comment? “Cannot think properly?” “Holocaust?” What on earth are you thinking, Mr. Mandela?

This is going to be so cool! The Bushies have been downplaying their evidence against Saddam, but it’ll be fun watching Colin Powell lay it out at the UN on live TV in an “audio-visual” presentation.

Miguel Estrada has made it through the Senate Judiciary Committee and will probably make it through the full Senate very soon. As I’ve suggested before, we should save him as a Supreme Court nominee until Justice Stevens’ likely retirement in the next few years.

Funny how people can independently think of the same thing all at once. After my post this morning about John Kerry’s mealy-mouthedness on Iraq, I noted that Roll Call had covered the same thing today. Now Ann Coulter’s doing it too.

The Note makes the same assertion today that I made a few days ago. Democrats loathe Bush in the same way Republicans loathed Clinton:

Democrats now see George W. Bush the way Republicans saw Bill Clinton, questioning his motives and judgment on foreign policy, saying he runs the most political White House of all time, and that he is engaged in short-term fixes and avoiding long-term problems.

Republicans, for their part, seem to have adopted the Sidney Blumenthal/Cheryl Mills mentality of saying that the opposition is waking up every day with a craven, demonic plan to undermine the president and the presidency.

There are “our” people, and there are “their” people, and unless you work at one of those mercenary bipartisan lobbying shops, you probably don’t have any reason to ever do a darn thing but question the motives of the other side.

All of this has been fostered by the Democrats new Absolut CW, shared by every strategist in the party: the mantra is that the only way to succeed now and in 2004 is to get in Mr. Bush’s face and aggressively take him on, all the time, on everything.

The differences between Bush and Clinton, though, are vast. Bush pushes popular conservative policies (tax cuts, social security privatization and tort reform enjoy large majorities in the polls) while Clinton pushed unpopular liberal ones like HillaryCare and gays in the military. Also Bush isn’t going to have a Lewinsky or Whitewater situation. Thus Democrats’ hatred for him, which provokes them to push the boundaries of shrillness, could prove their biggest handicap.

I have a non-obvious suggestion to make: Republicans should let the Senate vote on Ted Kennedy’s second Iraq resolution. It’ll force John Kerry to decide which side of the Iraq issue he wants to be on. The mealy-mouthed Kerry, in his usual manner, has been playing both sides of Iraq. He voted for the Iraq resolution, but has been criticizing it at every turn. Time to make a stand, Mr Kerry. Do you want to alienate the Democratic primary electorate or the general election electorate? The Democratic primary electorate won’t look too kindly on a pro-Bush vote on Iraq, no matter how the war goes. The general election electorate won’t look so kindly on you if you vote against the resolution and Iraq is revealed, after a war, to have all manner of ugliness.

John Edwards will face a similar dilemma in a vote on partial-birth abortion.

UPDATE: Kerry is as uncomfortable about this as I predicted. Says Roll Call:

“Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.), a presidential aspirant whose most prominent backer is Kennedy, also paused when asked about his senior Senator’s demand for another vote on Iraq. He said he wanted to talk about the issue more with Kennedy, while indicating a generic support for another resolution that would end up with the same result.”

“‘It’s always helpful to have people affirming things before we go to war, but it’s not always necessary,’ he said.”

Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Orrin Hatch is making it difficult for Democrats to attack the president’s judicial nominees by lumping together multiple nominees in a single hearing.

The Wall Street Journal has an op-ed by the leaders of Britain, Spain, Italy, Poland, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary and Portugal supporting the president on Iraq.

It is now France and Germany who are isolated. It is they who are “unilateralists.”