Separated at birth?
"[The] idea that we’re going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong,” -- Howard Dean
"One can't doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed." -- William F. Buckley
posted by Chris Andersen at 3:43 PM
9 Comments:
It's not surprising really. Many conservatives were against the war.
Is that the new talking point? Because I certainly don't recall "many" conservatives being against the war.
New? No. Mostly unheard. Buckley and Buchanana were always against the war. Here's a writing from 2003.
Sorry, that's Buchanan. It's like banana, I never know when to stop.
Buchanan and Buckley in and off themselves do not constitute "many". They are prominent, but they still are just two people.
No doubt there were a few conservatives here and there who opposed the war. I remember Buchanan being against it. I don't recall Buckley being against it. He may well have been, but his opposition was given no airing. As was the opposition of other conservatives, if there were any.
When you say "many" I assume you mean "a significant number even if not necessarily a majority". In other words, 30-40%. I don't recall anywhere that level of opposition to the war from conservatives. At least not publicly.
I never said Buchanan and Buckley constituted "many." Those were just two famous examples in addition to those mentioned in the link I provided. You're making a semantics argument. I should only use "many" if it's 30-40% of all conservatives? I wasn't aware of that rule. Even if the number is only 1% of the US population, that's still many (Buchanan's supporters would more than make that number by themselves, no?). 31% of Conservative Christians were also against the war. I make no apologies about the fact that a solid majority of conservatives supported the war, and continue to support it.
I'm not saying they were wise or right to oppose it or support it. I was just putting it out there that opposition did exist.
I think we are talking two different things. You are talking about the total of all conservatives. I am talking about the total of all conservatives that actually get any coverage.
It really doesn't matter who agrees or disagrees. It matters who gets portrayed in the media as representing the opinion of the group they belong to.
Under that perspective, very few conservatives were ever seen to be opposed to the war.
Chris, I wanted to get some further clarification on your post "The Good and The Truth" but the post won't allow comments so I thought I'd ask here. In that post you said,
"Democrats use the polls to determine which ideas are "popular" and which are not and adjust their policies and politics to match those results.
Republicans use the polls to determine which messages resonate best with the public and then adjust their talking points to match those results.
The flaw in the Democratic approach is that it leads to a party afraid to express core convictions out of fear that they might not be popular.
The flaw in the Republican approach is that it leads to lying about your true intent because if the people really knew what you stood for they would reject you.
"
I was wondering why you consider one lying and one not? After all, if one is throwing support behind a popular position just because it's popular, aren't one's core convictions intentionally hidden as well?
The Democratic position isn't one of hiding core convictions. Its a position of not having core convictions in the first place.
You can't lie if you don't have something to lie about.
That being said, my original statement was a description of the end results of the two methods. It is not a statement that, at this moment, Democrats have no core convictions and Republicans always lie about what they really want to do. I'm just saying that both approaches, if one isn't careful, can lead down seriously dark paths.
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