Sunday, September 10, 2006
HOBSON WAS TOO PRO-CHOCE:
Some of us are delighted by all the furor over the ABC docufictory about 9-11. Those who have practiced parliamentary maneuvering for as many years as I will remember a vital principle: If you can get them arguing about the wrong question, then you don't have to worry about their answer. This synthetic tempest is a classic example of how to distract your foes, on several levels. It not only hurts them in the election, it also undercuts them philosophically and pledges them to our goals.
What is the objection the left is shouting? That the film distorts, or even flat lies about, the record of the Clinton administration in fighting terrorism. Of course it does, but attacking it for that misses the clever point. It has the left arguing about the history of what led up to an incident five years in the past. While they are battling over alleged ancient inaccuracies, they are not arguing about either 1) what is going wrong now, or 2) what changes need to be made to fix that -- like electing new people to office.
Still worse for their cause, this choice of battleground implies that Clinton and the Democrats would have been just as aggressive in shutting down our civil liberties at home and launching aggressive wars abroad. The posturing by the lefties over this all but says, "Hey, we would too have made airline passengers take off their shoes, and invaded countries from which come dark foreigners who worship strange gods." International law? War crimes? Torture? "We would too have done the same thing, and you're lying to say we wouldn't."
Oh, gee, then, we apologize profusely for ever doubting your patriotic support of our upcoming war of us against all, round 2: Target Tehran. Sorry about that misleading script -- a mere misunderstanding among fellows of the sword and bomb. Now that you're committed to our next crusade, we'll just add a disclaimer. Report for orders tomorrow morning in our new unified effort. I understand the theme song will be The Rough-As-A-Cob March: "We're marching, marching to Shibboleth..."
Some of us are delighted by all the furor over the ABC docufictory about 9-11. Those who have practiced parliamentary maneuvering for as many years as I will remember a vital principle: If you can get them arguing about the wrong question, then you don't have to worry about their answer. This synthetic tempest is a classic example of how to distract your foes, on several levels. It not only hurts them in the election, it also undercuts them philosophically and pledges them to our goals.
What is the objection the left is shouting? That the film distorts, or even flat lies about, the record of the Clinton administration in fighting terrorism. Of course it does, but attacking it for that misses the clever point. It has the left arguing about the history of what led up to an incident five years in the past. While they are battling over alleged ancient inaccuracies, they are not arguing about either 1) what is going wrong now, or 2) what changes need to be made to fix that -- like electing new people to office.
Still worse for their cause, this choice of battleground implies that Clinton and the Democrats would have been just as aggressive in shutting down our civil liberties at home and launching aggressive wars abroad. The posturing by the lefties over this all but says, "Hey, we would too have made airline passengers take off their shoes, and invaded countries from which come dark foreigners who worship strange gods." International law? War crimes? Torture? "We would too have done the same thing, and you're lying to say we wouldn't."
Oh, gee, then, we apologize profusely for ever doubting your patriotic support of our upcoming war of us against all, round 2: Target Tehran. Sorry about that misleading script -- a mere misunderstanding among fellows of the sword and bomb. Now that you're committed to our next crusade, we'll just add a disclaimer. Report for orders tomorrow morning in our new unified effort. I understand the theme song will be The Rough-As-A-Cob March: "We're marching, marching to Shibboleth..."
