*
A blogger named Dan Solomon, whose site you can visit here, raised an interesting objection to my current metaparanoid scenario involving the drafting of Petraeus and Lieberman as the 2008 Republican presidential ticket out of the thin air of left field. I'm reproducing Dan's comment and my reply here at the top level because I think it's interesting.
I'll add something here that I forgot to address in Dan's comment. I think the disruption of the GOP convention would not necessarily be disadvantageous. It could be stage-managed into a groundswell of "spontaneous" enthusiasm (never mind where all those Petraeus posters suddenly came from). I believe that the Republican lumpen proletariat is naturally self-selected to be a top-down, hierarchy-awed, order-taking lot. Compliance is mandatory; resistance is futile.
________________
dansolomon said...
To follow-up from Bob Cesca's place-
Petraeus couldn't just announce -during- the convention, he'd have to announce beforehand, by the end of August. And he'd be breaking military custom to do so (generals aren't required to announce their retirement sixty days ahead of time, but they almost always do, barring cancer or something), which is a big deal. There's really just not enough time- we're three weeks away from the point at which he'd have to enter the race, and he's nowhere near announcing his retirement. Keep in mind that, if he announces his retirement, he's in effect declaring himself for the nomination (why else would he retire suddenly, in a break from custom?). Which means that McCain has to spend the rest of August as a lame duck that everyone -knows- is lame, so effectively the Republicans have no nominee between Petraeus retiring and the convention. Retiring late in the month would make him look like the scheming-est politician in the world (a real risk anyway), and there's nowhere for him to go.
If he were already a retired general, I think you'd be on to something. But this would be totally unprecedented (and seen by many to be a push toward Martial Law) and it'd disrupt the Republican party in ways that wouldn't be advantageous to them. It'd be a huge gamble, in entirely new ways, and I don't think McCain's polling makes it seem particularly attractive. Remember, his biggest problems come from a lack of a ground game, and that's something that'd be hampered even more by a switcheroo.
--d
07 August, 2008 06:03
Blogger StuporMundi said...
Dan,
You've raised a procedural barrier that I hadn't thought of, and I hope it's as large of a barrier as you think it is. But I don't think so. Consider the real stakes here to the current players. It's not the war, it's keeping the executive investigative and law-enforcement power out of Democratic hands. It's probably not a stretch to say that every senior administration leader is vulnerable to investigation and prosecution for violation of oath, dereliction of duty, obstruction of justice, garden-variety corruption, and so on. My theory is based on this premise.
My theory is also based on the power of television to affect the behavior of the so-called swing voter, which is likely the low-info voter who gets most of his or her information from the TV. Those are the people who are most impressionable to powerful TV images of "leadership" and "presidential" comportment.
Another premise of my theory is that, if I'm correct, this strategy was thought of and planned long ago. Any disruption of the convention process would actually be part of the plan since it will be stage-managed by whatever cabal is wanting to "draft" Petraeus.
Would it be a big gamble? I don't think so. But consider this: to reasonable, impartial people, the Republican brand is ruined. These are the people who have put the country on the "wrong track," and everybody knows it. McCain doesn't have much more dignity or credibility to lose; he will be completely out of it by the time the GOP convention starts. If McCain is the nominee, the Republicans will lose, and the GOP knows it.
Yes, you and I would consider this act to be a precedent-erasing move toward overt martial law. But who are you and I? Just two guys who won't vote for a Republican. All this move requires is a procedural irregularity and a violation of military tradition, neither feat being too difficult for people who have been pulling the President's strings for 8 years. There would be some tut-tutting. Henry Waxman would hold a hearing.
Your point about the Republicans having no ground game is dead-on, and that's another reason why I fear this Petraeus '08 possibility. The only way the GOP can win is through a spectacular, unprecedented media campaign. September would be a great time for them to roll out their new product: a bloodless military junta for America.
Thanks for commenting on this. I surely hope that you're correct and that I am dead wrong.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Well, it's sure as hell an intriguing premise. I notice, though, that it's predicated on a Republican fear of having investigative/law-enforcement power in Democratic hands. I'm not really optimistic enough to believe that's a threat to anyone, and I wonder if that's a serious fear for those who might be liable for prosecution... I suspect that they probably feel pretty invincible, at least as far as that stuff's concerned, given the past eight years (and, really, their whole lives). "Well, if John Yoo said it was okay..." So I'm not sure I see them keeping the White House out of Democratic hands is quite as pressing a need as you do. Hopefully we're both right (and wrong), and they don't see prosecution as likely, and then an Obama administration bothers with justice. But that's not a bet I'd be interested in taking, under any odds.
ReplyDeleteI think that they mostly just haven't got any real intention of winning, and that's why they'll stick with McCain. Like the DNC in 2004, they've decided that the Presidency is a poisoned well to drink from and are more interested in using a backlash against the guy who wins to score some legislative gains- a rebuilding year, if you will, the political equivalent of the Kansas City Chiefs. Their best-case scenario, assuming that they feel secure that President Obama doesn't empower a hellcat as attorney general (oh, John Edwards, why'd you have to let us down?) with the mandate to hand out as many subpoenas as possible, involves a close race with Obama squeaking in, albeit with such a low mandate that his legitimacy is forever in doubt- play him like Carter2.0, and gear up for 2012 with a Big Daddy type here to rescue you from the time bombs Dick Cheney planted before running off to a lobbying job that Obama couldn't keep from going off in four short years. Then maybe Petraeus steps up trying his best to look like Superman in kingdom come. But given that he's their best chance for a real re-branding right now, they'd have to be pretty damn scared to waste that potential giving him what they must see as a doomed 2008 Presidency. I don't see it. Especially given the backlash- even among military types, who have their customs in place for a good reason- that makes a Petraeus win less than certain to begin with.
--d
Open your mind to new possibilities and twistedness. Conceive of Machiavelli today on steroids and backed by multiple think tanks and "idea sessions." What may well be pulled in the dark, the light or strategically arranged twilight could, like, blow your mind, Man. It's probably a fair bet we can't conceive of it (via trend, nature, guess, and scarcity of fact/info.) but in a deliberate and ordered way "it" is very likely well along and into the Implementation Phase even as we speak. Scared yet? (A convenient means of manipulation.) If "it" occurs you should be.
ReplyDeleteThe Pet./Lie. idea? Plausible on the outside and interesting. Right now it does look like McNasty is a weak hand to play. On balance though with marketing accumen and experience, in some ways able to successfully foist turds on a shingle, I'd bet the course is to keep astride the current mount and it'll be a close race (including shenanigans and attendant crimes that will only be prosecuted later, if at all).
L. MacAdoo
Dan: for my own sense of wellbeing I'm happy that you have been trying to "talk me down from the ledge." I we (in the U.S.) still lived in a country where political developments could be assumed to be reasonably linear, I'd tend to agree with you and wouldn't have unveiled my malign vision. Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine" is sitting near the top of my reading pile, though. I bought it because her "disaster capitalism' ideas sound plausible, and I think they may also be applicable to creating nonlinear political change. I'd been thinking that the Republicans are ready to concede this one and rebrand their party with a Man on a White Horse (i.e., Big Daddy) in '12. But based on other reading that I just finished (and may blog about soon), I feel there is strong reason to believe that as heinous as the war is, there are high crimes much worse and more shocking that could be investigated by a suddenly remasculated Democratic Party (wishful thinking, for sure). By the same token, the mastermind GOP twist might be to let the culpable bastards all hang under a Democratic AG --- a purge --- and then rebrand their party with a new cast of characters who scamper out from under the moldy bark and leaves.
ReplyDeleteMacAdoo: You have succeeded in explaining some of the reasoning and premises I have been operating from, even though I haven't expressed them fully. It looks like you predict an outcome along the same lines that Dan does. If I accepted that scenario, I'd append it by saying that it's difficult to see how the race between Obama and McCain could even be close. The media are already portraying it that way, though, even though Obama has consistently been in the lead since Clinton's campaign folded. But that's a corporate media interpretation: too many people are being screwed by the economy, "free market" healthcare rationing, and children coming home from the middle east missing limbs, faces, or souls.
Careful of 'The Shock Doctrine', it'll leave you a mess for weeks. Even if you already know and feel like you have a good grasp on how these things work, Klein connects the dots in truly staggering ways.
ReplyDeleteThe good news from that perspective is that the McCain candidacy isn't really in that mold. If he were to die sometime next week, then you'd see a better scenario, but even then, not exactly... The key to the shock doctrine is that the victim (us, or some poor schlub in Guantanamo, or the people of post-Communist Poland, etc) has no other options and is desperate for solutions. You're seeing the shock doctrine at work as the previously wildly unpopular idea of offshore drilling is suddenly starting to sound palatable to people coping with $4 a gallon.
I'm trying to imagine a scenario now that would have that same traumatic shock effect on the electorate in a political campaign. If it had been Edwards for the Democrats, and John McCain were to have a heart attack, the election would immediately tip in favor of whoever put up the candidate who promised to fix the least consequential things. I don't know, really... It's definitely fertile ground for a number of thought exercises.
--d