SEYMOUR HERSH: "I think the Democrats are going to lose the elections if they don't wake up."

Hersh: "Democrats are going to lose the elections .."
... or how the Republicans will win the presidential election ...


Seymour Hersh talks (video) with his magazine’s editor-in-chief, David Remnick, at the New Yorker Festival.


Have you seen a Democrat make a reasonable argument about what to do?

Hersh:

I think the Democrats are going to lose the elections if they don't wake up. And I'll tell you why

The Democrats push is: We have got to reduce by next year. We want the numbers to start reducing.

Bush's option is next summer: To come in with a real low number. What he's saying: "Coming under 100,000 troops. We can cut another 50,000 because we are winning the war."

Let me tell you what they are talking about on the inside .... which is: Surprising the Democrats by coming with a big low number.

This is how they keep the Republicans at the war: "We are coming with a low number - maybe even 70-80,000. We need the war in the next summer and you can campaign on it. And you can kill the Democrats on it because they are all up there in the lala and talking about getting some troops out."

This guy will come in and slash the numbers of troops. This is assuming that we can stand up enough Iraqi military units. ... They think maybe they can do it. ... Stand up the Iraqi units, concede the South, only worry about the central part, keep doing the ethnic cleansing, stabilize it enough: "We can cut troops an awful lot and say we are winning."

Why not?
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2007/10/hersh-democrats.html

VIDEO:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/video/festival/2007/HershRemnick

on their current performance. Ugh. Fineman was on last night with Keith....basically said they're afraid of being hurt by Bush, then wind up hurting themselves anyway by cowering. Not an inspiring party at all at this point!

too many recognize the complicity of the party.

It is far from a shoe-in for the Dems.

with Gore in 2000.

a PR campaign would have to be very good to say we are winning if a couple of helicopters are shot down in quick succession or IED casualties increase in frequency.

during the election cycle, we would probably NEVER hear that type of bad news.

Well, how can you answer that...a big low number?

Sy is pointing out that Bush inflated the numbers with the surge, so if he cuts numbers by say, 50,000, bringing the force to 80,000, he's pulled a "big small number"...instead of it being seen as him drawing down the troops by a paltry 20k, he can claim that our objective have been met, and we will be withdrawing "3/4 of our combat forces"

The way you beat that is to demand a greater number of troops withdrawn- say all of the "combat troops" and leave 60-70k as "support and anti-terrorist" forces.

The Dems are playing too cautiously, because they think they have 2008 sewn up if the war keeps going badly. That's a bad strategy- they should be taking advantage of Bush's weak poll numbers and pushing him mercilessly.

Somehow, that part of the writing did not "flow" nicely.

but the few interviews I've heard of him don't come across well. It's too bad- he has access to info we don't, so he usually knows the score.

...like Bush/Cheney's plan(s) to attack Iran. Sy's the man!

can win 2008 the same way.

Sy Hersh is not exactly a political expert.

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yeah, he's not the expert YOU are.

:roll:

to put words in my mouth. There's another less tactful way to describe that, but nevermind.

I said he's not in expert in politics. He undoubtedly is an expert in other areas such as the military and foreign policy.

See the difference? No? I didn't think so.

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They are already doing this today. He sent what, 30,000 troops up there early this year, then brought back 5,000 and said things are going so peachy we can start cutting troops. I think Hersh has a great point. And while we sit here attacking ourselves they are planning an attack on us.

Not with such detail, but he has been saying something to the effect of "We dems should not get overconfident wrt 2008, the Repubs may not be willing to work a strategy of middle east peace, but they WILL strategize using the troops to say 'we won, look how many troops we're bringing home; aren't you sorry you ever doubted that we Repubs are the national security party?'." Or substance thereof.

we may be walking straight into a preventable loss.

But, I'm just an "outside agitator" according to Pelosi, so what do I know.

'Way to give away a landslide.

:nuke:

AND the inevitable PEACE/ProLabor 3rd Party that a Hillary nomination will catalyze...

The election after this one---that'll be a good one. We'll win this one, but not much will change (I fear). May I be happily proven wrong!

The Democrats on the Hill simply have not learned to
play the PR Game.

They tend to listen to Beltway Insiders and DC Media.

No disrespect for NYT and WAPO, but just stop and think--
where is the largest circulation of these papers.

Cable TV News and Network TV is where most Americans
learn information.

Hersch has a good point.

That delusion mainly being that the public perception is that the Democrats are *winning* on this issue, and that "Republicans own this war.*

Maybe I'm wrong.

all kinds of names

The Dems are making the same damn mistake they made in 1988... because you know the election was sown in...

And who will we blame? Everybody except a leadership that is taking a shotgun. loading it with a solid slug, coking it, and proceeding to shoot foot off.

I, for one, will blame the people in charge who are afraid of challenging Dear Leader on anything... ranging from impeachment to the war... because we don't want to be disruptive... doncha know?

Oh and let me add. I am an outside agitator too, and one who has no clue according to the beltway insiders and the DLC

"But we have to have hope!"

I'd rather have a plan and a victory. Hope is for dreamers.

:-)

As I posted in yesterday's Pelosi true colors thread, our true political situation isn't Dem vs. Repug. Our TRUE political situation is the DC Ruling Class vs. We the People (the "outside agitators").

sw

1880s... long live the guilded age

:-(

We are in a much more militant and fascistic society now. The Gilded Age was more like a carry-over of old European aristocratic feudalism.

No matter what, it totally sucks and is thoroughly unacceptable.

sw

This, imho, is a very poor political strategy. Yet is appears to this independent liberal to be precisely the strategy being employed by the Democrats, particularly the DLC wing. This strategy is even being employed by DUers who're paraphrasing El Smirko's "you're either with us or you're with the terrorists!"

From this voter's perspective, it's a lose-lose proposition. No, thank you.

People who embrace this as 'pragmatic' are in for a rude awakening some day, imho. Better sooner than later.

:shrug:

Plus, snakes only shit about once a month, a day or two after their once a month feeding.

So I think it's a bit unfair to snakes to use their shit as a metaphor for politicians -- who, after all, not only shit copiously and repeatedly and dump it all over the place, they add insult to injury by trying to convince us that it's good for us.

;)
sw

"Don't piss on me and tell me it's raining"

:dunce: It's a metaphor. (Whatever that is.) :silly:

My beautiful rainbow boa was my most excellent dance partner back in my performing days (MANY years ago). I got lost in nostalgia...

Still, it seems to me that worm shit would work equally as well as an altitudinal metaphor (because yes, that is what such a comparison is). I have no fond memories of past relationships with worms.

:D
sw

Ecdysiasm. (yum) :silly:

:evilgrin:

The word 'ecdysiast' was coined from the Greek word ekdysis which zoologists/biologists use (as ecdysis) to refer to molting or a snake's shedding of its skin.

It betrays my really strange and twisted way of 'thinking' that it seemed cute to me.
Yep. Twisted. Sophomoric. (sigh) Guilty.
:(

is that the definition I found said absolutely NOTHING about snakes!



Does that make this a triple or quadruple entendre?

:P

sw

p.s. -- on edit: I was a professional belly dancer in the late 70s & early 80s.

I think the public can do that kind of math. We either pull our troops out completely, or implement a political solution that will bring some stability so we can draw down.

Fat chance of either.

:rofl:

Oil and Imperialism, sometimes called World Peace and spreading Democracy

The polls that say Dems will win in landslides all across the country?

If the elections aren't canceled and they're relatively clean we'll take the WH and make significant gains in both houses.

I have never seen an instance where this was a good way to think. Not even when I thought it.

:shrug:

. . ."the people"? That would, to me, seem to work.
The Professor

The rest of it is just smegma.

Vote free or die bold -- Fly by night's platform for regime change.

The Republicans game isn't to actually win. They know they can't, no way, no how. It's not possible. What they're doing is playing the "reasonable doubt" card. They want to set up a scenario to which their media toadies can point and say "See, the Democrats would have won IF..."

That's all they're shooting for. They want people to believe the Democrats could actually lose just because Bush withdrew a handful of troops. The media will gleefully play along. The machines will be pre-programmed. The exit polls will miraculously be wrong AGAIN, and in the end, "the shocking upset" will be touted by the toadies as a result of the inept Democrats being out-foxed by a moran. And America will buy it again, yawn again instead of marching on the capital, and BushCo will get to continue its crusade.

.

It could happen. At the last minute, a sentimental favorite shows up and the Repubs all rally around, and then the Dem voters are too shocked and divided to fight back. :scared:

It's very hard to imagine any of the current Rep contenders getting even close, though...

.... just looking at the polling numbers for Congress, the fact that Americans like decisive action over ineffective hand-wringing.

Anyone who thinks 2008 is in the bag is nuts. Democrats have failed utterly and completely to do anything of consequence with the power they have been given, and America sees it every day.

And it may well cost them dearly.

That scenario will work out just as well as Rumsfeld's idea of going into Iraq with less troops - and *'s declaring 'Mission Accomplished' while hoping that by just declaring it while wearing his sock-stuffed costume on an aircraft carrier with great big banners 'n stuff, it would really come true.

"Alright everybody! Let's play pretend..."

:thumbsup::kick:

consider his warning. I'm not going to be confident about this election until it's all over and we have a Dem in the WH.

Dems look at the way that people are rejecting the Republicans, and they assume that they'll benefit.

It ain't necessarily so.

If the Dems don't deliver something substantial, the beloved swing voters may well take one of these two options:

1. Staying home on Election Day

2. Voting third party in protest (which is what got Jesse Ventura elected governor in Minnesota)

She is devisive and will turn away many voters (including me and many anti-war liberals who disdain corporatism)

HRC is the next stage of making this seem like a "close" election while the vote stealing goes on. This country is so mucked up, I don't know how we're ever going to get it straightened out.

I'm ready to riot or something, and I'm senior citizen.

BHN

He's makin us look bad!