Like Michael Myers from the Halloween movies, Hillary Clinton showed on Tuesday that she won’t go down easily. Eleven straight victories by Barack Obama had been the political equivalent of five bullets from Dr. Loomis and a back flip out of a second story window – she took the punishment and got back up for more.
And as the Democrats gird themselves for what will likely be a nasty fight this spring, John McCain has time to shore up his base and hone his message. Regardless of whom he winds up facing in the general election, though, there is one area where he cannot afford any missteps: the war in Iraq.
Now entering its fifth year, our mission in Iraq is still an open-ended and unpopular money pit, costing upwards of $12 billion per month. The strain it has put on the military may take years to rectify. And, despite recent signs of progress, the entire endeavor remains on fragile footing.
When it comes to the war, McCain and any hawks among his supporters would be wise to acknowledge some facts. First, the ostensible reason for the invasion – to disarm Saddam Hussein – evaporated long ago. Supporters of the war spin it as “Saddam was a bad guy” or “we shut down his torture chambers” – both true, but neither point was presented in the case to the American people. We would have been justified in finding something, anything - even a bottle of anthrax in a laboratory refrigerator. We didn’t and it is intellectually dishonest for conservatives not to acknowledge as much.
Second, the war has been terribly mismanaged. For all of the Left’s unhinged and irrational hatred of George Bush, they have been right on one point – the man is stubborn to a fault. “Stay the course” was the extent of his message on the war, right up until November 2006 when many Republicans were punished for staying the course along with him. Only then did Bush fire Rumsfeld, change tactics, and institute the surge. It should not take a drubbing in an election to elicit a more nimble response from our commander-in-chief.
On the other side of the aisle, both Democratic candidates have the clear upper hand, even if their rhetoric, too, is dishonest. Senator Clinton was among the circling hawks when she said in October, 2002:
"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members, though there is apparently no evidence of his involvement in the terrible events of September 11, 2001. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter the political and security landscape of the Middle East, which as we know all too well affects American security."
Hers was, of course, a popular stance back then, at a time when most Americans were still spoiling for a fight. Fast forward to 2008, however, and all that erstwhile certainty and bravado gets conveniently scrubbed away with enough chants of “George Bush’s war.” (If the red phone rings at 3am, does the Hillary from 2002 or 2008 answer it?)
Obama has it even easier than Clinton. With no voting record to prove otherwise, he can claim almost anything, including opposition to the war during his days as a state senator in Illinois. In a similar vein, I was only a toddler during the Vietnam War but can assure you I was staunchly against it at the time.
During an indirect exchange of words with McCain, Obama said, “I have some news for John McCain, and that is that there was no such thing as al Qaeda in Iraq until George Bush and John McCain decided to invade Iraq." While it makes for a clever sound bite, Obama’s logic fails to carry home the point: al Qaeda is still al Qaeda, and it is far preferable to have them pouring into Iraq via Syria than into the U.S. via LaGuardia.
And here may be McCain’s best play when it comes to framing his support for the war. At the very least, the Iraq War has created a sandbox where we can challenge the bully on our own terms: every knucklehead with an early desire to meet Allah is heading to Fallujah instead of Philadelphia. We have gone six years in this country without a major terror attack – a fact for which Bush should get much more credit – and it’s not because the enemy gave up. It’s because we have changed tactics at home and, whether intentionally or not, shifted the geographic focus of the fight.
More importantly, jihadists are finding that it’s not as much fun trying to kill Americans when we get to shoot back.
A lot can happen between now and the election, of course, and circumstances are out of McCain’s control. Still, he has a tall task ahead of him. He deserves credit for not backing away when the casualty counts rose and the opinion polls turned (ahem, Senator Clinton), but has to frame the debate in a way that brings some sense of purpose to a war in which most Americans have lost hope.
If he doesn’t, he may wish he were facing Michael Myers in a dark alley instead of Clinton or Obama in November.