he lay face down in the desert sand

A couple weeks back, my father and I were talking about old television shows, and he brought up Bonanza. Specifically, he noted that no matter how many times Commander Adama and his brood at the Ponderosa helped out the townsfolk, every time a horse was stolen, livestock was poisoned, or an accidental death occurred, the neighbors broke out the hanging rope, rifles, and pitchforks and marched on the hapless Cartwrights. “So it’s a microcosm of the American public, then,” I said.

Which is why, as disappointed as I am with the failure of the Democrats to put a stop to Bush’s bloody misadventure, I can’t fault them too much. Of course, I never thought they’d manage to do anything about it when I cast my ballot back in November. I’d have loved to been that confidently optimistic, but I was thinking more about pragmatism, the politics of spite, and the end of rubber stamp confirmations. Otherwise, I would have been content to let the GOP wallow in the shitpile of their own design so that the stink would linger for decades to come, rather than see them pass the buck of mismanagement off on the opposition. (I’m not dismissing the importance of the human costs, American or Iraqi or Afghan, but I never harbored illusions of improvement based on a single congressional election, either.) I was, and still am, hopeful that the rightward momentum has been slowed, if not halted, but any fruits of such a shift are still past the horizon.

“The people voted the Democrats in to end the war” is a misleading statement in many aspects. Some certainly did, others did it as a protest vote against GOP candidates embroiled in local scandals or the overall culture of corruption that had gone unchecked during the Bush administrations. Some voted out of spite. A lot of folks simply didn’t vote at all. It’s very hard find a consensus about what ending the war means to the individual voters who make up the American electorate. Polls may show that a majority of Americans oppose the war or consider it to have been a “mistake,” but oversimplify a wide range of viewpoints from immediate withdrawal to a gradual phase-out to an all-out push – under “better” management -- to win and then leave.

One intractable problem is that regardless of whether or not a majority of Americans want out of Iraq, any means of accomplishing that end is up against the core tenets of the American creed: We are good. We don’t make mistakes...maliciously intended ones, at least. (Enslavement of who? Smallpox blankets? I don't know what you're talking about, revisionist moonbat. And that was a long time ago, so no one is to blame.) We (especially the military) are capable of achieving anything as long as our will doesn’t falter.

Jello Biafra once said that the problem with America was “Vince Lombardi Disease,” a sense that winning was all that mattered. I’d add to that axiom of national identity the Duke’s famous line, “Never apologize and never explain, it's a sign of weakness." As frustrating as it may be to saner folk, there is a substantial segment of the populace who would rather embrace the madness of the sunk loss fallacy than acknowledge our limitations and our fuck ups as a nation. They may want the war to end, but they do not want to face the consequences of the misadventure. They’re hoping it can somehow get wished into the cornfield and go on as if nothing ever happened.

And so the Democrats are stuck, with a slim majority (with Senate control hinging on keeping the pro-war Joe Lieberman placated and the health of a senator who recently underwent extensive cranial surgery for a congenital circulation problem) and all the other baggage that comes with being a broad coalition party. They should have fought harder against Bush’s veto of the war funding bill, for sure. Even if it was a doomed effort, they didn’t need to cave so quickly or completely. (If it was me, I’d have kept submitting the same bill, over and over, with only minor changes just to be a prick. I would never get elected to public office, though.) At the same time, given the fickle nature of the public and Bush’s obstinacy (some might say “idiocy”), it was a foregone result, especially when “The Troops” were invoked by White House supporters.

It’s a hoary incantation, but one that still carries resonance with the public. Conflating the well being of those fighting with the desires of those making the policy has a long history of paying dividends, and provides an effective way for the pro-war set to rally after their plans go down in flames. “Stabbed in the back” myths or the idea that “The politicians lost the war, not the military” are boons for the warmongers. (The unconditional surrender policy adopted by the Allies during World War II was adopted in part because they wanted no ambiguity about the defeat of the German Army, which the National Socialists had capitalized upon after the First World War.) Few ever consider calling out the people who put the troops into harm’s way in the first place (and defunded veterans’ benefits, hospitals, and the like, to boot), so becomes an effective bit of misdirection that feeds into the sunk loss morass, where one tragic/noble casualty begets others and so forth and so on until the veteran’s cemeteries, amputee wards, and head injury hospices are full to bursting.

It’s extremely hard to effective argue against it in the public arena, because the truth is so unpalatable for the general populace. Nor should it be, as ugly and stark a truth it is, but again, it’s not what the people want to hear, especially ones with direct experience in the matter, even though it’s exactly what we all need to acknowledge. Thus effective action gets derailed by a sense of decorum - either cynical or sincere - or lack of nerve, and the few politicians with the courage of their convictions find themselves standing at the gates of the Ponderosa, trying to placate an angry mob.

Americans want their fictional heroes to be mavericks, but would rather not have to deal with them in everyday life. The Democrats may lack resolve, but so do most members of their constituencies.

Lorne Greene – Ringo (from Real 60’s: Country, 2004) - Did the post follow the song selection? Or the song selection follow the post? This song made it to the top of the pop charts from a few weeks in 1964. I wish I had a voice like Lorne Greene’s – deep, rugged, and manly – instead of the slightly nasally alto I got stuck with.

Go Betty Go – You’re Your Worst Enemy (from the Worst Enemy EP, 2004) – One of “the wife’s bands,” although I profess a certain fondness for their fiery brand of femvox punk pop. That reminds me: I asked my wife to write a guest post last winter, and she seemed amenable to the idea, but she never got around to it. I should follow up on that.

The Thingies – Mass Confusion (from a 1967 single; collected on The Thingies Have Arrived, 1998) – A fine bit of obscure 60’s garage rock from Austin, Texas by way of Topeka, Kansas. I was tempted to make a joke about confusing mass, weight, and specific gravity here, but I figured I’d go easy on you folks today.

Hues Corporation – Rock the Boat (from Rock the Boat: Golden Classics, 1993) – But, but, but…I might get wet, and thus be forced to acknowledge conditions outside my insular little world!