A Mythic Reality
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: September 7, 2004

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/07/op...07krugman.html

The best book I've read about America after 9/11 isn't about either America or 9/11. It's "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning," an essay on the psychology of war by Chris Hedges, a veteran war correspondent. Better than any poll analysis or focus group, it explains why President Bush, despite policy failures at home and abroad, is ahead in the polls.

War, Mr. Hedges says, plays to some fundamental urges. "Lurking beneath the surface of every society, including ours," he says, "is the passionate yearning for a nationalist cause that exalts us, the kind that war alone is able to deliver." When war psychology takes hold, the public believes, temporarily, in a "mythic reality" in which our nation is purely good, our enemies are purely evil, and anyone who isn't our ally is our enemy.
This state of mind works greatly to the benefit of those in power.

One striking part of the book describes Argentina's reaction to the 1982 Falklands war. Gen. Leopoldo Galtieri, the leader of the country's military junta, cynically launched that war to distract the public from the failure of his economic policies. It worked: "The junta, which had been on the verge of collapse" just before the war, "instantly became the saviors of the country."

The point is that once war psychology takes hold, the public desperately wants to believe in its leadership, and ascribes heroic qualities to even the least deserving ruler. National adulation for the junta ended only after a humiliating military defeat.

George W. Bush isn't General Galtieri: America really was attacked on 9/11, and any president would have followed up with a counterstrike against the Taliban. Yet the Bush administration, like the Argentine junta, derived enormous political benefit from the impulse of a nation at war to rally around its leader.

Another president might have refrained from exploiting that surge of support for partisan gain; Mr. Bush didn't.

And his administration has sought to perpetuate the war psychology that makes such exploitation possible.

Step by step, the fight against Al Qaeda became a universal "war on terror," then a confrontation with the "axis of evil," then a war against all evil everywhere. Nobody knows where it all ends.

What is clear is that whenever political debate turns to Mr. Bush's actual record in office, his popularity sinks. Only by doing whatever it takes to change the subject to the war on terror - not to what he's actually doing about terrorist threats, but to his "leadership," whatever that means - can he get a bump in the polls.

Last week's convention made it clear that Mr. Bush intends to use what's left of his heroic image to win the election, and early polls suggest that the strategy may be working. What can John Kerry do?

Campaigning exclusively on domestic issues won't work. Mr. Bush must be held to account for his dismal record on jobs, health care and the environment. But as Mr. Hedges writes, when war psychology makes a public yearn to believe in its leaders, "there is little that logic or fact or truth can do to alter the experience."

To win, the Kerry campaign has to convince a significant number of voters that the self-proclaimed "war president" isn't an effective war leader - he only plays one on TV.

This charge has the virtue of being true. It's hard to find a nonpartisan national security analyst with a good word for the Bush administration's foreign policy. Iraq, in particular, is a slow-motion disaster brought on by wishful thinking, cronyism and epic incompetence.

If I were running the Kerry campaign, I'd remind people frequently about Mr. Bush's flight-suit photo-op, when he declared the end of major combat. In fact, the war goes on unabated. News coverage of Iraq dropped off sharply after the supposed transfer of sovereignty on June 28, but as many American soldiers have died since the transfer as in the original invasion.

And I'd point out that while Mr. Bush spared no effort preparing for his carrier landing - he even received underwater survival training in the White House pool - he didn't prepare for things that actually mattered, like securing and rebuilding Iraq after Baghdad fell.

Will it work? I don't know. But to win, Mr. Kerry must try to puncture the myth that Mr. Bush's handlers have so assiduously created.

is that somehow John Kerry's war record makes him a worthy commander in chief. There are plenty of war heroes out there, but just because they are war heroes doesn't mean they will be good Presidents. John Kerry is indecisive. His Senate records shows this, that is why he doesn't focus on his time in the Senate.

Next time, get yourself a REAL candidate. You're never going to win by being anti-Bush. Being anti-anything can only get you so far. If you had a REAL candidate, you could be pro-whoever. But you messed this chance up again. Better luck next time.

__________________
"The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left."
Ecclesiastes 10:2 (NIV)

Actually I am voting for Kerry because I like Kerry and the more I actually learn about Kerry the more I like. Not everyone is voting for Kerry because they hate Bush. Coming for North Carolina I also know John Edwards and know a lot about him. Isn't funny how all you reuplicans hate lawyers until you need one. It doesn't matter that most of the people in Washington are lawyers because hmm lets see they know the law.

Where was Bush when he was supposed to be doing his duty for our nation? Nobody seems to remember him being there? Seems we have another myth to discuss huh Hans? ...
Missing in Action:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/08/op...08kristof.html

Bush can't decide on which reason was the REAL reason we went into Iraq, or if it is possible to win the war on Terror that he started. Bush seems to have a bigger problem with indecisiveness in my humble opinion...

http://www.americanprogressaction.or...JcP7H&b=118263

Bush's record over the past years says it all...he is far from being a good leader for this nation. He doesn't have a leg to stand on. This is why he never discusses his record. He can't talk of the economy, he can't talk of jobs, he can't talk of healthcare, he can't talk of education...nothing. He has nothing to go on. This is why I know that this November, the US is going to have regime change, only this change will actually work unlike Bush's regime change in Iraq.

Has Bush claimed to be a war hero?

You know (*)(*)(*)(*) well that is the image he is trying to portray! As if he is the only one of the two that knows anything about war! I'll put my money on the man who actually experienced it first hand over a man who ran from it!

Heh heh, oh spare me. No, I dont think he was trying to portray that image. You are making it up in a despirate attempt to villify him.

No, he never claimed to be a War Hero. He never even implied it.

He didnt "run" from it any more than Clinton did. He never used it as a reason to re-elect him. Kerry did.

THe thing to me about BUsh is that he said he supported the vietnam war at the time, whereas clinton avoided serving because he was against the war. I think people who support a war should do things that reflect that (like all the recycling and war gardens and war bond selling during WWII), not doing as little as possible.
I think Kerrys war record is relevant in this election in that he understands how some of these vets coming home may be feeling. DOes bush or cheney or rumsfield have the experience to understand how some of the vets may feel?
Bush not only doesn't have a war record that would bring understanding, his record in the business world is not impressive at all. FOr the life of me, when i think of all the truly good folks in this country that would qualify to be president, i do not know how bush even got up to the plate.

If you're thinking about making it as a psychic, a word of advice:

Don't give up your day gig just yet.

__________________
"The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left."
Ecclesiastes 10:2 (NIV)