"the death knell of the Iraq War"

Over two-thirds of Americans [that talked to one pollster] think that getting out of Iraq will help the US economy a great deal (48%) or at least somewhat (20%). Myself, I think that is the death knell of the Iraq War and spells very bad news for John McCain.

Actually, that's not too bad, as tactical partisan spin for the good guys goes, Mr. Bones. Yet there are a couple of weak spots that Dove-Donkey Polemics Command might worry about a little. First of all, can we count on AP-Ipsos (not to mention all its competitors) to ask that delightfully antiwar-friendly question on a regular basis? As an isolated one-shot manipulation, not much can be expected to come of it. ("Death knell" strikes me as an unfortunate figure of rhetoric: something along the lines of a steady debilitating buzz would be more promising.)

We are all devoted to "The People, Yes!" No question about that! But realism must come to the aid of devotion at the General Staff level, and it is not realistic to assume that most voters spontaneously think of the Crawfordite invaders and occupiers as pourin’ out money abroad that ought to buy pork closer to home. A large number of citizens not addicted to the militant GOP would be perfectly willing to view the Mission Accomplished Show in that light, most likely, but they won't actually do so unless there is a certain amount of stagecraft deployed to provide suitable lighting.

Devotion can positively get in the way, unfortunately. Many dove-donkeys think that in this case the plot of the drama speaks so powerfully against itself that fiddling with lights and scenery and costumes and uphostery and air conditioning ought to be unnecessary. "Freedom Means Peace in Iraq" would be the same old self-refutin’ Big Party farce even if staged in darkness. That's an intellectually and ethically respectable assessment, and indeed, it is one I concur in, but it is not the only assessment that exists and must be considered by would-be spinsters. The general audience reaction matters too, not just the critical review in the Times. In fact, it matters a good deal more.

Non-manipulative polling has its uses also. It would come in handy at this point to understand for sure what the general audience makes of the Mission Accomplished Show before one starts tampering. I've never run into "Look at what we could have thrown all those bucks at domestically!" before AP-Ipsos set out to solicit it, so it seems safe to guess that that can not be the untampered-with state of public sentiment. To pursue the theater analogy, it's much as if some eccentric drama critic worked her way through the crowds in the lobby asking everybody how "Freedom Means Peace in Iraq" compares with "The Importance of being Earnest" quâ farce. Marvelous spin eventuates, for such a question is quaranteed to produce the desired results -- but results that are not much use for grown-up analysis. The pollster's patients would simply not have thought of Mr. Wilde or of "the way to get the country out of recession" in connection with the bushogenic quagmire unless the possibility of such a comparison had been shoved into their path.

Though public sentiment is never untampered with and the idea that it could be is absurd, yet in context there exist provisional status quos that are comparatively stable and tend to reestablish themselves after being disturbed. In this case, the pertinent local point of stability is something like "Pay any price, bear any burden." Only low-minded unpatriots go about thinking about their Uncle Sam's foreign adventures in economic terms first. Picking anything up in economic terms first is rather uncouth and distressing in the USA, outside a few exalted circles of AEIdeologues and Hoovervillains and Heritagitarians and such. The Big Party's tank-thinkers must have borrowed this outlandish peculiarity from the enemy whilst thunderin’ against Dr. Marx all those years. Except in the para- and pseudo-Academe of Wingnut City, an avowed primacy of economic remains as outlandish as ever. (Lord Mammon must laugh about this set-up every time he walks to the bank. But that is another story.)

Notice that after almost a full five years of extremist GOP stumblebumism in the former Iraq, and after having AP-Ipsos all but remove their brains and wash them free of charge, only a possible bare majority of patients "think that getting out of Iraq will help the US economy a great deal (48%)." I conclude that the gravitation towards "Pay any price, bear any burden" remains strong. Not strong enough to cope easily with the prices actually charged and the burdens imposed by Republican Party militancy, perhaps, and certainly those toney Camelot attitudes would vanish in a flash if the weights and prices associated with the Mission Accomplished Show were to rise to McNamara-Kissinger levels. But if the Big Party perps can't cope easily, nevertheless they are not yet copeless altogether, and are not mechanically doomed to become so any time soon.

Commanderissimo McCain is perfectly capable of shootin’ himself in the foot --"894th out of 899" easily trumps "566/640," does it not? Perhaps he really will, but that is not a thing to be counted on like tomorrow's sunrise. JM, or his hired handlers, appears to have grasped that prices must be reduced and burdens lightened if the Big Party is to have its new Hundred Years' War. That is to say, before the AP-Ipsos sneak attack even happened, the aggression faction were already takin’ what appear to be quite suitable countermeasures. ("If you can't sell it, hide it" might do as a brief summary of the Hawk-Elephant High Command's present strategy.)

Decent political adults can only diagnose the Big Management Party's pack of tricks from the outside, naturally, which means that some degree of hesitation is called for. The extreme of intramural disagreement with my own view was posted chez Juan as follows:

McCain: he'll be elected President after the neocons pull a Gulf-of- Tonkin-like trick and the Middle East goes in flames and McCain campaigns with "Who do you need as COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF to save the USA from those barbarians?

The Commanderissimo does rely heavily on creatin’ illusions of military competence. That trait is so evident that I spoof it myself. Yet it is hardly fair to claim that that pretendin’ to be a Carl von Clausewitz is the sole resource at his disposal to dupe dupes with. Mr. Poster, like myself, may be impervious to the discreet charm of the Mugwump, but millions of Americans have been suckered in. Like it or not, the Commanderissimo genuinely is a Party-of-Grant Mugwump, with almost as perfect a case of that political brain disease as the Hon. Horace Greeley suffered from in 1872. As such, it would be utterly out of the question for Big Party neocomrade J. S. McCain III to tonkin-gulf his way to the top of the greasy pole. One might as well accuse Jenghiz Khan of resorting to negotiations, or Neocomradess A. Coulter to rational appeals. Surely "Nelson" jests!

Exactly who "the neocons" referred to may be is not clear. The number of Big Party neocomrades who could actually pull off the knavish trick envisioned must be very short, perhaps restricted to only George XLIII and the Hon. Richard Bruce Cheney, neither of whom can intelligibly be called a neoconservative. The real con thing, say Messrs. Feith and von Wolfowitz and von Wurmser and Kristol Minor and Pipes Minor and the Baní Podhoretz, can no more launch an aggression or stage a Pentagon-WTC spectacle at their pleasure than swine can perform aviation stunts. Barkin’ is not to be confused with bitin’.

If M. Bin Ládin and Dr. Zawáhirí were disposed to help install the Commanderissimo, which they not inconceivably might be, perhaps they could pull 9/11B off. In that case, however, there would be no parallel with the received account of LBJ at the Tonkin Gulf, which means it cannot be the scenario "Nelson" predicts. Certain officials of the Tel Aviv statelet, who can pass for neoconservative if the derogatory epithet is thrown about loosely enough, might take it upon themselves to bomb the evil Qommies in the spirit of preëmptive retaliation -- and after that, "the Middle East goes in flames," sure enough. But this thriller scenario is not very Tonkinesque either, as well as not at all likely.

In short, the Commanderissimo is not goin’ to tonkin-gulf anybody, and the chances that some kind friend will tonkin-gulf a third party on J. S. McCain's behalf as a sort of independent campaign expenditure are very slight. "Nelson" is oblivious of the immense down side involved in conspiratorial strategies of provocation: the knave has to not merely to do his dirty trick, he has to get away with it. The number of GOP dunces or chauvinists for Zion who would apologize for such tricks even after being caught in the act cannot be very substantial. Given all the wombschoolin’ and downdumbin’ out there, this number is no doubt on the rise, but one must remember that it rises from a very low base. Perhaps in fifty or a hundred years, the Aggression Faction may feel itself able to risk something of the sort, havin’ carefully prepared themselves to brazen out the consequences, should they get caught. To do so in the year 1429/2008 would only be madness.

And it should be needless to explain that no simon-pure Mugwump will ever act like that, or connive to benefit from such an action, not even if the Big Party's Reich should endure a thousand years. Like waterboardin’, tonkin-gulfin’ is a very plain form of political spinach that Honest John, that honourable and gallant wannabe Commanderissimo of Western Civistán, will never under any circumstances consume personally.

Detestable though his Mugwump shtik is, it nevertheless guarantees that JSM3 can not have been in the bottom percentile of his college class ethically.