Quick quiz — when was this Hillary Clinton quote about Iraq first uttered: “The fundamental point here is that the purpose of the surge was to create space for political reconciliation and that has not happened, and there is no indication that it is going to happen, or that the Iraqis will meet the political benchmarks. We need to stop refereeing their civil war and start getting out of it.”
This month, when the Bush administration started abandoning its own reconciliation goals? Last month, when Iraqi leaders conceded that reconciliation isn’t going to happen? Or in September, when the Bush administration failed to meet its own Iraqi benchmarks?
In this case, the quote came from this month, but the fact that it could have been said at any time in recent months suggests a certain consistency — Clinton’s position hasn’t changed at all.
And yet, the NYT’s Patrick Healy perceives a shift in “tone” among Democrats.
As violence declines in Baghdad, the leading Democratic presidential candidates are undertaking a new and challenging balancing act on Iraq: acknowledging that success, trying to shift the focus to the lack of political progress there, and highlighting more domestic concerns like health care and the economy. […]
Lately, as the killing in Baghdad and other areas has declined, the Democratic candidates have been dwelling less on the results of the troop escalation than on the lack of new government accords in Iraq — a tonal shift from last summer and fall when American military commanders were preparing to testify before Congress asking for more time to allow the surge to show results.
And what evidence is there to support Healy’s notion of a “tonal shift”? Well, as it turns out, there isn’t any — Healy spends over 1,300 words and can’t point to any rhetorical shifts at all.
Democratic candidates said before the recent decline in violence that they want to end the war. Democrats candidates are now acknowledging the recent decline in violence, but nevertheless concluding that they still want to end the war.
The NYT wanted to find a change in political strategy in light of recent events, but apparently couldn’t find anything. The paper ran the story anyway, pointing to an ambiguous “tonal shift.” Please.
Kevin Drum nailed it:
Look, if Patrick Healy has some actual evidence that Democrats weren’t talking about political progress earlier this year but they are now, then fine. It’s a legitimate story. But if he doesn’t have any such evidence — and I suspect he doesn’t since there’s not even a hint of it in the story itself — then he should knock off the tonal analysis and stick to journalism.
Political progress has always been the justification for the surge. When he announced it last January, President Bush explicitly said that the point of reducing violence in Baghdad was to give the Iraqi government “breathing space” to move ahead with political reconciliation. Political progress wasn’t just a fringe benefit, it was the whole purpose of the surge: “If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises,” he said, “it will lose the support of the American people — and it will lose the support of the Iraqi people.”
The reduction in violence in Iraq is great news. But it’s not a “shift” to say that political reconciliation has always been the real goal of the surge. It has always been the real goal of the surge.
What amazes me is that political coverage of the candidates in the media has put consistency at the top of the list of key attributes. Thanks to Tim Russert-style questioning and Bush-Cheney basing their entire 2004 campaign on alleged “flip-flops,” any policy shifts at all are now considered controversial.
That’s dumb enough, but today’s NYT piece has taken this approach to an unhealthy place — Healy’s article points not to policy shift, but to a “tonal” shift that may not exist.
How very weak.