The Dems: Bums

By Matt Taibbi, New York Press. Posted March 29, 2005.

"Terror, terror, terror, terror, terror. I would say to John, 'Let me put it to you this way. The Lord Almighty, or Allah, whoever, if he came to every kitchen table in America and said, "Look, I have a Faustian bargain for you, you choose. I will guarantee to you that I will end all terror threats against the United States within the year, but in return for that there will be no help for education, no help for Social Security, no help for health care." What do you do?' My answer is that seventy-five percent of the American people would buy that bargain."

– Joe Biden, in The New Yorker, on what he would say to John Kerry

"Look, the answer is, we have to do an unbranding. We have to brand more effectively. It's marketing."

– Kerry, in the same piece, on the Democrats' need to sell themselves as tough

Around the same time Joe Biden was selling New Yorker reporter Jeffrey Goldberg on the idea that the only hope for the Democratic Party was to abandon all social programming and invade the planet, some interesting polls were taken in the three countries most involved in the Iraq invasion.

In the United States, a Washington Post/ABC News poll released on March 16 showed that 53 percent of Americans think the Iraq war was not worth fighting, 57 percent disagreed with President Bush's handling of the Iraq war, and 70 percent said that the number of U.S. casualties incurred in the war was unacceptable.

In Australia, one of the U.S.'s last stalwart partners on the war, the government's approval rating fell below 50 percent for the first time in ages, with a new poll showing Labor with a 52-48 advantage. Prime Minister John Howard conceded that the drop was due to public dissatisfaction with the continued presence of Australian troops in Iraq.

In Britain, meanwhile, a spate of polls was conducted in anticipation of the May 5 elections. Because of the huge majority owned by Tony Blair's Labour Party in the House of Commons – 408 seats to 162 for the Conservative party – Blair is almost certain to be reelected to a third term. But the Labour advantage is dropping fast, losing about a percentage point a month in recent months, with Iraq the main cause. In February, the Labour advantage was 38 percent to 32, with the remainder going to the Liberal-Democrat party. This month, it's 37-34. Conventional wisdom anticipates that Labour will retain its advantage but lose about two-dozen seats. Blair's personal approval rating, meanwhile, has plummeted to around 35 percent, mirroring a slide enjoyed recently by George Bush, who has been in the mid 40s since the New Year.

Blair is also facing a major scandal over Iraq that is inspiring demonstrations all over the country. In a documentary aired on the show Panorama this weekend, MI6 chief Richard Dearlove said that he had briefed Blair well before the war that America's Iraq intelligence was "fixed" to meet the administration's goal of invading Iraq at all costs. Dearlove said that nine months before the invasion, he attended a meeting in Washington at which he concluded that war in Iraq was "inevitable" – a conclusion he shared with Blair.

"The facts and intelligence" were being "fixed round the policy" by U.S. President George Bush's administration, Dearlove said. The documentary claims that Blair had signed on to support the war as early as April 2002. Robin Cook, the former foreign secretary who resigned over Iraq, echoed Dearlove's comments.

"What was propelling the prime minister was a determination that he would be the closest ally to George Bush and they would prove to the United States administration that Britain was their closest ally," Cook told the program. "His problem is that George Bush's motivation was regime change. It was not disarmament. Tony Blair knew perfectly well what he was doing."

Matt Taibbi lives in New York. He covers politics for Rolling Stone and the New York Press.

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