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bfp · 05-29-04, 10:18 AM

Victor Davis Hansen

When “Just Win, Baby” sadly trumps everything else.

After our victory in Afghanistan, the president's approval ratings soared, only to descend during the acrimony leading up to the March invasion of Iraq. But after the three-week war, somewhere between 60 and 70 percent of these same Americans purportedly returned to their earlier support of the president's initiatives.

That hard-earned endorsement slipped again, however, as the Iraqi insurrectionists picked off Americans in late 2003 and 2004. In response, the media turned almost all its attention to power failures, looting, Fallujah, al Sadr, Abu Ghraib, and general criticism from the U.N. and Europe. Almost everything good that was happening in Iraq — and there was much to celebrate — was ignored, as if free-thinking newspapers, real political parties, public audit and control of oil, and the opening of thousands of co-ed schools were everyday news in the Middle East. Here at home, oil-price spikes overshadowed the amazing turn-around in the American economy.

The president, of course, is responsible for these wild swings in his popularity — to a point. It was Mr. Bush's tough but necessary decision to invade Iraq, and Americans rightly went along with it on both practical and moral grounds. The majority stuck with him as long as the U.S. seemed to be winning at minimal cost. This latter point cannot be underestimated. A majority of Americans, like a majority of mankind, does not embrace a strong particular ideology that keeps them levelheaded and always resolute through either bad or good news. Most simply wish to win, and to be identified with a winner — they are as giddy with success as they are dejected with disappointment, as quick to blame others for setbacks as they are to claim credit for progress.

But that primordial concept seems to our sophisticated elites too simplistic — although there is a wealth of historical examples to substantiate this depressing trait of mankind. Why was a defiant Pericles lionized in 431 and censured and fined by 430? Most likely because Spartans were in Attica and an unexpected plague was killing 80,000 Athenians. Few cared that he had nothing to do with a mysterious disease, they cared only that thousands had died on his watch. Ask Churchill's ghost why he was called on in 1939, thrown out as war ended, and brought back again as new dangers loomed.

What made Lincoln popular by October when he had been so pilloried in August? Uncle Billy Sherman had taken Atlanta and suddenly the public saw that the Confederacy was hollow rather than defiant and impenetrable. Had Sherman backed off weeks earlier, Lincoln would have been through — even though he was not much responsible for the degree of nerve and bravery shown by the Army of the West and their mercurial general.

Why was Truman ridiculed as unhinged for removing a MacArthur, who wanted to strike back by crossing into China, and then later praised for such sober presidential judgment? Perhaps it was because Matthew Ridgeway had restored equilibrium in Korea and regained much of the territory that was lost under MacArthur's tenure. Accordingly, a once emotional and fiery uproar — replete with MacArthur's ticker-tape parade — evolved into an academic debate about civilian control of the military.

If one goes back to the fifth week of Bill Clinton's 79-day bombing campaign against Serbia — no U.N. approval, no congressional sanction, NATO partners backing out — one reads of castigation from the American Right about bombing a Christian Orthodox country in Europe, from neoconservatives about not committing ground troops, and from the Left about going to war at all. But with Milosevic in the dock and the mass murder stopped, we now are told that the Clinton administration's efforts to stop the bloodbath in the Balkans proved to be about the only success of his scandal-ridden administration. Why? He persevered and won — and we can imagine what would have happened had he caved in at week six and called it another Mogadishu.

05-29-04, 10:18 AM	#1 (permalink)
bfp Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: McKidney Posts: 4,278	Our Reptilian Brains Victor Davis Hansen When “Just Win, Baby” sadly trumps everything else. After our victory in Afghanistan, the president's approval ratings soared, only to descend during the acrimony leading up to the March invasion of Iraq. But after the three-week war, somewhere between 60 and 70 percent of these same Americans purportedly returned to their earlier support of the president's initiatives. That hard-earned endorsement slipped again, however, as the Iraqi insurrectionists picked off Americans in late 2003 and 2004. In response, the media turned almost all its attention to power failures, looting, Fallujah, al Sadr, Abu Ghraib, and general criticism from the U.N. and Europe. Almost everything good that was happening in Iraq — and there was much to celebrate — was ignored, as if free-thinking newspapers, real political parties, public audit and control of oil, and the opening of thousands of co-ed schools were everyday news in the Middle East. Here at home, oil-price spikes overshadowed the amazing turn-around in the American economy. The president, of course, is responsible for these wild swings in his popularity — to a point. It was Mr. Bush's tough but necessary decision to invade Iraq, and Americans rightly went along with it on both practical and moral grounds. The majority stuck with him as long as the U.S. seemed to be winning at minimal cost. This latter point cannot be underestimated. A majority of Americans, like a majority of mankind, does not embrace a strong particular ideology that keeps them levelheaded and always resolute through either bad or good news. Most simply wish to win, and to be identified with a winner — they are as giddy with success as they are dejected with disappointment, as quick to blame others for setbacks as they are to claim credit for progress. But that primordial concept seems to our sophisticated elites too simplistic — although there is a wealth of historical examples to substantiate this depressing trait of mankind. Why was a defiant Pericles lionized in 431 and censured and fined by 430? Most likely because Spartans were in Attica and an unexpected plague was killing 80,000 Athenians. Few cared that he had nothing to do with a mysterious disease, they cared only that thousands had died on his watch. Ask Churchill's ghost why he was called on in 1939, thrown out as war ended, and brought back again as new dangers loomed. What made Lincoln popular by October when he had been so pilloried in August? Uncle Billy Sherman had taken Atlanta and suddenly the public saw that the Confederacy was hollow rather than defiant and impenetrable. Had Sherman backed off weeks earlier, Lincoln would have been through — even though he was not much responsible for the degree of nerve and bravery shown by the Army of the West and their mercurial general. Why was Truman ridiculed as unhinged for removing a MacArthur, who wanted to strike back by crossing into China, and then later praised for such sober presidential judgment? Perhaps it was because Matthew Ridgeway had restored equilibrium in Korea and regained much of the territory that was lost under MacArthur's tenure. Accordingly, a once emotional and fiery uproar — replete with MacArthur's ticker-tape parade — evolved into an academic debate about civilian control of the military. If one goes back to the fifth week of Bill Clinton's 79-day bombing campaign against Serbia — no U.N. approval, no congressional sanction, NATO partners backing out — one reads of castigation from the American Right about bombing a Christian Orthodox country in Europe, from neoconservatives about not committing ground troops, and from the Left about going to war at all. But with Milosevic in the dock and the mass murder stopped, we now are told that the Clinton administration's efforts to stop the bloodbath in the Balkans proved to be about the only success of his scandal-ridden administration. Why? He persevered and won — and we can imagine what would have happened had he caved in at week six and called it another Mogadishu.