The Big O

If George isn’t toast yet, he’s starting to look a little brown and crumbly around the edges.

Now the question is, Can Osama save him?

It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

Per the Rovian diktat, this was supposed to be the year a triumphant warrior president put on his peacemaker hat, pandered to his conservative base and wedged the Democrats with Medicare reform and gay marriage, and cruised to re-election.

Instead, George W. Bush is playing catch-up. He’s not good at it, and the election race is going to get pretty ugly.

The miniscule Saddam-capture bounce no doubt rang alarm bells in Karl Rove’s office.

Bush fatigue — distaste for the man and his methods and distrust of his motives and veracity — is causing the public to discount his achievements and magnify his errors.

The Iraq war isn’t a ticket to re-election. Now it’s a reminder of a failure as yet unpunished, and evidence of a sordid character flaw. The longer Bush is forced to talk about the Iraq war — from “Mission Accomplished” to the missing WMDs to the hundreds of American fatalities to the burgeoning insurrection and the cut-and-run-exit “strategy” - the deeper the disgust of the electorate grows.

He can’t run as the peace and prosperity president, no matter how much his press flacks distort the war record and his economists massage the numbers.

He’s a war president — exactly what “No War in 2004” Rove didn’t want him to be.

The only way Bush can win as a war president is to switch wars. He can’t declare victory in the Iraq war. He can’t fight a new war. He needs to refight an old war.

From the White House point of view, the logical alternative is to turn back the clock — to September 11, 2001 - and hope the American people will forget the lost years of military, fiscal, and moral quagmire that have intervened

So where’s Osama when you need him?

Republican Senator Charles Grassley seems to think we know. As quoted in the Feb. 4 edition of The Hill, he said:

If the stars align for Karl Rove (or, as conspiracy theorists like to think, we’ve already got Osama on ice for just such an occasion), the best time for an Osama capture is September.

If it happens too soon, the bump will evaporate before the election and negative news will shoulder its way back into the news cycle.

Too late, and it smells of cynical political grandstanding.

Here’s my take on the ideal GOP scenario:

August 30 - September 2 GOP Convention in NYC. Rudy Giuliani replaces Cheney on the ticket and restores that 9/11 crusader sheen to the tarnished Bush candidacy.

Sept. 11 The big anniversary: wreath laying by Bush, avalanche of commemorative programming, chest-thumping rhetoric from Bush that Osama can run, but he can’t hide!

End-Sept. Got Him!

First-half October Congratulations pour in from world leaders. Tearful 9/11 families thank the president for bringing the monster to justice. Trembling between fear and gratitude, undecided voters swing toward Bush.

Second-half October The kitchen sink is thrown at the Democratic nominee and the party of all complaints, no solutions, and no results.

November 2 The election. The public charges to the polls, intoxicated with the emotions of 9/11 remembrance and revenge.

November 3 America wakes up with a pounding headache, a sore ass, and buyer’s remorse. But it’s too late, suckers!

The only problem is that this scenario relies on the Democrats being caught flat-footed and disunited once again, and coming up with the usual futile day-late and dollar-short disorganized responses to GOP attacks.

Not this time.

Bush’s failure in Iraq has opened up a precious, brief window of opportunity.

Now the Democrats can taken advantage of Bush’s diminished credibility as invincible Fuhrer of the war on terror to shape the debate, perceptions — and expectations — concerning Osama bin Laden and America’s national security policy.

The Democrats need a terror strategy that’s bigger than “Bush vs. Osama”.

Here’s what the Demcrats’ story should be:

1. Put the capture of Osama on the agenda: “Now that America’s credibility has been undermined by our lost year in Iraq, it is imperative that bin Laden be captured asap”.
   
2. Make the fight against al Qaeda the center of the Democratic agenda: “Instead of fighting the wrong war against the wrong enemy, our first priority will to counter the threat posed by stateless terrorists”.
   
3. Look beyond Osama: “He will be caught, and soon, I expect, through the dedicated efforts of our selfless cops and spooks. Will capturing Osama win the war on terror? No, it’s a beginning, a vitally important beginning, but sustained, significant efforts are needed”.
4. Supply the anti-Bush prescription for the post-9/11 world: “We must restore America’s credibility with the nations of the world as the superpower that can lead, not simply coerce. We must build cooperation with the multi-lateral organizations and nations the Bush administration first spurned in its foreign policy, and then learned too late that we cannot do without. And we must re-engage with the Muslim nations of this world. We have to take the world back to the post 9/11 days when the people of the world said “We are all Americans” - before the Bush administration deliberately and cynically squandered this good will in its pursuit of a failed war of choice in Iraq.

No, just kidding.

Slogan: National security and international stability through mature, credible US leadership.

I think that hits the high points:

Bush has to lug the Iraq tar baby into the national security/al-Qaeda debate.

Expectations of Osama capture raised by Democrats, so thrill of actual capture by Bushco discounted.

If the Democratic nominee has the stones — and the unwavering support of a phalanx of Democratic leaders (here’s a chance for Joe Lieberman to do some good) - to say “Got him — well, it’s about time”, the Osama mega bounce turns into a fizzle.

Democrats play offense instead of defense, and are ready to assume the mantle of the party of national security in the post-Osama, post-election world.

The American people, relieved that Osama is gone, tired of the failed policies and scare tactics of the Bush administration, and encouraged by the Democratic alternative, “move on”.

On November 3, the Democratic candidate is sitting in the catbird seat instead of on his thumb.

And for Bush:

The thrill of the Big O turns into post-climax dejection of O-U-T.

Copyright 2004 Peter Lee