CHOOSING OUR BATTLES

Our only two options left today…are "tolerable" and "awful." "Good" is no longer on the menu. It's time to make a final push for the tolerable, and if that fails…insulate ourselves…from the awful.
--"Tolerable or Awful: The Roads Left in Iraq," Thomas Friedman, New York Times, November 6, 2006.


Now, obviously, Thomas Friedman was referring here to the war in Iraq. I have quoted from this piece at length in my previous post.

But I thought that this would be a good time to remember that advice when we are dealing with two more years of George W. Bush in the White House.

Guys, we gotta choose our battles here.

Liberal websites are beginning to make quite a big deal about the fact that Bush's choice to replace Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense, former CIA director Robert Gates, was implicated in the Iran-Contra scandal, and may have even helped provide arms to Iraq during their war with Iran in the 1980's.

At least one Democratic congressman has promised to bring this up and make it an issue in the confirmation hearings.

Here is what I have to say about this: When it comes to dealing with George W. Bush, from now on, Democrats in Congress--and the rest of us--are going to have to put up with one of two choices on any given issue: tolerable, or awful.

He is not going to give the Democrats a good choice on anything.

Before we rear up on our hind legs and fight him on every single little thing, we are going to have to decide the cost beforehand and whether or not it's worth it--also--whether or not he has presented us with a tolerable choice or an awful one.

If we fight a tolerable choice, then his next step will be to present us with an awful one. Then, if we fight THAT, we will be presented as obstructionist gridlockers in the presidential and congressional elections of '08.

We also have to consider, when deciding when and what to fight, the stakes, and who would be hurt with a costly delay.

When it comes to the secretary of defense, every single day we delay means more dead American troops.

So, do we set up a lengthy fight over a TOLERABLE choice when we know the alternative is the AWFUL? Do we waste valuable solution-seeking time dithering over something that took place 20 years ago?

I vote no.

Guys, we can't fight every single thing he does, or we will accomplish nothing in the next two years and he will be the one who will come out looking good. If you doubt this, consider how viciously the Republican congress fought President Clinton after their failed attempt to throw him out of office--they even went so far as to tolerate the shutting down of the government. And it backfired on them.

Now, a converse point could be made about the nomination of John Bolton as U.N. ambassador.

That one was, clearly, an AWFUL choice. So awful in fact that Bush sneaked in the interim appointment while Congress was in recess. Now he needs approval to make it permanent.

Now, more than ever, we need someone far more skilled in the fine art of diplomacy to represent our interests overseas. Everyone agrees--even the military brass--that getting out of Iraq is going to be even more dependent upon diplomatic skill than military prowess. The U.N. ambassador may or may not be involved in those delicate negotiations.

So I say, when it comes to Bolton, an asshole if there ever was one, then yeah, give it your best shot. Force Bush to substitute a merely tolerable candidate.

But don't expect a good one. Not from Bush.

In the next few days I'm going to post a piece about a separate Pentagon study group that is working to examine their strategy in ways even the Iraq Study Group may not be able to--and they are finally free to do it their way, without Rumsfeld poisoning the waters.

All these findings will be presented to the American people and to Congress in the next couple of months. This is not the time to gum up the works over a new secretary of defense because of something he may or may not have done under Ronald Reagan.

That was then. This is now. He's the tolerable choice. Let's get on with it and end this thing.