September 16, 2003
Republican Quote
Here's a quote from a republican giving his honest opinion (rather than a gamey gotcha stance):Seriously, though, for some reason, I really think that Clinton's lie about a blow job is far more serious than Bush's alleged "lies" about WMD. Clinton was lying for his own selfish reasons. At least Bush was trying to make our nation safer and the world a better place. It doesn't necessarily excuse Bush, but it's a mitigating factor.So how would you counter that? It's easy to counter from the democrat perspective (Clinton's lie was harmless in terms of foreign and domestic policy, while Bush's lies hurt America), but how do you translate that to a perspective that this generic republican would understand?
I think the problem is that many of these republicans hawks just have no belief in the intelligence of Americans. These lies are by definition defensible since they belive that a) the ends are defensible and required and b) it would be impossible to attain these ends without lying, since most Americans would oppose it for stupid reasons.
So, they think, why even try?
From their perspective, Clinton's lie was worse because there was no reason for him to need that (no ends justifying the lie), and while many of us just consider it irrelevant, it gets them all lathered up with their anti-sex hysteria.
So, you've got someone who associates Clinton's sexual behavior as being the root of all that is wrong with the world, who believes unquestioningly that we had to do what we've done these past couple of years, and that it's irrelevant to him that Bush lied to do it.
You have to figure out how to reach at least some of those people.
Q: Why get rid of Saddam?
A: He's a threat to us!
Q: But actually, he wasn't.
A: Look, it's still good that he is GONE.
Q: But it wasn't our job.
A: Well, who else was going to do it?
Q: But he LIED to us.
A: Who cares? Saddam's gone.
This stumps me sometimes. I mean we obviously don't want to get caught in an argument where we're trying to say that we'd rather Saddam was in power.