THEY RAN SO FAST, THE HOUND DOGS COULDN'T CATCH 'EM:

Are You a 'September 10 American'?: How did fighting terrorism become a Republican cause? (LAWRENCE F. KAPLAN, September 11, 2003, Wall Street Journal)

There are today two Americas--a "September 11 America" caught up in a world war, and a "September 10 America" largely oblivious to it. [...]

The latest Pew survey, which asked respondents whether the president should focus on the war on terror or on the economy, reveals a puzzling trend.

Evangelical Christians, whites, residents of rural areas, southerners, and self-described conservatives evince more concern about the response to September 11 than do secular Americans, African Americans, residents of cities, non-southerners, or self-described liberals. In fact, the very city dwellers most at risk tend to attach the least importance to the war on terror. If these results seem more suited to a gun-control survey, consider another way of reading the same data. A Newsweek poll in November 2002 found that respondents who cited terrorism as the nation's foremost priority voted Republican by a margin of three-to-one. In a similar vein, the Pew survey finds that Republicans split evenly on the question of the war on terror versus the economy, while only 18% of Democrats profess more concern with terrorism.

It hardly comes as a surprise, but the emergence of a partisan gap on a matter that supposedly transcends politics has come awfully quickly. All the more so, because one of the most popular analogies generated by the September 11 industry likened the new unity of purpose to that which prevailed after Pearl Harbor.

If you really wish to know what someone thinks about the war on terror, however, that person's opinions about Monica Lewinsky and the Florida recount offer a more reliable guide. Were the cause something other than self-preservation, these cleavages might not mean so much. But when a global war becomes the exclusive property of one political party--and is treated, increasingly, as a touch-me-not by the other party--the whole enterprise risks forfeiting its legitimacy.

Yet the existence of a partisan divide between the two Americas isn't nearly so important as the preferences that divide them.

When September 11 Americans look back at the attacks, they see an event that requires an overhaul of national priorities. When September 10 Americans look back at the attacks, they see an event whose significance is emotional, even spiritual, but most of all historical. What they do not see is the opening salvo of a years-long struggle, much less its implications for politics and policy. [...]

That most of us have resumed living by September 10 rules would hardly matter but for the inconvenient fact that America's foes still play by September 11 rules. Alas, the conceit that the war on terror will not require broad sacrifice, which persists even when circumstances do not justify such a conceit, has obscured this unpleasant truth. Preventing a repeat of September 11 will be difficult enough. Even more so if an attack that should have prompted a special vigilance prompts only a glance backward.

The real problem here is that this is only the second Republican War. As Bob Dole famously opined at the Vice Presidential debate in 1976, the wars of the 20th century had all been Democrat Wars. They were generally opposed by Republicans until they began, but then accepted once the shooting started and, in the case of Vietnam, pursued by the Right long after the left was rioting in America's streets.

The first Iraq War in 1991 was the first war that a Republican president took the country into since the Spanish-American and had they not bought off Al Gore with a Senate floor speech in primetime the Democrats would have defeated the war resolution. Unfortunately, the first President Bush ended that war prematurely, leaving Saddam in power, but it's easy enough to imagine what the outcry from Democrats would have been like if we'd ended up fighting door-to-door in Baghdad. The point, at any rate, is that the war, despite the support of a few Democrats with presidential aspirations, was essentially a partisan enterprise.

Now we're in the midst of our second Republican War--the War on Terror--and it should come as no surprise to anyone that this two has quickly deteriorated into a partisan affair. Much of the problem lies in Republicans tendency towards Jacksonianism. Republicans are generally isolationist, preferring not to be contaminated by contact with an outside world they don't much care for, but when the country is attacked they promptly turn into uber-hawks, eager to turn the attacker into Carthage. Walter Russell Mead, who I think coined the term, explains the dynamics of Jacksonian war-making this way:

Bush's first and perhaps most dangerous problem is that Jacksonians don't like limited wars. We should fight a war with everything we've got, Jacksonians feel. No weapons and no enemy sanctuaries should be off limits.

This is no small point. Limited wars have wrecked three presidencies since 1945. Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson were forced out of the White House because they were stuck in limited wars; without the strains of the Vietnam War, Richard Nixon almost certainly would have finished his second term.

Second, Jacksonians don't like diplomatic niceties. No fine points of international law should deter the United States from hunting down and exterminating these rats. If international law doesn't allow the United States to protect itself against this kind of enemy, then what good is it? The same thing applies to alliances. Allies are okay, say Jacksonians, but alliance politics cannot impose crippling limits on America's war-fighting strategies. The clash between this strong popular feeling and the limits Bush will face as he works with Western and Middle Eastern allies to combat a non-state enemy based, perhaps, in more than one foreign country, may cause great trouble for the administration.

Third, Jacksonians believe with Douglas MacArthur that there is no substitute for victory. "Unconditional surrender" is what Jacksonians want from an enemy, and unconditional surrender -- or extermination -- are the only outcomes they will accept. The elder Bush failed to end the Gulf War in this way, and he lost the popularity he'd gained from Desert Storm.

It seems likely that any Democrat would have willingly fought the Afghan campaign, but that would likely have ended things. In WWI, Wilson quit before Germany had been destroyed and he left the USSR in place, creating the conditions that led to WWII. Truman likewise left the USSR a thriving concern, thereby causing the Cold War. In Korea he ruled out attacks on N. Korea proper and on China ands the Soviet Union, meaning there was never any chance of victory. LBJ did the same with North Vietnam. Since neither Korea nor Vietnam had attacked the U.S. there was no Jacksonian blood up, so Ike and Nixon wound those affairs down on the terms their predecessors had set, rather than escalating as they should have, and would have been able to do (required to do) had we been attacked. George Bush Senior likewise was able to pursue too limited a war because Saddam hadn't attacked the U.S..

But now we have been attacked and the Jacksonians are in control from the outset of the war, meaning that our war aims are far broader than they were in those prior wars, that the fight has already gone far beyond what the Democrats (mostly Jeffersonian these days) were ready to accept. And, as Mr. Mead's description above suggests, it is very unlikely that the War will end with Iraq. Having gone to war, Jacksonians want to win decisively and they don't much care how brutal it gets. If you think things are too partisan now, just wait, worse is coming.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 11, 2003 07:17 PM