According to Joe Klein's "In the Arena" column in a recent edition of TIME magazine (June 23, 2008), U.S. Senator Jim Webb of Virginia, a possible running mate for Senator Barack Obama, suggests that there is ample opportunity afoot for Democratic candidates to attract (and on a rather permanent, as opposed to politically convenient but temporary, basis) the votes of military personnel and their immediate families. Of course, over the last several decades military families--and military personnel in particular--have tended to vote for Republican candidates. But Senator Webb, whose military background is extensive, sees optimism for Democrats regarding the military vote...if some Democrats first stop looking at those who have gone to war as primarily "victims" and start looking at them as multi-faceted people.
This is better explained through a short passage from Mr. Klein's column itself, which examines Senator Webb's new book titled "A Time To Fight":
"'The ultimate question,' Webb writes about Democrats and the military, 'is this: When you look at a veteran, what do you see? Do you see a strong individual who overcame the most difficult challenges most human beings can face...or do you see a victim?'"
In speaking with members (or former members) of the armed forces, my anecdotal evidence suggests that Senator Webb is right on the money; the real challenge for Democratic politicians is to honor military service first and foremost as a sign of personal and national strength and character, and simultaneously work to better improve veterans' medical care and post-service benefits in a manner that is not pitying of them, but rather honors them. It's a challenge both of tone and of policy proposals, and a pitying, simpering tone is not what the vast majority of veterans would prefer to encounter. Instead, most would prefer a commitment to honoring their service and caring for the needs of their wounded comrades, as well as helping to guide some military personnel who come from underprivileged backgrounds towards a path to financial sustainability (not with handouts, but with some semblance of personal economic development planning).
Senator Webb (as reported in Mr. Klein's article) goes on to suggest a very interesting, up-to-date political trend:
"But if some Democrats tend to pity members of the armed forces, [Senator Webb suggests that] the Republican Party 'continually seeks to politicize military service for its own ends even as it uses their sacrifices as a political shield against criticism for its failed policies. And in that sense, it is now the Republican Party that most glaringly does not understand the true nature of military service.'"
This is Senator Webb conducting a full-frontal assault on neo-conservatism, suggesting that it is disingenuous regarding what its proponents constantly refer to as the "glorious" (or a similar adjective) nature of military service. Senator Webb is suggesting that the upper-tier (at least) of the American neo-conservative ranks utilizes the sacrifice of veterans for its own ends nearly exclusively, with little or no regard for the nature of the service performed by each individual military member, let alone close-knit military groups. If a military undertaking goes well, this self-serving stance may go relatively undetected (until, say, horrific conditions at veteran's hospitals arouse the curiosity of the nation's news networks). If, however, a military undertaking does not go well, the emptiness of neo-conservative rhetoric becomes more and more apparent, as the patriotism of military members and their families is exploited for political ends, and distorted to the extent that these military families become symbols of a particular political policy.
In this vein, witness the "Support Our Troops" sign phenomenon of the last half dozen years, which many on the right side of the political spectrum translated, in both overt and quite often subtle ways, into "Support Our Iraq Policy." I found it very difficult to suggest to generally clear-thinking Americans that I always support our troops but refuse to equate that with a misguided political use of those troops; the troops and the policy are different things, and ought to be viewed as such, whether one supports a given policy or not. Given the often emotional stakes involved, people who are normally clear-eyed about things can sometimes tend to get blurry when it comes to the military, and it is therefore often easy for politicians to exploit people's naturally patriotic tendencies by equating particular policies with the long-standing tradition of military service. But when the line gets too fine between the two, the people who get hurt the most are military members and their families.
A former Republican who worked as Secretary of the Navy under President Reagan, Senator Webb is perhaps best situated to articulate this complex issue to both military families and non-military ones, and his plea for his fellow Democrats to stop automatically running to the pity-the-poor-soldiers parade ground (so to speak) every time they feel as though the military is being used as a pawn by the Bush Administration nicely offsets his criticism of present Republican policies. I don't know if he will be on the 2008 presidential ticket (though I've got him in my "top dozen" Democratic running mate picks of the recent "Opinion Round-Up" June 10 post), but Senator Webb ought to be out on the campaign trail with Senator Obama and other Democratic candidates later this summer and through the autumn...and not just in Virginia.
No comments:
Post a Comment