In some part of all of us is the desire to crush the vermin who have lied to us, sent our kids into a phoney war, curtailed our civil liberties and... you know the rest ... crush the bastards and all their political kin. But we also know that to treat every member of the opposition like vermin will only make it more likely that we never emerge from the cycle of anger and despair that money and a political machine built to assuage the opposition's fierce anger brought us in 2001. Frank Rich sees more than youth and hope in the Iowa results. The winners on both sides were "the least angry."
The two men are the youngest candidates in the entire field, the least angry and the least inclined to seek votes by saturation-bombing us with the post-9/11 arsenal of fear. They both radiate the kind of wit and joy (and, yes, hope) that can come only with self-confidence and a comfort in their own skins.
Unlike Bush who banned any doubters or opposition from his rallies, these guys are wide open to the possibility of winning new friends and supporters, unembarrassed by acknowledging the "base" and the "extremists" of their political rivals.
They don’t run from Americans who are not in their club. Mr. Obama had no problem winning over a conclave of white Christian conservatives at Rick Warren’s megachurch in Orange County, Calif., even though he insisted on the necessity of condoms in fighting AIDS. Unlike the top-tier candidates in the G.O.P. presidential race, or the “compassionate conservative” president who refused for years to meet with the N.A.A.C.P., showed up last fall for the PBS debate at the historically black Morgan State University and aced it.
And -- most delightful of all the results of the Iowa caucuses left many in the Washington establishment and the mainstream media utterly flummoxed. The establishment and the media are control freaks. They dislike any sign of independence and energy on the part of the "ordinary American" that they didn't foresee and control. Rich lays out the Washington predictions that turned out to be hot air. Among those was that Iraq was no longer important. The war in Iraq is deeply and widely important to Americans -- if anything, getting more so.
... The percentage of Americans who believe that the war is going well has risen strikingly in tandem with the diminution of violence — from 30 percent in February to 48 percent in November, for instance, in the Pew survey. Even so, these same polls show no change at all in the public’s verdict on this misadventure or in President Bush’s dismal overall approval rating. By the same margins as before (sometimes even slightly larger), a majority of Americans favor withdrawal no matter what happened during the “surge.” In another poll (Gallup), a majority still call the war a mistake, a finding that has varied little since February 2006.
Wait a minute! What's to like about Huckabee?! Maybe just the fact that he's infuriating the Republican party yellers and screamers.
The party that has milked religious conservatives for votes for two decades is traumatized by the prospect that one of that ilk might actually become its standard-bearer. Especially if the candidate in question is a preacher who bashes Wall Street and hedge-fund managers and threatens to take a Christian attitude toward those too poor to benefit from the Bush tax cuts.
No wonder the long list of party mandarins eager to take down Mr. Huckabee includes Rush Limbaugh, Robert Novak, the Wall Street Journal editorial page and National Review. Dan Bartlett, the former close Bush adviser, has snickered at Mr. Huckabee’s presumably low-rent last name. Fred Barnes was reduced to incoherent babbling when a noticeably gloomy Fox News announced Mr. Huckabee’s victory Thursday night.
Chances are things will get a lot worse before they get any better. But we're resolutely celebrating the beginnings of '08, humming the tune, stumbling over the words.
You know how I feel
It's a new dawn
It's a new day
It's a new life
For me
And I'm feeling good ...
