A Question Of Judgment

A recent Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll may shed more light than many people realize on the question of which party is best suited to lead America during turbulent and dangerous times such as these. When asked if President Bush willfully lied to the American people to justify the war with Iraq, or simply made use of the best intelligence he had available to him, seventy-two percent of Democrats stated their belief that he had lied.

Granted, that response on the part of identified Democrats probably shouldn’t be very surprising to anyone who is familiar with the belligerent nature of modern Washington politics. Nor, for that matter, should anyone be surprised that seventy-nine percent of Republicans believe that he operated with the best intelligence he had available. After all, George Bush is a Republican, and that alone presently seems to make him unworthy of the benefit of anyone’s doubt on the left. It’s all just a question of partisan identification, right?

Perhaps, but maybe that partisan identification tells us more about the judgment of the partisans involved than is readily apparent at a passing glance. For, you see, that same poll had other questions asked of members of both parties, and it is the response to one question in particular that may prove quite telling to anyone paying attention.

In the poll, when asked if Iraq and the world are better off with Saddam out of power, or if it would be better if he were still in power, a plurality of Democrats – Forty-one percent – stated that things would be better if Saddam were still in power – and presumably if his sons were still around to fulfill their desires through the abuse of abducted fourteen-year-old Iraqi girls. Only thirty-four percent stated that things were better with Saddam out of power. By contrast, seventy-eight percent of Republicans stated that it was good that he is gone, and ten percent say things would be better with him still in power.

This writer is guessing that, to those “swing” voters out there – those without a partisan ax to grind whose votes both parties covet – the response on the part of the left wingers who currently run the national Democrat Party is going to suggest one of two things. One is that they sincerely believe that Iraqi people should have had to continue live under the brutal oppression of one of the most heinous tyrants to run a nation in recent centuries – making this sacrifice so that the rest of the world could enjoy the alleged stability – assuming we ignore his prior well-documented use of weapons of mass destruction – that he brought to the region.

The other possibility is that the respondents probably know better than their answer to the question suggests, but that the well-being of the American nation and its increased security through the betterment of the world around it is no longer the goal of the party. Rather, the overriding purpose driving the party is its quest for a return to power and the defeat of the “other side.” The notion of a “loyal opposition” thus becomes a thing of the past, and the willful misleading of the public regarding the character and veracity of the majority party is a line they are willing to cross in order to return to dominant status. In other words, the ends justify the means.

Either way, their response to the question about Saddam doesn’t provide much encouragement regarding their judgment on what to believe about George Bush and the Republicans. Or about the course that the nation should be charting in the near future. Something to think about, eleven months from election day.