Sen. Chuck Grassley's (R-Iowa) Twitter feed is an endless source of odd opinions -- after President Obama's second inaugural last week, the senator said Mitt Romney has the president "on the defensive" -- most of which are too silly to take seriously.
But this one stuck with me.
To translate from twitter-ese, Grassley is noting that the president, in his inaugural speech, mentioned that a "decade of war is ending." That's true -- Obama said that, and it's accurate.
But Grassley apparently has a problem with the sentiment, saying that the "war on terror" began 25 years ago -- it's unclear how he arrives at that number -- and it's not ending at all. The senator added that John F. Kennedy said "it will be a long twilight struggle."
It's important to understand just how very wrong Grassley is about, well, every aspect of this policy. For one thing, terrorism against the United States, and the nation's efforts to combat and prevent it, began well over 25 years ago. For another, as plenty of folks on the left and right have said, a nation cannot actually wage a war against a tactic.
But on a more substantive note, wars have to end, and nations cannot remain on a war footing literally forever.
I can only hope Grassley takes the time to watch Rachel's recent interview with outgoing Defense Department General Counsel Jeh Johnson on this very subject.
And as for JFK, the former president wasn't referring to terrorism when he spoke of "a long twilight struggle." Here's the actual Kennedy quote: "Now the trumpet summons us again -- not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need; not as a call to battle, though embattled we are -- but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, 'rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation' -- a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself."
That is largely the exact opposite of the point Grassley intended to make. Alas, the senator seems to know about as much about history as he does about showing restraint on Twitter.
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Grassley is clearly senile. Too bad for him, but it means we can ignore his nonsense, doesn't it?
Wise up. Grassley won 63% of the vote in Iowa in 2010, and we would be better advised not to make sport of him and dissing the voters who chose him. We better get smart about why he wins with seemingly ludicrous messages like this, or Harkin's Iowa seat will go to the GOP too.
Grassley is sounding an "End Times" literary device that is powerful even among the not so religious/ agnostic in the midwest. The facts don't matter. His challenger can use the same device, but use it to beat the GOP over the head over crop failures and climate change.
Stop complaining about the other side's fictions, and use literature's persuasive advantage to tell your story to the electorate.
OR we will die in the Senate elections in 2014. It is going to be tough- especially with the kind of idiotic underestimation of right wing messaging that infects analysts on the left.
John: You are exactly right about engaging people, not just dissing them. Iowa is a great swing state, with diverse population and issues. The Obama Campaign hit the state hard by highlighting the right wings obsession with destroying wind power, and that does not sit well with Iowans. Voter turnout is going to decide everything, if there is another 42% turnout, we are toast in the Senate.
Messerly
Be afraid, be very afraid.. That mean ole republican might take away the dem's seat too. He's a manipulating idiot and should be called out as I'm sure he wins his seat by attacking others and not by policies he supports. Showing him to be the fool he is only means shining a light on him and his tactics. Iowans can change too.
For the midwest, they are going to have to bust out of the group that logs onto barackobama with their facebook account, and gives them permission to mine their likes and friends to make educated guesses about them.
Each of these races has to have its own committed data team, each with an experimental way of verifying how well their messages resonate with their state electorates. Of course they would leverage common tools for testing messages, and multivariate modeling the voters, but I would think each state would have unique biases and issues that would have to be trained into the models for them to have high accuracy.
The cost of such an operation would be tiny compared to the cost of Obama's campaign, but without an effective defense of the Senate, it will be 4 years of inaction, and failed SCOTUS nominations.
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bjb- I didn't explain in any detail. Of course Grassley's message is ludicrous on the grounds Benen details. This is no new mystery- Reagan presented all sorts of whack job ideas and people still love him decades after those ideas (eg battleships and trickle down economics) were proven fiascos.
What I was alluding to is that the "twilight struggle" theme is about the decline of the US- decline of rome etc trope.
Cherry-picking quotes, by a Republican? Must be the first time that's ever happened!
Whoops, left my sarcasm switch on...
Did one of the weasels who make up so much Repub staff find that for him ?
He was just on the senate floor, trying to read a statement that he had obviously not seen.
They are going to send an innocent man to prison, because he spoke up against torture. How crazy can that get? What is this crucifying the innocent guy again? First of all torture was really useless in really getting anywhere in finding Osama Bin Ladin. Since if torture really helped at all in finding Bin Ladin, then why did it take so long to find Bin Ladin? All torture caused was a total distraction and totally getting no where for too long a time. If Bush, Chenney and their cronies also would of been doing their job in the first place besides being power craving, corrupt, arrogant, hypocrites, greedy, and deceivers, 911 would not have happened. And we could have been dealing with far better issues than too much of this nonsense that has been spilling out of these Republican mouths. All Bush, Chenney and their cronies ever did was cause more turmoil in this world than these bastards are worth. And on top of it, why did Bush say where Bin Ladin was, when he said it is not like Osama Bin Ladin is sitting on top of a military facilities and than hesitate and look off into like blank space like what did I just say.
First of all the guy is not innocent and regardless of the moral merits of being against torture, this man outed an undercover operative he's lucky no one was killed because of that.
Do you ever read your replies and realize how they make no sense
Apparently than this undercover operative could of been torturing someone than and it was reported.
My case has been stated
Tom have you been trying to deny the peoples right to freedom of speech? My case is stated. Pppft on you.
Chuckles Grassley is a hill missing its "billy". This guy should be dead from embarrassment and under any other circumstances he would be..
He reminds me of why, back when I used to do a lot of transcontinental "road trips" 40-odd years ago, I used to make sure that the last stop before entering Iowa was a sunset so that the next stop would be in the morning on the other side.
TCinLA:
But traveling at night allowed you to miss Tom Harkin's place and see sunrise in your rear view mirror of Steve King territory. It is a mixed bag.
Will King run for Harkin's seat? He has been hinting at it. There is talk it could also be Tom Latham, or the Lieutenant-Governor Kim Reynolds.
On Democrats side its Bruce Braley, or one of the Vilsack's, or former Governor Chet Culver.
Reality-challenged...
Especially when Pres Kennedy made the statement 50 years ago, not 25.
Was JFK speaking to Grassley from beyond the grave?
Grassley's got a lot of nerve saying that. As if he knew what that sort of struggle entailed. I bet he hasn't sat through a single Twilight movie!
I beg to differ. From what I've seen, Senator Grassley is very versed on the Twilight struggle. From what I understand, he's firmly in the Edward camp.
Mitt Romney has the President on the defensive? What, is there an Obama initiative targeting beachside mansions and car elevators?
And, if the war on terror's only 25 yrs old, how could JFK have spoke of it when he's been gone almost 50?!
Beat me to it!
Grassley reminds me of an amateur magician with an uncooperative rabbit.
Grassley may be senile, or he could be pandering to the religuluous tea-potty know nothings in "his base" - either way there has got to be a way to get thru to decent, hard working, logical Iowan's regarding their choice of whom to send to Congress to represent them. I mean Tom Harkin is a representative and while I'm not always crazy about him because he's a bit too conservative in some instances, I try to appreciate that not all Iowans have lost their minds to " their Jebsus" crazies.
Grassley on the other hand just seems to go farther and farther out on that edge, maybe it's time that he thinks about retiring....
Must be a slow day at the madcow show
Every day is a "slow" day in right wing bubbleland.
Why do we have a war on terror? Because, conveniently for the Pentagon and defense contractors, it is a war you can never win. As has been stated by another poster, you can't win a war on a tactic. Yes, there are islamic extremists...as well as fundamentalist christian extremists, jewish extremists, anti-abortion extremists, neo-nazi extremists....the list goes on and on. How do you stop them? Well, of course you could always try to kill each and every one of them, but that is absolutely impossible, as they don't exactly go around conveniently wearing signs to identify themselves. The only way to win is to make them irrelevant, for the vast majority of the citizenry to see them not as a group that has a point, that they should support because they will make their lives better, but instead see them as they are, a cancer on society, one that will actually make their lives far worse. For example, why do groups like Hamas and Hezbollah have such a hold over so many? Because they represent people who have had everything taken from them, with no sign of it ever ending. So, people are understandably angry and frustrated, and are supportive of anyone who tells them, "Hey, we know how to fix the problems and give you a better life, while taking revenge on the people we say are hurting you". It helped the jews get a homeland in 1947, but those tactics simply don't work today. The world as a whole has gotten far colder and more selfish in the intervening decades. It sat back and let millions of folks die at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, millions more died in Rwanda and Darfur and Myanmar, and the world did nothing. Terrorism can only thrive in circumstances like that, where it becomes evident that the world will not do anything to respond to such atrocities. Unfortunately, unscrupulous, power-hungry people then use a legitimate grievance and cause to build a power base for their own personal gain. Hence, you cannot stop terrorism with drones, Marines, cruise missiles or detention in Guantanamo Bay.
the irony is how highly republicans seem to think of democrats once they're dead or safely out of office. witness how often they invoke harry truman, jfk, and clinton. the two exceptions are fdr and lbj, for an obvious reason: those two left programs in place which remind people of how heartless and cruel the republicans are every day. nothing the republicans have ever done in their entire existence since lincoln comes close to what fdr and lbj did in their presidencies.
I'm still stuck at trying to figure out what event in 1988 marked the beginning of the War on a Noun.
Grassley's bizarre tweets are legendary. #presumedeerdead #deerstilldead
<i>wars have to end, and nations cannot remain on a war footing literally forever.</i>
But we've always been at war with Westasia.......
JFK to Grassley: "You know nothing of my work"
Lots of McLuhan moments for Republicans lately...