It's Not That They're Stupid -- They're Wrong

George Lakoff makes a very important point about how we Democrats treat the war in Iraq, and the response to Katrina, and other instances of "incompetence." His point is that we make a mistake -- and lose a vital opportunity -- if we portray these as evidence of George Bush's incompetence. We need to portray them as the inevitable consequences of the conservative, or neo-conservative, philosophy.

This is true for two reasons.

First, portraying Bush et al. as "incompetent" sort of fits with the "Aw shucks" mentality that voters kind of like. We have seen that in Virginia, where the road is littered with the bodies of Virginia Democrats who thought that George Allen is just too dumb to be Delegate/Congressman/Governor/Senator. Southerners in general have been accustomed to being looked down on as "stupid" by Yankees and elitist "Metropolitan Opera"-listening liberals and the liberal media; if those folks say that one of our good old boys is "stupid," that's not news, and it certainly isn't reason to disown him. So when the "frame" of the debate is "those liberal folks don't understand us" -- as it is in many cases -- it doesn't help Democrats to keep calling him "incompetent". It reinforces the notion that we are elitist.

Second, suppose the answer is that we get a "competent" conservative? How about a Bill Frist in 2008, whom everyone agrees is a very smart guy? Is the "incompetent" label going to stick to him in the same way? Is that how we really want the debate to go?

No, the real answer to this debate is that we have to be clear about the choice between the Republicans and the Democrats.

When Republicans cut taxes and ignore things like roads and levees because they want a smaller government, that's going too far. A Democrat who can say, "Folks, I'm for a smaller government too, but our government has to be big enough to build levees that will hold and big enough to be able to respond well to a disaster like Katrina" will find resonance.

When Republicans send us to war based on the idea that the United States can use its military to reshape the geo-political realities of the Middle East -- or even, if you accept the more benign view, to spread democracy -- that is not an issue of competence. That is a neo-conservative philosophy that is fundamentally wrong.

Lakoff and his coauthors, Marc Ettlinger and Sam Ferguson, write in their article "Bush Is Not Incompetent"(find it at www.rockridgeinstitute.org/research/lakoff/incompetence):

"The manipulation and disregard of intelligence to sell the war was not incompetence; it was the product of a conservative agenda."

Lakoff, you may remember, is the University of California linguistics professor who has been trying to explain to Democrats the principles of cognitive psychology -- why the Republicans have been winning even though they are so WRONG on so many issues.

So what does this have to do with Jim Webb and Virginia politics?

First, it means that sneering about incompetence may be counterproductive. It fires up the base, but may not be terribly persuasive to the folks whom we need to attract back to the Democratic Party. Remember, back in 1980, when Democrats were just gleefully that the Republicans had nominated an actor whose costar had been a chimpanzee (Bedtime for Bonzo)? We sneered about intelligence -- after all, our guy was a nuclear engineer! And we watched as Ronald Reagan carried 49 states.

To put it in Lakoff's terms, unless a different "frame" can be constructed for this picture, incompetence is not a sin. As Lakoff explains in his book Moral Politics, it is very difficult to get people to change their frames. A transforming event like the Great Depression could do it. Or 9/11. Or you could spend huge amounts in advertising dollars. None of those is likely in the next 4 1/2 months.

So if we're stuck playing in this frame, let's understand it.

Lakoff pointed out that the Republicans have successfully painted themselves as the strict father -- the kind of father who could protect you from bad people when you were a kid. Remember how Bush said in his campaign in 2004 that "you may not agree with me, but you'll always know what I believe and that I'll stand for what I believe." President John Wayne. President Harrison Ford. Remember in the movie Air Force One, when President Harrison Ford tells the hijacker, "Get off my plane," and punches him out the door?

Jim Webb has a chance to do well in that frame. First, he has a track record. Even John McCain has said, "His patriotism can't be questioned." Medals for heroism earned while George Allen was sunning himself in Southern California. Second, he can make the point that he knows better than the chicken hawks what fighting an insurgency is like. Third, his line about wearing his son's combat boots because there are more veterans than cowboys in Virginia is a great one for the macho sort of atmosphere that this frame demands.

That's why the flap this week about the Flag-Burning Amendment was so crucial.

Webb's campaign manager is Steve Jarding, co-author of Foxes in the Henhouse, an explanation of how the Republicans have become so strong in the rural areas of the South. He was incredulous that John Kerry allowed himself to be Swift-boated in 2004. He wanted Kerry to come back with outrage -- "George W. Bush is hiding behind other people to make these charges, because he doesn't have the guts to stand up and fight for himself. And back in the 1970's, it was the same thing -- he didn't have the guts to fight the war himself. He let other people -- people like me and my friends and the kid whose guts were blown all over me do his fighting for him. Etc. " So when Dick Wadhams (Allen's campaign manager) talked about the fact that Webb is opposed to the Flag-Burning Amendment, and did so without directly questioning Webb's patriotism (note that in this "frame" he doesn't have to to be effective), Jim Webb's campaign staff came back with an almost over-the-top diatribe about how Webb was fighting while George Felix Allen Jr. was sunning himself in Palos Verdes Estates. The ferocity of the counter-attack stunned even some of Jim Webb's supporters. The Washington Post went "tsk, tsk," to both of them, saying, in essence, "Oh, come on, Jim, he didn't challenge your patriotism." Which just proves that the editorial writers of the Post don't understand the subtext here. (And while we're at it, how about Wadhams' complaint that Jarding got Allen's name wrong? That he isn't George Felix Allen, Jr., but just George Felix Allen? How is that distinction going to work for Allen?)

The subtext of the past week is simple -- Jim Webb is a fighter. And if you don't think he is, he'll knock your block off.

Democrats have to be smart enough to let him be that way. If we insist that our Senatorial candidate spend his campaign time being warm and fuzzy on domestic issues, we lose, and Webb loses. We Democrats can talk about the environment, and affirmative action, and libertarian reasons to support Roe v. Wade. Webb needs to talk about fighting. And that is not bad for us.

Lloyd Snook