Ultra-Conservatives Becoming More Anti-War than Lefty Liberals?

The polarization of American politics along the right-left or conservative-liberal spectrum is one of the primary problems the U.S. faces generally, and particularly in terms of ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This polarization makes pragmatic solutions to pressing problems virtually impossible. Compounding these dilemmas is the fact that bonafide holders of and popular propagandists for polar opposite political positions are beginning to take stances on issues that would have ostracized them from their groupies just a short while ago.

Candidate Obama's campaign caricature of the Afghan war as the "good and necessary" one compared to the "bad and misguided" one in Iraq had a cooptive effect for the liberals who support him then, and now. I was at the speech in which he first set out this tenuous tightrope act; it almost got me walking that line, too. "We agree with him on healthcare, the greening of the economy, etc., so he's probably right on the war front, or at least we'll concede or overlook that point," is the stated or unstated logic I hear from blue-ribbon liberals around the country. Liberal complacency with the wars is perhaps the single greatest obstacle to their ending responsibly today, a void which conservatives are rapidly moving to fill.

These liberals, especially the more lefty they are, forget that among the campaign promises President Obama has broken or not yet delivered on are the shelving of the Eastern European missile shield Bush started (and Obama is steadfastly continuing), and forgetting about direct talks with members of Bush's "Axis of Evil" like Iran and North Korea. This would (or so you'd think) make former Bush-supporting conservatives ecstatic, perhaps even to the point of political conversion, except stances on issues rarely trump positions on political spectrums, regardless of whether or not they match.

Take celebrity ultra-conservative Ann Coulter, for example. She recently came out strong against the Afghan War in one of her columns. You can say anything you want about her, but not that her writing isn't perfectly targeted, purposefully provocative and action inspiring for those meant to read it. Republican-congressman-turned-MSNBC-host Joe Scarborough and pundit Pat Buchanan then praised Coulter's broadside on the “Morning Joe” show. Washington Post columnist George Will and columnist and chat-show regular Tony Blankley have followed suit. People on "this side" of the blurred-to-indistinct line tend to stress Obama's mishandling of the war more than its misguidance. The fact that their critiques are heavy on character attacks makes clear their anti-war stances are essentially anti-Obama. But that doesn't make them wrong about the war, even if they are only partially right.

Not a single Republican voted for President Obama's Afghanistan troop surge funding bill in the House last week, filled with just the kind of pork he promised to eliminate from their legislation. Such an unflinching rejection of war funds would have been unthinkable even a few months ago.

To be clear, I am not touting the "working across political lines" and "let's love one another" lines that we hear from all presidential candidates come election time, which is verbal treatment of a symptom of the disease of political polarization and in no way a cure in itself. I am saying that these disabling lines need to be totally redrawn to accurately represent the American political landscape today, in the hopes that their negatives -- like the redlining of the past and the gerrymandering of the present -- can be neutralized. What I am advocating for is a pragmatic, problem-solving approach that puts political positions like personal egos and public personas aside to actively and directly address the problems we face, beginning with the deadly and costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, now the longest in U.S. history.

Photo credit: Rusty Darbonne