Lack Of Coherent Dem Response On Torture Taking Toll, Helping Cheney
Some striking new polling from Gallup suggests that the lack of a coherent response to Dick Cheney’s torture offensive is taking its toll on at least one high-profile Democrat while simultaneously helping Cheney begin to salvage his reputation.
The Gallup poll finds that two of the leading officials on either side of the torture argument — Cheney and Nancy Pelosi — have equally poor favorability ratings. But here’s the key point: They are at parity because Cheney’s ratings have gone up and Pelosi’s have dropped during the period that both were heavily identified with the torture issue.
Pelosi’s favorability rating is at 34%, down eight points from six months ago. Cheney’s is at 37%, up seven points in the same time period. Cheney’s rating is actually higher than Pelosi’s.
As Gallup notes, Pelosi has been more closely identified with the torture issue than any other Dem, mainly because of her ongoing dispute with the CIA. Meanwhile, the overall Dem pushback against Cheney’s torture offensive has been incoherent at best and nonexistent at worst.
Top Dems (Obama aside) have taken Cheney about as seriously as a circus sideshow, chortling about his low approval ratings while rarely rebutting his actual arguments. Result: His claims have continually gone largely unchallenged, and he’s largely framed the debate. My bet is that this helps explain why Cheney seems to be rising in the polls and Pelosi is sinking: Dems have given Cheney an opening, and Cheney took it.
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Excellent insight.
Obama is either extremely lucky or extremely shrewd. Depsite going head to head with Cheney (dueling speeches)on the issue, Pelosi is now the picture of Democratic ineptitude with regards to torture—Obama for now, is neutralized.
As I understand it Bush’s ratings have also gone up since being out of office without coming out and saying much about torture. I think its just a natural incline for Cheney. However Pelosi’s decline is related to the lack of a coherent response. I think a lot of that has to do with there being over 200 members of the Dem caucus in the House. Its hard to corral that many people into a single message. But Pelosi needs to get some strong lieutenants who can immediately push back on this kind of stuff speaking with one voice.
This is OK by Obama.
A weakened majority leader makes her more subservient to the WH. Cheney’s pro-torture push makes it easier for Obma’s “let’s just fuggadaboudit” stance seem more reasonable.
But Cheney’s negatives all come from the left of him, while Pelosi’s include a lot of people who dispise Cheney, but don’t believe Pelosi was as uninformed as she claims to be. Essentially, Cheney’s improvement is within his margin or error, and the result of a non-testable poll. Pelosi is trying to walk the line between being against terror and never being in a position to do anything about it. One tests the torture argument. The other tests leadership or effectiveness.
Ae long as Cheney, his daughter, Rush and Hannity continue to incite their base the better for Obama. American’s are a center right to center left country. All they do is drive more Republicans out of the party.
Greg: I think we must resist the temptation to rely on polls. I don’t care whether Cheney’s popularity is up and Nancy Pelosi’s is down. Those are red herrings. People are simply not interested in revisiting the torture issue. We let the Bushies do whatever they wanted. The few who complained were marginalised. When it really counted the majority yawned. Remember these were A…raabs being tortured. They don’t really elicit much sympathy.
And the constant harping on Pelosi only matters to the Beltway and some bloggers. Back in SFO Pelosi is maintaining her position; and that’s what counts.
Cheney and Pelosi so inside Washington.
I’d like to see how much money these pollsters are making.
There is no evidence in this poll that Pelosi’s decline is due to the “lack of a coherent response.” Greg asserts a theory that is not suppotred by this data. (I recall Greg being upset with others who used poll results to support pet theories.)
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The lack of a response has nothign to do with it – the public simply agrees with the other side. There HAS been consistent evidence that the public agrees that in some cases it is acceptable to use EITs – even ones considered torture. They agree that ‘torture’ was committed but they do not want an investigation or prosecution. This is not an argument you can counter with a “coherent” response; the Dems are just not in sync with public opinion. Beginning with her ill-advised remarks about the CIA, Pelosi has given the Repubs what they need – a boogeyman – and they are using her to influence Independents. She will be a major feature in Repub adverts throughout 2010.
sbj, if it’s true that the public “agrees” with cheney, that could just as well be because no one is aggressively sounding the counter argument — which would support my theory.
and Alan, you very well be right. but again, that could be largely because very few really have the stomach to make the anti-torture argument forcefully.
Greg: I can understand the strength of the ACLU and many others who make the case that the torture issue is important. But, as long as Americans are not at the receiving end of the WBT it is tough to get the general pop agitated or responsive. Once some good old boy is tortured watch the rise of the indignation quotient.
@Greg – thanks for the reply! There is not one teeny bit of data that you can point to in those poll results that says anything about the Dem response. Your theory is not bolstered (or countered) by this poll, so I believe your headline is deeply misleading. You’ve got a headline that indicates your post is about a poll that supports the idea that a poor Dem response is helping Cheney – I think that is just plain misleading.
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And now for something completely different: Did you see this article at The Hill?
http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/intel-firestorm-gop-reveals-briefing-info-2009-06-04.html
Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.): “The hearing did address the enhanced interrogation techniques that have been much in the news lately,” Kline said, noting that he was intentionally choosing his words carefully in observance of the committee rules and the nature of the information presented. “Based on what I heard and the documents I have seen, I came away with a very clear impression that we did gather information that did disrupt terrorist plots.”
It seems kind of difficult to gather a coherent push-back on this issue when Obama is actively doing everything he can to lend support to Cheney’s basic objective …. stop the call for torture accountability. He has flat out stated that he wants Cheney’s side to win this battle.
The administration has sidelined their allies in the press and ceded the entire public debate to the republicans while leaving his own congressional leadership to twist in the wind. Obama won’t let justice investigate, won’t support a commission that would end the debate, won’t declassify anything additional that would allow the public to take action, etc. Seems he’s just biding his time until the real progressives are beat down or lose steam.
If this keeps up, the democrats are going to be wishing for the great position Clinton provided them in when he left office. I’m sticking with my predictions of a GOP dominant 2016. Most likely led by Obama administration republicans.
Help Cheney how? why? damn is he running for office again??
He is NOTHING got that? He is just one more opinionated wingnut without a cause.
Ignore him he is not worth the effort.
“that could just as well be because no one is aggressively sounding the counter argument ”
Perhaps no one is aggressively sounding the counter argument because a) given today’s uncertainty they do not want to be bound by it, and/or b) they suspect it would go over like a lead balloon with the general populace.
“His claims have continually gone largely unchallenged, and he’s largely framed the debate. My bet is that this helps explain why Cheney seems to be rising in the polls and Pelosi is sinking”
… or is it possible that Cheney’s opinion is the opinion that most americans support? Cheney is speaking truth to power.
Pelosi’s numbers certainly don’t exist in a vacuum with only the torture/Cheney issue to influnce them. Here is the first female speaker in history, swept into office on a wave of good feeling while crowing that she would run “the most ethical congress in history”.
Dodd alone has more ethical problems brewing than most past congresses. Then there’s Rangel and a slew of others that have spent most of the intervening time covering their rears.
Congress (BOTH parties) has gotten to the point where the only sensible thing to do is fire every last stinking one of them and start from scratch. Or move to Australia. I see no other options.
“The administration has sidelined their allies in the press and ceded the entire public debate to the republicans while leaving his own congressional leadership to twist in the wind.”
Huh. What goes around comes around, and only an idiot whacks the tetherball while standing in its arc.
Establishing the principle “lose the election, go to jail” would not be a good thing. Barack Obama doesn’t want it set up that way, because he knows darn well he’ll be out of office in 2017 if not 2012, with plenty of ammo left for people who don’t like him much.
Regards,
Ric
I completely agree with your assessment, Greg, and I’d like to add a caveat. Democrats haven’t waged any effective counter argument to the use of torture; however, I believe this to be entirely purposeful. It isn’t a failing on the Dem’s part to get out there and yell back at Cheney. Their silence is more easily explained in light of the fact that they have no ground to stand on. Regardless of what Pelosi thought the CIA was doing versus what they were considering, if she was briefed on waterboarding then she should stopped the meeting there and made a stink – even about the hypothetical use of the technique. She didn’t and now she’s trying to avoid admitting it. Whether she was specifically informed of the moment an action occurred is beside the point. Furthermore, Democrats are aware that Obama still reserves the right to allow torture when necessary and that he is not doing away with a lot of Bush torture techniques and indefinite detention elements.
No one in either party is in any position to counter Cheney’s argument effectively, because they were all complicit. That is why silence fills the void.
Agreeing with Jim above – what, exactly, do the Dems have to “push back” with? They knew what was going on and they supported it until it became politically unpopular with their base, by which time it was too late. They need to own up to it and move on.
Obama himself made some arguments with regard to enhanced interrogations / torture on “dueling speeches” night. Or, rather, he made some rather overblown, self-satisfied conclusory statements about the issue. Cheney, the un-celebrity, made factual arguments.
Cheney won.
But because Obama is such a nice young man, the public will not turn on him unless he commits a double homicide in the rose garden (and maybe not even then; see The Onion on this topic.)
So Pelosi lost instead.
Pelosi’s cringe-inducing performance at that press conference has to be responsible for 90 percent of the disfavor.
Well, that and the fact that she’s a shrill idiot.
Of course, when the commies are losing the debate it is a problem of “framing.”
Cheney’s reputation was damaged only to the extent that he shot that guy on the quail hunt. Possibly the chap deserved it!
Pelosi’s reputation (if she ever had one) ran head-on into the proverbial immovable object at 80mph plus, and is currently sliding down the side of said object in an unidentifiable bloody mess.
Charlie
Those who have read or watched Cheney’s speech will notice that Cheney didn’t merely defend the Bush administration on torture, he also methodically and thoroughly addressed virtually every leftist charge of wrongdoing hurled at Bush for the last eight years. The left has grown so accustomed to the Bush Administration not defending itself that it has long resorted saying virtually anything about Bush now matter how outrageous or false, and seeing it become part of the public narrative without question. Like the schoolyard bully, the left is now unsure what to do or say now that someone from the Bush Administration is actually standing up for himself.
For those of you who are still confused about this issue, please consider the following– the reason the Dems haven’t issued a “coherent” message on torture is simple. They DON’T have one! The entire “torture” debate was a ridiculous partisan slander that was used for entirely political purposes. It was a stick to beat the Reps with, nothing more. In reality, the Dems never had a substantial problem with enhanced interrogation, Gitmo, wire-taps and the rest of it. How do I know? Because they never made any serious effort to stop it then (see Pelosi), and they damn sure won’t now.
The Democratic Party’s public posture on the WoT is entirely a hypocritical song and dance intended to entertain their base (and to sway the squishy undecideds). The “Evil Bushies v. Kindly Grandma Pelosi” show was a freakin’ cartoon. It served its purpose, and now we are supposed to moveon.org, and “focus on the future.” It was pure manipulation of public opinion– the kind of thing that the Dems constantly accuse the Reps of, but which the Reps couldn’t get away with in a million years.
Get used to it! Remember, it’s the ends that are important, not the means.