Beyond the "Mommy Party"

Could it be that drastic, violent, actions are their own reward? Could it be that the strategy we’ve followed for the last eight years, had more to do with the self-esteem of our leaders, than the efficacy of their tactics? The need for evidence of one’s potency finds a parallel in a story about the history of medicine:

Barbara Ehrenreich, in For Her Own Good: 150 Years of the Experts’ Advice to Women, chronicled the gradual evolution of health care as a natural extension of women’s role in the community, to a respectable profession dominated by men. One of the turning points in this transition, was the development of “heroic medicine” - measures that that had a dramatic effect - whether or not they enhanced the patient’s health:

The Bush Administration’s macho approach to foreign affairs, reminds me of these early doctors, searching for evidence of their potency in the world. Invasion, extraordinary rendition, spying on Americans and torturing prisoners may not have actually make us safer, but they provided powerful evidence that something affirmative was being done to avenge the deaths on 9/11.

The personal appeal of these drastic measures is also indicated by conservatives’ many references to the TV show 24, in actual defense of torture. The idea that our leaders are heroes in TV dramas might be comforting to some; the fact that some might confuse such dramas with reality is frightening to others.

But now that Obama is choosing to battle for Muslim hearts and minds, rather than creating more terrorists for every one killed - perhaps it’s time to abandon the conventional wisdom that Democrats have no answers on national security.