In the games of bridge and chess, as well as in warfare, there is a particular kind of strategy that is called an “endplay”. It is aimed at maneuvering the opponent into a situation where he or she is obligated to make a move and yet every possible move that is available results in a loss.
In a real sense this was the situation in which Wesley Clark found himself yesterday. By now – and with the benefit of hindsight – virtually every Democratic activist in America has thought of some clever response that Clark might have used to avoid the manufactured scandal and outrage over his remarks.
Rather than add to this specific discussion, however, it is worth stepping back a little and noting that an “endplay” situation of this general kind will invariably present itself whenever McCain’s military service is offered as proof of his superior qualifications for the presidency:
1. Any reply that suggests McCain’s military experience – – either as a pilot or prisoner of war – is not clear evidence of his qualifications for high office can easily be spun as denigrating him personally, his service, bravery, fortitude etc. (This can be easier or harder depending on the exact words of the particular response, but an “outrageous denigration of John McCain” can always be concocted. If the actual reply itself is not sufficient, it can be re-edited, words can be taken out of context or simply mischaracterized by partisan commentators).
2. On the other hand, any response that tries to express respect for aspects of McCain’s biography can always be used as a rhetorical stepping stone to launch increasingly more provocatively phrased questions that finally demand some kind of clear dissent from the person being interviewed (this is, in part, what happened to Clark; Obama, on the other hand, handles similar situations with great patience and skill).
There is no iron-clad strategy for evading this trap – litigation lawyers and partisan commentators are both expert in framing no-win, “so tell the jury, when did you stop beating your wife” questions that are extremely difficult to answer well in the high-pressure, unscripted environment of a courtroom or media interview.
One specific approach worth keeping in mind, however, is that it is usually effective to directly quote the opposing candidate himself in order to refute him.
For example, in his 2004 book “Why Courage Matters – The Way to a Braver Life” John McCain said:

“I don’t really need much courage for the challenges most frequently encountered in a political career. Political courage in our consensual political system is seldom all that courageous”.

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An article in last Friday’s NYT – “Big Gains for Iraq Security, but Questions Linger” – is more than a standard wartime dispatch. With two principal authors and ten local Iraqi correspondents credited as contributors, it is a significant attempt to explain key aspects of the current military situation for American readers.
For Democrats, the article makes two points of particular importance.
First, the article very strongly corroborates an argument that was made in a TDS post last week. The post warned about a sudden burst of conservative commentary that was distorting the military situation in Iraq to make the case for McCain and achieving “victory.” By the artful use of words like “routed”, “forced to submit”, “surrendered” and “scattered,” these commentaries made it appear that the withdrawal of Sunni and Sadrist militias from Basra, Sadr City and Mosul represented the near-collapse of the insurgency. From this it followed that it is only if the weak-kneed Democrats start withdrawing troops that the insurgents can possibly win.
The TDS post argued that a careful reading of the dispatches from these cities indicated that the withdrawals were more accurately described as mutually negotiated cease-fires rather than battlefield combat victories and therefore did not signal the collapse of the insurgent forces.
The Times article very emphatically confirms this view, repeating the conclusion at two different places.
First,
“The government victories in Basra, Sadr City and Amara were essentially negotiated, so the militias are lying low but undefeated and seething with resentment”
And then again,
“…the government’s successes in Basra and Sadr City were not so much victories as heavy fighting followed by truces that allowed the militias to melt away with their weapons.”
This is an important point. It provides Democrats with an authoritative source to use to challenge the misleading suggestions that the insurgents are actually on their “last legs” and “about to collapse” if Americans just “stay strong a tiny bit longer” or “support John McCain”. It will not stop conservative spokesmen from making such claims when talking to ordinary voters (where they think they can get away with it) but will reduce their tendency to assert this notion in serious debate or the op-ed pages of the Washington Post or New York Times where such rhetoric will be viewed as evidence of either extreme gullibility or embarrassing ignorance.
Beyond this, the article also presents other information about the military situation that Democrats need to understand in order to plan their own political strategy.

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In the last few days editorials in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post have started laying the foundations for a new two-pronged propaganda campaign – one that will serve to support McCain’s candidacy during the campaign season and then seamlessly convert into a “the perfidious Democrats stabbed our troops in the back” campaign in the event Obama wins the election and troops begin to be withdrawn.
The key to this new campaign is the assertion that the Sunni and Sadrist “insurgents” in Iraq are actually now on the very verge of collapse – shattered, demoralized and reeling from recent setbacks in Basra, Sadr City and Mosul. It is therefore only if the weak-kneed Democrats start withdrawing troops that the insurgents can possibly win.
Now anyone who has carefully read the articles about events in Basra, Sadr City and Mosul in the New York Times, Washington Post and major wire services is well aware of three facts:
1. The insurgent pullbacks in all three of these cities were carefully negotiated withdrawals with the entering government troops obeying mutually agreed-upon conditions (in Sadr City, for example, one element of the agreement was that US troops would not be part of the entering forces) In Mosul, the Times reported that “the Iraqi military appears to have allowed many insurgents to slip out after scores of negotiations with militias and their leaders.”
2. While preceded by periods of serious combat, the actual withdrawals or negotiated surrender/amnesties did not involve significant casualties for the insurgents or the unplanned abandonment of weapons, ammunition, supplies or materials.
3. The press reports gave no indication that the withdrawals were accompanied by any widespread demoralization, panic or breakdown of discipline among the insurgent forces.
(This last item may seem surprising to Americans because our military culture almost automatically identifies retreat or withdrawal with humiliation and failure while heroism is identified with standing fast (e.g. “not one step backward,” “fight to the last man” etc.). Arab-Persian martial culture is different, however, with withdrawal often envisioned as a specific kind of military operation that includes feigned retreats and false surrenders. The most famous historical example of this style of battle was the Parthian archers who would feign retreat and then decimate the pursuing cavalry by twisting around and firing arrows while their horses still raced ahead. Similar tactics of feigned retreat and false surrender were also a significant element in the reputation Arab and Persian generals gained during the Middle Ages of being uniquely “cunning” and “devious” compared to their more “upright” and “chivalrous” European opponents)
In short, while the insurgents’ loss of their bases in the three cities represented a significant setback, there is absolutely no reason to take seriously the idea that the events in Basra, Sadr City or Mosul have pushed them to the literal verge of collapse.
Now let us look at the exact words the Wall Street Journal and New York Post editorials used to characterize the events:
The New York Post, “Eat Crow, Iraq War Skeptics,” June 9, 2008
The Iraqi army “forcefully reoccupied” the three cities.
The Iraqi army “compelled insurgent militias to lay down their arms.”
The Wall Street Journal, “Iraq and the Election,” June 6, 2008
The Iraqi army “routed insurgents in three of their most important urban strongholds.”
Basra was “liberated from Sadrist goon squads.”
The Sadr City truce “had all the hallmarks of de-facto surrender.”
In Mosul, “the remaining terrorists were forced to scatter to the countryside or flee for Syria”
All these phrases – “forcefully reoccupied,” “routed,” “forced to lay down their arms,” “surrender,” “scatter,” and “flee” are extremely misleading as descriptions of what actually occurred during the negotiated withdrawals from the three cities and give ordinary Americans an utterly false visual image – an image of broken, panic-stricken and demoralized insurgents dropping their weapons and fleeing in terror.
This exaggerated image is of course vital for the Stab in the Back narrative to seem plausible. The enemy has to be on its “last legs” and “certain to fall if we can just stay firm a tiny little bit longer.” If, on the other hand, the Sadrists and Sunni insurgents are more accurately described as “playing possum,” “keeping their power dry,” “biding their time,” or “waiting for the right moment,” then the events of this spring appear more like a positive but not decisive trend in a long war of attrition with no end necessarily in sight. In this case, the Stab in the Back narrative falls apart.
What should the Dems do?
First, they should directly challenge the distorted view of events which underlies the “stab in the back” narrative whenever it is presented so that it does not become unconsciously accepted on the basis that “I’ve heard it so often that I guess it must be true.” Independent media watchdog groups as well as specifically Democratic sources should consistently quote articles from the major papers and wire services showing that the picture of “insurgents on the verge of total and complete collapse” is simply not supported by the facts to date.
Second, when the Republicans do roll out the “stab in the back” argument – as they inevitably will – the Democrats answer should be categorical.
Neither the Sadrist nor Sunni insurgencies were decisively shattered or broken by the events in Basra, Sadr City and Mosul and it is a genuinely shameful betrayal of the incredible sacrifice of our brave and dedicated men and women in uniform – and their families back home — for writers and commentators – for whatever partisan political motive — to deliberately sugarcoat that reality and distort the facts about how difficult the real conditions are that our soldiers are facing in Iraq and what it will actually take to pacify the county . Our men and women in uniform deserve better.
Before writers and commentators make vile assertions about Democrats stabbing our troops – our brave and dedicated troops and their families — in the back on the basis of misleading characterizations of the actual military situation in Iraq, they should look at themselves in the mirror.
And they should be ashamed.
James Vega is a strategic marketing consultant whose clients include leading nonprofit institutions and high-tech firms.

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To summarize the argument thus far:
There is an important “pro-military, but anti-Bush’s war” voter group. Winning their vote is critical for Democratic candidates at every level of the 2008 election.
To win the support of these voters Democrats need do three things:

1. Democrats must demonstrate to these “pro-military” voters that they sincerely honor and respect the value system of the American military.
2. Democrats must distinguish and clarify to these voters that they completely support what most members of the armed forces see as their basic mission – protecting America from another terrorist attack. They must make clear that this is emphatically not the issue on which Democrats and Republicans disagree.
3. Democrats must learn how to express their ideas in the language and framework of military strategy – to win the debate with the Republicans within the “strategic” conceptual framework in which “pro-military” voters want policies regarding Iraq to be discussed.

In previous sections three basic ideas about America’s military strategy in Iraq have been presented.

1. That the conflict in Iraq is now a full-scale civil war, not an insurgency
2. That in many civil wars. short-term cease fires often just temporarily postpone deeply-rooted religious and ethnic conflict – and even make the ultimate violence even worse
3. That “staying the course” or “finishing the job” in Iraq implies not only refereeing the bitter civil war for many years but also profoundly changing the nation’s society and culture. These are objectives that will require long years, more soldiers, constant casualties and that – without using brutality, reprisals and direct US military rule – probably still will not be achieved.

Many “pro-military, anti-Bush’s war ” voters have already reached some version of these key conclusions by themselves, based on their own common sense and their daily observation of the news on TV. This is what underlies their view that (1) “the surge was a mistake”, (2) that Bush’s policies have “undermined America’s security” and (3) that we should “reduce the number of troops”.
So how can Democrats present speak to these voters — offering them an approach expressed in the language and conceptual framework of military strategy?
Most pro-military Americans will agree that there are three basic things any politician owes to the American people — and even more to the men and women of the armed forces themselves — before he or she proposes to send or keep American troops in combat.

1.A clearly defined mission and objectives
2. Sufficient resources to do the job
3. An explicit exit strategy

Most Americans, whether pro-military or not, will agree that if a politician cannot or will not provide these three things, he or she simply does not deserve the support of the American people.
Let’s look at each of these in turn:

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The 2003 invasion of Iraq was not the first time in history that a western army won decisive military victories in the Middle East and then found itself bogged down in a tenacious guerilla war. As the military historian Archer Jones noted in his book, “The Art of War in the Western World”, the same fate befell Alexander the Great 2,500 years earlier. After winning decisive victories against the Persian army in two major battles, he found himself unable to defeat the tribes of northern Afghanistan:

(Alexander’s) opponents essentially followed a raiding strategy, attacking his outposts and, except for their strong points avoiding contact with large contingents of his army…they sought to avoid strong Macedonian forces, concentrating on overwhelming weak detachments and then withdrawing.
(Alexander) established and garrisoned a large number of fortified military posts throughout the settled part of the county…although the measures taken by the Macedonians strengthened the defense… they failed to prevent the guerillas raids. The invaders had too few soldiers to stop the raids in a large country in which the guerillas had political support among the population.

Alexander was the first of the great conqueror-generals of western history. But the classic description of how a war of occupation should be conducted – one that was read by every British schoolboy learning his Latin in the era of the British Empire and by every modern graduate of West Point — is Julius Caesar’s narrative of his conquest of Gaul. Caesar’s dispatches to the Roman senate about his campaigns in what is now France, Belgium and Germany provided a model that all subsequent generals sought to emulate.
Western Europe in Caesar’s time was a vast patchwork of small tribes, each controlling areas of one hundred or two hundred square miles, along with some 20 or 30 much larger cultural groups. Caesar, in contrast, had only a handful of legions under his command. But the Roman legion was a formidable fighting force that could routinely defeat Gallic armies two, three or four times its size. It was a highly trained and disciplined formation of about 5,000 men that could fight as a single cohesive unit, standing literally shoulder to shoulder, or it could quickly divide into smaller groups that could maneuver and battle independently. A Roman legion could march all day at a pace almost twice as fast as most of its opponents and then build a walled, fortified camp before the sun had set. Roman military technology was far in advance of Gallic techniques and included the ability to build river spanning bridges, catapult artillery, siege towers and vast encircling walls around resisting Gallic cities within a matter of days.
But with only four legions when he began, Caesar could not hope to control the vast region from the Italian Alps to the English Channel by sheer military force alone. The key to his strategy was a complex network of alliances with some Gallic tribes and the deliberate fomenting of conflict between others – a method the Romans called divide et impera — divide and rule.
As the leading military monograph on Caesar’s Gallic campaign notes:

(Caesar’s) task was made easier by the inability of the Gallic tribes to unite to form a combined resistance to the invaders. Indeed some tribes supported the Romans, and the Romans played one tribe off against another, exploiting the territorial ambitions of different Gallic tribes and even political divisions within tribes.

Caesar (who frequently referred to himself in the third person in his dispatches) described one such maneuver as follows:

He (Caesar) impressed upon Diviciacus the Aeduan the importance, alike for Rome and the general safety of Gaul, of preventing the junction of the various enemy contingents, in order to avoid the necessity of fighting such powerful forces at once. He explained that the best way of effecting this was for the Aedui to invade the land of the Bellovaci and start devastating it.

In fact, reading Caesar’s dispatches is almost like looking over the shoulder of a skilled chess player as he moves his pieces – legions, garrisons and allies – across a map of Western Europe, placing garrisons at strategic locations, rapidly moving troops to quell outbreaks of rebellion and negotiating a careful network of alliances and “treaties of friendship” with tribal leaders. Caesar’s readers in the Roman senate were engrossed by his descriptions of how he maintained control over such a vast territory with his relatively small force.

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During his opening remarks at the recent Senate hearings on Iraq, John McCain described the situation as follows:

At the beginning of last year…full scale civil war seemed almost unavoidable… (But) since the middle of last year sectarian and ethnic violence, civilian deaths and deaths of coalition forces have all fallen dramatically. This improved security environment has led to a new opportunity, one in which average Iraqis can in the future approach a more normal political and economic life.
…Today it is possible to talk with real hope and optimism about the future of Iraq and the outcome of our efforts there…we’re no longer staring into the abyss of defeat and we can now look ahead to the genuine prospect of success.”

McCain’s optimism was somewhat dampened by the fighting in Basra and Sadr City that was occurring even as he spoke, but most of the discussion of Iraq during the Senate hearings indeed accepted the basic proposition that the generally falling level of violence during the preceding months did represent undeniable proof of “progress” or “success”. Up until the week before McCain’s testimony, most journalistic reports about Iraq quite optimistically described formerly empty streets now filled with pedestrians and markets and stores that had been closed and shuttered now open and filled with customers. On the surface, it certainly seemed plausible to assume that if the relative calm could be maintained, Iraq could steadily advance toward stability.
This corresponds with the average person’s conception of civil or urban warfare — that if the streets of an area can be made safe, the local population will rapidly come to support the authorities and reject the forces seeking to create violence. For this reason, the citizens of western nations almost always approve of temporary cease-fires to stop violence.
Many military historians and strategists, however, disagree most strongly with this view. There is, in fact, a very substantial body of opinion which holds that temporary cease fires in civil wars very often do not permanently reduce violence, but simply postpone the fighting and can even make it worse when it recurs.
One of the leading contemporary military theorists, Edward N. Luttwak, Senior Fellow of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is a prominent advocate of this perspective. In his influential book, “Strategy – The Logic of War and Peace” he notes that many civil wars are “low intensity” conflicts that do not automatically escalate to major set-piece battles. Rather, they proceed for long periods of time with a low, constant level of violence punctuated with occasional flare-ups and clashes.
As he says:

…in civil wars the intensity of the fighting is often low, the scale small with violence localized within a wider environment that the fighting might affect only marginally if at all…civil wars can therefore last for decades. No intense, large scale war can last for many years, let alone decades and some have burned themselves out in weeks or even days.
…But if war is interrupted before its self-destruction is achieved, no peace need ensue at all. So it was in Europe’s past when wars were still fought intermittently during spring and summer campaigning seasons, each time coming to an end with the arrival of winter – only to resume afresh in the spring…

Luttwak then proceeds to argue his main point, using the Balkans as one example:

Since 1945 wars among lesser powers have rarely been allowed to follow their natural course. Instead they have typically been interrupted long before they could burn out the energies of war to establish the preconditions of peace…cease fires merely relieve war-induced exhaustion, favoring the reconstitution and rearming of the belligerents, thus intensifying and prolonging the fighting once the cease-fire comes to an end.
…Dozens of UN imposed cease-fires interrupted the fighting between Serbs and Croats in the Krajina borderlands, between the forces of the Serb-Montenegrin federation and the Croat army and among the Serbs, Croats and Muslims of Bosnia. Each time the belligerents exploited the pause to recruit, train and equip additional forces for further combat. Indeed it was under the protection of successive cease fires that both the Croats and the Bosnian Muslims were able to build up their own armed forces to confront the well-armed Serbs….the overall effect was to greatly prolong the war and widen the scope of its killings, atrocities, and destructions.”

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On the November 27, 2007 Charlie Rose Show, John McCain said of Iraq:
“This is a classic counterinsurgency we are engaged in right now. This is not a new strategy. General Petraeus has updated it, but the fact is it’s a classic counterinsurgency.”
Political journalists and observers paid little attention to this particular remark, seeing it as a vague generalization. People familiar with military matters, on the other hand, knew McCain was referring to something very specific — military publication FM – 3-24 — “The US Army-Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual”.
This publication, written by General Petraeus along with Lt. General James Amos and Lt. Colonel John Nagl, was widely described as revolutionary when it appeared in December 2006. It was rapidly downloaded over 1.5 million times from the internet and generated more commentary than any other modern military publication. Most frequently, it was cited as the basis for Petraeus’ new strategy behind the “surge”.
FM -3-24 is a statement of military doctrine. It presents a “common language and common understanding of how army forces conduct operations” and in two important respects it does indeed represent a radical departure from the past.
First, the Counterinsurgency Field Manual represents a very dramatic break with the “Powell Doctrine” that emerged out of the disillusionment with the war in Vietnam. The Powell Doctrine held among its directives that, for the use of regular Army and Marine forces (1) there must be a clearly defined mission, (2) that force, when used, should be overwhelming and disproportionate to the force used by the enemy and (3) that there must be a clear exit strategy from the conflict in which the military is engaged.
The application of the “Powell Doctrine” was clearly evident in the conduct of the first Gulf War and commanded wide approval among U.S. military commanders at the time. From this perspective, anti-guerilla campaigns were perceived as a very distinct kind of military operation that could best be handled by Special Forces and other highly specialized and uniquely trained troops.
The new Counterinsurgency Field Manual, in very stark contrast, defines anti-guerrilla warfare as a central task for the regular Army and Marines. The bibliography of FM-3-24 specifically cites books dealing with the strategy of post-World War II anti-guerrilla campaigns in Malaya, Kenya, Algeria and Indochina as the principle models upon which the new strategy is based.
Along with this radical change in doctrine, the manual also takes a very strong position on a major military debate left over from the Vietnam War — a debate between the advocates of using virtually unrestricted firepower and military force – symbolized by terms like “carpet bombing” and “free-fire zones” and the advocates of an alternative approach identified with the slogans of “Winning Hearts and Minds” and “Vietnamization”.
FM -3-24 very aggressively and systematically champions the second approach. It defines counterinsurgency operations as nothing less than “armed social work” and bluntly asserts that such campaigns cannot win unless they succeed in protecting the civilian population and rebuilding the economy. More specifically it lists four major objectives (1) Security from intimidation, coercion, violence and crime; (2) Provision of basic economic needs, (3) Provision of essential services such as water, electricity, sanitation and medical care; (4) Sustainment of key social and cultural institutions

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James Vega is a strategic marketing consultant whose clients include major nonprofit organizations and high-tech firms
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I. Understanding the “pro-military, but anti-Bush’s war” voters
Because of the number and variety of questions they ask on a single topic, the surveys produced by Democracy Corps provide Democrats with data of unique value. They make it possible to begin to visualize some of the larger political perspectives into which voters specific opinions are organized.
The recent D-Corps survey and analysis of opinion on National Security, for example, makes it possible to get a feel for the size of two broad groups — the firmly partisan anti-war Democratic “base” voters and the firmly partisan pro-Bush’s war, pro-military” Republican “base” voters.
On the one hand, about 27% of the respondents in the D-Corps survey agreed with every one of the following five statements
Firmly Partisan Anti-War Democrats
• The Democrats will do a better job “insuring a strong military”
• The Democrats, more than Republicans “respect the military”
• The surge was “a mistake”
• In Iraq, America should “reduce the number of troops”
• Bush’s policies have “undermined America’s security”
On the other hand, about 45% of the respondents agreed with all five of the following statements
Firmly Partisan Pro-Bush’s War, Pro-Military Republicans
• The Republicans will do a better job of “insuring a strong military”
• The Republicans, more than the Democrats, “Respect the military”
• The surge is helping to “win the war”
• America must “Stay the course”, “finish the job” and “achieve stability”
• Bush’s policies have “increased America’s security”
The most important fact that emerges from this comparison is the very substantial number of respondents – about 30% — who do not fall in either category. They agreed with some of the five statements but not others.
But what do these “inconsistent” voters actually think? Among the respondents to the D-Corps survey as a whole, the main distinction was between responses to the first two questions and the final three.
On the one hand, only about 27% of all respondents to the D-Corps survey thought the Democrats would be better at “insuring a strong military” or “respecting the military”. About 55% thought the Republicans would be better.
In contrast, about 54% of all respondents agreed that “the surge was a mistake”, that “we should reduce the number of troops” and that “Bush’s policies have reduced America’s security”. Only about 44% thought we should “stay the course”, that “the surge was working” and that Bush’s policies have “increased America’s security”
In short, while a majority of Americans think Republicans are more favorable to the military, many are also strongly opposed to Bush’s policies. It is this significant “pro-military, but anti-Bush’s war” group that is the critical swing vote on national security.

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The recent announcement of a coordinated $350 million election-year effort by independent liberal and progressive groups — including MoveOn, the AFL-CIO, Change To Win, Women’ Voices, Women Vote, the National Council of La Raza, Acorn and Rock the Vote — is profoundly impressive. Together with the Democratic candidates’ tremendous success in direct small-donor fundraising this year it raises the hope that Dems might actually come close to matching or surpassing the Republicans in overall funding.
Lurking in the background, however, is the ominous fact that pro-Republican independent groups – led by Freedom Watch which by itself already has a $250 million war chest — will still probably far outspend pro-Democratic independent groups. As Freedom Watch’s treasurer bluntly told one reporter recently, in 2008, “money won’t be an object”. Moreover, because the large liberal-progressive organizations are generally more oriented toward grass-roots and GOTV organizing than big-money advertising campaigns, it is probable that in the specific area of TV and radio advertising by independent committees the pro-Republican advantage will be even greater. This is particularly disturbing because independent committee money – free from the need for the candidate to directly endorse its message – is the best tool for the most dishonest and scurrilous type of attack ads.
Behind the myriad minor variations, the basic strategy of the “slime attack” or “character assassination” category of advertising is usually to dishonestly associate a Democrat with some kind of deeply negative stereotype or schema that is already strongly embedded in the voter’s mind. Barack Obama provides a particularly rich target in this respect. Because of his unconventional personal history and background, it is almost trivially easy for a skilled ad designer to slyly imply that he is (or once was) anything from a “secret Muslim” to a “Black militant”, a “60’s radical”, an “inner city crack user”, an “ivy- league liberal snob” or a “corrupt Chicago pol”. (The comparable attack on Hillary Clinton would focus on activating negative schemas involving liberals and professional women – the “anti-family women’s libber,” the “snotty, rich do-gooder”, the “affluent limousine liberal”, and the “bitch”, “witch”, or “man-hater.”)
These subtle forms of character assassination work best when they are not consciously analyzed by the audience but absorbed in the background. This takes advantage of the unconscious assumption many people now make that while all political ads are untrustworthy, they are also all roughly equal in their degree of mendacity (e.g. “all those political ads are crap”, “It’s all just a bunch of B.S.”). This unfortunately common mental short-cut enhances the credibility of attacks that are based on slander and innuendo and diminishes the credibility of those that are more factually based.
There are two standard Democratic responses to attacks of this kind – (1) directly defending against the specific accusation or (2) making a comparably slashing counter-attack. Both have major drawbacks.
On the one hand, political strategists universally dislike simple responses to attacks because continually “playing defense” is considered ultimately a losing strategy. On the other hand, liberals are handicapped in playing tit-for tat with conservatives because of their generally less ruthless political outlook (it is hard, for example, to imagine any of the leading liberal independent committees producing material suggesting that a Republican fathered an illegitimate Black child–as pro-Bush operatives suggested about McCain at one point in 2000–or presenting patently phony “witnesses” to dishonestly discredit a soldiers medals, as the swift-boaters did to John Kerry in 2004).
However, in trying to match the provocative, infuriating and attention-getting effect of conservative “slime attacks” without resorting to outright lies and dishonest innuendo, liberal independent committees often find themselves making attacks that come across as exaggerated, strident or shrill to undecided voters. The “General betray-us” New York Times ad, for example, was popular with highly partisan anti-war Democrats because of its’ bitter, “in-your-face” expression of anger and disrespect, but it had a zero or negative persuasive effect on other voters.
There is an alternative strategy Democrats can consider, however – one based on research conducted during the 1950’s on how people can best be taught to resist “brainwashing” techniques like those used on GI’s in the Korean War. Two important findings were the “inoculation” effect (that prior, controlled exposure to propaganda significantly reduces its effectiveness) and the “ulterior motive” or “hidden agenda” effect (that awareness of a message source’s manipulative intent reduces its persuasiveness) On the surface both notions seem so self-evident as to be trivial, but the demonstration that they were empirically measurable phenomena made it possible for communication specialists to argue that it could sometimes be worthwhile to allocate scarce advertising dollars to messages that employed them.
The possible strategy that flows from this research is simple – allocate some part of the pro-Democratic ad budget to directly and explicitly attacking the “independent” conservative committees like Freedom Watch and their commercials.

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