Defuse the Nov 5th Surprise

Glen Greenwald has an important post up today. The Bushies have timed the Saddam Hussein verdict to coincide with the election. We all need to begin talking about this to disarm the event.

Every halfway decent trial lawyer knows that if your adversary has some bombshell document or witness which packs such emotional punch that it can overwhelm all other facts, you don't just sit around and passively wait for them to unleash it. You do the opposite. Before they can use it, you take the document or witness and talk about it as much as possible, as aggressively as possible, and as early as possible, so that (a) the jury knows it's coming and so you deny your opponent the dramatic shock value of it, (b) it is clear that you are not afraid of its impact, and (c) the jury hears about it from you first, rather than your adversary, so that you're the one who defines it and, from the beginning, they view it from your perspective, not the other side's. In sum, by preemptively seizing on and using the other side's planned dramatic bombshell, it makes it a completely expected non-event when it finally happens. [...] I say all of that because the Bush administration, in one of the most shamelessly manipulative acts one can fathom, has ensured that the show trial of Saddam Hussein is scheduled to end with a guilty verdict and likely death sentence on November 5 -- two days before the election. They are now openly acknowledging that they think this event should and will influence the outcome of our election. There is no question that the media will cover this story intensely -- they love singular, dramatic events; they love courtroom dramas; and it is not every day that a dictator who ruled for three decades is sentenced to death. While one can question how much Americans will care about this event, it is inevitable that it will dominate the news right before the election, with almost no time for Democrats to have their views about it heard. It's a real cause for concern that Democrats don't seem to be doing anything about this other than sitting around and passively hoping that the damage isn't too severe. That is the opposite of what they ought to be doing. [...] Democrats should be talking about the upcoming Saddam verdict, offensively in those terms, and they should be doing it constantly. And they should do so not only to deprive the news story of its dramatic impact once it happens -- although that is an important benefit -- but they also must use this event offensively to make arguments about the administration's dishonesty and politically driven exploitation of this war. The Bush administration induced Americans to support this war based on false pretenses, have mismanaged it to a degree unseen in our nation's history, and in the process have destroyed that country and mired us hopelessly in a war that they have ensured we cannot win. The whole project is a failure, and all the administration can bring itself to do is to figure out how to squeeze some political advantage out of the war right before an election by scheduling this Saddam trial -- which has dragged on endlessly, just like our occupation -- two days before Americans decide whether to maintain one-party Republican rule. [...] Sitting around until the media explosion on November 5 and then hoping to say these things is a loser strategy. Even with their war oppoosition, Americans -- for two decades now -- have been conditioned to think of Saddam as the epitome of dangerous evil and his conviction and death sentence are going to pack some emotional punch. That emotional reaction will kick in with less than two days before they go to vote, which means there is no time for reasoned assessment to foster the realization that the event is actually meaningless. Each of these types of Bad Guy events -- the capture of Saddam, the killing of his sons, the killing of Zarqawi -- leads to a political boost for the administration which is always temporary because it is driven by emotion. But a temporary boost that begins on November 5 is all they need and want. Democrats need a strategy to combat that -- and it can't just be defensive ("We are so happy to see Saddam convicted but that doesn't change the fact that we are in a terrible position in Iraq"). It needs to use that corrupt scheduling offensively ("the administration has led us into the most strategically disastrous war in our nation's history and has no way out, and all they can think about is how to stage show trials purely for political gain"), and that has to begin in full force now. The more this issue is talked about before November 5, the less impact it will have.

Let's go spread the word.