(updated below)
After having created "The Victory Caucus" two months ago only to stand by helplessly as it died a rapid and painful death, right-wing bloggers have now joined forces with former Senator Bill Frist to create a new Victory website, the purpose of which is to set forth their foreign policy principles for the Iraq war.
The name of the site is "We Win. They Lose." It is located at "www.WeWinTheyLose.com." In addition to being the name of their group and the URL at which they are located, "We-Win-They-Lose" appears to be the sum total of their serious and strong thinking about the world. Their founding declaration is expressed in the form of a letter to Nancy Pelosi, and this is the text in its inspiring entirety:
Congress has passed and President Bush has vetoed H.R. 1591, the Iraq Surrender Act of 2007.This legislation, which you worked to pass, sets a timetable for surrender. It pulls the rug out from under our troops. That is shameful and wrong.
Your actions have already emboldened the enemy. Violent jihadists now know that the elected leadership of Congress would undermine the troops by holding their funding hostage to demands for surrender.
This Congress would bring us back to the dark days of the 1970s, when the world doubted our staying power. Except only much worse. Withdraw in April 2008, and on May 1, Iraq becomes an unchecked den of terrorism at the heart of the Middle East -- a new base for the same people that struck our homeland on September 11th.
I stand with our troops. I stand for victory. I support the President's veto and will urge my representatives to vote to sustain it.
There can be one and only one outcome in Iraq: We win, they lose.
In addition to Bill Frist, this Statement of Principles is signed by 10 right-wing bloggers, including such luminaries as Ben Domenech of RedState, Jim Holt (the Gateway Pundit), Patrick Ruffini (official online strategist for the Giuliani campaign), Bryan Preston of Michelle Malkin's Hot Air, and Glenn Reynolds. They set up an exciting race to see who can generate the most support for this Important Plan.
One might point out that Iraq is a somewhat complex country, with seemingly endless inter-sectarian and intra-sectarian tensions and centuries of conflicts, shifting allegiances and competing agendas. But all you need to know is "We Win. They Lose." Among the incessantly unclear matters in that Brave Doctrine are (a) what "win" means, (b) who the "they" are, and (c) what it means when "they lose," but let's not have such petulant and defeatist nuances detain us.
What I'm genuinely interested in knowing -- and I'm asking this in all sincerity -- is how their Iraq policy differs from the views of those who submitted similar declarations of Victory for this site. I suspect there may have been some plagiarizing from there.
That site is one maintained by Valerie Ninemire, "a former cheerleader in elementary school, junior high school, and on her high school dance team" and currently the editor of Cheer Coach and Advisor. She has invited cheerleaders from around the country to submit their favorite cheers, and there are pages and pages of them. These are from the first two pages alone:
Submitted by: TIGER_CHICKCome on Tigers
lets go
Get tough and fight
Go orange
Go black Tigers
win tonight!
* * * * * * * *Submitted by: PRINCESSEIR9
Cheer for the Orioles
We are the Best
A better team, you'll never find
Put us to the test.
We've got it all together,
We're fighting for a win,
A-H-S,
Black and White
On top a-gain.
We've got the might,
We're ready to fight
W-I-N.
We're always ready
We're solid steady,
Orioles say it again,
Orioles, Orioles,
Hey, Let's win.
* * * * * * * *Submitted by: LIZBETH401
F-L-A-M-E-S
Go, go, flames, go!
W - I - N,
Go, Fight, win!
W - I - N,
Go, Fight, win!
* * * * * * * *Submitted by: SAMMYGRL69
Dont mess, dont mess,
Don't mess with the best
Cuz the best don't mess
Dont fool, don't fool, Don't fool with the cool
Cuz the cool don't fool
(Team mascot) we rule!
* * * * * * * *Submitted by: CHEERCHICK24
Ready. Set Hey lets hear it
cheer for the win
Gotta get it
Gotta get the win (clap,clap)
Gotta get the win (clap,clap)
Lets go big blue and white
Go big white and blue
Dribble, pass, shoot for two
Lancers lets fire up to win
(when your saying the last line you do a mount)
* * * * * * * *Submitted by: CONNCHEER03
--Go Big Blue (your team color)--
Go Big (color)!
Everybody yell "Go Big (color)"
"Go Big (color)!"
(Mascot), yell it-
"Go Fight Win!" yell,
"Go Fight Win!" yeah!
Do it, AGAIN!
I'm earnestly asking the question as to what the difference is between the policy statement of Bill Frist and his blogger friends with regard to Iraq and the favorite cheers submitted by junior high school students to Ms. Ninemire's site.
Of course, as Atrios pointed out recently, Reynolds has long been a lonely pioneer advocating this strategy. But he now has company. And yesterday, Bill Frist said on his own blog: "Together we can make clear to congressional Democrats that surrender is not a solution." The solution is "We Win. They Lose."
UPDATE: In fairness, it should be pointed out that there is a long and honored cheerleading tradition among many of our right-wing leaders. The list of our country's most famous cheerleaders is a diverse and prestigious one -- including Ann-Margaret, Paula Abdul, Vanna White, Katie Couric, Mandy Moore, Trent Lott, Thad Cochran and George W. Bush.
It is also worth pointing out that the individuals who are embracing the "We-Win-They-Lose" doctrine are the ones which our opinion-making elite have decreed to be the serious and somber foreign policy contingent in our country, the ones who can be trusted on the heady matters of national security. As Newsweek's Howard Fineman told us last night after the GOP debate, voters find this so very male, so very "reassuring."
UPDATE II: The Weekly Standard's Michael Goldfarb -- who believes that George Bush is endowed with what he calls "near dictatorial power" -- has now formally endorsed the "We Win. They Lose." Doctrine. That bodes very well for our new fledgling movement, because virtually everything The Weekly Standard has said about the Iraq War has turned out to be so very prescient.
Additional proof that the Ninemire Theory of Foreign Affairs is spreading rapidly is found in this comment, as well as in this comment, where additional inspiring submissions are offered.
Finally, several commenters have voiced what I am compelled to confess are valid objections to some of what I wrote. Rick Massimo, for instance, convincingly argues that the Ninemire cheers actually rhyme, which make "them much harder to write than the Frist manifesto." And Blindfish points out another admittedly important difference between the Ninemire Cheerleaders and the ones led by Bill Frist and the right-wing blogging contingent:
As I remember from my good old college days, the cheerleaders would often do some astonishing routines, in addition to the cheers themselves. They would form enormous standing pyramids, throw each other high into the air, all the while doing flips, catching each other after the flips -- truly impressive stuff.Unlike the Victory Caucus, or whatever they are calling themselves now, the real cheerleaders actually put themselves at serious physical risk.
So it is true that there are some differences between the Ninemire approach and the New Frist Victory Caucus. But, chastened though I am, I think the original comparison is still valid.
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