Vilsack, Bayh: Could WWII casting theme work for presidential hopefuls

In the production of many World War II movies a general casting theme developed. Every American fighting unit chronicled on the big screen seemed to have the edgy, smart aleck from Brooklyn, the fearless, generations-deep-into-the- military southerner and the level-headed Midwesterner. The midlander didn’t have the great one-liners, just a quiet resolve.

It was the Iowan, the Ohioan or the sergeant from Indiana who came up with the clever idea to time the throwing of grenades at Japanese troops just right, or out-flank some Germans. These were leaders with competence, not swagger.

We used to celebrate them.

And perhaps in this time of great transition, with the war on terror, environmental disaster looming and other challenges, America can turn to the World War II narrative of leadership, the one with Midwestern sense trumping East Coast attitude and Southern-fried charm.

Potential Midwestern presidential candidate like our governor, Tom Vilsack, and Indiana’s Democratic U.S. senator, Evan Bayh, can make the case: we’re not the most exciting guys in the party’s platoon, but we’ll lead with basic competence.

In fact, Bayh and Vilsack conceivably could run as a ticket, one the highly paid pundits would dismiss in laugh-out-loud fashion because of its failure to hold any geographic balance.But Bayh-Vilsack or Vilsack-Bayh (Bayh’s been a senator as well as a governor and has a famous political dad so odds are he’d lead the ticket) could be the Clinton-Gore package for 2008, men who affirm each other’s credentials and send a message rather than diversifying a ticket.

They could say to the nation: enough Texas swagger, and good-bye polarizing East Coast-West Coast snooty latte liberalism. Elect a couple of guys from the center of the country who know their way around places like Fort Wayne and Fort Dodge — and come across as boring but highly trustworthy.

Lt. Gov. Sally Pederson, chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party, of course won’t say whether Vilsack is running. He may not even know yet.But Pederson plans to work for Vilsack’s campaign should he run.

“He stands tell among them,” she said of the likely Democratic field. Similarly, Bayh, who spent part of a recent Saturday in Council Bluffs, is a likely candidate. He didn’t visit one of the southern Iowa city’s three casinos, so why else would be in town?

Right now, Bayh and Vilsack would be considered second-tier, potential safe vice presidential picks with Hillary Clinton the front-runner, former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner (who has been to Carroll) being the wiseguy pick and Barack Obama, the Illinois senator, in the role of the dream candidate for many Democrats.

More than a half-dozen other Democrats (including Al Gore in a possible comeback role on the heels of his acclaimed global warming movie “An Inconvenient Truth”) are getting serious mentions.In an era in which more people cast votes for final two contestants on FOX’s “American Idol,” it is admittedly a stretch to see how position-paper reading pols like Vilsack and Bayh trump the pizzazz of others.

But with the nation split by ugly partisanship on the coasts and in the South, the next presidential candidate may have to emerge from the Midwest, an area that was known to previous generations as a land of reason and bipartisanship — a place where Tom Harkin and Charles Grassley could win overwhelmingly in one state and Evan Bayh and Richard Lugar could do the same in another.

For their parts, Bayh and Vilsack should encourage people to watch more World War II movies.

Former Brown history chair: Iraq war 'a great folly'

Carroll (Iowa) native Charles E. Neu, a longtime history professor at Brown University and student of the Vietnam War, says sweeping analogies with that conflict and U.S. involvement in Iraq are mainly emotional, not rooted in fact.Still, Neu said, if current American political leaders would have absorbed lessons from the history of wars, they may have been more cautious about committing troops to Iraq.“I think they (the Bush administration) are quite ignorant of the history of the Vietnam War,” Neu said. “There are a lot of things people in power in Washington could have done had they had a better sense of their own national history, especially the Vietnam history.”In a recent interview at the Daily Times Herald offices, Neu, author and editor of two books on Vietnam, including a comprehensive history, “America’s Lost War,” said the U.S. mission in Iraq is counter-productive and actually ginning up more terrorism.“It’s a great folly, arrogant, impulsive,” he said. “One of the great puzzles for future historians will be to try and figure out what in God’s name were the people leading the American government thinking they were doing.”Neu said there is no historical equivalent for what he believes is the U.S. mistake in Iraq and poor leadership on the part of the administration.“These people have a level of incompetence and arrogance that it’s hard to think of any precedent for,” he said. “Vietnam in my judgment was a mistake, but it was a fairly understandable mistake.”He noted that Vietnam occurred at the height of the Cold War, and in a larger context, with some reasonable geopolitical reasons for getting involved. Witness the communist Chinese assistance for North Vietnam, he said.“It’s very hard to imagine any group of leaders who came up through the American political system who would not probably have taken us into Vietnam,” Neu said.But that doesn’t mean it was the right decision, he said.“I would argue Vietnam was an unwinnable war,” Neu said. “My guess is, and it’s only a hunch, is that Iraq is an unwinnable war as well so there are some similarities in that sense.”He said the context of the wars are different — most notably the nature of the insurgency.“In Vietnam we were fighting a well-organized insurgency,” Neu said, adding that the enemy was cohesive with an up-and-down command structure.“We have nothing like that in Iraq,” he said. “The insurgency is composed of various groups and factions.”Does he believe the United States would be at war in Iraq if Al Gore were president?“We would not be in Iraq,” Neu said. “I feel absolutely certain of that.”He thinks a Gore administration would have realized that Saddam Hussein was not related to 9/11 and fought a covert war against terrorism on many fronts.“I assume they would have continued the policy of containment with Saddam Hussein,” Neu said.Neu acknowledged that most Americans on 9/12/01 would have expected more terrorist attacks on U.S. soil by now. Does the fact that none have occurred mean terror has been exaggerated for political purposes or is President George W. Bush right that “fighting them over there” has kept them from coming here?“When we dig deep into the history of this Iraq operations we’re going to find, first of all, that there were geopolitical motives, that is that American leaders were very worried about oil,” Neu said.Saudia Arabia is a shaky ally at best so the United States needed another base with big oil, Neu said.“All this talk of democracy is window dressing,” Neu said. “It’s not as if they don’t kind of mean it. But what they really want is a client regime with the trappings of democracy that will have some indigenous elements but will basically do what we want it to do.”Neu said it’s clear the Bush team wants to control oil interests and have long-term bases — already under construction — in Iraq.Additionally, Neu thinks domestic politics played a major role in the administration’s decision to invade so “that they could rally around the flag” to obscure the absence of an agenda at home.Does Neu think the administration would really put young men and women at risk for a bump at the polls?“That’s a very good question,” he said. “Would they do that at the end of the day? Is it possible? Yes, I’m afraid it is possible, and I’m sorry to say that.”Neu is disturbed that members of Congress and the Bush administration don’t have significant numbers of their own sons and daughters in uniform.“They have made damn sure by and large that their own sons and daughters are not part of that volunteer force,” Neu said. “I can’t see them urging their own sons and daughters to step up and be a part of this cause.”For that reason, Neu said, he supports a national draft, so the military is peopled with a wider cross section and human beings aren’t treated like so many plastic troop markers on a Risk game board.And back to the question on al-Qaida, why the terrorist group hasn’t attacked New York or another American city since 9/11.“No one has really a clue,” Neu said. “Everyone asks this question. You would think al-Qaida would want to strike again. You would think they would have the capacity to do so. We certainly know that many of our homeland defenses are not very strong.”In the end, though, Neu just doesn’t see how the war in Iraq would prevent terrorists from striking here.“What we’ve done there is give them an opportunity to get at us they would not otherwise have,” Neu said.

Harkin: Terror leader's death means opportunity to announce withdrawal

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin told the Carroll (Iowa) Daily Times Herald the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Iraqi al-Qaeda leader known as the “godfather of sectarian violence” and the most-wanted man in Iraq, has created an “opportune” time to announce a U.S. troop withdrawal.An American airstrike on a single dwelling north of Baghdad Wednesday took out the Jordan-born al-Zarqawi, a ringleader in the insurgency linked to bombings and beheadings.“Good riddance,” Harkin, an Iowa Democrat, said in a conference call with the Daily Times Herald and other media. “I hope this strikes a major blow to the terrorist network in Iraq. I hope it’s a turning point.”In a statement issued this morning, U.S. Rep. Steve King, the Republican who represents Iowa’s 5th District, said the world is safer today with al-Zarqawi dead.“Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has released his last tape and tortured his last person,” King said in the statement. “The war on terror is not over, but the death of the leader of operations in the al-Qaeda terror network is a blow to terrorism all over the world. The United States has been unwavering in our message to terrorists around the world: your days are number.”In the conference call, Harkin said it was too early to tell the impact of the successful strike, but the senator said the terror leader’s demise should strengthen the resolve of new Iraqi government.“I think that it’s time with the formation, with this, I think it would be time for us to begin to announce we are withdrawing out troops later this year,” Harkin said. “I think that would send a very strong signal at this time, right now.”Otherwise, insurgents would continue to believe the United States is in Iraq for long-term control of oil, Harkin said.“This would be a good time for us to begin the redeployment of our troops,” Harkin said. “It’s better that we leave on our own timetable than to stay longer and be forced out.”