Dems Reaching Out to Military

Peter Beinart, who to his credit is actually one of the saner voices on the left (and that's not really saying much), writes today about the need for the Dems to reach out to military members and veterans:

Howard Dean faces a choice. Last month, just hours before the Democratic National Committee chose the former Vermont governor to lead it, it did something else: It created an Office of Military and Veterans Outreach. In the coming weeks, Dean will decide what kind of funding and staff this new office receives. And that will prove an early test of whether the Democrats' new chairman is serious about nursing his party back to political health....

Democrats have been alienated from the military since Vietnam, almost as long as Republicans have been alienated from African Americans. They need a generational strategy to repair the rift. Criticizing the Bush administration for failing to provide current and former troops and their families the medical and other benefits they deserve is a start. So is developing a cadre of national Democrats with real defense expertise -- something the party has often lacked since Sam Nunn left the Senate and Les Aspin the House -- so Democrats can speak the military's language.

But the biggest problem is cultural. Democrats should acknowledge that at times the left's understandable anger over Vietnam degenerated into a lack of respect for the military. And they should make amends in very practical ways -- most significantly, as the Progressive Policy Institute's Will Marshall has pointed out, by shaming America's colleges and law schools into letting the military recruit on campus. Liberal students, faculty and administrators have the right to criticize the Pentagon's discriminatory policies toward gays and lesbians. But it is outrageous for them to treat the U.S. military -- especially in a time of war -- as a pariah. And Howard Dean should go to the college towns where his most stalwart supporters reside and tell them so.

Beinart argues that just as the GOP was able to increase their outreach to blacks and hispanics, the Dems should be able to increase their outreach to the military. Unfortunately for them, it's not going to work.

The GOP was unfairly criticized as heartless and cruel toward minorities, so it didn't really take that much effort to prove those charges wrong. Bush did that very well and was able to increase his percentage of the vote from both of those groups.

The Dems have worn their hatred of the military prominently on their sleeves, especially the crowd that most vocally support Howard Dean during the campaign. It's going to be very hard for them to convince veterans that they no longer believe all the anti-military and anti-U.S. stuff that they've been shouting since the 60's and Vietnam.

Nice try, Peter, but it's not going to work.