[Mb-civic] Mamet LA Times Op-Ed: Must Read

[Mike Blaxill]

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-mamet16sep16,1,341798.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

Poker party

In politics as in poker, the only way to win is
to seize the initiative. The Democrats need to
make bold wagers or risk being rolled over again.

By David Mamet
ONE NEEDS TO know but three words to play poker:
call, raise or fold. 

Fold means keep the money, I'm out of the hand;
call means to match your opponents' bet. That
leaves raise, which is the only way to win at
poker. The raiser puts his opponent on the
defensive, seizing the initiative. Initiative is
only important if one wants to win.


The military axiom is "he who imposes the terms
of the battle imposes the terms of the peace."
The gambling equivalent is: "Don't call unless
you could raise"; that is, to merely match one's
opponent's bet is effective only if it makes the
opponent question the caller's motives. And that
can only occur if the caller has acted
aggressively enough in the past to cause his
opponents to wonder if the mere call is a ruse de
guerre.

If you are branded as passive, the table will
roll right over you — your opponents will steal
antes without fear. Why? Because the addicted
caller has never exhibited what, in the wider
world, is known as courage. 

In poker, one must have courage: the courage to
bet, to back one's convictions, one's intuitions,
one's understanding. There can be no victory
without courage. The successful player must be
willing to wager on likelihoods. Should he wait
for absolutely risk-free certainty, he will win
nothing, regardless of the cards he is dealt. 

For example, take a player who has never acted
with initiative — he has never raised, merely
called. Now, at the end of the evening, he is
dealt a royal flush. The hand, per se, is
unbeatable, but the passive player has never
acted aggressively; his current bet (on the sure
thing) will signal to the other players that his
hand is unbeatable, and they will fold. 

His patient, passive quest for certainty has won
nothing. 

The Democrats, similarly, in their quest for a
strategy that would alienate no voters, have
given away the store, and they have given away
the country. 

Committed Democrats watched while Al Gore
frittered away the sure-thing election of 2000.
They watched, passively, while the Bush
administration concocted a phony war; they, in
the main, voted for the war knowing it was
purposeless, out of fear of being thought weak.
They then ran a candidate who refused to stand up
to accusations of lack of patriotism.

The Republicans, like the perpetual raiser at the
poker table, became increasingly bold as the
Democrats signaled their absolute reluctance to
seize the initiative. 

John Kerry lost the 2004 election combating an
indictment of his Vietnam War record. A decorated
war hero muddled himself in merely "calling" the
attacks of a man with, curiously, a vanishing
record of military attendance. Even if the
Democrats and Kerry had prevailed (that is,
succeeded in nullifying the Republicans arguably
absurd accusations), they would have been back
only where they started before the accusations
began. 

Control of the initiative is control of the
battle. In the alley, at the poker table or in
politics. One must raise. The American public
chose Bush over Kerry in 2004. How, the undecided
electorate rightly wondered, could one believe
that Kerry would stand up for America when he
could not stand up to Bush? A possible response
to the Swift boat veterans would have been: "I
served. He didn't. I didn't bring up the subject,
but, if all George Bush has to show for his time
in the Guard is a scrap of paper with some
doodling on it, I say the man was a deserter." 

This would have been a raise. Here the initiative
has been seized, and the opponent must now fume
and bluster and scream unfair. In combat, in
politics, in poker, there is no certainty; there
is only likelihood, and the likelihood is that
aggression will prevail. 

The press, quiescent during five years of
aggressive behavior by the White House, has,
perhaps, begun to recover its pride. In speaking
of Karl Rove, Scott McClellan and the White
House's Valerie Plame disgrace, they have begun
to use words such as "other than true,"
"fabricated." The word that they circle, still,
is "lie." The word the Democratic constituency,
heartsick over the behavior of its party leaders,
has been forced to consider applying to them is
"coward."

One may sit at the poker table all night and
never bet and still go home broke, having anted
away one's stake.

The Democrats are anteing away their time at the
table. They may be bold and risk defeat, or be
passive and ensure it.


DAVID MAMET is a screenwriter, novelist and the
author of award-winning plays, including
"Glengarry Glen Ross."