Flush twice... it's a long way to Sally Quinn's place!

Pundit Pap for July 20, 2003
"They would have ripped his skin off!"
By the Pundit Pap Team
Morrie Friendly • Jeff Koopersmith

July 20, 2003 -- WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (apj.us) -- "They would have ripped his skin off!"

That was, without a doubt, the line of the week.

It came from a Democrat toward whom many have on the left and even some in the center of the party have shown little in the way of charitable sentiments in recent times. Some are angry that this Democrat voted for Junior Bush's "Feud with Saddam" resolution -- and others have depicted him as a "pink tutu Democrat" too willing to cut slack for the present occupants of the executive branch.

If you want to find out who said it, to whom he was referring, and what hypothetical situation had been presented... well, you'll just have to read all the details of this week's big political chatfests.

This Weak
Players: Tiger Woods, Vijay Singh....

...that's right: ABC's This Weak was preempted in favor of coverage of the British Open, and amidst rumors that the powers to be at the Big Mouse are about to give the program yet another makeover in a vain effort to gain ratings.

If you read Pundit Pap on a regular basis, you know we were merciless when Sam "Screamin' Jay" Donaldson and Cokie "I'm Not Sally Quinn, I Just Play Her ON TV" Roberts were the disgusting co-hosts. The program is showing promise, but obviously the grand high mucky-mucks at Disney don't really get that it took nearly seven years for Meet the Press to get back to the top of the Sunday heap. They want quick fixes, so here are five:

1) Skip the ninety-second news "backgrounders". Most of your viewers read the New York Times, the Washington Post, another big-city daily, and actually follow the news -- they don't need to be spoon-fed lopsided stories unless there have been major developments since the HBO Saturday Night Movie.

2) Stop giving executive branch officials a free pass to spin without equal balance for the opposite view -- if the White House calls and tells you that they are shopping around, say, Condi Rice, invite an independent or Democrat counterpart, say, Sandy Berger, to answer the same questions. Generate some sparks and tension, and to hell with what Karl Rove may think.

3) Drop George Will's obnoxious commentary segment -- or at least have him rotate every other week, or give equal time to, a liberal or progressive columnist with a following -- Molly Ivins or Joe Conason would kick a little life into This Week

4) Drop George Will from your roundtable -- in fact, drop the roundtable altogether, or cut it to the final ten minutes, and poach Jonah Goldberg from CNN to replace Will. We know -- he's an utterly reprehensible human being, and his views are sometimes even to the right of Will, but he is entertaining (intentionally and otherwise).

5) Just Drop George Will altogether. The self-important little bow-tied shill has been sandbagging This Week, and has been for years. There's just no other way to put it.

-- Jane Grice

FAUX News Sunday
Saving Privatizer Bremer
Players: host Tony Snow, telegenic Iraq Viceroy Paul Bremer, Tom DeLay's sock puppet and House Speaker Denny Hastert

Tony Snow first allowed Paul Bremer a shot at convincing viewers -- catch this -- that Iraq's new government is "coming together" and the infrastructure was just not there under Saddam (which infrastructure? high-speed bullet trains? wireless Internet? well, we're shocked, Paul!) -- and not only did Tony refuse to challenge Bremer on either point, but he refused to confront Bremer (at that point, at least) on the failure of American soldiers and civilian experts to restore water, power (see below) and communications to much of the country.

Tony did, however, suggest that Saddam's "backup" plan in case of military defeat was the very quagmire we are in -- hit-and-run, guerilla-style attacks.

Bremer tried to boast about rebuilding the Iraq police and court system, which gave Tony a chance to say that this is the grand plan for "restoring order" -- although there was some talk about the "problem" of paying Iraqis (y'know, if those geniuses at the Department of PNAC... um, Defense had actually considered planning for restoring order, including, say, stabilizing the Iraqi currency and infrastructure, there might not be a qWagmire).

And Bremer deflected when Tony made the number of troops currently situated in Iraq an issue, though Bremer did admit he wants to see a lighter and more mobile force in place. And Bremer was very dismissive of both UN and NATO forces -- in the latter case, because they're already there (right -- but look at the ratio: just a few from some NATO countries). Bremer was emphatic that the occupation remain under US leadership (otherwise Cheney and his pals will not be able to piratize and plunder oil and essential services).

Tony and Bremer did their best to boost the possibility that Iraqis can write their own constitution and jump-start government -- and both immediately started attacking Iran for "incursions" and suggested that Iran was 'annexing" part of Iraq. (They somehow forgot to inform viewers that Saddam had had designs on annexing parts of Iran himself -- and you don't suppose that this Tehran-bashing is a hint that the Wolfowitz wing of the executive branch is looking for yet another war, now, do you?).

It was at this point that Tony confronted Bremer with the lack of electrical power -- Bremer said it's getting better -- and the continually mounting body count of Americans -- to which Bremer spun wildly about "victory" and "minimal casualties" and "collateral damage."

(That was a notable answer, in that Bremer answered on cue with not one, not two, but three key spin points -- the last two of which neatly distract from the troublesome fact that some seven thousand dead Iraqi civilians may be the cause of so much anti-American resentment.)

The entire segment was critique-free -- but then, this is FAUX News.

Tony began the second segment by essentially running interference for a Misadministration on the defensive over the Iraq intelligence flap. He outlined the information "counteroffensive" over those sixteen words in the SOTU (as if that was the only deception Smirk had engaged in during his propaganda speech).

To our delight, Denny "Coached Coach" Hastert was the guest -- and started by talking about September 11th, 2001 and saying he had promised that this would never happened again (while forgetting to mention, of course, that Saddam had nothing to do with the attacks -- and Al Qaeda did).

"This is a war on terror," he said, as he recounted crimes of Al Qaeda and Saddam, acting as if they were somehow components of one and the same entity.

Denny and Tony did their best to make sure the audience understood the disputed SOTU sentence was "true" (i.e. yes, British Intelligence was claiming that Iraq was trying to get yellowcake from Africa -- but somehow, Chimpy didn't mention that documents on which the claim had been based were bogus). In an effort to look "fair and balanced", Tony reminded Denny that Sen. Carl Levin pointed out that the British intelligence was bogus -- and Hastert whined about bad intelligence and blamed the Clinton Administration for not wanting credible CIA "dirty assets" (which in and of itself is not a true statement, but a heavily spun and misleading canard). Tony played along: by asking what the impact was of that "decision." No human assets, said Hastert, in a false, deceptive "cause and effect" non-proof that Bill Clinton sold out our national security (not).

Tony made it seem awful that Democrats are calling upon Little W. Caesar to be honest -- and Hastert claimed it was all politics.

Love that Denny -- standing up for the dishonesty of the Texas Twit, who in effect lied to us in an effort to get our nation into a boondoggle that is continuing to kill our kids. How terrible -- engaging in politics against the dumbass who is squatting in our White House. Who would hear of such a thing? We feel your pain, Denny, and applaud your effort to restore honor and integrity to Smirk's dissembling SOTU.

Hastert did say he is in favor of the UN carrying some of the load of reconstruction before trying to push a Rove bullet point that echoed those of Bremer: this was a "clean war" with low casualties and little destruction of bridges.

Right. Tell that kid who had both of his arms blown off by our bombs how "clean" the war was.

Should Smirk get congressional approval before sending troops to Liberia? Hastert seemed to say yes in a bigger way than we expected -- it is, he said, a presidential decision, but he wants Congress to have some say (but then one has to remember this would be another GOP rubber-stamp maneuver).

Tony then turned to the North Korea mess (to which he'd paid a good deal of urgent lip service at the very top of FNS), suggesting that the "doctrine of preemption" gives the US the right to take out "Li'l Kim" Jong-Il's nuclear facilities (wow -- these morons actually want to see His Shrubness blow up that lunatic -- but then, it would be great for ratings). Hastert, again showing more candor than Rove would care for, said that there must be a multilateral approach to solving the crisis involving the US, South Korea, Japan, China and Russia.

Tony concluded by touching upon Bill Thomas' truly sick attempt to get House Democrats arrested for standing up to yet another attempt by the GOP to abuse their power. Hastert called it a "charade" and whined about "name-calling" and "posturing."

We call it just another sign that the GOP thinks they can get away with one-party rule.

-- Morrie Friendly

Deface the Nation
"What guerilla war?"
Players: host Bob Schieffer, BBC White House correspondent Katty Kay, Paul Bremer, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bob Graham (FL)

Yep -- Bremer was making appearances on all of the major Sunday shows. Bob Schieffer, however, was a hair less charitable toward Bremer, confronting him immediately about two American soldiers who died this morning in Iraq -- and the massive anti-American protest there this morning. Bremer repeated his spin points dutifully:

• We liberated Iraq
• The majority of Iraqis prefer to be free
• Most of the country is quiet

... none of which address the fact that the chaos continues.

Is this a guerilla war? "No.... I'm not going to argue about how to define it."

Unfortunately for Bremer, one of the Army's leading generals is characterizing the ongoing Iraq mess as a guerilla war.

Over and over, Bremer called the murderous thugs who are attacking our troops "bitter enders" -- in a vain bid to tie these attackers definitively to Saddam Hussein. Bremer insisted that because these attacks take place in the area where Saddam had his strongest report, it must be those nasty Saddam-loving "bitter enders." Bremer unconvincingly tried to dismiss reports that attacks on American soldiers were far more frequent than being reported.

Katty Kay, the BBC's brilliant White House reporter, said that the US has failed to get the cooperation of the Iraqi people. Bremer, who looked a little peeved that Kay would dare say such a thing, was only able to respond with his accounting of a handful of Iraqis giving information to police and the military and tried to tout the "raising" of Iraqi police forces and a defense force (which only served to remind viewers that the Frat Boy Junta absolutely failed to plan to win over and gain the cooperation of Iraqi law enforcement and military regulars). But, said Kay, this does nothing to eliminate Iraqis' fear that Saddam will be back -- which forced Bremer to admit that we have still not captured or killed Saddam, but there's that big juicy reward (yeah -- worked real well in Osama's case), and we're standing up to all these attacks (that are killing and maiming American kids, some of whom will never be able to stand up again), and primary and secondary schools are running. "We are succeeding... and these bitter enders don't like it."

No, doofus -- the so-called "bitter enders" just plain don't like the United States of America.

Schieffer then undid Bremer's spin by pointing out that job one of soldiers in Iraq looks to be defending themselves. Bremer failed to convincingly undo this point as he tried to say that our soldiers are "going out" and taking on their attackers (which might not have been the case if Smirky had not urged our enemies to "Bring 'em on"). Will Bremer tell Smirk we are winning the peace? Absolutely, said Bremer -- this will be a model for the Arab world.

WHOA! Stop the press: a "model" for the Arab world? You mean we actually DO plan to invade Iran and/or Syria? That was a really DUMB thing to say, Paul -- you can bet your bottom dinar that Al Jazeera will be running that sound bite!

And these idiots wonder why the Arab street hates America so much. Maybe it's because Little George's "Best and Blightiest" may be able to march in lockstep but haven't the slightest ideas how to manage their mouths.

Bremer then said the electricity is on (contradicting some news reports) -- and water should be restored in a few months (good grief).

When Bremer talked about 19 nations having sent troops, Kay jumped right down his throat about the ratio of troops, but Bremer went right on spinning about the so-called "coalition."

Schieffer then confronted Bremer about the failure to find WMDs -- which forced Bremer to essentially admit that they're now looking at WMD programs.

Following the break, Sen. Bob Graham said he has high regard for Bremer, "an extremely able man" who is well qualified -- but what we are seeing does not confirm Bremer's rosy scenario, including one general's depiction of the mess as a "guerilla war" (ha ha!), the extended deployment of the Third Division, and the exploding price tag of the occupation.

Schieffer then turned to the forthcoming 9/11/01 report, which gave Graham the ideal opportunity to dump on Team Smirk's penchant for secrecy when it exposes their corruption and/or incompetence. And Graham was methodical in his attack, first revealing that significant parts of the report are classified not because they would compromise national security but because certain agencies are keeping their failures secret from the public for political reasons. Schieffer asked about those classified parts of the report that focus on foreign powers, and Graham pointed to the cooperation -- or lack thereof -- from certain foreign governments (read Saudi Arabia). Schieffer dove right in and said that Saudi charities were financing terrorist activities -- will we learn much about it? Graham said it would remain classified -- and yes, there is a problem of certain governments' charities being used to facilitate terrorism. Schieffer kept pressing the "Saudi" word -- and Graham said with a knowing smile he does not want his presidential campaign to take a detour to a federal penitentiary! (Translation: you nailed it, Schieffer.)

Kay asked about the intelligence mess. BAM! Graham said that he voted against the war with Iraq because it would take the focus of the war on terrorists away from Al Qaeda -- and that is exactly what has happened. Graham implicated Dick Cheney in pushing the Saddam-uranium-Niger connection -- and said he cannot believe that Smirk could not have known the information was questionable at best.

Is there a Saddam-Osama tie? POW!! Graham said no -- and in fact they seemed to not only not be allies but were in fact at odds.

It was short but very sweet. It'll be worth a look at tonight's CBS Evening News to see if either of Graham's one-two punches makes the first segment.

-- Morrie Friendly

Meet the Press
Skin game
Players: Tim Russert, Paul Bremer, Senate Foreign Relations Committee RMM Joe Biden

Tim Russert began his hour with the Administration's "Top Cop" in Iraq, Paul Bremer, once a partner in Henry Kissinger's private consulting firm.

Bremer looked quite thin and haggard. It appears that life in Baghdad is no picnic for him.

Bremer had no news really and fell on aphorisms and trite terminology -- for example, his reaction to 37 of our boys killed since the end of "hostilities" in Iraq as "obviously a tragedy."

Yes, obviously a heartbreak he did not wish to dwell on, because he moved right along to tell us that he had no idea how many pro-Saddam operatives there were in Iraq -- but seemed to think Americans would be happy to learn that these incursions -- these murders -- have occurred in only a portion of desert wasteland concentrated (85%) in a "small area." He also claimed there is no evidence that these attacks are being centrally commanded -- this despite the fact that Saddam only the other day issued a tape recording ordering stepped up attacks on American boys, and despite the fact that there has been evidence of coordinated (at least in time) attacks on American troops who are now acting as policemen -- not soldiers -- because of the Bush Administration's utter failure to properly staff their occupation with the proper personnel.

Bremer at least prudently believes that Saddam is alive -- and unlike the other professional deniers that President Bush sends out with "questions" and newspeak, he admits his belief openly. He also believes that the US will capture or kill Saddam: "We'll get him," Bremer offered.

He predicted that perhaps Iraq will hold elections within a year.

But then Bremer tried the weary Bush Administration trick of attempting to fool America into thinking we have lots of cooperation on the ground from other nations. He told Russert that 19 other countries had sent troops to relieve our young men and women who are now exhausted and disillusioned by this war -- especially in light of the nonsense that laid the foundation for such a precipitous adventure.

Russert, to our astonishment and his credit, shot back that the total number of soldiers from these 19 nations is only 13,000 troops. We have 147,000 troops in Iraq alone and perhaps another 35,000-50,000 in the region.

Thus the "large contribution" by other nations with far different agendas than that of George W. Bush is less than 6% of the total deployment. And India, our strong ally, has just refused to help us until a UN resolution is passed giving it at least a modicum of control as a peacekeeping force.

But therein lies the questionable.

What makes Tim Russert -- or any policy analyst -- believe that the world will rush to help us "keep the peace" in Iraq?

In my opinion, this is a pipe dream.

First of all, these same nations did not join us in attacking Saddam in the first instance.

Second, there is nothing in it for them -- unless we are willing to trade off Iraqi-owned oil for troops willing to be slaughtered one at a time by leftover Ba'ath party members and other Iraqi kooks with nothing much better to do.

Third, the majority of the world's leaders do not trust the integrity of George W. Bush, including the supermajority of British citizens who are about to throw Tony Blair into the Dispoz-All of history.

While American journalists seem to be urging relief for our troops from foreign sources, it does not appear that other nations will be willing to go along for this ride, especially when their own boys and girls begin dying and political pressure increases for withdrawal.

In the end, we will pay a high price for international participation. We will have to bribe other nations to help -- as usual.

By the way -- to Russert's discredit, he did not ask Paul Bremer what he thought about the recent revelations from -- of all sources -- the lawsuit by Larry Klayman's Judicial Watch. The lawsuit was filed against Dick Cheney and George W. Bush concerning Cheney's secret meetings with energy chiefs -- including the big-wigs at Enron. Russert should have asked why in hell there were detailed maps of Iraq included, used and shown in those meetings -- two years ago!

Now THAT would have been a good question.

Bremer tells us he doesn't believe we need more troops in Iraq. I say we need as many as it will take to make certain that no more of our kids are murdered.

Bremer seems to think asking these questions is "playing the numbers game." Does he think weeping parents over soldiers' graves is a crap shoot, or a stock play? It's time he was forced to look at the pictures of each of these kids -- every day, every night -- and read their short biographies to his own family.

Then perhaps he won't see this as a numbers game.

It seems that there may be some movement toward bringing the issue of UN participation in Iraq up in New York, and Bremer ALMOST said as much referring to a conversation with Colin Powell.

Let me remind readers: have you seen much of Colin Powell lately? And would you guess he might be squirming to get out from under Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney?

Russert really put it to Bremer, quoting a US Army Master Sergeant (I believe) who said he had his own "deck of cards" -- akin to the ones distributed by the Pentagon to Iraqi citizens as a 52 tag Wanted Poster. This soldier's deck included Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz -- and Bremer!

Bremer, seemingly undisturbed remarked, "I don't sense a major morale problem."

Yes, Mr. Bremer. There is no morale problem. While you sit in your air-conditioned super-luxe palace in Baghdad, our boys and girls are sweating in 135-degree street heat, being shot down at the rate of about one a day -- like so many vitamins. They have no showers; no clean beds, no good food -- and their wives are now organizing private donations of air conditioners and sending them at their own expense to Iraq.

What the heck is wrong is with you?

There is only so far you can go -- relying on the good will of misled young men -- before they will turn on you, as they should. You are already in one sergeant's deck -- how many others will you have to appear in before you realize the tomfoolery you are engaged in?

Bremer was also trite: "With great power goes great responsibility," he told Russert. But he has it wrong. With great power should come great wisdom -- something George W. Bush can neither fathom nor deliver.

Next up was Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert who spent his time defending a $600 billion budget deficit and lying , blaming the war on Iraq and terrorism. Russert, again to his credit, pointed out that a bipartisan study group has presented a report which shows that the deficit is THREE TIMES the cost of any of our terrorism and war expenditures. Hastert was pitiful -- it's no wonder he does not appear often on television. He was there today merely to defend the White House.

Russert reminded Hastert of his own misleading statements on WMD and Saddam's nukes. Hastert reverted to talking about "yellowcake" -- yes, yellowcake that had been purchased over a decade ago. Hastert didn't seem to get the credibility issue and clung to Saddam's "potential" to build nuclear weapons -- something that the Prince of Monaco or the Sultan of Brunei could arrange as well.

Hastert seemed to hint that the Republicans and the Bush Administration might be planning to throw some intelligence people to the wolves. That's no surprise: they've already tapped CIA Director George Tenet to take the fall for their own overzealous (at very least) position that we had to go to war post haste(rt) in Iraq. Hastert said, answering a question from Russert about whether heads have to roll, "Not necessarily."

In HastertSpeak, this probably means yes.

Russert posed the question, "What about North Korea?", parenthetically asking why we aren't attacking it inasmuch as it will, according to our CIA, have as many as ten nuclear weapons and the capability to deliver them to San Francisco before the end of the year. Here Hastert said, unbelievably, that we have to rely on our "allies" -- and cited China as one of them.

WHAT? Is it not China who virtually supports that entire nation of North Korea? Hastert said he wants Japan and China to work things out.

Hastert actually uttered these three absurdities about the economy:

1. The deficit is on 5% of GDP -- after Pearl Harbor it was more like 30%

2. Something about making sure your "work horses" are fed with "enough oats"

3. Speak softly and carry a big stick -- "Somebody said that," he whispered.

Yes, Dennis, that was Teddy Roosevelt, who believed, like you, that diplomacy should be carried out under threat of annihilation.

Hastert didn't hide his meanness when it came to tax relief for the indigent: Americans with 12 million kids who earn between $10,000 and $25,000 a year.

"They don't pay taxes anyway," he almost sneered.

Yes, a compassionate Republican willing to spend $50 billion a year on occupying Iraq, but unwilling to share the spoils of Republican tax cut schemes with the poorest Americans.

And, hey -- what about payroll taxes?

There was some other blather about his unwillingness to fund AmeriCorps, but in the end, Bush will order him to do it, and write them a check for an additional $100 million they need to carry out their good work.

Russert also brought up the fact that the GOP called out the Capitol Police over near-fisticuffs between Democrat Pete Stark and several Republicans who were engaging in passing a pension scheme without minority participation in Committee. "Let's grow up and get our work done," said Hastert.

Yes, let's.

Joe Biden was Russert's final guest. He was disappointing. He backed the Iraq war -- just not as soon. He wants more troops in Iraq. He said the Bush intelligence was "selective." He did wisely point out that the White House was still up to this propaganda -- about to send high ranking intelligence official Bolton to Congress to testify that Syria was also up to some gruesome Saddam-like machinations -- but the CIA stopped Bush.

Biden has not made up his late mind whether to run for President. He will do so by the end of August -- after consulting his family.

And Biden had the quote of the week when Russert asked how the GOP would have treated Bill Clinton if he had made the uranium claim Bush did during the SOTU speech.

Biden's reply: "They would have ripped his skin off!"

Russert then focused on North Korea. Here Biden is more hawkish. He wants to sever diplomatic effort with North Korea, which is now threatening to launch a nuclear strike at either South Korea of the US itself -- and within months. Republican Senator Richard Lugar is also a hawk here -- and perhaps rightfully so.

The bottom line is that North Korea might have been a more appropriate "target" for US military action this year.

Biden believes that Bush Administration has no strategy to deal with the North Korean nuclear crisis.

But hell, Joe, why should they? Is there oil in North Korea? Only sesame.

-- Jeff Koopersmith

Morrie Friendly gave up a career as a political consultant to become a management consultant and pseudonymous travel guide author. He retains close ties to top players in both the Democratic and Republican parties and lives with his dog in Georgetown.

Jeff Koopersmith is a political consultant, opinion research authority, policy analyst, and self-described "renegade lobbyist."