American Politics Journal

Correntewire and APJ present...
Pundit Pap
for Sunday, June 11, 2006
Zarqawi Wowie!
by the Pundit Pap Team: Gene G / Shystee

June 14, 2006 (correntewire.com / apj.us)—Do we really have to tell you what this Sunday's primary topic of pundit chatter was?

Funny how the subject of (admittedly questionable) reports that American soldiers might have put the final smackdown on a wounded Abu Musab al Zarqawi. But thankfully there was a lot of talk about the greater subject of continued US occu... ahem, presence in Iraq.

I didn't catch all of the Sunday talk shows; on the East Coast, NBC exiled Meet the Press to the extra-early AM so they could cover some tennis match–but Leah did.

I might have missed talk about new questions emerging from the special election in California's 50th district.

Someone on one of the pundit panels might have used Elizabeth Drew's provocative essay in the New York Review of Books on the Bush Power Grab as a springboard for reasoned, elucidating debate.

One of the bobbleheads might've made passing mention that Democrats are closing the gap on the GOP's longtime fundraising advantage–thanks in large part to strategic leveraging of grassroots and netroots activism.

An erudite pundit might have taken note of Murray Wass's latest Traitorgate bombshell: "Then-Attorney General John Ashcroft continued to oversee the Valerie Plame-CIA leak probe for more than two months in late 2003 after he learned in extensive briefings that FBI agents suspected White House aides Karl Rove and I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby of trying to mislead the FBI to conceal their roles in the leak, according to government records and interviews."

One of the gang may have brought up Bush Daddy's secret campaign early this year to convince Junior McChucklenuts XLIII to remove Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

Heck, they might've said something about Viva Las YearlyKos.

I was going to add, "... and pigs might spontaneously sprout wings and take flight."

But there was a big surprise awaiting me when I read Leah's wrap-up of MTP, which is toward the tail end of this week's Pap.

—GG

Face The Nation
by Shystee

Gen. Robert Casey, Tom "The Machine" Friedman, Lara "Naomi" Logan, Elizabeth "Soccer Mom" Palmer

Face Ol’ Crankypants is amusing. It seems to take itself less seriously than other Sunday gasbag shows. It’s like “Gather ‘round and talk to gramps about what’s going on.”

Today’s highlights: Lara Logan and Tom “Metaphor Machine” Friedman.

Lara Logan [Iraq correspondent most resembling Naomi Watts]: The hit on Zarqawi is not going to change the situation for US soldiers. There are two wars in Iraq: against foreign jihadists and against Iraqis.

Zarqawi was moving further away from Bin Laden. Al Qaeda probably welcomes his death.

Elizabeth Palmer [Iraq correspondent most resembling a middle-aged suburban housewife]: Iraqis are happy about Zarqawi, especially the Shiites. The Sunnis may join the reconciliation program now and lay down their arms.

Al Qaeda in Iraq® posted communiqué on the Internet, promising more attacks that “will shake the enemy.”

Gen. Casey: The more they post communiqués, it’s a sign that they’re hurting. We’re keeping the pressure on them.

We’re not retaking Baghdad, we’ve had ongoing operations…

We started drawing down US forces last December. Continued gradual reduction in force. No deadline. Up to the Iraqis.

There’s been a great shift. 2 Iraqi divisions now. By end of the year all the Iraqi divisions will be able to “lead”. But… they will need our support for logistics, medevac.

Tom Friedman has the amazing ability to speak in sound bites and mixed metaphors with a straight face: This guy [Zarqawi] was good, bob. He was a first team player.

Zarqawi is dead but is Zarqawism still alive?

Things like Haditha happen when you’re occupying another country. We can’t stay there forever. We’re radioactive. We’re so alone.

If Iraqis form a coherent government, they will have a coherent army. It’s a matter of will, not training.

Gitmo is the anti-statue of Liberty. You can’t hold people indefinitely. A beacon of the denial of our best values.

Palestine: we’ve tried to plant some greenspace in that area but the desert just keeps coming back.

If the Palestinians don’t take on their extremists there’s not much George Bush can do.

Ol’ Crankypants’ Final Word: The House of Representatives has an ethics committee, really. If the Goat-herding lobby wants to pay a congressman to fly to Hawaii and get drunk and do the hula, that’s fine by me. But if the congressman sobers up and secretly puts tens of millions of dollars for goat herders in a bill, that’s my money and I want to know about it.

FOX News Sunday
by Leah

Chris Wallace Does Gen. Casey, Newt, J. Harmon, Dan Senor, And The Roundtable

Zarqawi! He dead!

Chris’s lead-in to his opening interview with General George Casey made clear it would be all Zarqawi, all the time–and interestingly, posited the possibility that his death may have changed the “War On Terror,” although that promise was never realized.

General Casey, speaking from Baghdad, kept his focus pretty much on Iraq. Yes, it had been a good week in Iraq. (And they call “liberals” relativists.)

Actually, the General was fairly modest in his claims for the impact of getting Zarqawi. And I have no wish to downplay the incredibly well-deserved nature of Zarqawi’s demise. I only wish it had happened when the Bush administration had a chance to take him out from the air before the invasion of Iraq.

I’ll eschew going for any suspense here and tell you right off there was no framing of this week’s triumphal event as “Bush Gets Zarqawi, Three Years Late.” In fact, there was not a single mention of that well-known and well-documented story, first reporter by Jim Miklaszewski, and corroborated in 2004 by the WSJ as discussed by Laura Rozen here.

Hey, you didn’t expect there would be any, did you? Come on, these folks may be propagandists, but they aren’t stupid–well, not so stupid that they can’t spot a story damaging to their side.

The most chilling fact about Zarqawi mentioned during the hour, by Wallace, was "reports" that he had already trained up to 300 visiting Jihadis, who have returned to their own countries, there to wait for the cue from their leader as to when to launch homegrown attacks. But let’s not dwell on that, a person could start to get really angry about this administration’s feckless devotion to its own self-named war on terror.

General Casey clearly didn’t wish to dwell on it, and without being wildly upbeat, or talking about a turning point, he clearly wanted to present the message that the confluence of the Prime Minister finally being able to reach agreement on filling the last three and most important positions in his cabinet, and the prospect of an Iraq sans Zarqawi, an Iraq governed by a unity government, which it sounded as though our military is depending on to work exactly as we expect it to, meant a real improvement of the situation on the ground.

Casey assured viewers that having met with the three ministers, he could vouch for them being intelligent, committed, and hard-charging. He also avowed that they were hands-on guys, who would not be confined to the Green Zone. Asked if Zarqawi’s death was a blow to Al Qaeda In Iraq® and worldwide, Casey said that Z was a leader, losing a leader hurts any movement. Hmm, can we conclude that the same could be said of Bin Laden?

The General’s general message on Iraq and our role there–we and the Iraqi’s are heading in the right direction. Well, that means they are one-up on us, according to most polls of the American people.

General Casey will be attending the President’s two day “war council,” that’s how Chris referred to it, being held at Camp David, but he was reluctant to share with Chris what might be his advice to his Commander-in Chief.

Next up was a typical FOX News panel: one Democrat, Rep. Jane Harmon(D-CA36); and two Republicans, Newt Gingrich, and Dan Senor, Bush administration spokesman, and an advisor to the CPA.

Here’s my headline for the whole hour: Jane Harmon rocked, staking out a position on Iraq that I think Democrats can run on–although Newt, who hasn’t changed a jot, (more on that later), was determined to characterize Harmon’s comments as “cut and run,” she was having none of it.

The focus of the trio’s remarks was on that Presidential War Council, and after noting that there were not going to be any Democrats at that particular table, and thanking FOX for having at least one on this morning, and after giving full credit to the importance of having taken Zarqawi out of the equation, Harmon’s position on what should happen next in Iraq, as far as we’re concerned was this: that his death and the even more important selection of the final three ministers should be seen as a reason to seriously plan for redeployment of American troops, as part of a six month plan to change the focus of our policy from a military to a political solution to Iraq’s problems.

“While we’re part of the political solution, we’re part of the military problem,” were her exact words, sounding quite a bit like Jack Murtha.

Harmon made clear that she wasn’t talking about the return home of all troops; her view of redeployment is like Murtha’s–military assets being held “over the horizon,” if needed, while the American footprint becomes increasingly limited so as to provide a shrinking target for the insurgency.

Harmon also mentioned the importance of getting services to Iraq and continuing to fund reconstruction. And as a way to communicate to the world that our policies in Iraq are changing, Harmon insisted that a new Secretary of Defense should be the first step.

Newt had gone before Harmon; his view of the War Council, an opportunity for the President to “reset” his Iraq policies, and then to communicate to the American people our will to victory, or some such crap. Newt still believes in the shinning-on power of words to change any and all realities. Truly, he is as unreality-based as George W. Bush, and that whole lot.

Dan Senor’s take was essentially the same as Newt’s, except that Senor talked about “recalibrating” the Bush policies and communicating them….

What both Newt and Senor were talking about was continuing the same damn policy that got us here, though a policy tricked up in some new language here and there. It’s still mainly about running against Democrats as defeatists; both Gingrich and Senor insisted that we’re finally at a key psychological moment, or as Newt bloviated, a moment when Iraqis are waiting to see which side seems the most likely to win, because the most committed to victory–as in Vietnam, and they, the Iraqis are thinking back to Vietnam, according to Newt, wondering if Americans will be getting into their helicopters to leave Iraq undefended against its enemies. Wow. These right wingers still don’t get that Vietnam was a civil war, and apparently they don’t want to admit that Iraq is an incipient one.

So how does this translate into military policy? It means a military policy geared to this singular goal–"kill the bad guys." How did this guy ever con anyone into taking him seriously. For backup, Newt made reference to a book title, which he informed as was the best thing written on counterinsurgencies tactics–see what I mean about him not having changed–when it comes to theorizing, no one is faster on the draw than Newt. Actual fighting, actual on the ground knowledge of a war zone, not so much.

So, as the roundtable was being introduced (Brit Hume, Mara Liasson, William Kristol, and Juan Williams), we’d been returned to square one–a refusal by Republicans to acknowledge that many of the so-called bad guys are ordinary Iraqis, not terrorists, and that hearts and minds will not be changed by even the most brilliant of counterinsurgency tactics.

I don’t need to tell you that Hume and Kristol thought the Zarqawi week represented an importance for our eventual victory in Iraq that couldn’t be exaggerated. It won’t surprise you that Mara Liasson’s thoughts were instantly forgettable. It might surprise you to learn that Juan Williams held his own in insisting that the American people were sick of the Iraq war, and had little trust in and patience with the administration that had spawned it.

Kristol echoed Gingrich, without the explicit Vietnam references, proving that Bill is smarter than Newt. Both he and Hume emphasized the Democratic culture of defeat, which they saw as a more powerfully noxious culture for American voters than the culture of corruption Democrats hope to win on, according to the panel, that is. Yes, it did seem that the week in Iraq melded with the only other topic discussed on this FOX Sunday, Francine Busby’s defeat by Mr. Bilbray.

Hume and Kristol were singing from the same hymnbook on the War Council; good stuff, important stuff, no need to retool significantly, certainly don’t expect Donald Rumsfeld to be relieved of command, and bold credit goes to the President for calling the council; now maybe we’ll get serious about winning in Iraq.

Winning means definitive defeat of the insurgency, which means renewed commitment to pacify Iraq, piece by piece, and then to hold it. Apparently the plans start with Baghdad; Kristol allowed that it was outrageous that three years later Baghdad has not been secured. No kidding, Bill, and why do you think that happened, and who should be held responsible?

Maybe what Democrats should take from a program like this Sunday’s is that it is pointless to calibrate with such caution and care their remarks on “what next” in Iraq, when even as “centrist,” and as well-known as a security/intelligence maven as Jane Harmon is can’t get a break from the Neocons who will be running Republican foreign policy as long as Bush is in the White House, so let it rip, damn it, culture of defeat be damned.

What nerve! Three years of defeat in Iraq, no closer to any kind of genuine reconstruction of the country, despite the expenditure of billions of American wealth, no closer to delivering services, a ruined reputation for our country around the world, the strengthening Al Qaeda around the world, and these idiots are still yammering about victory.

Juan Williams spoke for the majority of Americans this morning when he said, with the appropriate regret and fatigue, that we’d been down this road before, more than once, more than twice, gee, have you lost the count, too? It will take more than another gimmick like this week’s War Council to make believers of the rest of us.

One added note, mainly because it was so bizarre:

At the end of the interview with General Casey, Chris Wallace made a special point of explaining the backdrop against which Casey was standing–one of Saddam’s palaces, it turns out, one, which Wallace made a special point of reminding his audience had been paid for by money in the care of the UN, meant to buy food for Iraqis, but which went to building palaces for Saddam.

Let me know if anyone can figure out what that was all about. Isn’t it old news at best? Why now? Not to mention that the UN food distribution kept Iraqis alive for years. What? Is FOX worried that Bush might actually try and internationalize our efforts in Iraq? After six years, they still know the immense limitations of the man they engineered into the White House?

Meet The Press
by Leah

General McCaffrey, a Few Commentators… and Markos Moulitsas

Yes, it was Iraq and the liberal blogosphere today on Meet The Press.

First observation: General Barry McCaffrey talks almost as fast as Markos Moulitsas does.

Here’s the gist of what McCaffrey had to say: If we, the US, had a ten year window to accomplish our goals in Iraq, we’d definitely succeed. We don’t have that strategic long-term window of opportunity for three reasons; first, the American public won’t buy it, second, Iraqis probably won’t buy it, third, the American military will be destroyed by such a commitment.

The next six months in Iraq is crucial, McCaffrey agreed; if this unity government doesn’t bring some kind of order to the lives of ordinary Iraqis, it will have lost its unity and its legitimacy. Our resources are stretched to the breaking point; the war is costing ten billion a month! (Crikey, is it really?) It’s costing a battalion a month in deaths and injuries! (See previous parenthesis)

McCaffrey has just returned from Afghanistan and had a surprisingly rosy picture to paint. Take it with grains of salt to taste.

There were more details, and you might want to catch a transcript, but the only item of real interest this Sunday was the emergence of the liberal blogosphere, or "blogtopia", as skippy, everyone’s favorite bush kangaroo, has named it, into the mainstream of the SCLM.

Here’s who was there:
Markos–that would be Kos of the Daily Kos himself–direct from Las Vegas, looking quite cool in a dark tee worn under a sports jacket;
Byron York–who may or may not have been coming from Las Vegas, he had been there covering Yearly Kos for National Review;
at the table with Russert, Jonathan Alter, whom you all know, and Amy Walker, Sr. Editor of the Cook Political Report.

Russert had billed the discussion as a “hardheaded look at whether the Democrats can capture Congress in November,” and the role of the liberal blogosphere in any such victories.

His first question to Kos: What have you achieved in Las Vegas?

A note on Markos’ rather remarkable affect, which remained constant throughout the interview: he had none of the reflexive, world-weary boredom that is usually at this particular table; instead what he offered was a regular, ordinary guy, who wasn’t so ordinary that he wasn’t also bright, quick-witted, immensely articulate, amazingly cliché-free, and passionately calm and extraordinary even-tempered, as if he was just too busy getting stuff done to take offense.

The first achievement, Markos noted, was showing the variety and breadth of types of people who blog and read blogs, especially liberal ones. Bloggers aren’t antisocial people, they crave flesh-and-blood interaction, and the gathering in Las Vegas put the lie to any notion that the liberal blogosphere isn’t made up of ordinary Americans from all walks of life, who are not left-wingers, but centrist progressives who want to work through the Democratic Party.

Yes, Markos thought it was fair to compare the blogosphere to right-wing talk radio, though the impact of the former’s is still far less than that of the latter; still, it’s popularity and role are growing rapidly. What do they add to electoral politics? Blogs generate buzz for progressive/liberal candidates and ideas, they represent a rapid response team to counter false information or outright lies, they can bring focus to particular candidates, and they can raise money.

Russert then turned to Byron York, for his conservative, but, as Russert specifically reassured his viewers at one point, objective observations of the American political scene, to ask for his assessment of all this.

York, despite his mild-mannered style, was clearly intent on creating the impression that there is something extreme about this movement. He characterized its view of itself as being a secret weapon, the convention as a kind of triumphalism, look at us, we’ve arrived, better do what we say, or else, all of which he saw as being as divisive for Democrats as helpful. How representative are the netroots after all? Where are blacks, for instance? Though its true that the blogosphere is overwhelmingly white, there is plenty of black participation on the left; York might try actually reading more than Daily Kos and Atrios.

Oddly, York seemed to think that the netroots’ distrust of Washington elitism was somehow an example of extremism–a "storming the gates" mentality, (sorry Byron, nothing compares to the storming of the Winter Palace, if that’s what you were going for)–despite the fact of that same kind of thriving anti-elitism on the right; since when did Washington get any respect from the right or the Republican party?

Russert took over then, and demonstrated to perfection the role of the SCLM in motivating the growth of the liberal blogosphere, although questions of media corporatism, and the media’s insistent antagonism to the Democratic Party and liberals in general, was never raised.

Russert managed to make the point by his bone-headed presentation of various points of view about liberal blogs. He started with Iowa Governor Vilsack’s statement that Democrats shouldn’t be roughing up one another, and then Russert quoted Marshall Whitman, whom he identified only as a member of the DNC, not as a former Republican who had switched parties, bringing quite a bit of his own conservatism to the table.

The quote was not only dismissive of the blogosphere, in it Whitman paints bloggers as radical outsiders who would sink the Democratic Party if they are not assiduously ignored. (Not the words he said, but the gist; I was too angry to copy verbatim)

What was so remarkable is that Russert never seemed to get that Whitman’s comment was a perfect example of what Vilsack was warning against, and the roughing up wasn’t coming from a liberal blog.

All this was thrown at Markos at once, since he’d been left out of the conversation since his first remarks. I’m happy to report that this impish sprite of a guy was more than equal to the task.

First, he went back to York’s comment about being anti-elitist, and happily confirmed it. However, while doing so, he also defined it in a way that made it perfectly clear how false was the impression that York had been trying to give of the netroots, without ever saying a contrary or negative word to or about York.

Yes, indeed, it was the express purpose of the blogosphere to shake up business as usual in Washington, with its easy assumption that top-down decision making is always the way to go, and to demand that candidates and the advisors who work for them listen to the voters for a change, and especially those voters who are the base of the Democratic Party.

Furthermore, Markos pointed out, it has been the task of blogs to point out and to demonstrate the amazing amounts of energy, talent, intelligence, and passion that exist outside of Washington. However, that doesn’t make blogs radical. Who was the first politician to accept an invitation to Yearly Kos, asked Markos. Why that wily old radical, pro-life conservative Democrat, Harry Reid. Who was the second? Mark Warner, who is thought of as a centrist Democrat. As for Hillary Clinton, who didn’t accept an invitation, blogs don’t hate her, they recognize that she has a great, liberal, voting record, except for voting for the Iraq war, they admire much about her. What they reject is the elitism that hangs about her, her distance from the netroots, and her failure to stake out a leadership position toward a more democratic, liberal, progressive Democratic Party. And yes, Al Gore gets much love from the blogosphere; we he to enter the Presidential race, the race of the nomination would be turned upside-down, Markos predicted.

One of Markos’ best moments: when Russert pointed out that lots of Democrats voted for the Iraqi war, and Markos shot back that such an observation supports the very point he was making–it isn’t about some kind of party-line demand on Iraq. And when Byron York tried to observe that the blogosphere’s support of Ned Lamont’s run against Lieberman for the Senatorial nomination in Connecticut was more important to bloggers than defeating Republicans in November, Markos quietly riddled that argument with holes, pointing out that what had drawn the ire of blogs was Lieberman’s fundamental disloyalty to Democrats and progressives, his concerted efforts to undercut Democratic positions on issues, and if Ned Lamont loses the primary, Kos predicted that most bloggers will support Lieberman in November.

Jonathan Alter chimed in that the blogosphere is a force to be reckoned with, especially as regards raising money, and that ability has turned the advantage that accrues from early fundraising into a myth. Amy Walters agreed, but did wonder if the blogosphere would be able to fund a whole bunch of races at the same time, and that the Republicans still have an advantage there. I’ll say they do; they’ve been selling off this country bit by bit to the highest bidder for some time now; they ought to be flush.

Oh, and there was this; Byron York mentioning that Kos is sometimes billed as a “king-maker,” to which another blogger, Mickey Kaus (yeah right, just another grassroots voice, Mickey is), asked the question, “Who is the king?”

Much of the rest of the discussion was the standard one about Democratic chances in November, and you’ve heard it all before.

What was missing from everyone’s perception of the blogosphere–except for Markos, of course–was this: Bloggers and their readers are first and foremost American citizens, who take their citizenship seriously, so that what is happening on the liberal/left is a renewal of democratic governance, and all that good stuff about government of the people, by the people and for the people. No need for Lieberman to feel aggrieved; let him take his case to the voters of Connecticut, Markos pointed out, all that is different this time around is that they are being given an alternate vision to Lieberman’s to vote for.

That’s the way America is supposed to work, isn’t it?

Universally acclaimed as boldly shrill members of the reality-based community, the Bloggers of Corrente can be reached off the record, on the Q.T., and very hush hush at their highly fortified headquarters, The Mighty Corrente Building.

Search the APJ Site Archive