American Politics Journal

apj.us / correntewire.com presents
Pundit Pap
Cut and Spin: Pundits dish out more of the same, Feingold makes them (and their GOP pals) sweat
by the Pundit Pap Team
Jane Grice | Xan | Shystee

June 25, 2006 (correntewire.com / apj.us)–This week's headlines were issue- and action-packed, with plenty of fodder for the frothing forecasters of the fourth estate:

– Late Saturday, both WaPo and the AP broke more details of the Jack Abramoff-Grover Norquist money-and-influence trail. Both pieces are must-read. Jeff Koopersmith may have been right just under a decade ago.

– This followed a week of bad news for the GOP culture of corruption: David Safavian was found guilty of crimes he committed when on the White House payroll – a story widely ignored by the national and broadcast media; and additional reports of widespread corruption at the Bureau of Indian Affairs surfaced.

– The security situation in Iraq is a disaster – and the media refused to cover it.

– Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is already spelling out plans for the nation's future; plans include forcing the American military to withdraw and, in a move sure to drive up Shadow President Dick Cheney's blood pressure, amnesty for insurgents who get on board to help rebuild the war-torn country.

– The NY Times and WaPo reported more big brother (probably illegal) mass spying – which irritated Mr. No Credibility himself, Dick Cheney, to no end.

– Ron Suskind's new book, "The One Percent Solution," continued to make some waves in the media – none of them favorable to the Bush Junta.

– Eugene Robinson's eloquent editorial on the latest battle in the GOP's quiet campaign to disenfranchise black voters underscored the press's refusal to cover this vital story.

– The GOP continued their campaign of attempting to bully congressional Democrats and showing utter contempt for the majority of Americans, who now oppose the Iraq war, by trying to pin the label "cut and run" on Democrats. Unfortunately for the GOP, the Democrats have a little label of their own for Bush Iraq policy.

– Rick Santorum engaged in one of the most breathtaking instances of political self-immolation in years with his breathless (and 100% wrong) assertion that we found Saddam's WMDs.

– Keystone Qaeda! Cable news infotainment tripped over themselves reporting on the dumbest terrorists ever – in a "major tairist bust" that looked to be timed to drive both the bank spying scandal and Santorum's stupidity out of the headlines.

So what did we get? A lot of talk about Iraq – most of which smacked of the "things are stabilizing and Democrats are divided" conventional pro-GOP-biased Beltway press thinking.

Here's the rundown...

Meet The Press
by Shystee
Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI), Roundtable

Russ Feingold gives another solid interview, makes a lot of sense even though he’s scared of the “I” word.

The roundtable of journalists were clueless and or/senile (in Broder’s case).

Feingold

Feingold: Amnesty for Iraqis that have attacked US troops is unacceptable.

This is going to be a sticky one for the Bushies to manage

Pumpkinhead: Gen. Casey says he might bring 2/3 of the troops home by the end of 2007. But without a timetable.

Feingold: A timetable is the best course for transition. American people will know what to expect and the Iraqi government will know.

Casey saying a “time certain” robs him of flexibility.

Why not say a “certain time”? I’m so sick of that meme. So by Casey’s statement the Bushies want to dangle withdrawal from Iraq over voters heads but without committing to anything.

Cheney: Withdrawing is the “worst thing we can do”, it shows that “Americans don’t have the stomach for this fight”

Feingold: Do we stay in Iraq forever just to prove that Bush and Cheney were right?

I would disagree with Cheney based on the American obesity epidemic. Americans have plenty of stomach. What he really means is that the world will think Americans are pussies. This is the Roveian choice to the voters: do you want your kids to die for no reason or are you a pussy?

Feingold: We need to stay engaged in Iraq. But our #1 moral responsibility is to protect the American people and fight al Qaeda. Iraq is draining our resources to fight terrorism around the world.

Somalia’s new president is on the state department’s list as a member of al Qaeda.

Didn’t know about that one…

Feingold: This parade of horrors about what could happen after we leave is already happening.

Good counter-argument. One Murtha uses all the time.

Pumpkinhead: Is it necessary for a Democratic candidate to say that voting for war was a mistake?

Feingold: I cannot understand why the party and the consultants in the beltway have advised Democrats to not stand against the war.

I can’t either, Russ. Could it be that they’re clueless, or is it the Corporate Campaign Contributions?

Pumpkinhead: only 13 senators voted for your measure

Feingold: The majority of the Senate is out of touch with the American people. Why don’t we listen to the American people for a change.

Hell yeah.

Feingold in upcoming GQ interview: George Bush committed a more impeachable offense than Clinton or Nixon ever did.

The idea that the president can make up any law he wants under article two of the constitution…

Pumpkinhead: Should he be impeached?

Feingold: Impeachment would be disruptive. That’s why I moved for censure.

He has to give up this goal of expanding executive power. Historical affront to the constitution.

That’s a bummer. Why are Democrats so scared of the I word? They impeached Clinton for an alleged blowjob. How about some freakin’ payback? It would only be disruptive to the Republican Party. And it’s not like the US Government under the Bushies is working at peak efficiency right now anyway.

Pumpkinhead: Will you campaign for Lieberman?

Feingold: Joe’s a good guy, Lamont’s positions are closer to mine. I won’t get involved in the CT primary but I will support the Democratic candidate that emerges.

Good, if exceedingly cautious, answer.

Roundtable

NBC poll: 54% more likely to vote for a candidate in 2006 that supports pulling all troops out of Iraq.

Ron Brownstein: R’s thought bringing a vote would show division among Democrats, but it actually consolidated the Dem’s position. By a 6-1 ratio they voted for the Levin measure (the alternative pullout option to Feingold’s).

David Gregory: Amnesty in Iraq issue. We have midwived 3 governments. We don’t have control over the Iraqi government.

Senility Alert:

David Broder says Allawi is Prime Minister in Iraq. Silence around the table as Pumpkinhead reminds him that Maliki is the current PM.

Lieberman in a recent interview to David Broder: there’s a “jihad” to get everyone in the party to toe the line on Iraq.

The consensus around the table is that Lieberman has moved himself to the right. He’s made his own bed.

Assorted commentary and Hillary panty-sniffing:

Pumpkinhead: “Liberal Internet blogs” are very much against Joe, the primary will be a test of their power.

Gregory: the mood of liberals is “Bush is wrong, don’t roll over”

Broder: it’s no longer sufficient to say “I am strong”, you have to say “I am strong and I am smart”.

Rove is recycling cut and run vs. stay the course language, but it’s in stark contrast to the facts on the ground.

Brownstein: in local midterm elections, Democrats are going further against the war than Democrats are in DC.

Pumpkinhead: Is Hillary Klintoon vulnerable as a woman as far as being “tough on defense”?

Pumpkinhead: Front page NYT story about Clinton’s marriage. How much influence will Bill have?

Broder: I got hammered so much because I wrote about this. I should just shut up.

Pumpkinhead: Bill’s influence may be a legitimate issue but is their marriage?

Broder: reliving the impeachment days would be such a nightmare.

Word

This Week
by Xan
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Out There), Dick Durbin (D-IL), and Loud Obbs guests on the Roundtable

Dick Durbin was doing a fairly good job on ThisWeek against senile-when-he-wants-to-be Mitch McConnell, hammering on the point that the drawdown plan “leaked” by Gen. Casey this week happens to match in fairly precise detail the withdrawal plans advocated by the better class of Senate Democrats this week. (Of course McConnell had nothing to hammer on but “Our brilliant president’s brilliant strategy must be the right one because we haven’t been hit again since Sept. 11.” Is this not a wearing a little thin as the number of Americans lost since 9-11, 2600+ and rising at 3 or so a day, is rapidly approaching the number lost on 9-11? Somehow I fail to see the logic here.)

But then George S. ran a clip of Joe Loserman doing his best give-Bush-cover tap-dance during the resolution debate and asked Durbin about the CT primary, and directly asks “Will you support the winner of the Democratic primary?” And Durbin says “I support Joe Lieberman.”

Schmuck. Three questions later he says “…in the Democratic primary, which I expect him to win, blah blah blah.” And then made it clear that he was not answering anything past that. Fucking idiot. All he would have had to do was turn it around, a flat “Yes of course I will support the winner of the Democratic Primary which I fully expect will be Joe Lieberman” and accomplish the same thing without looking like a stupid schmuck. Consider yourself slapped upside the head, Dick.

Because that’s exactly what Crook McConnell did when George S. asked him an identical question about the Rhode Island primary where Lincoln Chafee, one of the last of the honorable Republicans at least insofar as he has consistently been anti-Iraq War, has a rabid pro-war primary challenger. McConnell even managed to spin Chafee’s anti-war stance as “principled consistency”. We must start using that expression “IOKIYAR” more often again.

Round Table was interesting, George Will actually missed a week of pompous pontification but to keep the quota up they got Actually Sane On Most Things But A Deranged Lunatic On Immigration Lou Dobbs. He tangled with Fareed Zakaria on the “amnesty” thing but amazingly enough managed to keep the mouth-frothing about the Invasion of the Brown People to a minimum. Still the worst possible problem we face, and all, because every brown person brings with them 427 pounds (each) of meth, cocaine, heroin AND pot, and some beheaded corpses managed to sneak in as well, but I guess everybody has to have a gig, and that’s the gig of Mr. Obbs.

The Iraqi Amnesty thing is going to blow up high, wide and horrible this week, is my guess. People are going to find out that no matter what tonnage of lipstick is put on, the pig consists of letting walk free the guys who have been shooting, blowing up and beheading our kids.

Look for the name of Robert E. Lee to be invoked heavily, and the number “600,000” [approx. deaths in the US Civil War], and if required to speak on the subject emphasize that this is what Bush wanted after all. This is the Iraqi “government” standing up like he said they should. And note that every American service member who dies from this day forth will do so knowing that absolutely nothing whatever will be done to the person who killed him, beyond a possible short detention followed by a release in the name of “reconciliation.”

Great job there Mr. Bush. Great job indeed.

FOX News Sunday
by Leah
Chris Wallace, Sens. Warner v Levin, Sen. Spector v Rep. King, and the Roudtable

Interesting that the import and rightness of the NY Times' revelation of yet another classified program–initiated by the Bush administration on its own, sans oversight–was presented as of equal importance, from a FOX standpoint, to Iraq or immigration.

Iraq was the topic for Senators Warner and Levin.

The just-announced initiative by the new Iraqi government to reach out to insurgents to find a path to reconciliation–one that would include a UN-supervised timetable for American withdrawal–coupled with the deliberate leaking of General Casey’s projections of troop draw-downs that differ hardly at all from the timetable the Kerry-Feingold resolution sought to establish, had, by today, pretty much made hash out of last weeks Republican display of stalwart posturing on Iraq, meant to pin the cut-and-run label on the tail of the Democratic donkey.

And the fact that even Chris Wallace, representing Murdoch’s FOX News, couldn’t reframe Maliki’s initiative as exactly what the Republicans were talking about didn’t keep Senator Warner from trying!

The difference, you see, is this Maliki’s inclusion of a phased withdrawal with some kind of loosely defined timetable is an Iraqi initiative; it’s part and parcel of their sovereignty. And General Casey isn’t talking about a "date certain" for withdrawal; Bush and the Republicans want to insure flexibility.

Yeah, that’s a hallmark of Bush’s foreign policy, isn’t it?

Senator Levin all but harrumphed in Warner’s face: No difference here, no difference at all. And the Levin-Reed resolution was infinitely flexible.

True enough; some of us would say too flexible.

And, by the way, no, no, Warner, reassured, no playing of politics in what went on last week.

And what about that amnesty in Maliki’s initiative–to include those who may have American blood on their hands?

Levin, like the rest of the Democrats, is going to stay outraged at the very suggestion. And frankly, I don’t blame them, especially in a week we found out that two American soldiers were kidnapped, tortured, then killed.

Warner seemed to be trying to slip into Bishop Tutu’s robes; not a good fit.

Methinks both parties are going to have problems with their base on this one, although the Democrats have the option of pointing out, the faster fewer and fewer of our troops are there, the faster the Iraqi government can use their sovereignty to reconcile with whomever they deem necessary.

Wallace brought up the issue of the various indictments of American soldiers for crimes against Iraqis for what seemed like the sole purpose of being able to play a clip of Jack Murtha on the pressure on our military that resulted in Hiditha. Are these isolated cases or the result of a general policy failure?

With that setup, both Senators felt called upon to stand-up for the overall performance of our military in Iraq.

Would have been nice if Levin had had the presence of mind to reframe the question of responsibility as one that, thus far, has only been applied to the lower rungs of the military, and applied not at all to the civilian leadership whose policies have resulted in the kind of pressure on our soldiers of which Murtha was speaking. But Levin was not at his best this morning.

Arlen Specter and Peter King were asked by Chris to deal with the NY Times' decision to publish yet another story about yet another classified anti-terrorism program of surveillance that the Bush administration has been administering, on its own, without congressional oversight for lo these many years now since 9/11.

Arlen went on and on; the upshot, as he wove his way to some sort of centrist position, was that this program is not as problematic as to privacy considerations as was/is the NSA program; still, AG Gonzo is scheduled to appear in some weeks before Specter’s committee and Arlen will be sure to ask him about this new one.

Peter King managed in a single bound to breach the farthest reaches of the American right with his unremitting denunciation of the Times, and as for AG Gonzo, the only thing Rep. King will be asking him is to explore the possibility of indicting someone, or better yet, everyone who had anything to do with the story, for violation of the espionage act, and other such charges, usually reserved for traitors. We’re at war, in case you didn’t know that, we’re at war, we’re at war, we’re at war; therein you have the gist of King’s argument.

When will members of congress and the SCLM who interrogates them finally begin to understand that “freedom of the press” is not important, primarily as some sort of special privilege for an elite press; it is a constitutional right of the American people to have, at their disposal, such a press, one that has the freedom to report information, especially about what their government is up to, however loudly that government insists it is in the best interest of the American public not to know.

Rep. King was just as right-wing on immigration–and he is happy with the notion of hearings instead of actual legislation. Specter seemed less pleased, but not sufficiently to admit that there was anything in the way of politics involved in the decision to postpone any attempts to reconcile the House and Senate versions of comprehensive immigration reform to keep the fissures within the Republican party from becoming to visible.

The “Roundtable” was next, with the regular regulars; Brit Hume, Mara Liasson, William Kristol, and Juan Williams.

Biggest issue in the world: that NY Times decision to go to print on a story the administration asked them not to print.

You sensing a pattern here?

Brit Hume couldn’t have been more contemptuous of Bill Keller’s public interest argument. What public interest? There was even less reason with this program than there was with the NSA program. This program is/was exactly what this government should have been doing after 9/11.

Hume wasn’t as ready to recommend indictment as Rep. King was; it will be enough, he seemed to say, for the Times to be shamed as an untrustworthy, un-American, journalistic rag, lacking in all journalistic credibility.

Mara pointed out that yes, even if we can all agree it is a good program, why the continued lack of oversight - which was out-sourced to a private company.

Wallace asked Bill Kristol about the Times’ refusal to bow to the full-court press put on by the administration, including pleas from Negroponte. Kristol shared Hume’s angry hauteur about the whole incident; who the hell is Bill Keller and the Times to make this decision about what is and isn’t national security. Kristol seemed to say that the Bush administration has an absolute responsibility to get some kind of sense of the Senate resolution attacking the Times. This isn’t like the Pentagon Papers, which were historical documents, and, thus, didn’t involve prosecutions.

Uh, Bill, ask Daniel Ellsberg what it felt like not to be prosecuted. Probably slipped Kristol’s mind because Ellsberg was acquitted by a jury of his peers.

Juan Williams made the smartest observation in the whole show: What is the big deal? How did the story undermine our security? The point of the program was to take away this way for terrorists to move money around the world; they can no longer do that.

Hume rushed in to try and say that no, the program is a way to catch terrorists, but Juan would not be moved. This type of international institution is not a good way to catch terrorists; monitoring it is a good way of making it a lot harder for terrorist to fund their projects. That they will avoid this particular avenue isn’t a plus for them; there aren’t a lot of other ways to move money around the world.

On Iraq, no one seemed to want to talk about the week’s congressional posturings; clearly Maliki’s initiative had made cut-and-run charges less potent.

Hume tried to make it a vindication of the Bush policiy, Kristol wasn’t yet ready for that - clearly he’s worried that Casey is getting read to cut and run.

We leave you with that final irony.

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