Month: December 2007

Saturday Night At The Movies

Sometimes, covert ops are just like a box of chocolates

By Dennis Hartley

Aaron Sorkin, you silver-tongued devil, you had me at: “Ladies and gentlemen of the clandestine community…”

That line is from the opening scene of the new film “Charlie Wilson’s War”, in which the title character, a Texas congressman (played in full Gumpian southern-drawl mode by Tom Hanks) is receiving an Honored Colleague award from the, er-ladies and gentlemen of the clandestine community (you know, that same group of merry pranksters who orchestrated such wild and wooly hi-jinx as the Bay of Pigs invasion.)

Sorkin provides the smart, snappy dialog for high-class director Mike Nichols’ latest foray into political satire, a genre he hasn’t dabbled in since his excellent 1998 film “Primary Colors”. In actuality, Nichols and Sorkin may have viewed their screen adaptation of Wilson’s real-life story as a bit of a cakewalk, because it definitely falls into the “you couldn’t make this shit up” category.

Wilson, known to Beltway insiders as “good-time Charlie” during his congressional tenure, is an unlikely American hero. He drank like a fish and loved to party, but could readily charm key movers and shakers into supporting his pet causes and any attractive young lady within range into dropping her skirt. So how did this whiskey quaffing poon hound circumvent the official U.S. government foreign policy of the time (mid to late 1980s) and help the Mujahideen rebels drive the Russians out of Afghanistan, ostensibly paving the way for the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War?

He did it with a little help from his friends- a coterie of strange bedfellows including an Israeli arms dealer, a belly-dancing girlfriend, high-ranking officials in Egypt and Pakistan, a misanthropic but handily resourceful CIA operative, and “the sixth-richest woman in Texas”, who also happened to be a fervent anti-communist. It’s quite the tale.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman continues his nearly perfect track record of stealing just about every film he appears in. He plays the aforementioned CIA operative, Gust Avrakotos with much aplomb. His character is less than diplomatic in the personality department; he becomes a pariah at the Agency after telling his department head to fuck off once or twice (and always within earshot of colleagues). Through serendipitous circumstance, Gust falls in league with Wilson and one of his lady friends, a wealthy socialite named Joanne Herring (Julia Roberts, bearing a spooky resemblance to Joan Rivers).

Once united, the three form a sort of political “X-Men” team; each one has their own unique “special power” to bring to the table. Joanne has influence with highly-placed Middle East officials, and can set up meetings; Charlie can talk just about anybody into anything; and Gust can get just about “anything” done, especially if it involves cutting corners and, uh, bypassing the “middleman” if you will. Once Joanne lures powerful congressman Doc Long (the wonderful Ned Beatty) on board, the deal is sealed.

The film doesn’t deviate too much from the facts laid out in the book by George Crile; despite some inherent elements of political satire, it’s a fairly straightforward rendering. What is most interesting to me is what they left out; especially after viewing “The True Story of Charlie Wilson”, a documentary currently airing on the History Channel (check your listings). One incident in particular, which involved a private arms dealer “accidentally” blowing up a D.C. gas station (oops!) on his way to a meeting with Wilson and Avrakotos, seems like it would have been a no-brainer for the movie (maybe some legal issues involved, perhaps?) The History Channel documentary also recalls Wilson’s involvement with a (non-injury) hit and run accident that occurred on the eve of one of his most crucial Middle-Eastern junkets (the congressman admits that he was plastered). This potential bit of interesting dramatic tension was also curiously bypassed in the film.

I think it’s also worth noting one more little tidbit from Wilson’s past that didn’t make it into the movie-but I think I can understand why. Allegedly, the randy congressman once had a little, er, “congress” with a hot young television journalist named Diane Sawyer. Yes, that Diane Sawyer, of “60 Minutes” fame. The one who is now married to…(wait for it)…director Mike Nichols. It’s all part of life’s rich pageant, you know.

One final thought. After the film’s high-fiving, feel-good, flag waving coda subsided and the credits started rolling, something was nagging. And then it dawned on me. There is one glaring omission in the postscript of this “true story”; I can only pose it as an open question to Mssrs. Nichols, Sorkin and Hanks:

So tell me-exactly how did we get from all those colorful, rapturously happy, missile launcher-waving Afghani tribesmen, dancing in praise to America while chanting Charlie Wilson’s name back in the late 80s to nightly news footage of collapsing towers and U.S. troops spilling their blood into the very same rocky desert tableau, a scant decade later?

Let’s see you turn THAT story into a wacky political satire starring Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts.

Then again, what do I know? I’m just a guy who reviews movies.

Rogue Warriors: “Lawrence of Arabia “, “The Man Who Would Be King”, “Walker ”, “Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb”, “Patton”, “Apocalypse Now”, “Three Kings”, “Murphy’s War”, “Kelly’s Heroes”, “Catch-22”, “Hell in the Pacific”, “Black and White in Color”.

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Like In Brewster’s Millions

by dday

As for the Republican side, I am more and more convinced every day that None Of The Above is poised for a landslide victory. I’ve been following the GOP race fairly closely at one of my other haunts, The Right’s Field, and the sense you get when you pay attention is that Republican voters are sick to their stomachs from each and every one of them. That’s why they simply can’t decide which maroon to keep for the next year.

Dig beneath the surface of the raucous Republican presidential race and you will find even deeper turmoil: Four in 10 GOP voters have switched candidates in the past month alone, and nearly two-thirds say they may change their minds again.

This explains the meteoric rise of Mike Huckabee, and may just as much explain his fall once Republicans got a look at him (I’ve seen polls today showing Romney back in front). Every candidate in this GOP race has been at a high when voters didn’t know crap about them, followed by a gradual decline. Therefore, the ultimate Republican candidate this cycle would be a jar of air. “Looks good from here; is it pro-life?”

I mean, as much as Drop Dead Fred Thompson revealed his own sexism in reacting to the situation in Pakistan, Huckabee made 1999-era George Bush look like Juan Cole.

This morning on MSNBC, Huckabee said that Musharraf was unable to control Pakistan’s “eastern borders” with Afghanistan:

What we’ve seen happen is that in the Musharraf government, he has told us that he really does not have enough control of those eastern borders near Afghanistan to be able go after the terrorists. But on the other hand, he doesn’t want us going in because it violates his sovereignty.

Note to Huckabee: Pakistan shares its “eastern border” with India, not Afghanistan […]

Also yesterday, Huckabee addressed Bhutto’s death after “[striding] out to the strains of ‘Right Now’ by Van Halen.” He said the U.S. should weigh the impact Bhutto’s death would have on Pakistan’s “continued” martial law. But President Pervez Musharraf formally lifted the emergency rule in Pakistan on December 15th, nearly two weeks ago.

And when they asked a senior Huckabee aide about this (translation: some guy in Arkansas who had a clean enough suit), he admitted that his candidate had “no foreign policy credentials”.

Mike Huckabee: No Foreign Policy Credentials. For America.

And I am not buying the Rudy Giuliani “don’t win anything and become the nominee” strategy, or the John “I Am Legend” McCain comeback, or Mitt “My father guest-rapped on Planet Rock with Afrika Baambaataa” Romney, or the lot of them. In fact, they’d all better watch out or the guy diametrically opposed to their foreign policy beliefs might sneak in an grab a bunch of delegates.

Ron Paul — Rival campaigns are beginning to nervously speculate that Paul will finish in the top three on January 3. Paul broke double digits in at least two polls for the first time this week and he seems particularly strong in areas of the state where the media has less of an impact on political deliberations — especially in rural northwest and southern Iowa. Check out a Ron Paul supporters’ websites and you’ll see detailed discussions about caucus rules and strategy. The Paulites are more ready for caucus night than most observers realize.

Really, if you just quietly put the name “N.Oftheabove” onto the primary ballot all over the place, threw up a couple posts at Redstate saying how “This guy’s a true conservative. And he hates Muslims,” I’m thinking he could pull off the victory.

UPDATE: This is why all the GOP candidates are bringing the negative attacks, and I’m sure the whisper campaigns we haven’t heard about are even worse. By the way, can we stop with the CW talking point that “Iowans don’t like negative attacks”? Wasn’t this one of only three states to switch parties in 2004, going for George W. Bush and one of the nastiest campaigns in recent memory, Swift Boaters and all?

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Theories of Iowa – And Progressive Change

by dday

Well, I suppose that with the Iowa caucuses just 5 days away, it’s time to pay some attention to it. First of all, I totally agree that, while it’s exciting to have a race on the Democratic side that’s a three-way dead heat, I hope this is the end of the Iowa primacy, once and for all. On its best day (and I think Thursday will be record turnout, actually), you have 10% of the electorate participating. With the three-way split, that means something like 35,000 people will be practically choosing the nominee for a country of 300 million. That’s out of balance. And I think the taking of an entrance poll, which the media won’t be able to help themselves from reporting on, but which could diverge wildly from the final results, could put a fork in it.

Imagine if the networks spend the night reporting that a plurality of Iowans decided to vote for Barack Obama. They report the win, there’s much talk of what it means, everyone gets all excited. Then, Bill Richardson fails to make the 15% threshhold for viability and releases his caucusgoers to Clinton. Meanwhile, John Edwards, who’s been amassing support in the disproportionately influential rural counties — 25 caucusgoers in a small precinct have the same influence as 2,500 in a big one — sees his strategy achieve terrific results. So Clinton comes in first, Edwards second, and Obama ends up in third — even though a plurality meant to vote for him.

If there ever was an election that reveal the inequities and the arbitrary nature of Iowa’s system, it would be this one. And traditionally, the Democrats have forced changes in the primary system (if it were up to the Republicans there probably would still be smoke-filled rooms). So I do think this is the end of small rural ethnically homogeneous states having all this undue impact. Not that Iowa and New Hampshire won’t fight tooth and nail to keep the millions and millions of dollars flowing into their state.

But of course, you go to the polls with the election you have. I do think Obama will be hurt by what David Axelrod said about the Bhutto assassination, not a lot, but enough in such a close race to make an impact. Of course, Clinton’s surrogate Evan Bayh said something just as stupid, saying that Bhutto’s death shows we have to elect Clinton because OTHERWISE REPUBLICANS WOULD SAY WE’RE WEAK, once again showing the “don’t make trouble” approach to politics. But Axelrod’s quote was amplified far wider, and skillfully used by the Clinton camp to make it look like he said Hillary was somehow responsible for Bhutto’s death. I think Edwards actually talking to Musharraf was notable, but didn’t get a whole lot of attention.

Since you didn’t ask, I’m pulling for Edwards, and I’ve explained why at my site. But I think the real reason I’ve been pulled in that direction is best explained by this post from Chris Bowers. Years after blogs and progressive movement media made their splash on the political scene, Democratic leaders are still not leveraging them for mass action. We still exist basically in the wilderness, typing away and giving voice to the frustrations I feel a majority of Americans have, yet it isn’t being represented at all:

As Peter Daou predicted, when progressive media and prominent Democrats are on the same page, victories seem to happen pretty often. As Peter Daou lamented, when progressive media and prominent Democrats are not on the same page, victory seems to pretty much never happen. Without prominent Democratic validaters, we in the progressive grassroots and progressive media can’t win these fights on our own. Without progressive media, prominent Democrats have virtually no hope of winning any conventional wisdom formation fights against Republicans.

…unless a new Democratic President is willing to bring new progressive media into the strategizing for the fights they will face, I doubt they will get much done. A Democratic administration that maintains a stand-offish, managed, one-way decision making approach to communication strategy will, in the end, find itself taking pretty much the same beatings the first Clinton administration faced from 1993-1994. Even with a solid electoral victory and large congressional majorities, the new President will lose almost every single fight for progressive legislation s/he will face, because the triangle of single narrative of convention wisdom will be closed against him or her. In other words, the new Democratic President will succeed in passing conservative favorites like NAFTA, but fail to pass progressive favorites like Health Care reform.

Of the major candidates, I believe that John Edwards offers the best opportunity to “close Daou’s triangle” and at least give progressive media a chance to be part of the lever for change. I think Edwards’ “theory of change” most closely mirrors the theory most accepted by the netroots, to forget the middle ground and take the fight to both the Republicans and the special interest. Edwards has said that his idea of change involves using the bully pulpit of the Presidency and mass popular support. That is a tailor-made strategy to involve progressive media, and Edwards has at least adopted the language of a politics of contrast and confrontation (as far as working with progressive media, I hope frequent blog reader Elizabeth Edwards will move a potential Administration in this direction).

Partisanship has, contrary to Beltway opinion, been a good thing for democracy, has engaged and energized people like little else in the past three decades. I also can’t help but favor Edwards because traditional media and the Beltway establishment seems to hate him so much, and for precisely this reason. This is from Chip Reid at CBS News:

I’m a bit unhappy with John Edwards. I’ve been covering his campaign for 10 days and he hasn’t made a lot of news. Let’s face it – a lot of what political reporters report on is mistakes. The campaign trail is one long minefield, covered with Iowa cow pies, and when they step in one – we leap.

I’ve done very little leaping – and I blame Edwards. While other candidates misspeak, over-speak, and double-speak, Edwards (at least in these 10 days) has made so few mistakes that I end up being transported — newsless — from town to town like a sack of Iowa corn.

He has a remarkable ability to stay on message. Not just in “the speech,” but even in Q and A. Nothing throws him off. He turns nearly every question into another opportunity to repeat his central theme. Global warming? We need to fight big oil. Health care? Fight the big drug and insurance companies. Iowa farmers’ problems? Blame those monster farm conglomerates. And the Iowa populists eat it up. We’ll see how well it works in other states.

Note how the “Iowa populists” aren’t real people, just rubes falling for the Music Man. And notice how depressed Reid is for not catching a “gotcha” moment, which he appears to think what political reporting is about. The truth is that Edwards’ rhetoric, about rewarding work over wealth, about improving social mobility, about a common purpose and equal opportunity, is directly opposite to the way the world works for political journalists.

That’s my $.02, anyway. Feel freer than free to disagree.

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Don’t Cry For Me Iowa Caucus

by digby

I wrote earlier about the Saturday FoxNews Greedheads who had a fit over the radical socialist message Clinton was ramming down the unwilling throats of America with her chilling Christmas ad, but they aren’t the only rabid right wingers in a lather. Guess who this is: Rush? Hannity? Michael Savage?

I always thought the problem with Hillary was, her notion of government was, “I am Evita, I am the one who gives gifts to the little people and then they come and bring me flowers and they worship at me because I am the great Evita.”

And I give things to people. I give them universal health care; I give them an energy program. I give gifts to the little people. The little people come to me and I give them gifts, like universal pre-K. I am the gift-giver to the little people. Oh, I am the grand, grand woman, the grand Evita. And I give gifts to the little people and they’re going to come to me in multitudes and worship at me!”

Give me a break! That’s not the transaction. It’s our country, it’s our government. Public officials get to serve us! They serve us, they are our servants. They are not Evitas; they are not goddesses. We don’t look up to them that way. We don’t get gifts from them. By the way: we pay for every damn program we get. In fact we pay more for it than we’re going to get. What are you kidding: you’re going to give us stuff? From where? From your treasury? Where are you going to go? The palace? [unintelligble] The palace? We’re going to give them to you?

It’s the Hillary, it’s the Clinton notion of the political transaction: we are the well-educated, sophisticated, smarter-than-you, better-than-you people and we’re going to give you little things for your little needs. We’ve got little things for you; here’s a gift for you. Universal pre-K. It’s an absurdity. And some ad writer around her, Mandy [Grunwald] or Mark [Penn] should say “Mrs. Clinton, this is the problem you have. You think you’re better and bigger than the little people, and you’re giving them these things.”

If you guessed delusional gasbag Chris Matthews of the new “liberal MSNBC,” talking with his “liberal MSNBC” colleague Joe Scarborough, you’d be right.

Thank goodness we have salt-o-the-earth, regular-Joe multimillionaire TV celebrities speaking out on behalf of us “little people” who resent elites thinking they’re better than us.

H/T Donna — via Newsbusters (w/video)

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The Wisdom We Can Expect

by dday

from the Grey Lady:

“I think there’s been a certain amount of, frankly, Terry, a kind of pop sociology in America, that, you know, somehow the Shia can’t get along with the Sunni, or the Shia in Iraq just want to establish some kind of fundamentalist regime. There’s almost no evidence of that at all. Iraq has always been very secular.”

Heckuva job, Pinch.

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Hmmm

by digby

I have been wondering about this weird pocket veto of the Defense Authorization bill all day. It just doesn’t make a lot of sense.

An informed reader writes in to offer a possible explanation:

Re: your post “Where Will It End?” I suspect that the key to the pocket veto has nothing to do with Iraqi assets. Rather, it is contained a little line buried in the last paragraph of the Memorandum of Disapproval: “… I continue to have serious objections to other provisions of this bill, including section 1079 relating to intelligence matters . . .”

What is in 1079 you ask? A provision requiring the Director of National Intelligence to make available to the Congressional intelligence committees, upon the request of the chair or ranking minority member, “any existing intelligence assessment, report, estimate, or legal opinion,” within certain conditions. See here.(I don’t know if that link will continue to work…but you can requery
HR 1585 yourself if it is broken by the time you write this.)

What specifically does Bush fear must be turned over? It’s hard to say. Waterboarding legal opinions? Opinions or other documents related to the torture tapes? Something related to the recent Iran 180? Who knows. It’s also not clear to me what this language adds, since Congress already should have the inherent and statutory power to subpeona these materials. I’d have to look further into it.

And of course, there’s always the possibility they are being on the level as to their reasons here. Where better to hide the truth than in plan sight–I know their official pronouncements are the last place I’d look for it.

PS: FWIW, I believe that Bush is probably in the right legally here with the pocket veto. Webb is keeping the *Senate* open, but HR 1585, like all spending bills, began in the House. As far as I know, no one is doing the same for the House, since the House doesn’t matter for the purposes of recess appointments. I don’t think the Dems foresaw this, and so just kept the Senate open. The Constitution is clear, however, that vetos are returned to “that House in which it shall have originated.”

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Where Will It End?

by digby

Earlier today we learned that Bush was planning to veto the Defense Authorization Bill because of an obscure provision that he never mentioned to the congress as a problem before. That was odd enough.

It’s actually even worse than that. He’s not going to actually stand up and veto it. He’s calling it a pocket veto, which Kagro X explains here.

Kagro also writes:

Because the bill has so much in it for veterans and active members of the Armed Forces, Bush apparently doesn’t dare sign an affirmative veto. Instead, he’ll pretend it… just went away on its own. But this bill was presented to the president for his signature on December 19th. It’s been eight days since then, not counting Sundays as the Constitution outlines. Seven if you give an extra day for Christmas. Hasn’t been ten days yet. Not only that, but you may recall that the Senate has remained in session all this time explicitly to prevent trickery like this. The most oft-cited reason was to prevent recess appointments, but the pro forma sessions — the most recent of which was held today, yes, the very day Bush claimed there was no session — also serve to avoid adjournment, and therefore the pocket veto. But not in Bushworld. In Bushworld, these sessions don’t count. Because he says so. And if Bush thinks the Senate’s sessions don’t count, what’s stopping him from making recess appointments? How much more abuse can this Congress stand?

I don’t know, but I would guess the administration is making the assumption that with the media’s predictable disinterest in anything more complicated than polls and campaign gossip in the primary season and the Democratic leadership’s unwillingness to take any risks at all, they’ll get away with it. And they’re probably right.

I’d say Jim Webb can probably take a trip to the Bahamas if he wants one. The administration doesn’t observe the rules at all anymore. Bring on the recess appointments. Is Addington looking for a judgeship?

Update: Emptywheel ponders the weirdness of this veto as well. What’s really going on here?
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Forgetting To Hide It, Pt. II

by dday

John Deady, the “Veterans For Rudy” co-chair in New Hampshire sez:

“He’s got I believe the knowledge and the judgement to attack one of the most difficult problems in current history and that is the rise of the Muslims, and make no mistake about it, this hasn’t happened for a thousand years. These people are very dedicated and they’re also very very smart in their own way. We need to keep the feet to the fire and keep pressing these people until we defeat or chase them back to their caves or in other words get rid of them.”

I think Rudy’s locked up the pro-genocide vote. I think the Atlas Shrugged lady’s heart jsut exploded.

By the way, he had a chance to clean this up later in the day, and declined:

In an interview with me, Deady confirmed that when he made the comments, he was referring to all Muslims.

“I don’t subscribe to the principle that there are good Muslims and bad Muslims,” Deady told me by phone from his home in New Hampshire. “They’re all Muslims.”

I feel like the other guys in the room during “Twelve Angry Men” when the one racist goes on his tirade. Just walk away slowly…

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Because Jonah Goldberg Was Taken

by digby

Oh jesus…

The Huffington Post has learned that, in a move bound to create controversy, the New York Times is set to announce that Bill Kristol will become a weekly columnist in 2008. Kristol, a prominent neo-conservative who recently departed Time magazine in what was reported as a “mutual” decision, has close ties to the White House and is a well-known proponent of the war in Iraq.

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Hollywood Working Class

by dday

I work in TV, normally in the “obscure show on the digital cable channel you probably don’t get” genre. So I’ve been following the Writer’s Guild strike with interest. The WGA went out at least in part over allowing me and other storytellers who work in “unscripted” TV the ability to join their union. Everything I’ve ever worked on has had a script, so I don’t get the “unscripted” moniker. And whether you wrote the script before or after the taping, whoever generated it ought to get the same kind of benefits.

That’s why I’m excited that David Letterman’s show struck a deal with their writers, outside the cartel of studios, to bring them back to work.

David Letterman has secured a deal with the striking Writers Guild of America that will allow him to resume his late-night show on CBS next Wednesday with his team of writers on board, executives of several late-night shows said today.

Most of television’s late-night shows are scheduled to return to the air that night after being off for two months due to the strike, but it is likely that only Mr. Letterman, and the show that follows him on CBS hosted by Craig Ferguson, will be supported by material from writers.

The reason is that Mr. Letterman’s company World Wide Pants, owns both those shows. The company announced two weeks ago that it was seeking a separate deal with the guild that would permit the two World Wide Pants show to return to the air. The talks seemed to be at an impasse until today when the deal was completed.

There’s a solidarity in Hollywood that I’ve rarely seen since I’ve been here, which is to say, there’s solidarity in Hollywood. Other unions like the DGA and SAG are talking about putting up a united front. The writers are on the verge of chasing the Golden Globes off the air, and their new media strategy is paying off in public opinion. Now they’re creating cracks in the cartel that wants to take this as far as they can go and bust the union.

I have learned: that the CEOs are deeply entrenched in their desire to punish the WGA for daring to defy them by striking and to bully the writers into submission on every issue, and that the moguls consider the writers are sadly misguided to believe they have any leverage left. I’m told the CEOs are determined to write off not just the rest of this TV season (including the Back 9 of scripted series), but also pilot season and the 2008/2009 schedule as well. Indeed, network orders for reality TV shows are pouring into the agencies right now. The studios and networks also are intent on changing the way they do TV development so they can stop spending hundreds of millions of dollars in order to see just a few new shows succeed. As for advertising, the CEOs seem determined to do away with the upfront business and instead make their money from the scatter market.

They want to make it impossible to work your way up as a writer. They’d rather use these nonunion shows, shit like American Gladiators (it’s back!), and tell the writers to piss off, thinking that they’ll crack. They should hear from the fans. FDL has a great tool you can use to write the studio heads and tell them to stop being so damn greedy. They can make it on $119 billion in profit a year instead of $120, while the people they owe those billions to are fairly compensated. If a small company like Letterman’s can reach a deal, the AMPTP cartel can. Tell them to get back to the negotiating table so your favorite shows can get back on the air.

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