[Condoleeza Rice] said she “would call attention to the role that Iraqi Security Forces have played in this offensive,” which “demonstrates that Iraqi forces are indeed taking on more of the security side.”
…
The U.S. military last month said there were no Iraqi battalions capable of operating without support, a reduction from one battalion in September and three in June that were in the Pentagon’s top category of readiness, Level 1.
An Iraqi-U.S. operation targeting insurgents in the vast hardpan desert northeast of Samarra has led to the capture of a possible ringleader of the bombing of the Gold Mosque, Iraqi officials said today.
Of course, I could just be getting cynical in old age. I mean, what’s not to believe, right?
Josh Marshall has written a nice riposte to Peggy Noonan’s whiny lament about George W. Bush’s liberal betrayal. He writes:
I’m not sure what to say to erstwhile Bush supporters other than, ‘Nice try.’
In yesterday’s online WSJ Peggy Noonan asks readers whether they understood George W. Bush “to be a liberal in terms of spending” when he first came on the political scene in 2000.
I’ve been mulling over the last few days just how to characterize this: but it is certainly a muddled and bad-faith form of ideological projection mixed with evasion.
There really isn’t much point in trying to characterize it at all. As I’ve written before, it’s a common pathology among conservatives when their policies fail. When Bruce Bartlett’s book came out I wrote a post called Institutional Apostasy:
It’s not the lack of conservatism that makes a guy like Bartlett jump ship. It’s the failure. As long as Bush was riding high you heard almost nothing from these people. Oh sure there was a column or two from iconoclasts like Paul Craig Roberts or the occasional jab from Pat Buchanan. But there was no real outcry over the prescription drug benefit or the steel tariffs or the deficit during the entire time Bush has been in office. Certainly the anti-conservative notion of nation building, which Bush ran on, was totally jettisoned from conservative discussion. (We are all Wilsonians now.) Conservatives supported him so enthusiastically that they frequently compared his oratory(!) to Winston Churchill’s:
To a greater extent than any politician since Churchill, President Bush has set forth and defended his policies in a series of speeches that combine intellectual brilliance and philosophical gravity. Today’s speech in Latvia was the latest in this series, and, like the others, it will be studied by historians for centuries to come.
This was the cult of Bush. But, as with all modern Republican presidents who become unpopular, he will be ignominiously removed from the pantheon. They did it to Nixon, they did it to Bush Sr and they are now doing it to Churchill the second. It’s always the same complaint. They failed not because of their conservatism, but because they were not conservative enough.
Last fall as the rats were beginning to lurk around the deck of the sinking ship, I wrote:
Movement conservatives are getting ready to write the history of this era as liberalism once again failing the people. Typically, the conservatives were screwed, as they always are. They must regroup and fight for conservatism, real conservatism, once again. Viva la revolucion!
There is no such thing as a bad conservative. “Conservative” is a magic word that applies to those who are in other conservatives’ good graces. Until they aren’t. At which point they are liberals.
Get used to the hearing about how the Republicans failed because they weren’t true conservatives. Conservatism can never fail. It can only be failed by weak-minded souls who refuse to properly follow its tenets. It’s a lot like communism that way.
Appropriately, modern conservatism turns out to be the first post-modern political movement.
I just had the misfortune to see two swaggering, self-satisfied windbags named Rick and Bubba being interviewed by Neil Cavuto. For those of you who aren’t familiar with them, which I wasn’t, they are radio talk show hosts who have written a book called “Rick and Bubba’s Expert Guide To God, Country and Family.” Talk about arrogant know-it-alls. Rarely have I seen people more in love with themselves than these two.
They believe that they delivered the election to bush in 2000 by denying Gore his home state of Tennessee. One of them (Rick or Bubba I’m not sure which) looked into the camera, nodded his head and said,
Not a shot was fired, or a leader nabbed, in a major offensive that failed to live up to its advance billing
[…]
The press, flown in from Baghdad to this agricultural gridiron northeast of Samarra, huddled around the Iraqi officials and U.S. Army commanders who explained that the “largest air assault since 2003” in Iraq using over 50 helicopters to put 1500 Iraqi and U.S. troops on the ground had netted 48 suspected insurgents, 17 of which had already been cleared and released. The area, explained the officials, has long been suspected of being used as a base for insurgents operating in and around Samarra, the city north of Baghdad where the bombing of a sacred shrine recently sparked a wave of sectarian violence.
But contrary to what many many television networks erroneously reported, the operation was by no means the largest use of airpower since the start of the war. (“Air Assault” is a military term that refers specifically to transporting troops into an area.) In fact, there were no airstrikes and no leading insurgents were nabbed in an operation that some skeptical military analysts described as little more than a photo op. What’s more, there were no shots fired at all and the units had met no resistance, said the U.S. and Iraqi commanders.
But contrary to what many many television networks erroneously reported, the operation was by no means the largest use of airpower since the start of the war. (“Air Assault” is a military term that refers specifically to transporting troops into an area.) In fact, there were no airstrikes and no leading insurgents were nabbed in an operation that some skeptical military analysts described as little more than a photo op. What’s more, there were no shots fired at all and the units had met no resistance, said the U.S. and Iraqi commanders.
The only thing missing was the president parachuting in to the strains of “Danger Zone” from Top Gun, wearing a tight jumpsuit and carrying a plastic turkey
“Operation Swarmer” is really a media show. It was designed to show off the new Iraqi Army – although there was no enemy for them to fight. Every American official I’ve heard has emphasized the role of the Iraqi forces just days before the third anniversary of the start of the war. That said, one Iraqi role the military will start highlighting in the next few days, I imagine, is that of Iraqi intelligence. It was intel from the Iraqi military intelligence and interior ministry that the U.S. says prompted this Potemkin operation. And it will be the Iraqi intel that provides the cover for American military commanders to throw up their hands and say, “well, we thought bad guys were there.”
It’s hard to blame the military, however. Stations like Fox and CNN have really taken this and ran with it, with fancy graphics and theme music, thanks to a relatively slow news day. The generals here also are under tremendous pressure to show off some functioning Iraqi troops before the third anniversary, and I won’t fault them for going into a region loaded for bear. After all, the Iraqi intelligence might have been right.
But Operation Overblown should raise serious questions about how good Iraqi intelligence is. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told by earnest lieutenants that the Iraqis are valiant and necessary partners, “because they know the area, the people and the customs.” But when I spoke to grunts and NCOs, however, they usually gave me blunter – and more colorful – reasons why the Iraqi intelligence was often, shall we say, useless. Tribal rivalries and personal feuds are still a major why Iraqis drop a dime on their neighbors.
I’m beginning to wonder if we haven’t officially moved from tragedy to farce. And I’m not talking about the military. I’m talking about the pathological need on the part of the cable networks to go back to the glory days when Bush was commonly compared to Alexander the Great every chance they get. I think they see themselves as handsome windswept heroes, telling their epic stories under fire. But, those acts of shallow egotism are a big reason we got into this mess in the first place. It’s time for the producers and news anchors to put away their designer safari vests and move on.
Following up on my post below about Lemming Bayh’s revolutionary strategy to stick as closely to the president on national security as he can so that people will trust him with their lives, here’s some interesting news from a new NPR poll today:
A new poll of likely voters finds that President Bush and his party no longer have the advantage on issues of foreign policy and national security, which they used to dominate.
The poll, conducted for NPR by a Republican and a Democratic pollster, suggests that the ongoing instability in Iraq, the Dubai ports deal, job outsourcing and other global issues in the news lately appear to be weighing heavily on voters’ minds in this midterm election year.
Republican pollster Glen Bolger says that, from his perspective, the results are a “bunch of ugly numbers.”
[…]
It’s not uncommon to see polls where Democrats beat Republicans on domestic issues, such as the economy and jobs, health care and Social Security. But in this poll, when asked which party they trust more on issues such as the Iraq war, foreign ownership of U.S. ports and attention to homeland security, majorities chose the Democrats. Only on the question of Iranian nuclear weapons do the president and his party come out ahead.
Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg says the numbers present Democrats with a real opportunity for electoral gains. “All of these issues are related to different kinds of foreign threats to the country,” he notes. “On every single issue, voters favor the Democrats. This is a different landscape — we were looking for 20-point advantages for Republicans on anything related to security. This ought to be the center of where you would trust the Republicans, and that’s not happening here. There’s clearly a new opening, new doubts about the Republicans and new openings for the Democrats.”
[…]
… Glenn Bolger says the poll shows that Republicans in Congress helped themselves politically by abandoning the president.
“One clear piece of evidence in the data is that Republicans benefited by showing some independence from the president on the ports deal,” Bolger says. “Democrats have a 16-point advantage over the president in terms of who [voters] trust, and only an 8-point advantage over the Republicans on the ports deal. So the Republican Congress’ stand of independence cut the Democratic advantage on this issue in half.”
Feingold seems to feel this zeitgeist and so do some others (like the Iraq veteran band of brothers who are running as Democrats.) The rest of the caucus is lagging behind, mired in 2002 thinking.
Separating themselves from the president — and forcing the Republicans to rally around him — is good politics. The NSA wiretapping issue in and of itself is not going to rally the greater public to Bush. It’s the optics of Democrats issuing a rebuke that counts. The base, on the other hand, is hungering for leadership on these specific issues and wants desperately to rally around the party. Yet they are treated with terrible disrespect even though the polls show that two thirds of the country are unhappy and a majority is ready to throw the bums out.
Democrats do themselves no favors by following a cautious strategy in this climate. They are driving their voters crazy and convincing everyone else that they don’t have the will to win. The Republicans have a very slick machine, based in churches and fueled by talk radio, that will work overtime to get their base out. Their survival depends on it. Democrats cannot depend on low GOP turnout to get them over the line.
We learned Wednesday that the Federal Communications Commission has proposed a $3.6 million fine against numerous CBS stations and affiliates concerning a 2004 episode of “Without a Trace” that included “teenage boys and girls participating in a sexual orgy.” The FCC also upheld its historic $550,000 fine against CBS for the Janet Jackson incident during the Super Bowl two years ago.
Meanwhile, the Sago mine – where 12 people died in January – was cited 208 times in 2005. The largest single fine, by comparison, was a mere $440. Not only that, but it was also reported that federal inspectors had repeatedly determined that the violations at Sago affected only one person, doing so to avoid the larger fines that come when more miners are involved.
Well, we know that they don’t want to regulate business, even if lives are at stake. That would be wrong and bad for the economy. But regulating 10 PM cop shows (with no nudity) like “Without A Trace” or PBS documentaries about The Blues that use the word “shit” is much too important for such considerations. Little pitchers have ears and all. Too bad those little pitchers down in West Virginia no longer have fathers.
I find it quite interesting that they keep fining CBS so heavily when Fox has some of the most subversive, deviant (and creative) programming out there. In cartoon form. Perhaps the thought police are too busy obsessing over the F word to understand what their kids are watching. Or maybe it’s something more sinister. It’s important to remember that the vast majority of complaints are the result of organized wingnut campaigns. And organized wingnuts know the score.
Hughes for America is holding a fund raising drive. His stuff is better than Riverdance, I guarantee it.
So Firedoglake tells me that Lemming Bayh is in favor of the new rage in Washington — if a Republican breaks the law, then just change the law! As the NY Times editorial board wrote earlier this week about president Bush’s domestic advisor Claude Allen: “If the current Congress had been called on to intervene in the case of Mr. Allen, it would probably have tried to legalize shoplifting.”
Bayh, in a torrent of process talk, explained that he doesn’t support Feingold’s measure because:
… the first thing Democrats need to do, Bayh said, is take Republicans on in an area they’ve dominated: national security.
“It’s a threshold issue for us, and it’s a threshold issue for America,” Bayh said. “People aren’t going to trust us with anything else if we first can’t convince them to trust us with their lives.”
All the great Democratic strategists know that the best way to do that is to blather incessantly about “what Democrats need to do,” while simultaneously rubber stamping every crackpot GOP security program no matter how lawless or unnecessary. Yielding submissively to the Republican dominance you profess to be “taking on” is an excellent way to convince people that you can protect them. Great plan. Awesome.
Matt Yglesias says deficits don’t matter after all, at least not to the public:
Back in 1993, 17 percent of poll respondents said the deficit was the biggest problem facing the country, today that’s way down to two percent.
Oh Ross Perot, where art thou now? We haven’t heard a peep out of the crazy old coot since Bush took office ran through the surplus and then ran up the debt to unprecedented levels, have we? There was a time, when the deficit was much, much lower than it is now, that he felt the problem was so dire that he was compelled to start a third party to make sure that it was dealt with.
I had always thought he was the Bush’s arch enemy and yet he has been strangely silenced throughout Junior’s reign. You don’t suppose that stuff about Republican operatives disrupting his dauighters wedding was true do you? … nah. Karl Rove wouldn’t do something like that.
John over at Crooks and Liars has Katherine Harris’ brave interview with Sean Hannity in which she declares. “as God is mah witness I will nevah be hungry again … oh sorry… “as God is mah witness I will spend every last million I have on mah Senate race.”
“Let me tell you what the truth is. I’m staying… I’m going to put EVERYTHING on the line…I’m going to commit my legacy from my father, $10 million. This is everything that I have”
Not exactly everything. Her husband is reportedly worth somewhere around 20 million.
She says that he backs her decision one hundred percent. I wonder if he’s seen this video of his wife canoodling with another man during the debate on WMD intelligence legislation.
Watch out Lindsey. This woman’s a wildcat in the chamber.
