Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Woodward and Pincus

Thanks to commenter Pontificator, here’s an interesting little follow up to the Bob Woodward item from the great piece by Michael Massing in the NY Review of Books called Now They Tell Us:

In the weeks following the [UN] speech, one journalist—Walter Pincus of The Washington Post—developed strong reservations about it. A longtime investigative reporter, Pincus went back and read the UN inspectors’ reports of 1998 and 1999, and he was struck to learn from them how much weaponry had been destroyed in Iraq before 1998. He also tracked down General Anthony Zinni, the former head of the US Central Command, who described the hundreds of weapons sites the United States had destroyed in its 1998 bombing. All of this, Pincus recalled, “made me go back and read Powell’s speech closely. And you could see that it was all inferential. If you analyzed all the intercepted conversations he discussed, you could see that they really didn’t prove anything.”

By mid-March, Pincus felt he had enough material for an article questioning the administration’s claims on Iraq. His editors weren’t interested. It was only after the intervention of his colleague Bob Woodward, who was researching a book on the war and who had developed similar doubts, that the editors agreed to run the piece—on page A17.

The White House is right to be worried.

reading this reminded me of a post I wrote last July:

Is it possible that there are no WMD in Iraq today because Bill Clinton led a coalition of the willing and disarmed Saddam Hussein 5 years ago?

We wouldn’t want to let an idea like that take hold, now would we?

Total Incoherence

White House officials strongly dispute Clarke’s conclusion, saying it reflects an old-fashioned approach to dealing with terrorism. “Those who question Iraq have an outdated and one-dimensional view of what is really a multi-dimensional threat to our nation,” said Jim Wilkinson deputy national security adviser for communications. “Some think the solution is to kill Osama bin Laden, finish Afghanistan and then go back to a defensive posture and hope we’re not attacked again. This approach represents the old way of thinking because it ignores the fact that the modern terrorist threat is a global threat.”

Clarke’s Critique Reopens Debate on Iraq War (washingtonpost.com)

Fixed link

Another Shoe?

Tucker Carlson said on Matthews’ weekly show tonight that the White House is worried about Bob Woodward’s new book, Plan of Attack which chronicles the lead up to the Iraq War. Carlson said they were worried about Powell using this book to distance himself from the neocon crazies.

Now, this is Tucker talking and this is Woodward and Powell we are talking about, so there’s no point in expecting anything earthshattering. However, it will not help them if this book has Powell arguing with Rummy, Wolfie and Cheney on Iraq or shows Condi clueless or has the president being led around by the nose on the WMD threat. (Powell wasn’t exactly toeing the Party line with enthusiasm yesterday.)

I doubt Woodward is going to be the same drooling sycophant he was with Bush At War because he took a lot of shit for it and risked ruining his journalistic reputation forever. Besides,Woodward’s always been a trendie. When it was in to worship Bush, he was there to lead the prayer but he may find it more profitable to be skeptical this time. He must have known that Clarke and O’Neill were writing books, too. It would be embarrassing to be too gushing this time.

Whether it breaks any new ground or not, I don’t think it can possibly be good for them to have people discussing this in May. The book is due out on April 30th.

The Violent Dems

Ezra comments on Insty’s post about the shocking political hate speech emanating from the left and the horrible, horrible violence and impending totalitarianism running rampant in the Democratic party. Excuse me, I have to loosen my corset. I can hardly breathe I’m so upset about it.

Insty says:

Something I never wanted to believe seems to be playing out daily: the Democratic party has been overrun by totalitarians. The party is marginalizing old-guard Dems who might (might!) hold differing opinions but who also could be counted on for civility and a rational basis for their arguments. . . .There is no room for dissent, discourse, debate. My experience is that people behave this way when they hold indefensible beliefs, and they know just how weak their position is. A dog with this behavior is called a “fear-biter” and I can think of no better description for these people.

Somebody bring me a shot of laudenum and a mint julep. I’m feeling one of my fevahs comin’ on!

Ezra intelligently rebuts Insty’s hysteria in his inimitable fashion:

There are debates going on here everday. This whole exchange is taking place in a medium that consists almost entirely of debates between the Left and the Right! The context of this is a presidential election in which the Democrat is running slightly ahead of Bush and has been proving day in and day out that our ideas are more than defensible, they are quite suited to offense as well. And through all this, the Right has remained dependent on character attacks rather than the invocation of a less-than-stellar record.

[…]

The idea that our arguments and ideas are indefensible is patently ridiculous. Yet Glenn repeats it anyway, highlighting an argument accusing Democrats of being totalitarians unable to rationally support their arguments. And somewhere the truth sits, crying in the corner, wondering why Glenn insists upon abusing it so.

Just so. But, aren’t Republicans (and their useful idiot libertarian supporters) getting more and more, you know, weak these days? As in flabby, flaccid, whiny, ineffectual, weepy and emasculated? They can’t seem to handle any kind of adversity without resorting to shrieks of maidenly finger pointing saying “you sirrah, are no gentleman!” They strut around, their codpieces stuffed with sock-puppets, name calling, hurling insults, verbally assaulting anybody who disagrees with them and when somebody gets fed up and turns it back on them they quiver like a herd of frightened deer and claim that their adversaries are mean and greedy and just plain icky.

Now, I expect pacifists like nuns and priests and vegans to decry physical violence under all circumstances. Indeed, I myself think that violence at political events is never a good thing and I don’t condone it. But, I probably wouldn’t expect to avoid it if I baited and insulted a bunch of great big thugs who hold a different political point of view. That’s just the way the world works. I thought the Republican-kill-the-bastards-quick-hand-me-your-AK47 freepers knew all that, but apparently not.

Our self-proclaimed steely eyed tough guys may spend a lot of time playing one handed Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance but they don’t seem to have much real life follow through. They certainly don’t follow a stupid macho edict like “never complain, never explain” these days, what with all their weeping and wailing. Why, there used to be a time when they would have been embarrassed to admit to something like this …

Can we really trust American security to these little t-ball players playing dress up in Daddy’s uniform? I don’t think so. They aren’t tough and they aren’t smart. Big problem.

If you’d like to see the way in which this poor ‘lil fella sees the people who took a shot at him, check his picture page which features the description of people at the rally as mindless thugs, dykes, pillow biters and bench rats. I don’t know if he called one of those teamster fellas one of those names to his face, but if he did it may fall into the category of fighting words.

Scumsucking Pig

Avedon Carol led me to this comment on Electrolite about Richard Clarke’s apology:

Anybody who has been paying attention to these hearings will know that all of the witnesses have started their testimony with a lengthy statement explaining this or that about their role in the lead up to 9/ll, much of it self-justifying, much of it saying, well, you know, we were busy with other stuff. So on and so forth.

Mr. Clarke did otherwise. His statement was brief and to the point.

He made a heart-felt apology to the American people for failing to stop 9/ll. He said he did his best. He said a lot of people did their best. But in the end, it didn’t matter because they had failed the American people, most especially the victims, and the families of the victims who died on 9/11.

The members victim’s families who were in the room broke into applause.

I stared at the screen shocked.

And then I, yep, I will admit it here: I started crying.

Well, that’s nice and all, but I think Senator Frist has something to say about that:

In his appearance before the 9-11 Commission, Mr. Clarke’s theatrical apology on behalf of the nation was not his right, his privilege or his responsibility. In my view it was not an act of humility, but an act of supreme arrogance and manipulation. Mr Clarke can and will answer for his own conduct but that is all.

And to all of the 9/11 families, Dr. Frist added, “Fuck you.”

This is one of those moments where I want to put my foot through the TV. The chutzpah, the nerve, the unalloyed balls of these cowardly little fucks makes me very, very angry. I need to take a little walk.

Boiling It Down To One Simple Image

Via TAPPED

Richard Clarke: “…we were readying for a principals’ meeting in July, but the principals’ calendar was full, and then they went on vacation, many of them, in August, so we couldn’t meet in August, and therefore the principals met in September.”

According to a CBS piece on presidential vacations:

Prior to Sept. 11, 2001, The Manchester Guardian calculated that Mr. Bush, in his first seven months of office spent 42 percent of his time on holiday, “a whopping 54 days at his Texas ranch, 38 days at the presidential retreat at Camp David and four more at his parents’ place in Kennebunkport, Maine.”

Hardworking Americans understand why this might have been a problem. The guy was a lazy bastard from the get-go.

Official Minutes Of The MSNBC Junior Varsity Girls Cheerleading Try-outs

Oh my Gawd, like Democrats are like such total geeks, dude. It’s like totally funny to watch them all get together and like act like they’re sooo kewl — NOT! I’m soo shurr. We are sooo much kewler. And cuter, too.

MATTHEWS: … There are the presidents all walking out on the stage, Jimmy Carter, behind him, Bill Clinton. Boy, it‘s an unusual picture here. I guess it is not exactly Mount Rushmore, but it‘s all the Democrats have this time.

Here they come. There‘s John Kerry looking great, dark hair. I love it when they point at people.

We‘re sitting here with Howard Fineman and Karen Tumulty of TIME magazine. Howard is of course with Newsweek and with us.

You know, it‘s amazing. What is this where they all do this? They walk out. Karen, they do this all the time. They go and they go like this. And golike, what is that about? They see like they see some old buddy in the audience? What is that?

HOWARD FINEMAN, NBC CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: It is a way to establish intimacy. Hey, I see you. We‘ve known each other forever. You‘re not just here as a contributor. You did not just give $1,000 to get here. We grew up together. We went to school together.

(LAUGHTER)

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: I‘m stunned by the three the three pictured.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Jimmy Carter can‘t stand Bill Clinton. They‘re doing a little oh, talk about disliking each other.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Anybody Karen, you‘ve got a moment here. Does anybody on that stage like anybody else?

(LAUGHTER)

KAREN TUMULTY, NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, TIME: That‘s a very good question.

MATTHEWS: Like anyone else? Try to do a permutation here. Howard, you‘re good at this.

FINEMAN: Yes.

MATTHEWS: Permutations. Oh, Terry McAuliffe. Well, he likes Bill Clinton. Those two like each other. Any president like any other president or vice president?

(CROSSTALK)

FINEMAN: Clinton and Carter don‘t particularly like each other.

MATTHEWS: Howard Dean and John Kerry are not too close.

FINEMAN: Yes.

TUMULTY: I wonder how things are between Gore and Dean these days.

FINEMAN: Now Gore now, Al Gore was not originally supposed to be in the original shot.

MATTHEWS: Right.

FINEMAN: But he managed to do a pretty good job of getting in there as the almost president.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Almost.

(LAUGHTER)

FINEMAN: As the guy who got more…

MATTHEWS: There‘s Dick Gephardt.

FINEMAN: … popular votes. So he was pretty instantly in the instant Mount Rushmore up there. This is a symbol…

MATTHEWS: Is that Al Sharpton there? Yes, it is Al Sharpton.

FINEMAN: There you go.

(CROSSTALK)

TUMULTY: I don‘t know. They all look like flight attendants for the same airline.

(CROSSTALK)

FINEMAN: Now, there is Bill Clinton with John Edwards, which is significant only because Edwards keeps claiming that Clinton is his big supporter in the vice presidential hunt.

MATTHEWS: Is that Charlie Rangel? Who is the guy on the left? I just thought it was an odd picture.

TUMULTY: That was Sharpton, wasn‘t it?

MATTHEWS: Was that Sharpton?

(CROSSTALK)

FINEMAN: I think that was Al Sharpton.

MATTHEWS: Was it really?

TUMULTY: And somebody didn‘t give them memo that this was not black tie. So…

MATTHEWS: Maybe that‘s the suit he has got clean this week.

(LAUGHTER)

[…]

TUMULTY: Yes, not Kerry. He is having more fun now.

MATTHEWS: What about Gore and Clinton? That‘s a recent injury to

both. I mean, Gore jumps into the campaign forthere we go. Watch

this. We‘re watching this right now. There‘s Gore

(CROSSTALK)

FINEMAN: See, now, that was very carefully choreographed.

MATTHEWS: That was the quickest one.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: How fast did Gore get past Clinton there?

TUMULTY: I didn‘t see any eye contact there.

MATTHEWS: How fast?

(LAUGHTER)

MATTHEWS: He is about to give him a high-five.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: No response to that high-five.

FINEMAN: You know, what the thought balloons are there is, Gore is thinking, if it hadn‘t been for that guy, I would have won this election. And Clinton with a thought balloon is thinking, you dummy. How could you have blown that election that I set up for you?

MATTHEWS: Oh, God, and this sort of practiced hand clapping. Most people don‘t clap like that. They clap like this.

FINEMAN: That‘s the Democratic clap. Don‘t you agree, Karen?

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: … an official clap.

(CROSSTALK)

FINEMAN: Democrats stand up on the stage and clap.

MATTHEWS: It is official clapping.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: And then they really want to go like this up on top of their heads when they‘re really enthusiastic.

TUMULTY: Well, you remember, though, when Al Gore was running, somebody actually had to coach him on clapping.

MATTHEWS: Really?

TUMULTY: That is a true story. Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: How was he doing it wrong?

FINEMAN: Like Herman Munster. It was…

MATTHEWS: I don‘t think he was doing the back beat handshake, do you?

I think he was probably doing the front beat.

Gag me with a weapon of mass destruction.

Lowering The Veil

Via Reuters:

Political consultants and analysts said Clarke’s allegation that Bush ignored the al Qaeda threat before the Sept. 11 attacks and was obsessed by a desire to invade Iraq were especially damaging because they confirmed other previous revelations from policy insiders.

“Each of these revelations adds to the others so that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and the message gets reinforced with voters,” said Richard Rosecrance, a political scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles.

[…]

“The administration can huff and puff but if there are enough bricks in the structure, they can’t blow the house down any more,” said American University historian Allan Lichtman.

“Right now, you have quite a number of bricks. It’s not just scaffolding any more,” he said.

[…]

“Bush has chosen national security and his response to the terrorist attack as a cornerstone of his campaign and now comes this guy Clarke, their guy, who says that the administration was intentionally or unintentionally not paying enough attention to the terrorist threat,” said Rick Davis, a Republican political consultant.

[…]

“If people start to doubt that claim and if the message from Clarke and O’Neill and others begins to stick, it would seriously weaken Bush on his strongest point,” said Fordham University political scientist Tom DeLuca.

The administration response has usually been to try to destroy the reputations of its critics. It suggested O’Neill had illegally used classified documents and said he was motivated by sour grapes after having been forced to resign from the Cabinet. A Treasury probe has cleared him of misusing documents.

Similarly, White House aides said Clarke was bitter about having been denied a promotion and “out of the loop” in the administration. They also said he was a closet Democrat working as a proxy for Bush’s presidential opponent, John Kerry.

“This administration has shown a tremendous ability to demonize its opponents. But at some point, people start to ask themselves, could all these people be pathological liars? At some point, they can’t all be liars,” said Democratic consultant Michael Goldman.

Billmon thinks:

Now that Against All Enemies has gone into its fifth printing, and the 9/11 commission hearings have generated a huge amount of press coverage — and, judging from the anecdotal evidence, a fair amount of kitchen table and coffee break conversation as well — it looks like the events of the past week may be evolving into something much more significant than just another political mud fight.

I agree that with Clarke’s charges, aside from the fact that they were very effectively delivered by a very credible source, the central complaint about the Bush administration is finally reaching critical mass. There was the outing of Valerie Plame, the phony Jessica Lynch story, the AWOL charges, Paul O’Neill’s book, Halliburton corruption, the strong arming of the Richard Foster and much more, all layering upon the other until it’s impossible to ignore the idea that there might be something to all this. And, of course, there is the humongous elephant in the middle of the room — the failure to find weapons of mass destruction. That alone is such an enormous, jarring failure, especially in light of the unspeakably arrogant way in which they told the rest of the world to shove it, that all these other things can no longer be shoved aside.

The air of desperation in the furious character assassination of Clarke actually plays into that concept. They are rattled and it shows.

In the piece linked above, Billmon comments on the rather strange (and unprecedented) national sense of denial after 9/11, which I think is an important element of the George W. Bush mystique:

One of the things I found most remarkable about 9/11 — at least when compared to past national traumas like the Kennedy assassination or Pearl Harbor — was how willing the American public was to put questions of responsibility and accountability out of mind, seemingly indefinitely.

I think the reason for this is that subconsciously most people did not really believe that George W. Bush was capable of leading the country through a serious national security crisis. In order to keep from panicking, they simply went into denial. It’s a natural reaction in a situation over which you have very little control.

There was nothing particularly inspiring about Bush standing on the rubble saying “The people who knocked down these buildings are going to hear all of us soon.” (It was hardly “we have nothing to fear but fear itself.”) People just knew that they had no choice but to put their faith in this shallow fellow and so they did.

Deep down, everyone has always feared that this inarticulate son of a failed president was not up to the job. It’s been the undercurrent of his entire life. One of his strongest selling points was that he would bring “the grown-ups” back into government. Nobody ever thought he was one of them. He himself said on Oprah in the 2000 campaign that “the public’s biggest misconception of him is that ‘I’m running on my daddy’s name.'”

But a politician can’t be tarred with something that isn’t believable. One of the reasons that most of the public didn’t give a damn about corruption charges against Clinton was that he had no money. It never made sense that a smart guy like him would have been corrupt without getting rich. Yet, most believed immediately that he’d strayed with Monica. They simply didn’t find such a personal matter relevant to his job as president.

Bush’s appearance on Meet The Press a few weeks ago was a disaster. His public statements are increasingly annoying in their stale and repetitive rhetoric. Loyal civil servants are coming forward and complaining about the errors, lies and thuggish tactics that the Bush administrtation is perpetrating. Nothing seems to be working.

And, deep down, the American people are not surprised. With more than three years to go and a national security crisis on their hands they closed their eyes and held on for dear life, hoping against hope that he would rise to the occasion. He didn’t, despite all the phony media hooplah that insisted he was Churchill in ermine and epaulets. We are now only eight months away from our first chance to replace him with someone more capable. People are starting to let go of their desperate need to believe.

The veil is being lowered because it finally feels safe to do so.

He Was Right

Mark Kleiman says:

In a world dominated by uncertainty, having made a correct prediction is no proof of having had the right underlying model. Maybe the guy who was right when almost everyone else was wrong just drew to an inside straight. And of course every bureaucrat thinks his political masters would have been well-advised to take his expertise more seriously than they did.

Still, the past performance sheet has to count for something. Someone who got something important right when most other people didn’t deserves to be listened to. And those who didn’t listen to him before he was proven right by events can legitimately be asked whether their refusal to do so was a mistake.

Every single person who is called upon to defend Richard Clarke should just say, “He was right, wasn’t he?”

It’s really that simple. He said it was going to happen, nobody believed him and it happened. He’s not the one with a credibility problem.

Random Observations

Bill Clinton was great at the Democratic Unity dinner. He was smart, funny, self-deprecating and even a bit inspiring.

His words about Kerry, in which he wove the story of Kerry’s life as a series of missions for which he volunteered was just excellent. When the going gets tough, John Kerry says, “send me.” From Kerry’s Vietnam heroism (which Clinton deftly framed in contrast to the current president, the current vice president and himself) to his fight for kids on the streets, he praised him for volunteering for the tough assignment. And then he asked that the members of the Party go to John Kerry and say, “send me.” It was perfect for the zeitgeist of the moment.

I was struck by the music that was used for these guys, too. Clinton’s upbeat, optimistic “Don’t Stop Thinkin’ About Tomorrow” has been replaced by Kerry’s “I Won’t Back Down” by Tom Petty. This election is all about balls.

Also…

I am really kind of stunned that Bush is making jokes about not being able to find the WMD. That the entire press corps laughed like a bunch of would be sorority girls during pledge week doesn’t surprise me.

On the other hand, if the patriotic correctness police have been dismissed then fine with me. Up until recently you couldn’t ask for a glass of water in a restaurant without prefacing it with “I support the troops.” “The War” was sacred. Even here in Soviet Monica people were flying flags right along side their “War Is Not The Answer” bumper sticker. If the Republicans are abandoning their position as the steely eyed and serious national security grown-ups, I’m all for it.

We’ve got a few guys who are more than ready to step in and fix this goddamned mess.