Before the meme spreads, let’s try to knock it out with a good dose of pre-emptive truth.
George Tenet is not responsible for the fact that the administration’s claims that Saddam’s WMD and terrorist ties were bogus — the president, vice president and secretary of defense are. George Tenet is personally responsible to the extent that he was a good little soldier instead of resigning as he should have when he realized that they were just making shit up. That particular form of integrity seems to be as out of fashion as firing people for incompetence.
People note that according to Bob Woodward, Tenet responded to the “skeptical” president that the WMD was a “slam dunk,” which is taken as some sort of proof that Bush was hoodwinked against his own better instincts. This is nonsense. As Bob Sommerby has pointed out, this conversation took place in December of 2002, three months after Bush had begun riding his white charger all over the country proclaiming that we had to “disarm Saddam Hussein.” He rode that horse to a narrow midterm victory for the GOP, flanked by flags and teary eyed country troubadours to great effect. If he wasn’t sure of the evidence, he certainly didn’t show any sign of it when he was calling the Democrats a bunch of cowards who didn’t care about national security and warning them that they would be punished by the voters if they didn’t vote for war.
If anything, Bush should be heavily criticized for not asking that question before he embarked on his crusade instead of waiting until we were poised to invade. That Tenet erroneously validated Bush’s obvious wish to believe is no testament to his courage. But, if he hadn’t said “it’s a slam dunk” it’s hardly believable that Bush would have pulled the country back from war at that point. The marketing roll out had long since begun and there was no going back.
However, let’s be clear. The CIA never claimed that Saddam had nukes or terrorist ties. What they believed was that Saddam had a cache of chemical and bio weapons. Indeed, Tenet testified before congress that the most likely scenario in which Saddam might use those weapons was an American invasion of Iraq. (That was a very confusing addition to the debate and one which was simply swept under the carpet.)
So, I’m not defending the unbelievably lousy intelligence on Iraq. Clearly, we have some very serious problems. Before Gulf War I we were apparently clueless that Saddam had been quite far along with a nuclear program. So, in response we apparently assumed that he had super human talents and overestimated his abilities from that point forward. There is little doubt that the CIA is less James Bond than Inspector Clouseau. (It’s a shame that Bush and company felt it necessary to be transparent about this aspect of our government at a time when terrorists are trying to kill us. But, that’s our lil’ Crusader Codpiece — pretty much doing the exact opposite of the smart thing every single time.)
Having said that, the neocons have always been even more wrong than the CIA. For a quarter century they have have been screaming that the sky is falling, from the grossly incorrect Team B in the 1970’s to the Office of Special Plans fantasy camp in the pentagon post 9/11. They have consistently overestimated the military strength and super-villainous intentions of our enemies to the point at which one could conclude that we should invade and occupy the entire world, just to be on the safe side. In fact, that is the underlying premise of “Rebuilding America’s Defenses.”
The war was sold on the nuclear and terrorist threat and the grand delusion of a reverse domino theory in the region. All of that was bullshit. George Tenet is guilty of attaching his personal prestige as the director of the CIA to that disinformation program. But, let’s not let the neocons get away with pinning the entire Iraq cock-up on him. This was a neocon program from day one.
I think Kevin at The American Street has the right idea about this latest navel gazing about blogosphere demographics with his post called 73% of bloggers are human. Check it out. He’s definitely one of the 73%.
Also check out his nice round-up of the latest polls on the battleground states.
Lou Sheldon’s Traditional Values Coalition is alerting parents to yet another danger lurking in children’s entertainment. This time, the offender is a supposedly ‘transgender’ bartender in Shrek 2. This bartender has stubble yet wears a dress and has ‘female breasts,’ the TVC alert warns. Confusing matters further, the bartender’s voice is that of Larry King.
TBogg links to Peggy Nooners latest presription drug induced column, in which she writes something quite startling:
The rise of England’s acting class the past century seems to coincide perfectly with the fall of its power as a wealthy and powerful nation that made a difference in the world–an exploring nation, a conquering one.
I wondered if the loss of a kind of national manliness, or force, tends to coincide in modern nations with a rise in expertise in the delicate arts. Then I thought: I wonder if in general one can say of Western nations that the loss of one tends to be accompanied by a rise in the other. In the case of England I think that is so.
But, what do you suppose it means when the national manliness, or “force” is embodied by someone who, although he has a lovely foot and makes the dolphins sing with joy, was a practitioner of the delicate art for more than 40 years?
Can it be that it was Ronald Reagan’s terrible acting that actually led to the end of the cold war?
Food for thought, Peg. (Pass me one of those little blue babies while you’re at it.)
Robert Parry walked the walk as a journalist who reported on Iran Contra in the 80’s and got punished for it.
He says that The New York Times WMD scandal (shall we call it Millergate?) is indicative of a subtle and not so subtle conservative coercion over the last 25 years.
Okrent’s critique on May 30 and the editors’ correction on May 26 ignore the elephant sitting in the middle of the American journalistic living room: For a variety of reasons – including fear – major U.S. news outlets have given a conservative slant to the news, systematically, for much of the past quarter century. Mainstream journalists simply are afraid to go against how conservatives want the news presented. Otherwise, they risk getting denounced as “liberal” or even “anti-American” and seeing their careers suffer.
Working journalists recognize that there is far less pressure from the left, certainly nothing that would endanger their careers. Plus, they know that many of their senior editors and corporate executives personally favor Republican positions, especially in international affairs.
So, out of self-interest and self-protection, journalists tilt their reporting to the right, all the better to pay their mortgages, put their kids through school, and get invited to some nifty Washington parties. Especially on national security issues, no one wants to get labeled a “blame-America-firster,” in Jeane Kirkpatrick’s memorable phrase, or in the case of Iraq, “a Saddam sympathizer.”
This is someone who’s been in those trenches and he should know. His advice sounds right to me too:
Some Americans who agree that the U.S. news media operates with a pro-conservative bias have told me that the answer should simply be to demand that journalists live up to their professional duties, even if that means losing their jobs. While correct on an ethical level, that approach has practical shortcomings since the ousted honest journalists would simply become object lessons for the reporters left behind, much as Bonner was in the 1980s and Webb in the 1990s. The fear of standing up to the right-wing attack groups would only grow.
A different strategy would call for major investments in independent journalism, which could generate good stories, provide jobs for honest reporters, and create new media outlets that can resist conservative pressure. The Air America talk-radio network offers an example of how that media might take shape, despite its early financial troubles.
Independent journalistic outlets must reach out to mainstream Americans with reliable information that, in turn, can put competitive pressure on the New York Times and other publications to keep pace with good journalism, not succumb to conservative political pressure. The mainstream press will only change its ways when it realizes the American people won’t stand for anything else.
And we can also support online efforts like Parry’s ConsortiumNews, which is always excellent — expertly researched and extremely interesting.
Howell Raines says that a lot of us Democrats are pining for the exuberant days and clarity of Bill Clinton’s campaign message. I know I greatly miss Howell’s exuberant obsession with David Bossie’s bait shop gossip and Clinton’s manly member and I’m sure he does too.
Yes, it was an innocent time, a time before people like Raines aided and abetted partisan witch hunts that led to impeachment for blowjobs, a time before electoral legitimacy was conferred by cronies instead of votes, a time before a president was allowed to walk the streets naked as powerful media figures like Raines exuberantly described the three piece suit he wasn’t wearing. It was a time before the country’s credibility had been shattered, the magnificent might of our military and intelligence strength had been exposed as a paper tiger and our allies and enemies alike hated us with an unmatched fervor. In fact, the only thing that can be compared to that time is the huge job losses and enormous budget deficits of both Bush presidencies.
Yes, it is indeed a new day. But as far as Howell is concerned Kerry is blowing it big time. And the thing is that he sounds like he cares deeply that Kerry wins. Howell, you see, a southern liberal of the new school, is just offering his heartfelt good advice to the campaign. As the former editorial page editor and then editor of The NY Times, he surely knows what he’s talking about. This was once the most powerful opinion leader in the liberal media.
First, he informs us that Bush and the Republicans are masters at “hammer-and-chisel” politics and shouldn’t be underestimated. Who can argue? I don’t recall ever reading anything like that during the 2000 election when Bush was receiving adoring front page profiles about how he fed his dogs and cats in the morning and travelled with his pillow, but I understand. Compared to the degenerate, corrupt treasonous incubus Bill Clinton and his sidekick, the mentally unstable Al Gore, Bush was a breath of fresh air.
Howell also informs us that despite Bush’s poll numbers, the news is really quite good for him and the Democrats ought to be shaking things up. Keep in mind that this is the analysis of one of the most powerful political opinion leaders in the country for the last decade:
While Bush’s poll figures look sickly to the unschooled eye, his 40% support level does contain some good news for him. It shows that his base of cultural and political conservatives is holding together – so far. White House strategists are betting that leaving Iraq in 30 days – no matter what chaos ensues in that country – will leave them time to revise history between now and election day and, more importantly, get on with the work of destroying Kerry’s image.
To the schooled or unschooled or homeschooled eye, a 40% approval rating for an incumbent president is sickly.
But, more importantly, when did the president announce that we are leaving Iraq in 30 days? Wow, what a scoop! When Johnny comes marching home, you just know that Bush is getting a big lift in the polls — and then they get on with the work of destroying Kerry’s image.
Frankly, I don’t see why they would bother. With good “liberals” like Raines around, it isn’t going to be necessary. For the rest of the article, Howell fills his British audience in on all of John Kerry’s hideous faults, faults which are so huge that even the fact that the incumbent is running at 40%, is barely hanging on to his base, has presided over more job losses than anyone since Hoover, and has single handedly destroyed this country’s hard won credibility, prestige and leadership around the globe — even despite all that, Kerry’s flaws are so huge that he will lose:
“…he rounded up a series of experienced hair-splitters from the Clinton years – Richard C Holbrooke, James Rubin, Sandy Berger – and they produced a script that would have played very well before the Council on Foreign Relations.
[…]
Every time I talk to a reporter who has covered him, new doubts creep in about his ability to connect with voters.
[…]
…he’s pompous in a way that Gore is not. With Gore, you feel that if he could choose, he would have been born poor and cool. Kerry radiates the feeling that he is entitled to his sense of entitlement. Probably that comes from spending too much time with Teddy Kennedy, but it’s a problem.
The TV camera is an x-ray for picking up attitudinal truths, and Kerry’s lantern jaw and Addams Family face somehow reinforce the message that this guy has passed from ponderous to pompous and is so accustomed to privilege that he doesn’t have to worry about looking goofy.
It’s as if Lurch had gone to Choate
Has anyone ever seen Mary Matalin and Howell Raines in the same room together? Just wondering.
And here’s a piece of political advice so bad, I can’t even caricature it:
Here’s what Kerry has to face up to and build upon. The difference between him and Bush is that Kerry represents the liberal, charitable wing of the Privilege party and George W represents the conservative, greedy wing of the Privilege party.
Reminder: For the last decade this man was the leading opinion maker of the “liberal” media.
Then Raines says that Kerry whiffed on Meat The Press because he didn’t stand behind his 1972 statement that some of the promoters of the Vietnam war should be viewed as war criminals
Kerry started crawfishing right away. The pity is, he was right. He could have named people starting with Robert MacNamara and McGeorge Bundy, and everybody in the country would have understood the point. That does not, I hasten to add, mean that he should have named those worthies.
Another excellent piece of advice from Howell. Kerry should have emphasized his past condemnation of the US as being war criminals. That’s a message that the NASCAR Dads who are so turned off by his plummy, Brahmin elitism will respond to.
Here’s what he should have done instead of apologising for the extremity of his language when in fact his language was common parlance at that time. He should have said: “Tim, what you see in that video clip is a young man fresh from the battlefield and incandescent with the horror he saw. I mourned deeply for my comrades who were killed and maimed. I felt moral conflict, as many of our soldiers and sailors did, about the civilian casualties all around us. I felt angry that our national leaders had put us into a war without an exit strategy or a way of defining victory.
“Those are the feelings aroused in me today when I see our young men and women dying in Iraq. I am older and I hope wiser and as the nominee of my party I have an obligation to use less colourful language. But my desire for a government that is both strong and wise in the use of that strength – that calls upon its young for necessary sacrifice, but does not gamble needlessly with their lives – is as deep today as it was then. I have seen the face of battle when it was my duty. That will make me a president who understands the cost of conflict, the need for judgment that balances our military power, the need for honesty with the American people about what we know and don’t know about where and when to go after terrorists …” And so on and so on.
Nothing pompous about that. The steelworkers in Pennsylvania are surely going to high five all the way down the bar when they hear the phrase “incandescent with horror.” That’s the message we’ve been looking for folks.
And, anyway, Kerry had already said earlier in response to a “gotcha” about his 1972 statement, “I’d like to see our troops dispersed through the world only at the directive of the United Nations.”
:
SEN. KERRY: That’s one of those stupid things that a 27-year-old kid says when you’re fresh back from Vietnam and angry about it. I have never, ever, ever, in any vote, in any policy, in any speech, in any public statement advocated any such thing in all of the years I’ve been in elected office. In fact, I say the following and I say it very clearly, I will never cede the security of the United States to any institution and I will never cede our security to any other country. No country will have a veto over what we need to do to protect ourselves. But, that said, I will be a president who understands, as every president of the last century did, Tim, that multilaterism is not weakness, it is strength, and we need a president who understands how to reach out to other countries, build alliances. His father did a brilliant job of it. We need to do the kind of alliance-building that we have done traditionally.
You tell me which statement the “electorate schooled to respond to simple messages” is going to relate to.
If John Kerry, Purple Heart winner, can’t take that set of [chickenhawk] facts and handle Russert as well as Messrs Bush and Cheney do, he’s not likely to cause enough defections in the Christian bloc to defeat them.
First, what is this business where Raines thinks that Kerry has to get some defections from Bush’s Christian “bloc” to win? WTF is he smoking?
Second, I have to catch my breath at the idea that Bush “handles” Russert well. He is barely conscious and Russert simply doesn’t call him on it, that’s all. Cheney lies with impunity. If that’s “handling” Russert, then Kerry needs to get very,very stupid and start lying his ass off.
Which is exactly what Raines says he should do:
Kerry has to understand that when a cure is impossible, the doctor must enter the world of the deluded.
(That’s so weird I don’t even want to think about it. Read the piece to get the context, but it won’t help.)
What does this mean in terms of campaign message? It means that he must appeal to the same emotions that attract voters to Republicans – ie greed and the desire to fix the crap-shoot in their favour.
[…]
Using that promise as disinformation, he must now figure out a creative way to become a redistributionist Democrat.
[…]
…greed will make folks vote for Democrats if it’s properly packaged, just as it now makes them vote Republican, and in terms of the kind of voters Kerry must win away from Bush, I think the pot-of-gold retirement strategy is a way to work. Forget a chicken in every pot. It’s time for a Winnebago in every driveway.
This is quite the cynical worldview coming from the man who thundered from the editorial pages of the “liberal” New York Times against the venality and cravenness of Hilary Clinton’s 1978 cattle futures trades. The same man who almost single handedly enabled the destruction of a Democratic president because of his alleged dishonesty and personal corruption.
And this sage advice to fool the greedy rubes into voting Democratic comes from the man who in this very same column derides John Kerry for his sense of “entitlement.”
Howell Raines is the perfect representative of everything that is wrong with the SCLM. They aren’t really liberal and they aren’t really conservative. They are shallow, bitchy elitists. Suffice to say, any advice from this guy should be taken as a sign to do the opposite. Compared to pompous ass Howell Raines, John Kerry is Elvis Presley.
Thanks for the tip, Diane
Corrected for various spelling and other mistakes. Caffeine shortage this morning.
…the White House seems to be constructing a legal moat around the president. Its argument is that Bush’s orders were simply disobeyed. Rice told the human-rights lawyers last week that the president’s clear directives on observing the Geneva Conventions and anti-torture laws were not followed
Ministry Of Fear
Defense Under Secretary Douglas Feith, who is in charge of setting policy on prisoners and detainees in occupied Iraq, has banned any discussion of the still-classified report on Abu Ghraib written by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, which has circulated around the world. Shortly after the Taguba report leaked in early May, Feith subordinates sent an “urgent” e-mail around the Pentagon warning officials not to read the report, even though it was on Fox News. In the e-mail, a copy of which was obtained by NEWSWEEK, officials in Feith’s office warn that the leak is being investigated for “criminal prosecution” and that no one should mention the Taguba report to anybody, even to family members. Feith has turned his office into a “ministry of fear,” says one military lawyer. A spokesman for Feith, Maj. Paul Swiergosz, says the e-mail warning was intended to prevent employees from downloading a classified report onto unclassified computers.