A Tale of Two Columnists

by DemFromCT

Since we've spent all week talking about the explosion of 'discussion' about Iraq (as Bush's numbers tank,  and as Iraq's Constitutional process is exposed for the disaster that it is, politicians on both sides feel enabled/compelled to speak up), we should finish off with the MSM Sunday columnists in America's newspaper of record.

In this corner, we have Frank Rich, doing his weekly blogger imitation (which he does so well... oh, if he had had that slot and that attitude two years ago):

The Vietnamization of Bush's Vacation

By FRANK RICH

Published: August 28, 2005

 

ANOTHER week in Iraq, another light at the end of the tunnel. On Monday President Bush saluted the Iraqis for "completing work on a democratic constitution" even as the process was breaking down yet again. But was anyone even listening to his latest premature celebration?

Of course, he's on target with that Vietnam comparison, and/but we knew that was coming. It is nice to see it in the Sunday version of 'everyone reads me', and I acknowledge the sentiment and writing skills, though it will never make up for Judy Miller's work in getting us there in the first place.

And then there's David Brooks. What can one say that hasn't been said? Brooks channels the vacationing Tom Friedman and works hard to find someone, anyone, who can agree with him. It's so much easier than confronting your own disastrous positions, but Brooks is a master at it.

Winning in Iraq

by DAVID BROOKS

Published: August 28, 2005

 

Andrew Krepinevich is a careful, scholarly man. A graduate of West Point and a retired lieutenant colonel, his book, "The Army and Vietnam," is a classic on how to fight counterinsurgency warfare

Over the past year or so he's been asking his friends and former colleagues in the military a few simple questions: Which of the several known strategies for fighting insurgents are you guys employing in Iraq? What metrics are you using to measure your progress?

The answers have been disturbing. There is no clear strategy. There are no clear metrics.

Starts out well, but then again Brooks needs to establish that he's not Friedman after all. Or is he? He goes on to write about how we can win, if only Bush would read this issue of "Foreign Affairs" and learn from the mistakes of Vietnam. Heh. Bush reading Foreign Affairs to learn?

Gentleman at the NY Times, pay attention because this is important. You all have fucked up so bloody royally (Rich and Dowd excluded) both in abetting and supporting this war thast there's no way you (or, alas, we) can dig yourselves (ourselves) out. You were told that if we got in there, there'd be no good egress. Poppy and Scowcroft told you on your own pages. Hey, if Bush could have learned the right lessons from Vietnam (and not just the Nixon playbook of going after dissenters), we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place.

As noted in the WaPo editorial discussion yesterday, there are still hawks that cannot grasp the concept and wrap their minds around the fact that they were wrong. I would love it if the more obnoxious writers and pundits have their noses rubbed in it, prefererably ina very public manner, but from the politicians and policy wonks I merely require that they recognize the truth when they look in the mirror. And I'm not mean-spirited. I just rcognize that politics has to come before policy. And until these incompetents are out of power, they'll need to be forced into doing the right thing. They're not capable of doing it any other way.

 

Comments

[KdmFromPhila]

Your post has an underlying theme: the lack of accountability and intellectual integrity (the willingness to recognize and admit one was wrong.) What stands out in Frank Rich's editorial is his completely justified attack on the Democrats. Their silence betrays their unwillingness to stand up for their principles. At the risk of playing an amateur psychologist, I think that too many columnists and politicians, Dems and Reps alike, have been caught up in the fantasy of American moral and military superiority. (Robert Jay Lifton has written on the wounded sense of ominpotence after 9/11 and the need to restore it.) The administration is of course the worst culprit, but the liberal hawks buy into the fantasy too. They accept a kind of Wilsonian imperative to "improve the world" and cannot or will not recognize how this adminsitration is betraying Wilson's ideals save for their pathetic critiques of "mismanagement" or "incompetence," as if a kinder, gentler Halliburton would have successfully turned Iraq into a Middle Eastern Sweden. It's safer to say that than to offer a compelling and persuasive narrative that explains how imperial folly is blowing up in our faces.

So the Democrats do and say nothing because they don't want to reflect on their own mistakes and for fear that they will appear weak if they attack the President's course in Iraq, as many have pointed out. It would help if they finally admitted 2 things: 1. the President has always wanted this war to be his war and his alone; and 2. the President has alrady badly weakened this country. What's more, the longer this war goes on , the more it will hurt national security. Because he wants to win it in his way and on his terms, we are now in a lose-lose situation: if we stay, we will keep a weak pro-Iranian Islamic republic on life support. If we leave, a civil war will break out and Iraq will become an even bigger hotbed of extremist activity and terrorists.

It seems to me that if the Democrats can hammer on this point (don't hold your breath), they could play an important role in the public debate. They cannot change the policy because this is Bush's war, but if they concentrate on the politics of Bush's war (we are weaker because of his decisions and face 2 terrible choices in the future) they can begin to influence the public debate before Bush begins to withdraw the soldiers.

[emptypockets]

Kdm, great points. If they focus on naysaying though how do they respond to the inevitable Bush-retort-in-a-can: "The Democrat leaders say Iraq is doomed, whether we stay in or pull out. They see a hopeless future, and don't have any solutions. Me, I'm an optimist. I have plans, and I know America can get the job done. That's the difference between me and them. I believe in the future."

[DemFromCT]

interesting post from the Beeb on taking responsibility:

President Bush cannot look Cindy Sheehan in the eye and tell her that her son died because the White House messed up.

But a future president will.

[4jkb4ia]

To show Kagro X that intelligent, on-topic comments are probably what he wants, the Cardinals today posted the second 6-0 shutout in a row! Due to Mark Mulder not feeling well, Cal Eldred started and Brad Thompson got the win.

[4jkb4ia]

The magic number is 17...(hums along)

[4jkb4ia]

David Brooks's column is powerful because he wrote it. It shows that David Brooks is willing to go out and find a new idea, but the war planners in Washington are completely hopeless. "Staying the course" has failed 100%.
Daniel Dennett hit it out of the park on the same page. I was telling people that ID should only be taught if it can explain anything!

[muledriver]

I have been waiting for a discussion of the portion of Rich's column dealing with the haplessness of the democrats:

It isn't just Mr. Bush who is in a tight corner now. Ms. Sheehan's protest was the catalyst for a new national argument about the war that managed to expose both the intellectual bankruptcy of its remaining supporters on the right and the utter bankruptcy of the Democrats who had rubber-stamped this misadventure in the first place.

When the war's die-hard cheerleaders attacked the Middle East policy of a mother from Vacaville, Calif., instead of defending the president's policy in Iraq, it was definitive proof that there is little cogent defense left to be made. When the Democrats offered no alternative to either Mr. Bush's policy or Ms. Sheehan's plea for an immediate withdrawal, it was proof that they have no standing in the debate.

Among Washington's Democrats, the only one with a clue seems to be Russell Feingold, the Wisconsin senator who this month proposed setting a "target date" (as opposed to a deadline) for getting out. Mr. Feingold also made the crucial observation that "the president has presented us with a false choice": either "stay the course" or "cut and run." That false choice, in which Mr. Bush pretends that the only alternative to his reckless conduct of the war is Ms. Sheehan's equally apocalyptic retreat, is used to snuff out any legitimate debate. There are in fact plenty of other choices echoing about, from variations on Mr. Feingold's timetable theme to buying off the Sunni insurgents.

But don't expect any of Mr. Feingold's peers to join him or Mr. Hagel in fashioning an exit strategy that might work. If there's a moment that could stand for the Democrats' irrelevance it came on July 14, the day Americans woke up to learn of the suicide bomber in Baghdad who killed as many as 27 people, nearly all of them children gathered around American troops. In Washington that day, the presumptive presidential candidate Hillary Clinton held a press conference vowing to protect American children from the fantasy violence of video games.

The Democrats are hoping that if they do nothing, they might inherit the earth as the Bush administration goes down the tubes. Whatever the dubious merits of this Kerryesque course as a political strategy, as a moral strategy it's unpatriotic. The earth may not be worth inheriting if Iraq continues to sabotage America's ability to take on Iran and North Korea, let alone Al Qaeda.

As another politician from the Vietnam era, Gary Hart, observed last week, the Democrats are too cowardly to admit they made a mistake three years ago, when fear of midterm elections drove them to surrender to the administration's rushed and manipulative Iraq-war sales pitch. So now they are compounding the original error as the same hucksters frantically try to repackage the old damaged goods.

Even though their own poll numbers are in a race to the bottom with the president's, don't expect the Democrats to make a peep.

As for Brooks, he is channeliing Friedman. Wants the war until it is not going as planned, I mean dreamed. At least he admitted that he got the content of his column from others.

[janinsanfran]

By being chicken shit about the war, the Democrats are losing the chance to win the hearty allegiance of another generation of pissed off young people. By being publically cowardly and impotent, they are convincing young folks I know who took part in their first campaign last year that Democrats aren't worth doing anything with. Sure, we old folks know there is no alternative -- but that won't cut it for those still in the grip of idealism.

There aren't the volume of these folks that there were in the 60s, but Democrats failure to lead is ensuring there will be even less in the future.

[Redshift]

If they focus on naysaying though how do they respond to the inevitable Bush-retort-in-a-can: "The Democrat leaders say Iraq is doomed, whether we stay in or pull out. They see a hopeless future, and don't have any solutions. Me, I'm an optimist. I have plans, and I know America can get the job done. That's the difference between me and them. I believe in the future."

"Hope is not a plan."

[M�ximo]

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