What's the Matter With Washington?

by DemFromCT

Here on this quiet Saturday morning, let's consider a smorgasboard of articles about the current cabal in the WH. Although Achenblog purports to be a mainstream snark/humor column, some fine points are noted here in defense of the WaPo and journalism and the "Dana Priest article revealing the network of secret prisons run by the CIA." It was an important article, and Achenbach is quite right to give credit where it's due. Of course, note the date of this post, from May of 2004. Billmon, reviewing a Guardian article by Sidney Blumenthal, covers some of this ground. Where was Old Media then? Why was this not followed up before the election (you should be asking yourselves that every day, Old Media)?

As Jay Rosen pointed out long ago, most of this non-discussion isn't blogs vs media – that's a manufactured fight. One might as well argue about the op-ed opinion pieces vs the news pages in regard to which is more important for politics coverage. The answer is yes.

In the meantime, the incompetence in the WH continues to make news. Brownie may just be the gift that keeps on giving. But a more important story seems to be the Lawrence Wilkerson finger-pointing at the Office of the Vice-President. Not only has he accused Cheney and his new chief-of staff, David Addington, of being at the top of the torture paper trail, the neocons and the WH are beginning their usual tactics of smearing the messenger. Twice on the News Hour, the R talking points were parroted, once by Randy Scheunemann and once by Brooks:

RANDY SCHEUNEMANN: There is no doubt that David Addington, who I have known for many years, has a very strong view on executive power, and there's no doubt there's been debate inside the administration.

But I have got to add this almost McCarthyite smear campaign against David Addington and John Hannah is outrageous and it is not based on fact. They are capable public servants doing their job.

DAVID CORN: But these are just policy criticisms; I don't think anyone   is smearing them. If David Addington wrote that torture memo, then you can criticize; I mean, the White House had to pull it back.
 

Brooks repeats the McCarthyism charges like a good Republican (Bush didn't lie, that's McCarthyism, that's 'Oliver Stone territory'), defends the war, defends the integrity factor, but allows toward the end of the discussion that folks might not see it like that. As Shields points out, Wilkerson charges that none of the so-called commissions (SSCI, etc) had the benefit of evauating Libby's memo to Powell setting up the UN speech, and citers the evidence from insiders like Paul O'Neill and others that Bush had already made up his mind to go to war as far back as 2001.

What are the R talking points?

1. Clinton threatened Saddam and thought there were WMD - blame Bill
2. Kerry, HRC and other Dems made supportive noises - blame them
3. Butler, SSCI and all the other political reports cleared the US and made it a matter of bad intellegence - blame the CIA
4. Dana Priest used the word 'covert' in her article - blame the media
5. Thinking Bush lied is Oliver Stone territory - blame you

The pattern continues (see Brownie) - it's always everyone else's fault. It's never the President's. But R's and their apologists don't seem to get it, even though the American public (alas, a year too late) does – the buck stops at Bush's desk whether he blows smoke or not. And when he denies his own responsibility (as he has his entire adult life from TANG to DC), the public figures he's just a failure as a leader. Period. And no Bush apologist is going to change their minds – not Brownie, not Brooks.

But as John Scalzi says:

You'll note, however, that I did not say that I was happy that Bush has such a God-awful rating. I'm not. Having a weak and deeply unpopular president makes us vulnerable as a nation, particularly when we are engaged in a war."

Well, to bring us full circle, going after the critics was predicted by the blogs as well, along with the consequenses of invasion. Old Media, welcome to the club.             

 

Comments

[DemFromCT]

From MoDo:

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Men are simply not biologically suited to hold higher office. The Bush administration has proved that once and for all.

hese guys can't be bothered to run the country. They are too obsessed with frivolous stuff, like fashion and whether they look fat. They are catty, sometimes even sabotaging their closest friends. They are deceitful minxes and malicious gossips.

And heaven knows they're bad at math. Otherwise, W. would realize that a 60 percent disapproval rating, or worse, means that most Americans would like some fresh blood in the administration. It's appalling to see ringleaders of the incompetent, mendacious crew who rushed into Iraq but not New Orleans getting big promotions and posh consulting jobs.

[KdmFromPhila]

I really wonder the media has been so deferential to Republicans for the last 25 years or so. After the Lewinsky scandal, I would not have believe that they media could get worse, but it's gotten even worse in the last 5. It's not as if they had to look long and hard to uncover the sytematic incompetence and lawlessness of this administration. Perhaps Emptywheel will help us understand how some of the hacks aided and abetted teh smear campiagn against the Wilson's.

One encouraging sign from the Democrats (Feinstein, Daschle) is that they are finally saying publicly that the administration fed them bad intelligence on Iraq in 2002. They are challenging the second GOP talkign point and pointing out the pattern of deception, at least implicitly. They have to make the point more clearly and more vocally in the future.

[DemFromCT]

don't forget this crony:

Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, the head of the federal agency that oversees most government broadcasts to foreign countries, including the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, is the subject of an inquiry into accusations of misuse of federal money and the use of phantom or unqualified employees, officials involved in that examination said on Friday.

Mr. Tomlinson was ousted from the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting on Thursday after its inspector general concluded an investigation that was critical of him. That examination looked at his efforts as chairman of the corporation to seek more conservative programs on public radio and television.

They don't ever seem to get it.

[al-Fubar]

Brooks on the NewsHour last night was even more fun than the rerun of Firefly on the SciFi channel. He was not a happy camper.

Come to think of it, none of them are happy campers. On one of the cable gab shows, some "GOP strategist" (Roger Stone?) was defending the non-housecleaning at the WH, and said that none of Bush's problems could be solved by shuffling personnel. Come to think of it, he's probably right, just as none of the Titanic's problems could be solved by rearranging the deck chairs.

-- Rick

[joejoejoe]

Shorter GOP talking points:

"No I didn't. Honest... I ran out of gas. I, I had a flat tire. I didn't have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn't come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake. A terrible flood. Locusts. IT WASN'T MY FAULT, I SWEAR TO GOD."

[bob mcmanus]

"Having a weak and deeply unpopular president makes us vulnerable as a nation, particularly when we are engaged in a war.""

We obviously need to deport the 65% of the population who are disloyal, weakening the President, and preventing success in the GWOT.

[KdmFromPhila]

Why does Brooks have a prominent job? I wonder what he's good at- agit or prop. And I like the rewriting of GOP talking poionts; how about "the dog ate the intelligence reports on Iraq"?

[DemFromCT]

KdmFromPhila - blame the dog.

[KdmFromPhila]

Dem, "blame the dog"- I love it! It must have been Clilnton's dog.

[jonnybutter]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Men are simply not biologically suited to hold higher office.

Sorry to be a little OT, but MoDo is an idiot. (I know she's 'kidding'). She has no basic sexual pride, and we all have to watch. So embarrassing. The observation that sexual polarization tracks-interestingly with the more general political polarization in this country could open up a fascinating discussion, but don't look for anything like that from the Mediocrity of Record. The country needs NYT columnists like a fish needs a bicycle.

[emptypockets]

Quiet Saturday reading the paper, and would like to recommend an article on military spouses that gives an open and understandable look inside for liberal elite east-coast ivory-tower types like me who don't really Get It. And in the NYTimes Sunday magazine, where us types will even read it. (Can't find it online yet.)

My favorite part:

"I would probably say that I'm for the war in Iraq because I am pro-military," Smiley went on. "I'm for the war because we have people that we love, and friends that are over thre, and it just feels wrong to be against it. But that's not to say I don't question why we still are there. Or what the connection is between Iraq and the war on terror."

She leaned forward, eager to make herself understood. "It's almost scary to me when I read things in the news and I start to question," she said. "Maybe it's even like being a Christian and questioning things in the Bible. You feel almost afraid because that's your faith. It's like that scary moment at church when you all of a sudden go, 'Huh, that doesn't make sense.' And you instantly feel shame, like 'Oh, no, what does this mean for me? I've based my whole world on this.' When I read things in the newspaper and I start to agree with the antiwar side, it feels like I'm against something that's a part of me. So I turn it off and keep the politics separate because I'm in it right now." She threw up her hands. "It would be like being married to a doctor and being against medicine. How would you justify what your husband's doing each day?"

I'll post the link if I see it go up. It's worth a read.

[Meteor Blades]

jonnybutter, that is the funniest comment about MoDo I have read anywhere, ever. Thanks for improving my morning.

1173 more days of a weak and vulnerable president makes the quotation in the article emptypockets cites even scarier. I've always thought that a certain portion of Americans would support a war with Canada - and I don't just mean the French sector - if the president (any president) said "our" interests were at stake.

What's scariest about Smiley's post is that it offers prima facie evidence that once a war is underway, no matter how badly carried out, no matter how much we were manipulated into it, a good portion of Americans - and not just military families or ultra-nationalists - will be unwilling to argue for pulling out. To take her example the obvious next step, we seem to think that although the surgeon has decided to remove the (wrong) kidney when the need is for a heart bypass, it's problematic to let the doctor s/he ought to stop doing what s/he's doing right now.

[DemFromCT]

MB, hence why Bush won on 2004. But understand that Kerry almost won (Kerry, mind you! Mr. Connect-with-people) and the fact that he came as close as he did and almost overcame the 'dont change horses' mentality says volumes.

[jonnybutter]

thanks MB. I honestly am just so embarrassed for her.

[coyote]

modo has been against the whole bush garbage pile for a long time. and her writing can be devastating. the grey lady is an abomination in several ways but people like dowd and krugman deserve being read.

coyote

[FuzzFlash]

The "Next Hurrah" is a masterstroke of timing. Junior has just launched his latest "Trust Based Initiative". The failed oilman has appointed his favorite Texan gusher,the misnominated Ms. Harrie, to conduct compulsory Ethics classes for all WH operatives, including the WHIGs. It is a source of great national reassurance that if Ms Miers is unable to teach class through illness, then special guest appearances from lecturers such as Messers DeLay, Frist,Abramoff and Bolton are guaranteed.

[emptypockets]

Link to the military wife article is up. Take a look.

MB, I understand your reaction. Reading the piece actually gave me a better appreciation for what the pro-war people may be thinking. I'm not saying sympathy but appreciation. Before I just didn't understand these polls with 38% Bush approval, at all. We tout them as low, but 38% to me sounds huge.

Apropos to your point about, by their view, it never being acceptable to pull out no matter what happens, is this part:

She had grown agitated. "We've had a lot of friends who have died. And the thing their families cling to is 'my husband-son-daughter' died so that we can be free and live here. They cling to that. So the people who don't agree with the war, what are they left with if that person dies?

"I guess they're left feeling angry," she went on. "Very angry. And so maybe I haven't allowed myself to go there." She pressed her hands together in an unconscious prayer. "Because I just want to believe."

This is why I sometimes rant in the intelligent design threads about science vs. faith as being a battle far outside the classroom, something that affects every decision in our lives. If one lives one's life evaluating evidence and using it to view the world, it is not that hard to change one's mind. If one lives by faith or belief, in a trust or intuition that things just ARE as one feels they are, it becomes a major moral crisis if one's perceptions of the world are asked to shift.

(I resisted commenting in the last I.D. thread or so, so I grant myself this small rant.)

Blind faith is a mudpit. No 'compartmentalization' of one's mind, to separate the public school from the Sunday school, can keep the mudpit contained.

There may be ways to be spiritual that do not demand unwavering faith. And unwavering faith has its place -- it is unlikely to be a coincidence that our leaders in so many great struggles were people of faith. It provides the steely resolve to soldier on.

But, for me, unwavering belief just means not being able to consider you might be wrong. And whether for evolutionary theory or an Iraq pullout (or even a civil rights movement), the ability to consider your own ideas may be wrong are at the heart of a mature society.

[DemFromCT]

there is a crisis of faith... and there is anger, just as the story foretells.

[4jkb4ia]

The Jets are losing already

[4jkb4ia]

That last post was to have "annoyance" opening and closing tags, but Typepad did not understand them.

[DemFromCT]

But i did. Almost a comeback, but was not to be.