Politics and Press

The interaction of the press and politics; public diplomacy, and daily absurdities.

Politics

Press and Politics: A Synergy of Sorts

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A friend from New Zealand with considerable experience in American politics and a very good analytical sense points out to me that the Bush response to the NY Times and Washington Post reports on the National Intelligence Estimate is an indication of the power of the press in the best sense. Bush was forced to respond and respond he – sort of – did. Bush and his gang have managed the press for over five years and the press is finally and belatedly finding some courage and integrity. I don’t mean Fox News or the ilk, but serious press. No more Judith Miller; no more weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, no more sexed-up intelligence shoved on the American people by a complacent press to support a war based on bullshit. One can hope…

So what we have is Bush being forced to declassify “portions” of the NIE – that is, those portions that might provide some slim support for his theses on the war in Iraq. Obviously the best thing would be to release the entire report – he will not do that – too much political damage. End of the day I have to ask – Is there a room in the Smithsonian for the last supporter of the Iraq Fiasco? An exhibit with Rummy holding hands with General Westmoreland — Bush on his knees praying to the God of hopeless causes– Cheney swimming in Halliburton’s dough. Scenes from our American hell.

Unpaid Political Ads on Cable TV

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There are a lot of ways to reduce the costs of presenting the news. One way on cable news channels is to broadcast a political speech and call it news – even “breaking news”. NECN (New England Cable News) has just finished broadcasting a speech by Massachusetts Governor in Absentia Mitt Romney in defense of his Lt. Governor Kerry Healey. She was embarrassed in a debate last night and Mitt decided to come to her rescue (no need to comment on a female candidate for Governor needing help from her alpha male mentor). And NECN carried it as news when it was clearly a political bag job.

Clown School on the Hill

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The following quotes are from retired military testifying to an Iraq forum organized by Senate Democrats and boycotted by Republican Senators due to their fear of learning something.

“I believe that Secretary Rumsfeld and others in the administration did not tell the American people the truth for fear of losing support for the war in Iraq,” retired Army Maj. Gen. John Batiste. Batiste, who commanded the Army’s 1st Infantry Division in Iraq, said Rumsfeld at one point had threatened to fire the next person who mentioned the need for a postwar plan. Batiste also said Congress had failed to ask “the tough questions.”

Retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton assessed Rumsfeld as “incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically….”Mr. Rumsfeld and his immediate team must be replaced or we will see two more years of extraordinarily bad decision making.”

Comments from two senior Republican Senators are evidence that some clowns are simply not educable.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, a member of the Armed Services Committee, called Monday’s event “an election-year smoke screen aimed at obscuring the Democrats’ dismal record on national security.”

Said Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.: “Today’s stunt may rile up the liberal base, but it won’t kill a single terrorist or prevent a single attack.”

The Clowns on the Hill

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Senators McCain, Warner and Graham, made a half-hearted attempt to salvage habeas corpus from the administration’s Constitution wreckers. Sen. Spector, having caved once already this month, on the wire-tapping bill, has re-discovered his spine and called for hearings on the bill, called by Rolling Stone’s Tom Dickinson the “Abu Ghraib Authorization and Whitewash Act of 2006”.
Is the Senate really ready to throw the U.S. Constitution under the train to further the political interests of the loonies in the Bush administration? Probably.

Senator Spector was likely driven by the embarrassment of a bill removing the precious Constitutional protection of habeas corpus heading for the Senate floor with no hearings in his Judiciary Committee.  But given his having collaborated with Vice President Cheney on the wiretap whitewash there is no reason not to believe that the American people will once again be sold down the river.

Inviolable Taboos Broken

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Since the publication of “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” by John Mearsheimer of the Univ of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard the taboo of criticising Israel has been lifted slightly. These two respected scholars who have no previous history of engaging in the Middle East debates surprised everyone and the response has also been a surprise. The paper is being subjected to reviews from the left and the right in agreement that our relationship with Israel is harming American interests abroad and to accusations of anti-semestism. The paper was recently republished with minor revisions and updates in the journal “Middle East Policy”.

In addition to the Mearsheimer and Walt piece Rashid Khalidi, a Palestinian teaching at Columbia, published his most recent book on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict “The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood” in which he says it is time to treat history with some respect; “The avoidance of the hard realities of the Middle East in some quarters in the United States is not a new phenomenon.” Khalidi goes on to discuss how Palestinians failed to achieve their dreams of statehood through a variety of external historic forces aligned against them.

These two publications are introducing a new movement in the scholarship, debates and direction on the future of the region through a different prism, Israel is no longer a sacred subject for serious political analysis where religion, politicals, partisanship and distortion characterize the debates. We are entering a new era that I think will make Israel stronger and more secure in the long run, America more secure and the Palestinians just might get their homeland once the debate focuses more on issues that matter and less on the spin of history.

The Bankrupt Healey Campaign

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Kerry Healey has opened her campaign for Governor of Massachusetts in predictable fashion.  Her two main issues are crime and taxes. The soft on crime issue is a copy of President Bush’s “be scared, be very, very scared” campaign strategy that seems finally to be running out of steam.  Will Healey have more success at scaring people into voting for a woman with –as her opponent Deval Patrick says – a theoretical understanding of crime?  We shall see, but it seems unlikely.  As for taxes, the tired idea of suggesting tax reductions in a period when we cannot educate our children, medicate our sick, or police our streets will resonate among those with no real commitment to their communities.  It is of course impossible to know whether the people of Massachusetts will fall for this but hopefully they will at least recognize that the choice is not only about taxes but also for the social services that our taxes provide and that the Bush presidency and Congress have been hell-bent to kill.  It will also be worth watching the press to see if broad comments like “soft on crime”  and “no more taxes” will be tested beyond simply passing them on to the readers.  I have no expectations for TV/cable news but the print press has an opportunity to do better.

George Allen and William Loeb, Brothers-in-Arms

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The George Allen flap in Virginia regarding his over-the-top response to an innocent press question about his Jewish roots was a priceless example of a closet anti-Semite running for cover.  This son of a Washington Redskins’ football coach with no apparent accomplishments other than inheriting his father’s name and paranoia is part Jewish and wears cowboy boots but he is no Kinky Friedman. It is reminiscent of a story about William Loeb, long-time publisher of the Manchester (NH) Union Leader.  Loeb was a fairly nasty piece of work who never found a right wing nut he didn’t love.  When “accused” of being a Jew he went apoplectic and – twice – published his Episcopal baptism certificate on the front page of his newspaper.  Of course a difference between that and Senator Allen’s pique over a similar “accusation” is that while Allen was similarly incensed, it was – alas – true.  Allen has now embraced his heritage and our hearts are warmed.

Back to the Shack, Same Game

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So, Senators McCain, Warner and Graham – in a totally predictable outcome – caved to the folk who apparently believe that torture is producing valuable intelligence – such as the confession we got the Syrians to beat out of an innocent Canadian.  The press behaves as expected in these situations – they take the Republican “disagreement” at face value and run back-patting stories when everyone supposedly compromises and gives the administration and the CIA what they want and what they knew they would get in the end.  The story here is in the details and the details tell us that Bush et alia will do whatever they want by interpreting the legislation in whatever way they wish.

OnTorturing Innocent Canadians

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From U.S. Attorney General Gonzales: “Mr. Arar was deported under our immigration laws. He was initially detained because his name appeared on terrorist lists; he was deported according to our laws.” This disgraceful non-excuse defines what this administration has been up to with its pressing the Congress for legislation opening the door for increased torture of maybe guilty and maybe innocent people. It really does not matter to them.

Canada’s Prime minister, Stephen Harper, has taken a lesson from G.W. Bush by blaming the event on his predecessor Paul Martin. Martin’s efforts to get Mr. Arar released were blocked by Harper’s party in Parliament.

The Tortured Mind of Bush et alia

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This, from Tom Dickinson at Rolling Stone’s National Affairs Daily:

“…Let’s translate. Not on some remote mountainous battleground, not in the netherworld of a lawless Pakistani province, but right in the middle of a New York airport, a Canadian citizen was kidnapped by American agents. Instead of being subjected to a proper police investigation, instead of being tried in a court of law for supposed illicit association, he was instead packed off to our good friends in the Jordanian monarchy. And from there, delivered directly to the same torturers in Damascus that we denounce on a daily basis….”