Politics and Press

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

Press

The Decomposition of Henry Kissinger

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Earlier this week Henry Kissinger appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to discuss Bush-Cheney’s Iraq policy. I finally got around to viewing a video of his appearance and it was bizarre – a scene of his mumbling, rambling and seemingly sucking up to everyone on the committee as he appeared to agree with almost any suggestion made by any Senator. The scene’s believability might actually have benefited from visits by his old pals Jill St. John, Richard Nixon and Augusto Pinochet.

I got very worried for Iraq’s neighboring countries when he announced the probability of a secret peace plan, remembering what his secret plan for Vietnam did for Cambodia. But then he mumbled something about not really knowing that there was a plan, only that:

“I am convinced, but I cannot base it on any necessary evidence right now that the president will want to move toward a bipartisan consensus”.

Jesus – what the hell does that mean?

He meandered along through testimony that ignored much of the reality of current policy in Iraq and moved toward a numbing kind of equivalent to: “on the one hand this, on the other hand that” analysis. There was something for everyone. Is there a secret peace plan in the Bush administration?   He did not know for sure, but it seemed like they must be moving in that direction. Is the President’s planned “surge” likely to be effective? He opined that if it worked it would serve the interests of reconciliation.  Etc. ad nauseum.

What was striking was the inability of anyone in the room to make any sense.  While perhaps easy to ignore the babblings of a man who has outlasted whatever usefulness he might have had (and that latter is up for debate) it is neither easy nor pleasant to watch a room full of Senators trying to get the old guy to give them what each of them wants and at the end of the day not knowing whether they got it.

We are told that Kissinger has been advising Bush on Iraq policy and that is totally believable given this performance and the state of the Iraq war.

An American Original, Molly Ivins: RIP

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Molly Ivins died yesterday after a seven-year battle with breast cancer. Thinking about the mainstream press with its suck-up approach to authority and its inability to write with true wit, her death is a giant loss. Who else would report on a Pat Buchanan screed on America’s “culture wars” by commenting that “it probably sounded better in its original German”. And is there another former NY Times reporter who lost his or her job by referring to a community chicken killing as a “gang pluck”?

Her reporting on Texas politics was legendary and prepared her well for the odious task of reporting on the Dubya Bush presidency, a task that allowed her to be one of a small number of journalists who saw through all the smoke and mirrors that has given us the Iraq fiasco.

A few choice quotes published in the Houston Chronicle follow:

“If you think his daddy had trouble with ‘the vision thing,’ wait’ll you meet this one,” Ivins on George W. Bush in “The Progressive,” June 1999.

“If left to my own devices, I’d spend all my time pointing out that he’s weaker than bus-station chili,” on Bill Clinton, from the introduction to You Got to Dance With Them What Brung You

“The poor man who is currently our president has reached such a point of befuddlement that he thinks stem cell research is the same as taking human lives, but that 40,000 dead Iraqi civilians are progress toward democracy,” from a July 2006 column urging commentator Bill Moyers to run for president.

“….our very own dreaded [Texas] Legislature is almost upon us. Jan. 9 and they’ll all be here, leaving many a village without its idiot,” from a December 2000 column.

Gullible’s Travels: David Brooks’ Trip to Reality

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Bush-Cheney’s Iraq adventure has provided David Brooks a terrific opportunity for what self-help gurus would call “personal growth and development”. It has been a strange trip in which Brooks has had to finally realize that his emperor has no clothes and that those Democratic leaders who had no alternatives actually had – and he had somehow missed them.

On Nov 2, 2006 in the NY Times Brooks had this to say:

“Partitioning the country would be traumatic, so after the election it probably makes sense to make one last effort to hold the place together. Fire Donald Rumsfeld to signal a break with the past. Alter troop rotations so that 30,000 more troops are policing Baghdad.”

On Jan. 7, 2007, it was:

“The record shows that in sufficient numbers and with sufficient staying power, U.S. troops can suppress violence. Perhaps more U.S. troops can create a climate in which decentralized arrangements can evolve.

We can’t turn back time. But if the disintegration of Iraqi society would be a political and humanitarian disaster, perhaps we should finally commit military resources, and create a political strategy, commensurate with the task of salvaging something.”

On Jan 11, he began totally to lose it:

‘If the Democrats don’t like the U.S. policy on Iraq over the next six months, they have themselves partly to blame. There were millions of disaffected Republicans and independents ready to coalesce around some alternative way forward, but the Democrats never came up with anything remotely serious.”

On Jan. 25, he came to grips with the reality that, “yes Virginia. There are alternative plans out there – some even formulated by Democratic leaders and analysts”:

“I for one have become disillusioned with dreams of transforming Iraqi society from the top down. But it’s not too late to steer the situation in a less bad direction…
for a ”soft partition” of Iraq in order to bring political institutions into accord with the social facts — a central government to handle oil revenues and manage the currency, etc., but a country divided into separate sectarian areas to reduce contact and conflict. When the various groups in Bosnia finally separated, it became possible to negotiate a cold (if miserable) peace.

Soft partition has been advocated in different ways by Joe Biden and Les Gelb, by Michael O’Hanlon and Edward Joseph, by Pauline Baker at the Fund for Peace, and in a more extreme version, by Peter Galbraith.”

Yes David, there are and have been for some time, alternatives to your Bush-Cheney approach. Glad to have you climbing on board. Better late then never I guess.

In his last NY Times column he threatens new insights to be delivered from the mount on Sunday on the NY Times Op-Ed page. As Bush-Cheney would no doubt agree: “ God help us all”.

EL-BARADEI VS. BUSH-CHENEY

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One of the key ingredients to Bush-Cheney’s**, successful selling of the Iraq invasion was its PR campaign aimed at belittling Hans Blix on the weapons of mass destruction issue. As we know Bush lied and Blix turned out to be both honorable and correct. But Bush-Cheney was intent on invading and invade we did. The cost of that decision has been enormous and continues to grow as Bush-Cheney flounders around looking for a way out and perhaps finding Iran.

Blix’s successor as Head of the International Atomic Energy Commission is Muhammad el-Baradei and yesterday he spoke out strongly at the World Economic Forum in Davos, warning the West, and particularly Bush-Cheney, that attempting to bomb Iran’s nuclear capability would be unjustified at this point, probably counter–productive and a catastrophe.

Golnaz Esfandiari, an Iranian émigré journalist, has written a solid review of the situation for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s website. It places el-Baradei’s comments in a broader context than that which Americans normally get from their press (and politicians) and describes a fairly broad international consensus that an attack by either Bush-Cheney or Israel could be catastrophic, and that as in the Iraq invasion in 2003, there is insufficient evidence to support military action.

We shall see – cornered beasts do desperate things.

**Note: In this context Bush-Cheney is seen as a kind of Chimaera – the two-headed beast of mythology

The Press: Illuminator Or Racetrack Tout

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As we begin the bizarre process of choosing the next leader of the free world the press is approaching the process as a horserace. This allows them to be handicappers, or odds-makers, or anointers of the chosen. The way in which candidates are covered, the attention they receive, and why, gives the press a lot of power over the process and past experience is worrisome.

So when Hillary announces, it is front-page news about her “chances” as a women and her need to avoid taking any meaningful stands that might possibly be held against her later.

Dennis Kucinich announces and it is the proverbial tree falling in the forest – no one hears it because the press has determined that he could not possibly be a serious candidate – probably because four years ago he among all the others was the one who said invading Iraq was nuts – a total loser of a campaign issue.

Bill Richardson throws his sombrero into the ring and the story in the Boston Globe is  illustrated with a huge photo of Hillary talking to a group of children and a tiny headshot photo of Richardson.

Obama announces and it was as if Jesus himself had come down off the cross to make everything all right again and possibly driving Hillary out of the Garden of Eden (whoops – wrong Testament).

Much the same goes on for the Republicans with McCain picked by the press to get the nomination because Giuliani is too liberal, Romney is a Mormon, Brownback is too conservative, etc.

The press is likely to treat this horserace the way it treats them all: as exercises in tactics in which the main substance turns out to be the way the press itself presents the candidates and their campaigns and who has the most effective campaign ads, in which lies and money are the main ingredients for success.  The beat reporters will suck up their candidates to get “access” and puff will reign

The 2000 and 2004 campaigns were examples of a press largely doing everything possible to avoid serious discussion of serious issues, focusing instead on describing the candidates’ eating habits, travel travails, wardrobe, cash flow and campaign ads.  We have serious long-term issues facing the country and the day-to-day coverage of the race is not starting out well with its emphasis on whether the candidates can successfully avoid taking tough stands on issues and therefore avoid offending major blocs of voters.

Thomas In Wonderland

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My local rag runs a syndicated weekly column by Thomas Sowell and I always look forward to reading it for the insight it provides into the diehard neocon mind.  Today’s is a gem.

From its title – “As in Vietnam, the Media May Cost us Victory” – I knew where this was going and also knew that the fun would be in the trip, not the destination – which is somewhere south of the Cuckoo’s Nest. Here are some quotes:

“American troops scored a big victory on the battlefield in 1968 that was presented in the American media as a big defeat – and that began the political unraveling of that war….

Most of today’s media, led by The New York Times, have been even more blatantly one-sided in their reporting. Everyone I have heard from in person who has been in Iraq paints a far different picture from that of the gloom and doom of the media.,,,

The success or failure of the troop surge in Iraq may depend far more on whether those troops will again be hamstrung by politically restrictive rules of engagement than on how many troops there are.”

Sowell then proceeds to explain that not only are the media to blame for the mess in Iraq, BUT – the Iraqis must share that blame:

“Our choice may become whether we are prepared to sacrifice more American lives in order to prop up the al-Maliki government or whether we are prepared to sacrifice the al-Maliki government in order to restore law and order in Iraq.

That government is a product of our “nation-building” under the banner of a democracy for which Iraq may not have been ready.”

It is simply impossible to understand why any sane editor would run such utter nonsense.  I assume it is a cheap way to feed the animals

Brooks and Will Strikeout for Bush

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George Will and David Brooks are the establishment defenders of Bush’s Iraqi Follies but do so in a way to make Bush proud of them – dishonestly. Both are working to shift attention from the men (and women) who have scripted, directed and produced the Follies to the poor souls who will, in the end, have to pick up the pieces.

Their argument goes something like this: “President Bush has made some mistakes in managing the Iraq War but he has now produced a new strategy and critics have offered no alternative.” In a discussion with Mark Shields and Jim Lehrer last week, Brooks made that argument while Shields reminded him that Bush had developed no actually new strategy and that there were, after all, several alternatives out there any one of which would reduce the damage being done to the U.S.’s national interest by Bush’s failed policies in Iraq.

Alternatives include those developed by the Iraq Study Group, the concept of partition in Iraq, the concept of gradual U.S. withdrawal and redeployment outside of Iraq, the concept of simply beginning to leave and allowing the various players to sort it out. None of these approaches is perfect – indeed there is no perfect solution to the mess Bush has created. But at some point stopping the flow of American blood and money in a doomed-to-fail attempt to salvage Bush’s reputation will happen – the question now is when.

Brooks and Will both admit that there is little hope that Bush’s “new strategy” will work but, like Bush, are simply unwilling to consider the alternatives that they will not even admit exist.

Bush and Iran: Preparing us for the Worst, Part II

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Here is the second portion of the statement begun in the preceding posting:

 “…    Within the last two week, the CIA found the wherewithal to approve an
op-ed — published in the New York Times on December 8, 2006 — by Kenneth Pollack, another former CIA employee. This op-ed includes the statement
that “..Iran provided us with extensive assistance on intelligence,
logistics, diplomacy, and Afghan internal politics.”

     Similar statements by me have been deleted from my draft op-ed by the
Whit e House. But Kenneth Pollack is someone who presented unfounded
assessments of the Iraqi WMD threat — the same assessments expounded by
the Bush White House — to make a high-profile public case for going to
war in Iraq.

     Mr. Pollack also supports the administration’s reluctance to engage
with Iran, in contrast to my consistent and sharp criticism of that
position. It would seem that, if one is expounding views congenial to the
White House, it does not intervene in prepublication censorship, but, if
one is a critic, White House officials will use fraudulent charges of
revealing classified information to keep critical views from being heard.

     My understanding is that the White House staffers who have injected
themselves into this process are working for Elliott Abrams and Megan
O’Sullivan, both politically appointed deputies to President Bush’s
National Security Adviser, Stephe n Hadley.

     Their conduct in this matter is despicable and un-American in the
profoundest sense of that term. I am also deeply disappointed that former
colleagues at the Central Intelligence Agency have proven so supine in the
face of tawdry political pressure. Intelligence officers are supposed to
act better than that.

Bush and Iran: Preparing Us for the Worst, Part I

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Below is Part I of a December 18 Statement by Flynt Leverett, former Bush White House official on Iran and Iraq. It repeats – in more detail – coments made by Mr. Everett in the Ny Times Op Ed pages last week. It is useful to remember the deception and lies used by Bush to gain support for his Iraq fiasco while reading this. Part two follows in the next posting to this blog.
Part I of the December 18 Statement by Flynt Leverett, former Bush White House official on Iran and Iraq:
     “Since leaving government service in 2003, I have been publicly
critical of the Bush administration’s mishandling of America’s Iran policy
— in two op-eds published in the New York Times, another published in the
Los Angeles Times, an article published earlier this year in The American
Prospect, and a monograph just published by The Century Foundation, as
well as in numerous public statements, television appearances, and press
interviews. 

     All of my publications on Iran — and, indeed, on any other policy
matter on which I have written since leaving government — were cleared
beforehand by the CIA’s Publication Review Board to confirm that I would
not be disclosing classified information.

     Until last week, the Publication Review Board had never sought to
remove or change a single word in any of my drafts, including in all of my
publications about the Bush administration’s handling of Iran policy.
However, last week, the White House inserted itself into the
prepublication review process for an op-ed on the administration’s
bungling of the Iran portfolio that I had prepared for the New York Times,
blocking publication of the piece on the grounds that it would reveal
classified information.

     This claim is false and, I have come to believe, fabricated by White
House officials to silence an established critic of the administration’s
foreign policy incompetence at a moment when the White House is working
hard to fend off political pressure to take a different approach to Iran
and the Middle East more generally.

     The op-ed is based on the longer paper I just published with The
Century Foundation — which was cleared by the CIA without modifying a
single word of the draft. Officials with the CIA’s Publication Review
Board have told me that, in their judgment, the draft op-ed does not
contain classified material, but that they must bow to the preferences of
the White House.

     The White House is demanding, before it will consider clearing the
op-ed for publication, that I excise entire paragraphs dealing with
matters that I have written about (and received clearance from the CIA to
do so) in several other pieces, that have been publicly acknowledged by
Secretary Rice, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, and former Deputy
Secretary of State Richard Armitage, and that have been extensively
covered in the media.

     These matters include Iran’s dialogue and cooperation with the United
States concerning Afghanistan in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and
Iran’s offer to negotiate a comprehensive “grand bargain” with the United
States in the spring of 2003.

     There is no basis for claiming that these issues are classified and
not already in the public domain.

     For the White House to make this claim, with regard to my op-ed and at
this particular moment, is nothing more than a crass effort to politicize
a prepublication review process — a process that is supposed to be about
the protection of classified information, and nothing else — to limit the
dissemination of views critical of administration policy.”

Iran Study Group and Iran in Wonderland

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This just in from our correspondent in New Zealand:
The NY Times’ last 2 graphs of its main ISG story on thursday are strangely disjointed as if the writer had omitted a connective graph between them.
From the Times: “Critics of the panel’s conclusion called the approach naïve. “The study group is threatening to weaken a weak government,” said Anthony H. Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, one of the groups that helped sponsor the study group, which was established by Congress. And, he added: “There is no ‘Plan B.’ The report does not address what happens if events spiral out of control.”
(missing paragraph)

The most controversial element of the diplomatic strategy is the panel’s case for engaging Iran, though Mr. Baker and Mr. Hamilton, the chairmen, acknowledged in an interview that they thought it unlikely the Iranians would cooperate. Mr. Baker insisted that even if that effort failed, “the world would see their rejectionist attitude.”

It is believed that the omitted middle graph would have read something like this:

“An un-named ISG advisor, who wanted anonymity in order to keep his balls and still be able to sleep at night, told this reporter that Plan B in fact consisted of “events spiraling out of control”. “Once we regionalize the political conflict and further weaken any Iraqi institution that might get in the way of total anarchy then the world will see that rejectionist Iran needs a spanking.” This source acknowledged that there was controversy among the ISG’s “old geezers” about how explicit to be with “this most controversial element. “