PMC Commentary

43 & Friends: A legacy of criminal pathology

The day after the president’s televised plea for national patience, the New York Times echoed what more than a few liberals, centrists and honest conservatives have advocated for some time: that Bush’s “critics … put aside, at least temporarily, their anger at the administration for its hubris, its terrible planning and its inept conduct of the war in return for a frank discussion of where to go from here.”

That’s a reasonable request with which even more liberals, centrists and honest conservatives would comply, I think, if only we had a reasonable administration. But there’s nothing reasonable about it or this entire mess. Instead, we have an immovable White House fighting an illogical war and huckstering tired and deceptive excuses to a disgusted public.

Not only are the administration and its powerful supporters still linking this war of choice to 9/11, they have clearly decided to redouble their efforts along those deceitful lines. Bush cited 9/11 no less than five times Tuesday night as the causal foundation for the Iraq invasion. And the next morning, as just one example, CNN treated us to a right-wing congressman swearing that sure there are links between 9/11 and Iraq -- many, many links that “we” are privy to -- though he failed to cite any. (I guess the many, many links are very, very privy.)

If the Big Lie stops working, the radical right’s reasoning goes, then don’t stop lying or even switch lies. Just pound harder than ever with the old one.

These are the people with whom war opponents are to have “a frank discussion”?

A key passage in Bush’s speech spotlighted the old lie’s new emphasis: “Many terrorists who kill innocent men, women and children on the streets of Baghdad are followers of the same murderous ideology that took the lives of our citizens in New York and Washington and Pennsylvania.”

There you go. The buffed-up, new-and-improved Old Big Lie version. The “murderous ideology” of Islamist extremism is the link between then and now, them and these guys.

So this war wasn’t about War Objective Take 1 -- WMD. It wasn’t about War Objective Take 2 -- humanitarianism. It wasn’t about War Objective Take 3 -- regime change. It wasn’t about War Objective Take 4 -- freeing an oppressed people. It wasn’t even about the latest advertised war objective, the selfless objective to end all war objectives, which would be War Objective Take 5 -- establishing Middle East democracy.

But, and you’ll just have to take their word for it, the war really, really is about extinguishing Islamist extremism -- War Objective Take 6.

If I may, perhaps the administration should have explained this more than a year ago. On the other hand, that would have presented an entirely new host of public relations problems, since achieving War Objective Take 6 requires the invasion of at least a dozen other nations embedded with those human links to 9/11: Islamist extremists.

And here, of course, is where War Objective Take 6 meets Impossible Dream No. 1. No number of troops for any number of years occupying any number of nations will eradicate Islamist extremism, any more than a Nation magazine subscription for Pat Robertson would cure Pat of his Christian extremism.

But the Bushies know that. They were only looking for a new twist on the Big Lie, and when this twist flops, as did Nos. 1-5, they’ll just twist again.

In short, good faith is to Bush Inc. what a fair plea bargain is to the Gambino family. So when the NYT suggests engaging the administration in a “frank discussion of where to go from here,” we -- liberals, centrists and honest conservatives -- are left only with this unilateral insistence on one direction:

Home.

Guess who’ll take the blame for Bush’s war

Resolved: Iraq is a mess.

If there’s anyone present who still believes there isn’t any comparison between this and Vietnam -- other than Michael “there isn’t any comparison between this and Vietnam” Deaver, the former Reagan aide -- let him speak now, or forever lose eligibility for the Blindest of the Blind Hall of Fame.

History isn’t just repeating itself. It’s mocking us. Every bloody day we hear this glib administration cite the rosy progress of a perpetually grim situation, with its generals in tow, nodding in self-denying but sycophantic agreement.

Meanwhile we’re back to counterinsurgency improvisations, frontless battles, body counts, indigenous-personnel training, fuzzy justifications, budget-blasting, a seething public at home, world scorn, and just plain disgust with how we got there and why we can’t get out.

Resolved: Iraq is a mess and getting much messier.

The only comic relief is the vice president, what with his “last throes” silliness and all -- whom and which even the secretary of defense can’t flee fast enough.

Would Donald use those words? “I didn’t use them, and I might not use them,” he said last week with typical Rumsfeldian clarity. The dang thing could “go on for four, eight, 10, 12, 15 years, whatever…. We don’t know.” Odd. They used to.

Rumsfeld, of course, is a master of the diversionary downplay; the subtle insignificance; the casual “I’m not saying anything new here” tactic when dropping a political bombshell. An occupation of “12, 15 years, whatever” was not something even to be insinuated 18 months ago. Today he delivers the horrifying prospect with a yawn.

And now the revelation that he and his brassy sidekicks have been negotiating with Iraqi terrorists. When asked about reports that the U.S. military has twice met with mortar-toting, American-targeting Sunnis to cut a deal, Rumsfeld nonchalantly replied “there have probably been many more [meetings] than that.” In other words: “There’s no news -- yawn -- in this explosive revelation -- yawn -- that we’re now talking turkey -- yawn -- with the guys killing our soldiers. Gee, I’m surprised you’re even interested.”

Resolved: Iraq is a mess, getting messier, and about to implode.

Ultimately, others will take the fall for this failed war, one that from the get-go, as former national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski said, “has been conducted with tactical and strategic incompetence.”

The jig is up -- so the right needs a chump. And when the U.S. presence is finally forced out there, because no one supports it here, guess who will get the blame.

You got it. Liberals.

Never mind what every pollster and politician, left and right, knows today: “What’s interesting in this decline in support for the war is that it has sprung from the public itself,” said the Pew Research Center’s director. “It wasn’t led by politicians or by an antiwar movement.”

You won’t hear that from the right in the war’s aftermath. What you’ll hear is that the left and its elected hacks began weakening America’s resolve. We had it won, the right will say, until the embedded Liberal Elite once again badmouthed America and sweet-talked the masses astray. What you’ll hear is that things were going swimmingly. Sure we had a bump here and there, but no real setbacks. You’ll hear that all was according to plan -- precisely what the president absurdly claimed last night.

We would have had the Middle East under wraps today, the right’s fantasy will continue -- a veritable heap of desert-flowering democracy, if it just hadn’t been for those liberals undermining our determination, abetting our enemies, disdaining our military might and upending our righteous cause.

Given the right’s well-oiled attack machine and well-justified reliance on Americans’ notoriously short memory to boot, today’s reality will get buried by tomorrow’s carefully fashioned historical myth: “Liberals cost America the war.”

Just like Vietnam.

Care to bet?

Karl Rove: The man Democrats should learn to love

Democrats should stop taking Karl Rove so seriously.

Rove is like the obnoxious little brother who routinely teases his big sister only because her ensuing anger is so predictably rewarding. Democrats fall for it every time. Rove opens his immature mouth, spews forth some colossal fatuity, and then sets his stopwatch to see how long it takes Democrats to denounce him and his statement. It’s never long.

As the entire world knows -- principally because Democrats made such a fuss about it -- Rove’s latest quotable fatuity was that when “Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war,” those laughingstock “liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers.”

In addition, with over-the-top contempt for historical integrity Rove claimed that conservatives alone decided to “unleash the might and power” of the U.S. military against the Taliban, while liberals chose to advocate petition-filing. The lowest of tommyrot, of course, and as such, deserving of the highest disregard.

But liberals (whom I conflate with Democrats only for convenience) couldn’t resist dignifying the scurrilous guttersnipe by orchestrating an anti-scurrility, anti-guttersnipe campaign. If only they could be so organized during, oh, say, a political campaign. At any rate, out came predictable Democratic outrage. What could be more satisfying to an outrage-loving whore like Rove? I can’t imagine.

The Senate minority leader demanded that “Karl Rove should immediately and fully apologize for his remarks,” while his House counterpart chose to flaunt her metaphorical skills: Rove “has decided to move to center stage in the theater of the absurd.” Their party chairman denounced Rove for launching “cynical political attacks,” while the party’s 2008 frontrunner labeled his comments “appalling” and “saddening.”

Yep, all true. And all liberals got in return was, as the Washington Post put it, “the GOP spin machine churning in concert” -- reinforcing Rove’s message with that shrill harmony that put the GOP where it is today: on top.

How should Democrats have responded?

Rove is a fraud. He’s a reflection of the administration, not conservatism. Yet that simple fact continues to be overlooked whenever radicals like the deputy chief of staff presume to speak for conservatives. Conservatism isn’t something Rove preaches and it’s nothing like what his boss practices, yet traditional conservatives -- those folks still fastened to quaint ideas like balanced budgets and restrained government -- have for years been suckered by posturing radicals who stand for everything true conservatism does not.

So when Rove fantasizes about what conservatives believed then, after 9/11, and what they believe now, Democrats should only pause with amusement to note that Rove seems mighty confused. He neither represents or is sympathetic to conservatism, so why is he popping off about it? His main charge is to push profoundly radical policies of a profoundly anticonservative administration.

True conservatives, Democrats should note simply, should take offense at a radical soiling their ideology in name.

It is a sad but true reality that in this country there dwells a sizable bloc of casual voters who, if asked, would say, “Well, I guess I’m a Republican, since I consider myself conservative” -- without understanding that the Republican Party hasn’t been a conservative party for years. The GOP was hijacked long ago by big-spending saber rattlers who wouldn’t know true conservatism if it parachuted into the Office of Management and Budget.

It’s time someone gave these voters an education. Karl Rove is a marvelous object lesson, and Democrats should love him for it.

Winning at any cost

“Before we commit troops, there has to be a clear strategy.” Contrary to recent developments, U.S. military forces should never be sent on “vague, aimless and endless deployments.”

Those are not criticisms of the Iraq quagmire expressed by some wimpish, touchy-feely liberal, as Karl Rove has now characterized virtually all administration detractors. No, those words were issued by George W. Bush during the campaign of 2000.

One wonders at what point Mr. Bush decided that unclear, vague, aimless and endless deployments are actually good military policy. Perhaps they’re good when they seem -- “seem” being the operative word -- politically expedient. Or perhaps he still believes such deployments aren’t very smart, but hasn’t the foggiest notion of how to end one, stuck as he is in Tom Jefferson’s famous metaphor of the 1820 Missouri crisis: “We have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go.”

Or, perhaps Mr. Bush was simply willing to say anything to get elected, especially given his talent for focused-grouped soundbites, such as “The Clinton-Gore record cries out for a new sign on the Pentagon that says ‘Under New Management.’” And, more to the point, perhaps Bush never has possessed any real philosophy of geopolitics and related military matters. Perhaps, all along, his only philosophy has been one of envelope-pushing opportunism.

The earliest and most vivid evidence of this emerged in the same year he was running around the country inveighing against “endless deployments.” The following may seem a small piece of forgettable history, but looking back, it can also be seen as Bush’s leadership “philosophy” writ large.

In his acceptance speech at the 2000 Republican convention, Bush told the world that “If called on by the commander in chief today, two entire divisions of the Army would have to report -- ‘Not ready for duty, Sir.’” A rousing bit of oratory and a blistering indictment of Clinton-Gore mismanagement. One problem with his claim, however, was that it wasn’t true.

It is true, and by now well known, that Mr. Bush has a habit of making major speeches that are factually false. But a couple other items made his “not ready for duty” charge particularly shameful as well.

For starters, when the Pentagon objected, explaining that the readiness issue was only a minor and temporary redeployment matter blown far out of proportion -- even the Heritage Foundation confessed that Bush was “technically incorrect” -- candidate Bush, without even conceding the Pentagon’s correction, first (and almost unbelievably) blamed Clinton’s defense department for not letting him know. Later, he cynically implied that the Pentagon was playing pro-Gore politics.

Lawrence Korb, a former assistant secretary of defense in charge of military readiness under Ronald Reagan, attributed Bush’s comments to an amateur’s ignorance. Said Korb at the time, Bush’s remarks indicated that “he’s not conversant with these issues - not to know that those readiness reports are some of the most classified things.”

But was it amateurish ignorance -- or a deliberate falsehood unleashed in opposition to national security interests just to score political points? The question is a fair one, and one whose circumstances suggest their own answer.

Mr. Bush’s running mate, you’ll recall, was no amateur. He happened to be a vastly experienced politico and former U.S. secretary of defense who, well before the speech and with his eye on every campaign move, understood several fundamentals better than anybody: One, that the readiness report cited was being twisted for political reasons; two, that responsible presidential candidates don’t publicly discuss these reports; and three, that Bush would do precisely that at a televised event.

All of which demonstrated early on Bush & Co.’s cynical approach to politics, opportunistic disregard for the truth, and dangerous manipulation of national security issues.

The “not ready for duty” affair quickly evaporated in the media -- after all, we had Al Gore’s color choice of shirts to investigate -- though it was a remarkably transparent display of calculated recklessness.

In a whopper of psychological projection, Bush also said in 2000 that “[Gore’s] campaign attacks are designed to spread falsehood and cynicism. If you try to win at any cost, the price is high.” Most Americans now -- finally -- understand what Bush meant.

The Democratic politics of troop withdrawal

Congressional Democrats are finally assailing the Bush administration for the colossal mess it’s made of Iraq. Their criticism is long overdue.

Some proper shadow-governing has been demonstrated, for instance, by Dianne Feinstein. Bush “has got to give regular progress reports,” she said. “It has to be the president. It’s his war.” Or Ted Kennedy: “We have to look at holding the administration accountable for the current situation.” Just yesterday he aptly labeled the war a “consistently and grossly mismanaged … quagmire.” And Nancy Pelosi provided perhaps the most succinct depiction of the Iraq war: It was and is a “grotesque mistake.”

But in addition to criticizing, a few Democrats are making worrisome noises about wanting to help resolve what is a profoundly irresolvable problem. They should butt out and leave the management of Bush’s war where it belongs: in Bush’s lap.

For example Joe Biden warned Tuesday that an Iraqi implosion is “a real possibility.” True enough. But he added that the administration “should develop with Congress clear benchmarks and goals in key areas: security, governance and politics, reconstruction and burden-sharing.” Furthermore, Biden would “expect the administration to detail … what help [it needs] to in fact regain the initiative.”

Biden has some ideas along those lines. For instance other nations should “train Iraqi troops outside of Iraq” and we should “press our NATO allies to come up with a small force of some 3,000 to 5,000 to help guard Iraq’s borders.” That’s a nice thought, Senator, but other nations have stayed away from this mess because they knew better from the beginning. They still do.

Of course Sen. Biden knows better, too. He’s only being this hawkish -- as are other, yet-announced presidential candidates -- because he cares not to be vilified by professional right-wing vilifiers for being “soft” on national security. So we’ll give Joe a pass. We understand the cynical compromises necessary in a national campaign.

And then there was Barack Obama, who mused that “It is a challenge now to try to fix the mess that has been made by this administration.” Fix the mess? As in Democrats fixing the mess? As in fix what can’t be fixed, therefore go down in political flames with the criminals who lit the fire?

Because there is no fix, the truest course is to veer far away from the mechanics of Bush’s war. Just stand back and let the president and his party twist in the wind. Then again, Sen. Obama is likely eyeing a VP spot in 2008 -- so there’s another pass.

There are, however, maybe 50 congressional districts and a few senatorial swing states that might welcome, or at least be open to, some uncompromised honesty. In these locales the political task ahead could actually be straightforward.

On Hardball Wednesday night two retired generals and a colonel talked -- Chris Matthews was absent, so guests could talk -- about the grave situation on the ground in Iraq and how it could possibly be turned around. First, of course, more troops. Always, more troops. Good night, Iraq; Good morning, Vietnam. The much gloomier scenario went unaddressed: No amassing of foreign troops will ever resolve Iraq’s immense political, ethnic, tribal and sectarian divisions. Only years of Iraqi bloodshed, ultimate Iraqi exhaustion and perhaps even Iraq’s partition will do that. Sad, but all too true.

Which leaves many Democratic pols in the politically feasible position to advocate a U.S. pullout as America’s wisest choice. It certainly isn’t a good choice, but there are no good choices. Just as we did in Vietnam, sooner or later we’ll be forced to declare that nation’s inhabitants the new owners of a righteous land, pronounce them capable of defending themselves, and then wave goodbye as we head out for the airport (dodging bombs and bullets all the way). It might as well be sooner, not later. Either way we’ll create a nasty geopolitical vacuum and leave wounds behind that will take decades to mend.

But, as Democratic Rep. Michael Capuano said, “Mass civil war [in Iraq] today, or mass civil war a year from now. What's the difference? Five hundred kids.”

As voters become more familiar and less comfortable with this reality, the more disposed they’ll be to calls for withdrawal.

"H.J. Res. 10: A bill to divert attention from what clowns we are"

Republican members of the United States House of Representatives are in full-panic mode. Now that less than one in five Americans has confidence that Republican lawmakers are even a trifle interested in people’s everyday problems, the Republicans, rather than addressing these everyday problems, have reached into the old demagoguery grab bag to kick the numbers up a bit -- and fast.

One can easily imagine the strategy session … Let’s see. Hmmm. What shameless piece of political falderal haven’t we hauled out for a while. Death tax? No, too soon. Some poor white woman in a vegetative state? Has anyone checked the wires? Whoa. Strike that. That one backfired. Any House cafeteria munchies with Frenchie names we can scoff at? Hold it. That one backfired too. But wait. What’s … this …? Hellooo. Ah, a real chestnut -- the flag desecration amendment. Just what the doctor ordered. This should chew up hours of airtime and vats of print ink that otherwise would have gone to something important.

When asked why this joke of a perennial loser was brought up for debate now, especially since her fellow Republicans recently pledged to refocus on actual problems, Rep. Deborah Pryce showed some finesse at playing the political version of Kevin Bacon’s six-degrees-of-separation game: “You know, this is probably as relevant to people’s lives now as any other time because of what’s going on with Democrats putting everybody in the world before our soldiers and the American safety. They’re so worried about what’s going on at Guantanamo Bay. And the flag has a place in that debate.”

Personally, I think Debbie could have done better by associating the urgency of a flag amendment with assaults on the pledge of allegiance and school prayer -- she then could have worked God into the subject, scoring double-bonus points. But what do I know? One should leave demagoguery to the professionals, I suppose.

As it turns out, though, House Republicans may have more in mind with the reintroduced flag-desecration bill than just a respite from public scorn. They may also be trying to distract the press from devouring one of their own, Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham of California, the bill’s sponsor. Right now, Randy can use all the distractions he can get.

I don’t know if you’ve been following the fortuitous escapades of Rep. Cunningham or not, but if you haven’t, you’ll soon concede that this gentleman is in a bit of a sticky wicket.

To explain, Mr. Cunningham happens to be a member of the defense appropriations subcommittee. That’s important. Remember that. Well, back in 2003 he also happened to have a house for sale in Del Mar, a little hideaway he wanted $1.675 million for. It further happened that a luckless defense contractor who lived on the other side of the country happened to be hanging with Cunningham one day, the latter of whom said (and I’m not making this up), “I tried to sell my house,” whereupon the former of whom said, “Hey, I’ll buy it…. That’s a fair price and I’ll buy it” -- long after which Cunningham said, “Now other than that, I don’t know anything about it.”

It seems, however, $1.675 million wasn’t such a fair price after all, since the new owner tried selling the place “almost immediately for roughly the same price.” Go figure. Anyway, this new owner, the hitherto luckless defense contractor, wound up taking a $700,000 loss (or more to the point, Cunningham took a $700,000 gain). But don’t feel bad for him. The poor fellow -- the one “who had been suffering through a flat period in winning Pentagon contracts” -- also wound up “reeling in tens of millions of dollars in defense and intelligence-related contracts.”

Now if you’re as much of a fan of the understatement as I am, then you’ll love the reaction to this coincidental tale by Larry Noble, director of the Center for Responsive Politics: “This doesn’t look good at all.”

No, Mr. Noble, it doesn’t indeed. Someday Mr. Cunningham and his boss, Mr. DeLay, may even be roomies at our expense. But at least for now Cunningham is fighting the good fight, discouraging Democrats from “putting everybody in the world before our soldiers and the American safety.” That’s what’s really important. And if we had any respect for the flag, if we supported our troops, if we loved our mothers and baseball and God, we’d leave Mr. Cunningham and his new $2.55 million house alone.

“A healthier, happier” president

At first I thought it was a joke. We have in the White House a “healthier, happier and sharper chief executive,” read a line quoted in the Washington Post, because “once a day, he puts his desire for a workout ahead of the nation…. In pursuit of a workout, the president is willing to risk the disapproval of some who might question his priorities. But in a largely sedentary nation, the president stands apart for appreciating the value of a workout.”

The passage was reminiscent of those 1950s Boy Scout magazine pieces in which virtuous personal habits were lauded by such virtuous persons as J. Edgar Hoover. Thinking it was clever parody to be savored in full, I clicked on the story link. But there it was in all its legitimacy: a perfectly serious piece by one Kevin Helliker, a Wall Street Journal senior writer, praising the president for putting “his desire for a workout ahead of the nation.”

The cliché is “stark contrast.” I try to avoid clichés, but occasionally one is so overpoweringly apt its useful precision is irresistible. And “stark contrast” is precisely what describes Bush’s persona versus that of other war presidents.

The grueling workloads maintained, for instance, by Wilson and Roosevelt during the world wars either killed them in office or soon thereafter, and Lincoln before them didn’t need an assassin’s bullet to take his life; he was doing that himself. These great men did not enjoy destroying themselves with oppressive work and worry. Rather, they suffered these burdens as an inseparable part of their sworn duty and high office, especially since so many others were being asked to risk just as much. And if nothing else, merely as caring human beings -- as presidents who truly gave a damn about so much carnage taking place at their command -- they had no choice.

Bush, however, is unburdened by such prosaic emotions. He can just go for a bike ride or jump on a treadmill and forget the whole scene.

But this isn’t Bush’s only secret to lessening the load. He has another. It’s an elegantly simple management technique: lying. It’s been amazing, I’m sure George has found, the things a fellow can get away with and the burdens he can unload -- like justifying a blatantly illegal and idiotically counterproductive war -- if he just lies his publicly venerated butt off.

Most recent case in point: The WP piece mentioned above also quoted the president’s last radio address, a weekly ritual of propagandistic frivolity long deserving of extinction: “We went to war because we were attacked,” said Mr. Bush, “and we are at war today because there are still people out there who want to harm our country and hurt our citizens. Some may disagree with my decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power, but all of us can agree that the world’s terrorists have now made Iraq a central front in the war on terror.... Our troops are fighting these terrorists in Iraq so you will not have to face them here at home.”

The transparent lies in that hogwash are so widely known that few even bother refuting them anymore. I know I won’t. That’s how obvious, how almost laughable the official lies have become. Listening to Bush expound on our winning and righteous effort in Iraq is like ringing up Baghdad Bob for some historical analysis of Iraqi defenses.

The WP piece (by Dan Froomkin) from which I have shamelessly robbed so many great quotes actually had a different purpose than just providing me with material; it thematically centered on the press’ “consensus view” that “Bush is losing his touch.” I disagree -- rather, I agree that Bush is now losing, but he’s not “losing his touch.” He’s doing what he’s always done and is doing it every bit as well. He’s tethering lies to “disassemblings” and covering both with hefty layers of banny-rooster patriotism. The only difference is, the public -- and one must add, perhaps even the press -- is beginning to take notice.

It is indeed a pity that the president’s carefree style should cause thousands to suffer death, permanent disability or the loss of a loved one. But there’s one inestimable consolation. At least George W. Bush is finding the time to be a “healthier, happier” chief executive.

Neocon gameplaying

In his role as a monthly columnist for the Washington Post, neoconservative Robert Kagan has written a curious little piece. In its title he poses “Whether this war was worth it,” and he bookends that ponderable with, “the effort to change the direction of the region was surely worth paying some price.”

Now it is not curious that an organizing member of Bush’s neocon support group would arrive at that conclusion. After all, this was, and is, their ill-gotten war. Since things didn’t turn out as they repeatedly assured us, they now subject us to repeated assurances of what a worthy struggle it is. Midstream justification-jumping is a cinch for these perfect-ten, ideological gymnasts. It is, however, the method Kagan chooses to justify his conclusion that is curious. Or, put more bluntly, his method is a neon-flashing sign of downright desperation.

In the absence of any noticeable evidence that the Iraq war is indeed worth it, he opts for the popular parlor game of “What if?” history. A central player in this fanciful abstraction is the equally popular bugaboo of appeasement at Munich -- a bit of rhetorical artillery rolled out every time some armchair warrior wishes to cast extreme dubiousness as profundity.

“What if we had not gone to war in Europe in 1917, Korea in 1950, or even Vietnam in the 1960s? Would we have rued those decisions not to act as much as we now rue the decision not to drive Hitler out of the Rhineland in 1936?… We know what happened as a result of not going to war in 1936. We know, in particular, that British efforts to avoid war in 1936 and then in 1938 at Munich did not prevent war at all but only delayed it.”

One aside should be made first, one that Munich-bashers never acknowledge. It could be argued in this “what-if” fog of possibilities that not going to war earlier may have actually saved Britain; it was so unprepared for hostilities it very well could have gone down like Tyson against McBride. But of course that’s the overarching problem with all what-if history. Anything goes, since nothing can be proved or disproved -- making Munich’s relevance, especially to Iraq’s unique dynamics, pretty much irrelevant.

Yet it’s the quite specific way in which Mr. Kagan muddies the already murky waters of “what-if” theory that makes one retch. Consider these (deliberately?) disjointed lines: “We never know what [bad things] didn’t happen” as a result of controversial wars we did fight; and his later assertion that today’s antiwar advocates “have to address the question of what the alternative to war really would have meant.”

Follow that? Somewhere, somehow in all this what-if business, we shifted from the pesky unknowable to the comfort of certainty. Once a safe distance from the absolutely true proposition that we can “never know what [bad stuff] didn’t happen” because of wars fought, Kagan then proposes to tell us “what the alternative to war [in Iraq] really would have meant.” As it turns out, he can divine the unknowable after all.

Naturally, out came familiar campfire ghost stories -- principally, Spook Hussein doggedly held to WMD fetishes and was determined to haunt us forever. Kagan glosses over so much factual history, such as the massive goose eggs uncovered peaceably by U.N. weapons inspectors and Bush’s splenetic anxiety to end that approach, that his grasping is -- there’s just no better way to put it -- pathetic.

Nor is he bothered by the unAmericanism of unprovoked warfare, the international community’s condemnation of it, or the mounting evidence of how cynically and illegally trumped up the entire escapade was from the beginning. Oh well.

Furthermore, knowing you might not care to take his discredited neoconservative word for it, he chooses as supporting oracles a couple of Clinton administration officials, Madeleine Albright and Sandy Berger. Albright had once compared Saddam to Hitler and Berger once questioned whether the tyrant was containable. There -- that should do it for you. Never mind that neocons once insisted that the Albrights and Bergers of this world were irresponsible children who never, ever got anything right, while the Bushies were the adults who always knew better. Never mind, anyway, as long as there’s some subtle blame-laying to be done. Again, rather pathetic.

Overall, however, Kagan’s piece comes down to this, which is, really, what most neoconning comes down to: Trust us. Even though we guessed everything wrong, trust us. Even though we’ve proven ourselves the world’s bloodiest screw ups, trust us. Even though the evidence of our bamboozling and distorting and conspiring is crushing, trust us. And since we can’t offer one solid reason for you to trust us, we’ll spook you instead with tales from unverifiable “what-if” history -- and sell it as intellectualism.

Boo!

“Lessons from the battlefield”: A memorable memo

The latest polling data (New York Times/CBS News) on Americans’ opinion of Congress would seem to indicate that a wholesale House-cleaning is in store for 2006. The numbers are truly astounding and a reflection of how badly the Republicans have handled their stewardship. From kibitzing on deeply personal matters to rudely reinventing Senate tradition, these boys have set new lows in political degradation. In so doing, it seems they’ve reissued the Contract with America as a contract on themselves.

That, anyway, is what the numbers could indicate -- though “could” is the at-risk word. It’s true that only 33 percent of voters approve of the job Congress is doing. And it’s true that only a breathtakingly paltry 19 percent believe Congress shares their priorities. It’s also true -- and this number is even more breathtaking -- that only 40 percent of Republicans approve of their own Republican Congress.

All three collective attitudes are true, yet all three put together are probably not quite the man the fourth is, confidently -- if not somewhat smugly -- noted by the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee: “People are not enamored, maybe, of the institution of Congress, but they love their congressman.”

Oh, do they ever. Statistics back up Reynold’s statement -- here we’re looking at the House only -- and they’re as depressing as the others are breathtaking. During the entire second half of the 20th century, 93 percent of incumbents who sought reelection won reelection. That percentage hit 98 in 1986 and 1988, and again in 1998 and 2000. The incumbent-reelection rate in 2004? A whopping 99 percent: 401 incumbents ran, five were defeated.

Still, the memory of 1994 beckons. Against all odds and surpassing even the winners’ expectations, the minority party managed to pick up 54 House seats in that midterm election, making the minority the majority for the first time since 1954.

Is a repeat possible? I have no idea. No one does. It might be helpful, however, to look at what the Republicans’ top strategist, Frank Luntz, identified as key elements of the victory. On the morning after, the man who focused-grouped the Contract with America sat down and wrote out some thoughts to the newly elected House leadership on what just happened. He titled it “Lessons from the Battlefield.” I give you selected portions -- the first of which defied history and conventional theory then, and could again.

No incumbent is safe anymore…. Newly elected representatives had best keep an eye on the rear-view mirror. The winds of change will not die so quickly….

Being one of US is better than being one of THEM…. The Democrats became THEM, the symbol of what was wrong with Washington….

While Americans have clearly embraced conservative principles over their liberal alternatives, they hate labels or being labeled themselves. They want to pick from a buffet of options and solutions that respond to changing priorities rather than from a pre-set ideological menu….

Anger has replaced fear as the premier political emotion. Over the past 10 years, politicians were most successful when they relied on fear to motivate voters. From Social Security (a Democratic scare tactic) to Willie Horton (a Republican ploy), these scare tactics worked. But the politicians have cried “wolf” too often….

Ideas moved the Republicans from minority to majority status, but it could not have happened without the angry public mood. The public is demanding a bold, forward-looking agenda, and they expect it to come from the Republicans in Congress rather than the president….

The Republican Contract with America is the most significant story of 1994. The contract was not some campaign gimmick. With its non-partisan tone and issue specificity, the contract has redefined the way national campaigns are run, and it will soon redefine the way Congress itself runs.

Notwithstanding that the Contract was indeed a gimmick, the memo’s last lines encapsulated the Republicans’ 1994 strategy. Using populist themes, they “nationalized” the midterm election by riding the undercurrent of nationwide anger with a focused and disciplined message. As the Cleveland Plain Dealer editorialized just days after the election, “Luntz’s secret boil[ed] down to the old political advice that if you want to lead, find out which way the people are going, get out front and shout, ‘Follow me.’”

We know from polling data where the people are going. What we don’t know is if the Democrats will get out front and shout -- with one voice.

A (dark) comedy of terrors

The BBC asked Donald Rumsfeld this week “whether the security situation in Iraq had improved.” Our American wordsmith and master logician answered: “Statistically, no.”

Statistically. I like that. What rosy spin.

And we can put it to good use in improving the quality of our own lives, at least superficially, theoretically, euphemistically, hypothetically and ambiguously, which are Rumsfeldian sub-spins filed under “See statistically.” For instance I asked myself last night whether my financial situation has improved. Statistically, no, I was sad to answer; but the qualification must mean it has improved in some way. I haven’t the foggiest what it is, but it’s nice to think it’s on the upswing.

Which is precisely the kind of ethereal nonsense that Rumsfeld wants you to think when he proffers inanities like, “Statistically, no,” security hasn’t improved in Iraq. He might as well have said, “Statistically, your odds of getting your head blown off are just as good today as yesterday. But other than that inconvenience, the security situation is thumbs up. It’s a big-picture thing.”

Right after reading the Rumsfeld piece I read a NYT story about the troubles taking place in one of Donald’s real showcases, a medium-sized town located in northwestern Iraq by the name of Tal Afar. Statistically speaking, and in every other nasty adverbial way, it’s a basket case, just as Rumsfeld intentionally unintended not to non-indicate.

The journalist on the scene described Tal Afar as “a ghost town of terrorized residents afraid to open their stores, walk the streets or send their children to school.” Luckily for the defense secretary, it’s impossible to calculate the “metrics” -- a favored buzzword of military brass and comfortable, secure bureaucrats like Rumsfeld -- of the terror experienced by an entire town.

It’s difficult for an outsider to comprehend just how paralyzed the town’s residents must feel. An estimated 500 insurgents roam Tal Afar, doing so with free rein since the town’s police force withered some time ago to nearly nothing. The remaining cops spend most of their time hiding. Consequently “thoroughfares lined with stores have been deserted, the storefronts covered with blue metal roll-down gates.”

It’s also difficult to understand how these gated stores manage to stay open for business at all, since, as one of Tal Afar’s 82 tribal leaders said, “Anyone not helping the terrorists can’t leave their homes because they will be kidnapped and the terrorists will demand money or weapons or make them join them to kill people. If they refuse they will chop their heads off.”

Commerce may be dead, but home schooling is on the rise, principally because of some rather keen motivational skills possessed by insurgents. One mother of six told the Times she now educates her children herself because of a warning sign posted at the local school: “If you love your children, you won’t send them to school here because we will kill them.”

More than one local sheik supports a Falluja-style assault on the insurgents, but American forces are saying no dice. “The bloodshed, destruction of property and alienation of the Iraqi public is too high a price to pay, they say.” Besides, after building up their assault forces, U.S. commanders would then be forced to cover other hotspots after “winning” in Tal Afar -- only to have the insurgents flood right back in.

In the BBC interview Rumsfeld added, in his own inimitable way, that Syria is being uncooperative “with respect to the insurgency,” but “with respect to an effort to try to influence what’s taking place, Iran is doing that.” Well, Mr. Secretary, with respect to those astute observations, didn’t millions predict precisely that?

Statistically, yes.

Does “weird” even get close?

Is politics in this country getting exponentially weirder, or is it just me? I ask because I’m now seeing little difference between a top-level diplomatic nominee and a madcap talk-radio comedian. But maybe there really isn’t any difference, and politics has indeed become very, very weird.

In reference to the above -- quick, what controversial personality in the news leaps to mind when reading this New York Times item? “His delivery manages to be caustic and laconic, an unhurried savaging of all that is [disagreeable to him], all wrapped up to a trumpeted call to arms.” An admirer, however, said in defense of his abrasive style: “He has a sincerity and commitment that I think people will respond to.”

Those lines describe John Bolton to a tee, but they refer to Al Franken, who himself is thinking about cracking some institutional rigidity by taking his caustic, laconic, sincere, committed, Boltonite savagery to the U.S. Senate in 2008. Both these guys are political Vikings who want to pillage and burn from within. “He is considering becoming part of what he so frequently assails,” the Frankenstory continued.

Excepting that Bolton is funnier, he and Franken and their circumstances are virtually interchangeable -- and things are getting pretty weird when there’s not a spit’s worth of difference between a United States ambassador and a stand-up comic.

Naturally the White House has added to the silliness. As you know, Bolton’s nomination has been stalled by Senate Democrats because they’re trying, through requested documents, to determine just how crazy the man really is before confirming him. A reasonable pause, it would seem. But the White House won’t permit mere United States senators to look at its doublesupersecret stuff, saying that for Democrats, “this is about partisan politics, not about documents. They have the information they need.” If only the founding fathers had thought to stick the word “informed” somewhere in the constitutional phrase, “advice and consent.” But then again, the founding fathers never imagined this country would one day be run by such anal, autocratic nincompoops.

It is about partisan politics, though. The White House simply got its partisans mixed up. Bill Frist has scheduled another vote on Bolton’s nomination, saying “The only way we're going to get there is have another cloture vote to demonstrate that the other side is unreasonably and irresponsibly filibustering this nominee.” Frist is hoping, pleading, and praying to the gods of personal ambition that it comes to that. At this point an undetonated nomination is a waste of a good political landmine.

Meanwhile the Republican National Committee has chosen to side with French-loving internationalist types who like it when we curtsy to foreign opinion. This is odd indeed, since conservatives got quite exercised when, for instance, the Supremes handed down the decision that juvenile executions are out of step with world opinion. They were livid that any solid American would give a rodent’s butt what some foreigner thought. Well, you can strike that when the foreigner happens to be Maggie Thatcher, who happens to be endorsing Bolton, whose “capacity,” she said, “for straight talking rather than peddling half-truths is a strength and not a disadvantage.” The RNC promptly praised Maggie for her foreign opinion.

At any rate the RNC thought to balance this normally vile foreignism, as well it should have, by also noting endorsements of Bolton by 13 wholesome American diplomats, each of whom has signed a nice letter to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Each likes John a lot.

But I wanted to provide the RNC with a list of some other diplomats who’ve written a letter, this one not so nice and strongly advising against the nomination. Why? Because, in their words, “Bolton cannot be an effective promoter of the U.S. national interest.” I admit I find this a thoroughly puzzling objection, since the White House itself is a lousy promoter of the U.S. national interest. Nevertheless, even though I too like John a lot, here’s the list of those other diplomats -- a trifle more than 13 -- who think he stinks.

The Hon. Terrell E. Arnold
Former Deputy Director, Office of Counterterrorism, U.S. Department of State (Reagan)
Former U.S. Consul General, Sao Paulo, Brazil (Carter)

Ambassador (ret.) Harry G. Barnes, Jr.
Former U.S. ambassador to Romania, Chile, and India (Nixon, Ford, Reagan)

Ambassador (ret.) Robert L. Barry
Former U.S. ambassador to Bulgaria and Indonesia (Reagan, Clinton)
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs (Carter)
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs (Carter)

Ambassador Josiah H. Beeman
Former U.S. ambassador to New Zealand and Western Samoa (Clinton)

Ambassador (ret.) Maurice M. Bernbaum
Former U.S. ambassador to Ecuador and Venezuela (Eisenhower, Johnson)

Ambassador (ret.) Jack R. Binns
Former U.S. ambassador to Honduras (Carter, Reagan)

Ambassador (ret.) Richard J. Bloomfield
Former U.S. ambassador to Ecuador and Portugal (Ford, Carter, Reagan)

Ambassador (ret.) Peter Bridges
Former U.S. ambassador to Somalia (Reagan)

Ambassador George Bruno
Former U.S. ambassador to Belize (Clinton)

Ambassador (ret.) Edward Brynn
Former U.S. ambassador to Burkina Faso and Ghana (G.H.W. Bush, Clinton)
Former Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of African Affairs (Clinton)

Ambassador George Bunn
Former member of U.S. delegation to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) negotiations (Johnson)
Former U.S. ambassador to the Geneva Disarmament Conference (UN) (Johnson)

keep going…

Ambassador (ret.) A. Peter Burleigh
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Near East and South Asia (Reagan)
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research (G.H.W. Bush)
Former Ambassador and Coordinator for Counter-Terrorism, Department of State (G.H.W. Bush)
Former Ambassador to Sri Lanka and the Maldives (Clinton)
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Personnel (Clinton)
Former U.S. Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN and Acting Permanent Representative to the UN (Clinton)

Ambassador (ret.) Patricia M. Byrne
Former Deputy U.S. Permanent Representative to the UN Security Council (Reagan)
Former U.S. ambassador to Mali and Burma (Carter, Reagan)

Ambassador (ret.) James Cheek
Former U.S. ambassador to Sudan and Argentina (G.H.W. Bush, Clinton)

Ambassador (ret.) Paul M. Cleveland
Former U.S. ambassador to New Zealand and Western Samoa and Malaysia (Reagan, G.H.W. Bush)
Former U.S. representative to the Korean Energy Development Organization (Clinton)

Ambassador (ret.) Carleton S. Coon
Former U.S. ambassador to Nepal (Reagan)

Ambassador (ret.) Jane Coon
Former U.S. ambassador to Bangladesh (Reagan)

Ambassador (ret.) James F. Creagan
Former U.S. ambassador to Honduras (Clinton)
Former U.S. Consul General, Sao Paulo, Brazil (G.H.W. Bush)

Ambassador (ret.) T. Frank Crigler
Former U.S. ambassador to Rwanda and Somalia (Ford, Reagan)

Ambassador (ret.) John H. Crimmins
Former U.S. ambassador to the Dominican Republic and Brazil (Johnson, Nixon, Ford)

Ambassador (ret.) Richard T. Davies (d. March 30, 2005)
Former U.S. ambassador to Poland (Nixon, Ford, Carter)

Ambassador (ret.) John Gunther Dean
Former Deputy for CORDS, Military Region 1, Vietnam (Nixon)
Former U.S. ambassador to Cambodia, Denmark, Lebanon, Thailand, India (Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan)

Ambassador (ret.) Jonathan Dean
Former U.S. representative to the Mutual and Balanced Force Reduction Talks, Vienna (Carter)

Ambassador (ret.) Willard A. DePree
Former U.S. ambassador to Mozambique and Bangladesh (Ford, Reagan, G.H.W. Bush)

Ambassador (ret.) Robert S. Dillon
Former U.S. ambassador to Lebanon (Reagan)
Former Deputy Commissioner General of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) (Reagan)

Ambassador (ret.) Donald B. Easum
Former U.S. ambassador to Nigeria and Upper Volta (Burkina Faso) (Nixon, Ford, Carter)
Former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs (Nixon, Ford)

Ambassador (ret.) William B. Edmondson
Former U.S. ambassador to South Africa (Carter)

Ambassador (ret.) Nancy H. Ely-Raphel
Former U.S. ambassador to Slovenia (Clinton)

Ambassador (ret.) James Bruce Engle
Former U.S. ambassador to Dahomey (Nixon, Ford)

Ambassador (ret.) Richard K. Fox
Former U.S. ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago (Carter)

Ambassador (ret.) Lincoln Gordon
Former U.S. ambassador to Brazil (Kennedy, Johnson)
Former Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs (Johnson)

Ambassador (ret.) Robert Grey, Jr.
Former U.S. representative to the Conference on Disarmament, Geneva (Clinton)

Ambassador (ret.) Holsey Gates Handyside
Former U.S. ambassador to Mauritania (Ford, Carter)

Ambassador (ret.) William C. Harrop
Former ambassador to Israel, Kenya, and Zaire (Reagan, G.H.W. Bush, Clinton)
Former Inspector General, U.S. Department of State (Nixon)

Ambassador (ret.) Samuel F. Hart
Former U.S. ambassador to Ecuador (Reagan)

Ambassador (ret.) Arthur A. Hartman
Former U.S. ambassador to France and the Soviet Union (Carter, Reagan)
Former Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs (Nixon)

Ambassador Ulric Haynes, Jr.
Former U.S. ambassador to Algeria (Carter)

Ambassador Gerald B. Helman
Former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Geneva (Carter)

Ambassador (ret.) Robert T. Hennemeyer
Former U.S. ambassador to Gambia (Reagan)

Ambassador (ret.) H. Kenneth Hill
Former U.S. ambassador to Bulgaria (G.H.W. Bush)

Ambassador (ret.) John L. Hirsch
Former U.S. ambassador to Sierra Leone (Clinton)

Ambassador (ret.) Lewis Hoffacker
Former U.S. ambassador to Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea (Nixon)

Ambassador (ret.) H. Allen Holmes
Former U.S. ambassador to Portugal (Reagan)
Former Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs (Reagan)
Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict (Clinton)

The Hon. Thomas L. Hughes
Former Director, Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), Department of State (Kennedy, Johnson)

we’re getting there…

Ambassador (ret.) Dennis Jett
Former U.S. ambassador to Mozambique and Peru (Clinton)

Ambassador James A. Joseph
Former U.S. ambassador to South Africa (Clinton)

Ambassador (ret.) Philip M. Kaiser
Former U.S. ambassador to Senegal, Mauritania, Hungary, Austria (Kennedy, Carter)

Ambassador (ret.) Robert V. Keeley
Former U.S. Ambassador to Mauritius, Zimbabwe, and Greece (Ford, Carter, Reagan)
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs (Carter)

Spurgeon M. Keeny, Jr.
Former Deputy Director, U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) (Carter)

Ambassador (ret.) Andrew I. Killgore
Former U.S. ambassador to Qatar (Carter)

Ambassador Henry L. Kimelman
Former U.S. ambassador to Haiti (Carter)

Ambassador (ret.) Roger Kirk
Former U.S. ambassador to Somalia and Romania (Nixon, Ford, Reagan)

Ambassador (ret.) Dennis H. Kux
Former U.S. ambassador to Ivory Coast (Reagan)

Ambassador (ret.) James F. Leonard
Former Deputy U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations (Ford, Carter)

Ambassador (ret.) Samuel W. Lewis
Former Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs (Ford)
Former Director of Policy Planning, State Department (Clinton)
Former ambassador to Israel (Carter, Reagan)

Ambassador (ret.) Princeton N. Lyman
Former Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs (Clinton)
Director, Bureau of Refugee Programs, U.S. Department of State (G.H.W. Bush)
Former U.S. ambassador to South Africa and Nigeria (Reagan, G.H.W. Bush, Clinton)

Ambassador (ret.) David L. Mack
Former U.S. ambassador to the United Arab Emirates (Reagan, G.H.W. Bush)

Ambassador (ret.) Richard Cavins Matheron
Former U.S. ambassador to Swaziland (Carter, Reagan)

Ambassador (ret.) Charles E. Marthinsen
Former U.S. ambassador to Qatar (Carter, Reagan)

Jack Mendelsohn
Deputy Assistant Director of the Strategic Programs Bureau, Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) (Reagan)
Senior ACDA representative on U.S. START delegation (Reagan)

Ambassador Carol Moseley-Braun
Former U.S. ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa (Clinton)

Ambassador (ret.) Ambler H. Moss Jr.
Former U.S. ambassador to Panama (Carter, Reagan)
Former Member, U.S.-Panama Consultative Committee (Carter, Reagan, Clinton)

Ambassador (ret.) Leonardo Neher
Former U.S. ambassador to Burkina Faso (Reagan)

Ambassador (ret.) David D. Newsom
Former U.S. ambassador to Libya, Indonesia, the Philippines (Johnson, Nixon, Carter)
Former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs (Nixon)
Former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs (Carter)

Ambassador (ret.) Donald R. Norland
Former U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands, Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland, and Chad (Johnson, Ford, Carter)

Ambassador (ret.) David Passage
Former U.S. ambassador to Botswana (G.H.W. Bush)

Ambassador (ret.) Edward L. Peck
Former U.S. ambassador to Iraq and Mauritania (Carter, Reagan)

Ambassador (ret.) Jack R. Perry
Former U.S. ambassador to Bulgaria (Carter)

Ambassador (ret.) Christopher H. Phillips
Former Deputy U.S. Permanent Representative to the UN (Nixon)
Former U.S. ambassador to Brunei (G.H.W. Bush)

Ambassador (ret.) Sol Polansky
Former U.S. ambassador to Bulgaria (Reagan, G.H.W. Bush)

Ambassador Stanley R. Resor
Former Secretary of the Army (Johnson, Nixon)
Former U.S. representative to the Mutual and Balanced Force Reduction Talks, Vienna (Nixon, Ford, Carter)

Ambassador Nicholas A. Rey
Former U.S. ambassador to Poland (Clinton)

not much farther…

John B. Rhinelander
Deputy Legal Adviser, U.S. Department of State (Nixon)
Legal adviser to the U.S. Strategic Arms Limitation Delegation (SALT I) (Nixon)

Ambassador (ret.) Stuart W. Rockwell
Former U.S. ambassador to Morocco (Nixon)

Ambassador James R. Sasser
Former U.S. ambassador to the People’s Republic of China (Clinton)

Ambassador (ret.) Cynthia P. Schneider
Former U.S. ambassador to The Netherlands (Clinton)

Ambassador (ret.) Talcott W. Seelye
Former U.S. ambassador to Tunisia and Syria (Nixon, Ford, Carter)

The Hon. John Shattuck
Former Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (Clinton)
Former Chairman, Secretary of State’s Advisory Committee on Religious Freedom Abroad (Clinton)
Former U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic (Clinton)

Ambassador (ret.) Thomas W. Simons, Jr.
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs (Reagan)
Former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan and Poland (G.H.W. Bush, Clinton)

Ambassador Richard Sklar
Former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations for Management and Reform (Clinton)

Ambassador Robert Solwin Smith
Former U.S. ambassador to Ivory Coast (Nixon, Ford)
Former Deputy and Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Africa (Nixon)
Former Deputy Permanent Delegate to UNESCO (Truman, Eisenhower)

Ambassador (ret.) Carl Spielvogel
Former U.S. ambassador to the Slovak Republic (Clinton)

Ambassador (ret.) Monteagle Stearns
Former U.S. ambassador to Greece and Ivory Coast (Ford, Carter, Reagan)
Former Vice President, National Defense University (Carter)

Ambassador (ret.) Andrew L. Steigman
Former Ambassador to Gabon, Sao Tome and Principe (Ford)

Ambassador (ret.) Michael Sterner
Former U.S. ambassador to the United Arab Emirates (Nixon, Ford)
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs (Carter)

Ambassador (ret.) John Todd Stewart
Former U.S. ambassador to Moldova (Clinton)

Ambassador (ret.) Richard W. Teare
Former U.S. ambassador to Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu (Clinton)

Ambassador (ret.) Harry E.T. Thayer
Former U.S. ambassador to Singapore (Carter, Reagan)

The Hon. Hans N. Tuch
Career Minister, U.S. Foreign Service, USIA

Ambassador (ret.) Theresa A. Tull
Former U.S. ambassador to Guyana and Brunei (Reagan, G.H.W. Bush, Clinton)

Ambassador William J. vanden Heuvel
Former Deputy U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations (Carter)
Former U.S. representative to the United Nations, Geneva (Carter)

Ambassador (ret.) Christopher van Hollen
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs (Nixon)
Former U.S. ambassador to Sri Lanka (Nixon, Ford)

Ambassador (ret.) Richard N. Viets
Former U.S. ambassador to Tanzania and Jordan (Carter, Reagan)

Ambassador (ret.) Frederick Vreeland
Former U.S. ambassador to Morocco (G.H.W. Bush)
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Near East (G.H.W. Bush)

honest, we’re nearly there…

Ambassador (ret.) Lannon Walker
Former Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs (Carter, Reagan)
Former U.S. ambassador to Senegal, Nigeria, and Ivory Coast (Reagan, G.H.W Bush, Clinton)

Ambassador (ret.) Alexander F. Watson
Former U.S. ambassador to Peru (Reagan)
Former Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations (G.H.W. Bush)
Former Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs (Clinton)

Ambassador (ret.) Melissa F. Wells
Former U.S. ambassador to Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde, Mozambique, Zaire, Estonia (Ford, Reagan, Carter, Clinton)
Former U.S. representative to the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) (Carter)

Ambassador (ret.) Thomas G. Weston
Former Special Coordinator for Cyprus (Clinton, G.W. Bush)
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs (Clinton)

Ambassador (ret.) Robert E. White
Former U.S. ambassador to Paraguay and El Salvador (Carter)
Former Deputy U.S. Permanent Representative to the Organization of American States (Ford)

Ambassador (ret.) James M. Wilson, Jr.
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, East Asia and Pacific Affairs (Nixon)
Coordinator for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, Department of State (Ford)

Ambassador (ret.) W. Howard Wriggins
Former U.S. ambassador to Sri Lanka (Carter)

Ambassador (ret.) Kenneth S. Yalowitz
Former U.S. ambassador to Belarus and Georgia (Clinton)

OK, that’s it.

I wonder if they’d go for Al Franken?

Up the organization

Liberals often wonder how conservatives have managed to attract so many people with such an anti-people agenda. Virtually everything the modern right stands for is steadfastly opposed to the average American’s interests. Still, the movement thrives. How does it do it?

There are scads of contributing variables, of course -- some top-down, like demagoguery; some bottom-up, like popular ignorance -- and many a tome has been written on the subject. But you can boil much of it down to one key ingredient -- good organization.

This point was once again driven home by a lead article in Tuesday’s NYT entitled “Next Generation of Conservatives (By the Dormful).” The story detailed how “the capital’s premier conservative research group,” the Heritage Foundation, nurtures tomorrow’s ideological bomb throwers in a kind of homegrown madrassa. Each summer the foundation provides 64 interns a comfortable $2500 stipend and subsidized housing -- “complete with a fitness room” -- to study, ingest, and spread the roted word. As the Times noted, it’s an “example of the care the [conservative] movement takes to cultivate its young.”

In scope and financing there is no liberal equivalent of the Heritage Foundation’s operation, even though it was launched the same year as the foundation itself, 1973 -- a year of adolescence for the New Right, which has now lived on to maturity. That “new” conservative movement knew what it wanted and moved systematically to get it. It understood the power of organization. This was hardly a novel concept in politics; it’s just that the New Right applied the concept with a determination and professionalism that Democrats just can’t seem to muster.

Almost chilling now is to read some of the early New Right’s organizers quite openly announcing their vision, and to know from hindsight they’d succeed because of excellent organization and a feeble opposition. In 1981, for instance, the right’s direct-mail maven and strategic planner Richard Viguerie predicted that “the next few years will see a massive battle of conservatives and liberals to determine who governs the nation for the next three decades.” Then he dropped the bomb of justified self-satisfaction: “And we’ve got a head start of years on them.”

The habit of good organization began with the movement’s preschool training: the 1964 Goldwater campaign. Though Goldwater’s candidacy was one of politics’ greatest flops, for his diehard followers it was an educational incubator, an inspiration of what was possible. For example 44,000 individuals had given money to Nixon’s near win in 1960, yet by one estimate more than a million contributed to Goldwater’s sure loss. In addition to “cold-call” direct-mail appeals sent from brokered magazine and catalogue lists -- a truly innovative idea at the time -- Goldwater’s finance team, which later nestled into the New Right, tapped the Republican National Committee’s list of contributors who had given as little as ten dollars within the last three years. This expanded grassroots mining would provide the New Right a basis for its own individual-donor tracking for yet better organization-building and yet more cash.

The movement would need both if it was to expertly exploit America’s fears of so much change -- feminism, civil rights, gay rights, busing, no school prayer and legal abortion -- fears held chiefly by Christian evangelicals, hardcore Republicans and, among the best of opportunities, socially conservative Democrats. To reach these demographics the New Right employed, as mentioned, direct-mail innovators. It founded influential political action committees such as John Terry Dolan’s “Nickpack” and Paul Weyrich’s Survival of a Free Congress. It pulled in religious-right organizers such as the Moral Majority’s Jerry Falwell. It launched self-financed media. And naturally it benefited from outspoken and focused politicos of the Newt Gingrich ilk.

Of even larger significance, however, the New Right operated not as the instrument of any one person or select group, but as a single, synergistic, message-disciplined organization.

You’re probably thinking all this is elementary. And you’d be right. Everyone knows that a disciplined organization is a cornerstone of effective politics. But there’s been one fundamental difference between the left and right over the last 40 years: The right has stuck to the basics.

The left hasn’t, hence is still eating the right’s dust. “They invested in young people,” Ralph Neas of the People for the American Way said of the Heritage Foundation. “We’re trying to catch up.”

Any day now would be nice. And even better, the uncoordinated left could try doing it as one.

Too much substance for yesterday’s sloganeering

“People want us to fight, and we are here to fight,” Howard Dean told party leaders over the weekend. “We are not going to lie down in front of the Republican machine anymore.” Then he laid out the big strategic picture: “We have not spoken about moral values in this party for a long time. The truth is, we’re Democrats because of our moral values.”

Hallelujah. The opposition plans to oppose. That’s the upside. But then there’s the downside, which is twofold. First, it seems we’re doomed to suffer the overkilled “moral values” mantra from Democrats as well as Republicans -- and for at least three, agonizing years, since the scheme of liberalism-cum-moralism focuses on regaining the White House.

The second downside is also twofold and almost too obvious to point out. Dean rightly chooses not to “lie down” any longer, yet what he proposes as a substitute is merely a tortured form of me-tooism. I doubt many will see that as bold and innovative leadership on the big and pressing issues. Furthermore, Republicans learned the hard way that contentious “moral values” can be a double-edged shibboleth, so me-too-with-a-twist Democrats would seem an unwise, if not dangerous, duplication.

Nevertheless the greater and surest danger in charging ahead with a patent-labeled moral-values framework lies in its re-fighting the last election rather than looking forward, and rather than framing the party’s own agenda.

I give you, principally, Iraq. In this the Republicans were reckless and grossly incompetent, are still reckless and grossly incompetent, and since the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior, will surely continue being reckless and grossly incompetent. They managed bipartisan support for this developing tragedy only by lying their way into the debacle. Now that debacle has us so strapped militarily that should a genuine global crisis come along, we’re toast. That’s the much-vaunted “national security” party for you -- a message that should be pounded every day and twice on Sundays.

Which politically ties in nicely with the greatest looming issue possessing the greatest potential: the memo scandals. So many in the blogosphere have rightly noted the inattention given to these revelations by the mainstream media, yet here we have the Democratic Party reinforcing the inattention by favoring yesterday’s moral-values gig.

The latest British memo in a now-cascading ream of devastating memos notes that well before invasion the U.S. “was not preparing adequately for … a ‘protracted and costly’ postwar occupation” -- that military plans were anxiously being laid while the same planners were giving “little thought” to the war’s “aftermath and how to shape it.” More incompetence to the power of ten.

And I remind you of the president’s recently stated defense against the original Downing Street Memo. Bush said he had read only “characterizations of the memo” -- not the whole, what, three-page memo? -- and snidely noted its public timing was aimed at harming Blair’s reelection. He then, without denying the memo’s authenticity, portrayed its contents as irrelevant.

But here’s the politically damaging reality of the president’s defense, a reality so far left unbloodied by Democrats. One, Bush said he read “characterizations of the memo” to indicate dismissiveness. Two, he then unwittingly confessed to the memo’s truthful essence by pointing out the harmful intent of its release. And three, he then contradicted that contradiction by contradicting his very own ally’s first-hand understanding of U.S. policy. Ponder for a moment what a talented Republican comedy writer could do to a Democrat with material like that.

As a general rule in politics, and especially in the politics of Iraq, whatever Bush bungles reflects on his party. His bungling is their bungling. Yet the Dems give both a pass by not defining it as a team effort and then compound the negligence by trailing off onto questionable exit-polling data from a past election and changing electorate.

All of which brings us back to the original point. Why peer into the moral-values nebulae when so much hard reality is crashing down on us?

The power of cheesy

Last week the Washington Post’s Mark Leibovich wrote of a photo-op session staged by Howard Dean and Harry Reid, describing the event as a “spectacle” that “offered yet another distillation of why so many people believe that politicians and the media deserve each other.”

Since the journalist virtually led with that line I expected a tableau in which the attending pols and reporting gaggle made collective fools of themselves. But as I worked my way through the entire piece I discovered the “spectacle” came not from the hosts, but from their guests, who behaved like a bunch of college kids on goof juice.

Dean and Reid had wanted to address maybe an issue or two. No dice. These days what plagues the nation’s newshounds isn’t carnage in Iraq, or millions without health care, or pension-fund bankruptcies. Well, those may plague, but what really keeps the Washington press corps up at night -- drumroll -- is Howard Dean’s mouth, which, as everyone already knows, uses automatic and not manual drive. To which many say, who cares. At least he doesn’t filter every utterance through some focus-group banality machine.

But fun is fun, news is news, and national ills are boring, so Howard Dean’s mouth became the photo-op’s reportorial focus. They fired one question after another to Reid and Dean about the latter’s rhetorical promiscuity, to which the target of inquiry finally said, “You know, I think a lot of this is exactly what Republicans want, and that’s a diversion.” When the session ended Senator Richard Durbin added, “Please, for a minute, get to the substance. You guys should be ashamed of yourselves.”

Ashamed? Who knows. Thinking of job security? You bet. They’re just following orders -- cover the sizzle, cover the horse races, cover the hype (that they’ve hyped) -- which come from megamedia corporate executives shackled by the market forces of popular apathy that must be shaken and stirred if their news outlets are going to make a buck.

“The public often seems to see us as part of the entertainment circus that parts of the ‘media’ business have become and, therefore, not people to be taken seriously,” writes the Village Voice’s media columnist, Sydney Schanberg. But the often-unasked question is why the news media -- especially the electronic news media -- ever transmogrified into an entertainment circus to begin with.

Perhaps it goes unasked because the answer is so bloody obvious: The public demands a circus. It doesn’t pass the time reading Foreign Affairs or tuning in to C-SPAN. It wants People Magazine or an American Idol. And in its news and public affairs it demands a similar serving of entertainment, not substance.

So that’s what the corporate bosses give them -- must give them, actually, which makes the givers as enslaved by the entertainment circus as much as serious news consumers are sick of it.

Of course there’s a slavishness as well to conservative talking points by the Rupert Murdochs of the media world. No one disputes that vivid reality. But the greater news media just serve up whatever sells, what’s cheapest to produce, what offends the fewest, and therefore what satisfies the bottom-line shareholders. They simply sell what the market is buying. And the market buys schlock, glitz, and other irrelevancies.

If you don’t buy this money-over-ideology argument (or money as ideology), take Joe Scarborough’s MSNBC program as quintessential evidence. When his show debuted it was packed with politics -- the sort of slanted, right-wing politics you’d expect from the former impeachment-obsessed congressman, but at least it was politics.

Seen it lately? When Scarborough’s not covering Michael Jackson’s woes he’s off and running down runaway brides or missing women in Aruba. He’s been told his ratings hang on it. Push the right-wing line? Pshaw. Compared to human-interest hype, there’s no money in it. And if there’s no money, there soon will be no show. So it’s back to Aruba.

I wholeheartedly agree with thoughtful critics of the media scene, notably Bill Moyers, who denounce their profession’s abrogation of its public duty. But do the news media do this because they have an ideological agenda, or merely because it’s the ratings-boosting way to do it, the inoffensive way, and hence the profitable way?

In short, selling out -- just like the majority of politicos they cover. Perhaps that is what Mark Leibovich of the WP really had in mind -- not the photo-op “spectacle” -- when he wrote it’s no surprise “so many people believe that politicians and the media deserve each other.”

The Bush Chronicles revisited -- if you dare

I had forgotten about published conversations between presidential-candidate George W. Bush and his autobiographical ghostwriter, Mickey Herskowitz, until a reader reminded me via a reprinted article from October, 2004. Journalist Herskowitz had met with Bush numerous times in 1999 in preparation for a campaign-puff volume, and much of what he heard and later made public -- though not without genuine reservations -- made him realize that “Bush's true views … and basic essence had eluded the American people.”

Had they ever.

For instance here’s Bush explaining the relationship between domestic and foreign policy with a superficiality that stuns:

One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief. My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it. If I have a chance to invade, if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency.

In reading the above musings of candidate Bush I’m unsure which reaction a thoughtful reader experiences more -- disgust or sadness. Both are pronounced. The future president comes off as a cross between a cold-blooded opportunist willing to expend others’ lives in the pursuit of political goals and an insecure adolescent possessed of a precocious grandeur.

“If I have chance to invade” -- an astounding self-delusion about deploying toy soldiers, not human beings.

Herskowitz saw that Bush regarded human life as an expendable commodity not primarily in the defense of liberty, but in the goal of achieving ideological victory. Bush seemed unreflective on the righteousness of that victory -- just that winning was everything.

As told to Herskowitz, Bush and his advisors were quite impressed -- politically speaking, of course -- with the minor military victories of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (the Falklands War) and former presidents Ronald Reagan and dear old dad (the first Gulf War was a bad scene, as mentioned, but the Grenada and Panama “campaigns” were terrific political coups). Said Herskowitz of Bush & Co.’s view of Thatcher: "They were just absolutely blown away, just enthralled by the scenes of the troops coming back, of the boats, people throwing flowers at her and her getting these standing ovations in Parliament and making these magnificent speeches." Looking back further, they believed Jimmy Carter's political troubles emerged as the inherent result of a peaceful presidency.

So what a successful presidency came down to for Bush, according to Herskowitz, was this: “Start a small war. Pick a country where there is justification you can jump on, go ahead and invade.” Once accomplished the chief executive will have secured the support needed for ramming through his domestic agenda. Seen through this lens, then, 9/11 for George W. Bush wasn’t so much tragedy as opportunity. He had his “chance to invade.”

One might argue that pre-9/11 circumstances had discredited any inclination for war on Bush’s part. For instance right up until that tragic day he and his congressional friends were shoving through tax cuts at a feverish and wildly successful pace. The domestic policy assistance that a costly foreign war could provide was hardly necessary, let alone desirable.

Yet the Bush interviews reveal that the president was genuinely fixated on war as a policy staple -- it would secure what you might call a permanent revolution. Nothing was to be left to chance. Peace presented a constant political threat.

Now of course we have the Downing Street Memo as proof that we would have war -- justified or not, necessary or not. Thousands of lives for “political capital” -- Bush's “basic essence.”