PMC Commentary

For a snap insight into the Bush administration’s execution of compassionate conservatism, compare these lead paragraphs from two New York Times’ stories. The first excerpts are from this morning’s edition.

The Army has decided to reimburse a Halliburton subsidiary for nearly all of its disputed costs on a $2.41 billion no-bid contract to deliver fuel and repair oil equipment in Iraq, even though the Pentagon's own auditors had identified more than $250 million in charges as potentially excessive or unjustified.

The Army said in response to questions on Friday that questionable business practices by the subsidiary, Kellogg Brown & Root, had in some cases driven up the company's costs. But in the haste and peril of war, it had largely done as well as could be expected, the Army said, and aside from a few penalties, the government was compelled to reimburse the company for its costs.

Under the type of contract awarded to the company, "the contractor is not required to perform perfectly to be entitled to reimbursement," said … a spokeswoman for the southwestern division of the United States Army Corps of Engineers, based in Dallas, where the contract is administered.

Then recall, from a February 5 2003 NYT story, who the Bush administration does expect “to perform perfectly to be entitled to reimbursement”:

President Bush's budget proposes new eligibility requirements that would make it more difficult for low-income families to obtain a range of government benefits, from tax credits to school lunches.

Arguing that much of the federal money intended for poor people is diverted through error and fraud, the administration wants to require families to supply more proof of their income and living arrangements before they can qualify for aid.

That says it all, doesn’t it?

So often the reported news astounds more for what it only casually mentions on its way to piecing together the “big story.” This morning the New York Times served up a double whammy of this phenomenon in front-page stories on the two hottest topics, leaving this reader, only one among millions, I’m sure, far more nervously perplexed than informed.

First there was coverage of the port deal, about which a strikingly minor detail was enough to utterly distract from the story’s thrust:

“In an effort to calm Congress, the administration released a confidential letter sent on Jan. 6 in which [Dubai Ports World] committed itself to continuing its participation in a range of American-led initiatives to close gaping security holes in ports around the world. This included an agreement with the Department of Energy a year ago to use new equipment in Dubai's own seaports intended to sniff out radioactive shipments.

“Among the ports in the United States where the company hopes to take over terminals, only one, in Newark, is similarly equipped with nuclear detectors.”

Pardon me -- say what? Only one of the U.S. ports in question is “equipped with nuclear detectors” capable of “sniff[ing] out radioactive shipments”?

You know, I sure would have liked to have read a little more background on that little item, recalling, as we all do, the administration’s jive from years ago about the real and looming dangers of “mushroom clouds” emanating from America-hating terrorists with intolerable links to evil Arab states.

The danger was so real and so looming it warranted near-immediate invasions of two of those states. Now others, we are warned, are developing nuclear capabilities, yet five years later only one of the U.S. ports in question is “equipped with nuclear detectors” capable of “sniff[ing] out radioactive shipments”? Five years later?

Then there was this tidbit thrown into the story on Iraq’s disintegration:

“Mr. [Zalmay] Khalilzad,” the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, “said the American military had stepped up patrols overnight in several neighborhoods, and that the Iraqi government was considering putting in place several major policy changes in the aftermath of the violence, including banning Iraqis from carrying unauthorized weapons.”

Once again, pardon me? Say what? Average (and seething) Iraqis have been permitted to tote around “unauthorized weapons”? And it’s just now dawning on the American military and Iraqi government that perhaps it is not such a good idea to permit thousands of disgruntled, sectarian-hate-filled Iraqis to slap on some iron each morning on their way to idle unemployment?

Yes, a little more background on that little item would have been nice, too. Because millions of us are getting worried, really worried.

Could it really be that only now are “major policy changes” -- like disarming civil-war combatants and “sniffing out radioactive shipments” -- being instituted?

It’s either time to suspend my incredulity or just stop reading the news. My nerves can’t take this.

I was beginning to think that I’d never live to see the day that the Bush administration could be out-demagogued -- and on its own magic carpet of fighting terrorism, no less -- but it has happened, and it is glorious and sweet and overdue and, frankly, as funny as it is depressing.

By their inherently exploitable nature, issues subject to successful demagoguery are more vulnerable to passionate inanity than reasonable examination. The Dubai Ports World management deal is just such an issue, and if the White House were still hungry for power -- rather than sitting on pretty much all of it in Washington -- it’s precisely the kind of deal the Bushies would have demagogued to the death in their youth.

But the Bush White House is now the Old Guard -- fat, dumb and perfectly happy to sit on its power -- that tends not to recognize cheap opportunities as it once would have. Consequently it’s been blindsided by the outs, who curiously enough include the nominal but powerless ins, hungry and electorally threatened enough to capitalize on an opportunistic moment when they see one.

And what they -- the outs -- see at this moment is a classic shot at what the early 20th-century political theorist Vilfredo Pareto called “the circulation of elites”; in this case, the demagogic elites of “Foxes [the outs], who rule by cunning stealth and persuasion,” against the “Lions [the Bushies], who rule by force and coercion.”

What makes this all so fascinating, however, is that the outs include both the literal outs -- the Democrats -- and the nominal ins -- Congressional Republicans. So we have a House (and Senate) both divided against itself while united in demagogic zeal.

The question, then, comes down to a simple one: Who’s the better at demagoguing?

Right. That question answers itself, so I won’t get too anxious in anticipating any substantive circulation of elites.

Nevertheless it remains a delightful time, this in which we live, to read White House “strategic communications planner” Dan Bartlett forced to say things like “people are trying to drive wedges and make [U.S. port management] to be a political issue.”

The New York Times quotes “George Dalton, general counsel for Dubai Ports World, [as saying] the company was committed to maintaining or improving security operations at all of its terminals. The uproar over the deal, he said, is entirely political. ‘I think it borders on the absurd,’ he said.”

Of course it’s absurd, Mr. Dalton. That’s what makes it a key player in modern American politics.

Here’s a Washington Post item from May 27, 1995, that should be of profound interest to those also interested in keeping score on partisan hypocrisy. It appears that Democratic civil libertarians are civil libertarians no matter who occupies the White House, while Republican civil libertarians are, shall we say, “nuanced.”

HEADLINE: Senate Rejects Clinton Proposal To Allow Terrorist Case Wiretaps; Several Democrats Join Solid Republican Majority in 52-28 Vote

”The Senate yesterday rejected President Clinton's proposal to allow emergency wiretaps in terrorism cases as both houses began work on counter-terrorism legislation in response to the April 19 bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City.

”The wiretap proposal was rejected, 52 to 28, with several Democratic civil libertarians joining a unified Republican majority in rejecting the Clinton wiretap initiative.

”Noting the government already has emergency authority to wiretap without a court order in cases against organized crime, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) said that if the government ‘can mess up a Gambino family picnic,’ it should be allowed to eavesdrop on terrorists. ‘When was the last time the Mafia blew up a building?’ asked Biden, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

”But Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) said the proposal went too far and could be used to infringe on the civil liberties of domestic political groups and chill the right of legitimate dissent…

”The bills generally seek to give the government broad new authority to combat terrorism and punish terrorists, including tougher penalties, expanded criminal jurisdiction over terrorist activities, tagging of explosives to make them easier to track, establishment of new deportation proceedings and hiring of more law enforcement officials to fight terrorist violence….

”Senate Republicans are also balking at Clinton's proposal to expand use of the military in cases involving weapons of mass destruction, now limited only to cooperation when nuclear weapons are involved….

”Taking note of congressional leaders' earlier vows to have the legislation on his desk by Memorial Day, Clinton earlier this week criticized the slow pace of action….

”The wiretap proposal, introduced by Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), would have added ‘domestic or international terrorism’ to the limited circumstances under which top Justice Department officials can obtain a 48-hour wiretap. During that period, officials must obtain a court order and, if they fail, evidence obtained during the warrantless surveillance cannot be used in court.

”Conditions under which such emergency wiretaps now are allowed include immediate danger of death or serious injury, conspiracies threatening national security and ‘conspiratorial activities characteristic of organized crime.’

”It was not clear what ‘conspiratorial activities characteristic of domestic terrorism’ might mean, the Senate Republican Policy Committee said in a critique of the anticipated amendment earlier this week.

”Lieberman also plans to try to resurrect Clinton's proposal for ‘roving’ wiretaps, under which the government's authority would be expanded to listen in on any telephone used by a suspect. Senate Republicans did not include this proposal in their legislation.”

I was going to pontificate further on GOP hypocrisy, but it's just too easy, too obvious, and getting so, so old.

The right-wing attack machine was momentarily discombobulated over the unsettling Cheney Affair -- what with the VP acting with the arrogance and conscience of a Caligula and all -- but true to form, the machine got its disingenuous bearings soon enough and pieced together a whopper of talking points.

So far the points consist of two: Cheney’s gunning down the lawyer (Lord knows the victim’s profession was in the machine’s favor) was a private affair that is no one else’s business; and the media, typically, are simply targeting Cheney out of long-standing dislike.

The second talking point is easily tied to the first, in that the right-wing machine can claim with pride that this properly private affair would never have been a public issue had Cheney not been a conservative -- had he, that is, been a Democrat, a liberal or socialist, not one press corps member would have given a hoot.

In short, Cheney was singled out because of his politics.

Nice theory, nice rhetoric, and s.o.p. b.s.

When Bill Clinton deposited his manhood on a blue dress, while a woman happened to be in it, that soon-to-become forced historic moment was also a private affair -- about as private as things can get, wouldn’t you agree? Yet I’ve tried to recall one solitary member of the right-wing attack machine defending Democrat Clinton on those grounds. My memory banks fail me.

Or recall the liberal-socialist Ted Kennedy incident in 1969. Actually you don’t need to recall it, since the right has always been there to remind you. Here was a public official involved in a private accident, not reporting it for hours, and rumors of drinking swirled. While Kennedy has been fair game for 40 years, Cheney’s privacy, secretiveness and drinking habits are pronounced off limits.

Finally there’s the right’s professed indignation over the media’s mindless “feeding frenzy” on the Cheney Affair, as though the 24/7 coverage of, say, mindless Swift Boatisms -- to name just one political contradiction -- was merely a bit of pre-presidential teasing by the press corps, all in good fun, and all quite short lived.

How the right keeps so many contradictory balls in the air is beyond me.

Still, there’s an upside. In a curiously twisted, paradoxical way, the right-wing attack machine is the most effective anti-depressant on the market. Whenever you’re feeling low there’s always its hypocrisy, whose outlandishness is so outlandish it brightens one’s day and buoys one’s spirits.

Perhaps I give too much Machiavellian credit to this Nixonian White House, but it seems to me that the Bush administration has good reason to allow the Veep to drag out the non-story story of an accidental shooting, and I’m perplexed as to why the cable-network talking heads haven’t raised the very possible reason that it’s simply a magnificent distraction.

Here, from the Washington Post, is the conventional puzzlement:

Some current and former White House officials said Cheney's refusal to address the issue or accept any blame has the potential to become a political problem for Bush because it reinforces the image of a secretive and above-the-law White House.

Yet it’s already common knowledge that the Bush administration is secretive and regards itself as above the law. In fact, it prides itself on those qualities and, so far, they haven’t hurt politically. So what’s another demonstration?

What occurred just before Cheney’s incident, however, was much more problematic. From last Friday’s WP:

The former CIA official who coordinated U.S. intelligence on the Middle East until last year has accused the Bush administration of "cherry-picking" intelligence on Iraq to justify a decision it had already reached to go to war, and of ignoring warnings that the country could easily fall into violence and chaos after an invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

[Paul] Pillar wrote that the prewar intelligence asserted Hussein's "weapons capacities," but he said the "broad view" within the United States and overseas "was that Saddam was being kept 'in his box' " by U.N. sanctions, and that the best way to deal with him was through "an aggressive inspections program to supplement sanctions already in place."

Pillar has also written -- and was saying on talk shows before Cheney’s comedic “distraction” -- that his agency had not one whit of evidence of a Saddam-al Qaeda link, though the Bush administration peddled that theory as one based on reliable intelligence.

Now, ask yourself, if you were George or Karl, which story would you want dominating the news?

Still, the NYT carries word that the White House sees itself as a friend of truth and openness:

The tension between President Bush's staff and Mr. Cheney's has been palpable, with White House officials whispering to reporters about how they tried to handle the news of the shooting differently.

Well, isn’t that precious. If only open and honest George had some control over Dick. George, it is “whispered,” would have handled this differently, of course, but gosh darn, this matter has been out of his hands.

So the White House -- does it not? -- gets the best of both worlds by prolonging the affair, claiming superior values while burying the Pillar story.

I smell a Rovian moment.

Reuters reports on “two former aides to Saddam Hussein” who protest they are being forced to testify against the big guy in Iraqi court, but what the story mentions only parenthetically is of greater interest.

One of the former aides is Hassan al-Obeidi, Saddam’s former intelligence director, who “was involved in a last minute Iraqi bid to avert war, meeting in February 2003 with Imad al-Hage, a Lebanese-American working with the United States.

“Obeidi offered to allow U.S. agents to verify that there were no weapons of mass destruction in the country, to give oil concessions and later hold elections. The United States did not take up that offer and the war began the following month.”

As John Lennon sang … “Imagine.”

Here’s the kind of Joe Sixpack issue that Democrats could profitably exploit, if only they had the freewheeling, demagogic spirit of modern Republicanism. From USA Today:

Smoking in most indoor workplaces [in Washington, D.C.] will soon be illegal because of a vote by the District of Columbia City Council. But in a few ornate congressional alcoves, the term “smoke-filled room” will still apply….

Even if Congress approves the smoking ban, its members don't have to abide by it. Congress sets its own rules and is not bound by local ordinances.

And the smoking ban is one of those ordinances that our Republican Congress intends to ignore, setting itself apart from, and above, everyday folk.

It’s the ultimate in elitism -- they know what’s best for you, while exempting themselves from any personal inconveniences. Those, it seems, are something only the little people are born to suffer.

So much for “populist” conservatism.

That’s one tack the Dems could take -- exposing the phony image of Republican pols as proles. The other is to pull the libertarian rug out from under the opposition.

If Republicans, as the “owners” of Capitol Hill, can decide that smoking should be allowed in specified areas of their own turf, perhaps D.C. restaurant and bar owners should also be allowed to decide whether smoking areas are permitted, based, as well, on personal preferences or market forces or the flip of a coin, for all anyone cares.

Hey, Repubs -- it’s all about rugged individualism, remember? Let bar owners be bar owners, let bar patrons be bar patrons, and let the marketplace sort it all out at individual risk.

But no, you know those Republicans. They always insist on doing the do-gooder p.c. thing.

The Dems won’t exploit any of this, though. It’s too politically smart.

Is there any doubt in any objective person’s mind where the following expose would lead assuming every circumstance was the same, excepting that a “D” preceded George W. Bush’s name rather than an “R”?

“Official intelligence on Iraqi weapons programs was flawed, but even with its flaws, it was not what led to the war,” wrote [Paul R. Pillar, who was the national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia from 2000 to 2005] in the upcoming issue of the journal Foreign Affairs. Instead, he asserted, the administration “went to war without requesting -- and evidently without being influenced by -- any strategic-level intelligence assessments on any aspect of Iraq.”

“It has become clear that official intelligence was not relied on in making even the most significant national security decisions, that intelligence was misused publicly to justify decisions already made … and that the intelligence community’s own work was politicized,” Pillar wrote.

Given a “D,” not an “R,” we all know that a certain “I” word would be the business of the day in this Republican Congress.

But it gets better. Far better. Not content with merely turning a blind eye to impeachable, executive-branch machinations leading to an illegal war, Congressional Republicans have decided that the best defense is an over-the-top Orwellian offense:

Yesterday, the Senate Republican Policy Committee issued a statement to counter what it described as “the continuing Iraq pre-war intelligence myths,” including charges that Bush “ ‘misused’ intelligence to justify the war.” Writing that it was perfectly reasonable for the president to rely on the intelligence he was given, the paper concluded, “it is actually the critics who are misleading the American people.”

That Republicans have turned the art of doublespeak into a political science isn’t news, of course. They cast Nixon’s troubles as the unfortunate result of vicious, partisan enemies; the “loss” of Vietnam as the result of backstabbing, Democratic politicians; Clinton’s sexual peccadilloes-cum-impeachable offense as the result of their high-minded constitutionalism; runaway deficits as a result of 9/11 -- just to name a miserable few.

Now, it is the critics -- otherwise known as voices of mountainous facts -- who are misleading the American people.

For students of corrupt empires marked by official Orwellian fantasies, it just doesn’t get any better than this.

Here’s a New York Times’ headline for the Understatement-of-the-Year record books:

“Some Democrats Are Sensing Missed Opportunities: Heading into this year's elections, senior Democrats said that they sense they had failed to exploit Republican vulnerabilities.”

A bit into the story, the Times noted that “Democrats described a growing sense that they had failed to take full advantage of the troubles that have plagued Mr. Bush and his party since the middle of last year.

“While there is a surfeit of issues for Democrats to use against Republicans … party leaders are divided about what Democrats should be talking about….”

Permit me to make three suggestions:

1) universal health care
2) universal health care
3) universal health care

The health care issue consistently ranks among the top half-dozen of chief concern to American voters, and some form of national-universal-single-payer system now has the support of 60 percent of the electorate.

Support for universal care has also begun to cut across party and ideological lines -- which means the vast and critical center is ripe for the taking by the party sensible enough to capitalize on the growing agitation for guaranteed health care for all Americans.

Last, it is the right thing to do, which is an altogether too-rare opportunity for a political party.

The Dems can be out in front on this issue, setting the agenda and framing the debate. Their leadership on health care would also distract from their visibly puzzled, and boxed-in, stance -- if one can use that word -- on Iraq.

Universal health care is the party's ticket waiting to be punched. If it can't get its act together and speak with one voice on this -- the right and popular thing to do -- then rank-and-file Dems may as well start third-party shopping.

Scott McClellan said this morning that al Qaeda is a “very sophisticated enemy,” while implying that this very sophisticated enemy would have been unaware of government surveillance had it not been for the New York Times’ “unauthorized disclosure” of the surveillance program.

Later, at the Judiciary hearings, Attorney General Gonzales refused to concede to Senator Russ Feingold that previous questions about a “hypothetical situation” involving surveillance were anything but hypothetical. He repeated it several times, and with a straight face.

And while Gonzales was spinning wildly, a news item crawled along the bottom of the screen: “Defense Secretary Rumsfeld says U.S. considering military options against Iran” – followed by the news that “Britain will begin troop withdrawal from Iraq in May.”

So the old lies will soon be forgotten as the Bushies unilaterally distract from present abominations by launching new ones.

The Bush administration is on to something here that even George Orwell couldn’t imagine: No circumstances are so bleak that they can’t be improved by making them worse.

Merely Purport to Support Our Troops

The New York Times reports that …

The Pentagon is tripling its spending, to about $3.5 billion this year, on a newly expanded effort to combat the rising number of increasingly powerful and sophisticated homemade bombs that are the No. 1 killer of American troops in Iraq, military officials say.

The move is a tacit acknowledgment that despite years of rising death tolls from the devices, the response has not been sufficiently focused or coordinated at the highest levels. And it comes in addition to recent spending to get more and better armor for troops and their vehicles, spurred by concerns expressed by Congress and the American public.

Had members of Congress and the executive branch been subjected to a similar bodily threat, do you think it would have taken them nearly three years to get around to defending themselves in a serious, well-funded way?

And had the majority of Congress and the executive branch been populated by Democrats, do you think there’d be much of them left to defend, once Republican pols had finished publicly eviscerating them for being typically weak on national security, stingy with defense dollars and not supporting our troops?

Do you think, by now, the 2006 elections would be a contest of any suspense?

Yet where is the coordinated Democratic response to this alternate reality? Where are the Democratic press conferences with Patton-oversized flags as backdrops deploring the wanton negligence of Republican oversight? Where is the outpouring of Democratic letters to the editor expressing outrage? Where are all the carpet-chewing Democratic guests who should be booked on cable-network talk shows?

Even Republican incompetence can outdo the Dems politically, and that is the most staggering reality of all.