PMC Commentary

To the Joint Chiefs: Welcome to the club

There it was, in black and white: one lone sentence in the Washington Post's lead paragraph on the latest in Bushian strategery, symbolizing the span of six sorry-ass years of presidential chuckleheadedness on one side and an entire universe of informed, expert opinion on the other.

"The Bush administration is split over the idea of a surge in troops to Iraq, with White House officials aggressively promoting the concept over the unanimous disagreement of the Joint Chiefs of Staff."

Welcome to the club, Joint Chiefs.

I can't think of a solitary issue of national or world import -- be it fiscal policy, health care, global warming, preemptive war, torture ... all the well-known, usual suspects -- in which the vastest majorities of respective experts haven't wildly differed with Mr. Bush's ideological instincts in action, which invariably seem grounded in nothing more than arrested development.

Now it's your turn, Messrs. Joint Chiefs, to sit in frustrated anxiety and wonder how in hell a stubborn child ever gained final authority over you, your informed judgment, and your cumulative centuries of studied professionalism.

I've lost track of the number of times Master George has lied to us, but this -- the administration's internal tangle with the JCS -- is only the last in a long, long list.

How many times have we heard the administration indignantly assert that it listens to and follows the generals; that it is loathe to monkey with military strategy like some frothing, mustachioed dictator moving about toy soldiers and tanks on a map in contravention of adult, expert opinion.

No, no. That's the military chieftains' job, the public -- and the chieftains -- have been humored endlessly. They report, we decide.

But now, in true form, comes the altogether anticipated addendum: unless we don't like the report.

Also in true primate form comes again the administration's monkeying with language. It wants a "surge" of American troops in Iraq. That tactical concept was once, in the leaner, lesser days of Orwellian manipulation, called "escalation."

But that terminology gained a rather bad reputation, seeing how it translated in reality and more lengthily into "more and more needless American deaths in someone else's civil war."

Ewwww, bad call. Let's call this one a "surge," which, by the way, Webster's definition 4(b) calls a "jerk or strain" -- which is likely how the Pentagon views Mr. Bush these days, so perhaps the designation is apt after all.

And just why do the Joint Chiefs unanimously believe a "surge" is a less than sterling idea? Because they unanimously know that ...

"the White House, after a month of talks, still does not have a defined mission....

"[Bush] is latching on to the surge idea in part because of limited alternatives....

"a short-term mission could give an enormous edge to virtually all the armed factions in Iraq -- including al-Qaeda's foreign fighters, Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias -- without giving an enduring boost to the U.S military mission or to the Iraqi army....

"a modest surge could lead to more attacks by al-Qaeda, provide more targets for Sunni insurgents and fuel the jihadist appeal for more foreign fighters to flock to Iraq to attack U.S. troops....

"even the announcement of a time frame and mission -- such as for six months to try to secure volatile Baghdad -- could play to armed factions by allowing them to game out the new U.S. strategy."

You think, maybe, that's enough?

Pshaw.

But at least we've solved the riddle of the administration's curious delay in announcing a new policy.

Master George has known all along what he'll do. He also knew it would take time to bully and browbeat the men with battle-earned stars into submission.

If those men are honorable, they'll just say "No." They'll resign before signing off on more failure, more needless deaths.

The slipping grip of distractions

What has weighed on the minds of our soi-disant "family-values" politicians? What national ills kept them up at night? What evils lurked, capturing their valuable time and professional attention?

Was it that millions of American families live daily on the ruinous financial precipice of no health care coverage? Or that a swelling number of parents can't afford to college-educate their children, or even send them off every day to something other than a dilapidated public school?

Or, please tell us, that it's the decline of the middle class -- that great American midsection that once provided at least the means for health care, quality education and other essentials of a decent, productive life -- that keeps them up in search of solutions.

Well, no. In fact, what has occupied the time and attention of social conservatives' latest war chief -- Republican senator and presidential candidate Sam Brownback -- is the national scourge of neighborliness.

In 2002, you see, Michigan judge Janet Neff "attended a same-sex commitment ceremony for the daughter of her long-time neighbors," an egregious display of communitarian tolerance that caused Brownback to block her subsequent nomination to the federal bench. And until just recently, he'd been hanging on to his obstructionism as the sexiest cause celebre he could find to dangle before the adoring right of family-values notoriety.

Lord knows some threats to the family unit cannot be overlooked. Declining family wages can. Child ignorance can. And certainly the specter of family bankruptcy from a mere gallstone attack can. But a 61-year-old woman's attendance at a "same-sex commitment ceremony" -- a ceremony that had no legal effect, by the way -- cannot. It threatened the very societal foundation on which our world leadership has stood.

Brownback once said -- admitted? -- that "this is a big hot-button issue," meaning his only shot at the White House rested solely on the worst sort of mindless pandering to evangelical, Republican primary voters. He further explained that "Judge Neff had not made it clear that her presence at the ceremony did not mean she could not rule without bias in deciding cases involving same-sex unions," meaning he knew not if the judge would rule with his bias.

"I’d like to know more factually about what took place," he said of this grave and deteriorating matter of tolerating same-sex love and togetherness. After all, what's next? Unchecked world peace?

What's more, the family-values politician's cause has been a transparent electoral scam from the start. As long ago as "Oct. 12, Judge Neff answered a long list of written questions from Mr. Brownback. In her letter, she said she would decide any cases that came before her according to the law and the Constitution and would not be guided by her personal views. That is the same pledge that several conservative Republican judicial nominees made when asked whether their blunt personal statements opposing abortion rights ... would affect their performance on the bench."

In addition, even though Brownback has now unblocked the block, it was a Republican's continued obstructionism that kept alive the Republican derision that only the nasty Democrats were preventing critical judicial appointments. "Judge Neff’s nomination was included in a package of more than a dozen nominees whose confirmation had been agreed upon by both Democrats and Republicans. Mr. Brownback’s objections held up the whole roster of nominees."

Yet Brownback's release, his freeing of Judge Neff, may portend a more intelligent, more relevantly focused political environment. It may mean that even the hidebound Brownbacks of the silliness arena realize that times and the public's attention are changing.

His present dancing around this once sure-fire opportunism, his blocking and unblocking, his and other Republican presidential hopefuls' careful threading of the general election needle, which sustained a prodigious blunting last month, may indicate a conservative awareness that the electorate has had it with wedging non-issues of distraction.

It may mean that the silly era is over -- and that more than a few Republican pols have toasted their careers by huckstering social silliness and will be burned even more in 2008.

It may mean that we can finally get back to real values of importance to families in real hurt.

The Lords of FlattenedBush

Yesterday, roughly one kilometer from where Prime Minister Tony Blair delivered a spot of hip-hip hurray boosterism in Baghdad, "gunmen in police uniforms seized 25 employees of an Iraqi aid organization."

"Hazim Hamis stood in the winter cold in socks and sandals ..., shouting to anyone who would listen that his brother, a driver for the [aid agency], was among the captives. He had lost four relatives in a large bombing in a central square last week, and he demanded in a voice that verged on hysterical to know where his brother had been taken."

That brother, whom the gunmen later released after realizing his name was "not the name we were looking for," "told of hours in a blindfold and handcuffs, of kicks and punches, and of questions about his last name, his tribe, and his address...." Apparently his surname was not sufficiently Sunni.

"Abductees who are not released often end up dead, their bodies found in sewers and garbage dumps. Those bodies add to the daily death toll, which in Baghdad on Sunday was 32."

If you wonder who those hearty 27 percent of Americans who still "support our troops" as referees of this sectarian madness are, wonder no longer. Just tune in to AM talk radio. You'll find them in spades.

Blindness is their chief defense mechanism. They simply tune out the bad with a stiff upper lip, much as Mr. Blair did yesterday when he pronounced things in Basra to the south as going "quite well."

Yes, it is true that in Iraq, wherever buildings aren't being bombed, innocents aren't being blown to smithereens and mutilated bodies aren't being discovered daily, things are indeed going "quite well." It's a kind of relativity thing.

But for the talk radio crowd, to acknowledge the carnage in the quite unwell areas is to surrender one's Americanism to the Bush-bashing, freedom-hating, bad-news bears of the liberal media, who, I have learned from the 27 percent, love and admire Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

I'm still a bit fuzzy on why, exactly, the media -- and I, by extension -- love these tyrants and hate America, but every so often my intellectual masochism kicks in and I tune the AM dial to further my graduate education in robust blindness. I am never disappointed.

Best I can tell, theirs -- the 27 percent -- is a world of supreme simplicity and non sequiturs to the max. America:good, foes:bad, end of story, plug the curiosity. It therefore follows that if one questions the innate goodness of any American action, the questioner is innately bad.

Got it? It's really quite simple. And if you differ with the logical conclusion, or so I have learned further, then you're simply mired in the swampland of liberal overanalysis, which brings on discomfiting urges to question the inherent purity of one's own tribe. And that's bad.

How to rein in this victimization by liberal heresy? The answer to this urgency, I learned yesterday: Just turn off the bad news, which, I also learned, isn't really bad to begin with -- only a series of aberrations from goodness.

But here's the kicker. They don't mean you should turn off the bad news -- pardon me ... the aberrational goodness. No, you should be spared this burden. Instead, the media should voluntarily refrain from reporting it. In the absence of this good-natured volunteerism -- and I kid you not, this is what they were saying yesterday in Talk Radio Land -- our tribal leaders should unleash the joy of prior restraint (although that word coupling wasn't employed specifically).

Just block 'em, shut 'em down -- the whole stinking news system of infectious antiAmericanism be gone. It upsets us, and causes some good Americans to lose their way, to start hating George Bush, to start loving Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Next time you're feeling masochistic, join me in jumping on the phone and fraternizing in Mad-Hatter Land. I could use the company. Poke all the holes in the peculiar logic of the 27 percent that you want. But it won't shake them. Believe me, I've tried. For they're a hearty bunch -- good Americans all.

Are we really "out of Schlitz"?

Out, plumb used up, kaput and depleted like an empty beer keg. "We're out of Schlitz." That's how the Army summarized its user-friendly manpower assessment before a congressional commission yesterday.

Now that we've had the adults in charge for six years, don't you feel safer?

But rather than posing the question of how much more we should spend in pursuit of safety, the dire assessment, it seems to me, raises the question of what in hell have we been doing with what we've had?

"In particularly blunt testimony," the Army's chief of staff said his forces "began the Iraq war 'flat-footed' with a $56 billion equipment shortage and 500,000 fewer soldiers" than 15 years ago, when Pops had the good sense to get out immediately after getting in.

These shortages, said the chief, put "future missions in jeopardy."

A $56 billion equipment shortfall? A half-million fewer soldiers than the budget allows? Future missions at risk?

Current U.S. military spending accounts for more than half of all global expenditures on things that go boom and the folks who bring them to you. Put another way, we spend more on destruction than the rest of the entire world put together.

Depending on how you add it all up, we spend nearly 10 times what China does -- that military behemoth of hair-raising proportions, we're warned; and it's further implied we should start catching up.

Lordy, lord, to hear the neocons and Pentagon tell it, the little buggers are outdistancing us in every firepowered category. We are woefully, dangerously behind.

But they don't mention just how far ahead we are in being behind.

No, instead we're told we entered this idiotic war with a $56 billion equipment shortage.

But let's be fair. That's only because, as was reported into Congressional oversight oblivion in 2003, the Defense Department "couldn't account for more than a trillion dollars [as in 1000 billion] in financial transactions, not to mention ... Defense inventory systems so lax that the U.S. Army lost track of 56 airplanes, 32 tanks, and 36 Javelin missile command launch-units."

Oh well, that's why they put erasers on pencils, as my father was fond of saying when pondering our military's gargantuan waste.

And you won't hear the Pentagon highlighting the fiscal fact, as budgetary things stand now, that its "spending, not including funding for the Department of Energy or for actual combat operations for the period FY’07 through FY’11 will exceed $2 trillion."

In this case, let's be prudent as well as fair. Perhaps we should kick in another trillion, since half of that two trillion is likely to vanish somewhere, somehow, by FY '11.

Frustrated with this relentless underfunding, the Army chief of staff "banged his hand on a House committee-room table, saying the continuation of today's Pentagon policies is 'not right.'"

How right he is. Throwing more money at the Pentagon is like feeding a one-armed bandit. The statistical odds of a profitable outcome are less than confidence inspiring.

Same Ole "Old Direction" in Oxymoronic House Intelligence

Poor Silvestre. He was born with a mercury-contaminated spoon in his head.

How else to explain a U.S. congressman's discombobulation at a few simple questions concerning U.S. intelligence-related matters -- and what should have been even simpler softballs for Silvestre Reyes, who happens to be the incoming chairman of the House intelligence committee.

As you are surely aware by now, when asked by CQ's national security editor whether al Qaeda is Sunni or Shia, Mr. Reyes answered, “Predominantly -- probably Shiite.” As the reporter clarified in print with more than a trifle disgust: "He couldn't have been more wrong. Al Qaeda is profoundly Sunni" (italics original. The secular split, incidentally, was over Mohammed's proper line of succession. The Shia -- a word meaning "followers of Ali" -- believe in a family bloodline or God's appointed imams, while Sunnis -- from "followers of the Prophet's traditions" -- believe in a meritocratic line, which was, in fact, how the first caliph was chosen).

There's no reason you should have known that, but every reason an intelligence chair should have.

When asked about Hezbollah -- another little something or other that has dominated the news lately and has something or other to do with vital U.S. interests -- Reyes was just as keen. "Hezbollah. Uh, Hezbollah ... Why do you ask me these questions at 5 o’clock? ... But speaking only for myself, it’s hard to keep things in perspective and in the categories."

As Reyes implied, the onset of late afternoon doesn't normally throw most professionals into a state of dazzled mental exhaustion, but it is indeed "hard to keep things" straight when you never had a grip to begin with.

Nor does the intelligence chair seem to have much of a grip on intelligent policy. As for adding yet more American bull's-eyes to the bloody Iraqi mix, Reyes pondered and thunk: "If it’s going to target the militias and eliminate them, I think that’s a worthwhile investment." Yes, the "if" is the big question, is it not -- and which on-the-ground consensus has answered with a deafening "No way."

Reyes, who voted against the war, thunk some more and added that on "a temporary basis, I’m willing to ramp them up by twenty or thirty thousand ... for, I don’t know, two months, four months, six months." Yeah, whatever ... pick a number, any number. And right, go ahead and encourage George -- not that he needs it -- and do so without fluid expertise in what in hell is going on.

What an embarrassment. You feel it, I feel it, and worse, conservatives know you and I feel it.

As an unabashed liberal, I can personally attest that the only pleasure we on the left have had for years came from laughing at the right's pervasive incompetence at the top. Its unrelenting penchant for getting just about everything wrong -- colossally wrong -- due to its abhorrence of real and factual knowledge was the only amusing thing about the whole lot.

Now comes the Democratic chairman of the House intelligence committee, the Honorable Mr. Reyes, trying to even the score. Somehow, amusement fails me.

Just as embarrassing is Nancy Pelosi's peculiar mismanagement. Wouldn't you, as speaker of the House, want to grill your appointee to head the intelligence committee before appointing him? Wouldn't you first want to know what he knows about the troublemakers in trouble spots in which young Americans are dying daily? Wouldn't you insist on subject proficiency? Wouldn't you want to vet his knowledge at least a smidgeon, before presenting him as a principal Democratic face of a "New Direction"?

If Pelosi did vet this hapless, $165,200-a-year featherweight, she should have dismissed his consideration out of hand. If she didn't bother, she has no business appointing anybody to anything.

For years, we on the left have rightly not hesitated in calling for the heads of the incompetent rubes and reprobates within the controlling conservative establishment. Hypocrisy is the only word for not openly naming incompetence within the opposing establishment. Fair is fair -- and inner examination as imperative as outward criticism.

Reinventing Reagan -- again

As a (vice)-presidential hopeful, Republican Sen. Sam Brownback is selling himself as "a full-scale Ronald Reagan conservative." Since Brownback is a darling of contemporary social conservatism, it follows that Reagan is being marketed as its Platonic Ideal. And that makes Brownback's iconography a thing of opportunistic reinvention, for the actual history of that president's relations with social conservatives was a far different story.

Reagan's domestic agenda was economically focused -- cutting taxes and, initially, reducing the federal deficit were his key objectives, until the former nullified the latter's feasibility and the administration rushed to justify deficit spending as a minor and acceptable concern. On the other hand social conservatives, known then as the New Right, focused on promoting, naturally, a social agenda -- banning abortion and busing, reintroducing school prayer, etc.

But Reagan was no political fool. He knew electoral gold when he saw it, and in 1980 that gold came in the form of an estimated 30 to 65 million socially conservative evangelicals. So as candidate and then president he lavished lip service on them (of whom 63 percent helped put him in the White House; eighty percent in 1984).

However in actualized policies, his heart and mind remained in the economic libertarianism of Goldwater’s Old Rightism. This focus quickly angered those in the New Right’s top ranks, and an internecine war of words soon erupted.

In the midst of Reagan's first term, for example, the chairwoman of the National Pro-Family Coalition expressed her "disenchantment." Reagan had campaigned as “strongly pro-life” and "strongly ... school prayer," she said, but "then he got in and said the economy is the problem, and these issues are going to have to be on the back burner." She was not amused.

Direct-mail guru Richard Viguerie hurled threats: "Reagan ought to remember it is conservatives who have supported him for the last 15 years, not moderates or liberals." Jerry Falwell suggested that if more attention were not paid to New Right priorities the Moral Majority "wouldn’t hesitate to turn against" Reagan in 1984.

During these first-term storms the New York Times noted that social-conservative Jesse Helms "has become convinced ... that Mr. Reagan has abandoned the true conservative faith" -- causing one administration official to retort that the White House’s regard for Helms “on a scale of one to 10, with 10 being highest admiration ... [is] minus two."

Much later, with the curtain coming down on Reagan’s second term, New Rightist Paul Weyrich openly rebuked the president as "weakened in spirit" and the Conservative Caucus’ Howard Phillips concluded harshly that no other president "since Woodrow Wilson was confined to quarters with a stroke" had been "less engaged in the conduct of affairs than Ronald Reagan," meaning those morality-centric affairs that were social conservatives' focus from the start.

Reagan's conservatism never did aggressively pursue the New Right’s social agenda, so relations between the two never improved dramatically. Some among the hidebound Old Right didn't even try. For instance Reagan's mentor and idol, Barry Goldwater, said of social conservatives that "If they disagree with you one bit, you’re a no-good S.O.B. Who the hell is the New Right anyway? Who is Paul Weyrich? He’s not a leader of the Republican Party."

Yet because Reagan had gained the greater public's admiration, social conservatives went on to co-opt his image as a public relations tool, such as Sam Brownback and others are so disingenuously doing today. They simply ignore the deep and very real political chasm that existed between social conservatism and Reagan's conservatism.

The ideological divide has always threatened to topple Republicans' shaky unity. The divide still exists. And given George Bush's slipped grip and rampant devastation, David Kuo's religio-political revelations, social conservatism's growing internal divisions and Democrats' growing sensitivity to the school of social-conservative thought, it's likely to spell real trouble in 2008.

Further perpetrating the Gipper's reinvention is not only an ideological crime; at this point it is simply, probably, unhelpful to the perpetrators.

Dear Barack -- It will take a little thuggery

Like anyone would care, I'm not "declaring" for Barack Obama, but I confess I've never seen any young politician get off to a bigger, better, or more impressive start. Sunday -- and this is hard to believe -- this presidential contender made a first-in-his-lifetime visit to the Blessed Shrine of New Hampshire Annointment, where he was received with a swarming enthusiasm that made the frequent visitors cringe.

The nearly singular but persistent doubt universally expressed about Obama is his lack of experience. It was echoed by one participant in the N.H. crowds: "I think he’s a serious candidate, but I don’t think he has great potential. No track record, and there are too many guys ahead of him in line."

The sentiment puzzles me, since Abraham Lincoln, who eventually acquitted himself rather well as president, also had an official political bio that contained only stints as an Illinois state legislator and all of one term in the U.S. Congress prior to running for the White House. To understate the matter, such a scant record failed to reflect his abilities. And Lincoln, too, had a long line of vastly more experienced politicos ahead of him in 1860. He outwitted them all with a political finesse that trumped common seniority.

What's more, in 2000 the media blithely overlooked candidate George Bush's lack of experience. It was left mostly to Al Gore to point out that his opponent's official past reduced to that of an ineffectual, "bumbling governor" with little power. The media preferred to address Bush's "affability." Wouldn't you rather have a beer with George? Using that presidential measure of a man, Obama is affability with a brain -- and he has both by the bucketful.

The only other Obamian doubt regards issue unknowns (the "known unknowns," not heaven forfend the "unknown unknowns," as Rummy would pose it. God I'll miss him). Yet he is quickly dispelling that one. "In two speeches and a news conference" in N.H., "Mr. Obama called for universal health care ..., a battle on global warming and a timed redeployment of troops from Iraq."

Those are impressive, not to mention popular, starters: saving lives, saving Earth and saving our troops. For some unfathomable reason, it still hasn't registered with Obama's Democratic colleagues that 60 percent of the public supports national health care. Furthermore, Al Gore revitalized his image on the sole issue of impending environmental disaster, and virtually everyone outside "The O'Reilly Factor" echo chamber now endorses an Iraq withdrawal. (In another striking Obama-Lincoln comparison, Abe's only splash in Congress was made in attacking a disingenuous president, his illegal war, and unchecked executive power.)

Downplaying specifics, however, in his N.H. debut Obama mostly "talked about what he decried as a toxically partisan atmosphere in Washington, clearly signaling a central theme of a presidential campaign."

"We’ve come to be consumed by a 24-hour, slash-and-burn, negative ad, bickering, small-minded politics that doesn’t move us forward," said Obama. "Sometimes one side is up and the other side is down. But there’s no sense that they are coming together in a common-sense, practical, nonideological way to solve the problems that we face."

I'm ambivalent about politicians even bothering with this approach, although I well understand why they take it. It's the "Can't-we-all-just-get-along" Happy Face of American politics that most every newcomer initially tries, but ultimately abandons. Voters claim they want it, newcomers oblige, things move along swimmingly for a while, then the Happy Face is systematically smeared and muddied by desperate opponents' 24-hour, slash-and-burn, negative ad, bickering, small-minded attacks.

What's a saint to do? Retaliate. Hard. And soon. He damn well better, or it's good night and good luck.

So what's a fair assessment of Obama's candidacy? We can't yet know. That won't come until the above-mentioned crucible. If Obama learns to counter the coming assaults with a kind of gentlemanly manslaughtering touch, he'll do fine. If he smiles and lets them pass, he'll go down like Sonny Liston.

The Blind Aping the Blind

After shelling out the lion's share of $2.8 billion for national humiliation, Congressional Republicans are finally on the couch, having also paid for what amounts to the most expensive psychoanalysis in history. They haven't yet reached the final, acceptance stage of grief, but most have definitely passed denial. They now seem to be swimming in agonized circles of anger, bargaining and depression.

To prevent a natural slide into suicidal rage, they are first trying to see some good side of their past behavior. "Together, we reformed welfare. We cut taxes, and small businesses grew all over the nation," gloated Dennis Hastert. (You remember him.) "We promised to protect this nation from further attack, and by grace of God and with the leadership of President Bush, we have been successful."

What he didn't say is that the welfare-reformed poverty rate has skyrocketed, their tax-cutting deficit is a shameful time bomb waiting to blow up in our faces, and small businesses are growing all over the world, quite without Republican assistance, thank you.

As for their support of Bush's leadership and that combination being responsible for protecting the country from "further attack"? Well, a year ago I started wearing an amulet designed to ward off Siberian tigers. And I've concluded it is singularly responsible for my not seeing a Siberian tiger in my neighbor since.

But to their credit, Republicans are also experimenting with some heaping doses of authentic self-examination. More than a few have walked right up to the postmortem edge of that horrible thing -- the Truth of the matter.

"You know, the American people took the reins of government away from the Republican Party ... in this last election. They did so, I think, in large part because they were tired of our hypocrisy," said recovering Sen. Judd Gregg.

"Our leadership and some of our members grew arrogant in their own power, and with arrogance comes corruption," Rep. Zach Wamp added philosophically. "If Tom DeLay said it one time, he said it 15 times: 'The most important thing we can do for the American people is keep our Republican majority.' That was just wrong, and it had to catch up to us in the end." Wamp's count was surely off, but his enlightenment was right on.

Of the three quoted, only Sen. John McCain appears stuck in denial: "We came to change Washington, and Washington changed us." Taking the passive route of victimization, McCain seems to believe that Congressional folks somehow, in some sort of out-of-body experience, check their free will at the House and Senate doors, there to be left at the mercy of external D.C. winds.

Whether McCain actually believes this hogwash is unimportant. The way he's callously racing to the right in pursuit of cherished primary voters even farther to the right casts doubt on it, but that's the exclusive cerebral territory of the senator and his conscience.

What is important is that Democrats choose not to believe it -- that the incoming powers reject the tempting conviction that Congressional politics possesses its own controlling spirit. It does only if you let it.

So far, however, there are few hopeful signs that Democrats intend to control their own destiny and every indication that in two years or twelve, they too will be on the couch, wondering where in hell they went wrong. Yet any disempowered layman could make the call now.

The dagger in Republicans' heart was, in a word, money. They didn't control it; those who had it to give, did. The plutocratic string pullers funneled the cash and wrote the legislation -- and every drop and scrap of it was in direct opposition to what the vast majority of the electorate wanted, or needed. The cash recipients finally paid the price.

Unfortunately, Democrats have dangled no hope that they intend to turn off the faucet. Lobbyist bribing parties are in full force, racking up Democratic IOUs. The PAC-cash dispensers are pondering protective legislation. The forces of monied special interest are still in charge.

Yet the Democratic leadership has proposed not one serious effort to dam the flow of antisocial, anti-public-interest money. Because they're tempted to believe, as McCain apparently does, that some disembodied spirit of Washington works its own will, Democrats, finally in power and desperate to hang on to it, will soon sell out and brazenly do the legislative bidding of special interests. In time, the public will notice; in time, Democrats will pay the price.

It's hard to watch an incoming party of "change" speed toward a cliff and wonder why it can't see the self-created danger ahead.

Republican Word-Association Game: Handy Home Version

There's an interesting article in Slate that caught my attention yesterday. It's a discussion of "politically loaded terms" -- "two- and three-word phrases that ... can be uniquely identified with either Republican or Democratic members of Congress" -- culled by two University of Chicago scholars from floor speeches recorded in the 2005 Congressional Record. The listed phrases are those used most frequently to either rev up the base or obfuscate, or which merely indicate the parties' topical obsessions.

It's a fascinating little list, and while reading the Republican phrases I got to playing a bit of instant word association, writing down whatever sprang to mind. Democrats have their list, too, but I like picking on Republicans. They're not good enough, they're not smart enough, so gosh darnit they deserve it.

Here's my list: originals on the left, upshots on the right. Try one of your own. It's wholesome fun for the whole family!

(Note: Some phrases in the original list, either duplicated with minor variations or incomprehensibly obscure in meaning, have been omitted. And remember, the listed phrases are from 2005, so some are undergoing a bit of ... reconsideration.)

"Politically Loaded Phrases -- Republicans"

stem cell -- stump sell
natural gas -- what comes out of their mouths
death tax -- plutocratic call to jihad
class action -- what their actions lack
war on terror -- war on civil liberties
embryonic stem -- size of a Republican heart
tax relief -- explosive debt
boy scouts -- neoconservatives
hate crimes -- universal healthcare, public education, etc.
global war -- campaign bliss
medical liability -- your problem only
highway bill -- reelection cash
democratic leader -- treasonous asshole
federal spending -- reelection cash
tax increase -- something hidden
raise taxes -- ignored necessity
illegal immigrants -- the Democratic base
percent growth -- an illusion
personal accounts -- old-age poverty
saddam hussein -- a campaign ad
pass the bill -- pass the buck
private property -- it's all theirs
border security -- a Berlin Wall
president announces -- president mispronounces
human life -- what's expendable after birth?
chief justice -- something you won't ever get
human embryos -- pure, electoral gold
cell research -- Devil worship
property rights -- what's more important than people?
budget committee -- free-for-all
consent decrees -- imaginary mandates
crimes law -- electronic-voting legislation
post office -- an unfortunate government success
european union -- old enemies
president business -- synonyms
terri schiavo -- whoops!
temporary worker -- everybody, someday
war on terrorism -- war on language
retirement accounts -- booty for looting
government spending -- reelection cash
national forest -- an eyesore
minority leader -- Pelosi in blackface
urge support -- buy votes
cell lines -- prisons, the perfect boondoggles
action lawsuits -- intolerable fairness
economic growth -- more and bigger yachts
food program -- free ketchup!
legal system -- corporate protection
nuclear power -- something Bush can't pronounce
democrat leader -- childish adjective
witnesses may testify -- a real fear
savings accounts -- what few have
iraqi people -- military targets
forest service -- an oxymoron
law we can change -- legitimate-voter registration
immigration reform -- "Sorry, We're Closed"
indian affairs -- what they'd all like to have
ten commandments -- courthouse prop
un reform -- Boltonmania!
personal retirement accounts -- Wall Street manna
energy and natural resources -- corporate giveaways
global war on terror -- Baghdad
change hearts and minds -- grab 'em by the balls
class action fairness -- pure anathema
committee on foreign relations -- rubber stamp
deficit reduction bill -- propaganda crappola
repeal of the death tax -- the Holy Grail
highway trust fund -- an exploitable natural resource
medical liability reform -- you're on your own
health savings accounts -- subsidized inanity
housing and urban affairs -- commie plots
million jobs created -- WDCD (What Did Clinton Do?)
national flood insurance -- disappearing ink
oil for food scandal -- Boltonmaniacal heaven
temporary worker program -- your next job
percent growth rate -- a fun statistic to play with
american farm bureau -- true believers
gross national product -- the Bush Dynasty
social security reform -- cat food for all!
export import bank -- campaign cash laundrymat
price of natural gas -- what you can't afford
social security system -- a hated New Deal success
committee on homeland security -- Pork Central
million illegal aliens -- more than the margin of defeat
california supreme court -- socialist coven
term care insurance -- incumbency
tongass national forest -- oil field
supreme court of texas -- supreme executioner
justice priscilla owen -- what passes for moderation
justice janice rogers -- see above
american bar association -- it's set too low
growth and job creation -- Bushian fairy tales
grand ole opry -- National Symphony
reform social security -- defeat socialism!
supply of natural gas -- tomorrow's floor speech
chief of naval operations -- GOPer with rubber duckies
underground storage tank -- slush fund
partial birth abortion -- a scoundrel's last refuge
judicial confirmation process -- 15-minute questions
national security issue -- any unconstitutional conduct
law enforcement and intelligence -- one not the other
justice william rehnquist -- Saint and Office Giver
medical liability crisis -- your next hospital visit
judge alberto gonzales -- the Spanish Inquisitor

A splendid spanking

Quite aside from the wisdom or folly of the Iraq Study Group's recommendations, and quite aside from how much, if at all, those recommendations are executed by the White House, I must admit the ISG did a bang-up job of first lowering expectations and then impressing a resigned public with its sweeping breadth -- and severity.

Watching the panel's televised Q&A session after the report's release, I was stunned -- and not alone, I'm sure -- to hear its bipartisan membership publicly condemn Mr. Bush's war management as "a nightmare" equivalent to Saddam Hussein's atrociousness.

For weeks the media rumored the ISG would have little new to say in the way of recommendations, and that much proved true, given constraints on the ground. But the way the ISG said it? That impressed.

For anyone watching yesterday ... thinking, as I did ... that James Baker was there only to wipe Junior's chin, hoist his knickers and rescue his presidency, well, we all got an education. Taking into account the sensitivity of his historical ties to the Bush Dynasty, Baker's defenestration of George W. was as firm-handed as any critic's.

"We do not recommend a stay-the-course solution," he said in direct repudiation of his old boss' scion. "In our opinion, that is no longer viable." He might as well have called George delusional. In private, I suspect he did. I also suspect Baker is no longer on the White House's Christmas card list.

The full written report (here in pdf) was, as mentioned, strongly anticipated, but just as severe -- succinctly labeling Bush's monstrous misadventure with three little words that surely prompted a presidential tantrum: "grave and deteriorating." And of Bush's macro-mismanagement the panel concluded in the present tense that "the most important questions about Iraq’s future are now the responsibility of the Iraqis." We should enlighten Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki that our presence is not "open ended." In short, either Maliki's government starts producing, or for us, it's bye-bye Iraq.

Other than its harsher-then-expected temperament, if the report contained anything astonishing it was the way in which it called for "a change in the primary mission of U.S. forces in Iraq that will enable the United States to begin to move its combat forces out of Iraq responsibly." Stripping thousands of embedded American advisers of the big-brother protection of a sizable U.S. combat presence would of course move the troops out nicely, but irresponsibly leave those advisers at the mercy of their feckless, or worse, militia-aligned Iraqi "trainees."

Any of the report's irresponsible recommendations are as inconsequential as the sensible ones, however, since Bush "seriously" pronounced all of them worthy of action "in a timely fashion." Translation: they're already collecting dust. No one, let alone one of Daddy's servants, is going to tell George Jr. how to run a war.

In fact, the White House laughably declared the report a validation of its policies, in that the panel proposed no timetabled or immediate withdrawal. Then again, that singular omission was the panel's most egregious misjudgment, so in that sense it was indeed a validation of White House thinking.

Still, in my opinion the Iraq Study Group did an admirable job -- not so much in the steak, but the sizzle. Its stern tone, its somber mood, its severity in presentation penetrated the national atmosphere and stamped a final, blue-ribbon seal of approval on bipartisan condemnation of the administration.

The ISG's starkest condemnation came in a passage that clearly suggested an assessment of present fact, not mere speculation in the subjunctive: "A slide toward chaos could trigger the collapse of Iraq’s government and a humanitarian catastrophe. Neighboring countries could intervene. Sunni-Shia clashes could spread. Al Qaeda could win a propaganda victory and expand its base of operations. The global standing of the United States could be diminished."

Could trigger, spread, diminish, etc.? No. The verbs are realities.

Unmethodical madness

Reading the news is no longer a mere informational experience. It has become, rather, a fretful descent into leaderless whiplash and cognitive dissonance, an unnerving peek into romper-room disarray and downright pixilation.

This dispiriting plunge, I suspect, is likely what threw Papa Bush into that contorted fit of teary-eyed gibbering the other day. Contrary to the media's psychoanalysis, he wasn't just thinking of Jeb or George, with pride or pity. He had simply read the papers that morning and shortly thereafter convulsed into a general state of neurotic despair.

It is quite legitimate these days to quite literally ask: What in the world is going on? And that's after reading the news. The papers offer no clues, because our nation's leaders, the dunderheads in charge, happen to be clueless themselves. Cases in point: Just this morning -- this one morning alone -- there were three, flip-flopping front-page stories that left the reader not informed, but utterly, dejectedly, hopelessly adrift. To wit ...

"The White House has resisted the idea of widening its own diplomatic channels with Iran and Syria," so naturally what followed was that "A State Department spokesman ... [says] the United States approve[s] of Mr. Maliki’s proposed conference" with Iran and Syria.

Apparently America's official diplomatic demarche now resembles the adolescent goings on of our junior-high years. Would you tell Tammy I really like her? Then tell me what she said? Titter, titter. Isn't this exciting? Clueless, yes. Hapless, absolutely. But definitely exciting.

Then there was this. Mr. Bush repeatedly insists we're winning in Iraq. After all, what else could daily servings of unbridled carnage and boundless anarchy indicate? So naturally what followed in a related story was that his hand-picked "nominee to be defense secretary won unanimous approval from a Senate panel ... after testifying that the United States was not winning in Iraq."

The victory-denying, president-defying, hand-picked nominee to be defense secretary also "said it was 'too soon to tell' whether the American invasion of 2003 had been a wise decision" -- an invasion course he not only advocated in 2003, but one that even a D- eighth grader could now competently, authoritatively conclude was pure, quixotic stupidity.

But not to worry. Mr. Bush's nominee added, helpfully, that "It's my impression that frankly there are no new ideas on Iraq." Is it not somehow comforting to learn that our new expert man at the Pentagon may not be clinically delusional, but merely every bit as clueless as the rest of us?

Damn good thing Rummy is out and he's in. A touch of fresh bewilderment should make a real difference. FDR used to intentionally pit one sitting adviser against another to achieve a kind of enlightened synthesis, but of course his advisers has something of value to advise. In GWB's case it's simply a revolving-door matter of out with the clueless old and in with the clueless new.

Last, we read that "The United States has offered a detailed package of economic and energy assistance in exchange for North Korea’s giving up nuclear weapons," which in this instance was naturally preceded by, "the administration has resisted making clear to North Korea exactly what kind of aid it would receive if it agreed to begin taking apart [its nuclear] facilities."

Here's a thought. Perhaps administration hawks and administration realists could first get together and agree on what the administration thinks, then, and only then, let North Korea know, not to mention the administration's Decider.

That might help to clarify things -- for everyone, including us poor bastards subjected daily to multiple and oddly tidy news reports of strategic bedlam.

The world has stopped caring what the frat-brat wants

In a confluence of circumstances creating the perfect flushing sound, John Bolton resigned yesterday "after careful consideration," meaning he knows how to count.

The world was not exactly swept with sorrow. Our president was.

That dichotomy -- that segregation of the faces; Bush all alone on one side, the entire global community on the other -- has come to define America's standing in the world: the disputatious loner, the disgruntled outcast, the dyspeptic renegade.

Generally and somewhat rationally speaking, disputatiousness, disgruntlement and dyspepsia all wrapped up in estrangement are not intentional diplomatic moods. They're not frames of mind that those charged with international negotiations shoot for as objectives in themselves, since the whole point of diplomacy is to positively move forward, not negatively dig in. The latter only leaves the diplomat's client in the corner, alone.

Yet to the world's befuddlement, those were precisely the objectives of Mr. Bush's personal representative at the United Nations.

In the New York Times' canvassing of Security Council members' parting sentiments, the consensus was that "they respected Mr. Bolton personally and that they thought he represented the United States well, but they said his manner -- often described as abrupt and confrontational -- alienated traditional American allies and undercut American influence.... [U.S.] policy is perceived as disdainful of diplomacy itself, heedless in its effects on others and single-minded in its assertion of American interests."

All the negatives noted -- abruptness, confrontation, alienation, disdain, heedlessness, single-mindedness -- were intentional. Except one: loss of American influence.

This was, for Mr. Bush, a surprisingly unexpected result of attributes that could fairly be summarized as mere, immature cockiness. And therein the lies the key, I think, to understanding why Bush insists on doing what no mature leader would do.

It lies in his privileged, distorted youth. He's unavoidably stuck in it.

As a wealthy and protected teenager, then young adult, then aspiring businessman, Bush could behave abruptly, confrontationally, disdainfully, heedlessly and single-mindedly and to hell with the alienating effects. He knew that somehow he would come out on top, because he could always count on family money, power and influence to bail him out when he pushed or bullied too far.

He could heedlessly let his mind go to seed and still attend, though not be bothered with actually studying at, the finest schools; he could disdainfully go to the head of the Vietnam-dodging line and still wear a uniform for fun; he could abruptly create disastrous business ventures and still profit.

Fast forward to middle age and he was still counting on magical promotions and privileged protection, no matter how distasteful his behavior. After monumentally screwing up the high office he was handed, Pop's Old Guard and others who serve his exalted status rush predictably to the rescue. It's OK, everything will be alright, we'll take care of it, you just go ahead and be you, George.

Personified by John Bolton's appointment, this was the comforting worldview with which Bush infiltrated the United Nations and global diplomacy. He believed the sum of his negatives would work out positively. And why not? It always has.

So in a perverse, demented way, Mr. Bush isn't at all untethered from reality, as popular wisdom now observes. Like the schizophrenic who can't understand why you don't hear the voices -- after all, they're quite real -- Bush is genuinely puzzled why his characteristic obnoxiousness and congenital bullying haven't once again produced wondrous resolutions and positive outcomes. That's the only world, the only reality, he's ever known. And he's thoroughly -- and appropriately, in a peculiar way -- tethered to it.

The sudden difference is, the world just doesn't give a damn any longer what Master George wants, or if he chews the Oval Office carpet when he doesn't get it.

Here's to two coming years of tough love.

Rummy's memoed thoughts as originally drafted

The following is a leaked copy of Donald Rumsfeld's raw, unexpurgated memo of 6 November. His original wording is in [ ].

SUBJECT: Iraq — [Panic Time]

The [prodigious mess] in Iraq has been [getting prodigiously messier], and U.S. forces have [scrambled, without guidance from my unworthy civilian subordinates], over time, from major combat operations to counterterrorism, to counterinsurgency, to dealing with death squads and [civil war]. In my view it is time for [some major ass covering]. Clearly, what U.S. forces are currently doing in Iraq is not working [at all. I was about to write "not well enough or fast enough," but let's cut the crap and get real for a change]. Following is a range of [altogether unworkable] options:

[Insert HERE some meaningless adjective that nevertheless sounds flashy, quirkily professional and, you know, Rumsfeldian -- "ILLUSTRATIVE"?] OPTIONS

Above the Line [-- many of which are Democratic options we've been ridiculing]:

¶Publicly announce a set of [timetables] [forced on] the Iraqi Government [by] the U.S. — political, economic and security goals — to chart [the abyss] ahead for the Iraqi government and Iraqi people (to get them moving) and for the U.S. public ([to con them into thinking] that progress can and is being made).

¶[Shanghai for a fourth tour of duty thousands more] U.S. trainers and embeds, and [squander] more U.S. equipment [on] Iraqi Security forces (ISF), to further [prop up] their [make-believe army] by [withdrawing] some significant portion of the U.S. troops currently [stuck] in Iraq.

¶Initiate a reverse embeds program, like the Korean Katusas, by putting one or more Iraqi soldiers [aka insurgents/terrorists/collaborators] with every U.S. and possibly Coalition squad, to improve our units’ language capabilities [so we can finally understand what they're friggin' saying] and to give the Iraqis experience and training with professional U.S. troops [so they can kill each other more efficiently].

¶Aggressively [locate first, then] beef up the Iraqi MOD and MOI, and other Iraqi ministries critical to the success of the ISF — the Iraqi Ministries of Finance, Planning, Health, Criminal Justice, Prisons, etc. — by [asking, pleading with] U.S. military retirees and Reserve/National Guard volunteers [to do what 147,000 troops, trainers, embeds and advisers can't].

¶Conduct an accelerated [bug-out] of U.S. bases. We have already reduced from 110 to 55 bases [which were always 110 to 55 too many -- Jesus H. Christ, what were we thinking?].

¶[Resurrect the bloodcurdling bogeyman of] Al Qaeda, [and for a convincing touch of reality throw in] death squads and Iranians in Iraq.

¶Initiate an approach where U.S. forces provide security only for those provinces or cities that openly request U.S. help and that actively cooperate, with the stipulation being that unless they cooperate fully, U.S. forces would leave their province. [In short, let's only go where it's friendly and peaceful.]

¶Stop rewarding bad behavior [effective resistance], as was done in Fallujah when they pushed in reconstruction funds [Halliburton Fun Money], and start rewarding good behavior [dangle even more Halliburton Fun Money]. Put our reconstruction efforts in those parts of Iraq that are behaving, and invest and create havens of opportunity [havens of "hope, growth and opportunity"? -- call Steve Forbes for refresher bullshit course] to reward them for their good behavior. As the old saying goes, “If you want more of something, reward it; if you want less of something, penalize it; [and if you want competence, don't vote Republican].”

¶Position substantial U.S. forces near the Iranian and Syrian borders ["borders"? -- note: now there's an amusing euphemism for "revolving doors"] to reduce infiltration and, importantly, reduce Iranian [control of] the Iraqi Government ["Government"? -- note: now there's an amusing euphemism for "Thieving Gang of Medieval Cutthroats"].

¶Withdraw U.S. forces from vulnerable positions [-- like cities, towns, villages, hamlets, farms, mountains, valleys, "borders," deserts --] and move U.S. forces to a Quick Reaction Force (QRF) status, operating from within Iraq and Kuwait, to [become re-vulnerable] when Iraqi security forces [start vamoosing again at the first sign of trouble].

¶[Retreat -- like Batista from Cuba --] U.S. and [whatever] Coalition forces [are left] (start “taking our hand off the bicycle seat”), so Iraqis know they have to pull up their socks, step up and take responsibility for their [war zones].

¶[Bribe] key political and religious leaders (as Saddam Hussein did), to get them to help us get through this difficult [and prodigious mess].

¶Initiate a massive program for [the millions of poor schmucks we threw out of work]. It would have to be run by U.S. forces, [although the Iraqis are no more hopelessly incompetent than we are].

¶Announce that whatever new approach the U.S. [desperately globs on to], the U.S. is doing so on a [hit-or-miss, what-do-we-know?] basis. This will give us the [talking points] to readjust and move to another course, if necessary, and therefore not [have to admit a colossal, predictable "loss"].

¶[Re-gobbledygookize] the U.S. military mission and the U.S. goals (how we talk about them) — go minimalist [i.e., pretend that very little -- something like a "Part-time Thieving Gang of Presbyterian Cutthroats" -- is all we ever wanted].

Below the Line [-- a few are more Democratic options we ridiculed]:

¶Continue on the current path ["stay the course," but retrain POTUS to say something else, for Christ's sake].

¶Move a large fraction of all U.S. Forces into Baghdad to attempt to [salvage something of the hellhole].

¶[Like we have them,] increase Brigade Combat Teams and U.S. forces in Iraq substantially.

¶Set a firm withdrawal date to [cut and run]. Declare that with Saddam gone and Iraq a sovereign [and prodigious mess], the Iraqi people can [keep screwing it up] themselves [as aimlessly as we can. Just declare victory and scram. Beg] Iran and Syria to stay out.

¶Assist in accelerating an aggressive [Biden] plan, moving towards three separate states — Sunni, Shia, and Kurd. [Get over it. Admit that Biden is smarter.]

¶Try a [Clinton]-like [negotiating] process. [Get over it. Accept that he was smarter, too.]

[Below the belt]

[Please note that even though I'm His Most Right Secretary of Defense, with something like 99 friggin' percent of all intelligence operations at my power-hungry disposal, I have only synopsized what's been printed in newspapers for months -- not made recommendations. That's because my unworthy civilian subordinates are as clueless as anyone. Mr. President, you're on your own.]