Flush twice... it's a long way to Sally Quinn's place!

apj.us / correntewire.com
Pundit Pap
for Sunday, March 26, 2006
Iraq Your Brains! It's Condi's Latest Charm Tour
by the Pundit Pap Crew
Shystee | Xan | Leah | Lambert | Gene Gaudette

March 26, 2006 /correntewire.com | apj.us/For the second week in a row, the top priority subject of the Sunday shows was the festering debacle that is the Iraq-yuh-pation.

Earlier in the week, the Bush Misadministration made an attempt to blame the corporate media for the bad news coming out Iraq in an obvious, orchestrated campaign to pressure broadcast news outlets into reporting more "happy news" from the former fiefdom of the Hussein-al-Tikriti clan.

On Friday, ABC went so far as to publish a few of the supposedly "independent" critiques of their coverage on their Web site in a story that screams "This does look like a stunt orchestrated by Karl Rove, but we're not coming out and saying it – wouldn't be prudent, y'know" ().

That very same day, Howie Kurtz, reliable source for White House spin that he is, wrung his hands about all of the "negative" coverage out of Iraq on CNN's "The Beard Room"… er, "The Situation Room" -- only to see America's favorite news curmudgeon Jack Cafferty rigorously smack him down moments later (watch and laugh along here).

There was passing mention this Sunday of the "Buried late Friday" story that Russia had apparently "tipped off" Saddam Hussein about US war plans shortly before "Operation Iraqi Liberation, um, make that Freedom" was launched. Interestingly, the news media seems to have underplayed (read: failed to report) that Russia passed on some juicy misinformation to the hapless (and, as it turned out, comparatively toothless) Saddam. Interesting times, indeed.

Best Sabbath Moment of Zen: this viewer missed Meet the Tim, but the gang at ThinkProgress.com caught Condi Rice – who was appearing on three of the Sunday shows – contradicting Dick "Shotgun" Cheney's contention that the insurgents are in their "last throes" (). Now if only we can get someone in the misadministration to talk about major combat operations in Iraq. Lambert has lots more below on MTP.

We'll dive into the fun and games of Sunday's silliness momentarily, but we can't help mentioning that following his humiliation on Friday, Howie got rhetorically eviscerated yet again – by (horrors!) a girl! We watched it, but John Amato and his merrie band of media monkeywrenchers blogged it first – and got the video. Go over to Crooks and Liars for a look () – but grab some popcorn first.

-- Gene Gaudette

Meet the Press
Condi Rice, David Broder, Liz Bumiller, Charlie Cook, John Harwood

Face the facts. Don't pray, don't wish, don't buy into centuries-old dogma and dead rhetoric. Don't give in to conditioning or your visions or your fucked-up sense of… whatever.
Face the facts. Then act.
— Quellcrist Falconer before the attack on Milport, from Richard Morgan's Broken Angels

Today, Timmeh snared Condi to talk about the Russians, the Iraq qWagmire, and her non-existent Presidential ambitions, followed by a roundtable on immigration and the 2006 midterms with the slightly stale purveyor of the convention wisdom, David "Dean" Broder, Lizzie "Girl Reporter" Bumiller, Charles Cook of the professionally non-partisan Cook Report (), and John Harwood, the White House correspondent of the Wall Street Journal.

Overview: At the end of the show, I had a complicated feeling of bewilderment, despair, and hope:

• Bewilderment at the overwhelming irrelevance of the issues being discussed; it was like having somebody read Inside Baseball aloud to me during, oh, the Battle of Stalingrad.

• Despair at the fecklessness of our political class—presumably, we're seeing the best and the brightest here, and they aren't very good, and they aren't very bright. Or rather, they are good and bright at retaining positions of power; unfortunately, chimpanzee dominance hierarchies are not always adaptive, particularly when the hierarchies themselves have become purely kleptocratic, or the habitat is being destroyed.

• Hope that a game so degenerate, so Byzantine, and so poorly played, will shortly be replaced by something better. These guys are not "displaying adaptability," as Neil Stephensen would say. "The old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear."

Why do I claim that the political class is not displaying adaptability?

There are two (at least two) overwhelming issues—the second, literally so—that America and the American political system face. I've been phrasing both as questions, because although I don't know the answers, I'd like to.

Every elected representative should be asked these questions. If they can't answer them, they don't deserve to be your representatives. And if they're amazed that you are even asking the questions, still less do they deserve to be.

Question 1: What is your plan to restore Constitutional government to the United States? (We have a President who openly breaks the law. This is a fact. What is to be done?)

Question 2: What is your plan to protect Americans from a catastrophic rise in ocean levels due to global warming? (Recently, the Philadelphia Inquirer front-paged a story on a three foot rise, so the issue is now mainstream. If you live in the Arctic, or you live near a glacier, or you live in the Netherlands, Ocean Rise is a fact. What is to be done?)

If the political class could even ask these questions, they could begin to adapt. Instead, they remain in denial. The elephants are the room, but nobody speaks of them. This silence has consequences.

If the political class cannot answer the Constitutional Question, Constitutional government as we know it will end, and tyranny will begin. Not as a theoretical possibility, but right now, and exactly as described in Federalist #47. It's a fact; let's face it.

And if the political class cannot answer the Oceans Rising Question, it's the end of the world as we know it. Not perhaps in our own time, but in our children's time, or our grandchildren's time. And to anyone who lives in the Arctic, near a glacier, or in a sea-level country like the Netherlands or Bangladesh, this is a fact; let's face it.

And with that analytical framework in place, let us proceed to analyze the chatter of the chattering subclass of our political class.

[As usual, I've bolded the BCW talking points. Nor am I a professional transcriptionist. I type a summary as fast as I can, and "quote" anything especially vivid or ghastly.]

Part 1: Condi

RUSSERT: So what's this about documents that the Russians
passed intel to the Iraqis in the first days of the war?
CONDI: We are trying first to understand what the documents say,
there are thousands in the Iraqi stores. Of course, we will
raise the issue with Russia.
RUSSERT: Was it disinformation?
CONDI: First we need to take a hard look at the docs. We are
finding important things here. Hope the Russians take it
seriously.

To anyone who remembers Vietnam, this is just the old "captured enemy documents" ploy. It's just more Republican disinformational warfare (). There's no reason to regard any document that comes from this administration as credible, especially documents from Iraq, and especially documents from Iraq about WMDs. After all, the Republicans regard plagiarism as OK (), so why not move on to forgery? Particularly when the "greater good" is at stake? I have no doubt that F/Buckhead or a similar Federalist Society elf will "discover" documents "proving" Bush's WMD claims in, oh, late October 2006 ().

RUSSERT: That "looked in his eyes and got a sense of his soul"
Bush thing with Putin. Does Bush still believe this?
CONDI: Russia generally did what they said they would do. They
said they would oppose Iraq, and they did.
RUSSERT: The Russian ambassador was the source of the intel. How could
Putin not have known?
CONDI: [Repeats talking points]
RUSSERT: Why won't the Russians help us get UN sanctions against
Iran?
CONDI: We're not read for sanctions. We are working toward a
Presidential Statement. The Russians do not want nukes in Iraq
either, that's clear in all that they do. They don't want
enrichment, reprocessing.

Condi's voice was breathy and high-pitched, tense, when she was talking about the documents, but normal when she's talking about the Russians.

RUSSERT: From a story on the Times today: Most of us think Iran
will get nukes. The optimists at the White House just hope to
delay it by 10 or 20 years.
CONDI: Can't comment because I don't know who the anonymous
source is. We are doing everything that we can to send a strong
message that they have no choice if they want to be part of the
international community. Iran cannot stand the sort of
diplomatic isolation that North Korea has chosen.

I don't see how this can be; Iran has oil! Or perhaps I should write
"Iran has (oil (automobile culture ( greenhouse gasses ( global warming ( oceans rise )))))

Just to make the levels (five, at least) from which this discussion is removed from reality more clear….

CONDI: If our efforts have no effect, the "next phase" is
further UN options, a Chapter 7 resolution. This gives the UN
the ability to compel a state to act, to say there will be
consequences. We are a long way from the military option.
Financial measures, travel bans …
RUSSERT: Would Pres go to Congress for approval of military
action?
CONDI: Will not speculate. Of course, the administration went
to Congress the last time. Look at the history of how this
President has acted, he has taken Congress as full partner [!!].
"Will not get into a discussion of what the President may or
may not do, Constitutionally.

Interesting, Condi almost garbled that last word, "constitutionally." Her sentence trailed off into a mumbled slur. And when you have a President who claims the right to break the law under the theory of the unilateral executive, that does seem appropriate.

CONDI: We're in Iraq, a different kind of enemy, a different
kind of war, we need a different kind of Middle East of we are
to conquer the ideology of hatred that makes people fly
airplanes into buildings. In 9/11 we faced the outcome of an
ideology of hatred. Saddam was part of the old Middle East. We
have a new Iraq in a new Middle East and so we will all be safer.

Oddly, or not, Russert doesn't mention the Hamas election as part of the "new" Middle East. And just to make the levels (six?) from which this discussion is removed from reality more clear:

A new (Middle East (oil (automobile culture (greenhouse gasses (global warming (oceans rise ))))))

RUSSERT: Last week, an Iraqi foreign minister revealed that he
was a CIA spy, and told the administration that there was no
active nuke program and no biological weapons. This is a far cry
from what people were told.
CONDI: This is one source among many. Saddam was unwilling to
account for his weapons to the UN. We all thought Saddam had
WMDs.

What do you mean, "we"? "We" in the blogosphere examined every argument for WMDs put forward by Bush in the run-up to the war—and there were a lot of them, because they kept shifting. (Of course, we know now that the story kept shifting because the WHIG would come up with new disinformation as soon as the old disinformation was debunked.) We examined the facts, and we dismissed the case. And we were right.

CONDI: The point is, that now that Saddam is gone, we have a
different kind of Iraq, a different kind of Middle East.

Condi gets very, very breathy here.

CONDI: They are determined to form a government of national
unity. This is something that has never been done!
RUSSERT: WMDs, No, greeted as liberators, No, only 100,000
troops, No, not $50 billion but $350 billion. Each of these
judgments was wrong. Why should we trust your judgment now?
CONDI: Our judgment is that the region is changing in
fundamental ways and is better than before. Keep historical
perspective, they are doing something unknown. The alternative
was to leave Saddam in power, a threat, with billions from the
Oil for food program.
RUSSERT: He was in a box.
CONDI: He was not in a box. Oil for Food, billions, not just
going to build palaces. Saddam had ad insatiable appetite to
dominate his region.

If this isn't WPS, I don't know what is.

CONDI: The notion that before the war there was a placid Middle
East is not true. The malignancy in the Middle East led directly
to 9/11.

Remember Republican derision at attacking "root causes" of, say, poverty at home? Here we have Condi attacking the "root causes" of "malignancy" by invading the Middle East. Is this beyond bizarre, or what?

RUSSERT: Bush said troops in Iraq will be determined by the next
President, that is after 2008.
CONDI: Bush said "some" troops. We will stand down as they stand
up. And they are indeed standing up. A significant reduction has
occurred because Iraqi forces are taking and holding territory
now. It's entirely possible there will be a significant drawdown
this year depending on events on the ground.
RUSSERT: The Afghanis just dismissed charges against a Christian
convert.
CONDI: Not aware. This is a young democracy. After a new
constitution, there are always issues to work out.
RUSSERT: We talk about spreading democracy, but in
Afghanistan Christianity is punishable by death, and a
woman can't get a without permission from a man. That's a far
cry from democracy.
CONDI: It's better than the Taliban. Only in my lifetime were
blacks guaranteed the right to vote.
RUSSERT: So Christians should be able to worship and seek
converts in Afghanistan.
CONDI: Of course. The Declaration of Human Right.
RUSSERT: But this can't be done on a case by case basis!
CONDI: They have to work through it. Four years ago the Taliban
executed people for listening to music, women not educated at
all, come a long way. Let's support them in their quest to
become a modern democracy.

[Russert shows a series of clips of Condi. What I notice is that her hairstyle keeps changing. Funny there's no coverage of that, as opposed to the massive coverage of Hillary's hairstyle…]

RUSSERT: Do you want to become the NFL commissioner?
CONDI: Not interested.
RUSSERT: Fred Barnes says Cheney might resign and you might
replace him.
CONDI: We've got a great Vice President in Cheney, he is one of
the strongest supporters I've drawn on.
RUSSERT: Laura Bush said you'd make a great President but nobody
an talk you into running.
CONDI: The last part is right.
RUSSERT: It won't happen?
CONDI: It won't happen.

Part 2: The Roundtable—Broder, Bumiller, Cook, Harwood

RUSSERT: Look at this scene from the Los Angeles demonstrations.
How big a political issue is immigration?
BRODER: Started as a border states issue, now a national issue,
talking to Republican governor of MN, IL representatives. Tough
for both parties but especially for the Republicans.
RUSSERT: 62% say illegal immigrants should not become citizens. The
pressure's on Bush—but we need these people to work.
BUMILLER: Bush is trying to walk a fine line between conservatives
and business. Last year he was giving very emotional speeches
[Please!], saying we're a nation of immigrants, guest worker
program, this year he's pulled back, emphasizing border
security. The White House is pulling back, waiting to see what
comes out of the smoke.
COOK: The polls show it's a small issue, only 7% say it's the most
important, but when it's raised, emotions run high. [A classic
Roveian wedge issue.] But immigration is important for
agribusiness. Hard to figure out how to cut the baby.
HARWOOD: It may be pushed ‘til after the election.
RUSSERT: Look at 2008 electoral map, it's big in the swing states.
HARWOOD: Immigration was raised in VA by the Republicans and
emotion did not prevail.
RUSSERT: Iraq. A quote from Cheney that history is not made in
headlines or blogs. Shows a clip were a [pre-selected] audience
member says the media "doesn't want to portray the good. They
just want to focus on another car-bombing.
Does that issue work?
COOK: Helps the base, not swing. It's the nature of the news. And
wandering around Iraq is a good way to get killed. 86 have died.
It's just another "Mission Accomplished" banner. They concede
it's not going well.
BRODER: Post ombudsman Deborah Howell has a thoughtful analysis on
this topic today.

Eeew! Broder fluffing Howell? What is the world coming to?

HARWOOD: It's a weak argument, when you have journalists who
know they're going to be killed if they go out and cover
stories, that fells me the state of security in the country.
BUMILLER: In his response to the question, Bush was very careful
not to jump on the bandwagon (though she did it for him). He
said we have a free press, he pulled back. They know they can't
sell this.
RUSSERT: Is the White House convinced that to secure the base,
they have to go after the media?
BUMILLER: Of course not. Have noticed Scott saying "we don't blame
the media" recently.

Isn't Lizzie sweet? A little naive maybe, but still sweet.

RUSSERT: There's rebellion among the House members, conflict over
the Dubai ports deal, Tom Davis says this is the "worst
administration ever for working with Congress on anything."
BRODER: You've heard that privately, but to hear it on the record
from Tom Davis gives you a measure of falloff of any sense of
loyalty or intimidation. They feel they are on their own, they
will take care of their own business, Bush will take care of his
own business.
RUSSERT: Times this morning—Do not replace Rove, bring in a relief
pitcher.
BUMILLER: Maybe Ed Gillespie, Tom Paxton, there's a lot of talk at
the White House, but no indication of action. Rove says bringing
in without clear lines of authority is a mistake. Bottom line:
Would a personnel change help? Not clear.
HARWOOD: If you look at the big three—Card, Rove, Bartlett— you
could see change. Card is the most likely because he is already
the longest serving.
RUSSERT: The polls: Only 26% say we're on the right track, 62% say
we're on the wrong track. And 37% would prefer to see a
Republican Congress, 50% a Democratic one.
COOK These are national trends, but micro-analysis suggests that it
will be very hard for Democrats. They will have to "run the
table" and hold all their own seats. Not impossible, but a very
tall order. Here are the vulnerable seats:

Burns (MT)
Chafee (RI)
Santorum (PA)
Talent
DeWine (OH)
TN open seat

Getting 3 or 4 is not that hard, but Ohio and Tennessee will be
very hard. There are structural barriers. 85% of incumbents are
re-elected. it can happen but it's hard. If this is a category 3
storm, they will hold. If it is a category 4 or 5, they won't.

-- Lambert

This Week
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO), Gov. Bryan Schweitzer (D-MT)

This Week, George Stephanopoulos flies in a helicopter and tackles the subject of manliness in politics. And Immigration. And Global Warming.

As a host and as a show, Stephanopoulos gets a big "meh" rating from me. He mostly just grins and looks at himself in the camera. His questions are very tame, periodically reminding the guests "but the President has said…".

Immigration

Sen. Arlen "Punxatawnee Phil" Specter
Rep. Tom "One Minute Lover" Tancredo (Wingnut-CO)

Steph: There are 11 million illegal immigrants, 500,000 protested
in LA. Amnesty is an emotionally loaded word.
Spec: My proposed amendment is not an Amnesty. It would impose a fine,
6 years waiting time, criminal background checks.
Tanc: It is an amnesty, the crime they have committed is coming in to
this country without our permission, the penalty is deportation.
Amnesty means rewarding people who do it the wrong way. A slap in
the face to naturalized, who do it the right way.

That's right Tom. Discipline and Punish. Let's get the base all fired up about "rewarding" "those people" with human rights. Just like the Liberals want to "reward" lazy black people with Welfare and other "entitlements". I work hard and obey the law, why are "those people" "entitled" to anything? They're all criminals and should be punished mercilessly. That will make me feel better while the GOP and the Corporations send me and my trailer park community deeper into abject poverty.

Steph: Should we round ‘em up and ship ‘em home?
Tanc: I have a radical proposal: let's enforce the laws on the books.
Laws against employers who hire illegals. If we do that there will be
no more illegals, they will go home voluntarily.
Steph: Business is afraid.
Spec: They won't go home voluntarily if we crack down on businesses,
that's wishful thinking.

It feels creepy to be on the same page as "Minuteman" Tom, but I highly doubt any politician, R or D, really intends to enforce anything about the demand, the business side of the issue. It's much easier to punish the economically cloutless victims: the illegal workers. Specter doesn't explain why it wouldn't work.

Steph plays clip of the woman FReepers (like Tancredo) call "Hitlery Klintoon": This would criminalize the good
Samaritan, probably Jesus himself.
Tanc: I'm not surprised that Hillary doesn't know the first thing
about the Bible. Har de har har.
Steph: So you would make it a crime to provide assistance to illegal
immigrants?
Tanc: It's not a new law, it's been on the books. It only calls for
prosecuting people who bring people in, not about going after soup
kitchens.
Spec: It should be modified. People who provide assistance are
rightfully concerned.
Tanc: The "aiding and abetting" law was amended out in an Agriculture
bill. [outraged facial expression] It's not against all religious
institutions, but there are some, oh I don't know… Islamic religious
institutions have provided safe havens for illegal immigrants.

Scared yet? So we will be going after Islamic soup kitchens then? Of course, nice white Christian churches have nothing to worry about.

Steph: Senate version of the bill doesn't have proposal for 700 mile
wall, House version does.
Spec: I'm in favor of a Virtual Wall: aerial drones, overhead
telemetry (wha?) Walls only in metropolitan areas.
Tanc: The Wall is really just a Fence.

What you see in front of your eyes is not real. Trust me.

Steph: Frist said if Spec doesn't introduce an amendment tomorrow he
will take Guest Workers off the table.
Spec: We're going to have to work late. We're a nation of laws and a
nation of immigrants.

Specter related the story of his family's immigration from the Ukraine. "Minuteman" Tom didn't say anything, but "Tancredo" doesn't sound like a name that appeared on the Mayflower's passenger manifest. Sounds more like an Italian name to me -- or what a less tolerant viewer might call a WOP. Maybe someone in his family's history was WithOut Papers at some time or another. How would he feel about declaring them felons, retroactively?

Next: global warming with Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer

New polls:

85% think global warming is real; 68% think something should be done about it

Schweitzer tells Steffie as they fly over Glacier National Park:
... There used to be 100 glaciers, now only a couple of dozens. By 2025 there will be no glaciers in Glacier National Park.

Global Warming is changing the park's whole ecosystem. Spruce mugwort
is killing trees which leads to more forest fires. ... There is a
proposal by the UN to save the park.

Change of scene, a hunting lodge setting reminiscent of Twin Peaks:

Schweitzer: Montana is the Saudi Arabia of Coal. With Clean Coal
technology CO2 is pumped back into the ground, it's called
"sequestering".
...
China and India use coal fired plants. If we develop clean coal
gasification technology then transfer that technology to India and
China. We can save the world right here in Montana.
...
Now we're giving money to countries that our not our friends to buy
oil. That money ends up being used against us.
...
We are doing nothing. You gotta take action, can't have just words. A
chief executive should challenge the country. Public-private
partnership. Technology we can export to the world.
...
My wife and I bought a Diesel VW Jetta we will fill with fuel made
from coal.

If only we could tap into the massive reservoirs of Gas these Sunday Talk Shows represent, our energy addiction problem would be solved.

Steph: What can the Blue Governor of a Red state teach Beltway
Democrats?
Schweitzer: Montana is not red or blue. People are looking for someone
with good ideas and who will talk straight to them. Beltway Dems
mostly represent the coasts, they don't understand the heartland
(pronounced "hartlind").
Steph: Can you sell Hillary in Montana?
Schweitzer: Probably not.

Proposing solutions and talking straight to voters. What a concept.

Roundtable! The players: Fareed "Onomatopoeia" Zakaria, George "Triumph of The" Will, and Katrina "VanDenBooble" Van Den Heuvel

Immigration

Fareed: There is a practical reality: the demand. Immigrants are the
single reason the US economy is booming compared to Europe and other
countries.
Will: It will take 200,000 buses lined up from San Diego to Alaska to
deport 11 million illegals. Not going to happen.

George Will, as a service to information hungry audiences everywhere, has done the math on this issue.

Katrina: Last year was the year of the Minutemen, this year is the
year of the Immigrants.
Steph: During the debate on California Prop 187, Mexican flags in the
street propelled it to victory in the polls.

Yeah you big dummies. Don't you know that speaking out about issues that affect you is political suicide? Do like the Democrats and shut the hell up.

IIRC, Prop 187 denies social services and health care to illegal immigrants. Another policy motivated by racial prejudice and not by a desire for practical solutions. Illegals are still here and get sicker without medical attention to minor problems. These problems end up in preventable Big health problems, Illegals end up in Emergency Rooms and have to be taken care of, at greater expense to taxpayers.

Ironic that 187 is the police code for murder, if West Coast hip-hop songs are correct.

Will: Fareed is wrong, IBM is the backbone of America, not illegal
workers.
Fareed: That's because the women who work at IBM have an immigrant
watching their kids at home.

Zing! Fareed was the only one who made any kind of sense in the whole show (this includes Steffie). George Will is senile, right wing thought processes having sclerotized his neurons a long time ago. VanDenBooble was boldly shrill in attacking the Republicans but was much less vocal about any kind of solutions.

Katrina: With people like Tancredo we see the demonization of
immigrants. The white supremacist, David Duke perspective has been
absorbed into the Right-wing mainstream.
Will: African Americans hate Hispanics too.

See what I mean?

Fareed: The way you talk about immigration creates the environment.
The European Green Card, yes they call it Green Card, guest worker
program is a failure because it doesn't lead to full citizenship. The
result is large groups of disgruntled, alienated people.

Race riots like the ones in Paris are a bad thing.

Steph: Nothing will happen this year.

Thanks for the insight, George.

Steph: Time Magazine cover: the debate about global warming is over.
Will: Reads a 1974 article warning of coming glaciations. Doing
something about global warming will cost Trillions of dollars which
could be spent on global development, AIDS in Africa, etc. Climate
fluctuates on its own, naturally. The people who were wrong thirty
years ago are wrong today.
Fareed: Why don't we err in the side of caution.
Will: Let's not make a trillion dollar mistake.

Now there's honest debate about an issue. All of the science done in recent years can be dismissed with a crumpled photocopy of a random newspaper article from decades ago.

Besides, fighting a man-made process that will make the planet uninhabitable by humans is risky and very expensive! Are you bleeding-heart liberals willing to sacrifice your other pet causes? Because that's the choice, really.

Katrina: It's no longer a debate, the question is: do we face a
tipping point? The British Minister of pollution calls global warming
deniers "climate loonies". These are the same people who denied
cigarettes caused cancer. This Administration rewrites science,
silences scientists.

In Memoriam: Some guy who was on Hee Haw, a movie director, an opera producer and 9 US soldiers have died.

Manliness in Politics

From transcript, because I can't take it no mo, and it's absurd all by itself. Note Steffie's snarky setup.

As the political world continues to buzz about whether Condoleezza Rice
or Hillary Clinton will be the first woman president, the Harvard
professor Harvey Mansfield, author of "Manliness," and Naomi Wolf, who
taught Al Gore about earth tones, discuss the politics of manliness.
Mansfield: Manliness I define as confidence in a situation of risk,
and I think men have that more than women.
Wolf: I don't know what bubble he's living in. He's making these
sweeping arguments as if from this bubble in 1955.
Mansfield: Politics is a field of competition, and women are less
interested in competition, just as they're less interested in sports.
And, indeed, I think their interest in sports goes together with their
interest in men more than in sports or in politics directly.

Snark Ipsa Loquitor.

-- Shystee

Fox News Sunday
Chris Wallace, Condi Rice, Sen. Carl Levin, plus Roundtable

The interview portion of the cablecast were unevenly divided between Condi Rice and Carl Levin, Rice getting more time, which struck me as unfair, given that Rice was the lead interview as well on the other three hours of Sunday gasbaggery.

What is there left to say about Condi Rice?

I'll give her this, she is more relaxed as Secretary of State than she was as Bush's Security honcho, but then she's getting much love from the SCLM. I am unable to view her without my awareness that she lies often, and without remorse. In a separate post during the week, I think I'll give what I consider a typical but less often noted example; interestingly, it had to do with North Korea and the nuclear issue, which was notable by its absence anywhere on the agenda of this hour long analysis of what Chris Wallace noted, in his intro to the program, would be about international hotspots - which turned out to be Afghanistan, Iraq, and, of course, Iran - no mention of North Korea - no problem that they may be stockpiling nuclear weapons and looking for more technology to get themselves a fleet of missiles that can deliver nuclear weapons, not to mention the value of nuclear technology as trading chips for a country that is isolated, and continues to suffer from famine.

Afghanistan turned out to be a hot spot because of the issue of the man facing a capitol trial for changing religions, from Muslim to Christian.

The case had already been dismissed by this morning, but Wallace didn't have nothin' else to talk about for Afghanistan…so…One interesting Rice comment - she pointed to the new Afghani constitution's pledge to embrace the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document not often given much credit by the rightwing, of which she is so clearly, now, a member in good standing, all dues paid up. Naturally, she didn't mention the UN was where the Declaration was passed, at a time when America was one of its chief supporters, something which would never have happened under this administration.

Rice had nothing of interest to say about any of this, but she managed to exude the most astonishing smugness about the "progress" in Afghanistan, considering what is actually happening there, and how strong are the forces on the ground that could push it once again into the status of a failed state, if it isn't just that already, for the vast majority of Afghanis.

Next up, Iraq. No unity government yet, Wallace noting that a group of them had met and not succeeded in forming a government because of disagreements about who would get what jobs. Tsk, Tsk, Condi replied, remember how hard is what we and they are trying to do, progress IS being made, General Casey has said that there will be likely significant drawdowns of troops over this here year, as Iraqi troops stand up, etc.: Wallace didn't think to ask how it was that Casey and Condi weren't thereby signally the insurgent they only need to hold on for a while. Needless for me to say it, no questions were asked about those permanent American bases we seem to be building in Iraq, OF COURSE!

Iran - you've heard it all before, and will hear it endless times again, although Condi emphasized that we are working in concert with the world community, and with a man like John Bolton at the UN…

As far as I could tell, (I will admit to having nodded off a few times), Wallace didn't ask Secretary Rice anything about the stepped up attacks by the Bush administration on the coverage of Iraq by the SCLM. Natch.

Whereas Rice got two segments, Carl Levin, just back from a trip to both Iraq and Afghanistan, got one segment.

Levin wasn't at all bad on Iraq; no, what the administration is doing isn't working, because by its endless reassurances that this country is offering an open-ended commitment of American troops in Iraq, the administration is disincentivizing Iraqi politicians from coming together in a unity government, which is the only hope for Iraq. Instead, what Levin saw this week was "political gridlock."

Levin acknowledged that there was some progress being made in training Iraqi Army troops, but made a distinction between that and the development of a police force that can establish civil security, both of which he noted, were sorely lacking. There were countries around the world that could have helped us help the Iraqis in this, but that seems unlikely now, given the horrifying lack of the most minimal freedom from constant violence, added to the Bush administration's failure to welcome other countries not among the coalition of the willing, i.e., countries and politicians, unlike Britain's Blair, who don't feel they should agree to say only nice things about Bush.

About Afghanistan, Levin was more hopeful than he is on Iraq, and naturally Wallace didn't ask the kind of questions that would have brought out the idiocy that we are spending all this money in Iraq and ignoring much of Afghanistan's needs. Oh well, Wallace had something more important to discuss - Feingold's censure resolution, which Wallace introduced by running a clip of the Vice-President trying to make hay out of the NSA issue, while he made fun of Democrats for thinking they could run on the issue of incompetence.

Levin didn't seem the least bit troubled by anything Cheney had to say, and he fully embraced the issue of competence as one the Democrats would and should run on.

In reference to Feingold, Levin was less good, keeping his distance from the censure resolution, but at least Levin did make clear that the entire NSA issue is a genuine one which involves possible law-breaking on the part of the administration and which requires investigation on the part of both the Intelligence and the Justice committees.

Levin is part of a sub-committee which is being given briefings on the program; Levin declined to say how they're going, pointing out that he was sworn not to talk about it, something Wallace didn't seem able to understand when quizzing Senator Durbin last week. Once again, Wallace pointed to a single sentence by Senator Feinstein, seeming to embrace the program. A quick personal note here - I called the Senator's office last week and was told by one of her aides that Feinstein hasn't taken a definitive position yet, she was only saying that naturally, being able to listen to phone calls by persons there are reasonable reasons to believe might be terrorists is a good idea, but like all such programs, it needs to be legal, and involve some kind of supervision from the courts and congress.

Now to the roundtable, which included regulars Mara Liasson, Juan Williams, William Kristol, with the addition of Paul Gigot.

First topic was IMMIGRATION! Blah-blah-blah about the split in the Republican Party, between the antediluvian rightwing, Tom Tancredo et al, who want to build walls, literally, on the border, and Bush's compassionate conservative desire not to alienate the fastest growing ethnic majority in this country. What struck me was the total cynicism of it all, although both Gigot and Kristol tried to wrap it in the higher idealism of something or other. They're against a wall, and criminalizing both being an illegal alien and helping same. It was hard not to read what they were saying as fear about further declines in the Republican base. Both Kristol and Gigot thought, what with that giant among men, John McCain, being for the more liberal version of immigration reform, plus the liberals being for it, there was a chance for comprehensive reform. But does that mean the Republicans won't be shooting at Democrats on this issue? Yeah, right.

Interesting, but not surprising, there was no discussion at all about the Bush administration's renewed attacks on the SCLM's coverage of what is happening in Iraq, surely one of the chief political stories of the week.

Kristol came alive talking about Afghanistan; Karzai is a real leader, and which country, Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia, looks the more likely one to develop genuine democratic values? Gosh, Bill, are those the only choices? Apparently, Kristol focused on Saudi Arabia because it is a favorite of all those "realist" foreign policy wonks.

Wallace then wondered aloud if some of the concern about what was happening in Afghanistan this week wasn't a form of "we told you so," aimed at the administration, and he cited an op ed which Madeline Albright had written for the LA Times.

Well, that was all Kristol and Gigot needed; Albright was a fine one to talk - her Afghanistan was the one run by the Taliban, a decade of doing nothing, I think I heard the word, "feckless" somewhere in there…but you know what they said, you've heard all those lies before. In fact, the Taliban were in control in Afghanistan by the time Clinton came into office, and if anyone brought the Taliban to the Afghan people, it was Ronald Reagan and the first President Bush, both of whom supported the mujahedin, which included many of the same people we are now fighting, and it was those Republican administrations that left Afghanistan in total chaos, a truly failed state, and it was Bush Sr.'s administration, in particular, who ignored Afghanistan, and what was developing there, once the Soviets had left.

I don't remember a single thing that Mara Liasson said.

Juan Williams made a halfway decent point about Afghanistan, pointing out that Karzai's intervention in the religious case this week had its down side in that once again America was seen as holding the puppet strings. Juan was assiduously ignored, and his point wasn't so good as to make up for all the nonsense he spews on NPR.

-- Leah

Face the Nation
Gloria Borger, Sen. Ted Kennedy, Stephen Hadley

Gloria Bolger hosted FTN this week, having Ted Kennedy on for the first half (15 min.) of the show and (Condi Rice surrogate, since she can't be everywhere at once) Steven Hadley on the second. Kennedy got the Immigration Bill and Feingold/Censure questions, and Hadley the Russian Leaks to Saddam and Iraqi Civil War matters. The nice thing about 1/2 hour divided by 2 guests is that you don't have time to go wandering all over the place, meaning this report doesn't either. Let's go below the fold for the details…

Watching Kennedy's take on the Evil Immigration Bill after (*spoiler warning for Shystee's column*) Specter and Tancredo walloped on the same subject on This Week was interesting. Soft Right Specter and Tom "Barking Loony Right" Tancredo competed over who could best figure out a way to take the benefits offered by exploited, powerless (Mexican) brown people while at the same time using them to whip up fear of potentially fiendish murderous (Arab/Islamic) brown people at the same time.

Question: Will you filibuster HR 4437 when it comes to the Senate?
Kennedy: The question is about American values. Who will be part of
America by way of citizenship? We need a coalition to find a common
sense solution: business, labor, faith-based groups must all be a
part of the decision making process. We can't solve this problem
with law enforcement alone, and we are now spending $20 billion
[not sure if he meant per year or cumulative over some period of
time] on the present solution involving chains, dogs and fences.

Better no bill at all than a bad bill. [Sounded like as big a threat of filibuster as you can get without saying the word. Huzzah Ted!]

Q: So is the McCain bill which you support an amnesty?
A: No [apparently this is the obligatory response, like saying "No
there is no Civil War in Iraq."] The McCain bill would put illegals
on track to legal status but at the foot of the line, not ahead of
those properly working the process. Applicants would have to pay a
fine, have work, learn English. 17000 permanent residents [non-
citizens] are currently serving in the military and they are among
those who deserve a chance to legitimize their status. Employers are
magnets for illegal immigrants.

The Hard Right is trying to make the issue a political football when what is needed is for both sides to come together and work on the problem, as was done for Civil Rights, Medicare and other issues since I've been in the Senate. The Hard Right would make Cardinal Mahoney (Los Angeles) a felon for helping illegal immigrants.

Question: How's that Feingold Censure resolution coming along?
A: Many investigations/inquiries/subcommittee meetings going on. If
White House will cooperate (previous examples, including Ford era
original creation of FISA judicial review, cited) then Feingold
will not be necessary. If the White House stonewalls then there
will be increasing support for Feingold.
Q: So what about this Russians Leaking to Saddam thing anyway? Is
this serious?
A: Oh yeah. Very. This endangered American troops (if true.) Why
doesn't Bush know TODAY what happened? We may have to reassess our
relationship with Russia. Rethink our attendance at the G8 summit
in St. Petersburg this summer.
Q: [tape of Darth Cheney making snotty remarks, accusing Kennedy
of having the "pre 9-11 mentality" so we should not listen to him
on foreign policy matters.
A: We could use fewer wisecracks from the Vice President. Since HE
was the one whose response after 9-11 was to first think of
attacking Iraq rather than Afghanistan…and he misused
intelligence….and he fabricated nonexistent ties between Al Qaeda
and Iraq…and was wrong about WMDs…and was wrong that we would be
greeted as liberators…and wrong to say a year ago that the
insurgency was in its "last throes"…and pretty much wrong in each
instance, perhaps we should recognize that HE is the one who should
not be listened to on foreign policy matters.

[Woo woo! alert. This was a slam-dunk sound bite and should get reprinted/aired everywhere. Yeah, it'll probably get ::crickets:: but we do what we can.]

Next up was the Hadley segment.

Q: So what's the deal on the Russians leaking to Saddam?
A: That was very, very naughty…if it happened. Investigation
needed. We will ask the Russians about this. Was this authorized
by [Pooty-Poot Putin] the government or was it the [Bad Apple]
Russian ambassador acting on his own? Tsk, sez Mr. Hadley. Tsk
tsk.
Q: Um, that was three years ago. As Sen. Kennedy asked, why
don't we know now the answers to all this?
A: [Duck, dodge, bob, weave.] We don't control intelligence.
[Huh?? WTF???] Blame ambassador Bad Apple again.
Q: Should we boycott the G8 meeting?
A: G8 very important. Russia is new at this sort of Democracy
thing. This is not the Soviet Union we're dealing with here
[Note: you coulda fooled me…but back to Mr. Hadley]. Attention
will be focused on St. Petersburg and the whole issue of how
Democracy is doing in Russia. We must encourage the Russians, not
kick them out. We should give them a Very Stern Talking-To and
possibly send them to their room and take away their Nintendo for
the night. [okay, last part paraphrased somewhat.]
Q: So how's that Iraqi Civil War thing coming along?
A: That's just semantics. This is clearly not a Civil War because
they had that Golden Mosque bombing and the leaders all called for
peace.
Q: Your boss Condi is dropping hints about a "controlled drawdown"
of US forces? Wassup?
A: Drawdown is already in progress; two brigades scheduled to be
sent were not, we're down to circa 135K. Further reductions will be
at the discretion of field commanders. But [you knew this was
coming] we are concerned about Iran, they are sending components
for IEDs. Iran bad.
Q: And that Afghanistan thing, how's all that?
A: Just swell, the case of dropping the case against the apostate
who turned Christian proves that all is well because they have the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights in their constitution [WTF??
And could maybe we get one of those too, in ours? Don't they have
a clause in there about "Islam shall be the supreme law of the
land" too? Guess we ran out of time before we could ask about
that, right Gloria?]

Whew. You'd think a half hour show would take half the time to write about, but that turns out not to be the case. See you again next week, same bat time, same bat blog.

-- Xan

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