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apj.us / correntewire.com presents
Pundit Pap
Li'l Kim Sets the Tune
by the Pundit Pap Team
Corrente's Leah & Shystee
with APJ's Jane Grice
July 9, 2006 (correntewire.com / apj.us)–Another crazy week, more inane "political debate."
Many of the usual suspects – and a B-string player from Team Bush – kept us well-uninformed this lovely, lazy Sunday. Here's the gist...
—Jane Grice
CBS Face the Nation
by Shystee
Undersecretary of State Nick "Mr."Burns, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT)
As a sign of how little Bush cares about North Korea, he couldn’t even be bothered to send Condi on the talk shows. Instead we got Undersecretary of State Nick Burns, via remote.
Ol’ Crankypants: Why did NK fire missiles on the Fourth of July?
Burns: (changes subject to recite talking points) China has more influence. We want China to take care of this. Six party talks.
Ol’ Crankypants: What are the 5 nations prepared to do?
Burns: We’re going to completely isolate them. Prohibit trade… that would contribute to nuclear program. Missile defense. There is a lot of support of what we’ve been doing in the past couple of years with the president’s leadership.
The leadership has been awesome. A gift of billions of dollars to defense contractors who can’t come up with something that actually works in testing. So the president just orders the system to go from “test” to “operational” mode.
John McCain
Ol’ Crankypants: Will china go along with this resolution?
McCain: China is an emerging superpower, they should behave like one.
Ol’ Crankypants: Why wouldn’t China?
McCain: Immaturity? Naivete?
Scolding China as if it were a wayward child will certainly work. Thank you, McCain!
Ol’ Crankypants: Should we take out those missiles?
McCain: (pained Koala Bear expression) I don’t know, Bob. Not at this time.
Chris Dodd
Dodd: They have plutonium, they need hard currency, Al Qaeda wants nuclear material. A dangerous situation.
Chris “Fiery Eyebrows” Dodd makes a good point about Bush’s absolute refusal to speak directly with NK:
Dodd: Bilateral conversation is a good idea. Negotiations are not a reward. We have to get away from this idea that diplomacy is a sign of weakness. This notion that we’re never going to do this… we’re wasting time here.
On Putin
Dodd: once a KGB agent, always a KGB agent. I’m worried about where he’s going.
On Lieberman
Dodd: Lieberman has been a fabulous Senator. I think the challenge undermines him. I won’t make a statement about what happens after the primary. This idea that he’s close to the Bush Administration just isn’t true. He’s been very critical.
Translation: we look after our own, it’s all about our personal relationships and careers. F$#@ the voters.
Final Word
This is a direct quote:
Ol’ Crankypants: Talk about an argument against Intelligent Design. It was a week when nothing made sense.
Talk about insulting our collective intelligence.
This Weak With George Stephanopoulos
by Leah
Senator Lugar / James Webb v. George Allen / The Gang Of Three
The headline for today’s installment would have to be something like: …
“Lively Political Discourse Dead In America; Democratic Governance, The Life Of The Mind To Follow, Sooner Rather Than Later.”
Okay, so I’m not a headline writer.
The “hour’s” (more like half that time, deducting commercials and George’s feel-good celebrity segment at the show’s end) most remarkable aspect was the evidence throughout of the ease and speed with which George Stephanopoulos has made the transition to gasbag extraordinaire, which is now total and complete: Could he care less about facts? Could he care less about clarity? Could he care less about being fair to the center left? Could he be more a creature of beltway buzz and conventional wisdom? Could he care less about journalistic integrity?
No, no, no, no, and no. He could not.
Details below.
Now then, about North Korea: The subject was introduced by tape of Christopher Hill, an assistant secretary of state and a point man on negotiations with North Korea noting, quite rightly,
We have a situation where this country has simply created, has really disturbed the peace in this region. So how will the other countries react to this? Could missile programs in North Korea cause an arms race among some other countries? That’s a real concern.”
Maybe to Hill, but not to the President and his gang – or so methinks.
Senator Lugar, on the other hand, was clearly concerned. And p!ssed, it seemed to me – really, really tired of having to go to bat for the gang that can’t shoot straight. Think I’m exaggerating? When asked by George if it is fair to say that North Korea has become stronger under Bush’s watch, here’s how Lugar responded (approximately):
Perhaps they have…on the other hand, we have drawn closer, diplomatically, to China.
A good trade-off? George didn’t ask.
Before that, Lugar had allowed that Bush was on the right track with the six-party talks; my impression, stuck in Lugar’s throat was this additional thought – in contrast to his idiotic Iraq policy.
Lugar sees China as the key; they have to get tough with North Korea, and they can, because they supply that country with the means to survive, in order to keep North Koreans inside North Korea. (When your population numbers in the billions, you’re not looking for immigrants.) Which means regime change is out, said Dick.
I’ll give this to Lugar: he’s an old-fashioned conservative Republican – no, not in the mode of George Aiken – but Lugar gets what is so dangerous about this situation.
A most interesting moment, unexplored by Steph: on the matter of one on one talks with Kim, the six parties released a statement that indicated circumstances under which that could happen, the State Department agreed, then the Defense Dept. torpedoed (my word) it; Lugar wants to hold hearings on what happened there.
Lugar admitted that the Japanese could decide they have to go nuclear.
And yes, an arms race in Asia is the last thing anyone should want.
The obvious conclusion Steph avoided noticing: this administration has no real policy to deal with any of these problems; for the President, and those closest to him, their new reliance on international diplomacy is just another talking point.
Back to the national political scene, Steph examined the race between Senator George Allen and James Webb, winner of the Democratic primary for Allen’s seat – or, in the clever parlance of network news - Cowboy boots versus Combat boots, with appropriate universally understood icons to illustrate.
What wasn’t said, or even hinted at, was that George Felix Allen Junior’s cowboy boots, like Bush’s, are an affectation despite both men’s historical roots in Texas, whereas Webb’s combat boots were earned.
The segment didn’t follow the two candidates around, oh no, what we were given - two separate interviews by Steph, one with each candidate, cut together to suggest a conversation of sorts.
I think the goal here was liveliness, but the result was more like goofiness.
So, we got Webb explaining why Iraq is a disaster, and the need for accountability, followed by a quick cut to Allen, sneering at Webb for being one of the “I told you so” gang, and a…wait for it…Monday morning quarterback.
Or when the subject of Webb’s service as Reagan’s Secretary of Navy came up, Allen responded with a sour aside, something like, ‘yeah, right, and how long was he Secretary for, 10 months?’ That’s ten months more than you, Bub.
It did seem that the cutting favored Allen, to the extent that he was given more opportunities to undercut what Webb had just said, but no amount of tinkering could have disguised the fact that Allen is a fool, a dunderhead, a guy for whom a slogan is always better than an idea, and that Webb, in high contrast, is a highly intelligent, learned man, cool, confidant, who comes fully equipped with a wealth of experience – in combat, in education, in government – a man comfortable enough in his own boots to be full of laughter, even during a serious discussion, and best of all, even at himself.
I think Allen’s people ought to be worried, based on those crosscuts; Allen came off as a Bush clone, minus the presidential thingee.
Webb was impressive on every score. While it’s true he was threading a separate path on Iraq between Kerry’s resolution and the Levin-Reid one, he picked up on one of the greatest vulnerabilities of the administration: those permanent bases we’ve been building in Iraq. What do they mean? How do they fit in with that constant administration dirge on Iraq: as they stand up, we’ll stand down? He would have said more, but Steph wouldn’t let him, if you can believe it. Didn’t fit the narrative: Democrats unworthy of Webb, who is an iconoclast.
Don’t you long for the day when a network pundit will pay attention to such a moment, explore it, and even remind us and someone like Webb that it was John Kerry who said, as the presidential candidate in 2004, that he would stop all work on permanent bases in Iraq as a way of expressing in the most compelling fashion that we don’t intend to stay? Interesting “what if” to consider.
Allen, of course, took every opportunity to recast anything Webb said as cut and run, turn tail and run…slogans, slogan, slogans.
Most impressive aspect of Webb, his total comfort presenting himself as a Democrat, and his total commitment to being a Democrat. Case in point, asked by Steph what would happen if in 2008 it was Hillary Clinton versus Webb’s old pal, John McCain, Webb, after laughing at the question, in a good way, said, without hesitation, that he would support the Democratic candidate in 2008.
Webb reminded everyone that Ronald Reagan had been a Democrat, and then became a Republican; so was Webb, early in his career; he became a Republican, in part, out of a sense of alienation from that sizable portion of Democrats who were against the Vietnam War. Webb allowed that he thought there was a chance, were Reagan around to take the temperature of the current Republican party, he would consider returning to being a Democrat.
Don’t think so, Jim, but nice point.
The best moment in the whole show came when Webb explained that after September 11, 2001, he lost all his anger at those he’d been angry with for thirty years. I believed him. Which probably means Webb is as angry as most of us at the way that post-9/11 period was undermined by the political calculations of the Republican party.
The roundtable was sparsely furnished this morning; gosh, only three pundits! Peter Beinart, Donna Brazile, and George F. Will.
First topic: the Bush flip-flop on preemption v. diplomacy, complete with a clip of his aggressive 2002 "Axis of Evil" State of the Union talking point, and his paean, at Monday’s press conference, to patience, diplomacy, and the American way.
George Will, who responded first, has been at this pundit thing so long that he has become a living parody of himself. George’s take on the difference between the two clips is that at long last the President has become a conservative. "Everyone knows," George went on, that the government can’t run Amtrak; now he understand that the notion that you can control other nations is wrong-headed.
Or some such thing.
The government can’t run Amtrak?
Brazile brought it back to North Korea: the president has a fiasco on his hands.
Beinart tried to put his policy wonk hat on, something about deterrence, our nuclear arsenal being the umbrella for China, Japan, and South Korea, so they won’t feel the need to nuclearize, but Steph blew Pete’s hat off, just at the point that Beinart was saying something positive about the Clinton Administration’s handling of North Korea.
You think maybe it’s in Steph’s contract that he will under NO circumstances allow anything positive to be said about either Bill or Hillary Clinton, to protect the "journalistic integrity" of ABC?
Will had a good word for missile defense of course, and he had the nerve to note that since John Kennedy made nonproliferation an issue, in the succeeding years – except for some important exceptions – it’s worked, although, being the good conservative that Will is, he expressed skepticism that it would continue to work.
No discussion of the way this administration has literally blown apart the international framework for nonproliferation
No discussion of Iraq.
No discussion of the Mexican election. You think conditions in Mexico might have some relevance to our immigration problems, if problems they be?
Well, no one at ABC appears to.
Last topic…Lieberman & Lamont. Sounds like an old vaudevillian act, doesn’t it?
I have to give some respect to Donna Brazile; I have the distinct impression that she’s been reading blogs, or talking to bloggers, because when it comes to the net roots she seems to be getting it.
That cannot be said of either Beinart or Will, who were more or less in agreement about the thundering hordes who are turning the Democratic party into a one seized by “monomania.” Joe Lieberman is a “good solid liberal,” but he’s wrong on one issue, so he isn’t to be tolerated.
Beinart was worse: the netroots have taken their inspiration from Karl Rove, and they are trying to turn the Democratic Party into their version of the Republican Party.
Both Beinart and Will acted as if they were talking about something shameful: Imagine that! Ordinary American citizens organizing themselves to have an affect on how they are governed. F$#@ing outrageous!
Brazile wasn’t buying either formulation. She applauded the netroots, pointed out that no one was expelling Lieberman from the party, someone was challenging him in a primary election.
She thought Lamont had come out well in the debate, that Lieberman was in trouble. She also pointed out that he had taken out a insurance policy, as he had in 2002, insisting on running for the Senate even while he was the Democratic vice-presidential candidate; Brazile felt that starting those petitions to run as an independent might well hurt Lieberman.
Yes, Brazile is a Lieberman supporter, but she understand the critique being offered of her guy, she finds nothing about it disturbing, and, she made clear, that like Hillary Clinton, Brazile will support whoever is the winner of the Democratic primary.
My kind of woman.
Meet The Press: North Korea And Nothing But, Ambassador
Nick Burns, And Three Democrats
by Leah
North Korea got the star treatment on NBC today: pictures of marching soldiers, of missiles blasting from launch pads, Kim Jong Il being Kim Jong Il, with Timmeh’s voiceover asking, "Can this man be stopped?"
Overhyped? Definitely.
Over half the show was spent with Russert badgering Ambassador Nick Burns, the number three guy at State, to almost no avail.
Interesting to consider why Condi didn’t deem it important enough for her to be on any of the Sunday programs. Trying to minimize? Definitely.
Will we get sanctions out of the UN, asked Russert?
Amb. Burns: Well, we have a very aggressive resolution proceeding there…which then became a defense of the six-party talks, and the important new development that China is sending a delegation to N. Korea - time for China to put their best foot forward, says Burns. Gee, you mean they haven’t been? Lots of words to say something not that interesting, or different than has been said by administration spokespersons for…well, for years now.
Timmeh comes back with a right jab; yeah but China and Russia are on record not wanting sanctions.
Burns then points out it’s different now; those missiles changed things. More words, lots of words on this one. What we and all six parties, and the whole world want - force North Korea back to the negotiating table.
But isn’t that what the whole point was of those missiles on the 4th of July were all about - an attention-getting device? asks Russert.
I think you could call most of this back and forth a “slow dance on the killing ground:” Burns at pains to express how deeply this administration understands how serious is this situation, and what a good idea those six party talks are, and yes, we can talk to the North Koreans directly, but in the context of the six party talks. A person could be forgiven for thinking that the Bush Administration is less about actual diplomacy, and more about protocol.
As wordy and meaningless as Burns presentation struck me, the hour demonstrated almost conclusively how inadequate is the Meet The Press-Russert formula for extracting information from spinning spokespersons.
That catch-ya strategy caught Russert up, and he kept coming back to the
same points, without being able to shake Burns wall of words. That’s partly
because he wasn’t really looking for answers, for hard information.
In fact, by the end of the hour, it became clear that Russert hadn’t mastered
even the basics of the last 15 years of our history with North Korea.
What about regime change? asks Russert. Well, says Burns, it’s a terrible regime, terrible to and for its people, but we’re on this diplomatic track…
What about security assurances for North Korea? Oh, they’re in that 2005 agreement, which the N. Koreans just used to light the rockets under those missiles.
What about the change in the President’s tone from 2002 SOTU to last Monday? Well, that was then, this is now, and no, Burns didn’t find anything inconsistent about the President’s approach.
Isn’t it a fact, asks Russert, that North Korea has acquired more nuclear weapons on Bush’s watch? Burns consistently ignored the various forms that inquiry came in.
What about your critics, Ambassador Burns?
Russert started with Newt Gingrich being Newt: the State Department’s failed North Korea strategy of ‘talk forever - act never’ has failed unequivically. Newt was careful to include the Clinton administration by mentioning the time span of 13 years of failure. Damn, if only Newt had made it to the presidency; the time has come for action. If we can not abide a nuclear North Korea equipped with missiles to deliver them, then we demand they dismantle all that, if they say no, we dismantle all that. That was the gist of what Russert quoted.
Burns didn’t agree. More six party talks, more patience, more let diplomacy run its course.
What about critics who insist that the policy of isolation, followed by engagement, at least with our five partners, simply hasn’t worked, and yes, North Korea is more nuclear than it was in 2000.
Burns disagreed; the Bush administration has not given up, they will persevere, diplomacy takes time….
Then another critic, from the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative critic, not some pussy Democrat, Russert was at pains to point out; the policy is a failure. My impression, AEI desires some G.I. Joe action. Interestingly, Russert steered clear of any actual discussion of how practical such action would be.
Burns profoundly disagreed with this criticism, more words, all to say, hey guys, we’re on the case.
Russert’s final jab struck me as almost ludicrous, and the perfect example of why this program is so ineffective in providing its audience with actual information.
Bill Kristol was wheeled out, think Hannibal Lecter, wrapped in a devastating quote that points out the following: “North Korea is firing missiles. Iran is going nuclear. Somalia is controlled by radical Islamists. Iraq isn’t getting better, and Afghanistan is getting worse.” Kristol goes on to express his appreciation for Bush’s steadfastness on Iraq, but worries that its challenges have made the administration too passive in regards to all these other challenges.
Is that not rich?
No causal relationship between any of these other disasters and Iraq, of course not.
And why does Kristol get quoted?
He has credibility in Russert & Co’s eyes. After all, he was not only a supporter of invading Iraq, he was one of the Neocons who did the intellectual ground work for convincing Americans that the best way to make ourselves safe was to become an empire. So what’s Kristol’s answer? More of the same! More muscularity, more willingness to take risks, more of everything that has got us into the mess Kristol had just kristolized so clearly.
Works for me.
In a rare move for MTP, three Clinton administration members who were actively involved in North Korean policy were invited to discuss the current situtaion: Ashton Carter, a former assistant secretary of state, Robert Gallucci, who was the lead negotiator of the 1994 Agreed Framework, and Bill Richardson, who’s been to North Korea five times.
With half the time that Burns had, these three said twice as much.
This, despite the formula that Russert kept trying to impose on the segment - that Clinton’s way of dealing with North Korea was no more successful than Bush's. Here is where Russert ignorance of the facts was displayed with vivid clarity. Good on Gallucci that he was having none of it.
Russert wanted to push the idea that the Clinton’s administration willingness to engage in direct talks had resulted in a promised agreement, but to no avail, because the North Koreans cheated, i.e. they closed down one plant, but continued at another plant, and produced nuclear weapons on Clinton’s watch, too. At least one, Russert suggested, hopefully.
To back that up, he had a couple of quick clips of Secretary of State Albright, the first, raising a glass of champagne with Kim Jong Il, and the second one on Meet The Press, admitting that yes, the N. Korean’s did ultimately cheat.
Gallucci added the details; the Agreed Framework closed down a North Korean program that used spent nuclear fuel rods to make weapons grade.
So the answer to Tim’s question is quite simply, “no,” and Gallucci said so with great clarity.
The Clinton Administration was able, through direct talks, to close down an active program that was succeeding in producing weapons grade plutunium. They produced no such material throughout the rest of the Clinton Administration. We know that because the agreement included various mechanisms of transparency: inspections, seals, and satellite monitoring.
What we found out, toward the end of the nineties, was that N. Korea had bought from Pakistan some technology to enrich uranium, a much more difficult process. There is no evidence that they came up with weapons grade fissionable material.
All three of these Clinton appointees were blunt about this administration - what they are doing is not working, and meanwhile, North Korea is producing plutonium, more every day.
That’s what was missing from the previous discussion with Burns- that the situation isn’t static; while the Bush administration has refused to first honor the Agreed Framework, then to ignore North Korea, and then to come up with the six-party talks, North Korea has continued to strengthen its nuclear hand.
All three agreed that direct talks were needed, whether within the six party framework, or not.
What about the headlines, Russert wanted to know: Bush blinks. The answer was pretty much the same; it’s not about those kinds of headlines - it’s about a very real threat, and the need for finding a real solution to that threat.
Carter had a slightly more muscular approach than Gallucci and Richardson - he been willing to entertain the idea of taking out the N. Korean long-range missile if it wasn’t taken down from the launch pad, but he was at pains to point out that this suggestion involved one cruise missile, and was a way of drawing a line in the sand. Also, the suggestion had been predicated on adequate intelligence that the missile had a chance of being operational.
It took Gallucci and Ashton Carter to bring up the worst case scenario, one that Russert had not presented to Amb Burns - at some point, the North Koreans can give that plutonium to Al Qaeda. They’ll have enough to sell it to whomever they wish. And a missile defense system isn’t going to help you defend against that one.
It was Ashton Carter who also clarified what the real problem has been with the Bush Administration’s policy toward North Korea - the deep divisions within the administration between Defense and State, between Colin Powell and John Bolton; the latter played a major role in the collapse of The Agreed Framework.
Russert hadn’t asked one question about such a division. Natch.
I don’t feel I’ve been able to give justice to the experience of listening to policy makers who are actually saying something, not endless spinning.
I highly recommend reading the transcript of this portion of the MTP when it’s available.
Also, Eric Alterman did a good summary of N. Korea policy Friday on his blog,
Altercation, which you can find here.
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