toward a new mandate

Notes on Sacramento Trip

2006-04-07T19:05:00.000-07:00

David at Books Not Bars says he hopes to be in touch with Renee Nunez. Hopefully, he’ll connect with her, and she’ll consent to meeting me. That would do a lot to bring the story to a human level. Why Don Specter isn’t returning my calls I have no idea. Perhaps he’s too busy? Or he’ll deal with it when he has to? The conversation we had a few months ago would suffice as backup, which might be preferable, because I wouldn’t necessarily need to set a scene in his office. It’s his authority that counts, and that will be clear when I get into the lawsuit he filed against the state.

Sarah Ludeman at the state correctional department said she’ll get back to me with an itinerary after she has a chance to talk to Bernie Warner. I’ve got a Monday afternoon, tentatively, with Gloria Romero. 4:30, Sacramento. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, likely, are spent inside the facilities. Chad, definitely, and perhaps Preston. I have no idea what to expect. But that, of course, is why I need to see it.

New Mandate for the New Mandate

2006-01-09T15:31:00.000-08:00

After nearly a year without posting any entries, I've suddenly, and without warning, decided to bring this blog back to life.

Following the recent round of New Year's resolutions, it occurs to me that a renewed effort at disciplined writing -- in the form of regular updates -- can help me develop ideas and formulate thoughts more efficiently. The difference for me between typing into an online journal and "crafting" an argument for publication is entirely psychological, of course. When I jot down ideas for this blog, I can do so knowing that I don't have an audience, and that's liberating. I can play around, tease out possibilities, follow a train of thought, collapse into cliche or indulge in grandiloquent prose. I can ramble on and on, in a string of sentences or one big run-on, without fretting about loose strands or dangling participles.

But when I set to work on a piece that I know will see the light of day -- like the three assignments I've got on my plate right now ... more on that later -- I often (and often immediately) find myself blocked. Dunno why. It's been a chronic problem for years, one I'd like to work through and hopefully conquer. That's a major reason I started this blog in the first place, and the main reason I'm resurrecting it now.

Of course, another reason I started this blog was to keep a record of developments at home and abroad and to articulate (or discover) my perspective on them. I wrote the first entry the day after Kerry conceded defeat in 2004 and proceeded to track the first few months of Bush's second term, until I left Details for The Nation and suddenly found myself with much less time on my hands, not to mention an entire staff filled with opinions more articulate than my own. Because of my aspirations and ideological bent, I was drawn toward the 'major' headlines--Bush's illusory mandate, the November assault on Fallujah, the death of Arafat, the Gonzales hearings--and sought to express a progressive point of view on them. It was a modest form of dissent, a way for me to feel like I was 'actively' taking part in the counterspin day by day. And it was good practice, though I tended to assume a formality that wasn't required of me, perhaps because I thought I might develop a small audience and perhaps because I thought the subjects were best served with a tone of moral seriousness. At times I think I recapitulated received opinion instead of exploring my own, or pretended to post by linking to other news sites without original commentary. At other times, when I wasn't being so lazy, the blog entries really did help me arrive at an original perspective on a particular item in the news, or at least send me down a certain path. At its best, the blog was a sort of scratch pad for ideas I might want to develop into published pieces.

That's something I intend to continue doing in Version 2.0, though with a more casual (more honest) voice. This time around, I no longer have aspirations or delusions that this is, or could grow to become, a public forum. Toward a New Mandate is now a private blog, though the door will remain unlocked. If others stumble upon it, they should feel free to come in and poke around. But I will not track viewers to the site, nor encourage those in my personal or virtual network to check out my latest update. And if I decide to scrap the project all over again after a few weeks, nobody will be the wiser.

Kerry in 2008?

2005-01-19T21:09:00.000-08:00

Barbara Boxer was one of two senators in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who voted against Condi Rice in today's 16-2 vote. The other senator was John Kerry, who sent the following email to his subscriber list explaining his protest:

Dear Mark,

Earlier today, I voted in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee against the nomination of Dr. Condoleezza Rice for Secretary of State. This vote is an expression of my determination that we hold the Bush administration accountable.

Dr. Rice is a principal architect, implementer, and defender of a series of Administration policies that have not made our country as secure as we should be and have alienated much-needed allies in our common cause of winning the war against terrorism. Regrettably, I did not see in Dr. Rice's testimony before our committee any acknowledgment of the need to change course or of a new vision for America's role in the world.

On Iraq, on North Korea, on Iran, to name just a few of the most critical challenges, it seems to be more of the same. I hope I am proven wrong. I hope the course will change. And I hope that the Administration will recognize the strength of a foreign policy that has bipartisan support.

I am prepared to work with Dr. Rice and others in the Administration to try to reach agreement on policies that will truly strengthen our security and restore America's credibility on the world stage. And I am confident colleagues on both sides of the aisle are prepared to do so as well.

But, we've got to remain firm in our insistence that those who create policies that don't work have the courage to admit their mistakes and the wisdom to change course. Our johnkerry.com community has been expressing that determination in huge numbers.

Over 700,000 people have called on President Bush to fire Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense.

If you haven't signed the Rumsfeld petition, please do so immediately.

Replace Rumsfeld

Rice: Guilty As Charged

2005-01-18T22:43:00.000-08:00

Wow! Check out this heated exchange between California Senator Barbara Boxer and Condi Rice, during today's testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (John Kerry laid into her, too):

SENATOR BARBARA BOXER I personally believe - this is my personal view - that your loyalty to the mission you were given, to sell this war, overwhelmed your respect for the truth. ... You don't seem to be willing to, (A), admit a mistake, or give any indication of what you're going to do to forcefully involve others. As a matter of fact, you've said more misstatements; that the territory of the terrorists has been shrinking when your own administration says it's now expanded to 60 countries. So I am deeply troubled.

MS. RICE ...Senator, I have to say that I have never, ever lost respect for the truth in the service of anything. It is not my nature. It is not my character. And I would hope that we can have this conversation and discuss what happened before and what went on before and what I said, without impugning my credibility or my integrity. ...

SENATOR BOXER Well, you should read what we voted on when we voted to support the war, which I did not, but most of my colleagues did. It was W.M.D. - period. That was the reason and the causation for that, you know, particular vote. But, again, I just feel you quote President Bush when it suits you but you contradicted him when he said, "Yes, Saddam could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year." You go on television nine months later and said, "Nobody ever said it was" --

MS. RICE Senator, that was just a question of pointing out to people that there was an uncertainty. No one was saying that he would have to have a weapon within a year for it to be worth it to go to war.

SENATOR BOXER Well, if you can't admit to this mistake, I hope that you'll --
MS. RICE Senator, we can have this discussion in any way that you would like. But I really hope that you will refrain from impugning my integrity. Thank you very much. ...

Avnery on Abbas

2005-01-18T17:23:00.000-08:00

Sharp analysis from Uri Avnery on Mahmoud Abbas's swearing-in last weekend, illustrative comparisons between Abbas and Egypt's Sadat, and trenchant commentary on the challenges he will face as head of the Palestinian Authority. First and foremost, how should Abbas set out a strategy vis a vis Hamas? Excerpt follows:
________

Anyone who says that Abu-Mazen is ready or able to start a civil war against Hamas does not know what he is talking about. Palestinian public opinion would not stand for it. Most Palestinians believe that without the armed struggle, Sharon would not be talking of withdrawing from Gaza. They are ready for a cease-fire in order to give Abu-Mazen a chance. But they do not want the liquidation of the fighting organizations, because it may be necessary to renew the armed struggle if Abu-Mazen can't convince the Americans and the Israelis to enable the Palestinians to realize their national aims.

In his dealings with Hamas, Abu-Mazen, like Arafat, will prefer a combination of negotiations, political pressure and mobilizing public opinion. He will have to convince the armed factions to accept the national strategy that is adopted by the leadership. In return, he will have to welcome Hamas into the political system, the PLO and the parliament.

_________

Sharon Cuts Ties w/ Abbas

2005-01-14T03:10:00.000-08:00

This is infuriating. It's been five days since Abbas was elected PA Chairman, and already Sharon has frozen relations with him.

And to think I was in the middle of writing a piece about how Sunday's election in Palestine, followed by Monday's vote in the Knesset to approve a withdrawal coalition, had dramatically shifted the political dynamic in the Middle East. I thought the two elections amounted to a new moment, one that presented an opportunity for hope -- or at least an occasion to reconsider prospects for reconciliation, statehood, a lasting peace. But following yesterday's attack in Gaza -- carried out as a direct challenge to Abbas and a sort of "hell, no, we won't go" cry in response to plans for a cease fire -- Sharon dispensed with any illusions that the rules had changed. If Sharon won't negotiate with a moderate like Abbas until all terrorism stops, it doesn't matter who leads on the Palestinian side. How can he honestly expect Abbas to clamp down on militants before he's even had a chance to be sworn in?

Sullivan on Torture

2005-01-13T21:29:00.000-08:00

Andrew Sullivan's comprehensive review of Mark Danner's Torture and Truth is a must-read. Here's a particularly damning paragraph:

--------

A president who truly recognized the moral and strategic calamity of this failure would have fired everyone responsible. But the vice president's response to criticism of the defense secretary in the wake of Abu Ghraib was to say, ''Get off his back.'' In fact, those with real responsibility for the disaster were rewarded. Rumsfeld was kept on for the second term, while the man who warned against ignoring the Geneva Conventions, Colin Powell, was seemingly nudged out. The man who wrote a legal opinion maximizing the kind of brutal treatment that the United States could legally defend, Jay S. Bybee, was subsequently rewarded with a nomination to a federal Court of Appeals. General Sanchez and Gen. John P. Abizaid remain in their posts. Alberto R. Gonzales, who wrote memos that validated the decision to grant Geneva status to inmates solely at the president's discretion, is now nominated to the highest law enforcement job in the country: attorney general. The man who paved the way for the torture of prisoners is to be entrusted with safeguarding the civil rights of Americans. It is astonishing he has been nominated, and even more astonishing that he will almost certainly be confirmed.

-------

Intelligence Ordered Torture

2005-01-12T14:05:00.000-08:00

Interesting development in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. Graner says he was ordered by several higher-ups in intelligence to brutalize the prisoners on his watch ...

Abbas Wins

2005-01-09T22:30:00.000-08:00

Mahmoud Abbas has officially declared victory in today's electon for chairmanship of the Palestinian Authority.

More to come ...

WaPo on Gonzales Testimony

2005-01-07T11:03:00.000-08:00

Excerpted from today's Washington Post editorial:

"The message Mr. Gonzales left with senators was unmistakable: As attorney general, he will seek no change in practices that have led to the torture and killing of scores of detainees and to the blackening of U.S. moral authority around the world. Instead, the Bush administration will continue to issue public declarations such as those Mr. Gonzales repeated yesterday -- 'that torture and abuse will not be tolerated by this administration' -- while in practice sanctioning procedures that the International Red Cross and many lawyers inside the government consider to be illegal and improper...."

"... Mr. Gonzales appeared willfully obtuse about the consequences of his most important judgments as White House counsel. He repeatedly misrepresented the war crimes that have occurred, suggesting they were limited to those shown in the photographs taken by the 'night shift' at Abu Ghraib, when it is now documented that abuses occurred throughout Iraq, in Afghanistan and at Guantanamo and that they continued even after the photos became public. He again derided and mischaracterized the Geneva Conventions, claiming that they 'limit our ability to solicit information from detainees' and prevent their prosecution for war crimes -- an interpretation at odds with that of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the military's legal corps, the Red Cross, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and decades of U.S. experience in war."

The Case Against Gonzales

2005-01-06T15:40:00.000-08:00

Watching a live feed of the Senate Judiciary Committee's confirmation hearings this morning, it occurred to me how well Alberto Gonzales would serve this administration as attorney general -- not the country, mind you, but the administration.

Gonzales's fealty to President Bush is longstanding and remains unquestioned. And his legal opinions -- on the irrelevance of the Geneva Conventions in the "war on terror," the permission of torture on enemy combatants, aggressive prosecution on capital punishment cases, blocks on filibusters of judicial nominees -- can all be applied to help strengthen executive power. His ideas consistently support (or, in some cases, shape) Administration policies.

There is no doubt that Gonzales has Bush's interests in mind, and that he would act accordingly as attorney general. Whether he is capable of serving in the nation's interest, or in accordance with the Constitution and accepted standards of international law -- well, that's another matter.

What follows are some of the best comments I've seen on Gonzales's record and qualifications. Please let me know if you find others worth reading, and I'll be sure to include the links in an update:

"Death in Texas," a feature by Sister Helen Prejean, New York Review of Books, issue dated January 13, 2005

“We Are All Torturers Now,” an op-ed by Mark Danner, New York Times, January 6, 2005

“The Gonzales Record,” Washington Post editorial, January 6, 2005

"A Window on a Man's Morality," LA Times editorial, January 6, 2005

"Inherently Wrong," article by Jeffrey Dubner, The American Prospect, January 6, 2005

"The Torturer General," article by Marguerite Feitlowitz, Salon, January 6, 2005

"Doubts About Gonzales," Boston Globe editorial, January 5, 2005

"Gonzales: The Fight Is On" by Bruce Shapiro, The Nation, January 5, 2005

"Backing Gonzales Is Backing Torture," a syndicated column by Robert Scheer, January 5, 2005

Open Letter to Chairman Hatch and Ranking Member Leahy, sponsored by People for the American Way, November 29, 2004

Open Letter from Retired Military Leaders to Senate Judiciary, presented as a PDF file by Human Rights First

In Defense of Simmons

2005-01-04T17:30:00.000-08:00

At some point in the next month or so, the Supreme Court will rule on Roper v. Simmons, a case that calls into question the constitutionality of capital punishment for juveniles. The Court should seize this opportunity to issue a federal ban on juvenile executions. Such a verdict would not only affirm universal standards of decency but would also line up with recent medical discoveries, trends in state and federal criminal law, public-opinion polls in the States, and a general consensus among nations.

Roper v. Simmons is comparable in important ways to Atkins v. Virginia, a 2002 case in which the Court found that the execution of mentally retarded murderers violated the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of “cruel and unusual punishment.” Delivering the 6-3 opinion, Justice Stevens wrote, “Those mentally retarded persons who meet the law's requirements for criminal responsibility should be tried and punished when they commit crimes. Because of their disabilities in areas of reasoning, judgment, and control of their impulses, however, they do not act with the level of moral culpability that characterizes the most serious adult criminal conduct.” Medical research suggests that adolescent murderers are similarly impaired; scientists have found that the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that controls impulses and helps produce sound reasoning and judgment, is not fully developed until we reach our mid-twenties.

In considering its decision on Atkins, the Court placed significant weight on the high number of states with prohibitions already on the books, along with the preponderance of support, nationally and abroad, for a ban. In considering Roper v. Simmons, the Court should note that only nineteen states allow capital punishment of juvenile offenders, and that only three (Oklahoma, Texas and Virginia) have carried out such executions within the past decade. It is also worth nothing that the US government is utterly alienated on this issue. Somalia, a strange bedfellow, is the only other nation that continues to condone the killing of teens. The European Union and dozens of nations have filed briefs on behalf of the defendant, Christopher Simmons, who was sentenced to death for a murder he committed in Missouri at the age of seventeen. Another brief was filed by a group of former US diplomats, who argue that America's stance on juvenile executions has damaged its credibility on the international stage.

“Public opinion and international opinions are add-ons,” explains Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. “They will be considered, perhaps in an appendix to the ruling, as supplemental factors.” Nor, Dieter adds, will brain development be the key decision-maker, though scientific findings will certainly be considered relevant. He expects the Court to place primary importance on the emergence of a broad “national consensus” among juries, state courts, and legislators that juveniles should be exempted from capital punishment. Given the momentum toward supporting a ban, Dieter told me, he would be surprised if the Court allows executions to continue.

As the Times' Linda Greenhouse reported on October 13, the day arguments were presented, four Justices (Stevens, Souter, Bader Ginsburg and Breyer) have “made clear in recent years their desire to invalidate the juvenile death penalty.” Scalia and Thomas can be expected to support executions, as they did in the case of Atkins. Even though Rehnquist is not regularly in attendance due to his poor physical condition, he has stated his interest in ruling on this case and would likely side with Scalia and Thomas. That leaves O'Connor, who Dieter believes will look to the precedent set by Atkins and support a ban here, too, and Kennedy, who ruled with the majority on Atkins but may favor the death penalty in Roper v. Simmons. (Kennedy has expressed concern that a ban would encourage gang members to enlist their seventeen-year-old members as hit men.)

A 5-4 decision banning juvenile executions would not prevent teens from committing serious crimes in the future. But as Victor Streib, a professor at Ohio Northern University's Pettit College of Law whom Dieter describes as “the most reliable source of information” on the juvenile death penalty, has concluded, neither does capital punishment. “The juvenile death penalty does not reduce juvenile homicide and should be discarded,” Streib, who has been conducting research on this issue for decades, recently told Legal Times. “It is enormously expensive and can be seen as barbaric and inconsistent with domestic and international law.”

There is a wealth of evidence to support a ban on juvenile executions, and many people around the world will be watching closely to see how the Court rules on Roper v. Simmons. Not least among them are the seventy-two juvenile offenders currently on death row, whose lives hang in the balance.

Best of the Year: Music

2004-12-28T20:32:00.000-08:00

Wilco
A Ghost Is Born
Nonesuch

Tweaked-out savior Jeff Tweedy follows up Yankee Hotel Foxtrot by driving farther in his noise machine -- but this time, he's sober. Start to finish, every track on this album is brilliant, catchy, ironic, and just about perfect. “Spiders” is the Kraut-rock epic we didn’t know we needed so badly at the time and now can't seem to live without. “Company at My Back,” “Theologians,” Handshake Drugs,” “The Late Greats” and the rest -- all of them come at you forcefully and bracingly, unrelenting and fragile. Rehab never sounded so redemptive.

Interpol
Antics
Matador

Imagine the Edge but with a dark, almost Gothic sensibility. Or Greg Dulli but less sexed, more abstractly defiant. Antics is ten angry tracks, fueled by Paul Banks’ brooding lyrics and the hammering guitar lines he trades with Daniel Kessler. It’s so charged it makes you want to lift weights.

U2
How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb
Interscope

Imagine the Edge but, well, the Edge. People talk a lot of shit about U2 these days, but this unconverted fan still thinks Bono is the shit. “Vertigo” leads, as if to show that they’ve still got mastery over the three-minute pop single, and then the album opens to do what it sets out to do. Admittedly, Bomb is not U2’s best – the filler tracks were hilariously described by Rolling Stone’s Rob Sheffield as “experimental bathroom breaks” – but it definitely found what it was looking for. The mood is less political than many of its predecessors, more personal. “We fight all the time/You and I/That’s all right/We’re the same soul,” Bono pleads on “Sometimes You Can’t Make It on Your Own,” a song that instantly assumes its place among the band’s best. It’s frank, it’s earnest, it rocks – it’s why we revere these guys like gods.

Wayne Shorter
Footprints: The Life and Music of Wayne Shorter
Columbia/Legacy

This two-disc, twenty-two-track retrospective of Shorter’s career opens in 1959, when the young saxman gigged with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, traces the arc of his stint with Miles Davis (1964-1970), rolls through the ’80s with the Weather Report – and beyond. Man, that cat can swing. Shorter’s signature style is found in his sly melodies. “Nefertiti,” a 1967 collaboration with the Miles Davis Quintet presented here, is sneaky in the way it slinks away from its theme, then wends back. Shorter’s playfulness informs all of the compositions in this collection. Whether he’s jamming with Steely Dan on “Aja” or duetting with longtime friend Herbie Hancock, he plays with irresistible levity and grace.

Beastie Boys
To the 5 Boroughs
Capitol

Three MCs and one DJ go old school with an album that doubles as a tribute to the illest city in the world and a rally cry to get out and vote against Bush.

Best of the Year: Film

2004-12-28T19:04:00.000-08:00

Before Sunset: Linklater, Hawke and Delpy follow the most romantic movie ever with the most romantic sequel ever.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: Charlie Kaufman goes from the brain to the heart with a blissfully weird love story starring Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet.

Sideways: Here’s a challenge: Name one other buddy flick with the maturity of a 1961 Cheval Blanc.

Kinsey: America under Bush is returning to the sexual ’50s. Go figure.

Napoleon Dynamite: The story of a kid who’s such a loser he doesn’t even realize he’s a pimp.

Best of the Year: Books

2004-12-28T18:22:00.000-08:00

Published at januarymagazine.com:

Nonfiction
Fiction

Israeli Identity Crisis

2004-12-27T14:56:00.000-08:00

Two important pieces on Israeli identity were published this week.

In the Books section of the current issue of The Nation, Baruch Kimmerling looks at Idith Zertal’s Death and the Nation, a new history that explains Zionism as a “triumphal creed shadowed by death.” In the January issue of Harper’s, Bernard Avishai, a business professor at Duke University, considers a secular future for the state of Israel.

Kimmerling’s article presents a historical argument. He reconsiders Ben-Gurion’s role in recruiting Holocaust survivors to join the military struggle for statehood; evaluates Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem and comments on the Israeli response to her reportage; and concludes with a stunning point, that “the obsessive commemoration of the Holocaust and of Jewish victimhood has blinded much of the Jewish community to Israel’s real position in the world and to the humanity of the Palestinian people.” Perhaps, he writes, quoting Zertal, “one can remember too much.”

It’s quite a radical suggestion, but it makes a lot of sense. He writes that “The frequency and casualness with which Israeli Jews accuse one another of Nazi-like or anti-Semitic behavior today is a disturbing measure of the coarsening of the country’s political culture.” Reading that line, I was immediately reminded of an article in Ha’aretz about the emerging use of an orange star as a symbol of protest against the Gaza withdrawal. Not only is that a distortion of remembrance – it’s debasement. The cult of death is very real in Israel, as in Palestine. Jewish victims of suicide bombings are martyred in much the same way as the bombers themselves – the central difference is that the Israeli images show up on banner ads instead of street posters.

Avishai’s argument is more personal. His piece draws on memories of his life in Israel in discussing the possibility of a secular state. He calls for a reexamination of Zionism and its “merging of rabbinic and state power,” looks at the civil rights issues Israel would have to confront before acceding to the EU, and the threats that membership would pose to Israel’s identification as a Jewish state. It’s a bold, unsparing critique of the varied ways Israel fails to account for Arabs as equal citizens under the law. He may rely a bit too heavily on the prospect of membership in the EU as a catalyst for legislative change, but his thesis is sound. A reevaluation of the terms of Arab citizenship and secular identification as a state is necessary, certainly, and Avishai writes convincingly in support of these ideas.

Kimmerling and Avishai share a sense of urgency, and tragedy. They are both diagnosing a crisis in Israeli identity – carefully, brilliantly, and with the understanding that the need for fundamental change is desperate.

The Ghost of Christmas Past

2004-12-24T21:05:00.000-08:00

One of the most intriguing effects of The Fog of War, Errol Morris's Oscar-winning 2003 documentary in which former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara reexamines his management of the Vietnam War, is Morris's ability to convey McNamara's humanity.

Nearly three decades after the fall of Saigon, viewers are expected to have at least nominal understanding of the policies that guided US involvement in Vietnam, and it's interesting to watch the man who was charged with developing and implementing those policies look back on the conflict with the privilege of hindsight. Morris lets him talk, and talk, and over the course of two hours you see an active, complex mind at work: how meticulously he reconstructs the past, and with such disciplined blindness to his own guilt. Say what you will about McNamara, condemn him as a twentieth-century war criminal, but after seeing Morris's film, you cannot deny him his humanity.

I thought of McNamara tonight while watching the broadcast of Rumsfeld's speech to the troops in Iraq. Surprise! And there he was in Tikrit, his hair mussed by the desert wind, taking a preparatory deep breath as he approached the podium, anticipating questions from the grunts. A soldier had a question about winning the propaganda war. We're doing all these great things for Iraq, the soldier said -- we're building hospitals and schools and so forth -- but the media only picks up on the bad news. What can we do? "That sounds like a question that was not planted by the media," Rumsfeld joked, to a round of applause and laughter. "Those things happen, you know."

And, following that wink to everyone who has been following the news in recent weeks, Rumsfeld plunged into a reverie about how wonderful America is, how our democracy ensures freedom of speech, how we're fighting to bring freedoms like that to Iraq, and how eventually, thanks to brave young men like all of you, we will succeed.

This was not Rumsfeld at the Pentagon. No, this was a kinder, gentler Rumsfeld, stripped of the "gruff" mannerisms beneath which Bush recently promised there lies a man who cares deeply about our troops and their well-being. Never mind the fact that he couldn't be bothered until this week to sign his name on the letters to grieving families. When he thanked the troops tonight for their service -- when he said, "God bless you, and have a merry, merry Christmas" -- he actually got choked up!

It was an oddly poignant moment, and one I imagine Rumsfeld will remember for quite some time. Someday, decades from now, some journalist or filmmaker may sit down with Rumsfeld and ask him to reflect on the war and his role in it. How did he feel when he spoke to the troops that night in Tikrit, on Christmas Eve? Did he expect them to grill him about equipment, troop deployment, Tuesday's attack in Mosul? Was he afraid his number was up? Does he remember that, a few hours after he flew out of Baghdad, a truck carrying butane exploded in the west side of the city, killing nine people and wounding nineteen?

Alterman on Beinart

2004-12-23T10:11:00.000-08:00

Don't miss Eric Alterman's response to Peter Beinart.

Choice line: "His solution for the political problem that ails the Democratic Party fits in perfectly with TNR's own intellectual DNA structure, calling as it does for the expulsion from the Democratic coalition of MoveOn.org, perhaps the left's most energetic and committed popular organizations, in support of a combination of policies (liberal on the domestic front, neoconservative internationally) with no clear constituency in America or anywhere else."

Rumsfeld, Caring Fellow

2004-12-20T15:28:00.000-08:00

Excerpted from Bush's press conference earlier today:

Q: Thank you, Mr. President. Several Republican lawmakers recently have criticized Secretary Rumsfeld. What does he need to do to rebuild their trust?

BUSH: Well, first of all, when I asked the -- the Secretary to stay on as Secretary of Defense, I was very pleased when he said yes. And I asked him to stay on because I understand the nature of the job of the Secretary of Defense, and I believe he's doing a really fine job. The Secretary of Defense is a complex job. It's complex in times of peace, and it's complex even more so in times of war.... And he's done a fine job, and I look forward to continuing to work with him.

[SEVERAL MINUTES LATER]

Q: I'd like to go back to Secretary Rumsfeld. You talked about the big-picture elements of the secretary's job, but did you find it offensive that he didn't take the time to personally sign condolence letters to the families of troops killed in Iraq, and if so, why is that an offense that you're willing to overlook?

BUSH: Listen, I know -- I know Secretary Rumsfeld's heart. I know how much he cares for the troops. He and his wife go out to Walter Reed and Bethesda all the time to provide comfort and solace. I have seen the anguish in his -- or heard the anguish in his voice and seen his eyes when we talk about, you know, the danger in Iraq and the fact that youngsters are over there in harm's way. And he is -- he's a good, decent man. He's a caring fellow. You know, sometimes perhaps his demeanor is rough and gruff, but beneath that rough and gruff no-nonsense demeanor is a good human being who cares deeply about the military and deeply about the grief that war causes.

Notes on the Postmortem

2004-12-18T16:34:00.000-08:00

Much of the postelection analysis on the left has centered on MoveOn and ACT, the two advocacy groups outside the DNC with the most influence and grassroots support among liberals. Peter Beinart has gone a long way toward framing this discussion. When he described MoveOn in his article “Fighting Faith” as “liberalism’s premier soft organization,” he wasn’t exactly paying Wes Boyd a compliment. By singling out Boyd’s MoveOn as one of the leading forces of the “soft” left, Beinart was diagnosing what he sees as the “fundamental problem” of the liberal base. “The challenge for Democrats today,” he wrote, “is not to find a different kind of presidential candidate. It is to transform the party at its grassroots so that a different kind of presidential candidate can emerge.” In Beinart’s estimation, Democrats need to adopt a hawkish, “hard” approach to the war on terrorism in order to swing the electoral pendulum, and that means not only abandoning an antiwar stance but also reconsidering the “unity-at-all-costs ethos that governed American liberalism in 2004.”

So, Beinart wants a divorce. And that might be for the best, because as it turns out MoveOn wants one, too. On December 9, Eli Pariser sent out an email to the MoveOn PAC subscriber list in which he lambasted DNC elites as “professional election losers” and crowed, “In the last year, grassroots contributors like us gave more than $300 million to the Kerry campaign and the DNC, and proved that the Party doesn’t need corporate cash to be competitive. Now it’s our Party: We bought it, we own it, and we’re going to take it back.”

Pariser may have overstepped in throwing down the gauntlet with such bravado. But his central point is exactly right: Those holding the Democratic purse have cozied up to the same lobbyists and corporate interests as Republicans. And in flirting with support for Bush’s war on terrorism – in getting “hard,” so to speak – they’ve forsaken the most vocal, committed members of their base: the million-plus people on Pariser’s mailing list and others like them who spoke out in such great numbers during the run-up to war in Iraq, and again this past summer at the Republican National Convention, and again in neighborhoods across America in the weeks leading up to the election. These people – and I heartily count myself among them – would like to see the Party restructured in a way that embraces, rather than shuns, the MoveOn contingent.

Pariser’s email doubled as an implicit endorsement of Howard Dean for chairmanship of the DNC. Dean, whose presidential candidacy reflected the same plugged-in, grassroots-friendly, outside-the-Beltway message that MoveOn embodies, wants to reinvigorate the Party with that message in mind, and progressives should applaud him for the effort. Never mind the fact that Dean’s policies, upon close inspection, tend toward the center. We knew this when he first emerged as a front-runner. As Katha Pollitt wrote as early as August 2003, Dean was (and in many respects remains) “the only viable candidate who speaks to the anger, fear and loathing a large number of ordinary citizens feel about the direction Bush has taken the country, while the mainstream media blandly kowtow and the Democratic Party twiddles its thumbs.” (Here’s a little secret: I’m the unnamed “young graduate student” she quotes in that week’s column.)

Now, would the reformation of the Democratic Party by way of Dean and MoveOn be enough to secure victory in 2008? Certainly not. As Slate’s Chris Suellentrop points out, “Beinart, like MoveOn itself, overstates the group’s importance.” Suellentrop draws the comparison between MoveOn and Dean, too, but with a negative spin: In the election just passed, he suggests, both successfully generated “lots of money, lots of buzz, not a lot of votes.” Suellentrop describes MoveOn’s postelection house parties, during which 18,000 members gathered, ostensibly to plan ahead but really just to lick their wounds, as “an exercise in group therapy.” He’s critical of the organization because he sees a wide gap between its bold rhetoric and its ability to produce real results. Further, he believes that MoveOn’s brand of “therapeutic activism,” while it doesn’t do much harm, does little practical good. “MoveOn doesn’t merit any blame for Kerry’s defeat,” he writes. “It just deserves to be added to the long list of Internet bubbles that were inflated by unrealistic media expectations and self-created hype.”

Although I disagree with Suellentrop’s conclusion – I think MoveOn has been remarkably successful in its mission, which extends beyond putting a Democrat in the White House, of identifying a progressive agenda and activating a broad coalition of liberals to help push it forward – I’m willing to take a critical look at the organization and consider its weaknesses as an advocacy group.

It’s also helpful to look closely at ACT, the 527 that ate Pennsylvania but couldn’t swallow Ohio or Florida. ACT’s strategy has also been placed under the microscope in the weeks following the election, most notably in Matt Bai’s painfully acute November 21 article in The New York Times Magazine. Focusing narrowly on ACT’s ground game during the last 24 hours of the campaign, Bai examines its strategy and struggles to answer the headline’s question: “Who Lost Ohio?” He points out, among other things, that ACT did a fine job of getting out the vote in the counties it had targeted. But it failed to consider the exurbs, where Republicans turned out a startling, decisive number of votes. “The truth was that the Bush campaign had created an entirely new math in Ohio,” Bai writes. “With so many white, conservative and religious voters now living in the brand-new town houses and McMansions in Ohio’s growing ring counties, Republicans were able to mobilize a stunning turnout in areas where their support was more concentrated in the past.” Those voters won the election for Bush, but they weren’t on ACT’s radar. ACT may have done what it set out to do in Cuyahoga County, Bai concludes, “but turnout alone is no longer enough to win a national election for Democrats. The next Democrat who wins will be the one who changes enough minds.”

The decision makers at ACT should be interested in turning out the vote and changing minds. As such, they should carefully reevaluate their target demographics (urban or rural? suburbs or exurbs? secular or religious?) as they work to build a winning strategy for 2006 and beyond. It would also be helpful to look at the way ACT and MoveOn and the Kerry campaign triple-teamed voters in the counties they did win, in Ohio and elsewhere. The 527 groups are legally barred from coordinating their GOTV efforts with the Democrats, so some ACT volunteers were bound to knock on the same doors as canvassers for Kerry. Reinforcing a message isn’t necessarily harmful, although you probably don’t win support from swing voters by interrupting the ball game three times in an afternoon. And what message should ACT send, given that 527s can’t directly endorse a candidate?

These are the questions progressives should be asking, and they're the subject of Farhad Manjoo's smart piece in Salon this week. Manjoo gets it almost entirely right, though he's wrong in claiming that Pariser’s email was a “subtle dig” at ACT. “There’s much to criticize about ACT, MoveOn, and the constellation of liberal groups that attracted so much attention and so many volunteers,” he writes. “But an amazing thing happened this year – grassroots activism, online and in the real world, invaded the heart and soul of the Democratic Party.”

Amen to that. And on that note, let’s move on.

Qaddafi Quacks Up

2004-12-17T15:07:00.000-08:00

A pat on the back to New York Times' Craig Smith, who manages to sneak a bit of slapstick comedy into his coverage of the Qaddafi beat. Smith reports that an Italian TV network will broadcast an interview with Qaddafi tonight, during which the Libyan leader brags that his decision to dismantle his nation's weapons programs won the election for Bush. (So that's why we lost Ohio.)

Even better, Smith catches Qaddafi waxing philosophical on the Middle East peace process and prospects for a binational future: "This narrow area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea cannot possibly be enough for two states," he says. "The solution is the foundation of one, single democratic state." Qaddafi's proposed name for that state? "Isratine."

Also, check out this interesting piece about the mystery of Qaddafi in today's Slate.

Who's Your Nanny?

2004-12-16T23:41:00.000-08:00

So it seems that David Blunkett, a senior member of Tony Blair's Cabinet, has run into nanny troubles of his own. In Blunkett's case, the nanny is a Filipino woman employed by his lover. He admitted today to pulling strings to secure this woman a visa, and then resigned from his position. Oddly enough, Blunkett did for Blair what Kerik would have done for Bush. He has served as Britain's Home Secretary since 2001.

Meanwhile, add Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol to the list of high-profile Republicans calling for Rumsfeld to resign. In an op-ed published in Wednesday's Washington Post, Kristol came down hard. You go to war with the secretary of defense you have, not the secretary of defense you might want or wish to have, Kristol seemed to be saying, but "surely Don Rumsfeld is not the defense secretary Bush should want to have for the remainder of his second term."

And add former Senate Majority leader Trent Lott, who went on record Wednesday saying he's "not a fan" of the man in the up-armored flannel suit. "I don't think he listens enough to his uniformed officers," Lott said, adding that he "would like to see a change in that slot in the next year or so."

And add Susan Collins, a Republican Senator from Maine. Collins is a member of the Armed Services Committee and she serves on the legislative committee for intelligence reform. She had this to say: "I think there are increasing concerns about the secretary's leadership of the war, the repeated failures to predict the strengths of the insurgency, the lack of essential safety equipment for our troops, the reluctance to expand the number of troops."

And make sure that Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel is still on the list. Hagel, who has been criticizing Rumsfeld's leadership for several months by now, had some more harsh words on CNN's Late Edition a few nights ago. Hearing the latest from Hagel, Wolf Blitzer asked him directly if he were giving a vote of no confidence on Rumsfeld, as McCain has done. Hagel dodged the question, but he did say, "That soldier and those men and women there deserved a far better answer from their secretary of defense than a flippant comment. That might work in a newsroom where you can be cute with the television audience, but not when you're putting these men and women in harm's way, who will be wounded. Some will be killed."

Finally, there's this. And this should remove any doubt among skeptics that Rumsfeld is starting to get nervous: Word has it he stopped by the immigration offices this week. He was heard asking around about nannies.

Kerik's Skeletons

2004-12-13T21:55:00.000-08:00

I can’t claim to know much about Bernard Kerik, but the more I hear, the more I sense he’s a real shady bastard.

There’s the cover story about the nanny, for starters. Ironic, isn’t it, that the prospective head of Homeland Security has been paying an illegal alien (under the table, for years) to care for his family? Interesting, also, to present the “nanny" excuse, as Slate’s Mickey Kaus dubs it. The “I want to spend more time with my family” excuse, Kaus writes, has dried up after so many resignations. In fact, it has now “become such an implausible cliche it's lost all utility.” But the “nanny” excuse – now, that suited Kerik just fine. Hell, it might even be true.

Then there’s the story about celebrity publisher Judith Regan, a friend of Kerik’s and supposedly one of his former lovers. Richard Cohen of the New York Daily News wrote about the night in 2001 when some officers in Kerik’s NYPD trucked over to the Fox building to recover a few items Regan thought she had lost – a cell phone, I think, and a necklace – but which were later found in her purse. Josh Marshall at TPM has been digging up dirt about the love nest Kerik kept near Battery City, where Regan found a note to him left by Jeanette Pinero, also not his wife.

There are questions about Kerik’s brief tenure as interim minister of the interior in Iraq during the early months of the occupation. Why did he leave so suddenly, and without explanation?

There are rumors about involvement with the New Jersey mob, tales of bribery and kickbacks and stock-option windfalls, anecdotes about Kerik’s bullying tactics, and let's not forget his own autobiography, published by Regan, in which he recounts abandonment by an alcoholic mother who was a prostitute.

(As if that’s not enough, there’s also the fact that Bush gave Kerik his wholehearted seal of approval. Did he know all of this stuff and like him anyway, or did he not bother with the details, choosing instead to go with his gut? Which would be worse?)

Writing about the preponderance of these “troubling incidents,” Cohen wrote, “It could be that they all can be explained. But … whatever the case, until these questions are answered, the proposed head of Homeland Security is making me, for one, feel anything but secure.” That piece ran on the 9th, a few days before Kerik withdrew his nomination.

There’s a bit of comfort in knowing that Kerik won’t be stepping forward, and that the Administration will probably select a “safe” alternative to replace Tom the Color Wheel Ridge. Talking to Margaret Warner on the NewsHour tonight, New York Times White House correspondent Elisabeth Bumiller dropped Joe Lieberman’s name as a possible replacement. Phew! Well, that’s a relief. There’s nothing like a toady little Jewish guy to make you feel more secure, eh ladies?

Update: McCain Agrees

2004-12-13T16:15:00.000-08:00

In an interview with an AP reporter this afternoon, Sen. John McCain said he has "no confidence" in Rumsfeld's management of the war. "I have strenuously argued for larger troop numbers in Iraq, including the right kind of troops," McCain explained. "There are very strong differences of opinion between myself and Secretary Rumsfeld on that issue." But, he hedged, the president is free to work with "the team that he wants around him."

Rumsfeld: On Thin Ice?

2004-12-13T15:40:00.000-08:00

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld took a bit of a drubbing yesterday on Meet the Press. After talking to DNC hopeful Howard Dean, Tim Russert assembled a round table of military experts to talk about the situation on the ground in Iraq, preparations for the upcoming elections, and last Wednesday's pointed challenge from Specialist Thomas Wilson.

(“You go to war with the army you have and not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time,” Rumsfeld had said in response to Wilson's question. “And if you think about it, you can have all the armor in the world on a tank and a tank can be blown up. And you can have an up-armored Humvee and it can be blown up.”)

(An editorial cartoon in yesterday's New York Times pictured a snarling Rumsfeld hanging his head out of an up-armored Humvee, saying to a one-legged soldier, “You go to war with the limbs you have and not the limbs you might want or wish to have …”)

Of the four men at the table with Russert, the sharpest criticisms of the secretary of defense came from General Barry McCaffrey, a national security expert and military analyst for NBC. About Rumsfeld's response to Wilson, McCaffrey said, “I think it was a flash of arrogance on the part of the secretary, unfortunately. That answer might have worked in a congressional committee hearing or with the Joint Staff, but it won't work with troops about to deploy into combat.”

A few minutes later, when Russert opened the conversation up to consider the broader implications of Rumsfeld's management of the war, McCaffrey said, “At the end of the day, you've got to say, are the politics and economic reconstruction going to work: yes or no? Where is this likely to be in 12 months? I think we're right at the turning point. We better rethink our strategy. I think Secretary Rumsfeld's been in denial of an evidence being presented to him that [the war is] going wrong.”

This from a guy who believes that we're fighting the right war in the right place at the right time.

It makes you wonder: If a true believer and career military man such as McCaffrey is speaking so freely and so critically of Rumsfeld, perhaps the secretary is falling out of favor within the Administration, too? Rumblings about Rumsfeld's departure have been heard for a while now - if I remember correctly, they first emerged soon after the looting of Baghdad and hit a fever pitch when images from Abu Ghraib circled the globe. But Bush's decision to keep Rumsfeld through Phase Two seemed to quell any hopes among critics in the reality-based community that Rumsfeld might resign. And yet, week after week, the case against Rumsfeld continues to mount. This could be one of the big stories of Bush's second term: At what point, if any, will the Administration begin to perceive Rumsfeld as a dangerous liability? And what will become of him at that point?

Update: Barghouti Bows Out

2004-12-12T18:17:00.000-08:00

Fadwa Barghouti held a conference a few hours ago during which she announced that her hubsand has decided to rescind his candidacy for Chairman of the Palestinian Authority.

Barghouti is to be credited for championing unity at such a critical moment. Abbas, whom both Sharon and Bush have said can be approached as a partner in negotiations, is now running uncontested. Elections will proceed apace, with Abbas practically assured victory on January 9.

Meanwhile, in Gaza today, at the border with Egypt near the Rafah Junction, 4 IDF soldiers were killed and 8 were wounded by a tunnel explosion. Hamas and Fatah both claimed responsibility for the attack. The IDF has closed Rafah until further notice, and a retaliation of some sort is likely in the works. (Elsewhere, in Khan Younis, five schoolchildren between the ages of 8 and 12 were injured by tank fire.)

Will violence escalate in the weeks leading up to the election? If so, how will that affect turnout? What interest might Hamas or other extremist groups -- or Sharon, for that matter -- have in undermining the legitimacy of the election?

Marwan Barghouti, Candidate

2004-12-11T13:11:00.000-08:00

From Chris McGreal in the Guardian Weekly:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianweekly/story/0,12674,1370038,00.html

Also, from Uri Avnery:

"My immediate reaction to Marwan Barghouti’s registration as a candidate for the presidency of the Palestinian Authority was positive," he writes. "An Abu Mazen-Marwan Barghouti confrontation would be a real fight.... But: is this the right time? I think not. Disunity among the Palestinians at this moment will provide a pretext for the enemies of peace within the Israeli and American leaderships. They will exclaim with great joy: See? There is no one to talk with! It is important for the Palestinian people to show the world that there is indeed someone to talk with. And since both President Bush and his guide and mentor, Ariel Sharon, have already declared that Abu Mazen is moderate and pragmatic, they will be hard put to go back to the mendacious slogan: We Have No Partner! (Copyright: Ehud Barak.) Therefore it is important that Abu Mazen be elected, and elected by a large majority."

Rumsfeld Takes a Hit

2004-12-10T18:57:00.000-08:00

I love it when Rumsfeld looks stupid.

There he was this week, in a photo in the New York Times, his arms flailing, his fingers outstretched, responding to a question from Specialist Thomas Wilson, who asked him why soldiers were being sent into Iraq in vehicles without proper armor.

Rumsfeld took the question like a pie in the face. A little while later, though, after the shock of the confrontation had subsided, he collected his thoughts. By the time he commented, he was channeling Orwell. “I don’t know what the facts are,” he said. “But somebody’s certainly going to sit down with [Wilson] and find out what he knows that they may not know, and make sure he knows what they know that he may not know, and that’s a good thing.”

Awesome. Nice one, Rummy. Do that thing you do, and we’ll just keep doing the thing we do, which is pretend we don’t know what you’re doing and continue supporting you anyway. Oh, that thing you're doing? It's got a bunch of names: torture, failure, moral crime, abuse. I could go on ... or would you prefer to step down from your post?

Sharon Gets the Vote

2004-12-09T23:21:00.000-08:00

The Likud Party turned out in high numbers today to support talks with Labor Party leaders over forming a coalition government. The proposal to negotiate was Sharon’s own, and 62 percent of Likud delegates voted in favor of it, compared to an estimated 70 percent of voters in the Israeli public who support talks. If negotiations go well, and they most likely will, Sharon is expected to move forward aggressively with his plan to withdraw from Gaza.

Violence in Gaza has been at a low-level keel in the weeks following Arafat’s death. But today Israel launched a missile strike on Jamal Abu Samhadana, head of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), an umbrella organization of militant factions, which the Israeli Army accuses of organizing and carrying out terrorist attacks. Sharon had publicly agreed to tamp down his attacks while Palestinians prepare for their election. But today he sent two strong, defiant messages: one to Likud Party delegates (“We may be leaving, but we do not surrender”), and the other to Palestinians (“We may be leaving, but we will return whenever, wherever we please.”)

This is not the way to foster calm. Nor did he achieve his goal: Samhadana was lightly injured, along with two of his colleagues. All of them are alive, calling defiantly for retribution and stoking public rage. “Assassination attempts, even if they succeed, won’t weaken the resistance, but will only strengthen it,” Samhadana said after the attack. “We will continue fighting until we liberate all Palestinian land.”

Two questions emerge from this ugly incident: Why is Labor signing on to such foolhardy tactics? Is this the price for leaving Gush Katif?

Beinart is Wrong

2004-12-08T18:26:00.000-08:00

Peter Beinart is wrong, in a dangerous way. “Fighting Faith,” his long cover story in this week’s issue of the New Republic, is dangerous because it comes from a place of great authority. It’s wrong because in calling for a “new liberalism,” he suggests that Democrats who haven’t yet placed the “war on terrorism” at the center of their foreign policy platform are making a mistake, that they are a big part of the problem. Michael Moore and MoveOn are the two leading culprits, he suggests. They, and those like them (whom he compares to the anti-anti-Stalinist Democrats in the 1950s who didn’t see the essential need to aggressively fight communism), are holding liberals back. A winning strategy will stem from an acknowledgment that a new approach to foreign policy is long overdue, that in the years following 9/11, Democrats have failed to respond to the threat of Islamic totalitarianism (hello, Paul Berman, and thanks a bunch). Kerry saw this, Beinart says, but he didn’t seize the message.

Wrong, and dangerous. First, Michael Moore and MoveOn are not part of the problem. They’re prime targets for thoughtful critique, fine, but they’re not worthy of such blame. The Bush Administration, on the other hand, has long since squandered any moral justification it once had for retaliation after 9/11. The expansion of, or distraction from, the war against Al Qaeda to its current front in occupied Iraq -- that's the problem. Any Democrat who agrees with the way this Administration is prosecuting its “war on terrorism” generally, who actually believes that our current actions are helping to foster democracy in the Middle East, thereby defeating a global network of Islamic fascists, who still believes in the central justifications for invading Iraq, may as well sign on to the Bush Doctrine and turn in his donkey at the door.

National Journal: No Mandate

2004-11-17T11:26:00.000-08:00

The National Journal's Jonathan Rauch further debunks the myth of Bush's mandate:

"The election of 2004 was one of the greatest of our era, but the post-election of 2004 was as bad as they come. Rarely have election returns been so widely but wrongly -- in fact, dangerously -- misconstrued. Here is the abiding reality, confirmed rather than upset by the election returns: America is a 50-50 nation.

A quick post-post-election exit poll: Which of the following two statements more accurately describes what happened on November 2?

A) The election was a stunning triumph for the president, the Republicans, and (especially) social conservatives. Because the country turned to the right, President Bush received a mandate, the Republicans consolidated their dominance, and the Democrats lost touch with the country.

B) Bush and the Republicans are on thin ice. Bush barely eked out a majority, the country is still divided 50-50, and the electoral landscape has hardly changed, except in one respect: The Republican Party has shifted precariously to the right of the country, and the world, that it leads.

Usual answer: A. Correct answer: B.

For the record, only time will tell, the truth is somewhere in the middle, and all that. Still, level-headed analysis -- which is not what this year's post-election commentary produced -- shows that every element of Statement A is suspect or plain wrong. "
---------

Here's the rest of the article: http://nationaljournal.com/rauch.htm

Powell Resigns

2004-11-16T13:56:00.000-08:00

In considering Colin Powell's resignation as Secretary of State, it's worth returning for a moment to February 5, 2003, the day he articulated the Bush Administration's case for war against Iraq at the UN. In a certain sense, the presentation Powell gave that day encapsulates the story of his tenure: his strengths as a statesman concerned with diplomacy and multilateralism; his tensions with, and eventual alienation from, Administration and Defense Department hawks who wrote and advanced post-9/11 foreign policy in accordance with the Bush Doctrine; and his craven decision not to oppose them in their reckless rush to war, despite his misgivings.

That day, Powell let the code of honor and loyalty to the commander in chief silence his doubts about the invasion. “Every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources,” he announced to a dubious Security Council. “These are not assertions. What we are giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.” The presentation drew on slick diagrams, intercepted phone calls and illustrative examples (remember those aluminum tubes? the mobile weapons labs?) to prove the imminent threat of Saddam's WMD program and his working relationship with Al Qaeda. Though the Security Council wasn't convinced, Americans (and, importantly, the American press) bought it hand over fist. The speech was hailed where it mattered as a success, and the Administration regarded it as one of the last hurdles to clear before launching its attack.

Powell knew there were disputes within the intelligence community about the information he presented, and he made a nod to those debates during his speech. But he presented the claims as incontrovertible facts, and in doing so, he betrayed the public trust and implicated himself as an accomplice to an unjust war. Since that day, all of the central justifications for war have embarrassingly, colossally collapsed, and the data that had been gleaned to make the case have been dismissed as flimsy and, worse, deliberately distorted. Powell has attempted to distance himself from the evidence he presented in an effort to restore dignity to an otherwise distinguished reputation. On April 3, 2004, he corrected the record on the trailers that allegedly contained mobile weapons labs. “It appears not to be the case that [intelligence on the trailers] was that solid,” he said, adding that “if the sources fell apart, we need to find out how we've gotten ourselves in that position.”

The 511-page report by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, released this past July in response to that need, was a helpful step in the right direction, but it's not enough to identify the pitfalls of “groupthink.” Further, fuller research into prewar failures of intelligence is crucial. Unfortunately, a cowed Congress may not be able to push an independent investigation, nor could an independent council expect any cooperation from the Administration. With Condoleezza Rice installed as Powell's replacement, Bush has removed one of the lone voices of dissent in his coterie of yes-men, and he continues to darken the White House shroud of secrecy. (Porter Goss's ongoing purge of Administration critics in the CIA doesn't bode well for intelligence reform, either.) The best thing that could come from Powell's resignation would be another presentation of evidence, one that blows the whistle on the Administration for its calculated use of misinformation during the run-up to war in Iraq.

“Mission Accomplished” in Fallujah

2004-11-15T14:52:00.000-08:00

US and Iraqi forces swept through the southernmost neighborhood of Fallujah on Sunday and declared the weeklong assault on the city a success. “The city has been seized,” Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, told The Washington Post. “We have liberated the city of Fallujah.”

But what does “liberated” mean, exactly? In this case, it means that a majority of the city's 250,000 residents have fled, their homes ransacked and, in many cases, razed to the ground. The city's infrastructure - its power grid, its water system - is decimated. Ostensibly secured for January's election, the heart of Sunni Iraq now lies in ruins.

And what is the cost of such a liberation? Financially, Fallujah will require millions of dollars in reconstruction aid. The siege claimed the lives of thirty-eight US soldiers, and another 275 were wounded. Six Iraqi soldiers were killed and more than 40 are wounded. The US has not released any numbers on Iraqi civilian casualties, nor has it allowed the Iraqi Red Crescent to enter the city and provide emergency aid to the innocents who were caught in the crossfire. The Red Crescent estimates that at least 150 families are trapped inside the city - a Reuters reporter spoke with several residents on Sunday who said their children were suffering from diarrhea and had not eaten for days. “There is no need to bring [Red Crescent] supplies in because we have supplies of our own for the people,” Col. Mike Shupp of the US Marines told The Guardian.

True, the week's work yielded positive results, and any assessment of the mission should acknowledge its successes. For one, it's good news that Zarqawi and his men have lost such sizable stashes of conventional weapons - sweeps through Fallujah's homes and mosques uncovered substantial caches of antitank mines, rocket launchers, Kalashnikovs, the works. And US troops discovered computers that purportedly were used by some of the hostage-takers - the information contained on those hard drives could be quite valuable to military intelligence and may prevent future kidnappings.

Whether the fall of Fallujah represents a major military victory, however, is not clear. Officials estimate that 1,200 insurgents were killed, but oddly, the streets are not cluttered with corpses. “The absence of insurgent bodies in Falluja has remained an enduring mystery,” The New York Times reports. “Roaming American patrols found few on Sunday in their sweeps of the devastated landscape where the rebels chose to make their last stand.” And the insurgents who fled before the assault began have diffused into other regions - in the past week, teams of fighters wreaked havoc on Mosul, Baghdad, Ramadi and Tal Afar. Assuming troops successfully hold Fallujah now that they've taken it - as they failed to do when they first entered the city last spring and after a more recent disappointment in Samarra - there is no reason to think that they have decapitated the insurgency. In destroying one safe haven of a growing resistance, the US military has clenched its fist on a half-deflated balloon: When you squeeze the air out of one section, it just moves elsewhere.

Arafat and After

2004-11-11T23:52:00.000-08:00

Soon after the road map was released in the spring of 2003, Edward Said published an essay in the London Review of Books called “A Road Map to Where?” that was highly critical of the Quartet’s plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Declaring the initiative all but dead on arrival, Said elaborated at length on the central flaws he thought would be its undoing. A big part of the problem, he believed, were the partners themselves. “The truculent aggression and stiff-necked unilateralism of the American and Israeli teams are already well known,” he wrote, adding that “the Palestinian team inspires scarcely any confidence, made up as it is of recycled and ageing Arafat cohorts.” Said had long since lost faith in Arafat as an effective leader and good-faith negotiator, but he knew that Arafat was the only person with the authority to sign an agreement on behalf of Palestine. Bush and Sharon had already closed the book on him, figuratively and literally, and they proceeded with the road map under the assumption that Mahmoud Abbas, Arafat’s handpicked stand-in, would be calling the shots. Ironically, Said explained, “The road map seems to have given Yasir Arafat another lease of life, for all the studied efforts by Powell and his assistants to avoid visiting him. Despite the stupid Israeli policy of trying to humble him by shutting him up in a badly bombed compound, he is still in control of things. He remains Palestine’s elected President, he has the Palestinian purse strings in his hands (the purse is far from bulging), and as for his status, none of the present ‘reform’ team can match the old man for charisma and power.”

A few months later, it became clear that Bush and Sharon had ensured the road map’s failure by insisting, impossibly, that all terror cease before any negotiation could begin. It also seemed clear that Said’s assessment of Arafat as the intractable flag-bearer for Palestine who would never relinquish control of the PLO or the PA – neither its security forces nor its treasury nor, for that matter, veto power as a negotiator – was not only accurate but also tragic. What a sorry paradox: The man who inspired and symbolized Palestinian aspirations was also a major obstacle to statehood. This is the man, after all, who appeared in front of the United Nations General Assembly in 1974 brandishing a holster while waving an olive branch. What other Nobel Peace Prize winner can you think of whose name is immediately, justifiably associated with fomenting terrorism?

Understandably, the ferocity of the violence perpetrated by both sides since the outbreak of the second intifada cast a pall of fear and rage over daily life that dimmed any prospect for peace, bumps in the road map notwithstanding. Further, the obdurate antagonism that characterized the relationship between Sharon and Arafat made one wonder if they would actually prefer mutual destruction to a peaceful resolution. Soon after Said’s article came out, I puzzled over this question with a colleague who follows the conflict closely. A great peace plan, I proposed, would involve sending the two old men to their own private Elba, where they could carry out their mutual vendettas while moderate leaders on both sides worked out an agreement back home. We laughed, joked about how the two warriors could pass the time squabbling over control of the sand and the coconuts and the water. But I remember thinking, seriously, that no peace agreement could be achieved until after Arafat died. As long as he was alive, he would remain in power as Palestine’s sole representative, and as long as he remained in power, Israel would never negotiate.

Now Arafat is dead, and a new phase begins with Abbas, a critic of the intifada, at the Palestinian helm. “The recent events could be a historic turning point for the Middle East,” Sharon said in a statement today. The operative word in that sentence is “could.” It remains to be seen whether Abbas has the support he will need to stabilize Palestine and clamp down on extremists. And it remains to be seen whether Sharon will partner with Abbas to help renew the peace process, or if he will simply transfer the blame.

Fallujah Falling

2004-11-10T13:32:00.000-08:00

Meanwhile, Fallujah burns. At a glance, the US offensive seems to be succeeding, but a closer look shows that the military strategy guiding this operation - and, by extension, the entire occupation of Iraq - is woefully, tragically misinformed. The forces poised on the northern edges of the city have been pushing steadily south since the operation began on Monday, and they're likely to seize control of the center of the city within another few days. If and when US forces secure the city, the battle will be trumpeted as a major setback for the insurgents and a significant step toward securing the Sunni Triangle in preparation for the upcoming elections. Never mind that Zarqawi, whose head would make a nice trophy for Rumsfeld's living room, is nowhere near Fallujah. Never mind that the insurgents may get a few trophies of their own, in the form of Ayad Allawi's extended family. (Late yesterday, the wires reported that the Iraqi Prime Minister's 75-year-old cousin and his cousin's daughter-in-law have been taken hostage: The kidnappers are demanding, among other things, an end to the offensive.)

This short, splendid battle is being staged to induce a vicarious adrenaline rush among television viewers and instill fear among insurgents throughout Iraq, but it's just so much theatrics. While the attention has focused on neutralizing Fallujah, fighting continues to rage unabated in Baghdad, Mosul, Samarra, Kirkuk. Further, the leaders who had been based in recent weeks and months in Fallujah saw this offensive coming a mile away and likely booby-trapped the major highways and back alleys with IEDs before dispersing. In a front-page report from today's New York Times, Edward Wong and Eric Schmitt quote a former Baathist named Abu Khalid who says, “From a military point of view, if a city is surrounded and bombarded, then the result of the battle is preordained.” Khalid later explains, “The Americans are mistaken if they think they are going to end the resistance by occupying Fallujah.”

The taking of Fallujah, then, takes its place among dozens of other instances that demonstrate US failure to understand the nature of the insurgency. It's one of the few consistencies you can glean from US policy in Iraq, and as long as the coalition leaders stick to the script that the insurgents are dead-enders and terrorists, the body count will continue to rise. Seymour Hersh expounded on this point at a panel discussion last night in the Great Hall at Cooper Union. He and a few others had gathered to talk about the meaning of the images from Abu Ghraib, the most immediately recognizable evidence of our shameful failure in Iraq, received around the globe as icons of American mendacity. But as soon as the discussion opened up to questions from the crowd, Hersh launched into an impassioned, acerbic rant against the administration and its inability to prosecute the war effectively, which he attributed to a combination of gross incompetence and dogged refusal to accept any information contradictory to the strategy Bush wants to remain in place. “We need to stop calling these guys insurgents,” Hersh demanded. “We've turned an insurgency into a national struggle. These are the people who are fighting the war for Iraq, and they're going to win.”

My So-Called Mandate, Cont.

2004-11-08T21:58:00.000-08:00

More wisdom on the so-called mandate, from a post this evening on TalkingPointsMemo: "Republicans are pushing this decisive victory meme to create a climate of presidential entitlement, an atmosphere in which President Bush not only won the presidency but with it an effective right to dictate the terms of major legislation because of the scope and breadth of his victory. Given that fact, it seems worth pointing out that this election, rather than being a decisive win or a landslide, was actually, by every objective measure, one of the half dozen or so closest presidential contests in modern American history, along with 1876, 1916, 1960, 1968 and 1976."

Even more, from Kevin Drum at The Washington Monthly: "MANDATE....I hate to say this, but I hope liberals quit whining about George Bush's 'mandate.' It may be a narrow one, but of course he won a mandate. We've all been saying for months now that this election was a referendum on the incumbent, and the incumbent won the electoral college, won the popular vote by nearly 4 million votes, picked up four Senate seats, tossed out the Democratic leader in the Senate, and picked up a few more House seats for good measure. If the results had gone the other way, we'd be talking about them as a clear repudiation of Bush and everything he stood for. Needless to say, this doesn't mean we should just mope around and let the Republican party run the country unopposed. At the same time, though, it doesn't help to be in denial: the fact is that Bush did win a convincing victory, and he did it because more Americans agreed with his vision for the country than agreed with ours. Our job now is to try to change that, not to pretend that it never happened."

A conversation with a wonky friend of mine at The Nation helped to clarify why so many people are blowing so much air over this issue. I explained my thoughts, closely aligned with Drum's, that even though the mandate doesn't exist -- as anyone who's paying attention can immediately see -- the fact is that the administration plans to act on its perceived license to effect radical change regardless and that, therefore, we should focus our time and energy combating the issues they'll push, not whether they have the right to push them. "Of course," my friend agreed. "Every time they try to ram a crazy proposal through Congress, we'll have to hit back. But calling foul on Bush's bloated talk about a mandate isn't whining or a distraction. It's important to correct the record, to lay the groundwork for a counter-argument, so that when they try to push whatever policy it is, we can say, truthfully, that they aren't speaking or acting on behalf of American voters."

Fair enough. I'll concede the point. I'll also add how troubling it is to see the media duped so easily into running with the Bush line, making it all the more necessary to present a counter-narrative. But remember, Bush didn't win the election in 2000 -- neither the popular vote nor the electoral college. It was important to correct the record on that, too, and history has been informed. But when arguing against his first round of tax cuts, the case wasn't that he didn't win and shouldn't be presiding over legislation; it was, These tax cuts are a real problem. Four years later, here we are again: He didn't win in 2000. He doesn't have a broad mandate. And these tax cuts are a real problem.

TNR on Bush's "Mandate"

2004-11-08T16:56:00.000-08:00

Sharp analysis on the folly of Bush's so-called mandate. Still, it's worth repeating: The mandate may be illusory, but the threat is no less real...

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?pt=wev7D5mdL8hpQdvsZw4GUB%3D%3D

Just the Facts

2004-11-08T15:22:00.000-08:00

In the first round of post-election punditry, some members of the liberal brain trust have been picking through the rubble in search of good news at the state level. As it turns out, there were a few signs of positive change. Medical marijuana was legalized in Montana, Florida upped its minimum wage by one dollar, and California supported funding for stem-cell research (if Superman could fall, maybe the Terminator could, too?). Of course, the passage of each of these ballot measures represents progress, but taken together they hardly amount to a silver lining. Same-sex marriage was rejected in every state where a ban was proposed, scoring eleven points for the homophobes, zero for civil rights. Arizona passed an anti-immigration proof-of-citizenship initiative, California renewed its support for the notorious Three Strikes incarceration law, and Florida now requires parents and guardians to be notified when minors in their care receive abortions.

Any Democrat who thought last week’s returns added up to a win – or even a draw – would have to be pretty seriously stoned. But some of the sober reflections on the loss seem a bit loopy, too. In an open e-mail to his fans that made the rounds on Friday, Fightin’ Michael Moore listed “Seventeen Reasons Not to Slit Your Wrists” and asked readers, for starters, to be comforted in the knowledge that “it is against the law for George W. Bush to run for president again.” OK, a little comic relief never hurts, but then consider Moore’s straight-faced Reason No. 15:

“Should Bush decide to show up to work and take this country down a very dark road, it is also just as likely that either of the following two scenarios will happen: a) Now that he doesn’t ever need to pander to the Christian conservatives again to get elected, someone may whisper in his ear that he should spend these last four years building “a legacy” so that history will render a kinder verdict on him and thus he will not push for too aggressive a right-wing agenda; or b) He will become so cocky and arrogant -- and thus, reckless -- that he will commit a blunder of such major proportions that even his own party will have to remove him from office.”

Both of those two scenarios are within the realm of possibility, but neither can be expected. Besides, given what’s already on the table – a trillion-dollar plan to privatize social security, a bid to scrawl homophobic graffiti on the Constitution, a through-the-looking-glass tax code, unending calamities in the Middle East – shouldn’t we immediately concern ourselves with a third scenario wherein a browbeaten Congress hands Bush a pen to sign his right-wing agenda into law? Isn’t that what we should be bracing for, arming ourselves against?

In the wake of a decidedly Republican victory, this sort of hopeful commentary seems a bit Panglossian, if not disingenuous. During the run-up to the war in Iraq and throughout this campaign, Democrats touted themselves as the ones who were in touch with reality, whereas the Bush administration and its supporters were supposed to be the ones who cherry-picked data to suit their interests. Moore was, and remains, an Oscar-winning exception to this rule. But he's not the only one licking his wounds with the fact that Bush’s was the narrowest victory for a sitting president since Woodrow Wilson won a second term in 1916. That's an interesting bit of historical trivia, but it doesn't seem terribly relevant right now. The fact is, whether his mandate is real or invented, Bush is planning to act on it.

ACT II

2004-11-05T15:50:00.000-08:00

Good news: America Coming Together will live to fight another day.

Ellen Malcolm, president of America Coming Together, tells the New York Times, "People understand the program and what we are trying to accomplish.... They see how we are learning, and they appreciate that. It's not a one-shot deal for them. We've done something pretty phenomenal, and it's the beginning of victories in the future."

Here's the whole article, which discusses the past and future role of 527s on both sides of the partisan divide:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/05/politics/campaign/05money.html?hp

"Spending" Political Capital

2004-11-05T14:11:00.000-08:00

After a first term during which he set a new presidential record for the least number of press conferences, and following months of private campaign events where pre-screened attendees were required to sign a pledge of allegiance at the door, President Bush held at a news conference yesterday and actually took unscripted questions from reporters. He spoke in a soft, faux-humble tone, one that was much less vociferous than the fist-pounding declarative style he had adopted throughout the campaign. (He even went so far as to thank a New York Times reporter for asking him how he plans to deal with America’s damaged reputation on the international stage. “I appreciate that,” he responded, and then proceeded to categorically dismiss any and all criticism of the Bush doctrine.)

But the humility routine did nothing to blunt the renewed braggadocio with which he laid out his plans for his second term. He spoke freely about privatizing Social Security, instituting tort reform, simplifying the tax code, bolstering security, pummeling Iraq. And offering up the sound bite of the day, he said, “Let me put it to you this way: I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it.” Couple that little gem with Dick Cheney’s comment on Wednesday that 51 percent of the popular vote amounts to “a broad, nationwide victory,” and you’ve got a strong indication that these guys will push, and push hard, to realize their vision of an “ownership society.”

Never mind that if he “spends” this political capital the way he intends, he’ll propel an already spiraling deficit into orbit. At the end of September, fiscal 2004 closed with a frightening deficit of $413 billion. Without providing any substantive explanation of how he would pull it off – no, calling on Congress to maintain “spending discipline” doesn’t count – Bush has pledged to cut that number nearly in half, to $258 billion, by 2009. But The Washington Post reported today that “a [Congressional Budget Office] analysis of one of the plans drafted by Bush’s Social Security commission concluded the near-term cost would be $104.5 billion in 2005, rising to $146.6 billion in 2009” (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26458-2004Nov4.html). Bush’s 2006 budget, due in February, will not account for these costs, nor any costs associated with new military spending in Iraq or Afghanistan. Sure, Bush can cut the deficit in half by 2009, so long as he disregards mathematical realities. Unfortunately, the value of the dollar doesn’t have that luxury.

Two Questions

2004-11-04T16:06:00.000-08:00

(1) How can progressives keep the legions of people who were mobilized by this campaign active during Bush's second term?

(2) To what end?

What Now?

2004-11-04T13:58:00.000-08:00

A photo on the Op-Ed page of yesterday’s New York Times shows a pair of hands holding up a sign with the words WHAT NOW? written across it in bold letters. What now, indeed. A postmortem of some sort is in order, and will likely take place among Democratic power brokers over the next several weeks. But the fact is, Kerry was a fine candidate, and though his flaws were painfully apparent to his supporters and masterfully exploited by the opposition at every turn, his campaign should be commended for its achievements. The DNC machine could benefit from renewed vision, sure, and we need to reconsider the conventional wisdom of courting the center. With any luck, these conversations will happen sooner rather than later – and not drag on for too long. Hand-wringing is not the order of the day. Then again, neither is willful optimism. Of the opinions I’ve read today, Katha Pollitt’s column in The Nation strikes me as the most honest. “Don’t let’s talk about Eugene Debs and Fighting Bob La Follette and how important it is to lose and lose and lose until you win,” she pleads. “It all seems a bit inadequate, a bit quaint and this-land-is-your-landish, the left’s commitment to doing more of what we’ve been doing, only harder.” Her piece closes on a “what now?” note, as well, but it’s more exasperated than determined. For Pollitt, the salient question is not what should we do to advance a progressive agenda during the second Bush term, but what can we do now that we know a majority of voters in this country really do prefer this administration: “Maybe this time the voters chose what they actually want: Nationalism, pre-emptive war, order not justice, ‘safety’ through torture, backlash against women and gays, a gulf between haves and have-nots, government largesse for their churches and a my-way-or-the-highway President. Where, I wonder, does that leave us?”

Four More (Disastrous) Years

2004-11-03T22:33:00.000-08:00

Today is a sad day, a dark day, a day in which the people who fought so hard and so well for change may be understandably inconsolable. Now that the votes are in and Kerry has conceded defeat in Ohio, the news that America handed Bush the mandate he never had during his first term is beginning to sink in. The first step is to accept the numbers as fact: Bush won 51.1 percent of the popular vote, with a total of 274 electoral votes; Democrats lost four seats in the Senate (the balance is now 51-48-1 in favor of Republicans) and four more in the House (228-206-1). From there it’s a natural, frightening jump to wonder what Bush, who will surely greet this day as an answered prayer, might set out to achieve with a second term. In his acceptance speech today, he said he hoped to “reform our outdated tax code,” which of course means more generous handouts to the superrich, an even higher deficit, a tighter squeeze on the middle class. He also mentioned his desire to “strengthen the Social Security for the next generation” by privatizing it into oblivion. “We will help the emerging democracies of Iraq,” he said (translation: We’ll torture them until they vote). “We will fight this war on terror with every resource of our national power,” he said (Read: Patriot Act II). He did acknowledge the reality of a bitterly divided constituency, with a nod toward reconciliation. “To make this nation stronger and better,” he explained, “I will need your support, and I will work to earn it. I will do all I can do to deserve your trust.” But he will not bridge that gap, nor are there any indications that he has any desire to try. Instead, he’s got four more years to loose his radical agenda upon the nation and the world.

2004-11-03T13:06:00.000-08:00

Sigh.