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April 9, 2006
Murray Waas is Our Woodward Now"Not only is Woodward not in the hunt, but he is slowly turning into the hunted. Part of what remains to be uncovered is how Woodward was played by the Bush team, and what they thought they were doing by leaking to him, as well as what he did with the dubious information he got."It should be obvious from the work who the Woodward of Now is. And if it isn’t obvious Greg Sargent can explain it to you over at the American Prospect. The guy’s name is Murray Waas; he’s an independent journalist who recently went to work as a staff writer for the National Journal and the Atlantic Media Company, which owns the Atlantic Monthly, the Journal, and other titles. Waas has been in the game since he was 18, when he started working for the columnist Jack Anderson. By Woodward Now I mean the reporter who is actually doing what Woodward has a reputation for doing: finding, tracking, breaking into reportable parts—and then publishing—the biggest story in town. He’s also putting those parts together for us. The Biggest Story in Town (almost a term of art in political Washington) is the one that would cause the biggest earthquake if the facts sealed inside it started coming out now. Today the biggest story in town is what really went down as the Bush team drove deceptively to war, and later tried to conceal how bad the deception—and decision-making—had been. We are still “in” that story today, as is the press (deeply in it) and so a lot rides on what comes out. Not only is Woodward not in the hunt, but he is slowly turning into the hunted. Part of what remains to be uncovered is how Woodward was played by the Bush team, and what they thought they were doing by leaking to him, as well as what he did with the dubious information he got— especially since, as the Washington Post reported on April 9, evidence leaked by Scooter Libby to Woodward on June 27, 2003 “had been disproved months before.” According to the account by David E. Sanger and David Barstow in the New York Times, same day: when Libby described the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate to Woodward, other senior officials in Bush’s government were thinking about declassifying it through normal means, and did not know that Bush had done it himself so parts could be leaked. Cheney and Libby knew, and they went to Woodward before they went to others on their team— like, say, the national security adviser. Why? They went to Woodward to leak the portions of an intelligence estimate that tended to exonerate them. The information they were sharing had gone bad. And yet they felt they could do that to Bob Woodward, give him bad information, the credibility of which had collapsed even within their own shop. Why? You would think Woodward would be in a position to tell us. He was there, so to speak. But that’s just the trouble, isn’t it? Plus he’s already on record predicting (on Fresh Air July 7, 2005) that when “all of the facts come out in this case, it’s going to be laughable because the consequences are not that great.” Romenesko front-paged David Broder’s statement Friday when he was asked about …it’s going to be laughable: “Subsequent events do not appear to be supporting that forecast.” That happened in a Q & A between Broder and Post readers. Why doesn’t Woodward start doing these things? There’s an official story about Woodward’s journalism, which now incorporates his nonfiction books. It goes like this. When Bob Woodward, the greatest reporter of his generation and our time, gets on to a story, he dominates it. He gets people to talk who wouldn’t before. (They know he’ll be fair.) He gets the documents others don’t. He remembers the details others miss. And so he gets the stories other reporters try to get but can’t. You can’t beat Woodward. His sourcing is too good, his instincts too sharp. And his track record over time shows that. That’s my version. “No reporter has more talent for getting Washington’s inside story and telling it cogently,” wrote William Powers of the National Journal, who began his career as a researcher for Woodward, explained in a column last year why the man is peerless in a city teeming with aggressive and talented journalists. (See my post, Grokking Woodward.) Imagine the agony of other hardworking Washington reporters. They’ll toil away for years on a big beat — the Supreme Court, the Federal Reserve, the White House, the CIA — and feel they’ve done a bang-up job. After all, they broke some news, scored big interviews, revealed the “inner workings” of government. Then Woodward comes along, spends a year on the same subject, and launches the news equivalent of an atomic bomb: a week’s worth of jaw-dropping headlines that obliterate everything the regulars have done. And that has happened. It might happen again. Woodward has a book on Bush’s second term due in 2006. A lot rides on it. For these days Woodward is the one being eclipsed by the determination, savvy, and multiple sourcing that Murray Waas has developed in and around the Fitzgerald investigation. Murray’s throats tell him stuff; he goes away, puts it together with other things he knows, then scoops the rest of the press. And it’s factual territory Woodward has been in before, to put it mildly. Dan Froomkin reads all the coverage (it’s his job) and wrote this on March 31: Slowly but surely, investigative reporter Murray Waas has been putting together a compelling narrative about how President Bush and his top aides contrived their bogus case for war in Iraq; how they succeeded in keeping charges of deception from becoming a major issue in the 2004 election; and how they continue to keep most of the press off the trail to this day. Key point: The biggest story in town is partly a story about the ways of the Washington press. On March 31 Waas emerged from his workshop and added a critical piece (“Insulating Bush”) to which other big pieces attach: Karl Rove, President Bush’s chief political adviser, cautioned other White House aides in the summer of 2003 that Bush’s 2004 re-election prospects would be severely damaged if it was publicly disclosed that he had been personally warned that a key rationale for going to war had been challenged within the administration. This story said that “Bush had been specifically advised that claims he later made in his 2003 State of the Union address — that Iraq was procuring high-strength aluminum tubes to build a nuclear weapon — might not be true.” But then he went ahead anyway. Froomkin says the rest of the Washington press corps should wake up to what Waas is uncovering. “Waas’s fellow reporters at major news operations should either acknowledge and try to follow up his stories — or debunk them. It’s not okay to just leave them hanging out there. They’re too important.” (See also eriposte at the Left Coaster on Waas putting the pieces together.) In an appreciation of his mentor, Jack Anderson, who died in December, Waas told us something about his own approach. “The public has pushed back against insider, access journalism— whether practiced by Bob Woodward, Judith Miller, or Robert Novak,” he wrote. “Anderson always understood it was his role to be an outsider, not just in regard to the politicians he covered, but also vis-a-vis the established order of journalism.” And Waas is that outsider, as Woodward was 34 years ago when he began investigating a burglary at the Watergate. It is worth noting too that the runners-up to Waas in the Woodward of Now competition would be the reporters at the Knight-Ridder Washington bureau, especially Warren P. Strobel, Jonathan S. Landay and Ron Hutcheson. Strobel and Hutcheson wrote last week about “a pattern of selective leaks of secret intelligence to further the administration’s political agenda.” (Pattern recognition being critical to the story.) “Much of the information that the administration leaked or declassified, however, has proved to be incomplete, exaggerated, incorrect or fabricated,” they added. Notice how they say this on their own authority, stating it as a fact because they have done the reporting that confirms it. And to close the circle, in Waas’s latest (“Libby Says Bush Authorized Leaks”) there is a juicy part about Woodward. It tells how badly Bush wanted his people to talk to the greatest reporter of his generation: Other former senior government officials said that Bush directed people to assist Woodward in the book’s preparation: “There were people on the Seventh Floor [of the CIA] who were told by Tenet to cooperate because the President wanted it done. There were calls to people to by [White House communication director] Dan Bartlett that the President wanted it done, if you were not co-operating. And sometimes the President himself told people that they should co-operate,” said one former government official. Why? We don’t know. But we’re going to know from Murray Waas much sooner than from Woodward, who was there but somehow missed it. After Matter: Notes, reactions and links… Howard Kurtz in his Media Notes column, April 17: After a quarter-century in the journalistic shadows, Murray Waas is getting his day in the sun. In fact, I’ve never seen Waas on television. Murray Waas strikes again, Cheney Authorized Leak Of CIA Report, Libby Says. (National Journal, April 14.) Steve Lovelady of CJR Daily in the comments: “He’s like a guy trying to pound a tent peg into very hard ground. The peg doesn’t move much, but he just keeps whaling away with discrete fact after discrete fact until, finally, he sinks the sucker.” Amy Goodman interviews Waas (April 7, 2006). CJR Daily notes that Josh Gerstein in the New York Sun and Waas in the National Journal were first with the news about Bush authorizing leaks. “Given that the story drew on a publicly available court filing made by Fitzgerald and given the political stakes — now raised even higher — the big guys don’t have much of an excuse for coming in second on this one,” writes Edward B. Colby. Over at American Thinker, Rick Moran of Rightwing Nuthouse says I am wrong to lionize Murray Waas, and wrong about the biggest story in town. See his Missing the Big Story: The CIA’s War with the White House: Waas has missed the knife sticking out of the back of the Bush Administration; a knife planted by a group of leakers – organized or not – at the CIA who, unelected though they were, took it upon themselves to first try and prevent the execution of United States policy they were sworn to carry out, and failing that, trying to destroy in the most blatantly partisan manner an Administration with which they had a policy disagreement. Moran also argues that in 2004 there was “an attempted coup by the very same faction at the CIA who had been fighting the Administration in the lead up to the war,” and that this “missing context” explains a lot. Read his piece. And this rebuttal to it at MetaFilter. Joe Gandleman comments on this post: “Woodward is no longer perceived as a tireless reporter to be necessarily feared; he is now perceived as a tireless reporter to be cultivated.” I repeat in wonderment: Cheney and Libby thought they could feed Woodward bum information, claims that were not believed among people they knew Woodward had talked to, or would talk to. Why? At Tapped, Greg Sargent points out that Waas’s reporting in the The National Journal is finally starting to make its way into the elite papers. Josh Marshall on what he can add to Waas’s account: Rove thought the 2004 election was at stake if the Iraq-sought-nuclear-materials story collapsed outright. We saw this and the cover-up it spawned first hand. While I and reporters from CBS were working on this story through 2004 it was clear that folks on the Hill would agree to talk and then suddenly un-agree when they got the call from the White House. The White House worked doggedly at almost every turn to get the story killed or delayed beyond the election, which they of course did. Here’s what Waas wrote: The pre-election damage-control effort in response to Wilson’s allegations and the broader issue of whether the Bush administration might have misrepresented intelligence information to make the case for war had three major components, according to government records and interviews with current and former officials: All three involved the press, implicated the press or required the cooperation of the press. Dan Froomkin’s Monday column, Some Explaining To Do, is a taught round-up of leaker-in-chief news. I recommend especially his section: McClellan’s Feeble Shield. All I can sat about this is: wow. That first sentence is a doozy. Tom Maguire has the same reaction: wow. You can sample the other wows at Memeorandum. Feels like this one is going to make a very loud noise in the blogosphere. Dumb editorial. Make that willfully dumb. Jane Hamsher has a lot on this. I liked Josh Marshall’s cooly angry post: “Legitimate opinion journalism is constrained by facts, as nearly as we can know them.” And there’s another angry comment storm at post.blog, overwhelming an unrelated entry on a new search tool at the site. The more musical among PressThink users might know better, but I say the songwriting team of Strobel and Hutcheson have a feel. Consider their lines: Incomplete, exaggerated, incorrect or fabricated.. Bouncy tune if you say it out loud. David Corn of The Nation and Bob Woodward have a frank exchange of views. See Corn, Woodward and Reality; and Bob Woodward Replies. Here’s Fishbowl DC’s list of Jack Anderson alumni who have gone on to great things. It doesn’t mention Waas. Now why do you think that is? Ron Brynaert at Raw Story has the scoop: “This time around the Washington Post plans to hire two bloggers for its Web site.” The paper’s ombudsman, Deborah Howell, has informed RAW STORY that Jim Brady, executive editor of washingtonpost.com, is looking for a liberal blogger, along with a conservative one, to replace Ben Domenech who resigned after only three days of blogging, when his earlier writings were discovered by mostly liberal bloggers to be racially insensitive and – in multiple cases – plagiarized. Ron reveals that Ben Domenech had a history of appearing in the Post and seems to have been… connected. My recommendation was three bloggers: left, right and neither-nor. See PressThink, Red America, RIP… and the Great Blogger Bake Off. Now here’s a curious lapse in blogosphere etiquette. John Avarosis and Atrios and Matt Stoller all comment on the Washington Post looking for a liberal blogger, and none links to—or even mentions—Brynaert’s story at Raw, which is how they know about it because he broke the news. Weird. Is that informing your readers? His piece has new information about Domenech and the resolution of the debacle he became for the Post. Not to link to the originating report when you easily can is giving poor service, and these blogs normally give good service, so what’s up with that? (UPDATE, April 11: Matt Stoller added a hat tip to Raw Story, which is cool.) How about this announcement, transparency fans and critics of…? Bill Keller, executive editor of The Times, will answer questions in this space about the newspaper and the news. Questions will be selected from e-mails sent to asktheeditors@nytimes.com, and Mr. Keller will answer as many this week as time permits. Afterward, these discussions will continue with other Times editors.
Posted by Jay Rosen at April 9, 2006 11:17 AM
Comments
First they went to Woodward, then they went to Judy. Niether wrote a story. Both stood by and did nothing to inform the public of the truth. In fact, Woodward actively helped the cover-up effort by down-playing the Plame affair as much ado about nothing on national TV. And he conveniently failed to disclose his own involvement in the matter as he scoffed at its significance and downplayed its seriousness. More significantly, both Miller and Woodward had to have known what was going down. The WH was trying to cover up the fact that it had fabricated the central reasons offered for rushing into war. And they were doing so in order to ensure re-election in the fall. These reporters were aiding and abetting a criminal conspiracy, one which would likely have the effect of subverting democracy. For as Waas has reported, in Rove's estimation, if the truth came out, Bush's re-election was in grave danger. Yet both kept quiet, until later forced to testify, long after the election was safely won. They could have written the stories Waas is writing now, and won recognition for that, but they chose not to. Why? Was it because they agreed to accept rules of the game that rendered them tools of the administration in exchange for super-duper-access (necessary for sustaining star power) not granted to others? In practice, the rules meant essentially that they could not write about certain things that were politically harmfult to the WH, even if true, but would get access to write about things that were helpful, which would be published even if they were clearly not true. That's why they went to Woodward and Judy first, they were willing to play by the rules. The rules are a fig leaf, though, covering up personal corruption. Ultimately, these reporters traded their integrity and that of their papers, for access, career advancement and personal gain. Waas is a hero for doing his job and doing it well. I guess it's a lot harder to do that when subjected to the corrupting influences of being a big shot, or wanting to be a big shot, working at the NYT or the Post. The NYT dumped miller. Why isn't the Post dumping Woodward? Shouldn't he be spending more time with his mirror? Posted by: steve schwenk at April 9, 2006 12:35 PM | Permalink Was Woodward ever an outsider? Or more precisely, was he ever not struggling furiously to become an insider? His Watergate coverage hinged on an insider connection to fellow Navy man and old-guard conservative Mark Felt, and he's been working his way up the ladder ever since. By the way, Woodward offers a testy defense of his insiderism here. Posted by: Sven at April 9, 2006 12:40 PM | Permalink Just to be fair, here's how his paper reported it: Woodward Was Told of Plame More Than Two Years Ago November 16, 1995 Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward testified under oath Monday in the CIA leak case that a senior administration official told him about CIA operative Valerie Plame and her position at the agency nearly a month before her identity was disclosed . . . Woodward and Post editors refused to disclose the official's name or provide crucial details about the testimony. Woodward did not share the information with Washington Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. until last month, and the only Post reporter whom Woodward said he remembers telling in the summer of 2003 does not recall the conversation taking place . . . And here's a powerful and very effective visual depiction Billmon posted to convey his take on what it all means. Posted by: steve schwenk at April 9, 2006 2:07 PM | Permalink Sven: Your question is a good one. Was Woodward ever an outsider? Woodward was an "outsider" at the time of the Watergate break-in only in one sense. At the time, he was on the metro desk at the Post. He had covered the suburbs in Virgina. He was unproven and unknown, just beginning to make his way, and then he caught hold of what became the Biggest Story in Washington... Ever. As we know now it took him directly into the heart of the White House beat, and pierced the Oval Office. But he wasn't an insider to that beat. He had no investments, no sources among the president's men, no reputation to lose. In all these ways he was the outsider, and all of them helped big time when he and Bernstein started to investigate Nixon. Waas isn't on the White House beat; he's on the "this is a big story, and I'm staying on it" beat. In every other way, Woodward was an outsider in 1972 only in the sense of not having yet become the Washington insider he is now. Certainly that seems to have been a goal from the start. Jay - just a heads up - you might want to look at WaPo blog tonight and note the dissonance between today's WaPo editorial and the front page coverage of the same story. Oh my! Posted by: siun at April 9, 2006 11:15 PM | Permalink Pop Quiz to your Heads Up, siun: can you find the place in my post where I address the editorial in question? nodding - and noted the somewhat dismissive "loud noise in the blogosphere." More interesting to me than a "dumb editorial" (since they are not so rare) is the complete disconnect within the same issue between A1 and the editorial. That said, the blogosphere response is visible at the WaPo blog once again. Posted by: siun at April 10, 2006 1:24 AM | Permalink I'm glad to seeing Waas getting the attention and praise he deserves for working so hard on this story. Posted by: Scott Butki at April 10, 2006 8:27 AM | Permalink gosh, I take a day off from keeping up with the blogosphere and all hell breaks loose at the Post. What most of the critics of the Post seem to be missing is the key fact that, 10 days prior to "Bush authorized" leak from Libby to Miller, Lewis Libby told Bob Woodward that, according to the NIE, Iraq had begun to "vigorously trying to procure" yellowcake from Niger. This was presented as a conclusion to Woodward, when in fact it was simply mentioned in passing that there had been "reports" --- and that elsewhere in the NIE it could be found that those "reports" had been contradicted. The Post's perception of a "Good Leak" appears to be based not on whether the leak is an accurate reflection of the truth, but on whether Bob Woodward gets access to it for his book. ***************** on another note: Score one for Jay Rosen. Talk to the Newsroom Piddling details. For anyone who has been paying attention since oh, around 2000, it was clear what kind of President Bush would be. He still hasn't really been called on it. I saw Kerry on MTP yesterday finally admit his Iraq vote had been a mistake. He probably did that so he could stop having to explain a fine distinction: it was RIGHT to tell the world the American people stand behind their President. What was WRONG was everything the President did thereafter. Right policy, wrong President. Posted by: FeingoldObama at April 10, 2006 9:12 AM | Permalink unmitigated gall is divided into three parts: greed, stupidity and cruelty. See: www.coolstretchofhighway.com Paul: Thanks for that heads up on the Keller Q and A. But I wouldn't score one for me. I bet it has to do with the Times getting a new site and building in the software to do the online Q and A's live. From Rick Moran at the American Thinker: The fact is that Wilson, the lefty blogs, and especially Jay Rosen have missed the biggest story of the young century in their efforts to uncover the minutia, the nuggets of selected, disjointed information that writers have leapt upon like ravenous beasts, devouring, regurgitating as “proof” of their conspiracy theories, the evil machinations of evil men who “fabricated” intelligence on our way to war. Interesting that Moran just assumes I am a Wilson lionizer. To me Wilson is a bit player with a gigantic ego who's said some dumb things as well as a lot of true things, and what happened to him has triggered a huge story, but he's not the story. Bush, Cheney, and their machinations which involve the press are. I think the White House wasn't leaking TO Mr Woodward but, more clearly, leaking ON him. Until he cleans his suit, he's not fit to be in the same room as Mr Waas. Posted by: steve gall at April 10, 2006 12:17 PM | Permalink From Mr. Moran's piece: Regardless of who pushed his name forward or even what he discovered while in Niger (which to this day is a matter of fierce dispute), Actually, there is no dispute. Not among the reality-based, anyway. Based on thorough analysis, the IAEA has concluded, with the concurrence of outside experts, that these documents - which formed the basis for the reports of recent uranium transactions between Iraq and Niger - are in fact not authentic. We have therefore concluded that these specific allegations are unfounded. I agree that Murray Waas is the ace, but we shouldn't overlook others with their noses in places they need to be to get the truth out. Although he is relatively quiet about it, hasn't Jason Leopold over at TruthOut.org been chipping away, as well? Posted by: Canuck Stuck in Muck at April 10, 2006 12:23 PM | Permalink Bob Woodward is "the greatest reporter of our time" in the smae way that Helen Hayes was "The First Lady of the American theater." It's his pr packaging. Waas is simply doing actual reportorial work -- and has been for years. Where the rubber meets the road with his latest bombshell is the fact that the rest of the press sees fit to comment on it only because Dubbya's numbers are through the floor and dropping. Posted by: David Ehrenstein at April 10, 2006 12:56 PM | Permalink Speaking of Jason Leopold, he just posted another piece on Plame. Mostly anonymous soruces, but bombshell assertions of fact. If these facts pan out, Bush is in deep doodoo with the public. Look for the pardons to be issued as the Aspens turn. Woodward makes an appearance in the article, too. He supposedly turned libby down on the article, but promised to use the NIE in his book. How thoughtful of him. (But i thought it was someone other than scooter, like big dick, who contacted Bob.) Here's the lede: In early June 2003, Vice President Dick Cheney met with President Bush and told him that CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson was the wife of Iraq war critic Joseph Wilson and that she was responsible for sending him on a fact-finding mission to Niger to check out reports about Iraq's attempt to purchase uranium from the African country, according to current and former White House officials and attorneys close to the investigation to determine who revealed Plame-Wilson's undercover status to the media. Posted by: steve schwenk at April 10, 2006 1:21 PM | Permalink Jay Rosen (above) Quotes Rick Moran at the American Thinker: 'as if one more self-important, insufferably arrogant practitioner of “gotchya” journalism were necessary in Washington. ' We'll put up with the self-important and arrogant, as many as necessary if that's what it takes. We should have no problem with big egos among honest hard-working people. Jay Rosen (above) also notes in passing: Interesting that Moran just assumes I am a Wilson lionizer. To me Wilson is a bit player with a gigantic ego who's said some dumb things as well as a lot of true things, and what happened to him has triggered a huge story, but he's not the story. Bush, Cheney, and their machinations which involve the press are. This is more than an 'interesting' assumption of Moran. Moran's confusion is the moral of the story. Moran is just one of many who have bought into the Rovian BIG LIE that 'somebody else' is the story. His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it. -- in an OSS report report prepared during the war [...] describing Hitler's psychological profile. Why is anyone still surprised at this? Wilson may be equipped with a large ego, but Wilson himself repeated from Day 1 and ad nauseum that this story is 'not about me' or Plame. "This is not about me and less so about my wife. It has always been about the facts underpinning the President's statement in the state of the union speech." This IS about the deception of the Bush Administration. Repeat that out loud three times before filing any story. Posted by: TimeTogether at April 10, 2006 2:38 PM | Permalink Kurtz on April 9 editorial: Fairfax, Va.: You are probably getting a lot of questions about the weird editorial from April 9 in which The Washington Post defended the leaking of (and thoroughly debunked) classified information. What I would like to know is what do journalists in the newsroom do when an editorial is so off-base? Do they just shrug their shoulders and carry on? What is their responsibility to the public? Also, should the editorial board be so disconnected from the news portion of the paper? I think this episode is another in a long line of incidences that highlights the lack of journalistic integrity there is out there today. It tarnishes everyone in the media whether fair or not. it's stunning that the WH is still able to get a favorable editorial in the Post on this case. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 10, 2006 2:53 PM | Permalink In the famous SOTU, Bush said the Brits thought Iraq was trying to buy uranium in Africa. It's about as simple as it gets. Posted by: Richard Aubrey at April 10, 2006 3:37 PM | Permalink I wouldn't say Murray Waas was "our" Woodward now, I'd say he's our Mary Mapes now. Poor Mary spent the better part of 5 years dogging the Bush AWOL story, affecting the '04 election in ways she never dreamed, only to be fired for her efforts. Waas is a partisan muckraker in the vein of his mentor Jack Anderson but so what? There is obviously a market for someone who writes the story first then fixes the facts around his story. You go, Murray! Posted by: nu2u at April 10, 2006 3:43 PM | Permalink Bush was AWOL from national Guard duty, but thanks to faithful slaves like "nu2u" the truth was buried by a lapdog press -- and Mary Mapes along with it. Posted by: David Ehrenstein at April 10, 2006 4:05 PM | Permalink David E. I'm not a journalist, so I may be on thin ice, here. Is that true? Posted by: Richard Aubrey at April 10, 2006 4:07 PM | Permalink Give it up Aubrey. These people are so invested in the "Joe Wilson, Truthteller" meme they will allow no other facts. You can link your brains out by adding the Butler Report, the Bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee Report, and a bazillion other sources, all showing Joe Wilson was the liar and not GWB---they'll never believe it. They are the Parallel-Reality Based Community---they won't believe anything that isn't served up by an anonymous source. It's all they've got. Posted by: abigail beecher at April 10, 2006 4:09 PM | Permalink There's your answer, Aubrey. We're all obliged to drink the Kool-Aide no matter what. Isn't that right, Jay? Posted by: David Ehrenstein at April 10, 2006 4:29 PM | Permalink Abigail. I'm nicer than you are. I don't think they're that stupid. That makes me nicer than you. I think they know exactly what the truth is. Just as you do. I just want to remind them, from time to time, that nobody actually buys their schtick. It's kind of fun. Posted by: Richard Aubrey at April 10, 2006 4:41 PM | Permalink Only 38% buys your schtick, Aubrey. It's kind of fun. Posted by: David Ehrenstein at April 10, 2006 4:48 PM | Permalink Source, David? Posted by: Richard Aubrey at April 10, 2006 4:55 PM | Permalink They are the Parallel-Reality Based Community---they won't believe anything that isn't served up by an anonymous source. It's all they've got. Speaking of parallel realites -- nice to hear from you Kilgore. Welcome back ! Posted by: Steve Lovelady at April 10, 2006 5:09 PM | Permalink When Jane Hamsher called the WaPo editorial the "bullshittiness of the highest fucking bullshit order", who could dispute this cogent and penetrating analysis? Posted by: nu2u at April 10, 2006 5:13 PM | Permalink Hey Lovelady, quit stalking me, or I'm gonna call the cyber police! Posted by: abigail beecher at April 10, 2006 5:16 PM | Permalink "When Jane Hamsher called the WaPo editorial the "bullshittiness of the highest fucking bullshit order", who could dispute this cogent and penetrating analysis?" Certainly not I. Posted by: David Ehrenstein at April 10, 2006 5:30 PM | Permalink So getting back to Jay's post, he aksed why they went to Woodward first. Well, clearly they liked him. Bush liked him. Karl liked him. He was their insider. But there's more to it than that. Judy was an insider, too. She was the second one they went to. And like Bob, she kept her mouth shut...until she began to lose support from the Times. Then she testified. And she went further and wrote up an account of her testimony. She did this to try to save her own reputation, though, in my opinion. Cooper also wrote an account of his testimony even though he all but went to jail to avoid testifying. But Bob Woodward has refused to say a word. Not one peep. Why? Were their rules in place? He claims there were. From the post article : Citing a confidentiality agreement in which the source freed Woodward to testify but would not allow him to discuss their conversations publicly, Woodward and Post editors refused to disclose the official's name or provide crucial details about the testimony. Apparently, no other reporter agreed to these terms. And that, in my view, is one reason why they went to Woodward first, because he would agree to such limitations. In practice, the agreement allowed him to be a tool, but prohibited him from being a journalist. And his alleged credibility was obviously a factor as well. If they could get Woodward to print it, people would believe it. It would throw the rest of the press off the trail. Posted by: steve schwenk at April 10, 2006 5:36 PM | Permalink "If they could get Woodward to print it, people would believe it. It would throw the rest of the press off the trail." That was then. Now no one believes Woodward, save for useful idiots like abigail beecher and "nu2u." Posted by: David Ehrenstein at April 10, 2006 5:57 PM | Permalink I repeat in wonderment: Cheney and Libby thought they could feed Woodward bum information, claims that were not believed among people they knew Woodward had talked to, or would talk to. Why? That is supposed to be fatal when you are dealing with Woodward, whose reputation is: he has ways to check, so watch it…. Jay, what bum information did Woodward run with? Are there specific false information in Plan of Attack? Or just errors of omission, that he didn't get the full story on certain meetings? This is from last fall with Larry King: KING: OK. Your source, did the source indicate whether Mrs. Plame was an undercover agent or a desk analyst? WOODWARD: Good question. And specifically said that -- the source did -- that she was a WMD, weapons of mass destruction, analyst. Now, I've been covering the CIA for over three decades, and analysts, except -- in fact, I don't even know of a case. Maybe there are cases. But they're not undercover. They are people who take other information and analyze it. And so -- and if you were there at this moment in mid-June when this was said, there was no suggestion that it was sensitive, that it was secret. We don't know the extent of the damage done to Plame's old network. The CIA has not done a damage assessment? I don't think they will reveal the damage. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 10, 2006 6:07 PM | Permalink Jay writes , in all apparent seriousness: "Today the biggest story in town is what really went down as the Bush team drove deceptively to war, and later tried to conceal how bad the deception—and decision-making—had been." Dude, despite your protests to the contrary, you are clearly both in and of the Culture War. And it has made you stupid. Posted by: Ralph phelan at April 10, 2006 6:24 PM | Permalink Jay, what bum information did Woodward run with? Are there specific false information in Plan of Attack? Or just errors of omission, that he didn't get the full story on certain meetings? A citizen has a duty to report a crime in progress. Obligations to sources are trivial by comparison. As our good friend David E. suggests, no one believes Woodward anymore. Indeed, this story has done incalculable damage to the press, because it shows them collaborating in a crime. Not in a way that is actionable, but certainly in a way that leaves their remaining readers and viewers feeling betrayed. Clearly that aspect of the matter has yet to be understood. Posted by: Alice Marshall at April 10, 2006 7:03 PM | Permalink Alice, By your argument, then Woodward should not only have not printed his classified information from Deep Throat. But he should have outed Felt. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 10, 2006 7:19 PM | Permalink Hey Lovelady, quit stalking me, or I'm gonna call the cyber police! It's a simple matter of text analysis, Kilgore. Same process by which any editor worth his salt can figure out who wrote the story on his desk before he even checks the byline. Posted by: Steve Lovelady at April 10, 2006 7:54 PM | Permalink Kurtz is the Baghdad Bob of the Washington Post. He has lived off the one-sigma crowd all his life and he is not going to give it up now. Posted by: village idiot at April 10, 2006 8:38 PM | Permalink Between Mark Felt advising Woodward on the cover up of a crime by Nixon and Bush & Co blowing an intelligence operation as part of political pay back there is a wide and substantial difference. Those unable to draw the distinction have no business in journalism. And the idea that merely not printing her name was sufficient is ridiculous. Guess what, every nation in the world has some sort of intelligence operation going in DC. That isn't conspiracy theory, that is just a simply fact of Federal City life. You would have to be truly idiotic not to understand that if Karl Rove is calling up reporters and blasting the name of a case officer that hostile intelligence agents would not get wind of that. Woodward and the rest of them had an obligation to run a story then and there that Karl Rove and Scooter Libbey were jeopardizing an intelligence operation as part of an effort to silence criticism of the President's policies. They could have done this without mentioning Wilson's name or which intelligence operation, but Woodward and the rest had a moral obligation to notify the nation that a crime was in progress. Our nation is at risk because they failed to understand their duty. Posted by: Alice Marshall at April 10, 2006 8:52 PM | Permalink A citizen has a duty to report a crime in progress. Obligations to sources are trivial by comparison. An attorney can't rat out his client, it's unethical, and for good reason. But he can go to jail for participating in or facilitating his client's crimes. A reporter should likewise not have an affirmative duty to rat out a source for criminal conduct, but it seems it should be unethical for a reporter to agree to rules that permit the reporter to be used as a conduit for misinformation, or which have the effect of buying the reporter's silence on important (or criminal) matters having nothing to do with the source's identity. And confidentiality should be deemed waived if it is used as a cloak for transmitting misinformation. Woodward of course did come forward...over two years after the fact, and only after Scooter was indicted, and only because Fitz had stated publicly and erroneously that scooter was the first leaker. (Woodward knew someone higher up - Card, Cheney or Bush - was, and to him.) He had little choice by then. Had he held out in the face of Fitz' error and scooter's indictment, he would have looked more like a participant in a conspiracy to obstruct justice than a disinterested witness. Posted by: steve schwenk at April 10, 2006 9:01 PM | Permalink Alice, turn diplomats into spies. or better yet, just tap the phones of all Washington newsrooms and intercept secrets from the WH and Congress leaking to reporters. this is the polar opposite of the right-wing argument before Libby's indictment. everyone knew Plame was a covert op because it's an open secret in the D.C. cocktail circuit. or just plant a spy as a reporter for Reuters and Time like the Vietnamese did. i wish i can link to the New Yorker story. The Vietnamese considered sending An to the US. His family moved to D.C. in 1975 without him, and was brought back a year later.
there are costs to access, and there was good information in Plan of Attack. Woodward described in detail that Bush decided well in advance of the Jan. 31, 2003, meeting that he was going to war. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 10, 2006 9:37 PM | Permalink I wanted to reccommend a video done by some college students called Loose Change 911 you can view it on Google video for free, but wanted to get your opinons on the movie, since it has to do with this article, thought it was a great piece just wanted to add some light on the subject. .... there are costs to access, and there was good information in Plan of Attack. .... If a CIA agent discovered a Soviet secret through sleuthing, it is probably good information; On the other hand, if Brezhnev called in the CIA attache from the Moscow embassy and volunteered the story, the null hypothesis should be that it is compromised. A good reporter should be able to figure out who the actors are and what their mativations might be. Mr. Woodward, on several occasions, not only did not attempt to exercise this judgement, but also recklessly allowed himself to be enmeshed into the story he was covering. I say reckless, but who knows .... Posted by: village idiot at April 10, 2006 10:30 PM | Permalink I received this via e-mail from Bill Watson of the Pocono Record, a regular PressThink reader. Just wanted to mention that a truly purposeful media would be reporting not what actually happened four or five years ago, which can pretty much be definitively identified and categorized by its results anyway. i'm not saying Woodward is at the top of his game now (or in the same game), especially after 30 years in D.C. when you cut your teeth with Watergate, it's hard to top that. Bernstein took a different path ... Sy Hersh continues to crank, but he's never close to Woodward. Bartlett and Steele probably did better work, but they are not D.C. guys and perhaps not well known outside of journalism. (you can't find Bartlett and Steele nor Gene Roberts in Wikipedia.) this is what Hersh wrote about Woodward last year. I knew W. Mark Felt, identified last week as the critical Post source, as a senior F.B.I. official who, like others in the demoralized bureau, was talking to the press. In fact, at the time I thought that Felt was a source for a colleague of mine at the Times on at least one story. Felt was a first-rate contact, but Woodward and Bernstein had many excellent sources. Their stories were as accurate as any group of newspaper articles could be. I also suspected that they were talking to many of the same people I was. On one occasion, I visited someone I assumed was a secret source of my own and found a handwritten note saying “Kilroy Was Here” affixed to the outside office door—a token from Woodward. if Waas is the bomb, then a major daily soon will scoop him up, along with his excellent sources. there is something offbeat about a big-game hunter named Murray ... Posted by: bush's jaw at April 10, 2006 11:36 PM | Permalink one of the important parallels between Waas and Woodstein (not just Woodward) is that Waas is moving the story forward by examining and following up on information that is appearing in court records. Much of the story that Woodstein developed came out of the courtroom of Judge John Sirica -- just as much of the information that Waas is reporting on is coming out of the courtroom of Judge Watson. great investigative reporting isn't about cultivating sources -- its about digging into the records until you know the subject backwards and forwards, then going to the sources and asking informed questions. A good investigative reporter can glean as much information from what people don't tell him or her if they already know most of the answer to the questions they ask. That is what Woodstein did, and its what Waas is doing today. Posted by: p.lukasiak at April 11, 2006 12:51 AM | Permalink A truly useful media would be finding out what is going on right now within the Bush administration to create the next huge crisis, the one that will force us to back this president yet again, past the seemingly immutable “no third term” amendment. What is this man's position at the Pocono Record? Please tell me he is a columnist, not a reporter or editor. Posted by: MayBee at April 11, 2006 12:56 AM | Permalink definitely was a reporting and writing team Woodward & Bernstein for Watergate. it's just that people focus on Woodward now because of Plame and Bush and Berstein is sorta out of the picture. i didn't select the best of that Hersh stuff on Woodstein: The Nixon Administration, mired in a losing war in Vietnam, was also losing the battle against the truth at home. Throughout the two-year crisis, Watergate was perceived as a domestic issue, but its impact on foreign policy was profound. As memoirs by both Nixon and Kissinger show, neither man understood why the White House could not do what it wanted, at home or in Vietnam. The reason it couldn’t is, one hopes, just as valid today: they were operating in a democracy in which they were accountable to a Constitution and to a citizenry that held its leaders to a high standard of morality and integrity. That is the legacy of Watergate. Bill Watson is managing editor. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 11, 2006 1:30 AM | Permalink The idea that the Bush administration is busy laying out plans to create a crisis so that he can serve a third term seems a little 'out there' for a man that runs a non-advocacy news source to feel comfortable stating publicly. Or perhaps I should be refreshed that, if that is how he thinks, he states it rather than pretending to be objective. Do you think a Downie or Keller or even a Klein could get away with making a public statement like this? Posted by: MayBee at April 11, 2006 3:26 AM | Permalink Atrios links to the Huff Post version and says: Nice to see some Murray Waas get some kudos, but it's long overdue. Waas, Lyons, Conason, and Lars-Erik Nelson (deceased, sadly) were about the only people who bothered to really look into what was going on in the 90s. Tasty treats from Starr's OIC and punditry by Ann Coulter were all the rage then. I'm not linking to the item as a little protest after this... (from After Matter) Now here's a curious lapse in blogosphere etiquette. John Avarosis and Atrios and Matt Stoller all comment on the Washington Post looking for a liberal blogger, and none links to--or even mentions--Brynaert's story at Raw, which is how they know about it because he broke the news. Weird. Is that informing your readers? His piece has new information about Domenech and the resolution of the debacle he became for the Post. Not to link to the originating report when you easily can is giving poor service, and these blogs normally give good service, so what's up with that? Blogs that linked to this post include: Metafilter, Crooks & Liars, Kottke.org (first link from that site for PressThink) Left Coaster, Real Clear Politics, MyDD, USA Today's Deadline blog, Romenesko, Fishbowl DC, Moderate Voice, American Thinker. Do you think a Downie or Keller or even a Klein could get away with making a public statement like this? What, you didn't read the "Good Leak" editorial? Posted by: steve schwenk at April 11, 2006 10:10 AM | Permalink Cheney had been on the receiving end of birdshots, from Kurtz. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 11, 2006 12:42 PM | Permalink Does PressThink have a policy about when it publishes e-mails from its readers? Posted by: Daniel Conover at April 11, 2006 2:24 PM | Permalink It would be refreshing for journalists and their editors to slip the surly bonds of objectivity and say what they think. It was really unfortunate that the ABC guy was fired for his rude comments about George Bush and Maddy Albright. Interestingly, he was not fired until he insulted Maddy. And now that Meredith Viera has been named as Couric's replacement on The Today Show, everyone is telling her she should tamp down her opinions and not participate in any more anti-war marches. Imagine a world where journalists/editors could say "I hate George Bush" (or whatever POTUS we may have) and not fear job loss. Oh, sure, at first there would be hysteria, as every advocacy/special interest group would demand the return to PC, but after a while, we would all get confortable with journalists who are not plastic people and who have honest to gawd opinions/biases/prejudices. Yes people, I'm talking about the abolition of the View from Nowhere. In case you think I'm the only one advocating this position, Jeff Jarvis agrees with me and says "It's time for us (journalists) to get over the idea that we're objective and don't have opinions." Posted by: agnes english at April 11, 2006 2:46 PM | Permalink Daniel, Jay posted it for me because I was having trouble posting through the website. Technical problem at my end. MayBee, I certainly hope I'm wrong. I'd be delighted to be wrong. In addition to a variety of duties as managing editor, May Bee, one of my jobs here is backup editorial writer. The possibility that George W. Bush might not be the most positive force for the republic or its institutions has already been expressed editorially. Welcome to the world of small newspapers. Posted by: Bill Watson at April 11, 2006 3:09 PM | Permalink Yeah good work by Waas. The idea that Wilson was lying is total BS but I see wingerville is still stickin to that up-is-down meme. The CIA concurred with Wilson and said so to Bush. I guess the appeal of the ad ignoratiam is just too strong some to comprehend? Truth came knocking on the door and I said "go away I'm looking for the truth." An imaginary one based on nothing apparently. Posted by: George Boyle at April 11, 2006 3:27 PM | Permalink Daniel: I don't publish e-mails unless writers give their permission or they obviously meant it to be published because, for example, the subject line reads "Letter to the editor." I did make one exception in the case of Nick Coleman. Keller's Q&A; is clean and polished and different from the Post's hour-long conversational format. Froomkin called Jay media blogger extraordinaire in yesterday's chat. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 11, 2006 4:35 PM | Permalink excellent, excellent post truly first rate if we don't expose all the connections between the White House and the media that made the war in Iraq possible, and then smeared Joseph Wilson for exposing it, and do it quickly . . . we are going to end up in a much worse war in Iran this post also answers a question raised by another of your recent posts: Why is the Guardian getting the most Internet hits among the major British dailies, while being towards the bottom of hard copy subscriptions? Answer? Americans who lost confidence in the Post and the Times. Posted by: Richard Estes at April 11, 2006 5:20 PM | Permalink It's true, the Guardian (and the soon to launch Al Jazeerah) is the Fox News of the left. Posted by: doodah at April 11, 2006 6:28 PM | Permalink Thanks, Richard... This is my most linked-to post of 2006. I don't know what to say about this, except maybe watch where you're aiming that thing. Woodward, Miller and some people at The Washington Times are likely latter day CIA Operation Monarch assets--with slavish devotion and service to the CIA's Bush family. Bush Sr. found Nixon no longer useful, so he recruited Woodward to kick Nixon out, not unlike the way Bush cronies groomed John Hinckley Jr. to push aside Ronald Reagan. Posted by: HeilMary at April 11, 2006 7:08 PM | Permalink Bill Watson- Surely you see there is a vast space between believing Bush "might not be the most positive force for the republic or its institutions" and believing a useful media would put its resources toward unearthing the certain conspiracy that Bush is creating "the next huge crisis, the one that will force us to back this president yet again, past the seemingly immutable 'no third term' amendment". It is the difference between ABC News and the Free Republic website. Posted by: MayBee at April 11, 2006 7:27 PM | Permalink May Bee, I just remembered: I don't respond to rhetorical flame bait from anonymous posters. whew. You almost had me. Posted by: Bill Watson at April 11, 2006 7:37 PM | Permalink I think this is a case where pluralism solves the problem. If you want more pluralism in the news media (like more conservatives, Christians, Hispanics) then are you willing to accept pluralism in the belief systems of journalists? Or do they all have to follow your model of pretending not to have a political life? Pluralism would say, well, some may want to do that--claim objectivity, and be a neutral arbiter--but since this isn't a situation where there is one best way we want room for other claims, other styles, other selves. I think some posters, if they thought about it, would say they believe in the pluralism model, but when it comes time to rip the press because it doesn't live up to The One Best Way ideal, they become One Best Wayers. Pluralism for me but not for thee isn't getting it done. Bill- Posted by: MayBee at April 11, 2006 8:05 PM | Permalink we don't know that Woodward didn't go on Fresh Air and Teletubbies and dissed the investigation just for show for his sources; while secretly having other Post reporters work on the War on Wilson stories. Actually, Woodward did not tell anyone at the WaPoo about the leak until shortly before he testified , over two yeras after it happened. He thinks he mentioned it to one reporter (blank memory here), but the reporter denies it. And Woodward does not really work at the Post as you describe it, does he? I thought he mostly stays at home and works on his books. I can see your point if he eventually wrote something informative or explosive (like Wass' stuff) while the events were still in play, but, like Miller, he didn't and he won't. Woodward did not win 'Media Whore of the Year' in 2002 at www.mediawhoresonline.com for nothing. He beat out some stiff competition, as I recall it. Posted by: steve schwenk at April 11, 2006 9:01 PM | Permalink I agree that journalists should admit their opinions and agendas color their reporting. Actually, the admission isn't going to surprise anyone. It's just about the honesty thing. Posted by: Richard Aubrey at April 11, 2006 9:35 PM | Permalink billmon does Neil Postman .... .... Posted by: village idiot at April 11, 2006 10:11 PM | Permalink Richard: Of course journalists have opinions. Who doesn't ? Do we really want journalists -- or cops, or plumbers, or cab drivers, or school teachers or accountants -- sailing blank-mindedly through life without opinions ? But "agendas" ? Please. The only "agenda" I ever met in 42 years in the news biz was "How does anyone get a raise in this chickenshit outfit?" Followed closely by "I need the afternoon off because (pick one) /my daughter is giving birth/ the babysitter called in sick/ someone has to be there when the plumber comes/ there's a horse in the fifth at Belmont that I really like." Truth be told, most of them consider "agendas" and those who hold them to be beneath contempt. Posted by: Steve Lovelady at April 11, 2006 10:30 PM | Permalink steve s., Woodward's source put Woodward in play. from the same Pincus link: I was first contacted by Fitzgerald's office on Nov. 3 after one of these officials went to Fitzgerald to discuss an interview with me in mid-June 2003 during which the person told me Wilson's wife worked for the CIA on weapons of mass destruction as a WMD analyst. i'm not going to diss the man's entire career because of Plame. we will later find out the ID of his source, and hopefully we don't have to wait 30 years. i think the WH cultivated Woodward because they knew he would write about what they told him, or not. but they knew he would never out them. it's Rovian, play to your enemy's strength. when i get more funding for the American Training Institute for the Apologizing of the Press, i'll issue a white paper. or a blog. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 11, 2006 10:50 PM | Permalink i hope Waas can carry the mantle that has been hoisted on him. fumble once, and 15 minutes is short on internet time. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 11, 2006 11:06 PM | Permalink Steve: I don't know that you're right about "agenda." I agree that journalists don't have the kind of agendas many of their critics assume, but tell me if this rings a bell. More than once I have heard a reporter long for the kind of editor who would come in "and set the agenda in this town." Never heard that? I dare say it's been said in Philly any number of times. Maybe you would like to interpret the phrase for us, if you have heard it. "How does anyone get a raise in this chickenshit outfit?" Boy howdy. Or somethng above lettace picker wages to start would please me. What needs to be done is get reporters to distinguish between a good source and a bogus ideologue who has no standing on the issue. The view from nowhere is killing us in science reporting as the gang at www.realclimate.org has been grappling with of late. Dumb enablers of wingnuttery does no one a service. Get some book learnin and stop being afraid of offending people like Richard Aubrey. The truth is what it is. It lives on a plane between ideologies. That's where reporters try to get. Sometimes they even get close. But not enough until we get rid of false equivalencies like NASA on one hand and the Raelians on the other. Duh. Who could be right? Posted by: George Boyle at April 11, 2006 11:11 PM | Permalink Perhaps Jay could elaborate on this aspect? Posted by: George Boyle at April 11, 2006 11:16 PM | Permalink Our beloved Post is at their sycophantic best yet again .... What else can we expect when Mr. Woodward is the exemplar? Posted by: village idiot at April 11, 2006 11:44 PM | Permalink At least you have the grace to consider, Jay, that maybe there’s actually something to journalists having an “agenda.” I mean doesn’t your quote advance one of the most popular Press Agendas: “The Biggest Story in Town (almost a term of art in political Washington) is the one that would cause the biggest earthquake if the facts sealed inside it started coming out now. Today the biggest story in town is what really went down as the Bush team drove deceptively to war, and later tried to conceal how bad the deception—and decision-making—had been.” I mean, who determines what The Biggest Story is anyway? It’s not some nameless group (you sometimes get annoyed when people shorthand MSM, right?). The Biggest Story is determined by individual editors and producers and journalists, and people like you, who other people read and talk about or link to. It’s determined by how determined those people are to continue placing an emphasis on that particular story. And you all feed off each other. Posted by: Kristen at April 12, 2006 12:03 AM | Permalink I thought it was obvious that when someone like me, a critic, says Daisy's Dairy is the biggest story in town I am making an argument for the significance of Daisy's Dairy. One doesn't have to agree with the argument, or see the significance of the Dairy story the same way. If you don't agree with it, and write a blog post presenting a counter-argument, it is highly likely to show up in "After..," as with Rick Moran's this week. You speak the language of agenda; I speak of arguments. I think most news stories have more argument in them than journalists know. But certainly every headline is an argument too. If we look at the news this way, then it becomes possible to disagree with the news by making another argument. Bloggers do this every day. Speaking of argument, the Chicago Tribune editorial page, one of the most reliably conservative in the nation for a long time, demands answers from Cheney about leaking secrets. They say he should have a no-holds barred press conference. Answers, Mr. Cheney. village, it's not unusual for politicians to be booed at ball parks. Ben Mankiewicz, one of the co-hosts of the Young Turks, said earlier on the show that Robert Kennedy was booed at Fenway in 67, a few years after JFK was assassinated. Kerry was greets with cheers and boos for throwing out the first pitch at Fenway in 04. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 12, 2006 1:04 AM | Permalink yikes, Kerry was greeted Posted by: bush's jaw at April 12, 2006 1:05 AM | Permalink I can't really tell the difference between you and the Democratic Underground anymore. You've been deleted. Posted by: Jeff Hartley at April 12, 2006 1:10 AM | Permalink Woodward's source put Woodward in play. Woodward likes to pretend that his source outed him to the prosecutor. But that's not entirely true. His account in the Post is hides more than it reveals. He let more out on Larry King: WOODWARD: I went, "Whoa," because I knew I'd learned about this in mid-June, a week, 10 days before. So then I say, "Something's up." There's a piece that the special counsel does not have in all of this. I then went into incredibly aggressive reporting mode and called the source the beginning of the next week and said, "Do you realize when we talked about this and exactly what was said?" And the source in this case, at this moment -- a very interesting moment in all of this -- said, "I have to go to the prosecutor. I have to go to the prosecutor. I have to tell the truth." And so I realized I was going to be dragged into this, that I was the catalyst. And then I asked the source, "If you go to the prosecutor, am I released to testify?" And the source told me, "Yes."http://mywebpages.comcast.net/duncanblack/booby.htm Now look at his more considered written account in the WaPo: I was first contacted by Fitzgerald's office on Nov. 3 after one of these officials went to Fitzgerald to discuss an interview with me in mid-June 2003 during which the person told me Wilson's wife worked for the CIA on weapons of mass destruction as a WMD analyst. Posted by: steve schwenk at April 12, 2006 2:21 AM | Permalink And Woodward's claim that he was only protecting his sources may be true, but not in the journalistic sense. He was protecting them more as an attorney would protect his client. Just read some of his public comments about the Plame case. These are not the words of a disinterested observer. They sound more like what you would expect from Libby's defense team. And Woodward never discloses his own involvement in the matter when making these comments. It destroys his credibility. WOODWARD: When I think all of the facts come out in this case, it's going to be laughable because the consequences are not that great. WOODWARD: Now, there are a couple of things that I think are true. First of all, this began not as somebody launching a smear campaign that it actually -- when the story comes out, I'm quite confident we're going to find out that it started kind of as gossip, as chatter, and that somebody learned that Joe Wilson's wife had worked at the CIA and helped him get this job going to Niger to see if there was an Iraq/Niger uranium deal. And there's a lot of innocent actions in all of this, but what has happened this prosecutor, I mean, I used to call [Newsweek investigative correspondent] Mike Isikoff, when he worked at The Washington Post, the junkyard dog. Well, this is a junkyard-dog prosecutor, and he goes everywhere and asks every question and turns over rocks and rocks under rocks and so forth. WOODWARD: Exactly. I mean, here is the problem with this. We talk about -- these words get thrown around: the effort to "trash" Joe Wilson, a "campaign." I kind of like [New York Times reporter] Elisabeth's [Bumiller] word: to "discredit" him. And there were reasonable grounds to discredit Wilson. In other words, he had said something in his reports a year before that contradicted what he wrote in an op-ed piece in The New York Times. So that means somebody was not fact-checking the op-ed piece in The New York Times. WOODWARD: No, no. And this is not even a firecracker, but it's true. They did a damage assessment within the CIA, looking at what this did that [former ambassador] Joe Wilson's wife [Plame] was outed. And turned out it was quite minimal damage. They did not have to pull anyone out undercover abroad. They didn't have to resettle anyone. There was no physical danger to anyone, and there was just some embarrassment. So people have kind of compared -- somebody was saying this was Aldrich Ames or Bob Hanssen, big spies. This didn't cause damage. [note: The CIA has not conducted a damage assessment.] WOODWARD: [Fitzgerald's investigation is] just running like a chain saw right through the lifeline that reporters have to sources who will tell you the truth, what's really going on....All of the quotes can be found at this page or linked to this page. No time to get individual links for each one. http://mediamatters.org/items/200511160013
Posted by: steve schwenk at April 12, 2006 2:34 AM | Permalink I can't really tell the difference between you and the Democratic Underground anymore. Aw, sure there's a difference. I'm ahead of them in figuring out how bad it is with Bush and Cheney in there. Anyway, happy trails, Jeff. Steve Lovelady: Let's take Rathergate, just for fun. Then CBS followed it by the cooked-up ammo dump story which they connived with the NYT to hold until too close to the election for it to be refuted. I believe it was the NYT which lost its nerve about sitting on it and the thing was run and refuted. Or blow up pickup trucks because what NBC was marketing was outrage at the Big Corporations, even if they had to fake it. That's an agenda. And Sixty Minutes had to modify an Audi transmission to make it jump from park to drive. It's reasonable to presume that for every time the media is caught, they get away with it a certain number of times. Is the multiple two, or ten? Even if your reporter were desperate for headlines, is he going to avoid either unconsciously or consciously, stories which would conflict with the Grand Narrative--of whatever--or if he insists on bringing it in, would the editor run it? Just to be clear, I don't think so, and I don't know how, with current performance, the media are going to convince me otherwise. Posted by: Richard Aubrey at April 12, 2006 8:33 AM | Permalink steve s., Posted by: bush's jaw at April 12, 2006 9:11 AM | Permalink Woodward is not off-topic; one more waltz with the bias demons, Rather's attempt to take control of the Republic, and the punking of Kerry are. this is really OT now It may be getting boring since most have read and heard most of this stuff already, but it's not off topic since Woodward's decline is central to Jay's post, not just Waas. Woodward has been little more than a loyal PR tool for the administration. That's why they love Woodward. That's why they went to him first. His loyalty is to his sources/benefactors, not his readers or the public good. Waas seems to share the view. In Feb., he wrote a short entry about this at his blog. What was not known by Scheuer at the time was that officials on the “seventh floor” of the CIA were literally ordered by then-CIA director George Tenet to co-operate with Woodward’s project because President Bush personally asked that it be done. More than one CIA official co-operated with Woodward against their best judgment, and only because they thought it was something the President had wanted done or ordered. Woodward himself perhaps lends credence to that possibility.http://whateveralready.blogspot.com/2006/02/did-bush-administration-authorize-leak.html Waas then goes on to list entries from the index to the book that effectively make the point. One would think it would be obvious by now that if Woodward can even still be considered a journalist, he is the personification of all that is wrong with the trade as practiced by our media elites and stars. I'm with Chicago Dyke on this. It's kind of sad that the topic of Jay's post is not considered 'old news' by now, and boring old news at that. But for too many, it's not. Posted by: steve schwenk at April 12, 2006 10:51 AM | Permalink no not boring. this is Jay's house so i was deferring to the host with the OT comment. i still can't respond until later today. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 12, 2006 12:54 PM | Permalink Steve: I don't know that you're right about "agenda." I agree that journalists don't have the kind of agendas many of their critics assume, but tell me if this rings a bell. More than once I have heard a reporter long for the kind of editor who would come in "and set the agenda in this town." Never heard that? I dare say it's been said in Philly any number of times. Maybe you would like to interpret the phrase for us, if you have heard it. The closest to it was a line from John McMullan, the editor whom Gene Roberts replaced in Philadelphia in 1973. As the baton was being passed, one day McMullan drove Roberts around town, showing him the sites, when they got to the long stretch of bleak and dreary oil refineries and auto junkyards that line the road from downtown to the airport. Waving his hand at that industrial wasteland, McMullan mused that he "had always meant to clean this up, but never got around to it." Roberts was flabbergasted at that view of an editor's purview -- his own view is that he was there to fix the newspaper, not the drive in from the airport -- and he never tired of telling people the story of how McMullan wanted to bulldoze refinery row, when he should have been concentrating on bulldozing whole sections of the newspaper, which, God knows, were in sore need of demolition. Gene figured it was hard enough to fix a newspaper; let someone else take on the task of fixing the city. (Of course, fixing the newspaper involved introducing aggressive reporting, which in turn led to expose's of numerous local institutions and fiefdoms, so the distinction does become a bit blurry .... ) Posted by: Steve Lovelady at April 12, 2006 1:15 PM | Permalink I don't know that the only agendas that count are the deliberate ones. If so, it probably was known around the news division. Would this affect the stories a reporter would seek, and if found, bring home to the office? Would this affect what stories an editor would run? For the sake of discussion, I'm presuming the journalists in question are not independently wealthy and do have some interest in keeping their jobs, which is to say, might be malleable in terms of continued employment. I don't think we'll ever know, unless a happily retired reporter from CNN--so we know he's not disgruntled--tells us. The point is the suspicion. How would you deal with the justifiable suspicion that Jordan's wacky and unsupported idea affected coverage? This is, I should hope, be obvious as a one-example question standing for many more. Posted by: Richard Aubrey at April 12, 2006 2:08 PM | Permalink One of the most honest things I ever saw a journalist say was when Walter Cronkite was touring in support of his ill-advised column. Someone asked him what he missed most about not being on the CBS Evening News and Walter said: "setting the agenda". Granted, it was easier for ol' Wally to "set the agenda" back in the day when there were only 3 networks that slavishly worshiped at the altar of the New York Times, but he still gets credit for being honest about the desire of the press to "set the agenda". To deny that the press attempts or desires to set the agenda seems disingenuous to me. Posted by: name at April 12, 2006 3:06 PM | Permalink Like Steve Lovelady, I've never heard working journalists speak of setting the political or social agenda in a community. As Steve said, the reporter's concern is most directed as getting on P1A or getting out ahead of the story. Though I did once work for a publisher who desparately wanted to become president of the chamber of commerce. As a result, we were a little delicate with the sensitivities of the business community for a while. For those, like name and Richard, who apparently believe that a reporter with an opinion is hell-bent to impose it on readers or viewers -- intentionally and otherwise -- does that mean that the media acted in concert with the conservative agenda - whatever they may be - when it reported on Clinton's personal history or his failures in Somalia? Agenda setting, like bias, is most often where you want to see it. Posted by: Dave McLemore at April 12, 2006 4:50 PM | Permalink The biggest story in town may be cracking open... PressThink, April 9: "The Biggest Story in Town is the one that would cause the biggest earthquake if the facts sealed inside it started coming out now. Today the biggest story in town is what really went down as the Bush team drove deceptively to war, and later tried to conceal how bad the deception—and decision-making—had been." On May 29, 2003, 50 days after the fall of Baghdad, President Bush proclaimed a fresh victory for his administration in Iraq: Two small trailers captured by U.S. and Kurdish troops had turned out to be long-sought mobile "biological laboratories." He declared, "We have found the weapons of mass destruction." Fewer and fewer people who know want to be a part of the denials anymore. That is why the story is about to crack open. Everything the White House did to invent a reality that wasn't there has now become toxic. Before it was the leak investigation driving things, and Fitzgerald's powers as a prosecutor. Now it's turning to disgust at what was done, and fear of being blamed. Money quote from the Post article: "I went home and fully expected that our findings would be publicly stated," one member [of the fact-finding team] recalled. "It never happened. And I just had to live with it." When the people who had to live with it--there are thousands--can't live with the humiliation any more, the game changes. We may be getting to that point. McLemore - I didn't hold this out as my own belief, I was just quoting Walter Cronkite---don't you believe he has credibility and was being honest? Where's the proof that Bush saw this "secret" report? Why did the intelligence community hide it from him? Why isn't this more damning to the intelligence community rather than Bush? When will the "thousands" be telling us who they are so we can judge their credibility and agenda? I would think they would be anxious to identify themselves if they "can't live with it anymore", wouldn't you? Some are too credulous when it comes to "information" that reinforces their Bush Lied! beliefs. Some of us don't belong to that religion---let's see proof and some names attached to these allegations. Are they afraid someone might call them "unpatriotic"? Sheesh! Posted by: name at April 12, 2006 5:29 PM | Permalink It is damning to the intelligence community because they were corrupted into giving Bush what he demanded: simulated evidence to support claims that had not beeen evidence-based to begin with and--surprise!--turned out to be false. The technical team was the hardest to pressure and politicize, and that is why its report was shelved. After team members returned to Washington, they began work on a final report. At several points, members were questioned about revising their conclusions, according to sources knowledgeable about the conversations. The questioners generally wanted to know the same thing: Could the report's conclusions be softened, to leave open a possibility that the trailers might have been intended for weapons? They said no because they were professionals. "I would think they would be anxious to identify themselves if they 'can't live with it anymore,' wouldn't you?" Yes, I would. And I would think they would be afraid, also. So they go half way. And this isn't going to make any one of them feel that much better because they too were corrupted by this process. If you are asked to go and render your professional opinion, and then your opinion is stuffed into a box you have unwittingly been drawn into a charade. You become part of the machinery of deception. And every day they don't go the Joe Wilson route is a day of anxiety and guilt for those who were drawn in this way. But at least they did something by speaking to the Post reporter. Concerning leaks in general, the latest leak about mobile labs, plus Burkle, plus Bush declassifying "leaks", etc. Vaughn Ververs has reached the conclusion that "we may have reached a point where everyone can agree leaks are no longer a tool used to inform the public of important information but instead largely represent attempts to manipulate public opinion." Read the whole thing---it's a killer. Especially juicy is Verver's last line: "After all, how would the press find any facts at all if they weren't handed to them?" Posted by: Name at April 12, 2006 5:51 PM | Permalink Instead of reading the story, you are simply asking how you can knock down the story, and raise doubts that might sound plausible to others who haven't read it. Your questions are fake questions, like you might hear from an announcer in an attack ad: why is Congressman Jones playing politics with the truth? You're thinking like an operative, an anonymous hack with a job to do. It's pathetic, really. But that is why you don't attach your name to it, in my opinion, because you are well aware of the job-to-do part, and the pathetic part. But thanks for the Ververs link. Here's one to McClellan's Clown Show when asked about the story. Post didn't say "Bush knew." ABC slipped and did say something like that. I miss not being at the center of gravity there where you're getting the show together, getting the broadcast together, where you're really setting the agenda that day for people's consideration. That's an important job, and I miss that. -- Walter Cronkite There are agendas and then, there are agendas. Walter Cronkite and name appear to be talking about two separate things. He's talking about setting the hierarchy of stories for the evening news report. What are you talking about, name? Posted by: Dave McLemore at April 12, 2006 6:30 PM | Permalink This one's almost too good. Reuters: WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Wednesday angrily denied a newspaper report that suggested President George W. Bush in 2003 declared the existence of biological weapons laboratories in Iraq while knowing it was not true. Only problem with the denial: there is no such report. So it's fictive, which is standard procedure. The press asked McClellan, "alright, so when did the President learn of the team's report?" McClellan didn't know. Dave M. I didn't say anything about "hellbent", although, considering all the journos there are, to insist it never happens would be foolish. I asked, instead, whether a reader, knowing of Eason Jordan's views on the US military versus reporters, would be suspicious of CNN's reporting on areas touching the issue. How would a journalist ally my suspicions, other than insisting I take his word for it? Posted by: Richard Aubrey at April 12, 2006 6:54 PM | Permalink Even if your reporter were desperate for headlines, is he going to avoid either unconsciously or consciously, stories which would conflict with the Grand Narrative--of whatever--or if he insists on bringing it in, would the editor run it? Richard, every reporter or editor worth his salt knows that the way you distinguish yourself is precisely to produce reporting that goes against the grain of "the Grand Narrative" of the moment -- whatever that is. As for your laundry list of examples above: -- CNN had demoted Eason Jordan and stripped him of his operational duties three months before he shot himself in the foot at the Davos conference -- and it fired him soon after, when it turned out he couldn't even attend to his new duties (attending obscure seminars) without sticking his foot in his mouth. Given that, it seems a tad unlikely that there were legions of CNN reporters out there still eager to toe whatever they imagined Eason's line to be. -- Mike Gartner, president of NBC News, was fired after the Dateline reporters rigged the car explosion. It was not just the reporters who were fired -- it was also the president. (Does that give you any ideas ? It does me.) -- Mary Mapes and four others were fired, and Dan Rather was ignominiously demoted and assigned to nothing much after the Thornburgh-Boccardi report on the Burkett fiasco. And so on. Care to give me a list of administration flunkies who were similarly dispatched with after they fucked up on a royal and tragic scale that dwarfs the misdeeds of any journalist anywhere ? I didn't think so. So you tell me -- where does the notion of accountability prevail more often ? Within the halls of journalism, or within this White House ? Posted by: Steve Lovelady at April 12, 2006 7:48 PM | Permalink The biggest story in town may be cracking open... Jay -- And isn't it interesting that it is the Post, not the Times, that is cracking it open. Although I was skeptical of it at the time, your theory about who is leading the way is looking better all the time, Ace. Posted by: Steve Lovelady at April 12, 2006 7:54 PM | Permalink Here's the link to the McClellan Clown Show. Here he's nowhere near the truth. But let me -- you're going to the article in The Washington Post today, and, I mean, the article in the lead leaves readers with an impression that the President was saying something that had been debunked by the intelligence community. That is not true. That is irresponsible reporting. In fact, the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency had jointly assessed at the time that the labs were for producing biological weapons. In view of how this is unfolding, Rove appears to have been correct back in early 2003: If all of this twisted intelligence info had come out before the election, Bush probably would have lost. Maybe Dean would be president. It's easy to seen now how frantically they were trying back then to kill doubts about the war and bank the political capital Bush had more than once said he dreamed about having if he were ever president. On May 3, 2003, Bush declared victory in his "Mission Accomplished" speech. On May 29, he proclaimed, "We have found the weapons of mass destruction." (Isn't that just the most pathetic thing in hindsight. Those two old dilapidated trailers were the WMD.) In June, they were occupied with killing the critics and destroying Wilson. Unfortunately for them, Cheney blows the execution. But in the end, they pull it off and somehow manage to keep the lid on it all through the election, and they win re-election. Bush sure has some tough choices ahead, though. This has the potential of forcing him from office if he mishandles it. Sooner or later, there will be a smoking gun document, like the one showing that he was informed of the strong doubts about the aluminum tubes. The one page summaries Rove and Hadley feared way back in early 2003. What's he going to do when there is no longer any doubt? He can run, but soon there will be no place left to hide. He won't even be able to call Bob Woodward then. Posted by: steve schwenk at April 12, 2006 8:01 PM | Permalink Not everyone is happy, Steve: What the Kool-Aid does to those who drink Jay Rosen gives us a wonderful example of what happens to a liberal who inhales the wacko kool-aid by the gallon. If you want to know why so many of today's journalists are so bad (incompetent as well as corrupt), remember that Rosen teaches journalism at NYU. I'm a nut, in other words. Richard, Just so we don't conflate your 'press is biased' theme with the 'Bush is wronged' projection, why don't you cite and pursue some examples of press bias that reinforce the liberal perspective? readers might find the 'press is biased' argument more credible if the evidence cited is more balanced.:-) Posted by: village idiot at April 12, 2006 8:04 PM | Permalink senor schwenk, Let me say first that I've never met Woodward, can't channel him, and just using my experience as a reporter for speculation. Regarding who put Woodward in play, I don't see the difference between the Woodward press release in the Post and his conversation with King. There was a buzz about Woodward and Plame just before Libby's indictment that Isikoff heard about a bombshell and even Downie. (Remember the buzz about Fitz investigation the whole kit and kaboodle, prewar intel?) Woodward was working on something, or someone was putting out information that he was. If Woodward's aim was to show Fitz that Woodward was the first to receive the Plame leak, then he could have written a story about that. That story could have been written immediately after Libby's indictment and as soon as his source says he will testify about it to Fitz, and release Woodward to testify but not ID the source. (Here, the source is in control.) I don't think Woodward wanted to get involved or let it known he was the first receiver of Plame. Why wait until after he was subpoenaed? The subpoena forced the disclosure. As for your bold points here. Most of that point toward my main theory: People bring their bias to what they read, hence my funky, unclear pseudonym. We can look at the same evidence and arrive at different conclusions. Those points can be used to support my earlier speculation that Woodward was making those points just for show for his sources. Think of an undercover cop committing crimes with the bikers he infiltrated. Everyone will ask Bob Woodward his opinion on the Plame investigation. Or why he's not working on the story. He has to say something, or not appear at all with the Teletubbies (cable talk shows). You can't take cable talk as gospel, and those conversations are immaterial to Fitz's investigation. They're for public opinion. We saw that with OJ and Whitewater -- interesting but mostly noise. I'm sure Woodward was similar deceptive on questions about Deep Throat. (Keeping that secret for 33 years is still amazing.) Now with blogs, we can riff on cable talk instantly. I can't recall a single major news broken by Teletubbies, but people hang on to every word, even misspoken ones. We say Bush when we meant Clinton. Or Kerry for Gore. We do it everyday. Yet people were apoplectic until the misspeak was confirmed. As far as the CIA's formal damage assessment: the CIA knows the extent of the damage or lack there of. Plame was a former NOC, 4 years remove. I doubt the agency will reveal the extent of the damage. This is pay back, you can’t out our NOCs, even if the damage maybe minor. Remember this started as a battle between the agency and WH, which seemed to demand favorable Iraq intel, then blames the CIA when no WMDs were found. This is the same CIA that operated secret prisons in Europe. I suspect the Woodward has good CIA sources who may have told him about the extent of the Plame damage. If Armitage turns out to be Woodward's source, then it lends to Woodward's offhand disclosure and Novak's no partisan gun slinger. I've heard or read that Armitage referred to Pentagon Neocons as "those people" but never on the record. Wilkerson later because Powell's mouth, a bit late. We still don’t know everything about the Plame case, other evidence that Fitz has. Who would think Libby's defense would be Bush says to leak? I don’t see Woodward’s withholding his knowledge of Plame a big deal. Time mag, the Post and other papers were writing about the War of Wilson. I still don’t get all the anger directed toward Woodward and Miller. Her prewar stories were indefensible. But Congress authorized the war with that pre mid-term 2002 vote. Bush was suppose to go back to the UN, but he was given the thumbs up with that vote. You can’t parse it, it didn’t work for Kerry. The media did fail us. But Woodward, Miller and other media punching bags our last line of defense? Not Congress or the voters who put Bush back in the WH for 4 more years. In away that is justice. This is Dubya’s War, and no other Prez can be blamed. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 12, 2006 8:30 PM | Permalink Was Mr. Watson's email indicative of an agenda? Or a hoped-for agenda? How might that set the direction of his newsroom? If the useful media followed his suggestion, how would that set the direction of the news (ala Cronkite)? Posted by: MayBee at April 12, 2006 8:44 PM | Permalink The White House issues a rebuttal: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/04/20060412-8.html B-jaw: I think it's important to examine things that go wrong and to find out why they went wrong, especially things that involve war, democracy, thousands of people getting killed and maimed, etc. We can't vote the press out of office. The only remedy is to point out failings, document them and complain about them until they are addressed. Posted by: steve schwenk at April 12, 2006 9:00 PM | Permalink Steve. With the exception of Jordan, the guys you mention went out of their way to lie. They didn't Peter Principle themselves into a problem. And they got caught by outside sources. NBC stood by the pickup story until GM proved it had the goods. So it wasn't a good faith matter of cleaning one's own house in righteousness. Ditto the others. WRT Jordan, the point was not about post-Davos, the point was about his time before being dumped. During that happy time--for him--how would his views have affected reporting and story presentation on the subject of the military and reporters? Some? Not at all? And how would you convince somebody that there was no effect? Liberal bias. Liberal bias..... Hmm. Man, I'll have to take a week off to think of something. I've got it! Time on global warming. This is not the place to re-argue the subject in its entirety, but it was kind of unfortunate that that was the same week that sixty reputable Canadian scientists sent an open letter to Harper telling him the whole thing's overblown. Just for starters. And that global warming has leveled out in the last eight years--British climate office. As my father says, timing is everything. Posted by: Richard Aubrey at April 12, 2006 9:03 PM | Permalink There are some places the media fell down wrt the infamous trailers. And can a fermentation plant become dual-use? Anyway, the teams were split on the trailers until later, the CIA independently thought it was biowar. IMO, if the trucks are not obviously FOR something, there is all the excuse in the world to wonder what they really are for. Anybody seen any keen-eyed reporter trying to find out? Hoax on SH's part? Posted by: Richard Aubrey at April 12, 2006 9:22 PM | Permalink And Drudge is on the case, racheting up the fear to take the spotlight off of Bush. Huge headline at his site: Iran 'Could Produce Nuclear Bomb in 16 Days' Here we go again. Posted by: steve schwenk at April 12, 2006 9:37 PM | Permalink Richard, let me repeat my question, which you have so far dodged: "Care to give me a list of administration flunkies who were similarly dispatched with after they fucked up on a royal and tragic scale that dwarfs the misdeeds of any journalist anywhere ? You either clean house when you find a rat stinking up the place -- or you don't. The press, by and large, does. The White House does not. If either Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice, Bush or McClellan had pulled this sort of shit while working for a major media outlet, they'd all be where Rather, Jordan, Gartner and Jason Blair are today -- cast out of the garden. But fortunately for them they are working for a place far more amenable to forgiving any behavior at all -- their own house. The only consolation for the rest of us is that at last the stink is becoming overpowering. Which, come to think of it, is the point of this whole post and subsequent comment section, isn't it ? Posted by: Steve Lovelady at April 12, 2006 10:03 PM | Permalink Steve. The objective reality of the press' foulups that we have mentioned is one thing. They lied. They got caught by outsiders. They wouldn't have been fired if the only people who knew about this stuff were their editors and publishers. Whether the government folks you mentioned messed up or not is a matter of opinion. Some think they're doing a good job, some don't. There's a difference between doing something so open and shut that even a network can't deny it, even though they have a culture encouraging it, and doing things which generate heated opposition. The government people have tougher jobs than you do, fewer options, and are not responsible for your accusations which are frequently false. One could, given the energy, make the case that Clinton's people kicked the can down the road and we're here because of that. It would be an argument not susceptible of settlement because too many have too much invested in it, just as your BDS has you tied up in knots. But, no matter how loud one side got in that argument, there would be too many variables and too many offsetting factors to make it equivalent to deliberate lies by journalists who had no offsetting factors or complicating variables to use as excuses. We can take it as a given that journalistic malpractice is not punished until the malpracticers are caught at it by the outsiders. And then only if the outsiders have the clout, the money, and the patience to outwait, outspend, or outshout the media outlet in question. Don't, as Jack Aubrey might say, come the moral on us. Your examples are not examples of good practice, but of dumping the unlucky to lighten the load. Posted by: Richard Aubrey at April 12, 2006 10:17 PM | Permalink The Post replies to the White House rebuttal and does not back down, but says nothing new. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/12/AR2006041201789.html Posted by: steve schwenk at April 12, 2006 10:28 PM | Permalink The Drudge report is interesting. The State guy seems to say that, once the 54,000 centrifuges are up and running, sixteen days is enough. That's either true or false. There should be some estimate as to how long it will be until the Iranians have all 54,000. It appears that the relationship of centrifuges to production time is more or less linear. 3000 centrifuges and 271 days. And plans for the 3000 next year. 271 days after that--say it's in September--is June of 2008. Looks as if the headline writer screwed up. What is the argument? That 54,000 centrifuges won't do it in sixteen days? That 3000 centrifuges won't do it in 271 days? That the Iranians can't or won't procure in some way 3000 centrifuges? This is a yawner with a bad headline. You can make a bomb with enough centrifuges after enough time. There may be an argument over exactly how many and how long, but it's hard to deny that basic fact, seeing as a number of countries have already done it. But we do have a potential peg to the real world, which is 3000 centrifuges next year and an estimate of 271 days after that. Seems like what we have here is an argument over Iranian intentions, and this report doesn't give us as firm an idea of those as we'll have after the date by which the 3000 centrifuges are supposed to be operating. Are they? Aren't they? Did they get built/bought? Posted by: RIchard Aubrey at April 12, 2006 10:30 PM | Permalink Check out Keller's Q&A; on Judy Judy Judy: A: Sigh. I can't imagine that there is anything to say about the Judy Miller episode that I have not already said, publicly and to The Times staff, over and over. At The Times, as in most of the media-watching world, we have registered the Miller saga as an important cautionary tale, and moved on. But the story has an afterlife in the impending trial of Scooter Libby, and, as our Q&A; mailbag demonstrates, the subject has settled into some quarters of the blogosphere as a partisan obsession and an object of grassy-knoll conspiracy theories. The hard-core enthusiasts feed on blogs that have little to offer but harebrained speculation. (And they think Judy Miller was credulous!) Mr. Chesanow -- one of the writers sampled above from a much larger batch on this subject -- apparently judges Ms. Miller to be an unreliable source, but he consults her Web site. Hello? ... Posted by: bush's jaw at April 12, 2006 10:35 PM | Permalink Steve. The objective reality of the press' foulups that we have mentioned is one thing. They lied. They got caught by outsiders. They wouldn't have been fired if the only people who knew about this stuff were their editors and publishers. Oh really, Richard ? And how exactly do you know that ? I have a hunch, however, that the same criteria do not apply at Deception Central, where lies are not only not a problem, they are the modus operandi. Posted by: Steve Lovelady at April 12, 2006 11:28 PM | Permalink This is a fascinating read from Princeton on “political hindsight bias” which is quite pertinent. It actually uses the India Nuclear Test (mentioned below) as a case study. I guess its conclusion could best be stated “It’s a good thing our intelligence community performs poorly.” Now that’s reassuring. Jay, you said… “It is damning to the intelligence community because they were corrupted into giving Bush what he demanded: simulated evidence to support claims that had not beeen evidence-based to begin with and--surprise!--turned out to be false. The technical team was the hardest to pressure and politicize…” These assertions, in fact, the whole argument, is illogical. If the intelligence community can be corrupted into giving a president what he wants, then the Big Story is them or It, not the president. But let’s test that line of reasoning … let’s make a comparison to 8 years of the Clinton presidency . You’ve got a Clinton, who sees things thru rose-colored glasses; if he wants it to be—it is. He certainly doesn’t “want war” (as opposed to Bush who supposedly came in wanting it). This neatly packaged Big Story, as it is anyway, just doesn’t add up for me. Too many holes. There are other alternatives that make as much sense and take a distribute the focus a little more fairly. I was struck, village, when you made this statement: “A good reporter should be able to figure out who the actors are and what their m(o)tivations might be.” Don’t most people learn this “skill” just by living? What makes a reporter any more able to do this well than the average Joe? Posted by: Kristen at April 12, 2006 11:28 PM | Permalink What makes a reporter any more able to do this well than the average Joe? Because no one notices if the 'average joe' is wrong. Posted by: Dave McLemore at April 12, 2006 11:43 PM | Permalink one man's optimism is another woman's rose colored glasses. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 12, 2006 11:46 PM | Permalink richard, you're missing a very important point: the media are not 'getting' Bush. His own people are. The very people that the White House used to buttress public support with - to be polite - erroneous or misinterpreted information to lead this nation into war are providing the information the media (or the Post, anyway) reports. Yet you insist their information is 'just a matter of opinion.' But the media lies. Interesting world you live in. The house of cards is - to mix metaphors - unravelling . Yet Bush's defenders insist it's strong as ever. No problems here. Just the intel community out to get the president. Who's drinking the kool-aid? Posted by: Dave McLemore at April 12, 2006 11:54 PM | Permalink "Clinton did it" will remain a mantra for some for years to come. You may recall, Jaw, that Clinton's efforts to storm the murders in bosnia came at a time when some folks were less happy with nation building than they are now. though the nation being built in Iraq is not exactly a good model, I suppose. Posted by: Dave McLemore at April 12, 2006 11:58 PM | Permalink yup Dave, Righties can flip their positions with great dexterity. perhaps, that is why they hated Clinton so much. Bubba, a term of endearment, played the same game and was great at it. Dick Morris, before he turned on the Clintons, once talked about how he can get Clinton re-elected (???) by putting all the chairs in the middle of the room. Once they occupy the WH, they can rearrange the furniture as they please. Bush, the uniter, campaigns against nation building, then divides our nation and builds other nations with dreadful results. you can't govern if you don't win elections. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 13, 2006 12:17 AM | Permalink I agree with Kristen that there is nothing specifically journalistic about the skill mentioned. In fact, when journalists begin to believe that they have some special insight into people's motivations they have taken a step into a fatal delusion. Kristen: my answer to your objections lies in a view I have developed over my years of watching George Bush and his team operate. Although not everything they do is different, they are best described as radicals in the sense of going further than others, being bolder, and re-writing the rules by arguing that we're in a different world and then (using the powers of the state) making it so. They have a program. Just as Tom Delay had a program for corporate Washington, and put radical changes in place that could also be seen as "rationalizing" the system under Republican rule. If you see the Bush Team as radicals who know how to act when they seize the controls, then you are not surprised when they succeed at bending the bureaucracy and bending....and breaking through into something new. I see something new being born, and the stream of PressThink commentary on the presidency and the press is intended to record my observations, which is mostly a record of my astonishment, cooled. Rollback. De-certification. "You don't represent the public." There is no fourth estate. From meet the press to be the press. Bush and company are "press radicals." Their ideas for pushing the press back and grinding it down, intersecting with the culure war, supersede where journalism is in its thinking, and overwhelm its capacity to respond, bringing about a new situation. Consider the build-up to the war, with the same fraudulent sources peddling phony intel to the Bush team, the intelligence community, and journalists. Then the gamers sit back and watch them confirm each other. And the people doing this were friends of the White House (exile groups.) I tried to summarize it as: Bush changed the game on the press. And there are plenty of Bush supporters who agree: he did, and it needed changing, they say. If you really want to know what I think on the "something new" part, read Hannah Arendt's On Revolution. Finally, I think there's all sorts of pressures to describe the Bush Forces as less radical than they really are. Suppose you think you elected a conservative president. It's going to take a long time to admit that he isn't what you bought. Bush counts on that interval. It's built into the way he deceived you about being a conservative. Radicals have always operated that way, in the gap between their intentions and the world as it is. Presidents vary in how willing they are to push things, Kristen, just as people differ in how much risk they are willing to live with. I don't know why some have a hard time grasping this: cadres prepared to do more than their opponents have time and again won big victories despite being small in number, or daft. Bush and Cheney pushed harder, played rougher, and simply brutalized more people, ran through more barriers, talked over more speakers until they got the point. (DeLay: The Hammer.) You just tell the treasure secretary what he's going to say in the meeting. Boss wants it scripted. People get the message quickly. They hate what you are making them do, but they have their jobs to worry about. Law of Langley: Presidents, if they push hard enough, tend to get their way. I think any student of the intelligence game would tell you that. But it's a dangerous game because you could push so hard that your own intention just became your information, and when asked about your intentions you can only say: hey, I relied on my information! All presidents have the power to do that. Bush used his. This is where the President is today. The world does not coincide with his descriptions of it. The Post has reporters to compete with Waas. In fact, Joby Warrick who wrote the biolab trailer story is a Pulitzer Prize winner. He moved on to the Post before I got to Raleigh, where I was a nondescript business reporter. The Pulitzer does wonder for moral, and attracts talent. Pat Stith is still there only because he doesn't want to move. Warrick is on the national desk, I believe, not political desk. But he has done more noted stories of late, and here on Katrina. Peter Baker called Joby the best in the business. It's about deploying talent to the right story. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 13, 2006 2:30 AM | Permalink Bush's jaw, et al. If we are to learn from history, it doesn't do to scoff at some history which is "too old", as with Clinton. Bubba was not hauled in as a reflex, but as a case in which to examine the meme of the malleable intel agencies. You know this--the point was well made--and so you had to pretend that it was general bubbahate. Posted by: Richard Aubrey at April 13, 2006 7:26 AM | Permalink "Bush and Cheney pushed harder, played rougher, and simply brutalized more people, ran through more barriers, talked over more speakers until they got the point. (DeLay: The Hammer.) You just tell the treasure secretary what he's going to say in the meeting. Boss wants it scripted. People get the message quickly. They hate what you are making them do, but they have their jobs to worry about. Law of Langley: Presidents, if they push hard enough, tend to get their way. I think any student of the intelligence game would tell you that. But it's a dangerous game because you could push so hard that your own intention just became your information, and when asked about your intentions you can only say: hey, I relied on my information! All presidents have the power to do that. Bush used his." I would say that the same thing happened during the Clinton Administration in the response to the build-up of the Al-Quada network resulting in the 9-11 attack. All presidents can find themselves in a bubble, especially those who are term-limited and not longer have to be responsive to the public. The question remains "How does the press respond to this new attack?" Until the "press" responds in a method of a upfront mode of increased quality of reporting, then they will continue to get caught up the any Administration's game of "he said-she said". Hopefully Murray Waas is part of that effort. “Hannah Arendt's On Revolution.” I will check that out but I have to admit after reading her bio and seeing book titles like The Origins of Totalitarianism that I can guess where you’re going with that. But I’m game. Jay, I appreciate your detailed response and I agree with parts of it (for example, Bush is a lot more willing to push the envelope—he’s as deaf as they make them-- and he could accurately be described as a radical since this is a relative term). But, as I believe you do sometimes, you make these leaps that I believe are inaccurate and base the rest of your argument on that. And that’s where you lose me. And that’s where this whole Big Story idea has lost me. And where much of the media choices for Big Stories lose me. For instance, you’re personalizing some of your statements to reflect how you think I think, or others like me think, but the reality is it’s incorrect. Bush didn’t “deceive” me. He struck me as someone who was willing (perhaps able is more apt b/c I think it’s unconscious) to implement some world changes I felt were needed and I was willing to put up with some negatives, and some unknowns, to get him vs. more of the same. How many times have we all heard platitudes like “You have to get to the root of the problem” to solve issues like poverty or race? And yet, the same people who believe in that for “safer” issues, and put up with mediocre or no results, lose that perspective when confronted with enormous geopolitical problems. It’s easier and safer to stay put than to move forward. Unfortunately, in some cases, staying put means eventual demise. I don’t know if I’m correct. It seems to me here that everyone is just so Sure. How do you get that way? I think all the time about these very serious issues and worry a lot, but I also try to be open-minded and I take bits and pieces from lots of sources to think about my decisions. The reason I often mistrust conclusions drawn by reporters is that I know I’m not seeing the whole, uncut version. There’s always a bunch of stuff left on the cutting room floor. I’m in agreement with you about the whole press rollback philosophy. I think it will work itself out eventually. The press was getting too powerful with little accountability and now that there’s pressure from this kind of president and from alternative sources, adjustments will happen more quickly. That’s a selfish summary that I can say because I’m not immersed in it as my career and feeling the change pain. And, thank you, Richard, for accurately tagging my use of Clinton in the previous post. I actually like much of what Clinton did as a President, although I admit to questioning his overall character. Posted by: Kristen at April 13, 2006 9:08 AM | Permalink David Hirschman, 4-12, Editor and Publisher: Posted by: Kristen at April 13, 2006 9:41 AM | Permalink Well, "radical" means going to the root so we are in agreement there. On Revolution is not about totalitarianism, by the way. When I said "suppose you..." I didn't mean you, Kirsten, but someone. I find baffling this impulse (in Tim's post) to assimilate Bush to patterns also seen in the Clinton years. He's a whole different animal. One of the problems the press has had with Bushco is in recognizing this, and imagining that a different crowd could come to power, with intentions unlike what was seen before. as far as the uncut version and leaving things on the cutting room floor, let's examing what this WH said about Iraq: what was left on the cutting room floor? Bush didn't "deceive" you, you do a good job on your own. The Unknown According to our poet Rummy, which category did our current quagmire fall under in 2002? Posted by: bush's jaw at April 13, 2006 9:54 AM | Permalink The list of those who regret not speaking up as Bush drove deceptively to war is long, and they are making themselves known because they can't live with it anymore. This is Lt. Gen. Greg Newbold, former operations director for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who quit in 2002 but went quietly: I now regret that I did not more openly challenge those who were determined to invade a country whose actions were peripheral to the real threat—al-Qaeda. … [T]he Pentagon's military leaders … with few exceptions, acted timidly when their voices urgently needed to be heard. When they knew the plan was flawed, saw intelligence distorted to justify a rationale for war, or witnessed arrogant micromanagement that at times crippled the military's effectiveness, many leaders who wore the uniform chose inaction. … It is time for senior military leaders to discard caution in expressing their views and ensure that the President hears them clearly. And that we won't be fooled again. Fred Kaplan of Slate adds: "Newbold isn't urging active-duty senior officers to go public, just to speak out directly to the president (whose handlers famously filter the bad news from official reports before they hit the Oval Office)." And that filter--which Bush wants in place--is not a quirky feature of his presidency but closer to the essence of it. Plenty of sober and serious people "saw intelligence distorted to justify a rationale for war," as Gen. Newbold put it. They know that a massive act of deception took place, implicating thousands of loyal professionals. Some will be able to live with themselves, but a certain number will not. And that's when Waas's phone rings. "Essentially, in this new populist paradigm, the daily whim of Matt Drudge may matter more (at least in terms of the discrimination of online information) than the editorial judgment of Bill Keller. Drudge can frame an issue and create seeming significance in a way that Keller, constrained by the format and mission of his newspaper, often cannot, at least outside the 'elites.' " Sort of makes "setting an agenda" a tad problemmatic, no ? Posted by: Steve Lovelady at April 13, 2006 10:51 AM | Permalink Statement from Bob Woodward: I now regret that I did not more openly challenge those who were determined to invade a country whose actions were peripheral to the real threat, al-Qaeda. … [T]he nation's major media ... with few exceptions, acted timidly when their voices urgently needed to be heard. When they knew the plan was flawed, saw intelligence distorted to justify a rationale for war, or witnessed arrogant micromanagement that at times crippled the military's effectiveness, many of the nations most prominent media personalities and newsrooms chose inaction. … It is time to discard caution in expressing our views and ensure that the President hears them clearly. And that we won't be fooled again. Ok, it's a cheap shot, but there's a valid point in there. And it accurately sums up what a lot of people feel, for whatever that's worth. Posted by: steve schwenk at April 13, 2006 11:27 AM | Permalink cheap shot? he's talking about himself (prominent media personalities)in there too. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 13, 2006 11:38 AM | Permalink Steve was referring to the fact that he made up this statement from Woodward by adapting Gen. Newbold's remarks, quoted above. Of course we are never going to see a statement like that from Woodward. He believes his reporting was better than anyone else's but not perfect. About revelations since he says, sure, new material always comes out. I can't imagine any discoveries that will disturb that air-tight rationale. B-Jaw, No, it's General Newbold's quote from Jay's post. I just swapped in 'media' for 'military' and attributed it to Bob. Posted by: steve schwenk at April 13, 2006 11:59 AM | Permalink I wonder how many of these brave truth-tellers would have come forward with information that they "saw intelligence distorted to justify a rationale for war" if the situation in Iraq was going well? It's always entertaining to see how impressed some people are by all the Monday Morning Quarterbacks and by all those who leak cherry-picked memos and other "secret" documents that just happen to agree with their views/fantasies and reinforce their opinions. Posted by: name at April 13, 2006 12:02 PM | Permalink doh! i was searching furiously for Woodward's statement. one of the things i left out on my long post last night (which i had to re-write a few times checking links and still missed typos, losing paragraphs that i didn't recover etc., it's tough to edit in comments) is that the Plame investigation meant much more last year. Fortress Bush seemed impenetrable until Katrina. now the walls are crumbling as the Pentagon seemed to be leaking like a sieve. for what it's worth, i'm now in the mortgage business, and a couple of my current clients work in the Pentagon. they say they had some bad days this week without being specific. Jay, as far as Woodward's rational, very few people are honest in self examination, including me. if these generals are honest now, then there is hope? *name* reads to me like Kilgore. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 13, 2006 12:17 PM | Permalink An apt post over at tapped by Greg Sargent: FRED HIATT REFUSES ACCOUNTABILITY; BILL KELLER ACCEPTS IT. The big news organizations need to come to terms with their role in spreading White House misinformation -- and their failure to dig out the truth -- in the run-up to the Iraq war. Because if they don't, they risk making the same catastrophic mistakes again in the run-up to the possible conflict with Iran -- and those mistakes could have even graver consequences. Bill Keller understands this. Fred Hiatt doesn't. Posted by: steve schwenk at April 13, 2006 12:45 PM | Permalink Another viewpoint--General Peter Pace’s response to “all those people coming out of the woodwork now”… “We had then and have now every opportunity to speak our minds, and if we do not, shame on us because the opportunity is there.” (partial at National Review Online, full text here) Posted by: Kristen at April 13, 2006 4:31 PM | Permalink They're not coming out of the woodwork because reporters are calling them. The media is just a conduit. From Dana Priest's chat, (not saying the Qs are exactly who they say they are): Malvern, Pa.: Having been a former Marine Officer and knowing the code of silence regarding an administration, it must be pretty bad if these Generals are speaking out against Rumsfeld. I don't see this as a political statement, but more as a statement of serious concern for the well-being of the armed services and the direction of the country. Your thoughts... Dana Priest: I agree. If anyone surmised that they recent generals were Democrats, they would probably be wrong. If anything, I think they have all tried to distance themselves from politics and, as you know, the military is overwhelming Republican in their voting patterns. Same can be said for the CIA. The administration has tried, through anonymous allegations, to say the agency is filled with--gasp!!--Democrats. I'd say most CIA folks I've met are moderate Republicans who probably voted for George Bush---both times. That same Pace quote is in the Post. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 13, 2006 4:45 PM | Permalink Aubrey has his story and is sticking to it. It matters little that all he needs is the liberal bias meme and tha argument from ignorance. For soem that's enough but the world operates on logic v. belief. He has only the latter. Posted by: George Boyle at April 13, 2006 5:01 PM | Permalink Aubrey has his story and is sticking to it. It matters little that all he needs is the liberal bias meme and tha argument from ignorance. For soem that's enough but the world operates on logic v. belief. He has only the latter. George -- I was going to say the same thing about Jay, Steve Schwenk, et al. In fact, I'm not sure why Jay needs Murray Waas, or any reporting at all, since he already knows what the outcome will be. The only reason he would need another Woodward, as far as I can tell, is to re-enact the outcome of 1974. Posted by: Neuro-conservative at April 13, 2006 6:10 PM | Permalink A couple of things: 1.) Its not journos with an "agenda" that are a problem. I'm inclined to agree with Lovelady that most of them don't have a conscious agenda they deliberately apply to their newswriting and editorial decisions. No, it isn't an agenda that's the problem; it's the unconscious assumptions. This little community's a good case in point: The aching desire to see Joe Wilson's roundly discredited story borne out is palpable. But there aren't too many people, Democrat or Republican, who have been branded as a serial liar by the unanimous opinion of a bipartisan Senate committee. But, you know, if you have a newsroom community that is sufficiently ideologically inbred, then the "Joe Wilson as Victim" meme isn't going to get debunked around the editorial conference table, as it should be. It sees print, again and again and again, and is roundly debunked, again and again and again. It is to the WaPo's credit that they saw through this two-bit charlatan, as did the Senate. Rosen, et. al., seem too emotionally vested in the Joe Wilson as Victim meme to see things for what they are: Joe Wilson lied, and continues to lie. It's Ironic that here we are in a discussion lamenting the inability of reporters to assess the credibility of their sources. But who has less credibility than Joe Wilson? I mean, a unanimous bipartisan branding as a liar takes some doing. Either Bush or Clinton, at least, could come close to breaking even! But people are still clinging desperately to his discredited testimony. 2.) The "Bob Woodward as Boogeyman" meme is pathetic. Woodward moved the football quite a bit with "Plan of Attack." Ok, it wasn't perfect. But if only perfect pieces would be published, no one here would ever have seen print. But you didn't like the way it broke, and now Woodward is a villain. It's like a pack of jackals. 3.) The report that the WMD trailers were almost certainly not actually intended for WMD production was not actually transmitted to Washington - to the bowels of the Pentagon, actually, until two days before the President made his "we found the weapons of mass destruction" statement. Meanwhile, the CIA and DIA (remember, DIA = Pentagon) had just the day before published their finding that the trailers probably were WMD facilities. In order to argue that the President deliberately decieved the public with that statement, you have to simultaneously hold the view that a.) A bureaucratic report on a technical detail takes just two days to move from Iraq to the Pentagon to the Deputy Undersecretary to the Undersecretary to the Secretary to the White House staffer to the Chief of Staff to the President. That's about six separate bureaucratic steps in the stovepipe. It is not going to happen. b.) You would also have to argue that the President would be prudent to dismiss the joint findings, published just one day prior, of the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency. Absurd. Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at April 13, 2006 7:34 PM | Permalink Wasn't one of the beef with this WH is that things didn't go through regular bureaucratic steps, but straight up or down? In theory, no request for action should be taken directly to higher authorities—a process known as “stovepiping”—without the information on which it is based having been subjected to rigorous scrutiny. Turns out Keller, with surprising self-deprecating humor, may have been waiting for the redesign? Here he mentions the need for reporters with military experience. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 13, 2006 8:11 PM | Permalink July 2002: Warrick, "According to interviews with dozens of analysts in government, the military, intelligence agencies and academia, Iraq has a reservoir of knowledge, technology and equipment to create weapons of mass destruction. These specialists also agree that Iraq still has a residual arsenal from the 1991 Persian Gulf War, including stocks of chemical agents and possibly biological weapons that were hidden from the United Nations during seven years of inspections." August 2002: Zinni, "... President Bush has invited the debate and he allows anyone who has a view to speak to the debate. I mean, within his own administration you hear different views." December 2002: Pincus and Warrick, Iraqi Report: Gold Mine Or Minefield?
Same can be said for the CIA. How would Dana Priest know what the voting patterns of CIA personnel are?????? Posted by: Alice Marshall at April 13, 2006 9:04 PM | Permalink Anthony Zinni's passage from obedient general to outspoken opponent began in earnest in the unlikeliest of locations, the national convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. He was there in Nashville in August 2002 to receive the group's Dwight D. Eisenhower Distinguished Service Award, recognition for his 35 years in the Marine Corps. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A22922-2003Dec22?language=printer Posted by: steve schwenk at April 13, 2006 9:51 PM | Permalink Kristen: to implement some world changes I felt were needed .... Incompetent paraphrase: I don’t know if I’m correct, but I want to change the world anyway, and if there are going to be a couple of hundred thousand casualties as a result, that is just collateral damage in furtherance of my moral certitude. Saddam Hussein would have killed them anyway .... Posted by: village idiot at April 13, 2006 10:04 PM | Permalink Bush's Jaw: many have said that the Iraq pre-war rational wouldn't have mattered post invasion if things had gone well. few would care about no WMDs etc. if we have a shinny Democracy today. Similarly, if things had gone well, would those now criticizing the planning step forward and say, "I told Bush not to do this, and I was wrong. I tried to convince him this was a horrible idea, and had he listened to me this shiny new democracy would not exist."? Posted by: MayBee at April 13, 2006 10:04 PM | Permalink In order to argue that the President deliberately decieved the public with that statement, you have to simultaneously .... .... with that statement? I thought the President did not deliberately deceive the public, period; we don't need no qualifiers. Are you going soft on us, Jason? Posted by: village idiot at April 13, 2006 10:16 PM | Permalink Calling all the erstwhile friends of the military: Now that the generals are coming out of the woodwork demanding the scalp of Mr. Duncefeld, it is the season of metamorphosis of the military maven .... Back to the pupa stage for a few years, until the stage is set for the next neocon adventure .... Posted by: village idiot at April 13, 2006 10:35 PM | Permalink June 2003, Judith Miller and William J. Broad, "In all, at least three teams of Western experts have now examined the trailers and evidence from them. While the first two groups to see the trailers were largely convinced that the vehicles were intended for the purpose of making germ agents, the third group of more senior analysts divided sharply over the function of the trailers, with several members expressing strong skepticism, some of the dissenters said." Rosen, et. al., seem too emotionally vested in the Joe Wilson as Victim meme to see things for what they are. One complication for your projection, er, theory, Jason: I didn't write about Joe Wilson or his wife. Nor am I one of his lionizers. Murray Waas-- him I lionize because he is... a lion. Just a complication. I'm sure you can work around it. ... Our WMD expectations, such as they were, grew largely out of Miller's stories. By Jack Shafer Posted by: steve schwenk at April 13, 2006 11:16 PM | Permalink MayBee, maybe Posted by: bush's jaw at April 13, 2006 11:20 PM | Permalink Across a front from the west to east coasts the Chinese in January pushed more than fifty miles south of Seoul. Then in February the Communist advance collapsed. The new commander of UN forces in Korea was General Matthew Ridgway, a bright, energetic and determined man. He talked his troops into standing their ground and attacking. He began employing the UN's superior firepower, using heavy artillery ten miles from the Chinese and then lighter weapons closer in, while aircraft swooped down on the Chinese, firing rockets and dropping napalm. Village… now, now. Let’s be grownup here and not sling silly arrows simply because we have a difference of opinion. When I said “implement world changes,” I was using shorthand that “gotcha” prone people are welcome to have a field day with. It was lazy, but humor me. I could be drawn in to that whole argument; for example, you didn’t give a link for that “couple of hundred thousands,” but no thanks. I stand admonished. :) Bush’s Jaw… I read Seymour Hersh’s article and am familiar with the narrative he advances. He said Bush people, like Bolton, cut through the necessary bureaucratic filters in the intelligence areas and that’s why they got flawed intelligence that took us to war. In fact, Mr Hersh says that Kenneth Pollack told him that “what the Bush people did was “dismantle the existing filtering process that for fifty years had been preventing the policymakers from getting bad information.” What? I wonder if he asked Mr. Pollack a follow up question for that whopper. Many people have reasonably suggested that the intelligence bureacracy (and politicization, I believe) is exactly what caused September 11th and numerous other intelligence failures in the past decade, as discussed earlier. I’m curious how you would follow that up to learn more about the apparent contradiction? Plus, an open question that bugs me about The New Yorker online. Why do they title that section "Fact"? I don't get it. Is that another Froomkin "White House Briefing" joke or am I just tired and not thinking clearly? Posted by: Kristen at April 13, 2006 11:35 PM | Permalink jaw- maybe maybe not, right? The option, however, is one of the benefits of being a behind-the-scenes nay-sayer. If things turn out well, you're off the hook. If things turn out badly, you're off the hook. About Zinni (if we are talking about Zinni)- it can't be ignored that he has his own reputation at stake, here. He led a fruitless peace mission as Mideast envoy as violence was ramping up thre in 2001. He has stated he believes we went to Iraq for Israel. Posted by: MayBee at April 13, 2006 11:40 PM | Permalink Kristen, The New Yorker, I think, started as a literary magazine, so it's a clever (or not?) label for news versus fiction. You notice on the site that the next label is fiction. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 13, 2006 11:46 PM | Permalink no, it's a non sequitur. you think the generals have political motivations? not that a mea culpa and change at the top could be for the better. if things are going well, why say anything at all, or only to take credit. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 13, 2006 11:54 PM | Permalink Uncanny similarities, perhaps even Freudian; Bush may yet secure his place in the presidential pantheon by the side of Truman by carrying out the Lord's work in Iran. We should have a naming contest for the nukular bunker busters. My vote goes to 'The Last Virgin'. Posted by: village idiot at April 13, 2006 11:55 PM | Permalink Village… now, now. Let’s be grownup here and not sling silly arrows simply because we have a difference of opinion. I know, I know .... 'live and let live' sounds so puerile; I like the 'live and let die' version better. Posted by: village idiot at April 14, 2006 12:05 AM | Permalink Which thing is a non sequitur? But Zinni, specifically, yes I think he could have poltical or personal motivations. For the reasons I stated. Posted by: MayBee at April 14, 2006 12:08 AM | Permalink Bush Approval Rating at New Career Low April 10, 2006 — President Bush's job approval rating is at a career low in this latest ABC News/Washington Post poll amid continued broad public skepticism about the Iraq war. Posted by: steve schwenk at April 14, 2006 12:14 AM | Permalink Well, gee, Jason, if you say so. Certainly the president and his advisors are blameless. I mean, if someone had pointed out how incorrect their cause for war truly was - or wait, several someone's did. Out of curiosity, which of the various Bush Admin. reasons for going to war in Iraq do you like best? WMD? Saddam the tyrant? Al Qaeda? Or nation building? Personally, I'm holding out for Iraq's sneak attack on our ship in the Gulf of Tonkin. Posted by: Dave McLemore at April 14, 2006 12:14 AM | Permalink i'll stipulate Zinni, what about the other 3, what are their motives? Posted by: bush's jaw at April 14, 2006 12:19 AM | Permalink Can somebody shed some light on how popular Nixon was when Woodstein were writing their Watergate stuff. Was he already weakened the way our Leader is, which makes it a bit easier on Mr. Waas? Posted by: village idiot at April 14, 2006 12:21 AM | Permalink Personally, I'm holding out for Iran's sneak attack on our ship in the Gulf of Tonkin? Posted by: bush's jaw at April 14, 2006 12:29 AM | Permalink Isn't Zinni of middle-eastern origin? who can trust him? Time to teach him a lesson; confiscate the traitor's medals and stick the IRS on the thankless turncoat. Posted by: village idiot at April 14, 2006 12:32 AM | Permalink That would work too, BJ. BTW, it's now five generals who've gone public asking for Rumsfeld's resignation -- Maj. Gen. Charles H. Swannack Jr., who commanded the 82nd Airborne in Iraq in 2004. Posted by: Dave McLemore at April 14, 2006 12:35 AM | Permalink Personally, I'm holding out for Iran's sneak attack on our ship in the Straits of Hormuz? It should not be too long now; the number of centrifuges has already risen to 50,000 .... Posted by: village idiot at April 14, 2006 12:38 AM | Permalink Gingrich told the students their generation was entering a dangerous period - just as dangerous or more than that of the Cold War. He said the best move would be to replace Iran's government by organizing opposition within Iran. Apprently,the Domino thoery needs a little help. Posted by: village idiot at April 14, 2006 12:53 AM | Permalink Nixon (Gallup) January 30, 1973 April 30, 1973 May 18, 1973 June 3, 1973 6/1973 July 23, 1973 October 20, 1973 November 17, 1973 December 7, 1973 1/1974 July 27, 1974 August 8, 1974 8/1974 Posted by: steve schwenk at April 14, 2006 12:57 AM | Permalink .... and just how are the Air Force and the Navy supposed to "organiz(e) opposition within Iran"? Posted by: village idiot at April 14, 2006 12:58 AM | Permalink Bush's Jaw- the motives of the other 3 (now 4)? I've no idea, perhaps they are completely unbiased, intelligent men that want to see Rumsfeld go. Posted by: MayBee at April 14, 2006 1:04 AM | Permalink Thanks, Steve, for the info and the link. Posted by: village idiot at April 14, 2006 1:06 AM | Permalink Nixon's ratings did not tank until his personal involvement in watergate became known. In June-July 1973, he lost 25 points in net approval rating. See this site for lots of nice charts on Nixon approval. Reagan's job approval rating dropped by more than 20 points to 46 percent in November 1986, just after public disclosures about the Iran-Contra scandal. If proof comes out that Bush was involved in Plame, he could drop to 25% maybe? How could he govern? He would have to resign? Posted by: steve schwenk at April 14, 2006 1:24 AM | Permalink Thank you, Steve, for proving my point. Posted by: Neuro-conservative at April 14, 2006 2:16 AM | Permalink What was you point? Use your own words in making it if you can please. Posted by: steve schwenk at April 14, 2006 9:51 AM | Permalink slightly OT but Jay's Woodward/Waas comparison occurs in business. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 14, 2006 10:05 AM | Permalink It's hilarious when people think that by identifying a possible motive--he's got a book to sell!--they now understand the why of human action. Waas has a new piece up Posted by: steve schwenk at April 14, 2006 3:30 PM | Permalink These renegade generals are popping up like spring tulips pushing their way through the topsoil. Posted by: Steve Lovelady at April 14, 2006 3:48 PM | Permalink It doesn't continue, but sputters out Dubya shall be known as the Teflon prez. This is some sectarian strife: Dora, a middle-class neighborhood of Sunnis, Shiites, and Christians in southern Baghdad, has become the epicenter of the low-grade civil war. A businessman from Dora told me that it began with the killing of barbers: Sunni extremists believed that shaving a man’s beard was against Islam, and they extended the ban to Western-style haircuts. “After the barbers, they went on to the real-estate agents,” the businessman said. A fatwa was issued, declaring that in the time of the Prophet there was no buying or selling of property. Then an ice vender was shot dead on the street because ice wasn’t sold in the seventh century. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 14, 2006 4:01 PM | Permalink re Jay's David Brin (yes, that David Brin) has an excellent piece bearing on this. Including his comment Posted by: Anna Haynes at April 14, 2006 4:05 PM | Permalink I guess only left-wingers find the Brin piece astounding. This is the same battle that is being fought in the Democrat party. The Kos crowd vs. the Clinton DLC crowd. Who owns/controls the Democrat Party? Who owns/controls the Republican Party? In the past, Republicans had the grassroots support while the Democrats relied upon a few wealthy donors. Howard Dean and the '04 election change that---maybe. So where are the "courageous liberals" who have the guts to stand up for BOTH their principles and their country? Both liberals and conservatives should look outside the Beltway for "courage". Posted by: name at April 14, 2006 6:50 PM | Permalink Both liberals and conservatives should look outside the Beltway for "courage". Boy howdy. I'll buy that. Posted by: Steve Lovelady at April 14, 2006 7:26 PM | Permalink After reading that latest piece that Steve Schwenk cites, I have to admit that Murray Waas is pretty impressive. He's like a guy trying to pound a tent peg into very hard ground. The peg doesn't move much, but he just keeps whaling away with discrete fact after discrete fact until, finally, he sinks the sucker. It's sort of like watching a Columbo rerun. There's nothing better than having a front-row seat as a craftsman goes about his work. Posted by: Steve Lovelady at April 14, 2006 7:58 PM | Permalink OT: Edward Leamer shows up Freidman, and badly too; should teach "the nation's most influential foreign policy correspondent" to stick to day-to-day geopolitical commentary, and not pretend to be an expert on issues he understands little about, like global trade and tariffs. Very satisfying .... :-) Posted by: village idiot at April 14, 2006 8:06 PM | Permalink "But there aren't too many people, Democrat or Republican, who have been branded as a serial liar by the unanimous opinion of a bipartisan Senate committee." And neither has Wilson except in a wingnut mind. Posted by: George Boyle at April 14, 2006 8:24 PM | Permalink I see the regulars at Roger Simon's bizarro world started their own. http://yargb.blogspot.com/ yawn. How many ways can we say groupthink with the same five causes for everything. Posted by: George Boyle at April 14, 2006 8:28 PM | Permalink George !! Thanks for reminding me. I'd completely forgotten about that one. (Sometimes life interferes, you know.) It's second only to The Sopranos in opening a window into a bizarre but somehow compelling subculture. (Although Little Green Footballs, while still in third place, is launching a strong rally.) Sort of like coming upon an especially unfortunate auto accident. You don't want to look at the brains spattered upon the highway, but you can't resist. Posted by: Steve Lovelady at April 14, 2006 9:18 PM | Permalink What the ____! Posted by: George Boyle at April 14, 2006 11:30 PM | Permalink That link was already provided earlier in this thread, George, and it's now in After Matter too, along with Lovelady's comments. You can follow discussion of Waas's latest at Memeorandum. USA Today's On Deadline blog picks up the Waas report: You might recall that earlier this week Waas was lauded by NYU journalism professor and Press Think blogger Jay Rosen as the closest thing the CIA leak saga has to a Bob Woodward - a reporter who's leading the pack on breaking stories. Editor & Publisher notes that Waas "has uncovered a string of 'scoops' in the CIA leak case." That's a extremely accurate summary of this post. Most just said I crowned Waas "the new Woodward," a phrase I did not use. Stephen Spruiell at National Review's Media Blog says: "Cheney only authorized Libby to discuss it because Wilson had repeatedly misrepresented his findings in the press." " the closest thing the CIA leak saga has to a Bob Woodward - a reporter who's leading the pack on breaking stories." Which begs the question: Is Bob Woodward a "Bob Woodward" on any Bush Admin saga/story? (My earlier post argued that Woodward has been a "Judy Miller" on the Plame saga.) Why isn't it accurate to call Waas the "new Woodward" if the old (real) Woodward is no longer a "Woodward" himself, at least on Plame? Posted by: steve schwenk at April 15, 2006 12:31 AM | Permalink Yargb?!?! Those kooks? They certainly have some crackpot theories. Not at all like the clever wordplay and unerring logic found here. Posted by: Neuro-conservative at April 15, 2006 12:59 AM | Permalink
Dave: Out of curiosity, which of the various Bush Admin. reasons for going to war in Iraq do you like best? WMD? Saddam the tyrant? Al Qaeda? Or nation building? Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at April 15, 2006 1:10 AM | Permalink My point, which you so kindly illustrated, was that you and Jay do not care about Waas' reporting qua reporting, since you think you already know the hidden truth. I further suggested that the only thing you need from Waas is for him to drive the political agenda towards the same outcome as August 1974. Shortly thereafter, you posted the timeline leading to Nixon's ouster. I am still quite appreciative of the speed of your response -- it only took you just a few hours to confirm my hypothesis. Posted by: Neuro-conservative at April 15, 2006 1:17 AM | Permalink Jay: Sorry for the delay in responding to you - limited connectivity. One complication for your projection, er, theory, Jason: I didn't write about Joe Wilson or his wife. Nor am I one of his lionizers. Au contrair, Jay, I never said that you lionized Wilson. Furthermore, you DID write about Wilson, in this very thread, about whom you wrote: To me Wilson is a bit player with a gigantic ego who's said some dumb things as well as a lot of true things, and what happened to him has triggered a huge story, but he's not the story. Well, the problem is that Wilson was not a "bit player," but became very much a central figure in making the "ChimpyMcBushitler lied" case. The problem was that he was a lousy central figure, and should have remained a bit figure. My central point still stands - you appear to have a lot invested emotionally with the Wilson-as-victim meme. So much so, in fact, that you go to extraordinary lengths to avoid recognizing something that has been pretty well established as fact: Wilson lied. Funny, you never mention that. You write he said some dumb things and "a lot of true things." Well, ok. When he introduces himself as "I'm Joe Wilson and my wife is Valerie Plame," I suppose we'll have to grant him the benefit of the doubt. But it's been established that Wilson lied about who sent him to Niger, what his sources told him, and what he told the CIA in his initial briefback. Indeed, Wilson lied about just about every matter material to this investigation. And not only did he lie, but he lied so clumsily, transparently, and brazenly that that was apparent even to a bipartisan committee of professional liars themselves, called politicians! Indeed, in establishing himself as a liar to a standard that warrants a unanimous -UNANIMOUS - conclusion of a bipartisan committee, Wilson demonstrates a standard of distortion and falsity that rises to the level of pathological. I would be very surprised if you could, in good conscience, advise your own Syracuse J-students that such a witness can be relied on for ANYTHING. Nevertheless, you continue to gloss over Wilson's lies in a professional forum. No, you are not one of Wilson's lionizers. But you are certainly acting as one of his enablers. Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at April 15, 2006 1:32 AM | Permalink And Steve Lovelady unwittingly confirmed Jason Van Steenwyk's hypothesis: it isn't an agenda that's the problem; it's the unconscious assumptions A little later, Steve Lovelady made this observation: High stakes poker, but also a sideshow, really, in that the main event -- the death toll -- just chugs along, oblivious to the grudge matches that play out in Washington. Nevermind that the allied combat fatalities are generally declining in the last six months. Don't let mere facts get in the way of a good template, particularly if the template is of 1973 vintage. But even more importantly, Lovelady reveals the same unconscious assumptions apparently held by many reporters and editors, viz: the story to be told about war is the steady accrual of deaths --particularly the deaths of young US soldiers and innocent civilians. And these are, of course, newsworthy and deeply saddening. But they appear to leave little room for reporting of US victories, such as the liberation of Tal Afar. Or the heroism of young Americans such as men of the Deuce-Four. Or the increase in strife within the enemies ranks. To name a few. No Steve, the main event is not the monthly death toll. The main event is how to keep this country safe from hostile actors on the world stage. Which, somehow, the President's opposition never quite gets around to dealing with in any affirmative manner. Posted by: Neuro-conservative at April 15, 2006 1:45 AM | Permalink Neuro-conservative, it is not a 'hidden truth' that President Bush is the most unpopular president since Nixon, or that his disapproval ratings at this moment are only several points off of what Nixon's were a mere month before he resigned. Nor is it a 'hidden truth' that his administration is being investigated by a special prosecutor, or that one indictment has been issued and more are likely to follow. Furthermore, look at the title of Jay's post. Who was president when Woodward was 'Woodward?' Nixon. Who is president now that Waas is the 'Woodward?' To what other president but Nixon should we compare Bush? Would it not be strange to fail to compare him to Nixon? I can assure you Rove has done a similar but far more thorough study of Nixon's polling as it relates to Bush. I can see why you are upset, but as much as I'd like to take credit, I had nothing to do with any of it. Honest. Posted by: steve schwenk at April 15, 2006 1:53 AM | Permalink Jay:
Well, silly me. All this time I was thinking that Waas was a reporter! But then, if Waas was a reporter, he would have done some reporter things. For instance, he might have understood the timeline of the events he was writing about in this article. Unfortunately, Waas's breathless scoop relies for its impact on the failure of the reader to realize that the full spectrum of opinion surrounding the relevancy of the aluminum tubes to any Iraqi WMD program had already been released in 2002. Indeed, Waas missed the fact that several members of Congress had already been on the record, and members of both parties had already reached the conclusion that the tubes were related to a WMD program. To wit: October 7, 2002 – Senator Nelson (D-NE): “Moreover, we know that Saddam recently attempted to purchase aluminum rods used to refine uranium. These rods could be used to develop materials for nuclear weapons.” Oops. Those were all Democrats. But it was because Bush concealed the fact that there was dissenting opinion, right? They never would have said these things - and NEVER would have voted to authorize war, if they had any inkling that the aluminum tubes were anything less than a smoking gun, right? Let's hear from another member of Congress:
Oh, well, shucks - I guess old "Scoop" Waas's "scoop" isn't much of a scoop at all. It was made public on the floor of Congress back in October of 2002 - and was itself part of the debate during the runup to war. How? Well, because the bit of information that Waas would have us believe that Rove & co. suppressed from the American people was actually declassified months prior to the war. (Nope, Waas doesn't quote from the NIE, nor does he seem to have noticed that these pols had been on the record from the very start, arguing that the tubes were part of the pool of evidence, and acknowledging that there was, indeed, a recognized difference of opinion.) Now, this is a heck of a way to run a coverup. Now, it might be relevant if the case that Saddam was in "material breach" of the UN resolutions was wholly reliant on the aluminum tubes. But, you know, when coalition inspectors are still discovering that Iraq had retained illegal "seed stocks" for biological weapon development even after the fall of Saddam's government, and digging up 12 122mm rockets suitable for mustard gas deployment as late as January, 2003, the aluminum tubes just become one more item in a long list of circumstantial evidence. Furthermore, for Waas's story to retain its impact, it demands that we ignore the big, honking centrifuge we found buried in an Iraqi weapons scientist's rose garden. And in order to buy the "tubes were just for conventional missiles" story, you also have to accept the notion that Iraq builds its rockets to a much higher standard of manufacturing than does the United States - something that old Scoop Waas fails to grasp, apparently. Now, if old Scoop were a better reader, he might have come across this passage from the declassified bits of the NIE: All agencies agree that about 25,000 centrifuges based on tubes the size Iraq is trying to acquire would be capable of producing approximately two weapons’ worth of highly enriched uranium per year. Got that? All agencies. That includes the Department of Energy and the Department of State. Scoop Waas missed that one, too. Why "all agencies," despite the disconnect? Well, the President understood something Waas doesn't: That Saddam deliberately pushed to acquire dual use technologies to maintain the illusion of plausible deniability in order to acquire nuclear technologies - and that "poorly suited" does not mean "unsuited." The aluminum tubes, according to ALL the agencies were suboptimal. But they were still suitable. It is not necessary for Bush to demonstrate that Saddam INTENDED to use the tubes to build a nuclear program. The burden of proof was on Saddam to show his good faith and compliance. In order to show a material breach of the UN resolutions, it is only necessary that the US show that they were suitable. And this was the uniform conclusion of all polled agencies across the board, according to the NIE. Further, the NIE states that "most agencies judge" the tubes to be related to a nuclear weapons program. In other words, the DOE and State opinions were not the majority opinions at that time, but were, in fact, outliers. Now, the intel business is a game of probability, not certainty - and analysts seldom agree on anything. Scoop Waas doesn't seem to comprehend this, though. Apparently, in Scoop's world, the US has to wait for unanimous opinion among ALL government agencies before reaching a decision on an issue - a state of affairs which would paralyze government. But wait - All agencies WERE unanimous on one point: That 2000 centrifuges could be used with these tubes to produce a bomb. Funny. Scoop leaves that inconvenient little fact out. Here's another breathless revelation from Scoop and the National Journal: Bush's knowledge of the State and Energy departments' dissent over the tubes was disclosed in a March 4, 2006, National Journal story -- more than three years after the intelligence assessment was provided to the president, and some 16 months after the 2004 presidential election. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!! It takes the National Journal to reveal that information that the Administration itself declassified in 2002, and read into the record on the House floor by Democratic politicians was provided to the President? Man, is this Waas guy ever gullible. If he were a rooster, he'd take credit for the sunrise, too. Sorry, but this "lion" ought to spend less time trying to be a lion, and more time trying to understand the subject he's covering. (Thanks to Seixon for digging up the congresscritter quotes, and who has lots more on Waas.) No, Waas is not the Woodward of today. Woodstein were a lot more careful about their timeline, and understood their story a lot better than Waas. Furthermore, Woodward got a source on the record every once in a while. I don't think that that's too much to ask, in the post-Judy Miller world. Doesn't seem to hang Waas up, much, though. But I guess if you want a Watergate scenario bad enough, why let the facts get in your way, eh, Jay? Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at April 15, 2006 2:29 AM | Permalink Excellent points, Jason. I am sorry to be leap-frogging your post to respond to Steve Schwenk's last. He seems to be taking accuracy lessons from the lion ... Schwenk wrote: it is not a 'hidden truth' that President Bush is the most unpopular president since Nixon Actually, it is hidden, because it is not the truth: Some past presidents' job approval ratings have dropped lower than Bush's. Harry Truman in 1952, Richard Nixon in 1974, Jimmy Carter in 1979 and the first George Bush in 1992 saw their ratings fall to the mid- to high 20s, according to Gallup polling. Many have sunk as low as this president. Bill Clinton was at 39% in the late summer of 1994 — before midterm elections that were disastrous for Democrats. Ronald Reagan was at 35% in January 1983 before rebuilding his support. Lyndon Johnson was at 36% in March 1968, just before announcing he would not run for re-election during the Vietnam War. Schwenk's second truth is equally recondite: Nor is it a 'hidden truth' that his administration is being investigated by a special prosecutor, or that one indictment has been issued and more are likely to follow (emph added) Steve -- are you an attorney in Fitz's office? Is Fitzmas finally going to arrive this year? How does your speculation and wishful thinking become "truth"? I suppose it is truth because the unshakable conviction at the heart of Bush Derangement Syndrome is that BUSH LIED! PEOPLE DIED! And the necessary corollary is that Bush must pay... Schwenk again: Furthermore, look at the title of Jay's post. Who was president when Woodward was 'Woodward?' Nixon. And that's my whole point. Jay has constructed this entire post around the implicit presumption that we need a new Woodward because Bush is the new Nixon. Look -- I didn't know Nixon, and he wasn't a friend of mine, but George W. Bush is no Nixon. Iraq is not Vietnam. And there is more to learn from world history than the self-serving media meta-narrative of 1973 and 1974. Posted by: Neuro-conservative at April 15, 2006 2:57 AM | Permalink Anderson was an important transitional figure in the evolution of adversarial journalism, a link in the historical chain between the advocacy of Progressive-era reformers from the early 1900s and the more professionalized class of investigative reporters who came to dominate Washington in the 1970s.Jack Anderson Jack Anderson was a key and often controversial figure in reporting on J. Edgar Hoover's apparent ties to the Mafia, Watergate, the John F. Kennedy assassination, the search for fugitive ex-Nazi Germany officials in South America and the Savings and Loan scandal. He discovered a CIA plot to assassinate Fidel Castro, and has also been credited for breaking the Iran-Contra affair, though he has said the scoop was "spiked" because he had become too close to President Ronald Reagan. Anderson was a crusader against corruption. Jason: I did not write about Joe Wilson in this post. Period. The comment you cited--claiming I did write about Wilson (how tedious can you get?)--was a response to Rick Moran doing what you did: going on and on about Wilson and what a lying liberal creep he is when the subject of my post is "what really went down as the Bush team drove deceptively to war, and later tried to conceal how bad the deception—and decision-making—had been." That's the bigger story, the one Waas is tracking; and that's the story that caused the generals to speak up in extraordinary fashion this week. As I said earlier in this thread, there are thousands of people who know about what went on, who "saw intelligence distorted to justify a rationale for war," as Gen. Newbold put it. Their consciences are starting to grind, as they weigh the costs of continued silence against the costs of being attacked, and wonder what to do. What they know overwhelms what little glimpse Joe Wilson had into this machinery of deception. It's not the Wilsons and the Kossacks who are going to push this story out into the open. It's the Newbolds. Keep focusing on Wilson if you want, though. Did you notice what William Kristol said about the generals in today's Washington Post? "They really are acting out of patriotism. This is not fun for them. They're reluctant to step forward in this way, and for good reason. . . . But I believe they're doing it because they believe that Rumsfeld is endangering the course of U.S. foreign policy." Neuro: I did not write about Watergate in this post. Period. You speak of your fears, and not of my intentions when you write, "Jay has constructed this entire post around the implicit presumption that we need a new Woodward because Bush is the new Nixon." I don't think this situation has much in common with Watergate at all. And Bush--a radical--is far worse than Nixon. Not even in the same category, in my estimation. So I don't like the comparison because it's unfair to Nixon. I'm curious, Jay, how you come up with the quantity thousands and the state of their consciences? Is it a trope? Is it a WAG based on some percentage of bureaucrats across governmental agencies that you believe should have guilty consciences? Is it an extrapolation of a couple, or dozens, of such people you have spoken to or heard from? Is is an extrapolation based on what you've read, heard second hand, a gut feeling prediction, ..., what? Jay Rosen: "And Waas is that outsider, as Woodward was 34 years ago when he began investigating a burglary at the Watergate." Wild guess, Sisyphus. Very un-empirical. What counts however is not how many there are out there, but how how many speak up, or help the truth come out. And in those calculations, people decide what they're going to do based, in part, on what they think other people in their position are going to do. And those calculations are, in turn, affected by the kind of statements we saw this week from the generals. The odds are against the story--which is really thousands of stories--remaining bottled up for the next three years. Of course, it you think there is no story there, that there aren't lots of people who saw intelligence distorted to justify a rickety rationale for war, then I would imagine there's nothing to worry about. Ah, nice gotcha. I mentioned Watergate in pointing out who Waas is. If you think the Post is about Watergate, make the argument. I say it's not. Just to set the record straight and to put this side topic to rest, GWB ties his dad for the highest disapproval rating of any president since Nixon. 60% in the latest gallup poll. GHWB hit that same number the summer before his defeat. Carter's highest disapproval rating was 59%. Nixon hit 66% just before resigning. Clinton's highest was 54% http://poll.gallup.com/content/default.aspx?ci=10534&pg;=2 And as for second term presidents since Nixon at this point in their presidency, GWB wins the unpopularity contest hands down (based on approval ratings this time): Clinton 65% (Apr. 1998) Reagan 62% (Apr. 1986) Nixon 26% (Apr. 1974) Johnson 54% (Apr. 1966) Eisenhower 54% (Apr. 1958) Truman 39% (Feb/May 1950) Bush 37% April 2006 Neuro-conservative, based on the material I read at your blog, I'd suggest that you have no standing whatsoever to go around complaining about what other people put on their blogs. It's the end of the discussion for me. Posted by: steve schwenk at April 15, 2006 11:08 AM | Permalink Jay Rosen: "If you think the Post is about Watergate, make the argument. I say it's not." About Watergate? No, not about Watergate. However, consider me less than compelled by your assertion, "I don't think this situation has much in common with Watergate at all." From a political context, I think you do believe it and I mostly agree. From a pressthink context, I don't believe you. I don't believe you, because I don't think you could make the argument that discounts Watergate pressthink in the current political news climate. I could be wrong, and if so, have at it ... that's kind of insight from you is the best part of your blog. Well, if you mean that the way all scandals play out in American politics and journalism is affected by the memory and imagery of Watergate, sure, I believe that. And when Condi Rice said, "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud" (a statement at the heart of this whole thing) that was an example. The main event is how to keep this country safe from hostile actors on the world stage. Which, somehow, the President's opposition never quite gets around to dealing with in any affirmative manner. We gave the job to Mr. Bush, and he failed to keep us safe. He can make all the excuses in the world, but it is painfully obvious that he lacks the competence to get the big kill, and he continues to swat flies to distract everybody from his failure. Regardless of the swagger and the false bravado his handlers project, he cuts an increasingly desperate and pathetic figure. He may be the chosen one, but the Lord, if the polls are any indication, is apparently losing confidence as well in his ability to deliver the goods. Since when has it become the opposition's responsibility to do the president's job, or clean up after him? If you want the opposition to do his job because he is not doing it, you should first remove him from his position and give the job to the opposition. Good luck with that. Posted by: village idiot at April 15, 2006 12:27 PM | Permalink Jason, Has anyone except die-hard Baathists ever suggested that Saddam's ran a corrupt and evil regime? Is that why we went to war? If you're prepared to mobilize for war and send young men and women into harm's way after every regime that brutally suppresses its political enemies with torture and murder, you're going to need more troops. There's no shortage of vicious regimes in the world - many of them in Saddam's neighborhood. My point, Jason, which you by-stepped, is that Evil Saddam didn't become a reason for Bush & Co. to go to war until serious challenges to the claims of WMD and connection to Al Qaeda came forward. We already had waged a successful campaign against an evil government in Afghanistan - one that truly did give refuge to Osama. If we are truly waging a war against terrorism, why did we weaken the pursuit in Afghanistan and divert soldiers and treasure to Iraq? I don't know. But for the range of reasons the White House pushed forward, Saddam's torture rooms wasn't all that high on the list. Posted by: Dave McLemore at April 15, 2006 12:48 PM | Permalink Dave McLemore: "... Evil Saddam didn't become a reason for Bush & Co. to go to war until serious challenges to the claims of WMD and connection to Al Qaeda came forward." Bush administration has used 27 rationales for war in Iraq, study says If it seems that there have been quite a few rationales for going to war in Iraq, that’s because there have been quite a few – 27, in fact, all floated between Sept. 12, 2001, and Oct. 11, 2002, according to a new study from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. All but four of the rationales originated with the administration of President George W. Bush.U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell Addresses the U.N. Security Council My friends, this has been a long and a detailed presentation. And I thank you for your patience. But there is one more subject that I would like to touch on briefly. And it should be a subject of deep and continuing concern to this council, Saddam Hussein's violations of human rights.Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz Interview with Sam Tannenhaus, Vanity Fair Q: Was that one of the arguments that was raised early on by you and others that Iraq actually does connect, not to connect the dots too much, but the relationship between Saudi Arabia, our troops being there, and bin Laden's rage about that, which he's built on so many years, also connects the World Trade Center attacks, that there's a logic of motive or something like that? Or does that read too much into --More: Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz Interview with Karen DeYoung, Washington Post Sorry. I hadn't scanned that section. Posted by: George Boyle at April 15, 2006 1:35 PM | Permalink So Sysyphus is claiming the policy is 1. always had the conditional precedents and 2. is not ad hoc? It may not have been on some level but the big reason was imminent or some term similar, not that people in Iraq were at present heading to gas chambers. Give me a break. It's your classic goal post shift the burden tactic. Posted by: George Boyle at April 15, 2006 1:39 PM | Permalink Jay Rosen as the closest thing the CIA leak saga has to a Bob Woodward - a reporter who's leading the pack on breaking stories. Don't know if was covered by PressThink. Who was Woodward (or Woodstein) before Woodward (or Woodstein)? Did Woodward and Bernstein change journalism and motivated a generation of aspiring investigative reporters who would have gone into the field? Problem is, since Watergate, there has been few (or no) scandals needing a Bob Woodward. Until possibly now. Iran-Contra? Certainly not any of those phone-Gates dogging Clinton. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 15, 2006 1:53 PM | Permalink Sorry to be so dense, Sisyphus, but are you saying that we went to war in Iraq because of a list of 27 sundry reasons, and not because we were afraid that Saddam had the ability to produce mushroom clouds and drones spraying deadly microbes, and that he was collaborating with Al-Qaeda? I know your links are probably saying something like that, but what exactly are you saying? Posted by: village idiot at April 15, 2006 2:03 PM | Permalink phew, i'm not the only one having trouble gleaning the points of Sisyphus's posts. Sisyphus, help me with this one. The stories don't reflect the quotes you pulled out of there. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 15, 2006 2:13 PM | Permalink Sisyphus, we knew Saddam's regime treated its people brutally at the time of Gulf War I. We had functionally destroyed Saddams army in Kuwait - why not follow the remnants of the Republican Guard into Baghdad and depose the tyrant- if that was a prime cause for war? In Powell's eloquent address to the UN you've linked to, he first raised the spector of biological and chemical weapon stockpiles and other weaponry of mass destruction. Not only were they not there but the Adminstration had evidence to that point before launching the war. So what do we do? Do we make a list of world tyrants and take them out one at a time? Should we do it alphabetically or by population? Funny, I don't remember Cheney, Bush and Rove being all that enamored of stepping in to depose tyrants and to stop atocities during Bosnia. Posted by: Dave McLemore at April 15, 2006 2:13 PM | Permalink George Boyle and village idiot, It's an interesting question, isn't it? What is someone saying with a link? Often I find the assumptions, reactions, or projections, by other commenters about the links provided more informative than any context I could provide about the link. Dave McLemore: Funny, I don't remember Cheney, Bush and Rove being all that enamored of stepping in to depose tyrants and to stop atocities during Bosnia. Neither do I, and they don't seem to be rushing into Dafur or anywhere else recently. But back then, Bosnia, what was your position? as the closest thing the CIA leak saga has to a Bob Woodward - a reporter who's leading the pack on breaking stories. sorry, the earlier example unintentionally changed the meaning of the sentence. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 15, 2006 2:20 PM | Permalink Funny, I don't remember Cheney, Bush and Rove being all that enamored of stepping in to depose tyrants and to stop atocities during Bosnia. that figures, because those atrocities were against muslims .... There is always a method in the madness and a conspiracy to be deigned if we have the eye for it.;-) Posted by: village idiot at April 15, 2006 2:46 PM | Permalink bush's jaw: "The stories don't reflect the quotes you pulled out of there." They don't? That's interesting. And yet, there they are - the quotes - not only from Warrick's story about the interviews he conducted, but also from Zinni's transcript. Why do you think they wrote/said what they wrote/said? I don't know, what is it your links represent to you? If that isn't what you're saying what the hell is it? Elucidate. Posted by: George Boyle at April 15, 2006 2:52 PM | Permalink George Boyle: "... what is it your links represent to you?" Automatic thinking interruptions. I find the discoursive dissonance generated both unsurprising and satisfying. It's an interesting question, isn't it? What is someone saying with a link? In my world, links are information, sometimes they just inform, and at other times they substantiate any arguments I may be advancing. However, I would be reluctant to argue just by links alone. That could be interpreted as being lazy at best, and disingenuous at worst. Not that there is anything wrong with being lazy .... apparently it prolongs one's lifespan because there are less oxidizing free radicals circulating in one's body during periods of inactivity. Posted by: village idiot at April 15, 2006 3:12 PM | Permalink re: "as being lazy at best, and disingenuous at worst." Not trying to be disingenuous. It is a lazy Saturday before Easter Sunday, but c'mon, there's some effort involved in finding, choosing, and composing a comment of links. Can get credit for that? Besides, made you look. I see links as footnotes substantiating a point. However they can be substantive, or irrelevant as with Ann Coulter, Bjorn Lomborg and Michael Crichton: out of context anomalies drawn as broad overgeneralizations like the three listed by Wolfowitz were of equal consideration at the time. Factually they weren't. In fact none of them were factual at all so caveat lector. Posted by: George Boyle at April 15, 2006 3:38 PM | Permalink Jay: It's awfully hard to keep up the assertion "I did not write about Wilson, period" when you did, in fact, write about Wilson. In this very thread. Now, it's true that you wrote about Wilson in order to dismiss him as "a bit player." And it's also true that while you did, in fact, write about Wilson, you didn't write about him a LOT. But what you DID write, though, is pretty illuminating, because what you did write seems to show that you're still among those wretched souls on the left still clinging desperately to some shred of hope that Wilson might not be what he has been unanimously found by a bipartisan committee of Senators to be: A serial liar. The rest of the world has moved on, Jay. Time to join the reality-based community. At the very least, if you don't want to be accused of writing about Wilson [Seinfeld voice] not that there's anything wrong with that! [/Seinfeld voice], then it would probably help your case if, in fact, you had not written about Wilson. Jus' sayin,' dawg. :-) But I think we can agree on one thing - Wilson doesn't have a lot to do with Waas's flawed story on the aluminum tubes. Actually, Wilson has nothing at all to do with intelligence on the aluminum tubes. A distinction, of course, that appears to be lost on Murray the Lion and his editors. Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at April 15, 2006 4:00 PM | Permalink Dave McLemore We had functionally destroyed Saddams army in Kuwait - why not follow the remnants of the Republican Guard into Baghdad and depose the tyrant- if that was a prime cause for war? It's always funny when someone brings up this canard, as if it were actually logistically possible. And we would support the effort from what base, Dave? Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at April 15, 2006 4:06 PM | Permalink Neuro: I don't consider my assumptions "unconscious." To the contrary, they strike me as quite "conscious," and based on an appalling accumulation of evidence. I conclude, to use a phrase from Ben Brantley of the NY Times, that the generals belatedly speaking out do so out of "the enduring guilt of not speaking up in public dissent -- in any context -- when it still might have made all the difference." And that this is one factor that drives a Lt. Gen Newbold, clearly a man as haunted as, say, a Colin Powell, to confess, It's an old story -- Shakespearian, in fact. Eventually, in a free society, the warriors always turn on the armchair generals. Or the armchair generals (see MacNamara, Robert) turn on themselves. Posted by: Steve Lovelady at April 15, 2006 4:25 PM | Permalink Steve, Tommy Franks was the CENTCOM commander in 2001-2003. The combatant commander in the premier billet for a four-star in the military. He was also a forward observer, as a lieutenant, in Viet Nam, where he nearly had his leg blown off. You think his medals are bogus? That's beneath contempt. Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at April 15, 2006 4:52 PM | Permalink Of course, if you're so removed from military circles that you get your news and analysis entirely from beltway boys, you might miss a few things. For instance, you might miss that once you get out of the Pentagon, Rumsfeld is very highly respected - even revered out in what we call "the real Army," as "the finest Secretary of Defense of the last forty years." This guy's not on the record by name. But I am, and his sense doesn't surprise me in the slightest. Rummy gets a rock-star reception wherever he goes to visit troops, and it's genuine. I think a lot of it isn't due so much to his policies at the SecDef level, though, and more to do with the fact that the people in the ranks and among company grade and field-grade officers who see the war for themselves know first-hand the incompetence of the press corps, and Rumsfeld is very entertaining about pointing it out during press conferences. Indeed, he's about the only member of the Administration who is combative about sticking up to the drooling morons the news media keep putting on the Pentagon beat - and ohh, how the droolers hate him. Case in point. Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at April 15, 2006 5:04 PM | Permalink If Al-Qaeda ever gets its hands on a nuclear weapon, it will be through the Pakistanis, whose intelligence agencies have long propped up the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, and who actually have the technology as well as a history of proliferation. The black markets in central asia are a probable next stop. Mr. Bush decided to settle old scores instead, and all he has to show for his effort is a colossal mess that is going to drain resources for years. He has poisoned a billion minds all across the world in the process, and no amount of revisionism by the Bushites is going to change that now. We will be living with the risks for decades to come. Posted by: village idiot at April 15, 2006 5:06 PM | Permalink Those belonging the the Church of Holy Joe Wilson Who Died on the Cross of Bushitler For Our Sins should not read any further---I will not be reinforcing your religious beliefs. But the latest frothing about the generals brings up serveral points not likely to appear at any Maryscott O'Connor type blog. 1. When asked point-blank why the generals only denounced Rumsfeld and not their Commander In Chief, they took a pass. If going to war in Iraq was a bad idea from the get-go, George Bush would be the one to be held accountable---not Rummy, not the bipartisan vote of congress. Why won't the generals criticise Bush? But on the other hand, if 2. the war was executed badly, then generals bear more of the blame than Bush/Rummy. If this is true, then all these generals coming out of the woodwork denouncing Rummy are engaged in a CYA action. We know why the press frames the generals as "brave truth-tellers" and not excuse-makers. Pulitzers are not handed to journalists for giving space to people engaging in CYA. And more practically, 3. Rumsfeld was given the task of bringing the military into the 21st century. The Cold War/Vietnam era officers would have to either adapt or go. One general (maybe Newbold) admitted he quit after he didn't get a promotion. The military is one of the most conservative groups----journalists being another---meaning they abhor reform and change. Which means Rummy could either be the smug jerk the generals say he is or someone standing fast against bureaucratic intransigence---or maybe both. Believe me, I do not expect those who see these generals as "brave-truthtellers" instead of CYAers to get on board with any of this. But for me, I will only respect the generals who put their stars on the table now and do not wait until after they have retired to criticise the Administration. How can Newbold, who was in charge of planning the Iraq invasion, live with himself knowing all the deaths are on his head for not speaking up when he had the chance? What if he (and the others) had put his stars on the table BFORE the invasion? Sure, Jay and the Fitzmas kids would be convinced no matter what, but the rest of us would be made to pay attention. Are 3000+ deaths really worth all the perks he (and the others) now receive? The Maryscotts of the world will never ask that question---it's not even on their radar. For them, it's all about Bush and their anger. Posted by: name at April 15, 2006 5:18 PM | Permalink I wasn't advocating an assault on Baghdad in Gulf War I, Jason. 'What if' games are interesting only for a while. But the point remains that Saddam's nastiness was well established long before Gulf War II began. And since you're the one who said that was sufficient cause for war, why not finish the job. We were in the neighborhood. You want real politic on taking out Saddam the first time, but Saddam's torture rooms is 'nuff said' for you to commit our blood and treasure to depose the monster. Your loyalty to Rumsfeld is touching. But tell me again why Iraq was important enough to divert money and troops from Afghanistan's needs for nation building. Why did the search for Osama bin Laden become less important than taking out Saddam? Or is that just a canard as well? Posted by: Dave McLemore at April 15, 2006 5:27 PM | Permalink Sisyphus, According to interviews with dozens of analysts in government, the military, intelligence agencies and academia, Iraq has a reservoir of knowledge, technology and equipment to create weapons of mass destruction. These specialists also agree that Iraq still has a residual arsenal from the 1991 Persian Gulf War, including stocks of chemical agents and possibly biological weapons that were hidden from the United Nations during seven years of inspections. If you read the entire story, the point was this, the nut graph: If confirmed, the very existence of the lab could fuel the debate over whether the United States should attack Iraq. But confirming the lab's presence from satellite photos has proved difficult, so the laboratory today remains a mere shadow in the U.S. government's intelligence assessment -- an unknown threat in a landscape filled with others just like it. In fact, here are the headlines quoting out of context? Posted by: bush's jaw at April 15, 2006 5:53 PM | Permalink As best as I can tell, Mr. Bush has always maintained that he gave the Generals whatever they asked for. On the other hand, several reports point to the fact that Mr. Rumsfeld, in an attempt to make the war effort correspond to his neocon, lean-military notions, second-guessed the war planners and extracted very significant changes to the war plans made up by the military. So, why would Mr. Rumsfeld not be the one to blame for the way the war was run (as opposed to the idea of idea of invading Iraq itself)? The swift boating of the generals seems to have begun in earnest. It would be interesting to see how some of the familiar military mavens on this board will veer; stay with the generals, or enlist in Mr. Rove's army, or perhaps attempt a neat triangulation manoeuvre to quarantine the openly-dissident generals from the still silent. Posted by: village idiot at April 15, 2006 5:56 PM | Permalink I can only assume that McLemore is too young to remember what went down during Gulf I. At that time, GHWB had put together an impressive coalition of allies and received one of only two UN resolutions ever to authorize war(the other being Korea). Oddly enough, John Kerry voted AGAINST this war. But no matter. Being a good multilateralist, GHWB did not go after Saddam in Iraq when we had him on the run, because the UN resolution did not authorize or permit it. Which is why I laugh whenever someone tries to convince me of the moral superiority of the UN. But what is more interesting to me, is that McLemore isn't just another lefty moonbat, he's a member of the press establishment. Same for Jay. What will be the effect on the press and on the public's perception of the press, if the press (and those who teach the press) engage in such historic revisionism? Or will we all live in our own special version of Waasyworld where the facts are cherry-picked and tailored to fit our pre-existing beliefs? Posted by: name at April 15, 2006 6:11 PM | Permalink as the closest thing the CIA leak saga has to a Bob Woodward - a reporter who's leading the pack on breaking stories. Problem is, since Watergate, there has been few (or no) scandals needing a Bob Woodward. Until possibly now. Iran-Contra? Certainly not any of those phone-Gates dogging Clinton. really butchered that first post. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 15, 2006 6:12 PM | Permalink BJ---“Problem is, since Watergate, there has been few (or no) scandals needing a Bob Woodward. Until possibly now. Iran-Contra? Certainly not any of those phone-Gates dogging Clinton.” You really can’t leave us hanging on this one, BJ….. In over 30 years of Amercian political history there have been, in actuality, no scandals, other than possibly the Iran-Contra Scandal that would merit the need for a good investigative reporter like a Woodward. Really? That’s kind of an amazing statement. Are you using as your proof of this that you can’t think of any that made it into the Big Story category of America’s major news outlets? Given the actual state of Amercian education, immigration, health, etc., or even what-the-heck, let’s include the UN and the world, isn’t that kind of a telling? BTW, thanks for the heads-up on the New Yorker Fact/Fiction. I’m not surprised I didn’t get it the first time since I was seeing much of Mr. Hirsh’s narrative as some factual data mixed with opinions and embeliishments (kind of James Frey, author of A Million Little Pieces Posted by: Kristen at April 15, 2006 6:13 PM | Permalink Just tested that James Frey link and realized it went to a site with the title "A Million Little Lies." I did not see that the first time through and do not want to imply that I think Seymour Hirsh is a liar. I just think he's begun to blur the lines between what constitutes Fact - Truth - and Opinion. Posted by: Kristen at April 15, 2006 6:20 PM | Permalink You forgot the blowjob scandal that led to the impeachment of a president. The 'Woodward' then was Ken Star. He left no stone or soiled piece of clothing unturned in pursuit of that blockbuster. Were the Waas detractors here so reticent about pursuing that scandal? Posted by: steve schwenk at April 15, 2006 6:21 PM | Permalink bush's jaw, re: "quoting out of context?" Is that irony? On a post lauding Murray Waas, who won't tell you the names of the people he's quoting or provide links to the documents he's sourcing so you can "check it out", you ask me if I'm quoting out of context? For what? Providing a full paragraph quote from an article with a link so you can "check it out?" In any case, you've avoided my question. Why do you think Warrick wrote that part that I quoted from Warrick's story and provided a link for? What's that sound? Is that a wheel coming off? A Presidency On Life Support What unites these six failed presidencies is each man’s inability to change the subject. Harry Truman could not get the public’s mind off the Korean War. Lyndon Johnson could not get people to focus on anything else except Vietnam and race riots. Richard Nixon could not erase the airing of the Watergate tapes (even as he tried to erase them in fact). Gerald Ford could not ameliorate voter anger over the Nixon pardon. Jimmy Carter became identified with his malaise speech and the Iranian hostage crisis. And George H. W. Bush was a foreign policy president at a time when voters could have cared less. George W. Bush is likely to share the fates of his predecessors for one reason: he can’t change the subject. Bush cannot take the focus away from the aftereffects of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita; Iraq continues to drain U.S. lives and resources with no end in sight; and (thanks to Iraq and the hurricanes) the fiscal crisis facing the next president has come four years early. Even when Bush has tried to refocus attention elsewhere, voters have answered with a resounding "NO!" For example, a Gallup poll taken in July found 62% saying they disapproved of George W. Bush’s Social Security proposals. The latest hot topic among the angry leftist bloggers the Wapo obsesses over is that Bush has already decided to invade Iran. That's how he changes the subject and pulls his moribound presidency out of the grave. And that's why all the generals are coming out of the woodwork now. The PR advance work for the invasion has already begun. Will Waas have anything to say on that? Posted by: steve schwenk at April 15, 2006 6:28 PM | Permalink Sysiphus, Posted by: bush's jaw at April 15, 2006 6:29 PM | Permalink Kristen, Posted by: bush's jaw at April 15, 2006 6:34 PM | Permalink bush's jaw, I didn't quote Warrick on either the "proof" or "emerge" aspect of the story. That's two dodges of the question. dodge what question? both stories by Warrick said evidence was inconclusive. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 15, 2006 6:39 PM | Permalink Why do you think Warrick wrote: According to interviews with dozens of analysts in government, the military, intelligence agencies and academia, Iraq has a reservoir of knowledge, technology and equipment to create weapons of mass destruction. These specialists also agree that Iraq still has a residual arsenal from the 1991 Persian Gulf War, including stocks of chemical agents and possibly biological weapons that were hidden from the United Nations during seven years of inspections. That meant details emerge, interviews with people talking. No PROOF! I give. This is my last post on the subject. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 15, 2006 6:45 PM | Permalink senor schwenk, The public knew the Lewinski scandal was BS. Clinton 's approval actually went up. He never was below 50 after that. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 15, 2006 6:56 PM | Permalink Hot damn, I've made lefty moonbat status, though to be honest, it's a little hard to understand name's logic as to why. It has something to do with Kerry, apparently. But beggers and choosers and all that. BTW: Sisyphus, I didn't answer your question. I supported both our military intervention in Bosnia and our invasion of Afganistan. Now answer mine: Was Saddam's brutal oppression in Iraq sufficient cause to send the U.S. into war? Posted by: Dave McLemore at April 15, 2006 7:34 PM | Permalink name -- The conveniently unsourced officer cited by Tom Bevan in the link you provide extols "dusty and dirty places like Ft. Benning, Ft. Stewart, Ft. Hood, Ft. Campbell and Ft. Bragg," while deriding the generals who now declare that Emperor Rumsfeld has no clothes as "beltway" types, Pentagon desk jockeys far removed from "dust and dirt." Major General Eaton: Commanded training of Iraqi security forces until 2004. These are the guys who paid the price on the scene, in lives and in treasure, for Rumsfeld's brainless and repeated coutermanding of their plans and recommendations. Is that enough dust and dirt for you ? Or for Bevan ? Posted by: Steve Lovelady at April 15, 2006 8:14 PM | Permalink Dave McL: "Was Saddam's brutal oppression in Iraq sufficient cause to send the U.S. into war?" It was not, in my mind, sufficient cause given the risks in 2003. I haven't changed my opinion. At the same time, I'm unwilling to go so far as deny that wasn't part of the rationale (marketing) by the Bush administration for going to war. Steve Lovelady: I agree that the "beltway types" "is a despicable canard." Zinni was the CENTCOM commander, but not "in Iraq." Jay, can you ask Jim Brady if there's any turth to Billmon's conclusions here about today's Wapoo "article" on the festering diseased fever swamp of the left blogosphere? Yes, Jaw, that was funny how Clinton's ratings shot up to 75% after they impeached him. I still laugh about that. Posted by: steve schwenk at April 15, 2006 8:26 PM | Permalink Sorry Steve, you must have me confused with another name. I didn't provide any links to Bevan. In my view the retired generals who are just now coming out to complain are as complicit in the Iraq mess as Rummy and therefore I don't see them as brave whistleblowers or truthtellers, or whatever, as some here do. My apologies to McLemore. I didn't mean to imply you are a moonbat...it was just bad sentence structure on my part. Posted by: name at April 15, 2006 8:35 PM | Permalink Maybe some people think that it's not all that important for the stated reasons to go to war (Saddam has WMD, Saddam is in bed with al-Qaeda) and the clinching reason ("we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud") to be the actual reasons, or even to be true at all. If it doesn't matter because the war is just and necessary, then I could see how all this furor over the rationale for going to war seems absurd and highly unfair. (A variant on this theory: it doesn't matter because Bush went to war with wink, and most Americans saw the wink. They understood that he had many excellent reasons and picked the one that would shut the U.N. up, or sound the best to potential allies, and quiet the press, etc.) That part I can grasp. I don't agree with it; but I can grasp it. What I can't grasp is why, if you hold this view, you then fight tooth and claw against the growing pile of evidence that the books were cooked and the intelligence slanted and the nuclear threat turbo-hyped and the decision to go to war was a foregone conclusion from 2002 on. In the realpolitik world where it doesn't matter what the stated reasons were because the cause is just and the deed necessary, it is precisely Bush's willingness to do such things (and take the heat) that would mark him as a leader fit for the times, tough enough for an era of global terrorism. Here's a man who does what it takes. He finds a way. He doesn't let the cumbersome formalities of reason-giving, of building a case before the eyes of the world, become an obstacle to doing what's right, what's necessary, and what's in American interests. This should be a point of pride among Bush supporters. Instead (as this thread shows) they are being driven crazy by every piece of evidence that comes out showing that, as expected, the stated reasons were not the actual reasons, the intel was slanted to fit a pre-determined conclusion, the facts were fixed around the policy, and the decision was made to go to war regardless of all the formalities. Why do they refuse pride and pick hand-to-hand combat over every fact emerging? I don't know the answer, but my suspicion is that the ultimate reasons are not political but psychological, or let's say they lie within the realm of political psychology. (And here I speak not of individuals but tendencies in the 35-40 percent of the body politic still with the President.) In their view, Bush is "guilty" only of doing what's necessary for the country, even if that means breaking the rules and customs of our democracy, cooking the books, and bullshitting the world. But while his supporters admire him, a true leader, for taking on that guilt, (which they don't see as real guilt) they accept none of it for themselves. Their innocence has to remain undisturbed. Perfect, in fact. This, of course, is impossible. name -- My apologies. In rebutting an especially indefensible post by Jason Van Steenwyk, I incorrectly attributed the original offense to you. That is unforgiveable, and I understand that in such a case all condolences are inadequate. It won't happen again. Posted by: Steve Lovelady at April 15, 2006 9:25 PM | Permalink This is why many consider Billmon (see Daniel Rubin's interview and post about him) the best of the lefty political bloggers: It's not that the kind of left-wing anger the Post describes isn't out there in – it's certainly inside me – but what the Post reporter doesn't seem to comprehend (he wasn't supposed to) is the difference between the anger of those who have absolutely no power, who have only their words as weapons, and the anger of those who wield considerable influence over the party in complete control of the most powerful government in the world. True; and "the liberal media" thesis gives them that we're-out-of-power feeling. Powerlessness corrupts too is an extremely important point for the left to consider. Powerlessness corrupts too is an extremely important point. For whom? Posted by: steve schwenk at April 15, 2006 9:44 PM | Permalink Sorry, Steve. I added: "for the left to consider." In my laundry list above, I forgot to mention the name of the first former general to suggest that Rumsfeld might be better suited to some other line of work. (Me, I suggest money-laundering, or, if he sets his sights a little lower, dry-cleaning.) That former general would be Senator John McCain, an avid supporter of the effort in Iraq, who, as he pointed out yesterday, went on record two years ago with the observation that Rumsfeld was out of his league and in over his head. Here's a fearless prediction: Like the other generals, McCain will be swift-boated for that impertinent assertion. Only in his case, the smear will be delayed. It will occur in the Republican primaries for the 2008 presidential race. You heard it here first.
Posted by: Steve Lovelady at April 15, 2006 9:48 PM | Permalink Jay, you (and Billmon) have touched on a subject dear to my heart. The Right controls the White House, both houses of Congress, the Supreme Court and the majority of state houses in the United States, "and yet many, if not most, conservatives continue to wallow in the mindset of a besieged minority." I can understand the lamentations of the disenfranchised. But the lamentations of the enfranchised ?? What the hell is that about ? "I'm rich, I'm large, I'm in charge, but I'm mad as hell and I'm not taking it anymore." Where does that come from ? I've asked that question of many people, because I am genuinely curious, but I have not run across anyone, Left or Right, who offers a convincing explanation for this truly baffling phenomenon. Posted by: Steve Lovelady at April 15, 2006 10:15 PM | Permalink Let me help you out here, Steve: Rumsfeld under fire over Iraq In defense of McCain, he retired as a Navy Captain. I wonder whether Billmon heard William Sloane Coffin say that on Terry Gorss last week when they re-played an interview after his death. Coffin made that point in a very eloquent, compelling way, using Lord Acton's quote, but not about bloggers of course. But I believe he was speaking to the powerful when he made that point, not the powerless. It is a point that would serve all well to keep in mind, because it appears to me that the bloggers on the right feel every bit as powerless, if not more so, than those on the left. Challenge the legitimacy of their leader to see what I mean. I would have to disagree with you, though, if it is indeed your position, that there are signs that this should be more than something for bloggers to keep in mind, and instead poses a real concern . Because I do not think the left blogsphere is corrupt or powerless. It is the least corrupt instrument of public discourse I am aware of. And it is very powerful for that reason. I suspect that is why the post and the NYT have always had a penchant for portraying us as a bunch of whackjobs. They want us corrupt and powerless. Only then will bloggers cease to pose such a threat. Because the reality is that there are far more corrupt and batshit crazy people present in the stable of major media personalities and in the editorial rooms of major news outlets and on the talk radio shows than can be found among the serious and committed core of bloggers who make up the network of the liberal blogsphere. From Coffin's articulation of the point, my take is that blogging is what stems the corruption of absolute powerlessness. If you're blogging, if you're part of that community and investing your heart and soul, you are taking a step away from absolute powerlessness and the corruption it engenders. You can't judge a blog based on its comments section any more than you can judge a newspaper based on the letters to the editor it receives. I am sure you can appreciate that. I thought the piece was pathetic and juvenile, and crappy journalism, even as a transparently obvious smear job. Glen Greenwald gets into the particulars as to why, beyond what Billmon had to say. Posted by: steve schwenk at April 15, 2006 10:44 PM | Permalink [The left blogosphere] is the least corrupt instrument of public discourse I am aware of. And it is very powerful for that reason. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 15, 2006 11:09 PM | Permalink True enough, Sisyphus. The Navy has no generals. But thanks for reminding me that not only McCain, but also Schwarzkopf, is part of the Take-Rumsfeld-to-the-Nearest-Pond-and-Drown-Him chorus. It's sad, isn't it ? The guy couldn't run a two-car funeral, he's nearing age 80, and yet the fate of the entire U.S. military is in his hands. Not what you want in a battle with an implacable enemy with whom we have yet to come to grips. Especially if you have a son or a daughter in Iraq. Posted by: Steve Lovelady at April 15, 2006 11:17 PM | Permalink A bad leak and a good leak .... Now I am all confused .... Posted by: village idiot at April 15, 2006 11:23 PM | Permalink Rummy is a good/lucky/connected businessman. Worth millions from stake in Gilead, the biotech concern (such a biz journo word) that owned rights to Tamiflu. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 15, 2006 11:29 PM | Permalink And his corruption goes back a long way: On the day of his inauguration as president in 1981, with Mr Rumsfeld on his transition team, Ronald Reagan personally wrote an executive order suspending the head of the US Food and Drug Administration's powers on aspartame, Mr Williams further claimed. One month later Mr Reagan appointed a new head of the regulatory authority, Arthur Hayes, who granted a licence for the sweetener. Wikipedia has more about it .... Posted by: village idiot at April 15, 2006 11:40 PM | Permalink Jaw, the 'anger' thing is a smear. I am sorry you fall for it so readily. They pulled the same thing on Howard Dean for the same reason they are pulling it with the blogs. They are afraid, and they have good reason to be. Why else do a page 1 story on a bunch of angry, chain-smoking former alcohloics who spend their time screaming into the wind to no apparent end? If they really saw the blogs that way, such a story would never have been written, let alone placed on page 1. Yes, people are passionate and very upset. And sure there's anger. To be honest, if what is going on in D.C. and Iraq and with the direction of our country does not make you angry and upset, then I would have to conclude that you are not paying attention, or are blinded by ideology/party loyalty or simply don't care. And sanctimony? Recall that I said "least corrupt." I did not say 'pure as virgin snow.' Anyway, gotta run. Posted by: steve schwenk at April 15, 2006 11:43 PM | Permalink This is 2 years old, but spot on and funny. The unenlightened speak of “failures of intelligence.” But the armchair warrior knows that “intelligence”—the effort of the mind to observe facts, apply reason, and reach conclusions about what is true and what ought to be done—is a delusion, making the mind turn in circles like an ass hitched to a mill. The armchair warrior feels in his hara, or gut, what ought to be done. He is like a warhorse that races into battle, pulling behind him the chariot of logic and evidence. When the people see the magnificent heedlessness of his charge, they cannot help but be carried along. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 15, 2006 11:52 PM | Permalink Geez...No wonder the press corps is incompetent reporting on Iraq - they can take their cue from some of the leading thinkers in the industry, in Mr. Rosen and Lovelady. Sorry it has to fall to me to factcheck the myths that are perpetuated here - but the fact that these myths are perpetuated simply illustrates my point: It's unfounded assumptions which guide the news, and newspeople are hobbled by the baggage of their ignorant assumptions. Myth #1: The generals were screaming for more troops in Iraq and Bushfeld & Co. wouldn't provide them. False. In fact, they took a look at troop levels during the summer and fall of 2003, and Franks and the Secretary consulted with General Abizaid, who was slated to be Franks' successor, to see if Abizaid felt he could use more troops. Abizaid declined on two occasions, stating once, "it would just mean that many more people walking around with rifles who don't understand the culture," and on a second occasion, stating that he can use some more international troops, particularly Muslims, but he didn't want any more American troops, except in a response to a specific security threat or an election. Tommy Franks, the CENTCOM commander prior to Abizaid and the commander of the planning of the Iraq invasion, has stated publicly many times that Rumsfeld provided him with all he needed. His deputy commander, Lt. Gen. DeLong, seconds that account. All are retired now, and are free to state otherwise if they feel that's the case. CENTCOM does not report to the Chief of Staff. CENTCOM reports to the SecDef and the President, directly. The CENTCOM commander is the only commander with standing to request an increase in troop strength in Iraq or anywhere else in theater. No other General - not the CoS of the Army, and not the CJCS, has responsibility to determine troop strength on the ground. And yet the unanimous opinion of all Generals concerned, at the four-star level, is that the US troop levels, in their view at the time, were adequate to the task. General Casey further confirms that all division commanders, "to a man," told him that they had what they needed to get the job done. You can find supporting quotations on my blog here. Myth #2: Bush I could have invaded Iraq and occupied Baghdad in 1991, and chose not to. False. Any such effort would have had to have been supported out of Kuwait, and would have exposed the US flank or rear to Saudi meddling. Further, the force structure of the US Army at the time - mech heavy, with only two light divisions in the whole theater, was wholly unsuited to urban operations. At any rate, the Kuwait City port was trashed by Iraqi looting, and was simply incapable of the kind of throughput a 500,000 soldier, multi-corps mechanized Army would require. Even if it was, the available road networks from Kuwait/Basra up into the interior of the country would have been hard pressed to simultaneously support all those corps. Much of that road network isn't even paved. And this is to say nothing of the legality of any such occupation, nor the political effect, given that a coalition that included Syria and Saudi Arabia never bought into Saddam removal. What the unthinking minions who insist that removing Saddam was even a possibility in 91 totally ignore is that the whole effort was supported out of KKMC in Saudi Arabia, and we relied on Saudi cooperation for everything we did. Myth #3: Zinni commanded CENTCOM in Iraq. Ummm, Steve - let me break this to you gently - CENTCOM is in Tampa, not Iraq. And Zinni retired well before 9/11, and had nothing to do with any of this. But this is illustrative of my larger point - a press corps which cannot discern basic facts such as this is in no position to add value, analysis, or perspective to news events. If you're going to dismiss my posts as "indefensible" without a single substantive criticism, Steve, you'd do well do demonstrate some basic grasp of factual matters. Second, Newbold was J-3 over at the Pentagon. He's in Plans. But it was Franks, not Newbold, who was responsible for planning. Newbold was a staffie, not a commander, at that time - and not in CENTCOM. Myth #4: Bush lost momentum in Afghanistan when he invaded Iraq. Plausible, but not demonstrated. Indeed, General Franks, who as CENTCOM commander was responsible for Afghanistan AND Iraq, felt we could do both, and one fight may complement the other. The CENTCOM commander is on record with that opinion. Much is made of a shortage of Arabic translators, and a divided intelligence effort. But they don't speak Arabic in Afghanistan. So you can try to make that argument - but you'd have to make it past the actual military commander responsible for both fights. In my view, the removal of Saddam is part and parcel of the effort to defang Al Qaeda, and employing a logistic strategy - cutting Al Qaeda off from possible sources of WMD know how and materiel - is vital to that effort.
Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at April 15, 2006 11:53 PM | Permalink Myth #1: The generals were screaming for more troops in Iraq and Bushfeld & Co. wouldn't provide them. Shinseki is perhaps most famous for publicly contradicting the Bush Administration's estimate of the number of troops needed for the Iraq War. By telling a congressional committee that he thought an occupying force of several hundred thousand men would be needed to stablize postwar Iraq, he broke ranks with the Bush Administration's estimate of only 100,000 troops. Both Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense, and Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary, immediately labeled Shinseki's estimates "far off the mark"[1] and "wildly off the mark".[2] But history has proven Shinseki's much higher estimates to be more accurate. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 16, 2006 12:12 AM | Permalink Jason, Tommy Franks may have the opinion we can handle Afghanistan and Iraq effectively at the same time. That does not make it come true. We didn't need to attack Saddam to 'defang' Al Qaeda. We had him on the run in godawful terrain between Afghanistan and Pakistan. So we pulled out troops and sent them to Iraq. Now, the Taliban is on the upsurge, about 100 Americans died in operations against the Taliban and Al Qaeda last year, a significant increase, and Osama is still free and making press statements. Even our own troops think of Enduring Freedom as the Forgotten War. The actions - not the opinions - of the military planners and the current White House don't present much evidence to the contrary. Hy Rothstein, a former Green Beret, was commissioned by the Pentagon to report on the Afghan war. According to an April 3, 2004 New Yorker article, he wrote, " The US failed to adapt to new conditions created by the Taliban's collapse, [the]failure to adjust US operations in line with the post-Taliban change in theater conditions cost the United States some of the fruits of victory and imposed additional, avoidable humanitarian and stability costs on Afghanistan." There should have been some awareness that winning the combat phase is not the end of a war, any war. The pooch has been screwed in Iraq and Afghanistan by what appears to be a weird combination of hubris and incompetance. And you're asking us to to keep trusting the folks who did the screwing. You at least get points for faith, Jason.
Posted by: Dave McLemore at April 16, 2006 1:05 AM | Permalink Heh. You guys probably still think Shinseki's in the chain of command. He's not. He wasn't a commander at all. It's commanders, not staffers, who decide troop levels. You guys keep worshipping at Shinseki's altar, but troop levels weren't his call to make. That was for CENTCOM to work out with Rumsfeld. We didn't need to attack Saddam to 'defang' Al Qaeda. Assumes facts not in evidence. Actually, the argument fails because it totally ignores the desireability of isolating Al Qaeda from outside support. You're confusing Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Al Qaeda wasn't "on the run" in the winter of 01-02. The Taliban were. Now, if you can't tell the difference between the Taliban (a national movement) and Al Qaeda (a global one), you really aren't in much of a position to provide any analysis of what was and was not desireable wrt Iraq. Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at April 16, 2006 1:26 AM | Permalink I am genuinely curious: What is the current thinking on the left as to why Bush would want to deliberately lie/distort/skew intelligence in order to generate a war with Iraq? I have never understood this, especially since he would have known that he would be subsequently embarrassed by the lack of WMD. Posted by: Neuro-conservative at April 16, 2006 1:47 AM | Permalink Well, even beyond that - why would Clinton, Albright, and Kennedy have deliberately lied/distorted/skewed intelligence in order to justify Desert Fox? Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at April 16, 2006 2:44 AM | Permalink The debate has gone awfully far afield. The OP is on Murray Waas. I posted an extensive critique of Waas's work, and asserted that the man failed at a basic task of reporting in that he understands neither the timeline (the critical information he's claiming was kept from the American people was in fact declassified in 2002) nor the background (the dissent over the nature of the aluminum tubes was read into the Congressional record in October of that year, and already factored in Congress's decision to authorize war). No one has yet bothered to post a substantive rebuttal to my criticisms. No one has come to Waas's defense at all. Funny how someone who warrants their own PressThink profile and whom Rosen extolls as "a lion" all of a sudden doesn't warrant a defense on the merits, eh? Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at April 16, 2006 2:51 AM | Permalink Who's confused? How precisely did invading Iraq isolate Al Qaeda from outside support? Were that the objective, we'd have invaded Pakistan. It's why we invaded Afghanistan, Jason. That's where Osama was. He wasn't global. He had safe haven from the Taliban. Remember? When the US and coalition partners drove the Taliban from power and out of the cities, did Osama hang around in the cities? Or was he driven to the mountains? If you're content with pontifications of over-simplified and erroneous accounts of recent history we're all familiar with, that's your choice. But you're far too bright for that. But brighter minds than mine - and people more familiar with military policy than you - readily acknowledge we had Al Qaeda's leadership on the run in Afghanistan -- and then diverted our troops, intel and money to invade Iraq. You can look it up. Posted by: Dave McLemore at April 16, 2006 2:59 AM | Permalink Osama wasn't global? That would be news to some 3,000 dead in the United States, and others in Indonesia, Bali, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, The Philippines, Israel, Spain, Morocco, France, Somalia, Tanzania, Sudan, Pakistan, and everywhere else Osama bin Ladin and his minions have actually carried out terrorist attacks. Sorry, Dave, but trying to argue that Al Qaeda and Osama are not global is simply moronic. Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at April 16, 2006 3:09 AM | Permalink Ah, here's the sainted General Zinni, former CENTCOM commander (that's in TAMPA, Steve), on the Iraqi threat: Retired Gen. Anthony Zinni, who now complains that President Bush cherry-picked pre-war Iraq weapons intelligence and misled the country into going to war, warned six years ago that Saddam Hussein's WMD program was the biggest threat to U.S. interests in the Middle East. "Iraq remains the most significant near-term threat to U.S. interests in the Arabian Gulf region," Zinni told Congress on March 15, 2000. "Despite claims that WMD efforts have ceased," the general-turned-war critic said, "Iraq probably is continuing clandestine nuclear research, retains stocks of chemical and biological munitions, and is concealing extended-range SCUD missiles, possibly equipped with CBW [chem-bio-weapons] payloads," Zinni said, in quotes unearthed Friday by the American Thinker blog. Courtesy of a Countercolumn reader who sends it along via Newsmax, I think. Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at April 16, 2006 3:22 AM | Permalink Here's what Zinni actually told the Senate Armed Services committee, verbatim: Finally, despite damage inflicted by Operation DESERT FOX strikes, Iraq has not forgone its missile and WMD programs and continues to resist the reintroduction of Uninited Nations arms inspectors... Oops. I guess that's that for the "Iraq was no threat to us" line. By the way, Dave, since you're the one arguing that the spread of Democracy only became an issue after information on WMD was challenged, you'll be interested to know that the spread of democracy as a stabilizing force in the middle east was part and parcel of the CENTCOM strategery, even under those neocon radicals of the Clinton Administration. Here's Zinni: "Other interests include the support and attainment of a comprehensive and lasting Middle East peace, general stability in this volatile region, and the promotion of democratic values throughout the region." Further: "Combined education is one of our most notable engagement activities featuring our IMET programs. IMET seeks to expose the militaries of regional states to the U.S. military and our concept of a professional force respectful of human rights and civil authority." Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at April 16, 2006 5:17 AM | Permalink Saying Iraq is a threat is not advocating the invasion of Iraq. i see no Bushies responded to Jay's excellent points here. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 16, 2006 12:11 PM | Permalink Saying Iraq is a threat is not advocating the invasion of Iraq. i see no Bushies responded to Jay's excellent points here. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 16, 2006 12:12 PM | Permalink Nixon still had 26% approval rating in April 74. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 16, 2006 12:28 PM | Permalink I know you're busy making straw men and all that, Jason, but you've answered a question no one asked. Obviously al Qaeda's message - and funding - have tapped into fundamentalist Muslim outrage throughout the world. I'm not convinced that al Qaeda's globalization was a key reason to deplete the hunt for Osama and invade Iraq in 2003. Particularly when the scope and power of its global outreach increased after the fall of Baghdad. We had him on the run in Afghanistan, we had disrupted his organization and safe haven there - and then diverted our troops and treasure to take out Saddam. Why? It's a question to continue to evade with straw man attacks. Spreading democracy? Lord, man, we've included fostering the spread of democracy in virtually every U.S. policy program since 1945. So I'll ask again: why start a war in Iraq when we had a perfectly good - and successful - war in Afghanistan that was really striking a blow against international terrorism? Posted by: Dave McLemore at April 16, 2006 12:29 PM | Permalink To those who ask why the retired generals now eviscerating Rumsfeld didn't speak up while still in uniform -- which seems a particular obsession of Jason -- the answer is, it's against the law. (Duh-uh!) Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice calls for a court martial for any commissioned officer who "uses contemptuous words against the president, the vice president, Congress, the secretary of defense" and/or other federal or state officials. Thus, as Christopher Gelpi puts it, "They've been careful not to violate the core tenet of civilian control -- none of them has said these things publically while on active duty." Which might explain why Lt General Newbold wrote in Time magazine that he was writing "with the encouragement of some still in positions of military leadership." They can't say it, so they delegated him. Indeed, as I read Article 88, anyone in the military even daring to speak up right here at Press Think in sympathy with Newbold, Zinni, Swannick et al. is also breaking the law. (No exemptions for Press Think contributors in Article 88 -- not even for Jason.) Which in turn might explain why you read here what you read here. By law, Jason has only two options: To say nothing at all, or to twist himself into a pretzel defending Rumsfeld. I extend my sympathies. That's a terrible position to be in. Meantime, I see from channeling Jonah Goldberg on CNN that the argument on the biolabs has devolved into, "Was he lying through his teeth, or was he just given bad intelligence ?" So it has come to this: "He was misled, again and again and again," once a worst-case scenario, has become the default (i.e., best-case) scenario. That can't be fun.
Posted by: Steve Lovelady at April 16, 2006 12:30 PM | Permalink Jason: Sorry, Dave, but trying to argue that Al Qaeda and Osama are not global is simply moronic. Jason again: Actually, the argument [that the war in Iraq was a distraction from the fight against terrorism - edited for clarification] fails because it totally ignores the desireability of isolating Al Qaeda from outside support. Now, I am even more confused, Jason. You assert that Al-Qaeda is global, and also in the same breath claim that the Iraq war is desirable because it isolates Al-Qaeda from outside support. Now tell me how that makes any sense, unless you are using Iraq interchangeably with "the United States, (and others in) Indonesia, Bali, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, The Philippines, Israel, Spain, Morocco, France, Somalia, Tanzania, Sudan, Pakistan". Now, that is a lot of countries to invade, occupy, defang, democratize, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., .... (27 etc.s). Also, let us know if, pretty soon, all these generals that are being critical of the war (effort) will qualify for the moniker "drooling morons" along with the pentagon press corps? Afternote: It is a relief to see that the wheels are finally coming off the 'military can do no wrong' and 'criticizing the troops is unpatriotic', but the 'politicians and press are morons' meme. Posted by: village idiot at April 16, 2006 12:38 PM | Permalink I am genuinely curious: What is the current thinking on the left as to why Bush would want to deliberately lie/distort/skew intelligence in order to generate a war with Iraq? I have never understood this, especially since he would have known that he would be subsequently embarrassed by the lack of WMD. Bush may have believed that Iraq would quickly become a Democracy. With a stabilized, Democrat Iraq then few would need to examine pre-war rationale. Bush would be defending his position from strength. We create our own reality ... But some people argued before the invasion that Iraq wouldn't become a democracy in one generation. that it's incredibly naive to think that you can remove a brutal dictator and democracy would fill the void. a dictator generally follows another, especially if you don't have enough troops to provide security and you disband the Iraqi Army. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 16, 2006 1:14 PM | Permalink I am genuinely curious: What is the current thinking on the left as to why Bush would want to deliberately lie/distort/skew intelligence in order to generate a war with Iraq? I can't speak for "the left," since it hardly exists (it isn't "the left" that has fled Bush in droves since the election, but rather the center) but here's a wild guess: Daddy didn't get him, so I will, and I'll get away with it because I'll tie him to 9/11, evidence be damned. And then Cheney will get off my back ? Not a bad strategy -- except for the fact that it leaves the guys really responsible for 9/11 large and in charge. It's not nice to fool either Mother Nature or the American people -- and it appears that the latter are beginning to put the pieces together, what with Bush's approval ratings hovering somewhere between Hirohito's and Typhoid Mary's. Let's hope. Actions do have consequences.
Posted by: Steve Lovelady at April 16, 2006 1:45 PM | Permalink Steve, some writer - I forget who - calls that the "Operation Inigo Montoya" theory. Posted by: Dave McLemore at April 16, 2006 2:50 PM | Permalink "If not personally contemptuous, ad-verse criticism of one of the officials or legislatures named in the article in the course of a political discussion, even though emphatically expressed, may not be charged as a violation of the article." From Article 88 Posted by: SteveIsNotALawyer at April 16, 2006 3:55 PM | Permalink I love Maryscott O'Connor. She's brilliant, hysterical, poetic and not afraid to get right in your face. She also has the brass to write about topice that most bigger bloggers on the left wouldn't dare. Case in point: Darfur in the Post (hell...this might be the first time a liberal's thoughts about what's happening there ever appeared in the mainstream press). Is she angry? Yes. But it's a compassionate anger. A deep felt anger. An emotional anger. Unlike any anger coming from anywhere on the right...or the left for that matter. As for the argument - I guess - that she doesn't represent the online left. Bullshit. There's a little bit of Maryscott in nearly every single bigger blogger on the left (but mostly just the rage part). Now I completely agree that this article was most probably revenge by the Post on the liberal bloggers...but it could have been worse...instead of profiling someone whose every word lives and breathes with humanity...they could have just gone to the biggest blogs on the left in any given week and used stuff from the posts without having to go into the comments. Does anyone care what Maryscott thinks of the article about her? A reader at My Left Wing writes, "I'm scared to read it. Please, someone, tell me it's okay." Maryscott replies, "It's better than okay. It's real." (link) Posted by: Ron Brynaert at April 16, 2006 4:24 PM | Permalink Since Brynaert went OT to do some shilling for Maryscott O'Connor, I'd say if you're tallking about blogging brilliance, this guy makes Maryscott look like a dimwit. Posted by: name at April 16, 2006 6:27 PM | Permalink "SteveIsNotALawyer" And for that we here at the Kolson-Lovelady house give thanks daily. ;-) Posted by: Ann Kolson at April 16, 2006 10:16 PM | Permalink Steve is also not a psychologist: Daddy didn't get him, so I will, and I'll get away with it because I'll tie him to 9/11, evidence be damned. And then Cheney will get off my back ? Yeesh. Posted by: Neuro-conservative at April 16, 2006 10:37 PM | Permalink Last week I had an interesting phone conversation with a trusted contact of mine. He's a Vietnam vet and career military officer, a proud conservative, a strident Bush supporter and a capable defender of recent U.S. foreign policy. A real gentleman. Smart guy too. After we'd conducted our business, he brought up that earlier that morning he'd heard about the two most recent generals to come out against Rumsfeld. He had knowledge of both men, apparently, and told me things about the previous four, too. Anyway, the news changed him. He said he looked across at his wife and said "My position has shifted. (The war) was a mistake." It was a longer conversation than that, and his thinking is far more nuanced than this summary makes it sound. But I suspect this man's shifting position is going to affect the thinking of many people around him (he's well-known and well respected). Ultimately, I believe his simple statement is going to be far more persuasive to far more people than all of Jason's tenacious rear-guard rhetoric combined. I suspect we're going to have to keep haggling over every piece of punctuation for some time yet, but I think the game is ending. I don't know how it's going to be applied in politics or our national consciousness yet, but I believe the shift from trust to distrust has already occurred, and that we'll be "discovering" this bit by bit over the coming weeks and months. People who once embraced the claims, symbols and rhetoric of the Bush White House and its supporters are distancing themselves from them. As my friend said, "It was a mistake." I offer no polls, no statistics, no claim to objective fact. Posted by: Daniel Conover at April 16, 2006 11:18 PM | Permalink Steve, You know, for a guy who had to be reminded that a Navy officer didn't retire as a "general," and that CENTCOM isn't in Iraq, you're awfully confident about what Article 88 says and who it applies to. But, you know, that's just further evidence that we need some more veterans in the newsroom - or at least SOMEONE with some basic factual grasp. First of all, as someone pointed out, Article 88 does not prohibit debate or criticism of officials "even if emphatically stated." Second of all, if you actually understood what you were talking about, you would also know that I am not subject to the UCMJ in any case. Glad you're not editing newspieces on the military, Steve. Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at April 16, 2006 11:25 PM | Permalink I am genuinely curious: What is the current thinking on the left as to why Bush would want to deliberately lie/distort/skew intelligence in order to generate a war with Iraq? I think it's one of the great mysteries of our era, and I hope that someday, with a bi-partisan balance restored to Congress, we'll get a meaningful answer. Today all we have is speculation, some of it well-informed, some less so. The fact is, we don't see the whole board yet. To begin to reveal it, one must produce subpoenas. Posted by: Daniel Conover at April 16, 2006 11:28 PM | Permalink You assert that Al-Qaeda is global, and also in the same breath claim that the Iraq war is desirable because it isolates Al-Qaeda from outside support. Well, that's pretty easy. If part of the strategy to contain Al Qaeda is to prevent it from obtaining WMD technology - and I doubt anyone would argue that it isn't - then there are are only a few places that simultaneously have WMD know-how, a motive for vengeance against the US, the publicly stated vow to "burn half of Israel," who have invited Ayman Al Zawahiri to come to a conference, who have actually funded Al Qaeda-linked groups in the Philippines, who have had operatives meeting with Al Qaeda agents at a chemical plant in Sudan, who maintained one of the WTC bombers from 1993 on the state payroll, who sheltered and succored Abu Nidal, Abu Abbas, and Abu Musab al Zarqawi, and who have maintained "seed-stocks" for a biological weapons program according to the CIA, and which had already detonated a dirty bomb. If Al Qaeda were going to obtain WMD materiel or know-how from anyone, Iraq, by anyone's measure, would have to go to the top of the list. Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at April 16, 2006 11:45 PM | Permalink Steve: To those who ask why the retired generals now eviscerating Rumsfeld didn't speak up while still in uniform -- which seems a particular obsession of Jason -- the answer is, it's against the law. Well, we're all entitled to our own opinion. But we're not entitled to our own facts. So while Steve is busy misunderstanding the UCMJ and moving commands and commanders around the map, can anyone point out to me where I posited the question why these generals didn't speak up while in uniform? Seems to me Steve is ascribing words to me that I never said or wrote. Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at April 16, 2006 11:52 PM | Permalink There are are only a few places that simultaneously have WMD know-how, a motive for vengeance against the US, the publicly stated vow to "burn half of Israel," who have invited Ayman Al Zawahiri to come to a conference, who have actually funded Al Qaeda-linked groups in the Philippines, who have had operatives meeting with Al Qaeda agents at a chemical plant in Sudan, who maintained one of the WTC bombers from 1993 on the state payroll, who sheltered and succored Abu Nidal, Abu Abbas, and Abu Musab al Zarqawi, and who have maintained "seed-stocks" for a biological weapons program according to the CIA, and which had already detonated a dirty bomb. Aw, no meeting with Atta in Prague? Jason you disappoint. But give Jason this much: he writes in his own name, and I respect that a lot, considering how anonymous attack dogs like "nuero-conservative" operate. Oh, and welcome, Ann! Nah, I don't put a lot of stock in the Prague thing. Maybe it happened and maybe it didn't (I'd guess 50/50 either way). My position has never been that Iraq was behind 9/11. Possibly the 1993 bombing (it's already established by CBS News that he awarded a job and a house to one of the perps), but not 9/11. Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at April 17, 2006 12:07 AM | Permalink How's about this? Howard Kurtz in his column today: After a quarter-century in the journalistic shadows, Murray Waas is getting his day in the sun. In fact, I've never seen Waas on television. Jason, why would you quote endlessly what Generals Zinni, Batiste and others did say while in uniform -- if other than to make the point by example that when they were in uniform they did not say what they are saying now ? In fact, sometimes they said the opposite. I mean, that is your point, isn't it ? That they have changed their story (not that there's anything wrong with that) . And Steve's point, if I read it right, is that they were at that time under constraints that no longer apply. Neither point is especially explosive, or even original ... so what's with all the bluster, bombast and righteous indignation ? I'm not trying to be cute. I'm trying to be curious. Posted by: Ann Kolson at April 17, 2006 10:41 AM | Permalink Waas has appeared on TheYoungTurks.com, and he's very low-key, reserved. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 17, 2006 10:57 AM | Permalink Jay:"What I can't grasp is why, if you hold this view, you then fight tooth and claw against the growing pile of evidence that the books were cooked and the intelligence slanted and the nuclear threat turbo-hyped and the decision to go war was a foregone conclusion from 2002 on... " Jay please clarify: 1. On "the books were cooked". Are you refering to the publically released "Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs" report [released October 2002]? Or are you refering to the NIE that it was based on? Were either of these "books" cooked? If not what "books" were cooked"? 2. On "the intelligence slanted" what specifically are you refering too? In other words, let's say that in every Iraq/WMD speech the administration read word for word from the publically released "Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs" report or the then still classified NIE Key Judgments. Is your claim that the intelligence would still be "slanted"? Speaking as someone who I think your comment was intended to reach I think your post was interesting and would like to see you expand on it in greater detail. I don't expect to agree but I do think the exercise would bring great clarity to the debate. Posted by: Reg Jones at April 17, 2006 11:41 AM | Permalink Ann Kolson. The reason for the quotes from the generals is the same as the reason for the quotes from the Clinton administration ca. 1998 stoutly talking about the threat from Iraq's WMD.... If they were telling lies then, why hasn't anybody accused them of telling lies, then or now? The unstated point [it seems so obvious that it is frequently left unsaid, it being unnecessary to say it] is that somebody is lying like a rug. If you claim principle and are upset about one case but not the other, you are busted. You're not objecting on principle, but are a partisan hack. That's the part that ought to, but generally does not, go without saying. Perhaps we could get Zinni, or one of the others, to explain why he said--and some of them were speaking to Congress, which means possibly under oath--things which they knew not to be true then, but are telling the truth now. Keep in mind that Rumsfeld has annoyed a lot of the brass by trying to make major changes in how the DOD works and how the services are organized, equipped, trained and tasked. It would be silly to pretend that this does not have the potential to motivate some of the resentment. I take no sides on that debate, only say that resentment is inevitable, and that its appearance here cannot be ruled out. Posted by: Richard Aubrey at April 17, 2006 12:09 PM | Permalink If Al Qaeda were going to obtain WMD materiel or know-how from anyone, Iraq, by anyone's measure, would have to go to the top of the list. By anyone's measure? perhaps you mean by anyone who inhabits the right wing parallel universe? Higher than Pakistan? Iran, or North Korea, or many of the former soviet republics in central asia? Your long list of suspicious contacts taken out-of-context proves nothing. The dossier on any one of a dozen leaders in the middle east / Africa would read no different. Posted by: village idiot at April 17, 2006 12:21 PM | Permalink richard aubrey -- All that you say is evident. But I was responding to Jason's disingenuous "can anyone point out to me where I posited the question why these generals didn't speak up while in uniform?" He didn't posit it directly, but by quoting from them endlessly from prior years he is clearly raising the question, why didn't they say then what they say now? And it's a perfectly legitimate question for him (or anyone) to raise, so I don't understand why he's dancing away from it -- unless that's an attempt to draw attention away from something else. I'm new here, & maybe this sort of counting the number of angels occupying the head of a pin is par for the course. But to a fresh eye, it just seems silly. Posted by: Ann Kolson at April 17, 2006 1:56 PM | Permalink The reason for the quotes from the generals is the same as the reason for the quotes from the Clinton administration ca. 1998 stoutly talking about the threat from Iraq's WMD.... If they were telling the truth then, why wasn't it the truth later? Talking heads and pundits are always mouthing off in congress and /or on TV. The public realizes that it is mostly hypothetical and makes for good time-pass. If it ever came to that, I do not believe the public even minds military actions based on incomplete / bad information as long as the cost to us is not high (aerial bombing runs, for example). There are all kinds of low-level military actions going on at any point in time. On the other hand, if you are going to start a real war and invade/occupy a country, the accuracy/completeness threshold is a lot, lot higher. That is common sense. You guys are arguing that the thresholds for real war are the same as the ones for no-fly zone sorties at 30,000 feet. The myriad intelligence agencies that operate with taxpayer money produce thousands of pages of information every day; some of it good, but most of it useless. That politicians use that information selectively to manipulate public opinion is nothing new. What is different now is that the administration, with its actions on the Iraq war, crossed the rubicon that was never meant to be crossed. This is what an increasingly irate public is learning by the day now, and why the polls are sagging. It is not that the public expects politicians not to play games, but in a perverse manner, they feel that the unwritten rules, which are meant to prevent real damage to America, were broken by the Bush administration. Many in the civil and military cadres who have operated under the old assumption that the line would not be crossed are realizing that they have unwittingly (or maybe semi-wittingly) enabled the debacle that continues to unfold in Iraq, and they are finding it increasingly difficult to live with that knowledge. Posted by: village idiot at April 17, 2006 2:16 PM | Permalink I'm new here, & maybe this sort of counting the number of angels occupying the head of a pin is par for the course. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 17, 2006 2:30 PM | Permalink Osama Bin Laden is free? Really? Have you seen him out and about? Shopping at Fortnum and Mason for picnic baskets? Posing for NBC at NASCAR races? Singing Karaoke in Seoul? Addressing troop rallies in Kabul? Organizing extermination raids in Darfur? Getting financing in Riyadh? Or is he stuck in a cave in North Pakistan, afraid to meet anybody new, tying down his most loyal subordinates to protect his location, and communicating rarely through sanitized tapes that call for truce? Osama is being held, just not in custody. Forced to watch his jihad getting destroyed in detail without the capacity to do anything about it. While he waits in his cave for death, Bin Laden's legacy is eroding before his eyes. Osama is not in prison, he is in hell. Posted by: Patrick Lasswell at April 17, 2006 2:46 PM | Permalink so what's with all the bluster, bombast and righteous indignation? I'm new here, & maybe this sort of counting the number of angels occupying the head of a pin is par for the course. But to a fresh eye, it just seems silly. Oh, Ann Kolson, you are welcome indeed. If you never add another word, you've won my heart with the observations above. Posted by: Dave McLemore at April 17, 2006 2:58 PM | Permalink Jason wrote: My position has never been that Iraq was behind 9/11. Possibly the 1993 bombing (it's already established by CBS News that he awarded a job and a house to one of the perps), but not 9/11. (emphasis added) Jason wrote "established by CBS News" !?!?!?! That is par for the course on most blogged debate. i meant the comments. but they're tempting to debate. Have you seen him out and about? Shopping at Fortnum and Mason for picnic baskets? Posing for NBC at NASCAR races? Singing Karaoke in Seoul? Addressing troop rallies in Kabul? Organizing extermination raids in Darfur? Getting financing in Riyadh? Have we ever seen UBL at Fortnum or Mason? Even in the 90s? Posted by: bush's jaw at April 17, 2006 3:02 PM | Permalink Mr. Lasswell, your idea of fun may not be North Waziristan; but our good buddy bin Laden takes a different view. Posted by: Alice Marshall at April 17, 2006 3:08 PM | Permalink I laugh every time I read some comment by someone who just "knows" that Bush lied, cooked the books, manipulated intelligence, etc. This "knowledge" is imparted by a few carefully selected leaks/memos by those wanting to manipulate public opinion. How easily some are swayed, but so what? Equally hilarious are those who think a few subpoenas will clear it all up. These people have obviously not been paying attention to the continual special counsels, special prosecutors, etc. etc. that have been a fact of public life since Nixon. Both Republicans and Democrats have been "investigated" but what has been the fruit of all these taxpayer-finance "investigations"? Some midlevel operatives have fallen on their swords for the cause. What a joke. These "investigations" give partisans a chance to bloviate and score points, the press a chance to earn their Watergate spurs, but the public tunes them out as partisan hit jobs. I don't expect to live long enough to find out what really happened in the run up to the Iraq invasion. The WH documents need to be declassified. There are mountains of untranslated documents that we captured from Iraq when we invaded. There is also some juicy stuff in the archives of Russia, France, the UN (Oil for Food anyone?)and probably Iran. Not to mention the CIA and other intelligence agencies, the State Department, et. al. Anyone who says they just "know" what happened is a either a fool or just wants to screw George Bush. Murray Waas is the left's Rush Limbaugh, and I say power to him, but that doesn't mean he any more credibility than Limbaugh. Waas (and Limbaugh) delivers what his public wants. As a student of history, I know we don't "know" what happened, and won't know for decades, if then. Posted by: My Name Is URL at April 17, 2006 3:27 PM | Permalink Reg Jones: In reply to your question, what do I mean by the books were cooked? I offer you excerpts from How Bush Got It Wrong by Thomas Powers in the New York Review of Books (Sep. 2004.) It's a review of the Report on the US Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. (Unfortunately, the essay is subscribers only, so I offer here substantial sections of it.) His thesis is: there's only one way the CIA and the NIE could have been so wrong; they were responsive to what the Bush White House wanted. I agree with this judgment. Here are some passages. Powers is well aware that no one said they were "pressured." That's not the way it works, he says. ...The basic sin came in many varieties—ignoring evidence, misrepresenting evidence, exaggerating evidence, overstating the evidence, going beyond the evidence, interpreting some evidence as strong when it was weak, sometimes even reaching conclusions without any real evidence at all. The report reaches 117 separate conclusions about the October 2002 NIE and other matters relating to prewar intelligence about Iraq, and it is fair to say that almost every one contains a more or less stinging rebuke of the CIA. The report does not say, but unmistakably implies with persuasive detail, that the exaggerations, overstatements, and misreadings of the CIA's estimate writers all fail in one direction—describing Iraq as more dangerous than it really was... Alice, I'm pretty sure that Osama's idea of a good time is: To drive your enemies before you, burn their cities, and to hear the lamentations of their women. I'm noting he hasn't done much of that of late, either. bj, Yeah, I'm sure that Osama is a serious OpenBSD hacker who is positive of his internet security and attached to a fat pipe. Also, all of his followers are downloading the latest 3.9 upgrades and staying absolutely mum about all the great poetical advice OBL is posting on their chatrooms. Or maybe you should put down the pipe... Posted by: Patrick Lasswell at April 17, 2006 4:09 PM | Permalink I laugh every time I read some comment by someone who just "knows" that Bush lied What do you do when you conetmplate the alternative to his having lied, wet your pants? Posted by: steve schwenk at April 17, 2006 4:11 PM | Permalink My Name is Abigail, but the public tunes them out as partisan hit jobs check out this Pew survey. Or can we trust Pew (those left-wing hacks) or should we wait a few decades for the correct Pew survey? Posted by: bush's jaw at April 17, 2006 4:15 PM | Permalink Patrick, you didn't answer my question. when did UBL ever pose for NBC at Nascar events? Posted by: bush's jaw at April 17, 2006 4:20 PM | Permalink Bush's Jaw: Armored corps do not do manhunts. You'd probably have us repeat the Mohammad Farah Aidid fiasco. Silliness! In order to make the capture of Osama Bin Ladin the decisive point of the campaign, you have to believe that Osama Bin Ladin is the center of gravity of the Al Qaeda organization - or more precisely under maneuver warfare theory, Osama is their critical vulnerability against which we should focus all available combat power. Pardon me, but that's just stupid. That's like trying to get Derek Jeter out by pitching to Gehrig. We can capture or kill Osama bin Ladin tomorrow, and it would accomplish nothing more than wetting our pants in a dark suit. We'd get a warm feeling for a while, but it wouldn't stop Al Qaeda, and it wouldn't degrade their capabilities by much, if any. Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at April 17, 2006 4:58 PM | Permalink Still waiting for someone to mount to a substantive defense of Waas's reporting in light of my (and Seixon's) critique. (listening to the sound of crickets) Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at April 17, 2006 5:09 PM | Permalink The "Never Ending Argument" indeed. 337 comments so far. No more than forty of them have actually mentioned Murray Waas. Jason Van Steenwyk's post of April 15th, 2:29am, makes some decent counterpoints to the original thesis, and if no one else gets around to squaring the differences, I'll go wake myself up from being dead and get to it myself. Posted by: A.J. Liebling at April 17, 2006 5:30 PM | Permalink Jason, so UBL is not the center of gravity? and UBL is not a critical vulnerability? So if we hunt Osama, we would have the same outcome as Aidid in Somalia. Now why doesn't that kind of thinking follow with us going into Afghanistan or Iraq, if it is all doomed as Black Hawk Down? What is like trying to get Jeter by pitching to Gehrig? Attack Iraq when the folks behind 9/11 were in Afghanistan. Oh I forgot UBL is not the center of gravity. So now your argument is that since we haven't captured UBL, we should give up on him since it wouldn't degrade Al Qaeda. So who are we fighting in this War of Terror (i think the name has changed a few times) Islamo Facists, Muslim extremists who are Al Qaeda but not Osama? AJ, Please wake up from the dead and tell us please, we're slow. Don't be a tease. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 17, 2006 5:39 PM | Permalink Excuse the horn, but the Pulitzers are out, and the Washington Post won big. Did anyone see Wonkette? BREAKING: ROBIN GIVHAN WON A PULITZER! She won for criticism. uh oh, Steno Sue. even that mean David Finkel who profiled Maryscott. Can you hear the bloodboiling on the left side of the blogosphere? Posted by: bush's jaw at April 17, 2006 6:11 PM | Permalink bush's jaw, The finger points to the moon, you look exclusively at 9/11. The relevant lesson from 9/11 was, is, and will continue to be that allowing rogue states to conduct war on free people by using terror organizations invites attacks. Afghanistan under the Taliban was a rogue state that hosted Al Queda. Iraq under the Saddam Hussein was a rogue state that repeatedly and consistently refused to comply with its treaty obligations and hosted terrorist organizations including elements of Al Queda. Waiting for the next rogue state to attack us directly or indirectly was, is, and will continue to be unacceptable to the electorate of the United States and so attacks on both countries were approved by Congress. The winning strategy for the United States is freedom. Killing figureheads is not a way we win lasting victories, the oppresive conditions that allow dictators and warlords to thrive wash away the success with the next tide. We want lasting peace so we work to make lasting freedom. Experience has also shown, that wishing, singing, and trusting in the UN does not create lasting freedom, but putting boots on the groud sometimes does. Posted by: Patrick Lasswell at April 17, 2006 6:50 PM | Permalink The winning strategy for the United States is freedom ah Let's lob some freedom at terrorists. (But not at UBL, Jason?) Why is it that right winger always pull in the UN in these arguments? Has anyone here mentioned the UN? The US is now in the business of Minority Report. Judge Lasswell, I trust you will decide on which rogue state (or moon) to attack next. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 17, 2006 7:00 PM | Permalink Still waiting for someone to mount to a substantive defense of Waas's reporting in light of my (and Seixon's) critique. Well, I'd imagine that you are. I certainly would be. The minutes must be just ticking by. Posted by: Ann Kolson at April 17, 2006 7:32 PM | Permalink "The reason for the quotes from the generals is the same as the reason for the quotes from the Clinton administration ca. 1998 stoutly talking about the threat from Iraq's WMD.... Perhaps you've heard of the concept of new data coming into play? Or maybe not. By 2003 the picture was much clearer, yet disregarded deliberately. That's why Clinton and 1998 is irrelevant to 2003. Posted by: George Boyle at April 17, 2006 8:23 PM | Permalink Armored corps do not do manhunts. Right, Jason. Instead, you send them to Iraq and track down Saddam. Which is what the 4th ID (Mech) did. And more power to them. Or you send armor to run patrols. As well as MPs and water purification specialists. Every cook and baker a warrior, eh? We took a perfectly fine, well-trained and lethal military and turned them into traffic cops and trainers. Which may be why six retired generals are a bit pissed. Maj. Gen. John Batiste, who commanded the Army's First Infantry Division in Iraq, a lifelong Republican, said his criticism of Rumsfeld is not about politics. It's about protecting the troops on the ground and about winning the war. As for hunting down Osama bin Laden - we didn't make that up as a cause for war in Afghanistan, Jason. George Bush did. We went there to destabilize the Taliban, he said, deprive al Qaeda of a power base and hunt you-know-who. Now, you say, he's not that important (though earlier he was, to you, the emblem of global terrorism). It's hard to keep up with where you move the goal posts. In October 2004, The Atlantic carried an article on the hunt for bin Laden. Peter Bergin made these points: Finding bin Laden remains of utmost importance for three reasons. First, there is the matter of justice for the 3,000 people who died in the 9/11 attacks, and for the hundreds of other victims of al-Qaeda attacks around the world. Second, every day that bin Laden remains at liberty is a propaganda victory for al-Qaeda. Third, although bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri don't exert day-to-day control over al-Qaeda, according to Roger Cressey, a former senior U.S. counterterrorism official, they do continue to supply "broad strategic guidance" for the group's actions, and for those of its affiliates. Now you may wish bin Laden was marginalized. It would be good if it was true and it would certainly help explain why the White House pulled troops and money spent on tracking down bin Laden to fight a brilliantly conducted war and a miserable peace in Iraq. But facts are stubborn things. Posted by: Dave McLemore at April 17, 2006 8:52 PM | Permalink As for your analysis of Waas's reporting, there were some intriguing questions but it seems you focused heavily on the fact that Waas was not the first to report the information. I don't think Jay said he was. More that he put the pieces of the story together that shed significant light on the Big Story, in Jay's phrase. If I'm wrong, someone will correct me. Posted by: Dave McLemore at April 17, 2006 8:57 PM | Permalink Oh, and the Atlantic piece is here. My HTML skills leave much to be desired. Posted by: Dave McLemore at April 17, 2006 9:01 PM | Permalink Declaring bin Laden irrelevant is key in a shifting the burden fallacy. He's relevant though, so that's still a problem. Posted by: George Boyle at April 17, 2006 9:29 PM | Permalink I didn't want to touch on that circular armor corps nuttiness, (bad for hunting UBL, good for Afghanistan and Iraq.) Terrorism isn't a job solely for the military. This is a quote from a sage old speculator, who was slimed as a lEEEEberal. "How can we escape from the trap that the terrorists have set us. Only by recognizing that the war on terrorism cannot be won by waging war. We must, of course, protect our security; but we must also correct the grievances on which terrorism feeds. ... Crime requires police work, not military action." Judge Lasswell, I forgot to mention that freedom has been on the march for few years in Iraq. How is that working? Our troops don't need body armor, just pack some freedom in their BDUs and line freedom in their Humvees. That ought to protect them from IEDs. The problem with the Plame leak investigation is that we are fighting, debating somewhat arcane pre-war rationale, angels on the head of a pin. Don't get me wrong, I follow every twist and turn, and I think it's an important investigation. But in July 2003, when the WH went full court press on the Wilsons, WE KNOW THERE WERE NO WMDS in Iraq at the time. There are no WMDs in Iraq today. Why didn't they hold a press conference with selected NIE stuff to denounce Wilson? A trip to Niger is nepotism? Good Lord, when didn't Val send Joe to some place nice like Rome.) Whether Bush was wrong about Iraq by exaggeration, deception or by incompetence, he is still wrong. He can blame the CIA or our intelligence, but Dubya made the final decision. As far as troop levels, we went into the Persian Gulf War with 545K troops -- that was only to liberate Kuwait and NOT to occupy Iraq. Who was smoking what by thinking 140k troops will do the job this time. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 17, 2006 9:35 PM | Permalink I have time to kill -- hospital duty -- so much that I actually just went back and read the whole thing. And, boy, do I have indigestion ! But before I fade away into an 11 pm stupor, I have to say, my favorite is the wonderfully-named anonymous poster who calls himself "My Name Is URL," and who compares Murray Waas to ... Rush Limbaugh ?? Let me see if I can help you out here, Mr. URL. Limbaugh comments. Waas actually gets off his ass and reports. Anyone who has done both understands the difference. Tell me next time you see Rush Limbaugh poring through the archives in the sub-basement of the Library of Congress, or filing an FOI request to unclassify something that should never have been classified in the first place. Not likely. That's the province of reporters -- not blowhards. Please, please, please try to grasp the distinction. It's not too much of an exaggeration to say that the Republic could well depend on it.
Posted by: Ann Kolson at April 17, 2006 10:53 PM | Permalink Jay: In fact, I've never seen Waas on television. and I see Kurtz and Woodward on TV all the time; maybe there is a correlation there .... Posted by: village idiot at April 17, 2006 11:04 PM | Permalink Indeed. I wanted Waas to get the recognition I think he deserves, but I had no idea it would work this well. Talk Left and TPM Muckraker have chimed in. Still waiting for someone to mount to a substantive defense of Bush in light of the Thomas Powers critique. Listening to the termites... By the way, when he wrote that piece he had no idea that Pat Roberts and the Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee would fail the nation, humiliate themselves, and chicken out of doing part two of their inquiry for fear of what it would show about Bush. Jason, so UBL is not the center of gravity? and UBL is not a critical vulnerability? Nope. Not by a long shot. But it seems you aren't even familiar with what I'm talking about. This isn't the time nor place to run a tutorial on maneuver warfare theory or the indirect approach. I'd refer you instead to B.H. Liddell-Hart and Robert Leonhart, and John R. Boyd. Bin Ladin is by no means a "critical vulnerability." He's a nice-to-have. But it is much easier to render him irrelevant - or even turn him into a liability, as Al Qaeda must commit its top leadership and much local political capital and goodwill to protecting him. One of the worries of planners back in 2001/early 2002 was that we would capture Bin Ladin too soon - and the American public would then be lured into a false sense of complacency, when Bin Ladin's capture would do nothing to reduce Al Qaeda's capability or potential. Bin Ladin is a tempting decoy. The White Paper I linked to asserts that a terrorist organization's critical vulnerability is the ability to move freely. My own belief is that their critical vulnerability is communications, rather than movement itself - which is why the New York Times' irresponsible airing of domestic surveillance efforts was so immensly damaging. I don't think there's a serious military thinker in the country who considers capturing Bin Ladin to be the decisive point, nor does one consider Bin Ladin to be Al Qaeda's critical vulnerability. Now, when I use these terms, they're terms of art, and have specific meanings in the context of maneuver warfare theory. I know journalists are still working on getting the difference straight between a soldier and a Marine, so understanding this stuff might be a lot to ask. Just one more reason why news organizations should make more of an effort to recruit veterans, though. Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at April 18, 2006 7:36 AM | Permalink Well, I'd imagine that you are. I certainly would be. The minutes must be just ticking by. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Yep. They tell me quite a bit. Just not about Waas. Out here in the reality-based community, we have facts, and we have reporters who try to nail down facts, and do a bit of background. It's not that Waas wasn't the first to get the scoop - it's that his entire story is wrong. His entire story - his ENTIRE STORY - is based on a false premise: That the Bush Administration was trying to conceal something - the dissent over the nature of the aluminum tubes - that it had actually declassified and made public back in 2002, and which had already been discounted by Congress during the debate over the authorization of the use of force. Honestly, it's a matter of rank incompetence - at least on this story. Now, it's an easy thing to miss, and lots of reporters would not have found the background quotations on the subject that Seixon found from the House and Senate floors (though someone who made a couple of phone calls to check his assumptions might get a clue about where to look). But in this case, Waas failed to build a timeline of events - which is, you know, kind of important. It's one of those things reporters do. Good ones, anyway. Of course, when you come out of the Village Voice, everyone in your rolodex is going to answer the phone on the same side of the aisle if you're not careful. Waas wasn't careful. You folks are confusing the validation of your assumptions with good reporting. Waas is writing a lot of things you are dearly longing to hear. But this article is lousy reporting - and fatally flawed. Of course, you can't see that, because of those unconscious assumptions. But the chronology of events wounds the article fatally.
Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at April 18, 2006 7:58 AM | Permalink Jay Rosen: Did the intelligence assessments about Iraq change during the Bush administration from what they were in the 90s? If not, then were previous administrations exercising the same influence on the intelligence community in the same direction? George Boyle implies that the truth changed in 2003 ("picture was much clearer"), do you agree? If so, when in 2003? Between January and the start of the war in March? After the war? Both, in degree? village idiot argues that "the thresholds for real war are [not] the same as the ones for no-fly zone sorties at 30,000 feet." Does that also work in reverse? That the threshold for "cooking the books" is not the same for justifying the use of force in the 90s versus 2003? Ann Kolson: Welcome. It's nice to know there's someone more thoughtful and less inflammatory in the Lovelady-Kolson household than Steve. Maybe you would favor us with an answer to your question ("why didn't they say then what they say now?") and re: "And Steve's point, if I read it right, is that they were at that time under constraints that no longer apply." Steve's wrong to imply Article 88 was the reason. What do you think is the reason? Taken together, Jay's quotes from Thomas Powers, and villages’ earlier statements present a conundrum that I’d love for someone to solve for me. Thomas Powers said, “...The basic sin came in many varieties—ignoring evidence, misrepresenting evidence, ... sometimes even reaching conclusions without any real evidence at all.” “But was there outright pressure to change an assessment? No one claimed anything quite like that,...” (Paraphrase) “There are only two dots….the White House and the CIA.” “But the failure to act before September 11 and the unnecessary war with Iraq cannot fairly be blamed on intelligence organizations or anyone else. The White House is the problem, not for the first time." And Village said... “The myriad intelligence agencies that operate with taxpayer money produce thousands of pages of information every day; some of it good, but most of it useless. That politicians use that information selectively to manipulate public opinion is nothing new. What is different now is that the administration, with its actions on the Iraq war, crossed the rubicon that was never meant to be crossed... It is not that the public expects politicians not to play games, but in a perverse manner, they feel that the unwritten rules, which are meant to prevent real damage to America, were broken by the Bush administration.” Ok. Let me restate these thoughts to make sure that I, as a citizen relying on “those who just know,” understand…. Our intelligence agencies produce lots of information, much of it inaccurate, mostly unusable, often “slanted” towards a pre-determined end by the man at the top, whoever that might be at a particular time, except that remember they’ll categorically deny that they can be influenced by anyone, anytime. Everyone knows that politicians manipulate that inaccurate information and it’s ok to play the game, wink, wink, as long as there’s no bad result later on after the decisions get made. Sometimes this system works out, because hindsight shows us that what we didn’t know didn’t hurt us, like with India and Pakistan (see previous link). But sometimes this system doesn’t work because you get a president who just doesn’t see that “invisible line that shouldn’t be crossed.” And sometimes events happen, like Sept 11th, that raise the stakes just a bit. Oh… and don’t try to fix this system, because it works fine as long as the person in the White House is God. How’s that? I agree with this thought of Mr.Thomas’s: “Americans are quick to criticize presidents for everything they don't like, or want but don't have, and at times they are willing to harass them so unmercifully on irrelevant personal grounds that presidents may be forgiven for regretting they were ever elected in the first place. But when it comes to the really big mistakes and disasters in public life, Americans can be strangely reluctant to hold presidents responsible.” Americans, I think, are pretty simple people. They see that one man is responsible for his own behavior, personal or otherwise, which is why they “went after Clinton” (I assume that’s Thomas was referring to in his “harass so unmercifully on irrelevant personal grounds”). But they have a harder time grasping that one man, Bush, is responsible for what, in effect, is “thousands” (!) of people not effectively doing what they were hired or voted into office by us to do. That makes "getting Bush" less of a priority for some people who see that that result is not, in reality, going to fix the real problems at hand. I blame Bush for some things, and will hold him accountable for those. But he’s not the nexus of our problems and continuing down that road takes us farther from the solutions. Simple problems don’t get solved unless they’re correctly identified and brought to light. This is something the press is good at. Complicated problems often never get solved because people like to keep things simple and journalists as a group seem to focus more on "swatting flies." My comments earlier to Bush’s Jaw about his “no scandals since Watergate” remark are related to these thoughts. Kind of like “if a tree falls in the forest, does it still make a sound if no one is there to hear it?” Posted by: Kristen at April 18, 2006 9:44 AM | Permalink The point remains - Throughout the 1990s and right through 2003, the broad and unanimous conclusions of the various intelligence agencies in the United States, and multiple well-respected governments abroad - was that Saddam Hussein was pursuing nuclear technology, that he maintained stocks of chemical munitions, that he was pursuing biological warfare technology, and that he had ties with Al Qaeda (at least around 1998, when the Clinton Administration named Hussein as an unindicted coconspirator when obtaining an indictment against Osama Bin Ladin.) Now, if your belief is that there was no evidence to support these conclusions, then why was Clinton so gung-ho to bomb the crap out of Saddam in 1998? Why was the Clinton Administration lying, pressuring the CIA, and cherry-picking intelligence? Now, I don't think he was. But you cannot argue that Bush lied about Saddam and WMD in order to get us into war in Iraq without simultaneously arguing that Clinton lied as well. Put another way, the "Bush Lied" hypothesis is a failure because it a.) does not explain the readily observable conclusions of the Clinton Administration (unless you argue that Clinton lied in order to exaggerate the threat from Iraq, too.) Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at April 18, 2006 9:59 AM | Permalink While we're at it, let's also ask our friends on the left: How did Bush exercise his weird mojo on the French and Russian intelligence services, which also believed Iraq had WMD? Posted by: Neuro-conservative at April 18, 2006 10:33 AM | Permalink Certainly, timelines are important. 1998: General Zinni warns that "a weakened, fragmented chaotic Iraq" could be "more dangerous in the long run than a contained Saddam." 2002: General Zinni, as paraphrased by Michi, warns that "invading Iraq could create more enemies for America in the Middle East, stretch the American military too thin, strain relations with allies and cost billions of dollars for reconstruction." 2003: General Zinnii recommends that any invasion of Iraq should rely on "overwhelming force" and that a comprehensive plan for reconstruction be adopted before the war. His plan dealing with the protection of the Iraqi infrastructure, the sealing of the borders, and dealing with political fallout and an assortment of economic and social issues is dismissed at the Pentagon on the grounds that its assumptions are "too negative." 2004: General Zinni writes that "in the lead-up to the Iraq war and its later conduct, I saw, at a minimum, true dereliction, negligence and irresponsibility; at worst, lying, incompetence and corrution." Now there's a timeline. Posted by: Ann Kolson at April 18, 2006 10:44 AM | Permalink "Bush lied" is your formulation, Jason, not mine. You like it because it is crude, as your defense is crude. I don't think Bush knows the difference between truth and falsehood in his public pronouncements. He says what he says, and makes sure there's no one around to challenge him on it. Therefore "Bush lied" doesn't make much sense to me, just as "Bush: conservative" doesn't. It's quite possible he talked himself into certitude about it. What I have said is that Bush and his White House were the leaders, pattern-setters, enablers, and eager customers for what happened as his Adminstration drove deceptively to war in Iraq-- "ignoring evidence, misrepresenting evidence, exaggerating evidence, overstating the evidence, going beyond the evidence, interpreting some evidence as strong when it was weak," and so on. That is what they wanted done; and they let everyone know it. That is what they did themselves. (You said you never bought Atta in Prague; aren't you curious why Cheney did?) I don't know why Clinton and others thought Saddam has WMD and the like. Possibly because at the time, he did. But when you order a full scale invasion of another country, propose to spend billions of dollars, put thousands of Anerican lives at risk, and seek to persuade the world of the rightness of your cause you need to be rather more certain of the reasons and the evidence. You have to make the case from the ground up. "Everyone knows Saddam has WMD," or "the previous Administration thought so" isn't good enough. The Bush White House knew this. (Jason and Sisyphus know this too.) That is why the White House went backed and ordered a new national assessment and a marshalling of the evidence, and that is the assessment they distorted. Cheney recently said "Epecially in the day and age we live in … the president of the United States needs to have his Constitutional powers unimpaired, if you will, in terms of the conduct of national-security policy." When are you going to realize that by "unimpaired," they mean unconstrained by reality itself, by all notions of evidence, by the whole tradition of empiricism that, while never holding complete sweigh over our politics, has at least influenced and constrained it. Bush, Cheny and company want to do away with those constraints. They are radicals on the expansion of executive power. And they are doing something no one has ever tried to do before. To the statement, "no one is entitled to his own facts," their reply is: Oh yeah? Watch us. Because the costs of being wrong in 1998 in an air war were not too great (probably why we were never too enthusuatic about war even though removing Mr. Hussein was our declared policy), whereas the costs of being wrong if the decision is to invade/occupy a country is plain for everybody to see. This is simple risk management that we all use everyday (albeit with some behavioral quirks). The bigger the stakes, the more thoughtful and deliberative we are. The burden is even greater if you have been entrusted with the power to bet other people's lives. Irrespective of what the Bushites say now, one thing is clear; even if you assume that Bush was not operating in bad faith, you have to conclude that he felt comfortable betting a few thousand soldiers' lives based on whatever information he had, and lost the bet spectacularly. Just as surely as he cannot find any WMD in Iraq, he cannot bring the dead back to life, and neither can he reattach limbs on those that have lost them. He was the one with the finger on the trigger and he was the one who decided to pull it. Hence, the responsibility for this debacle falls squarely in Mr. Bush's lap; not on the generals, not on the intelligence agencies, and not on congress. As hard as you guys are trying to revise history now, I would be surprised if anybody but the most ossified of the right-wingers are pursuaded. That said, you are free to assume that Mr. Bush was not acting in good faith when he decided to pull the trigger, and that will lead you into a whole another realm .... Posted by: village idiot at April 18, 2006 11:24 AM | Permalink Nope. Not by a long shot. But it seems you aren't even familiar with what I'm talking about. My comments earlier to Bush’s Jaw about his “no scandals since Watergate” remark are related to these thoughts. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 18, 2006 11:36 AM | Permalink From Howard Kurt'z latest online Q and A: Alexandria, Va.: Would it have killed ya to note that Murray Waas is a leftist, a partisan journalist? All his "scoops" run in one direction. And Byron York said since the NY Sun beat Waas, did he really "break" the story you mentioned? Thankfully, Carl Bernstein is no 'Bob Woodward,' not in the modern sense of the term that is: Senate Hearings on Bush, Now Raising the worse-than-Watergate question and demanding unequivocally that Congress seek to answer it is, in fact, overdue and more than justified by ample evidence stacked up from Baghdad back to New Orleans and, of increasing relevance, inside a special prosecutor's office in downtown Washington. It's lengthy and damning. Posted by: steve schwenk at April 18, 2006 12:20 PM | Permalink I made an error in pasting the quotes. The last paragraph should come right before the third-from the last paragraph beginning with the sentence "Is incompetence an impeachable offense?" Sorry. Posted by: steve schwenk at April 18, 2006 12:25 PM | Permalink I don't think I've said 'Bush lied.' It's more that Bush saw what he wanted to see. And weeded out the arguments to the contrary. He's certainly not alone in that. Take the 'what about the French' argument that Saddam's WMD must have been real because everyone thought so. Maybe not, according to Scott Ritter - remember him? The intelligence services of everyone else were not proclaiming Iraq to be in possession of WMD. Rather, the intelligence services of France, Russia, Germany, Great Britain and Israel were noting that Iraq had failed to properly account for the totality of its past proscribed weapons programs, and in doing so left open the possibility that Iraq might retain an undetermined amount of WMD. There is a huge difference in substance and nuance between such assessments and the hyped-up assertions by the Bush administration concerning active programs dedicated to the reconstitution of WMD, as well as the existence of massive stockpiles of forbidden weaponry. In their book Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq by Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor, the authors point to five errors in the five 'grievous errors' of the Bush war plan in Iraq. The Bush team underestimated the enemy and failed to comprehend the complexities of Iraqi politics. (1.) The Bush team underestimated the enemy and never understood the complexity of Iraqi politics. (2.) They relied too much on technology and Rumsfeld's theory of 'military transformation,' thus starting a war with too few troops. (3.) As the situation deteriorated, the Bush team failed to adapt to new circumstances and adhered to the pre-war plan. The author cite Rumsfeld's cancelling the deployment of the 1st Cav at a time when more troops were needed to deal with a looming insurgency. (4.) They discouraged alternative political and military perspectives. (5.)The Bush team delayed nation-building efforts, assuming in their plans that reconstruction would come from the defeated Iraqis. In doing so, it set back post-combat stability. This war and its increasingly divisive effect on this country can't be neatly capsulized in bumper-sticker comments. We are not well served by the ideological blinders and arguments designed to show how 'right' our side was that are so frequently expressed here. The sooner we acknowledge terrible and deadly mistakes were made and honestly face the war and how we got there, the better for the country. Posted by: Dave McLemore at April 18, 2006 1:03 PM | Permalink There's pool and a pond. Pond is good for you. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 18, 2006 1:15 PM | Permalink Personally, I'd prefer PressThink stick to press criticism rather than politics, but really, can the two be separated? Dunno. But one of the plusses of PressThink, is that sometimes, both sides of the ideological spectrum come together, and it offers an opportunity for each side to see who and what are considered "reliable sources." In the last day or so, these have been offered up as supporting "the truth": Scott Ritter, Vanity Fair, Michiko Kakutani(only in New York kids, only in New York), Talk Left and TPM Muckrakers (who only rake muck from the "other"). Someone further up the thread noted that we have parallel realities. So true. No one here will be swayed or convinced by the other's arguments or sources, but it's fascinating to watch. Posted by: My Name Is URL at April 18, 2006 2:21 PM | Permalink Jay: Thank you for taking a clear position with regard to the "books were cooked" thesis. I'll post a response later today. One thing I'll include in my response is an answer to the question, "What would change my mind?" In other words, if a "set" of facts are true then I would be a lot less certain in my thesis. It would be interesting to see your answer to the same question. Posted by: Reg Jones at April 18, 2006 2:26 PM | Permalink "My Name", given that you view Rush Limbaugh as Team Bush's Murray Waas, and see no difference between the two, it is not surprising that you take such a dim view of the posts here. Why not tell us who the real truth tellers are since you sneer at nearly every source others have cited. Posted by: steve schwenk at April 18, 2006 2:42 PM | Permalink I don't take a "dim view of the posts here", I said I find them fascinating. Just as I found fascinating the fact that in rebutting my previous post, schwenk resorted to juvenile insults and name calling rather than intellectual argument. But maybe juvenile insults pass as intellectual argument for some on the left. Dunno. Due to the poor reading comprehension skills of schwenk and others here, allow me to give the Reader's Digest version of my comments: Until I can see all the original documentation without the filter and spin of either the left, right or the press, I will not consider anyone a "truth-teller". Every day new information is coming out, and not all it is a damning indictment of George Bush or a positive reinforcement for George Bush----except for those who would discard any information not conforming to their "reality". This is why I reject both Murray Waas and Rush Limbaugh. Both tell pleasing stories for their fans. Waas tells pleasing eeeeevil Bush stories and Limbaugh tells pleasing eeeeevil liberal stories. Additionally, Waas is probably angling for another Pulitzer nomination. The truth is out there Scully, but we don't know what it is yet...unless you're a mindless partisan. Posted by: My Name Is URL at April 18, 2006 3:54 PM | Permalink Your comparison (Waas and Limbaugh) is idiotic. That we don't know the truth of what happened yet and won't for a while is not idiotic; that's accurate. I don't want this to look like a tag team, but as the estimable Ms Kolson noted above, there is a key distinction that My Name Is URL is choosing to ignore. Murray Waas reports. He reports painstakingly, he reports at length and he reports for as non-partisan a publication as you could find, the National Journal. Whereas Rush Limbaugh rants about what other people have reported. Or, as she put it: "Tell me next time you see Rush Limbaugh poring through the archives in the sub-basement of the Library of Congress, or filing an FOI request to unclassify something that should never have been classified in the first place. Not likely. That's the province of reporters -- not blowhards." In short, comparing Murray Waas to Rush Limbaugh is akin to comparing Derek Jeter to some yahoo drinking beer and spilling popcorn in the bleacher seats. Posted by: Steve Lovelady at April 18, 2006 4:44 PM | Permalink OK,since so many here are so touchy about their Lion Hero, I'll amend my statement to: Steve Lovelady, Mrs. Lovelady, Murray Waas, Vanity Fair, Scott Ritter, Michiko Kakutani, Talk Left, Josh Marshall (have I left anyone out?) all speak the truth. The rest of us are just ignorant yahoos. Thanks for pointing me to the truth and the light and the way. Happy now? Sheesh! But as to Mrs. Lovelady's point---I'd love to see the original documents----without Waas'(or anyone elses) spin. Bring it on! Posted by: My Name Is URL at April 18, 2006 5:00 PM | Permalink Here's a question for all participants, all camps. What do you reckon should be PressThink's next post in the ongoing saga of Rollback: Bush and his Press. Give me your ideas. No one here will be swayed or convinced by the other's arguments or sources, but it's fascinating to watch. Not true, unless you consider the only meaningful "changes" to be full-on conversions. Most of us, including me, don't make announcements and apologies when we adopt a different perspective on things. But are we in separate realities? Many of us, yes. A larger number retreat to a separate reality from time to time, then emerge and engage again. But for anyone with a foot in the other's reality, change is possible, even if rare. Hiding behind the defense that people who disagree with you are incapable of change may make you right most of the time, but it's still a dodge. Water dripping on a rock doesn't shatter it, but it certainly reshapes it. I agree with the idea that much of what we need to know won't be fully known until years from now, but taking the historian's view is another dodge. We're engaged in a messy business -- sorting out a jigsaw puzzle under a strobe light -- and periodically someone enters the room and throws a bunch of new pieces on the floor. That's modern civic life, dude. It is what it is, and if it looks all clean and clear to you, I'd suggest you're standing in the wrong room. Anyway, regarding honest debate, I'm reminded of one of my favorite Laws of Combat: "If the enemy is in range, so are you." Posted by: Daniel Conover at April 18, 2006 5:23 PM | Permalink URL, but to say we can't make any judgments based on what we know today (because we can't know the truth until decades) is I don't expect to live long enough to find out what really happened in the run up to the Iraq invasion. URL or abigail beecher, even if Waas showed you documents, you would dispute them as fakes. It's easy to dig up old quotes, as if people can't change their position. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 18, 2006 5:25 PM | Permalink The Bush White House knew this. (Jason and Sisyphus know this too.) That is why the White House went backed and ordered a new national assessment and a marshalling of the evidence, and that is the assessment they distorted.If by "new national assessment," you mean the 2002 NIE (more here), then we should give credit where credit is due: Democrats on the SSCI. And good on them for doing so. Oh, and the moon is made of cheese (Jay knows this, too.) Ah, a couple of drive bys. Then I have some fiddle to play, and I'll get back to it later - 1. I'm with Ann in that Limbaugh's an entertainer and commenter, and Waas is a reporter. Waas's counterpart on the left isn't Limbaugh, it's Stephen Hayes, the author of "The Connection." Hayes is a much, much better reporter, in my opinion, who is almost singlehandedly responsible for the declassification of thousands of docs we haven't even gotten to the bottom of yet. 2. Ann is also right to point out that Zinni was consistent in cautioning against invading Iraq. But as someone else mentioned, Zinni represented one point on the risk - reward scale. Wolfowitz represented a different point. It's like a financial advisor sketching out two portfolios on the efficient frontier. The advisor's job isn't to pick one - it's to execute the investment guidance of the customer. In this case, the customer is the President, within his congressional and constitutional authority. The "we have found no WMD" canard is simply false. Baathist forces have detonated at least two chemical IED (both in the spring of 2004.) The Poles uncovered dozens of chemical munitions - each one a violation of the terms of the cease fire. 12 chemical-variant 122mm rockets were uncovered in January 2003, according to the London Telegraph. And again - no one has attempted to refute this: the CIA found that Saddam had maintained biowar "seed stocks" right through the war. Are they the vast stockpiles we thought we'd find? No (although one recently translated document from the Iraqi Army's Deputy C of S directs the movement of a quantity of "special munitions," specifically designating 122 and 155mm ammunition (both common chemical artillery rounds) and mentions "special vehicles" to transport them. And one former Iraqi General has written a book saying he was detailed to transport WMD to Syria.) And do I wonder why Cheney buys the Atta in Prague story? Not really, because the case for war doesn't rely on Atta in Prague in any way. And as long as the Czech government stands by their analysis, adopting it is at least plausible. But the evidence, even if true, is not in and of itself dispositive: It would indicate that Saddam's government and Al Qaeda were talking to each other, but we already knew that. But it would not by itself demonstrate that Hussein knew about 9/11. So unless more comes out, I think Atta in Prague is a minor event. Ayman al Zawahiri's presence in Baghdad, at the personal invitation of Ibrahim Izzat al-Duri, is a much, much more significant discovery, which has not gotten anywhere near the press, and which is, I think, almost unknown except those of us who subscribe to "All Iraq, All the Time" channels. Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at April 18, 2006 6:15 PM | Permalink I would guess that most of us following this story knew that Zinni was anti-Iraq invasion since the '90s. What's entertaining is that Mrs. Lovelady didn't know this until Michiko Kakutani told her. (Only in New York kids, only in New York!) Posted by: My Name Is URL at April 18, 2006 6:30 PM | Permalink Dave McLemore, re: Ritter I'm not sure what access Ritter had to foreign intelligence. I'm guessing after 1998 it was limited to null. So, if he's going by the public domain, then ... Iraq 'could build N-bomb' And just because it's there: Canada I will say this again: A more thoughtful and deliberative president would have had every possible doubt about the available intelligence chased down to the last alphabet. This is basic due diligence. Mr. Bush did not do that. Instead there is a host of evidence that he ignored all countervailing evidence and heedlessly plunged us all into war. To use Jason's example, he was like the client who chose to willfuly ignore all caveats and instructed his financial advisor to load up on dotcoms, but only with somebody else money that he has been entrusted to manage. The right wingers are arguing that we should not regard that as reckless. By the way, Jason plays very true to style when he conveniently forgets to mention that there is a point of optimality on the efficient frontier.:-) Posted by: village idiot at April 18, 2006 7:27 PM | Permalink But as to Mrs. Lovelady's point---I'd love to see the original documents----without Waas'(or anyone elses) spin. Bring it on! Posted by: My Name Is URL First of all, sweetie, let's set down some terms of engagement. It's not "Mrs. Lovelady." It's Ann Kolson. (In my family, Steve is fondly referred to as "Mr. Kolson.") Second, the original documents are available. If you don't believe Murray Waas, well then, do what he did -- roll up your sleeves and dig them up ! But if it's original documents that you require on any matter of public affairs, I fear you're going to run yourself ragged tracking them down. Be prepared to bring your lawyer with you, file lots of FOI suits, do end-runs around official obfuscations, and, above all, cultivate back channels. That's what real reporters do. On the other hand, if you turn out to be good at it, then the world is your oyster. There will be plenty of editors ready to hire you ! And I'll sign on as a reference.
Posted by: Ann Kolson at April 18, 2006 7:51 PM | Permalink Jay, reporting science. Ordering top NASA scientists not to speak out. Conservative thinktanks running the show: an organized disinformation campaign. http://www.net.org/warming/politicsandscience.vtml Posted by: George Boyle at April 18, 2006 8:14 PM | Permalink "If so, when in 2003? Between January and the start of the war in March?" At least by then (after is out of bounds)and getting clearer by the day. But Blix wasn't fast enough because it was already a done deal. The search a priori was just filler. That's no way to run a railroad in my view. Posted by: George Boyle at April 18, 2006 8:19 PM | Permalink And he warned that Iraq is now working on missiles that could reach as far as Germany in the future. He said: "We must assume that these weapons will be ready for use by 2015 at the latest." Yeah, that's imminent alright. Pfftt. German intelligence indeed. Posted by: George Boyle at April 18, 2006 8:23 PM | Permalink Correcting grammar: To use Jason's example, he was like the client who chose to willfuly ignore all caveats and instructed his financial advisor to load up on dotcoms, but only with somebody else money that he has been entrusted to manage. should read To use Jason's example, Bush was like the client who chose to willfuly ignore all caveats and instructed his financial advisor to load up on dotcoms, but only with somebody else's money that he has been entrusted to manage. Jay, in the interest of eliminating clutter, you can delete this post by making the changes to my original post of 7.27 pm. Posted by: village idiot at April 18, 2006 9:19 PM | Permalink My name is URL" -- which, permit me to repeat, is one of the finest nom de plumes that this site has attracted -- seems to think that Michiko Kakutani is somehow a polluted source, as, to his (her?) mind, is Murray Waas. Never mind that Murray Waas wrote in the late 1990's wrote that in his opinion Bill Clinton was unfit to be president -- or that Michiko Kakutani savaged Clinton's autobiography in a piece so devastating that it was the first (and to this day the only) book review that the New York Times ever saw fit to run on page one. Neither of those inconvenient facts fit the world view that anyone questioning Bush World is, by definition, a partisan -- or the view that Waas or Kakutani is the leftwing equivalent of, God help us, Rush Limbaugh. Cognitive dissonance is a bitch. I know. I've been there. And those facts! Damn them!! They come back to bite you in the ass every time. It must be so irritating. What's a girl to do ? I recommend cookies and milk at bedtime.
Posted by: Ann Kolson at April 18, 2006 9:39 PM | Permalink First of all, sweetie, let's set down some terms of engagement. It's not "Mrs. Lovelady." It's Ann Kolson. (In my family, Steve is fondly referred to as "Mr. Kolson.") ROFL. I'm with McLemore, if you never write another word ... Jay, as far as the next rollback. Is that strategy behind us, a first term (and immediately after re-election), 60+% approval rating, no dissent from the Right, before Katrina tactic? If the WH created realities for the rest to judiciously study, then this new reality must be winning and positive or at least the WH can spin it positively. No one can spin Iraq today, (except for Jason). Is rollback possible with 36% approval and generals coming out of the woodwork? Posted by: bush's jaw at April 18, 2006 9:53 PM | Permalink Tim (Sisyphus): I understood the National Intelligence Estimate to be term of art denoting that particular document. I used the word "assessment" in a more generic sense. Are you saying the Bush White House, in preparing the case for war in Iraq, never asked the intelligence community to gather and assess the available evidence on Saddam, his weapons of mass destruction, and the nuclear threat that Iraq represented? "It seems more like Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union than the United States," said Hansen, prompting a round of applause from the audience. He added that while NOAA officials said they maintain the policy for their scientists' protection, "if you buy that one please see me at the break, because there's a bridge down the street I'd like to sell you." Censorship Is Alleged at NOAA Scientists Afraid to Speak Out, NASA Climate Expert Reports Juliet Eilperin is doing a great job on the environment beat. Posted by: George Boyle at April 18, 2006 10:10 PM | Permalink "Anyone perceived to be a Republican, a Bush supporter or a Christian is singled out and labeled a threat to their views. I encourage anyone interested in this story to consider the other side, to consider Dr. Hansen' s true motivations and to consider the dangerous implications of only hearing out one side of the global warming debate," Deutsch said. This is a 24-year-old Bush appointee who didn't graduate making it into major news stories claiming these bizarre conspiracies. The "other side" is debunked thinktank naysayer crap. And typical of this outfit as we've seen repeatedly. Posted by: George Boyle at April 18, 2006 10:22 PM | Permalink Lovelady, where have you been hiding her (in terms of PressThink)? --Posted by: bush's jaw BJ -- My only mistake was leaving the monitor -- featuring one of Jason's more bizarre posts -- on the other night when I left to take the dogs for a walk. After that, it was all taken out of my hands.
Posted by: Steve Lovelady at April 18, 2006 10:32 PM | Permalink This opinion piece makes the point that people's decision making processes -- and information collection as part of those processes -- result in "biased" decision-making. (My favorite example -- when people step on the scale in the morning and they like what they see, they step off and go about their business. If they don't like what you see, they step off, and step back on, to 'check' to make sure that the the number is correct). The left's critique of Bush (and its valid, imho) is that Bush's predisposition to go to war lead him to ignore (and not tell the American people) all the information that demonstrated that the invasion of Iraq was a really horrible idea. In other words, Bush would keep getting on and off the scale -- and at times recalibrate the scale -- until he got the "weight" he wanted. Gee, Sisyphus, maybe Ritter wasn't anymore impressed with the predictive abilities of German intelligence than George Boyle. I'm not sure what was your point. A German paper reports that Iraq has nuclear capability? So does N. Korea. So does Pakistan, and India's getting there. Does that count as sufficent intel to go to war? Posted by: Dave McLemore at April 18, 2006 10:57 PM | Permalink None of my business, but I can't help but think that Lovelady sounds better than Kolson; it has more character .... Either way, the options are to go with one male form (the spouse) or the another male form (the patriarch), but if you peel a layer, you may notice that one takes after the 'son' whereas the other emanates from a 'lady'. So, there is a real choice .... Of-course, being a self-proclaimed idiot, what do I know?:-) Posted by: village idiot at April 18, 2006 10:58 PM | Permalink Jay Rosen, re: never asked I think the "Bush White House," Congress, DoD, CENTCOM, etc., were frequently asking the "intelligence community" (which is kind of like saying "the media" or MSM, it's a vague umbrella term) to assess, update, run down rumors, collaborate with allied intelligence agencies, guess, opine, ..., and probably still are. But that's a difficult narrative and doesn't lend itself easily to "a plot with antagonists and protagonists." Dave McLemore: "A German paper reports that Iraq has nuclear capability?" BND is a German paper? BBC is a German paper? Spiegel is a German paper, but that story wasn't about nukes. You're probably right about Ritter tho'. He just quoted, "... the intelligence services of France, Russia, Germany, Great Britain and Israel ...," because he wasn't impressed with them. Jay, is there sufficient rollback material in Mr. Virtue, Bill Bennett's assertion that the the Pulitzer to the Time's reports on the NSA warrantless wire-tapping was a 'prize for treason'? Or would it just be a food fight? Posted by: Dave McLemore at April 18, 2006 11:12 PM | Permalink Jay, Several reporters have recently asked Bush (and McLellan) about how serious Bush is about air strikes or a nuclear attack on Iran, about policy options Bush himself has explicitly laid out. Both Bush and McLellan have called such questions "wild speculation" and suggested it is somehow illegitimate for the press to even raise the subject of policies Bush himself has promoted if the timing is not advantageous to administration purposes (let alone discuss their predictably disastrous consequences). He seems to be rolling back the very idea that rational public debate of policy options is a legitimate goal for the media. Neocons like Robert Kagan and Max Boot flat-out argue that the US can't afford democracy. Does Bush's refusal to communicate with the media or the American people about what he is doing or plans to do in foreign policy institute a similar philosophical rejection of democracy itself in the guise of White House-Press non-relations, in the guise of an intransigent and relentless refusal to communicate? These statements seem to be crossing another line, from "you don't represent anybody other than your own hostile special interest" to "what's representation got to do with it?" where Bush goes even farther in terms of setting the terms of the non-debate. The press just looks confused. Taking the president seriously is not permitted. That would be crossing the line into illicitly supposing his past misbehavior might have any bearing on his threats for the future. It almost demands treatment for Bush policy initiatives along the lines of immmaculate conception. The whole charade seems to hang on the pretense that there is no past, there is no institutional memory. He and Scotty and Cheney demand the right to simply will away facts without consequences. Enforcement of the reality principle is apparently supposed to violate the perquisites of exercising power in the executive branch. Is it that the unitary executive reigns and declassifies at its monarchical pleasure? It's Bush's world and the rest of us are just living in it? Posted by: Mark Anderson at April 18, 2006 11:19 PM | Permalink tim, your third example comes from "Welt am Sonntag," a German newspaper. And again, Ritter wasn't saying there were no intelligence leaks of Iraqi WMD activities. "Rather, the intelligence services of France, Russia, Germany, Great Britain and Israel were noting that Iraq had failed to properly account for the totality of its past proscribed weapons programs, and in doing so left open the possibility that Iraq might retain an undetermined amount of WMD. Which, he said, differed greatly from Bush adminstration assurances WMD was actually there - not 14 years into the future. I'm not asking you to love Ritter or endorse every word on Iraq he ever uttered. But if you disagree with his assessment, tell me why. Posted by: Dave McLemore at April 18, 2006 11:24 PM | Permalink Rollback of the Reality Principle? The whole-cloth lies that RNC media buys in spanish language TV advertising have broadcast, attempting to scapegoat Democrats for Republican legislation passed by a Republican majority, criminalizing illegal immigrants. Is this RNC Rollback of the Reality Principle? Does journalism have a role to play here beyond simply participating in the psy-ops ala Fred Hiatt and Deborah Howell? Posted by: Mark Anderson at April 18, 2006 11:25 PM | Permalink Dave, The Welt am Sonntag quoted August Hanning, the director of BND, that Iraq was currently developing new chemical weapons. Nothing about nukes. Long rang missiles that could reach Germany were "14 years into the future." As far as disagreeing with Ritter, I guess I'd take Great Britain, Germany and Isreal out of that list. I'd have to see what I could google on France and Russia. I wrote about Ritter once on my blog. What do you reckon should be PressThink's next post in the ongoing saga of Rollback: Bush and his Press. Give me your ideas. I won't make a suggestion, but will mention topics that seem timely and relevant and interesting. Press management under the bush WH. What is their strategy and what are their goals and tactics. Even just one facet of this topic would be interesting, such as what has the WH response been to address the recent damaging leaks or the rebellion by the generals. Or how about blogs. Are they responding, does the WH see them as a threat to their management of the media, and what are they doing about it if so? Just leaks would be interesting, too. I hear there are good leaks and there bad leaks. Posted by: steve schwenk at April 18, 2006 11:57 PM | Permalink Oh wait, one other one. We are heading into election season. Wedge politics promise to rear their ugly head. How should the press respond? Should this election really be about flag burning and immigrant Willie Hortons and men marrying box turtles? Should the press just report what each side says and ignore who brought up an issue and why, or does it have a duty to educate the public about wedge politics and how they work as well? Posted by: steve schwenk at April 19, 2006 12:06 AM | Permalink Bush vs. Bush "I'm the decider, and I decide what is best. And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense" -- April 19, 2006 SCHIEFFER: Well, let's talk about that a little bit. Now, some Democrats have called for a timetable for withdrawal. You have said that that's not a good thing to do because you're just giving the enemy the message, well, hang around until next date, we'll be out of there. But can you give the American people, Mr. President, some sort of a time frame, for example, where do you think we're going to be three months from now there, and what will troop levels be, say, come the fall? PRESIDENT BUSH: You see, I--I can understand you wanting to ask that question and the American people, some wanting to--want me to give the answer to that. I can't give the answer to that because I'm not the--the decider. What I can assure the American people of is that we've got a strategy to victory. We got a plan to see that the Iraqis take the fight. More and more Iraqis are taking the fight, and I'm going to listen to our commanders. -- Jan. 27, 2006. Prewar Iraq intel, decider or not? Posted by: bush's jaw at April 19, 2006 12:22 AM | Permalink plukasiak alluded to our tendency to step on the scale until we find the number that we want. Jay -- Perhaps for your next topic, you should examine how the Press decides to give a megaphone to the opinions of seven retired generals out of a pool of nearly 5000. Posted by: Neuro-conservative at April 19, 2006 12:56 AM | Permalink More broadly, why does the Press have a tendency to turn complex issues into melodramatic personality clashes: Cindy Sheehan vs Bush! -- with an undercard of Zinni vs Rumsfeld and Wilson vs Libby! I have noted previously the tendency of Jay and others on this board to make the argument from authority, and to invoke supposedly authoritative individuals (who happen to oppose Bush) as totems instead of actually making arguments. To wit: Steve Lovelady describes Jason's posts as bizarre, when in fact Jason has brought more facts and rational arguments to this thread than the rest of us combined. Lovelady, by contrast, has to transfer John McCain to another branch of the military and promote him to general in order to make a point. Posted by: Neuro-conservative at April 19, 2006 1:35 AM | Permalink you should examine how the Press decides to give a megaphone to the opinions of seven retired generals out of a pool of nearly 5000. You're supposed to figure what percent it works out to when you use a cheap, disposable and meaningless talking point like that, neuro. Keep the suggestions coming-- they're interesting. Except, you, neuro. Yours always amount to the same thing. Good response, Jay. Very scholarly. You still haven't answered my prior question: Why do you think Bush was so motivated to "cook the books" on WMD and force a war with Iraq? Miltary genius extraordinaire, Generalissimo Zinni, said it was the Jews who made Bush do it. Do you agree? Posted by: Neuro-conservative at April 19, 2006 1:52 AM | Permalink Neurotic conservatism seems to be on the rise with the collapse of neo-conservatism. It's painful to watch. But getting back to my suggestion on future post topics, something that struck me about the WH approach to press management is that it seems to have a lot in common with their approach to management of the intelligence agencies and the science-based agencies. The goal seems to be to turn each into a rubber stamp for and advocate of WH policy. Science, intelligence and news are all reshaped to conform to and support administration policy positions. I suppose this may be nothing new in concept, but this WH seems to take it to a level no president but perhaps Nixon ever contemplated before. The closest i've seen before was the old Soviet Union. Dissent among scientists (based on science) or intelligence officers (based on intelligence) or generals (based on military doctrine)or journalists (based on facts) is crushed. For example, some people (like neurotic conservate, Jerry Falwell and hindrocket) are now advocating that journalists be jailed for treason for what they write, and in fact journalists are now being threatened with jail by the justice department. This is all very confusing since this WH goes around the world justifying its unilateralism and military interventions by claiming it is spreading 'democracy.' But democracy based on false or incomplete information twisted and shaped to conform to state ideology is not democracy at all. It's totalitarianism. Posted by: steve schwenk at April 19, 2006 8:57 AM | Permalink OK, how about this as a rollback question: To what extent does rollback require willing suspension of disbelief by the public? At what level of public skepticism does the rollback strategy become an albatross around the neck of the administration? As the administration's approval numbers fall, will the numbers on the press rise? At all? Might this create an opportunity for something new to fill the credibility vacuum? Posted by: Daniel Conover at April 19, 2006 9:03 AM | Permalink Sorry, it is Bill Bennett, not Jerry Falwell, who has been advocating the jailing journalists for treason and espionage (on his radio show and website). Posted by: steve schwenk at April 19, 2006 9:06 AM | Permalink Thanks, Daniel. Have to think about that one. I think it's possible to argue that Rollback has failed and there's a lapse now into a more familiar pattern. Steve: I wrote about the connection between Rollback and Bush's other assaults on empiricism in my 1,107-word question to John Harris post: Aside from the coverage of weapons of mass destruction, which is seen to have failed, my sense is that you and your colleagues think you have handled the challenge of covering this government pretty darn well. (Correct me if I am wrong.) The game hasn't changed, you contend. We're still in a recognizable, fourth-estate, meet-the-press, rather than beat-the-press universe. Those -- like me -- who accuse Bush of taking extraordinary measures to marginalize, discredit, refute (and pollute) the press are said to be exaggerating the cravenness of this Adminstration and ignoring the parallels and precedents in other White Houses, including the Democratic ones. As you will recall, Harris answered but then withdrew permission for the interview at the lat minute. You still haven't answered my prior question... Listen, "neuro" (other participants can go get a cup of coffee during this one.) I don't dance to your tune, I don't answer your fool-ass questions on cue, and I don't regard any of your interventions in these threads as worth the perfectly good pixels they occupy on my screen. You're not the worst, maybe, but certainly one of the worst exemplars of a type found commonly online-- the totally ideological poster, a volunteer propagandist, who shows up to accuse imagined opponents of being what he himself is-- the totally ideological poster. You're like a mechanical duck who chugs around the room saying "you're a duck, you're a duck, you're a duck..." But not just a duck, an attack duck-- which is a better fake name for you than "neuro-conservative." The quacking of an anonymous attack duck is a meaningless and dreary sound, and the fact that there are others like you is no excuse. Does that satisfy your fake curiosity, duck? News flash: McClellan gone. Rollback may go with him. His announcement this morning. None of my business, but I can't help but think that Lovelady sounds better than Kolson; it has more character .... My mother always said the really important thing is to marry a guy who likes the paint colors that you like. I thought it was silly at the time, but I've grown to believe she has a point. ;-) Posted by: Ann Kolson at April 19, 2006 10:53 AM | Permalink The Caller, (Undecider?) This is Bush at Johns Hopkins last week: Q Thank you, Mr. President. It's an honor to have you here. I'm a first-year student in South Asia studies. My question is in regards to private military contractors. Uniform Code of Military Justice does not apply to these contractors in Iraq. I asked your Secretary of Defense a couple months ago what law governs their actions. Peelforward? We know the WH has been reintroducing Bush to the unwashed, no GOP ticket needed. Even let Helen Thomas ask a question. How is it working for the prez to play McClelland? Three years into Iraq, and Bush can't answer the question about what laws these contractors, the second largest force in Iraq, fall under. They're above the law? It was Blackwater private security personnel who were hung on the bridge that led to the seige of Falluja. We don't expect Bush to cite the specific legal codes (Clinton would be able to), but shouldn't he have a general idea? Bye Bye Scotty. Posted by: bush's jaw at April 19, 2006 11:17 AM | Permalink Well, the "decider" point is easy enough. The President does not decide on specific troop levels. Commanders do, on his behalf, on authority delegated to them by the President and the Secretary of Defense. But the President DOES decide who's going to be Secretary of Defense. It's not that difficult to grasp, really. Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at April 19, 2006 11:40 AM | Permalink Jay, I am genuinely curious as to why you threw a tantrum this morning. But I have a working hypothesis: This entire thread is premised on the paranoid belief that there was a nefarious conspiracy to "cook the books" to manufacture a rationale for war. Probing this belief, it became evident that there must be some hidden reason that Bush would want to do such a thing, since the stated reasons for war are considered false. However, as with any delusional system, things get murky when the contradictions are pointed out. The paranoid style itself is masking something darker, perhaps something painful to acknowledge. When challenged, all sorts of emotions might spring loose. In the case of Zinni, and an appallingly large number of the online Left, that darker place is Jew-hatred. I am assuming that you would find that sort of anti-Semitism to be disturbing as well. So I am still wondering how you imagine Bush came to formulate this conspiracy, which we need the lion-hearted Murray Waas to bravely unearth. Posted by: Neuro-conservative at April 19, 2006 11:53 AM | Permalink Where is AJ? Jason haven't you been channeling him? Posted by: bush's jaw at April 19, 2006 12:02 PM | Permalink In a perfect world, Howlin' Bob Somerby would be named as McClellan's replacement, so he could continually rant against the "pampered poodles" of the elite press and rail against the inbreeding between journalists and politicos. My second choice would be Mr. Campbell Brown, whose very presence would remind everyone how the press is literally in bed with political operatives. Posted by: My Name Is URL at April 19, 2006 2:42 PM | Permalink This is so far up the thread that it is almost OT, but I must reply to some charges made above. To Ann Kolson: Since you called me "sweetie", I figure I can call you honey, baby, chickie-poo. Got a problem with that? Double standard? Not surprised. Since you introduced yourself to this thread not as just plain Ann Kolson, but as Ann Kolson, Steve Lovelady's wife, I figured you'd have no problem with being associated with Steve. But since my name is URL, I cannot say what you should name yourself----so Ann (have it both ways) Kolson, it is! I'm gonna go down the Limbaugh is Waas path one more time. I thought I had made myself clear at the onset, but since so many here say Oh No! Limbaugh is a commentator and Waas is a reporter, I'm gonna give it one more try. My point about Limbaugh is Waas is this: Both Limbaugh and Waas speak/write for a specific audience. Or more crudely, if Waas was writing pro-Bush articles, would we be having all the Murray The Lion shouting of loud hosannahs about Waas here? If I'm wrong about this, please correct me. Posted by: My Name Is URL at April 19, 2006 3:07 PM | Permalink abigail beecher, unfortunately journos date each other (Kolson - Lovelady) or their sources - more like someone they met through the job. Journos don't work 8-5 hours to have normal lives. I'm sure you haven't been to a journo get together. Few spouses and dates ever show up because journos end up talking shop, bitching the whole time. This phenomena is likely similar in other businesses. Out of school, we meet people through work. Cheap shot on Campbell Brown, who met Senor after he left Iraq. But so what if she did while they both were working? Posted by: bush's jaw at April 19, 2006 3:17 PM | Permalink No tantrum, mister attack duck, just a description of your participation here. It's not thread specific, applies whenever.... Your fake hypothesis, like your fake name, fake curiosity and fake questions, is just more ideology-uber-alles quacking. To Ann Kolson: Since you called me "sweetie", I figure I can call you honey, baby, chickie-poo. Got a problem with that? No problem at all, darlin. (I'm partial to "Toots," myself, but there's a history there that we don't need to get into here.) Posted by: Ann Kolson at April 19, 2006 3:42 PM | Permalink Then "Toots" it is darlin'. Posted by: My Name Is URL at April 19, 2006 3:59 PM | Permalink Rollback won't go away just because McClellan is going away. McClellan never made policy; he was just the stooge rolled out daily to recite talking points in favor of actually answering questions. There's an endelss supply of stooges; hell, they're probably lining up for the job right now. For Press Think's next instalment, I'd be more interested in an exploration of what the Pulitzer Prizes announced Monday tell us about the values of the press versus the values of the administration. After all, Bush himself has denounced two of the prize recipients, James Risen of the Times and Dana Priest of the Post, as all but traitors. As Paul McLeary noted on CJR Daily, "Thus, we seem to have a sort of face-off at the OK Corral between the Pulitzer Board and the Bush White House itself -- one that, among other things, throws into stark clarity the sharply different values that guide each institution." Posted by: Steve Lovelady at April 19, 2006 5:17 PM | Permalink I'm going to second Steve's recommendation of "an exploration of what the Pulitzer Prizes announced Monday tell us about the values of the press versus the values of the administration." I would especially be interested in such an exploration as an update/review of: What if Everything Changed for American Journalists on September 11th? In fact, I'll go so far as recommend a title for such a post: What if Everything Reverted Back to September 10th for American Journalists on May 1st, 2003? My Name Is URL wrote, "My point about Limbaugh [and] Waas is this: Both Limbaugh and Waas speak/write for a specific audience. Or more crudely, if Waas was writing pro-Bush articles, would we be having all the Murray The Lion shouting of loud hosannahs about Waas here? If I'm wrong about this, please correct me." I'll be happy to correct you, Mniurl, because the distinction that escapes you is crucial to the issue at hand. Limbaugh preaches to the choir -- millions of wanna-be Limbaughs who tune in for the comfort of having their preconceptions reinforced. Waas, by contrast, writes for the National Journal, which has got to be the only publication on the planet that charges close to $1,800 for a one-year subscription, and which has a circulation of a mere 20,000. And who are the 20,000 ? Pretty much everyone in Washington who has any kind of job that influences policy -- lobbyists, congressmen, congressional aides, medium-to-high-level bureaucrats in every government agency, White House flunkies, et. al. (And, yes, you can bet your laptop that your tax dollars are paying for most of those $1,800 subscriptions.) In short, Waas is not preaching to the choir. To the contrary, with Republicans controlling the White House, both houses of congress, the Supreme Court and most statehouses in America, I think it's safe to say that his audience and his readership consists overwhelmingly of right-wing policy wonks. And I doubt if he loses much sleep wondering if people perceive him as "anti-Bush" or "pro-Bush." That's not his obsession. His obsession, as with every investigative reporter worth is salt, is getting it right.
Posted by: Steve Lovelady at April 19, 2006 7:24 PM | Permalink Last month at Berkeley I heard Bob Cauthorn's bit about how the best thing the Pulitizers could do for American journalism would be to call a moritorium on prizes for a year or two while everybody cools off and figures out what quality is. He was talking about the way prize-chasing warps journalism's priorities (we all know what a prize story is, regardless of the level of prize, and the dirty secret is that what judges value and what readers value ain't necessarily the same), not about this split between the WH and the Pulitizer board. But I agreed with him. Prizes are a bad way of keeping score most of the time. So we can talk about prizes, and in this particular case maybe it's an interesting subject. Meanwhile, I'm not saying that rollback has failed, only that it appears to be failing. If it does fail, it doesn't really leave its practioners any fallback position, because they've been playing an all-or-nothing game. Scottie's resignation didn't really surprise me. He's kinda used up. Posted by: Daniel Conover at April 19, 2006 7:37 PM | Permalink Is there anybody else here who printed out "I'm the decider, and I decide what is best" in 36-point bodoni bold type and then posted it on your cubicle bulletin board ? I did. I feel it ranks right up there as one of the best quotes of the 21st century to date. But, alas, when I left the office half an hour ago, no one seemed impressed. Gotta go now -- can't miss Jon Stewart. Posted by: Ann Kolson at April 19, 2006 8:07 PM | Permalink " ... and the dirty secret is that what judges value and what readers value ain't necessarily the same. -- Conover God, let's hope so. Posted by: Steve Lovelady at April 19, 2006 8:17 PM | Permalink Sure Pulitzers are like Oscars. There's politics, angles and marketing. And big papers will always have a natural advantage, because they have more human resources and talent. It's always more impressive when the smaller papers win. And the best stories and reporters don't always win, but no one will scoff at being a winner or a finalist. JournalismJobs.com: Which Pulitzer Prize was especially pleasing to you while at the Inquirer? Posted by: bush's jaw at April 19, 2006 8:55 PM | Permalink The saddest thing in the last couple of days was to watch General Peter Pace of the Marines, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, trotted out to serve as monkey to Rumsfeld's organ grinder. I mean, think about it. You're so brilliant that you not only end up as head of the Marine Corp, you also end up running the JCS. And he deserves better than this. Posted by: Steve Lovelady at April 19, 2006 9:06 PM | Permalink His obsession, as with every investigative reporter worth is salt, is getting it right. No. If that were his obsession, he never would have published an article that accuses the Bush Administration of withholding information that was declassified and publicly released in October 03. No one yet has been able to defend Waas's piece on the merits. No ... you stick your fingers in your ears and say 'lalalallalala he's a lion and I'm not listening lalalalalala,' and continue to cherry pick your facts. But Waas's piece is a disaster. There are lots of terrific reporters at places like Mother Jones, The Nation, etc., on the left. (I think the best leftie reporter out there is Bill Greider, personally. His book "Secrets of the Temple" is about the best piece of financial/economics writing EVER. On the Iraq war, the best leftie reporter is Christopher Hitchens, although he usually writes essays, not newspieces, and comes to conclusions the left hates him for, like, democracy in Iraq is preferable to dictatorship. But Waas? He doesn't understand his own beat. In that he's got a lot of company, though. Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at April 19, 2006 9:07 PM | Permalink Jay, sorry I missed that post, although I did hear about the refusal to allow publication of the interview. If only we could read the answer to that question. I mean, it has to be good if he won't let you publish it, right? By the way, anyone, is there a code of ethics that journalists recognize as being authorotative? I have seen the SPJ Code of Ethics. Are there any others that are given recognition among journalists? Is that burning feathers I smell? Posted by: steve schwenk at April 19, 2006 9:18 PM | Permalink Jason, I'm curious. Who, in your view, are these "terrific reporters at places like Mother Jones, The Nation, etc., on the left" ? Don't get me wrong; I happen to agree with that assessment. It is no accident that since the year 2000 both Mother Jones and The Nation have doubled their circulation, while most magazines (Time, Newsweek, Harper's, Atlantic) have wallowed in the slough of despond. I think that Robert Dreyfuss and Michael Scherer at Mother Jones are in particular terrific. But it would help me to understand you if I knew to whom you are referring. And don't tell me Christopher Hitchens, or describe Hitch as "a leftie." Hitchens has in a very short time reduced himself to a pale echo of the wingbats at the Weekly Standard. Another debasement painful to watch. (Who knows what's going on there? Me, I blame the whiskey.)
Posted by: Steve Lovelady at April 19, 2006 10:36 PM | Permalink And, by the way, Hi, Toots. (Forgive the interruption. Ann and I are in different cities this week.) Posted by: Steve Lovelady at April 19, 2006 10:52 PM | Permalink Jason: Here and here are the compendiums of Waas's work that cause some of us to admire him. It is a body of work-- 12 articles in one, 15 in the other. You seem to think you have refuted that work by showing that some fact you believe he's claiming as a scoop was revealed earlier. It's such a bizarre way of arguing--about the whole body of work--that I think some of us are stupified by your demand for a defense of Waas. Maybe that's why you're not getting the response you seek. Steve: I caution everyone who goes looking for ethics codes in the press that these can be located and studied, but do not make the mistake of thinking that the actual ethic of the press is stored in these codes. Most of it is not written down, or even formulated as rules. I would like to invite the readers of this blog to examine my contributions here (beginning with my first-ever comment on these boards, as well as these other examples: a, b, c, d, e, and f). See also this series (1, 2, 3) from my own(now-dormant) blog. After skimming through those, I wonder how many would find Jay's characterization of me to be fair? Posted by: Neuro-conservative at April 19, 2006 11:55 PM | Permalink Accuracy is in order: I am not claiming that Murray Waas is wrong to claim he has a scoop when something similar had already been reported in the NY Times or elsewhere. A well-reported story is a well-reported story, whether it's a scoop or not. The fact that it wasn't quite a scoop is irrelevant to my critique of the article, "Isolating Bush." More broadly, the focus on "scoops" at the expense of quality reporting is destructive to the news profession. Ask Mary Mapes. Well, maybe not. She's still blaming everyone but herself. But ask anyone who followed her career closely. No, my criticism of Waas's article is simply this: You cannot claim that Bush's Administration was withholding something that was already released into the public record and read into the Congressional record during the debate over the decision to go to war. It is simply nonsense. That's like replying to an email claiming you never received any emails. The entire article is bunk. It is based on a false and absurd premise, and would be just as flawed were it the biggest scoop in the world. After all, it is no achievement to be the first to print "Dewey Defeats Truman." I am happy to restrict my comments now to the one article, though, as I have not read through the other Waas pieces soon. Drill coming up, and all that. Plus, I'm much more interested in trying to understand the war itself than the inside baseball in the rear view mirror that Waas writes about. Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at April 20, 2006 1:13 AM | Permalink |
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