Politically, movement conservatism did well for quite a while, from Reagan to Gingrich to Bush the Younger, but the majority of American voters rejected it in the 2006 and 2008 elections. Discontent may help it rebound in 2010 and 2012, which is troubling, because movement conservative policies have been absolutely horrendous for America.
Back on 1/3/10, Digby linked "Remembering Naught" by Devilstower over at Daily Kos. Here's the key section:
As tempting as it is to forget the bad times, the reason there's a whole friggin' biological system built around the idea of burning these events irrevocably into your cerebellum in 18pt type is so you don't do it again...
Don't forget the naughts, because this decade, no matter what anyone on the right might say, was conservatism on trial. You want less taxes? You got less taxes. You want less regulation? You got less regulation. Open markets? Wide open. An illusuion of security in place of rights? Hey, presto. You want unlimited power given to military contractors so they can kick butt and take names? Man, we handed out boots and pencils by the thousands. Everything, everything, that ever showed up on a drooled-over right wing wish list got implemented -- with a side order of Freedom Fries.
They will try to disown it, and God knows if I was responsible for this mess I'd be disowning it, too. But the truth is that the conservatives got everything they wanted in the decade just past, everything that they've claimed for forty years would make America "great again". They didn't fart around with any "red dog Republicans." They rolled over their moderates and implemented a conservative dream.
What did we get for it? We got an economy in ruins, a government in massive debt, unending war, and the repudiation of the world. There's no doubt that Republicans want you to forget the last decade, because if you remember... if you remember when you went down to the water hole and were jumped by every lunacy that ever emerged from the wet dreams of Grover Norquist and Dick Cheney, well, it's not likely that you'd give them a chance to do it again.
Because they will. Given half a chance -- less than half -- they'll do it again, only worse. Because that's the way conservatism works. Remember when the only answer to every economic problem was "cut taxes?" We have a surplus. Good, let's cut taxes. We have a deficit. Hey, cut taxes even more! That little motto was unchanging even when was clear that the tax cuts were increasing the burden on everyone but a wealthy few. That's just a subset of the great conservative battle whine which is now and forever "we didn't go far enough." If deregulation led to a crash, it's because we didn't deregulate enough. If the wars aren't won, it's because we haven't started enough wars. If there are people still clinging to their rights, it's because we haven't done enough to make them afraid.
Forget the naughts, and you'll forget that conservatives had another chance to prove all their ideas, and that their ideas utterly and completely failed. Again.
Digby added:
I don't deny that the corporate Democrats are screwed up too. But they didn't invent this political world. As I quipped before, they just learned to stop worrying and love the money. This world of graft and corruption and unfettered greed was the conservative movement's idea of utopia. And they got it.
I tried to make the same basic points in "The Persistence of Ideology" (which also covers the current conservative zeal for torture). Movement conservative ideology, or dogma, has been exposed as completely disastrous, except for perhaps a select few. Yet conservatives are still shilling it. And the media mostly do not call them on it. Of all the chronic and horrible flaws of our mainstream media, the biggest is probably ignoring how horrible the Bush years were on almost every conceivable front. Neil's Irwin's good WaPo articleon the "lost decade" economically has gotten a fair amount of attention. It's not as if America's economic woes are some big secret, though, even though the details are important. But despite the demonstrated failures of conservative economic policies (and throw in some blame for Bill Clinton, Summers, Rubin and the gang), it's hard to go more than a week without reading about some conservative (or purported "moderate") touting tax cuts for the wealthy and powerful, and slashing social spending such as education, hospitals, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid (Steve Benen and Balloon Juice track these claims pretty diligently). Libertarian John Stossel attacks regulation and extols Ayn Rand (more on his cherry-picking in another post, perhaps, although I think it's fairly obvious). Schwarzenegger and California deserve their own post, but he continues to refuse to raise taxes on the rich (if anything, he'll cut them) and has threatened deep cuts to social services.
Back on 11/10/09, Paul Krugman noted the latest bile from Dick Armey, and wrote:
There’s a persistent delusion, on the part of many pundits, to the effect that we’re actually having a rational political discussion in this country. But we aren’t. The proposition that the Community Reinvestment Act caused all the bad stuff, because government forced helpless bankers into lending to Those People, has been refuted up, down, and sideways. The vast bulk of subprime lending came from institutions not subject to the CRA. Commercial real estate lending, which was mainly lending to rich white developers, not you-know-who, is in much worse shape than subprime home lending. Etc., etc.
But in Dick Armey’s world, in fact on the right as a whole, the affirmative-action-made-them-do-it doctrine isn’t even seen as a hypothesis. It’s just a fact, something everyone knows.
Truly, sometimes I despair.
Conservative partisans don't seem to get that acknowledging the failure of Bush policies is not itself partisan. Media figures are afraid to state the obvious for fear of being called partisan. Reasonable people, pretty much by definition, are interested in what works, regardless of political labels, and seek to avoid what doesn't. The old line is that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results. I'll explore this more in later posts, but: Opposing Reagonomics, and really all of the Bush administration's policies, is not (necessarily) a partisan matter at all – it's basic sanity.
Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy reminds me the February 5th is the Day of Shame, the anniversary of Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations. Full of falsehoods, and not very convincing for all that, the presentation played a crucial role in selling the Iraq War to the American people. Most Americans didn't listen too carefully to what was said, but they trusted Powell. While Powell has since tried to portray himself as a dupe, he knew that specific charges were dubious or outright bullshit, and certainly knew that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld were exploiting his credibility.
It's important not to let this go down the Memory Hole, especially when so many people in politics and the media are trying to pretend the Bush years never happened and/or no one's to blame. This was not an innocent mistake. It was deliberate deception. For the most part, those in power and influence who bought the case for war haven't truly acknowledged their error. Richard Cohen is a blithering idiot, but he's not alone in insisting that he was wrong for the right reasons, while those who saw through the bullshit were somehow right for the wrong reasons. Cohen is dead wrong as usual, and couldn't accurately describe the anti-war objections if his life depended on it. It's one thing to have been wrong, though, but it's quite another never to learn anything from such mistakes. Too many people with power and influence haven't, and that's what's dangerous.
I'd recommend, as always, the books Angler by Barton Gellman and The Dark Side by Jane Meyer for a good overview of the staggering abuses of power and horrendous mismanagement of the Bush administration. The Frontline specials on the Bush years, particularly "The Dark Side," "Cheney's Law," "The Lost Year in Iraq" or the compilation "Bush's War," are also excellent.
There's plenty more that needs to come out, though, and among other things, the Justice Department should be doing a full investigation of the torture regime. The Obama administration has in some cases borrowed from the Bush playbook. Granting prisoners due process is a strength, not a weakness. Meanwhile, the number of people running around casually or emphatically endorsing torture – despite its immorality, illegality, ineffectiveness and endangerment of Americans – is truly disturbing.
The Day of Shame website has more, and links to other posts. My most extensive post on the subject is this one from 2008. Peace.
With the CIA report on interrogations, prisoner abuses and torture released today, we're bound to see a new flurry of old arguments that the heavens shall fall if anyone dares to prosecute the perpetrators. A Washington Post op-ed today touches on these very issues, although the author is more nuanced and with a more narrow focus than many other WaPo writers on the subject. (I'd be shocked if we didn't get some raving torture apologists shortly.)
I'm not going to recap every argument (and re-use every link) in "Torture Versus Freedom" and other torture pieces here, but there needs to be a full investigation and disclosure of everything possible (the CIA report will help, but may have a more narrow focus). Prosecutions should certainly be brought where appropriate. Granting blanket immunity would be irresponsible before further facts are known, especially given what is already known. We do know over 100 prisoners were killed in detention, that abuse was widespread, and that abuses were the result of deliberate policies from the highest levels versus the work of a few "bad apples." Based on the timeline and narrative currently available, there are CIA agents – and more likely, government contractors – whose offenses were so grotesque they should investigated and probably prosecuted. However, the bigger issue is those higher up who made the decisions. That group would include Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Addington, Yoo, Gonzales and others (Marcy Wheeler's "The 13 people who made torture possible" provides a splendid overview). It would be a travesty if, as with Abu Ghraib, the lower-level personnel got all the blame while the real culprits got away scot-free.
With all this in mind, I wanted to go through "CIA Accountability: 6 Reasons Not to Prosecute Interrogators." I'll go through the whole thing paragraph by paragraph, but it might be better to read the whole thing and form one's own impressions first. The author was general counsel for the CIA from 1995 to 1996.
CIA Accountability 6 Reasons Not to Prosecute Interrogators
By Jeffrey H. Smith Monday, August 24, 2009
The CIA inspector general's report on "enhanced interrogation techniques," scheduled to be released today, is said to provide disturbing details about interrogations CIA officers conducted from 2002 to 2004. It will be painful reading. Although the Obama administration has banned the techniques, Attorney General Eric Holder is reportedly considering prosecuting some of the officers who conducted the interrogations.
We lost our bearings in the wake of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The United States, long a leader in human rights and the law of war, adopted policies and practices that squandered our credibility. Over time, President George W. Bush recognized that and reversed some of those policies. In one of his first acts, President Obama went further and banned the enhanced techniques, closed the secret CIA prisons and pledged to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay.
I'm not sure how accurate it is that 9/11 caused a madness that lead to abuses. Meanwhile, Bush "recognized" legal jeopardy more than the obvious immorality and inefficacy of torture and other abuses. "Madness" is probably the best defense, but as I've written before, the timeline doesn't really support a good faith defense (more on this later). The attacks on 9/11 didn't change the thinking of the neocons, imperialists, monarchists and authoritarians inside the Bush administration so much as it gave them more justification for their already existing, radical views.
Have we done enough to restore our credibility and correct past wrongs, or are prosecutions also needed? We don't yet know what has caused the attorney general to consider prosecution. Enforcing the law is an important function of government. But the government also has broader responsibilities. Here are six reasons prosecutions are not in the nation's best interests:
It's nice that Smith admits we don't know everything yet. Conservative torture apologists generally claim, without offering any proof, that torture saved lives. However, in the eyes of the world, there's simply no question we must prosecute to "restore our credibility and correct past wrongs." A significant percentage of the American people feel the same way, and that number would likely rise if the torture story was reported more accurately.
-- First, these techniques were authorized by the president and approved by the Justice Department. The relevant committees of Congress were briefed. Although the Justice Department's initial legal opinions were badly flawed, the fact remains that the agency responsible for interpreting and enforcing the law said the techniques were "legal." That alone will make prosecutions very difficult.
This is mainly an argument not to prosecute lower-level CIA agents. That seems to be Smith's main concern, and his take on prosecuting those higher up is less clear. I suspect that Washington Post op-ed editor Fred Hiatt might not note the distinction. I wish Smith was more forthright on this, since I think this op-ed will generally be flogged to shut down all prosecutions.
The OLC (Office of Legal Counsel) memos supposedly "authorizing" torture were issued as cover-your-ass measures, after torture and other abuse had already started. As it is, the guidelines they outlined, illegal though they were, were exceeded. But the memos also ignored glaringly relevant legal statutes and case law. A lawyer saying "murder is legal" obviously doesn't magically make it so, although this is essentially the Bush administration position – and one Smith voices as well. The torture memos were neither legally sound nor written in good faith.
As for congressional disclosure, as Angler documents and the Pelosi-CIA briefings story earlier this year show, the While House and the CIA both routinely deceived Congress when they told them anything at all. In fact, just today Scott Horton wrote about the role Blackwater played in Cheney's assassination program, which was one of the major stories of the past week. As Horton notes, Cheney ordered that Congress not be briefed on the program, and that part was known months ago even if Blackwater's involvement wasn't. It's hard to believe Smith didn't know about these stories.
-- Second, the CIA provided the inspector general's report to the Justice Department in 2004. Justice has not prosecuted any CIA officers but did successfully prosecute a contractor who beat a detainee to death, an incident that was initially reported to the department by the CIA. What has changed that makes prosecution advisable now? No administration is above the law. But the decision of one administration to prosecute career officers for acts committed under a policy of a previous administration must be taken with the greatest care. Prosecutions would set the dangerous precedent that criminal law can be used to settle policy differences at the expense of career officers.
Torturing and killing prisoners are not mere "policy differences." The Bush Justice Department's refusal to prosecute abuses is further proof of its corruption, not an exoneration of the perpetrators.
-- Third, after Justice declined to prosecute, the CIA took administrative action, including disciplinary action against those officers whose conduct it deemed warranted such responses. This is standard procedure; reports of possible criminal activity must be referred to Justice. If it declines to prosecute, the matter is sent back to the CIA for appropriate administrative action.
Disciplinary action under the corrupt Bush administration isn't necessarily sufficient, especially given the severity of the crimes – torture and death. This should be further investigated and probably decided on a case by case basis, though. The bigger concern is not individual CIA agents, but those higher-up who authorized these policies.
-- Fourth, prosecuting CIA officers risks chilling current intelligence operations. This country faces an array of serious threats. A prosecution or extensive investigation will be an unmanageable expense for most CIA officers. More significant, their colleagues will become reluctant to take risks. What confidence will they have when their senior officers say not to worry, "this has been authorized by the president and approved by Justice"? And such reactions would be magnified if prosecutions focus only on the lower-ranking officers, not those in the chain of command. Such prosecutions are likely to create cynicism in the clandestine service, which is deeply corrosive to any professional service.
Emphasis mine, above. I don't think it takes a high degree of intelligence or conscience to recognize that torture and murder of a prisoner is illegal and immoral, and not just another order to obey. But I agree with Smith on the bolded section. Those lower down should be investigated, partially to further establish the evidence. But those in the chain of command should be the main targets.
-- Fifth, prosecutions could deter cooperation with other nations. It is critical that we have the close cooperation of intelligence services around the world. Nations often work together through their intelligence services on matters of mutual interest, such as combating terrorism, even if political relations are strained or nonexistent. The key to this cooperation is the ability of the United States to be a reliable partner and keep secrets. Prosecuting CIA officers undermines that essential element of successful intelligence liaison.
This argument is largely bullshit. Most other nations aren't happy about the CIA or other American agencies and contractors torturing and killing people. Investigations are proceeding in Spain and other countries. The human rights abuses perpetrated under the Bush administration, and the Obama administration's insistence that it can still hold prisoners indefinitely without trial or evidence, have hurt foreign relations and our national security, not helped it.
-- Sixth, President Obama has decisively changed the policies that caused so much damage. He recognizes that it is vital to our security to have an effective intelligence community that is not distracted by looking backward and coping with congressional investigations and grand jury subpoenas.
The CIA is not a monolithic entity. It has tortured in the past, while others in the CIA have opposed this. Most in the FBI favor rapport-building techniques, as do some military interrogators such as the decorated Major Matthew Alexander. That's why the newly-announced High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group (HIG), with different agencies represented but FBI predominance and White House oversight, may prove to be a good idea.
Smith has consistently argued for years that CIA agents need clear guidelines, and he's absolutely right on that. HIG may provide that, and could be a useful buffer against torture apologist bullshit. Smith also has a point about not just going after lower-level CIA operatives. However, yet again, when torture and murder are involved, these are not mere "policy differences." It's pretty damn important for national security and "effective intelligence" that everyone in the CIA to understand that the Nuremberg defense doesn't hold and some orders must be challenged.
If media reports are accurate, the conduct detailed in the inspector general's report was contrary to our values. It caused harm to our nation and cannot be repeated. But prosecuting those who actually carried out that behavior has consequences that could further harm our nation. Even if the attorney general concludes that a criminal charge could be brought, other factors must be considered. Sometimes broader national objectives must be given greater weight.
The writer, a partner at Arnold & Porter, was general counsel of the CIA from 1995 to 1996.
This is more of the same. Again, there should be a full investigation, and some of those "who actually carried out that behavior" probably should be prosecuted. However, the big problem is those who authorized it, and they should remain the main focus. I don't think Smith is necessarily averse to prosecuting the chain of command, although some torture apologists have made similar arguments as a smokescreen to try to protect key members of the Bush administration. It's basically the "Criticize the Bush administration and you hate the troops" bullshit, except adapted to excuse war crimes. Let's also not forget – and the CIA would do well to remember this, too – that the Bushies have shown themselves perfectly happy to trash the CIA repeatedly for their own mistakes, and for doing things that the Bushies told and browbeat the CIA to do. (See these excerpts from The One Percent Doctrine, for example.) I don't blame Smith too much for sticking up for his former colleagues at the CIA in general principle, but I wish he'd recognize that part of the game, and be more forthright about his stance on prosecuting Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Addington, Yoo and the gang.
Based on his past writings and statements, Smith is strongly for clear guidelines for the CIA, army and other government entities, he's for agency coordination, and appears to be anti-torture.
I'm less concerned about Smith specifically, but did want to put his arguments in context.
Currently, the investigation is set to be only of low-level personnel. As Scott Horton and others have pointed out, if the law is followed, such an investigation will necessarily lead upward. The big worry is a whitewash. And Horton today raises serious concerns about Holder not releasing the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) report. (Marcy Wheeler has similar concerns.) It's important because, as Horton writes, that report:
...Could therefore provide ample reason to doubt whether anyone with legal training—or indeed, anyone with a functioning mind and the ability to read—would find the memos to be persuasive statements of the law. That matters, because the law requires someone relying on them to have done so “in good faith.”
Horton, Marcy Wheeler (Emptywheel), Spencer Ackerman and several other blogs will all be useful to read over the next weeks. Here's the Washington Post article on special prosecutor John Durham. Wheeler isn't thrilled about him. Eric Holder's statement can be read here.
In his first few months after leaving office, former vice president Richard B. Cheney threw himself into public combat against the "far left" agenda of the new commander in chief. More private reflections, as his memoir takes shape in slashing longhand on legal pads, have opened a second front against Cheney's White House partner of eight years, George W. Bush.
Cheney's disappointment with the former president surfaced recently in one of the informal conversations he is holding to discuss the book with authors, diplomats, policy experts and past colleagues. By habit, he listens more than he talks, but Cheney broke form when asked about his regrets.
"In the second term, he felt Bush was moving away from him," said a participant in the recent gathering, describing Cheney's reply. "He said Bush was shackled by the public reaction and the criticism he took. Bush was more malleable to that. The implication was that Bush had gone soft on him, or rather Bush had hardened against Cheney's advice. He'd showed an independence that Cheney didn't see coming. It was clear that Cheney's doctrine was cast-iron strength at all times -- never apologize, never explain -- and Bush moved toward the conciliatory."
A president, showing independence from his vice-president? Dangerous stuff. I'd note, though, that this is perfectly in line with the neocon idea that Bush was an empty vessel and Palin was a "blank page" to fill with their ideas. (Hey, ya gotta know your market - no one bright would buy the neocon ideology, all the more so after its huge disasters.)
Back to Gellman, near the end of the piece:
"If he goes out and writes a memoir that spills beans about what took place behind closed doors, that would be out of character," said Ari Fleischer, who served as White House spokesman during Bush's first term.
Yet that appears to be precisely Cheney's intent. Robert Barnett, who negotiated Cheney's book contract, passed word to potential publishers that the memoir would be packed with news, and Cheney himself has said, without explanation, that "the statute of limitations has expired" on many of his secrets. "When the president made decisions that I didn't agree with, I still supported him and didn't go out and undercut him," Cheney said, according to Stephen Hayes, his authorized biographer. "Now we're talking about after we've left office. I have strong feelings about what happened. . . . And I don't have any reason not to forthrightly express those views."
Liz Cheney, whom friends credit with talking her father into writing the book, described the memoir as a record for posterity. "You have to think about his love of history, and when he thinks about this memoir, he thinks about it as a book his grandchildren will read," she said.
I'm sure they'll especially enjoy the torture scenes. Still, amazingly enough, Liz Cheney may have inadvertently done something good (assuming the raw, unvetted-by-criminal-defense-lawyers version can get out).
...Consider this: By the time Cheney grew disenchanted with his protege, Bush had already started two wars against the dirty Moslem horde, deployed a mercenary army with a twisted religious sadism, authorized widespread torture, sanctioned indefinite detention and kidnapping, implemented a program for illegal wiretaps/surveillance of US citizens, signed-off on illegal settlement expansion in the occupied lands, endorsed an Israeli invasion of Lebanon, supported Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia, stoked a bloody (if unsuccessful) coup to topple Hamas in Gaza, and numerous other atrocities to warm the defective heart of Dick Cheney.
So the question is what, exactly, did Bush refuse to do that led to this increasingly messy divorce?
Reading this thing about the Tanks of Lackawanna, something has become clear to me that wasn't before: the excesses of the Bush administration, the war, the torture, the wiretapping, were the result of compromises between the sociopathic Cheney faction and the merely dull and incompetent remainder of the administration, including the president.
(The "Tanks" link points to DDay's post on this. If you missed them, I'd also recommend the Glenn Greenwald and Scott Horton posts on the military story, and Emptywheel's post "The Bush Fairy Tale on the Libby Pardon." When it comes to the Bush administration, as horrible as they've often appeared, subsequent revelations have almost always revealed them to be even worse.)
Commenting on the Gellman story and Cheney's plans to write a book, Anne Laurie writes:
Apparently omerta has its limits. I know a lot of us DFHs feared that the horrors of the Cheney Regency would never receive a public airing, if only for fear of the War Crimes Tribunal, but perhaps vanity will achieve what mere human decency and the rule of law never could.
Here's hoping. Still, the rule of law would be nice, if "quaint" in the view of Alberto Gonzales and the rest. I remain a fan of pitching the idea that the only thing that could possibly exonerate Cheney and the gang, and win them the accolades they so clearly deserve, is a full, unfettered investigation into the torture program (and the surveillance program and...).
I keep on plugging it, but Gellman's book Angler is one of the very best on Cheney and the Bush administration out there. As it is, he'll have to update it or write a sequel because some of what's come out since is even more nefarious. But if you're looking for a Cheney primer, you can read Angler excerpts here and here. Gellman's piece on "the Cheney Rules" is also a useful overview, and Scott Horton conducted a good interview with Gellman. Work by Jane Mayer, Ron Suskind and others give a much clearer picture of the Bush administration as well. Meanwhile, the Frontline episode "Cheney's Law" is one of several good pieces they've done on Cheney and the Bush administration.
Ah, the sweet smell of vanity and towering hubris. These guys have a warped view of the world, but their self-images are distorted as well. Remember, back during planning for the Gulf War, Cheney was repeatedly pitching crazy military plans to Norman Schwarzkopf. It's almost impossible to overstate how arrogant Cheney and his gang are (Addington's one of the worst). Cheney's approach showed an utter contempt for the American people, the entirety of Congress (including his own party), and even key members of the Bush administration. As I wrote in an earlier post, Cheney felt he was wiser than the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the Geneva Conventions, the Federalist papers, the Declaration of Independence, the Magna Carta, the Constitution, and the Boy Scout Oath. In the Scott Horton interview, Gellman describes Cheney as "a rare combination: a zealot in principle and a subtle, skillful tactician in practice." In Cheney's battle over whether to protect his proud legacy versus his instinct for self-preservation from prosecution, I'm hoping he pulls a Libby and the vain, arrogant zealot wins out.
Cheney thinks he's Jack Bauer. Part of him must be itching to go Colonel Jessep and yell the ugly truth at us all.
George Bush, an avid sports fan, clearly possesses unyielding faith in Hail Mary plays. At his last press conference as president, he once again struggled to take responsibility for any mistakes, and sounded his familiar defense, that only historians could fairly judge him:
Anyway, I think historians will look back and they'll be able to have a better look at mistakes after some time has passed. Along Jake's question, there is no such thing as short-term history. I don't think you can possibly get the full breadth of an administration until time has passed: Where does a President's -- did a President's decisions have the impact that he thought they would, or he thought they would, over time? Or how did this President compare to future Presidents, given a set of circumstances that may be similar or not similar? I mean, there's -- it's just impossible to do. And I'm comfortable with that.
The Bush administrative team really is rather remarkable; on the one hand, it consistently held that no onecouldhavepossiblypredicted 9/11, levees breaking, rioting and sectarian violence in Iraq, the economic crisis, and a number of other events, yet Bush officials have also argued that only history can judge them. Apparently, it's simply impossible for any human being to imagine future possibilities, or to judge anything accurately in the present, either. This leaves us only with hindsight – perhaps the only appropriate way to judge those whose approach is backwards.
Fortunately, the administration faced these twin impossibilities of prediction and judgment armed with the preternaturally accurate "gut" and deep faith in truthiness of George W. Bush, and the infallible vision of Dick Cheney, sager than everyone else in the administration, but also wiser than the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the Geneva Conventions, the Federalist papers, the Declaration of Independence, the Magna Carta, the Constitution, and the Boy ScoutOath. Perhaps that's why, even though Bush told reporters yet again that only history can judge him, as Dan Froomkin notes, "Bush has been plenty willing to assert his view of history's verdict on his presidency, even while saying it's too early for others to do so." Yes, in 2004, 81% of 415 polled historians judged the Bush administration a "failure." But if things somehow get better, well then, reckless behavior that accidentally produces good results clearly isn't irresponsible. A few conservative historians have argued that time is on Bush's side, and Bush, his family and friends firmly believe that historywillvindicate him. And after all, how could all those historians fairly judge Bush all the way back in 2004? Hurricane Katrina and the economic crisis hadn't even happened yet.
Some historians and journalists talk of objective standards, but no one can fairly say that George Bush, captain of a brave team, is the worst president ever.
Similarly, to use a sports analogy Bush could understand, no one can fairly say that after going a winless, unprecedented 0-16 in the regular season, the 2008 Detroit Lions are the NFL's worst team ever.
Over seven seasons under [Matt] Millen's leadership as team CEO, the Detroit Lions owned the NFL's worst winning percentage (31–81, .277), have never had a winning season, have never finished higher than third place in the NFC North, and have not played in any post-season games. Despite this record of total and complete failure, Millen received a five-year contract extension at the start of the 2005 season.
One has a duty to quibble with overwhelming public opinion, common sense assessments, and the very act of criticaljudgment. Strong alternative cases can often be made. For instance, historians of football might argue that the Cincinnati Bengals, with one winning season in the past 18, are a greater failure, and "an embarrassment to sport," that is, a black mark on the entire endeavor of sports altogether. The same cannot be fairly said of Bush in relation to government and leadership, for while some critics churlishly insist he is the worst president ever, others more charitably place him merely among the four or even five worst presidents of all time. Calling him the absolute "worst" is therefore terribly premature.
Plus, who's to say someone worse won't come along? After all, continuing with our sports analogy, the Detroit Lions are actually 0-17 going back to the 2007 season, and theoretically, they could lose all their games in 2009, too. Some of the games in 2008 were close. They could go 0-16 again in 2009, but lose by an even wider margin. (It would take some effort, but they could break their record of failing to "win a road game for three years (0-24)," too.)
Or – what if the Detroit Lions resigned en masse, ran for office and took over our government? Imagine their record in history then (although predicting the future is impossible). Could they compete with the Bush legacy described by Dan Froomkin?
He took the nation to a war of choice under false pretenses -- and left troops in harm's way on two fields of battle. He embraced torture as an interrogation tactic and turned the world's champion of human dignity into an outlaw nation and international pariah. He watched with detachment as a major American city went under water. He was ostensibly at the helm as the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression took hold. He went from being the most popular to the most disappointing president, having squandered a unique opportunity to unite the country and even the world behind a shared agenda after Sept. 11. He set a new precedent for avoiding the general public in favor of screened audiences and seemed to occupy an alternate reality. He took his own political party from seeming permanent majority status to where it is today. And he deliberately politicized the federal government, circumvented the traditional policymaking process, ignored expert advice and suppressed dissent, leaving behind a broken government.
Critics of Bush claim he's been worse than Nixon in harming America, the world, and most importantly of all, the Republican franchise. But never fear for the brand, because Sarah Palin and her backers are determined that they can outperform Bush, you betcha.
Anyway, sports analogies can be taken way too far, even with a sports lover like Bush. Comparing Bush to the woeful Detroit Lions reveals numerous differences, as we'll quickly see.
Accepting Responsibility
Here's (since fired) Detroit Lions coach Rod Marinelli explaining their disastrous season:
Detroit went 10-38 under Marinelli, who took the job in 2006. In September, the Lions fired President Matt Millen after the franchise posted the worst record (31-84) in the NFL during his seven-year tenure.
“We have nobody to point a finger at other than ourselves, we just didn’t do our job correctly,” Marinelli said yesterday. “There’s a lot to learn from that. You accept the adversity, try to fight through it and try to get better.”
Former Lions president Matt Millen made a similar claim:
"Completely responsible," he said. "I mean, you were head of football operations, you throw it back on me. You can say something about the coaching, you can say something about the players. But inevitably, I'm responsible for them. And so I'm completely responsible for it in my mind."
Millen added that even he would have fired himself.
Meanwhile, here's George Bush in his last press conference as president, boldly acknowledging that mistakes were made:
There have been disappointments. Abu Ghraib obviously was a huge disappointment during the presidency. Not having weapons of mass destruction was a significant disappointment. I don't know if you want to call those mistakes or not, but they were -- things didn't go according to plan, let's put it that way.
Investigations
Some people are just never satisfied. Even after Millen admitted error, over at the Detroit Free Press, Drew Sharp wrote:
Millen blew it again. Detroit deserves a detailed explanation for what went so horribly wrong from those who perpetrated the deed. Simply saying that you’re responsible for the disaster doesn’t make you accountable. That requires serving a penance. If Millen truly seeks atonement, he must delve deeper into those additional “reasons” of which he spoke.
...It would be a terrible mistake, in my view, to launch anything like the big, public criminal investigation that almost 60 House liberals, human rights groups, and others are seeking into allegations that John Yoo, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Condi Rice, President Bush, and other top officials reportedly approved harsh interrogation methods including water-boarding (subject to limitations that have not yet been publicly identified).
Public Support
This is the most contentious area, because management, punditry and the public often have not agreed. In the case of the Detroit Lions, fans and sports pundits overwhelmingly wanted president Matt Millen sacked, but owner William Clay Ford, Sr. resisted for a long time (eventually, even his own son, Bill Ford, vice chairman of the Lions, publicly said he'd fire Millen if it were up to him). The number and scope of protests pushing for Millen to be fired proved quite extraordinary. In September 2008, Brian VanOchten of the Grand Rapids Press expressed the popular sentiment and urged for more public demonstrations:
It is time for Millen Man March II.
In the aftermath of the Detroit Lions' third consecutive defeat, the infuriated fans of this once-proud NFL franchise must stand united and demand that team president Matt Millen relinquish his throne.
Enough is enough.
The Lions are off to an 0-3 start for the fourth time in Millen's eight seasons of misguided leadership after a humiliating 31-13 loss to the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday afternoon at Candlestick Park.
Meanwhile, with Bush, there was significant public interest in impeaching him, but most political journalists and pundits did not show much interest in this; they lacked their sports brethren's eagerness to criticize management. Mort Kondracke (or his copy editor) expressed a common conservative view by claiming that charges that Bush lied were false. And Gary Kamiya offered, "Why Bush Hasn't Been Impeached: Congress, The Media and Most of The American People Have Yet To Turn Decisively Against Bush because To Do So Would Be To Turn Against Some Part of Themselves."
Brian VanOchten wanted further demonstrations against Matt Millen in September 2008, while in November 2008 at the Wall Street Journal, former John Kerry legal team intern Jeffrey Scott Shapiro inveighed:
The treatment President Bush has received from this country is nothing less than a disgrace. The attacks launched against him have been cruel and slanderous, proving to the world what little character and resolve we have. The president is not to blame for all these problems. He never lost faith in America or her people, and has tried his hardest to continue leading our nation during a very difficult time.
Our failure to stand by the one person who continued to stand by us has not gone unnoticed by our enemies. It has shown to the world how disloyal we can be when our president needed loyalty -- a shameful display of arrogance and weakness that will haunt this nation long after Mr. Bush has left the White House.
Clearly, there are different standards of fandom, patriotism and coverage. Some have claimed that among Bush cheerleaders, "If Bush were the CEO of a company they invested in, or the coach of their favorite football team, and delivered the same quality of performance he has as president, they would have been screaming for his head on a pike long ago." This view misses an important point of diehard fandom. Diehard fans want their team to succeed, but more important than a winning season is defeating hated division foes – for instance, the joy of the Lions making the playoffs does not possess the emotional heft of the schadenfreude felt when defeating the Green Bay Packers in a nationally-televised Thanksgiving game. Similarly, if Bush fails, if America falters, for diehard Bushies this is paltry compared to the satisfaction of defeating, infuriating and taunting political foes.
The Mood on the Team
After their final loss of the season, sentiment on the Detroit Lions was strong:
“This is the conclusion of all that we’ve done wrong,” Lions kicker Jason Hanson told reporters yesterday. “It’s so mind-numbingly awful. It’s a feeling of complete embarrassment and sadness.”
Meanwhile, in his last press conference, Bush reflected:
We had a -- people -- we -- I had a fabulous team around me of highly dedicated, smart, capable people, and we had fun. I tell people that, you know, some days happy, some days not so happy, every day has been joyous. And people, they say, I just don't believe it to be the case. Well, it is the case. Even in the darkest moments of Iraq, you know, there was -- and every day when I was reading the reports about soldiers losing their lives, no question there was a lot of emotion, but also there was times where we could be light-hearted and support each other.
Habits of Mind
In the final game of the 2008 season, the Detroit Lions had a chance to defeat their division rivals the Green Bay Packers to escape a winless season:
Orlovsky led the Lions back into Packers territory, but a taunting penalty on Smith moved the Lions back near midfield and Orlovsky threw an interception to Nick Collins.
"It was a very bad, selfish decision," Smith said. "I let my emotions get the best of me. It was tough, but it is no excuse."
Perhaps more than anything, the penalties got Raiola riled up.
"Stupid," Raiola said. "You know, just uncalled for. You're in a game like that, you can't do that. Just dumb."
Americans may hold their presidents and sports teams to different standards when it comes to success and accountability. But for both, the expectations from the public and punditry can be terribly, horribly unfair. During his last press conference, Bush took umbrage with criticism of his response to Hurricane Katrina:
People said, well, the federal response was slow. Don't tell me the federal response was slow when there was 30,000 people pulled off roofs right after the storm passed. I remember going to see those helicopter drivers, Coast Guard drivers, to thank them for their courageous efforts to rescue people off roofs. Thirty thousand people were pulled off roofs right after the storm moved through. It's a pretty quick response.
Could things have been done better? Absolutely. Absolutely. But when I hear people say, the federal response was slow, then what are they going to say to those chopper drivers, or the 30,000 that got pulled off the roofs?
Meanwhile, here's Lions coach Rod Marinelli looking back:
"The biggest thing in this is how you conduct yourself afterwards," Marinelli said. "We accept responsibility for everything that went down."
Clearly, Marinelli should stick to sports, because with an attitude like that, he'd never make in Washington.
(Previous strained political sports analogies can be found in "Political Football Theater" and "The Sporting Life," while the Commission previously explored the Millen-Bush connection (as have several late-night comedians). For better satire on the Bush legacy, check out Jon Swift. Thanks to Buck for video coding assistance. Finally, apologies to all Lions and Bengals fans – as a Cubs fan, I feel your pain.)
I saw this when it aired this week, and am glad that CBS posted it. Kinda sums it up, doesn't it? Then there's Conan O'Brien:
Now today, I don't want to alarm you, when the stock market closed, it was down 777 points, which is the biggest point drop in American history. As a result, President Bush was able to cross off the tenth and final item on his administration's bucket list.
While the Bush administration rattles sabers once again and insists on more unchecked surveillance power and fewer civil rights for Americans, and Democrats seem set to capitulate for no good reason, it's worth taking stock of the Bush administration's actual record on terrorism.
Last year, we spent some time on Condoleezza Rice's lies, evasions and obfuscations about the 8-6-01 Presidential Daily Brief, "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside U.S." (alas, a video we linked is no longer available). Since attacking someone's patriotism seems to be all the rage again among conservatives – well, more so than usual - let me just say that anyone who puts covering their ass and that of their colleagues above the well-being of the United States is no patriot. The same goes for smear merchants and apologists such as Glenn Reynolds.
Last year, we also looked at a passage from Ron Suskind's The One Percent Doctrine about that crucial PDB, delivered in person by a CIA briefer flown to Crawford to make sure Bush (who's not much of a reader) heard it. The kicker from that longer passage was Bush's reaction:
He looked hard at the panicked CIA briefer.
"All right," he said. "You've covered your ass, now."
Rice never volunteered that information. No one in the Bush administration did to the 9/11 Commission. The White House never denied that account, yet the press remained relatively silent about the revelation, and others in Suskind's book, such as how the Bush administration tried to browbeat the CIA into saying there was a Al Qaeda-Iraq connection, when of course there wasn't. Seymour Hersh, Jane Mayer and several CIA insiders had told similar tales before. And the Bush administration's monumental incompetence has been pretty obvious to all those willing to look. Let's turn to Suskind again, who has a new book out:
As for whether we're safer, well, as Joby Warrick reports for The Washington Post (via Froomkin):
The Bush administration's terrorism-fighting strategy has not significantly undermined al-Qaeda's capabilities, according to a major new study that argues the struggle against terrorism is better waged by law enforcement agencies than by armies.
The study by the nonpartisan Rand Corp. also contends that the administration committed a fundamental error in portraying the conflict with al-Qaeda as a "war on terrorism." The phrase falsely suggests that there can be a battlefield solution to terrorism, and symbolically conveys warrior status on terrorists, it said.
"Terrorists should be perceived and described as criminals, not holy warriors," authors Seth Jones and Martin Libicki write in "How Terrorist Groups End: Lessons for Countering al-Qaeda," a 200-page volume released yesterday.
"In most cases, military force isn't the best instrument," said Jones, a terrorism expert and the report's lead author...
In Muslim countries in particular, there should be a "light U.S. military footprint or none at all," the report contends.
"The U.S. military can play a critical role in building indigenous capacity," it said, "but should generally resist being drawn into combat operations in Muslim societies, since its presence is likely to increase terrorist recruitment."
None of that should be shocking. And the Bush administration was told all that before it embarked on its reckless course of action. As for the Bush legacy, Dan Froomkin recently provided a good roundup:
Jane Mayer writes in the New York Review of Books: "Seven years after al-Qaeda's attacks on America, as the Bush administration slips into history, it is clear that what began on September 11, 2001, as a battle for America's security became, and continues to be, a battle for the country's soul.
"In looking back, one of the most remarkable features of this struggle is that almost from the start, and at almost every turn along the way, the Bush administration was warned that whatever the short-term benefits of its extralegal approach to fighting terrorism, it would have tragically destructive long-term consequences both for the rule of law and America's interests in the world. . . .
"Instead of heeding this well-intentioned dissent, however, the Bush administration invoked the fear flowing from the attacks on September 11 to institute a policy of deliberate cruelty that would have been unthinkable on September 10. . . .
"When warned that these policies were unlawful and counterproductive, they ignored the experts and made decisions outside of ordinary bureaucratic channels, and often outside of the public's view. . . . Far from tempering these policies over time, they marginalized and penalized those who challenged their idées fixes."
As for Bush's claim that he deserves credit for having averted further terrorist attacks, Mayer writes: "In the absence of government transparency and independent analysis, the public has been asked to simply take the President's word on faith that inhumane treatment has been necessary to stop attacks and save lives.
"Increasingly, however, those with access to the inner workings of the Bush administration's counterterrorism program have begun to question those claims. . . .
"In 2006, a scientific advisory group to the US intelligence agencies produced an exhaustive report on interrogation called 'Educing Information,' which concluded that there was no scientific proof whatsoever that harsh techniques worked. In fact, several of the experts involved in the study described the infliction of physical and psychological cruelty as outmoded, amateurish, and unreliable.
"In confidential interviews, several of those with inside information about the NSA's controversial Terrorist Surveillance Program have expressed similar disenchantment. As one of these former officials says of the ultrasecret program so furiously defended by David Addington, chief of staff and former counsel to Vice President Cheney, 'It's produced nothing.'"
Alan Brinkley sums up Mayer's new book in a New York Times book review: "Within hours of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, Dick Cheney in effect took command of the national security operations of the federal government. Quickly and instinctively, he began to act in response to two longstanding beliefs: that the great dangers facing the United States justified almost any response, whether or not legal; and that the presidency needed vastly to enhance its authority, which had been unjustifiably and dangerously weakened in the post-Vietnam, post-Watergate years. George Bush was an eager enabler, but not often an active architect, of the government's response to terror.
Here, too, it's the details and confirmations, not the broad strokes, that are news. For every major disaster perpetrated by the Bush administration, they were warned beforehand, including by people within their own administration. It happened for 9/11, the invasion of Iraq, reconstruction, Katrina, spying on Americans, fiscal mismanagement, torture, you name it. As we've often noted, it's not as if the Bushies have made mistakes because no one warned them, or because (contrary to the desperate cognitive dissonances of David Broder and his ilk) they weren't warned politely enough. If they ever were, they long ago ceased to be men and women of good faith and honor. It's also no coincidence that bullies unconcerned with facts, who deliberately set up a bad decision-making process, made bad decisions. As Digby often says, the corruption and incompetence are features, not bugs. It's really impossible to overstate how fearful, vengeful and arrogant they have been. They knew what they were doing was radical – that's why they've lied about so much, to the American public, to the media, to Congress, and to conscientious members of their own administration. Compared to the key players of the Bush gang, Narcissus suffered from poor self-esteem, King Lear was as introspective as Hamlet, Othello was overly cautious, and Macbeth lacked ambition.
In his play Stuff Happens, British playwright David Hare depicts an impassive Bush who is consistently warned of the consequences of his actions, most of all by Tony Blair and Colin Powell. If Bush were the tragic hero, his flaws would be his unwillingness to listen and his utter disinterest in trying to act wisely. Hare actually casts Powell as more of the tragic hero, although in retrospect he was far too generous. And while the Bush administration's failures on and leading up to 9/11 were shameful, sadly there were many more shames to come.
A teacher of mine in Moscow, Tolya Smeliansky, told us harrowing, moving tales of life in the theater and other arts in the Soviet era, with Stalin's reign of course the most cruel. One of the most important things Tolya drove home was how, in the face of wrongdoing, honest memory can be an act of conscience. As horrible as the Bush administration has been for the United States, the majority of Americans haven't faced woes of that magnitude. But all those unnecessarily killed, tortured, displaced or otherwise made miserable due to the Bush administration might feel differently (if they all could speak). Because it's sadly unlikely most of the Bush administration will face prosecution, and they will never stop voluntarily, it's especially vital that they at least be prosecuted in the court of public opinion and permanently discredited. Honest memory is essential to that, and this anniversary it's important to recall the colossal failures and craven cover-ups centering on 8-6-01.
I think I first read about this interview in Dan Froomkin's column back when it occurred, but Crooks and Liars posted the video. It's really quite remarkable:
I think my favorite part might be when Bush stops speaking, Coleman says something, and then he testily gives another round of "Let me finish!"
Several aspects are striking. It's refreshing to see the sadly rare sight of someone just not buying the bullshit Bush is selling. Bush acts as if Coleman is being rude, when his own behavior is brusque, and his answers are themselves insulting, because they are so simplistic, misleading, non-responsive or flatly false. I think Bush actually believes much of the crap he's shilling here. But it's interesting that he's positively indignant that anyone could possibly view things differently – and that he would have to converse with them. His bubble has always been pretty strong, exactly as he and his handlers have wanted. Most of all, this interview shows a Bush who simply cannot believe that someone would dare ask him to speak as an adult to adults about important matters.
Of course, this is far from the only time we've seen this side of Bush. You may remember the video of then candidate Bush, quizzed on foreign leaders back in 1999:
He doesn't know, it sure seems like he doesn't give a shit that he doesn't know, and he's pissed that anyone expects him to know or has the gall to ask. That, and a number of other incidents, should have made our mainstream journalists sound the alarm bells rather than making excuses for Bush's ignorance. It's not as if Bush has ever hit the books since, either. But then, who needs to know basic facts about a country, even months after one's decided to invade it, or respond to urgent national security threats?
Bush also got very testy with NBC's Richard Engel earlier this year when Engel pushed him. Dan Froomkin has a very good rundown on the interview and the White House's attempted retribution in "The President vs. the Peacock" (we covered this interview and Bush's denials earlier in "Brave Cowboys of the Junior High Lunch Room").
Here's the full, unedited 15 minute interview:
Via Froomkin's piece, here's the edited version NBC aired, the same unedited version NBC posted on their own website for viewers, and the White House's transcript. I'll also throw in Engel's teaser piece and Keith Olbermann on Countdown evaluating the White House's attacks on Engel and NBC over the piece. (I'm also reminded of journalist Nir Rosen discussing "the surge" with persistent hawk Frederick Kagan.)
As Froomkin observed:
It doesn't take a trained psychologist to observe that Bush got angrier and angrier as the Engel interview went on. That obviously had nothing to do with the editing; it had to do with Engel's questions.
Bush typically sits down with interviewers from Fox News -- or, more recently, Politico-- where he can count on more than his share of ingratiating softballs. But Engel, a fluent Arabic speaker who has logged more time in Iraq than any other television correspondent, assertively confronted Bush with the ramifications of his actions in the Middle East.
Bush is entitled to his views, of course. But the public is entitled to serious answers. If Bush wants to make the case for war, or continued occupation, fine, but let him make it honestly. Let him do it seriously. Let him actually address realities rather than painting rosy fantasies and offering trite slogans. It's a grave problem that Bush, his administration and his allies have implemented such dangerous and disastrous policies, and it's a grave problem they've offered so much bullshit in their rhetoric. Bush leaving office can't come soon enough. But we still have the media to deal with regardless. Kudos to those like Engel and Coleman, but as a whole journalists in America have not followed their lead. They have not made Bush and his allies ever have to make a honest and serious case for virtually anything. Bullshit, even when it cost hundreds of thousands of lives, depletes our resources and devastates our economy, is still perfectly acceptable to them.
(A typical hard-hitting MSM interview of our serious preznit.)
Continuing our recent discussions of those brave cowboys of the junior high lunch room and other bold hawks, it turns out Atrios declared last Friday Thomas Friedman’s Happy ‘Suck On This Day!’ in honor of the fifth anniversary of that infamous bit of appalling pundit bravado. John Amato of C&L has a good post rounding up many of the reactions.
I've taken on pundit idiocy on the war earlier and will again soon enough, although many bloggers have written in depth on these issues. There are many reasons we went to war with Iraq needlessly, but one of the key reasons it was possible was because of useful idiots like Thomas Friedman, who really, really should have known better. It's truly pretty depressing that for an influential American pundit who actually knew something about the Arab world, going to war really boiled down to:
Hey, you Arabs! Tommy F is one badass muthafucka!!!
It's also sad he's still rich and influential.
Moving on to the Bushies, there's Doug Feith expounding on assholes and opposition to torture. As usual for his ilk, Feith ignores that some of the people he advocated torturing were innocent, not that he'd be morally upright even if all of them weren't. But, truly, we've entered a surreal world where even Brecht, Kafka, Bulgakov, Terry Gilliam and Orwell might say, "I can't top the irony of that one."
Oh, and since Republican hacks and other right-wingers are attacking Obama's qualifications as commander in chief, let's stop by and take a look at our draft-dodging, frat-boy preznit:
Personally, I think it's a good thing for a president to have a sense of humor, but not when people are dying as a result of his decisions, and not when it's to dodge serious questions (one of his favorite tactics). And while we've certainly covered Bush's recklessness, ignorance, and swaggering machismo, this is among the most appalling incidents, from Lt. General Ricardo Sanchez' book (emphasis added):
Among the anecdotes in "Wiser in Battle: A Soldier's Story" is an arresting portrait of Bush after four contractors were killed in Fallujah in 2004, triggering a fierce U.S. response that was reportedly egged on by the president.
During a videoconference with his national security team and generals, Sanchez writes, Bush launched into what he described as a "confused" pep talk:
"Kick ass!" he quotes the president as saying. "If somebody tries to stop the march to democracy, we will seek them out and kill them! We must be tougher than hell! This Vietnam stuff, this is not even close. It is a mind-set. We can't send that message. It's an excuse to prepare us for withdrawal."
"There is a series of moments and this is one of them. Our will is being tested, but we are resolute. We have a better way. Stay strong! Stay the course! Kill them! Be confident! Prevail! We are going to wipe them out! We are not blinking!"
A White House spokesman had no comment.
Shocking, that. Tom Engelhardt also has a good piece on this incident.
As with Tom Friedman and his ilk, there are many reasons we went to war with Iraq needlessly, but a decisive factor was Bush's lack of character. Bush was so vain, incurious, insecure and immature Bush officials were able to push him or egg him on beyond his already prodigious capacity for reckless action and horrendous judgment. Pathetically, a lot of the war for the friggin' President of the United States was just Bush trying to say:
Hey, you Arabs! Dubya is one badass muthafucka!!!
I agree with the very last part, anyway.
Don the mustache of understanding, put on the cowboy hat of the faux, draft-dodging cowboy, and ye shall know that these bold, swaggering men who have never gone to war — but are relatively untroubled to send others to their deaths — have armadillios in their trousers. To call them colossal pricks might be too magnanimous, but "tiny scared rodents sheathed in armor" seems about right. And in a weird way, minus any wit or charm, this scene sorta sums up the entire Bush administration's approach to national security and "the global war on terror":
(This post is the first of a few in honor of Memorial Day, and part of an ongoing series on war.)
With the arrival of another Memorial Day, it seems only appropriate to re-examine notions of war and military action. We're supposed to remember the fallen, but part of that entails remembering why they died. Most of all, since life witnesses enough suffering as it is, it's essential to remember and question whether certain deaths were unnecessary and avoidable, and work to prevent any repetition of those mistakes. To that end, it's important to examine the mentality that lead to unnecessary deaths in the first place. All the recent accusations of "appeasement" from the Bush administration, the neocons, and other right-wingers gives us a perfect case study of these brave cowboys of the junior high lunch room.
If you read the liberal blogosphere, it'd be hard to have missed Chris Matthews' smackdown of Kevin James, but it's an excellent starting point. It's sorta funny, but also sorta disgusting. If you can bear to, watch at least part of it again:
Kevin James is an obnoxious ignoramus, and that's putting it politely. He repeats his magic word "appeasement" over and over, thinking it will somehow win him the day. He's too rude to shut up, either, refusing to answer Matthews' simple questions and also talking over the other guests after he's been shown up, but without offering anything new and certainly nothing substantial.
The rebuttals are all well and good, but James' belligerent idiocy isn't just fodder for sport, it's genuinely dangerous. As noted at The Poor Man Institute:
It’s all like this. Everything is just like this. Some blank young person who has memorized a 5_x7_ index card of focus group-approved phrases, yelling, yelling, yelling over everyone. And you can say what you want, and be as right as you want, but he’s going to keep yelling, and yelling, and yelling until you get sick of it, and at the end of the day everybody knows that Barack Obama goes to secret Muslim church. Everything is like this. An election won’t fix it. This rules the world.
Kevin James in fact attempted some classic bullshitting techniques. Yes, he did so ineptly, and yes, Chris Matthews called him on it, and fact-checked him on the spot, but that sort of conduct from our press corps is depressingly rare.
The sad truth is, America has more than its fair share of Kevin Jameses, and they are rife in government, in think tanks, and among newspaper columnists and TV pundits. Most are less overtly obnoxious. Some are even slightly less ignorant. But at the most generous, these belligerent hawks are wrong, they do not learn from their mistakes, they are insistent, they are taken seriously by the Washington establishment (they basically are the Washington establishment), and for all these reasons, they are very dangerous.
Diplomacy 101
The idea that basic diplomacy is "appeasement" is asinine. Saying that all discussion is appeasement is like saying all speech is cursing. Yet the Bush administration acts as if the "silent treatment" is the height of State Department sophistication and wisdom. After Bush's speech, as Joe Biden pointed out, "Since when does this administration think that if you sit down, you have to eliminate the word 'no' from your vocabulary?" And as Biden later observed, "You either talk; you go to war; or you maintain the status quo." (Biden sorta missed one — when not going to war, the Bush administration either completely disengages or ratchets up the aggressive rhetoric to make the status quo worse — for the United States.)
Bolstering the points of the Matthews and Obama clips linked above, Eric Martin recently highlighted some key observations from Matthew Yglesias:
The problem here is that, once again, we see hawks not understanding what diplomacy is...[T]hink of diplomacy as a kind of bargaining. Like you might do at a yard sale or something. Diplomacy doesn't exist at one end of a spectrum of coercive measures -- we try war, we try sanctions, we try diplomacy -- any more than bargaining operates on a smooth continuum with robbery. The point of bargaining with a vendor is to see whether or not it's possible to find mutually acceptable terms that improve both parties' positions. In terms of diplomacy with Iran, the idea isn't that Obama's steely gaze would force concessions out of the Iranians, the idea is that we might be able to give Iran something Iran deems more valuable than weapons-grade nuclear material, and in exchange we would get verifiable disarmament.
The "something" here would presumably be some form of security assurances plus an accommodation to Iranian interests in Iraq, along with Teheran and Washington laying out a pathway to gradual normalization of relations in exchange for an end to Iranian support for terrorism and Palestinian rejectionist groups. Would it be possible to strike such a deal? Maybe, maybe not. But the purpose of a negotiating session would be to find out by attempting to do the bargaining rather than having five more years of back-and-forth blog posts speculating about the possibility. The general theory of diplomacy is that rational actors should, through negotiations, be able to achieve positive-sum settlements rather than negative-sum conflicts. It's always possible that your would-be negotiating partner will prove irrational (as George W. Bush did when he rejected Iranian peace overtures several years back) and the process will fail, but it's worth attempting in good faith. [emphasis added]
None of these ideas should be shocking, or revelatory, but as Fred Kaplan put it (via another Eric Martin post well worth reading): "The Republican administration has violated so many precepts of International Relations 101 that clichés take on the air of wisdom." The Bush administration, the neocons, and other right-wingers often seem to see diplomacy itself as a failure of war. The simple notion that "you don't make peace with your friends, you make peace with your enemies" probably strikes them as an alien concept, or at least heresy.
Of course you negotiate with enemies. And of course negotiating with them doesn't mean that you think that "some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," any more than being willing to negotiate with a car dealer means that you think that some ingenious argument will convince him to give you a car for free. That's not what negotiations are about.
More to the point: can anyone explain to me exactly how being willing to talk to Iran is supposed to display "inexperience and reckless judgment"? Recklessness means: taking unnecessary risks. What, exactly, do we risk by talking to Iran? Is some bad thing supposed to happen as a result? If so, how?
It's the underpants gnomes again, only evil:
(1) Talk to Iran (2) ??? (3) DISASTER!!!
If someone could explain to me what step 2 looks like, I'd be very much obliged. Because I don't see it. I certainly don't see any bad consequences of talking to Iran that would begin to compare to the results of invading Iraq. (Speaking of naivete and recklessness.)
That's not to mention that Bush fixer James Baker doesn't view talking to an enemy as appeasement, and as Joe Biden noted in his ABC interview (linked earlier), both Condoleezza Rice and Robert Gates sensibly believe in negotiations as well. It was also good enough for conservative saint Ronald Reagan with the far more dangerous Soviet Union, and virtually every president before Bush. Oh, and apparently, Bush's immediate audience, Israel, also believes in negotiations with supposed enemies.
Bush, the Neocons and the Authoritarian Mindset
The Bush administration's black and white, belligerent, recklessly obtuse approach to foreign policy exemplifies all the worst aspects of authoritarian movement conservatism. Much of it comes down to aggressive tribalism. As we've explored before, for authoritarian conservatives, good and evil are defined by those in authority much more so than objective principles. And typically, that authority defines whether an individual or group is good or evil in large part according to whether someone is a member of the favored group, or an Other. Even torture, one of the most despicable, degrading and cruel acts possible, is seen as wrong when the enemy does it, but forgivable or even good when one of the Righteous does it. That's not to mention their typical braggadocio and insecure obsession with losing face. Other blogs have chronicled these dynamics at greater length, but as we noted in "Jack Bauer versus Maher Arar":
It's worth noting the warped, insecure views of masculinity that comes with this chickenhawk, I'll-torture-him-more-than-you crowd... Tough talk is what movement conservatives want. There's the tale of conservative hawk Joe Lieberman watching the action flick Behind Enemy Lines: "whenever the American military scored an onscreen hit, Lieberman pumped his fist and said, “Yeah!” and “All right!"" Recently, Lieberman has been saber-rattling irresponsibly against Iran. (As Wesley Clark put it, "Only someone who never wore the uniform or thought seriously about national security would make threats at this point.") There's conservative Ralph Peters, upset by a poll that shows that roughly half of American troops wouldn't torture a captive even given some implausible ticking bomb scenario. Really, how dare they? There's Bush's horrible idea early in his presidency that the U.S. should withdraw from mediating Arab-Israeli conflicts because ''Sometimes a show of force by one side can really clarify things." There's Bush's angry insistence, in May 2002, that he was "going to kick [Saddam Hussein's] sorry motherfucking ass all over the Mideast." Dan Froomkin observed that it was four years ago today that Bush taunted our enemies with the line, "My answer is, bring 'em on." There's the need of "Tucker Carlson and Jonah Goldberg to search endlessly for strong, powerful, masculine figures so that they can feel those attributes and pose as one who exudes them."
Of course, there's nothing wrong with enjoying an action movie, a little escapism or a little tough talk in private, as long as one is capable of moving beyond that, or one can tell fantasy from reality. Sadly, that doesn't seem to be the case for most prominent conservatives...
Bush's "Bring it on" is the epitome of reckless bullshit bluster. Most professional athletes know better to mouth this sort of trash talk at risk of riling up their opponent, and in their case, no one's going to die as a result. Is it too much to expect the President of the United States to have at least that much sense? Those words might have made Bush feel tough, but they endangered troops and international aid workers. Let's also not forget, for one example of many, that back in 2006 Bush administration officials and prominent conservatives were "rooting" for a big nuclear test by North Korea to justify overthrowing its government. Then there's five-deferment Cheney's visions of martial glory back during the first Gulf War, where he continually pestered Schwarzkopf with crazy, horrible schemes, "the most bizarre [of which] involved capturing a town in western Iraq and offering it to Saddam in exchange for Kuwait." The people are just crazy, or reckless.
Cheney would be better off sticking to a game of Risk, where no one else would have to suffer for his consistently poor decision-making. But he's no more perceptive or reflective than diehard hawk Michael O'Hanlon, for whom the great tragedy of Iraq is not that people have died and continue to die, it's that he, Michael O'Hanlon, is criticized for being disastrously wrong (more on Hanlon and his ilk in a subsequent post, although the linked Greenwald piece is a great takedown).
We've covered Bush's immaturity in many a post, but as we covered in a piece on the pugnacious John Bolton, for this crew, belligerence and bullying are core principles. As the New Yorker reported:
Scowcroft suggested that the White House was taking the wrong advice, and listening to a severely limited circle. He singled out the Princeton Middle East scholar Bernard Lewis, who was consulted by Vice-President Cheney and others after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. Lewis, Scowcroft said, fed a feeling in the White House that the United States must assert itself. “It’s that idea that we’ve got to hit somebody hard,” Scowcroft said. “And Bernard Lewis says, ‘I believe that one of the things you’ve got to do to Arabs is hit them between the eyes with a big stick. They respect power.’ ” Cheney, in particular, Scowcroft thinks, accepted Lewis’s view of Middle East politics.
Or there's the perfect embodiment of neocon philosophy, as coined by inveterate liar Michael Ledeen, and quoted approvingly by Jonah Goldberg:
Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.
There's plenty of evidence for this mindset among the Bushies, but Bolton's idea of diplomacy is to punch someone in the face. Cheney's idea of good Middle East policy with Arabs is to show them who's boss, with no consideration for the simple truth that humiliation breeds enmity in virtually everybody, and one might argue especially in Arab cultures (consider Abu Ghraib). I hope the insecure machismo of Ledeen and Goldberg is painfully apparent. But basically — and this really shouldn't be a shock — the imperialist approach breeds resentment in those on the receiving end. At the most fundamental level, the Bush administration has consistently moved away from a paradigm of wary, sober cooperation and even vibrant competition to one of belligerence, dominance and submission. They simply do not know how to relate to other nations as a friend, only as a bully — and then are shocked and indignant when others are not publicly grateful and praiseworthy toward their actions.
Rumsfeld shouldn't be forgotten, either, especially his penchant for expressing commonly-held right-wing notions in private luncheons with Pentagon aides:
But by far the most extraordinary part of this luncheon is the antipathy the gathered members exhibit toward the American people for having the temerity to vote the Democrats back into power. When Lt. Gen. Michael DeLong bemoans the lack of "sympathetic ears" on Capitol Hill, Rumsfeld offers that the American people lack "the maturity to recognize the seriousness of the threats." What's to be done? According to Rumsfeld, "The correction for that, I suppose, is [another] attack."
This contempt for the American public coupled with consistently horrible judgment has made for disastrous consequences. But Bush's "appeasement" charges are part of a long-standing right-wing tradition, as Barbara O'Brien examined in "The Power of (Right Wing) Myth." It's the same mentality that fuels the right-wing's angry rage over the stab in the back myth on Vietnam, and, well, just about everything. (It's also an inaccurate, dangerous view shared by John McCain, that informs his horrible Iraq policy as well.)
Bush invoking the appeasement of Hitler fails on many other levels, as well. Brian at Incertus explains some of the problems with the Chamberlain analogy, the Poor Man Institute explores the problems with WWII analogies in general, author Lynne Olson explains how Bush is much more like Chamberlain than Churchill, and that's not to mention how ludicrous it is that Bush is accusing anyone of appeasing Nazis given his own family history.
There's another element in this saga that deserves mention. White House spokesperson Dana Perino at first denied that Bush was talking about Obama, and took a swipe at Obama, saying that "I understand that when you are running for office sometimes you think the world revolves around you. That is not always true and it is not true in this case." However, she also admitted Bush's comments did include Obama, and the White House in unofficial statements confirmed that Bush was in fact talking about Obama. Dan Froomkin's "A Ludicrous Denial" is a thorough examination of the White House lies on this point, as well as the many problems with Bush's appeasement speech.
Of course, it didn't end there. There were those who still insisted that Bush wasn't talking about Obama, and several conservatives accused Obama of being overly sensitive or "prickly" (which seems to be a favorite conservative smear against Obama now). Perhaps the masterpiece of bullshit on this was Peter Wehner's short response at National Review. Dissecting it could use its own post, perhaps, and it's too much to expect Wehler to acknowledge that Bush did not offer a "substantive" or "careful" argument himself, or that Bush's approach is horribly unwise. But after some Clinton-bashing, Wehrer delivers a straw man misrepresentation of Obama's general foreign policy and his specific response, and calls him "thin-skinned, a bit rattled, and prickly." He then end with this:
Obama and the Democrat’s DefCon 1 response to the president’s speech to the Knesset is a perfect illustration of the kind of tiresome “old politics” we really don’t need. The early media reports I heard of Bush’s speech didn’t even mention the appeasement line; it was only after Obama’s campaign and other Democrats exploded in (manufactured) fury that it became a political issue at all. Or, perhaps more accurately, a “distraction.” Which is exactly what I thought Obama was trying to move us away from.
Get that? Bush's attacks, widely seen as rather extraordinary, weren't out of line, but Obama's response was. Yes, Wehler's trying to sell the ridiculous idea that Bush is serious, trying to solve the problems of the world, and that despite the glaring relevance of Obama's views on such matters given the election, somehow Obama's response is a "distraction" from Bush's serious-and-oh-so-wise statecraft (he's also suggesting that responding to Bush's attacks is somehow hypocritical of Obama). Style points to Wehler, I suppose, for working in the whole nuclear threat his crew is trying to scare America with by mentioning "DefCon 1." Still, most of all, Wehler's playing an old conservative game: fling outrageous bullshit at a liberal and then accuse him or her of being thin-skinned when he or she punches back forcefully. Even by concern troll and National Review standards, Wehler's piece is pretty weak stuff.
Bush refused to acknowledge he was slamming Obama in his speech even when asked about it directly by NBC's Richard Engel, who conducted a much tougher interview than Bush is accustomed to. Dan Froomkin covered this development well in "The President vs. the Peacock," noting that:
It doesn't take a trained psychologist to observe that Bush got angrier and angrier as the Engel interview went on. That obviously had nothing to do with the editing; it had to do with Engel's questions.
Bush typically sits down with interviewers from Fox News -- or, more recently, Politico-- where he can count on more than his share of ingratiating softballs. But Engel, a fluent Arabic speaker who has logged more time in Iraq than any other television correspondent, assertively confronted Bush with the ramifications of his actions in the Middle East.
In other words, someone in the same room as Bush pushed him for straight answers, not only on the target of his appeasement smears, but on the very real, glaring consequences of his foreign policy, in a "careful" and "substantive" way. As we've seen before, that doesn't go over well with Bush, and Froomkin also chronicles the White House's unusually aggressive attacks on NBC over the piece.
Bush was definitely slamming Obama, by the White House's own admission. But did he have another agenda? Cernig saw the speech as "a wink and a nod" toward Israel that it could or should attack Iran, while The New York Times editorial board (via another Froomkin piece) pondered whether it was a "breathtakingly cynical" gambit by Bush to admonish Israel for its plan to negotiate with Syria. Impressively, though, no matter what Bush's motivations, his speech remains highly questionable and extremely objectionable.
So, to recap, Bush evoked inaccurate historical analogies as the keystone of a shoddy argument for a reckless foreign policy approach his own actions have painfully repudiated, in large part to smear the leading Democratic candidate, but Bush didn't have the guts to name him, and was even too cowardly to own up to it under direct questioning. Oh, and in petulant retaliation, he unleashed the hounds on those who dare to question his bullshit. (Same old, same old.)
The Junior High Lunch Room
Not surprisingly, the Bush foreign policy approach is strikingly similar to the mindset of authoritarian religious conservatives. In this view, it's dangerous to talk to an "enemy," because one might be tempted, just as an upright, righteous man might be tempted by devil women, liquor, porn or well, culture. The flesh, the mind, and any capacity for rational decision-making is weak; people can't be trusted to make their own choices, because then they might the wrong ones. Many prominent movement conservatives really do see themselves in a good versus evil battle both abroad and domestically, and once you've defined someone as Hitler, the Devil — or a liberal — it's awfully hard to sit down and talk. As we've explored before, most of movement conservatism really is exemplified by the Two Minute Hate in Orwell's 1984 (which Rove and Cheney apparently read not as a cautionary tale, but a how-to manual).
But there's another metaphor that always strikes me with the Bush administration, the neocons, and other right-wingers. In their reckless, arrogant cowboy diplomacy, they really are little more than insecure junior high school boys. Granted, Cheney especially is an extremely devious, sophisticated operator, but his outlook is not that far removed from say, Jonah Goldberg's. The Bushies' views on diplomacy really come down to, "Don't talk to Iran, and definitely don't sit with Iran at lunch." Make a big show of not sitting with them, and make sure everyone knows you're snubbing them. And anyone who does sit with them or talk to them is a traitor! The Bushies pick fights to prove how tough they are, often against weaker kids. Going a bit younger than junior high, they're scared of getting cooties from the Dirty Friggin' Hippies or the Muslims or those gays. And really, there's no demographic more insecure and more apt to talk tough to prove their manhood than the junior high school boy. The Bushies' entire approach to everything is that of an insecure bully, terrified of being found out, obsessed with dominance and submission, petrified of looking weak, traveling in packs, picking unnecessary fights and attacking and trying to humiliate others before they can do the same to them.
I say all this having been a junior high school boy, and from later having to teach and coach some, not that one needs either experience to be familiar with the basic mentality (and not that I was much of a terror myself). But I do remember the swagger, the boasting, and (to date myself) since Reagan was president, all the Cold War paranoia and rhetoric (although I'd say it was less pronounced in the 80s than in the 50s and 60s). I grew up in the D.C. area, and for many kids, hating those damn Ruskies was an article of faith, and a public ritual to affirm solidarity, akin to hating the Dallas Cowboys (although honestly, some probably hated the Cowboys more). There were some who really, really dived into gleeful, tribal hatred of the Soviets — and you can now find some of that crowd on right-wing blogs extolling the virtues of Red Dawn. But there were also some of us who did realize, even at that young age, that all of these rituals of public hatred and animosity were largely bullshit, partially tipped off by the fact that the folks who were doing the demonizing were mostly smug assholes full of shit on most everything else. I had a good friend who was obsessed with military matters, military history, and war films, and we all saw Red Dawn and Rambo too. But we thought Red Dawn started all right but was sorta lame, and we liked the action of Rambo because we were junior high school boys, but I don't think we all bought the Vietnam stab-in-the-back stuff if we even noticed (Son of Rambow is a great little film, by the way). Plus, there was the anti-war slant of War Games in the same era, an immensely popular movie.
The thing is, for all our bluster and tough talk, even my military-adoring buddy understood that war wasn't pretty. His favorite film was probably Kelly's Heroes, but he had seen them all, and would sometimes describe some gruesome scenes, and there would be the usual "Boy, that's cool!" sheen, but also a "Boy, that would really suck" awareness. Yeah, he'd root for the Americans, but he had some German ancestors and didn't demonize the Germans, and admired their tanks. Maybe it's because it's really hard to grow up in the D.C. area without knowing some vets, but while we certainly shared in "the juvenile glorification of war" that Bernard Chazelle describes so well in this post, no one thought nuclear war was a good thing, and we did understand on some level that war was hell. We were cocky, but we were actually open to learning. But we were definitely cocky. I remember after Reagan attacked somewhere, one of our gang was uncharacteristically a bit upset by the whole thing, and being a smartass, I quipped something like, "Well, what's the use of being a superpower if you can't abuse it once in a while?" My buddy laughed, and I got a few high-fives for it. But I was just being a smartass, and I think we all knew on some level it was bullshit bluster. Talking tough, taking an ironic, smartass attitude, all of it was armor to protect from anxiety over the Cold War, the state of world, and much more importantly, all the usual crap teenagers have to go through.
Like the Editors at The Poor Man Institute, I've often thought that perhaps "world peace could be attained if people would agree to settle all military disputes through video games - all the excitement and trash talk of war, without the unpleasant bits." The key factor is that for the Bushies, they never really grew up, and never truly developed self-reflection. In their minds, their villains are almost always external, and they themselves can rarely if ever do wrong. Some kids start off more inclined to bullying than others, but there are environmental factors, and a series of decisions for each individual as well. I have to believe everyone at some point has been on the receiving end of some bullying or unfair treatment. However unconsciously, however gradually, I think most people also do make a key psychological decision about how they react to that sort of thing, by trying to be fair to others, or by becoming a bully themselves. It's more complex than that, of course, since some people tend to be pacifists, some go with the flow whatever it is, some are tough fighters for justice, some jealously guard their own turf but mainly just want to protect themselves and their family or community, and some are genuine bullies and villains. But on one level the fairness-versus-bully response really sums up the liberal-conservative divide, at least when it comes to movement conservatism. As Johann Hari wrote about a National Review cruise:
There is something strange about this discussion, and it takes me a few moments to realize exactly what it is. All the tropes conservatives usually deny in public--that Iraq is another Vietnam, that Bush is fighting a class war on behalf of the rich--are embraced on this shining ship in the middle of the ocean. Yes, they concede, we are fighting another Vietnam; and this time we won't let the weak-kneed liberals lose it. "It's customary to say we lost the Vietnam war, but who's 'we'?" Dinesh D'Souza asks angrily. "The left won by demanding America's humiliation." On this ship, there are no Viet Cong, no three million dead. There is only liberal treachery. Yes, D'Souza says, in a swift shift to domestic politics, "of course" Republican politics is "about class. Republicans are the party of winners, Democrats are the party of losers."
Two last thoughts on the junior high metaphor. One, there's a reason that we, as immature junior high school boys, were not asked to set American foreign policy. Two, even as cocky, tough-talking junior high school boys, I think we better appreciated the consequences of war than the Bush administration ever has. That may be scarier than the Cold War ever was.
If my language and judgment throughout this post seems harsh (not that it can compare to that of the Bushies), there are a few reasons. One is that the Bush administration's foreign policy has been disastrous, and many people have suffered needlessly and died as a result. That really cannot be emphasized enough. Another is that, alarmingly, as Glenn Greenwald has repeatedly demonstrated, the Beltway foreign policy establishment still views unnecessary, unfounded and counterproductive hawkishness as "serious" and wise, while they view actual wisdom and common sense as silly and soft, and ridicule those who espouse it. Our national political discourse is still almost entirely dominated by people who either got it wrong on Iraq, or didn’t challenge the administration nearly enough, and they still haven’t learned a damn thing. Meanwhile, the folks who got it right are still mostly shut out and cut off from the microphone. The scoundrels and knaves have prospered while those 'foolish' enough to see and tell the truth have mostly paid a price. (It seems to me someone wrote a play about that once.)
Put simply, stupidity is a social norm in Washington elite circles. If that stupidity was regulated only to their personal lives and the ostentatious spending of their disposable income, these people would remain figures of ridicule, but they would not be nearly so dangerous. Lest there be any pearl-clutching about nasty language, let us remember: George W. Bush hasn't stuck with his reckless, disastrous policies despite glaring evidence of the wreckage just because no one ever pointed out his mistakes to him in a polite enough fashion. It's been tried. The same goes for the media and their colossal mistakes, most of all in the run-up to the war. Even in pretty forgiving circumstances, they still won't admit their errors. Sorry, that ain't on us bloggers and citizens. And it's certainly no vice to speak out to try to prevent the same mistakes from being made all over again.
Personally, I'd much prefer to be writing mostly about the arts (although Shakespeare, for one, was one helluva a political philosopher, so some politics would be inevitable). But when my government launches unnecessary wars of choice, when people die and are tortured and suffer, all in the name of my safety and America, and those in power in politics and the press mostly don't give a damn about radical actions that violate core American principles, well then, something needs to be said. Anyone who thinks a few rude words are the problem, or thinks that calling someone a war criminal is worse than being a war criminal has their head up their fucking ass.
I, and many other far more prominent bloggers, I'm sure, are happy to call bullshit in more polite, nuanced language in more genteel venues. But here's a radical idea. What if we don't listen to the people who have been repeatedly, disastrously wrong and still not only can't tell us why, but can't even admit it? Why don't we instead listen to the people who've been consistently right, and do so before it's too late? If there's one thing Bush's speech — and the past eight years — should remind us of, it's that we cannot afford any more appeasement of foolish, unrepentant warmongers.
