An Opus Of Beltway Blather

I realize that anything which is a few days old on the Internet might as well be ancient, but that hasn’t stopped me from commenting on items of that type in the past. With that admittedly dubious precedent in mind, I feel absolutely compelled to respond to David Broder’s column last Friday.

Glenn Greenwald, among others, made reference to it here at Salon.com (have to view an ad for the movie “Babel” just out on DVD, I believe), but I haven’t yet seen anyone take it apart and give it the treatment it deserves (under Broder’s title, “Bush Regains His Footing”).

It may seem perverse to suggest that, at the very moment the House of Representatives is repudiating his policy in Iraq, President Bush is poised for a political comeback. But don't be astonished if that is the case.

Actually, I would be astonished (dear Lord, here comes another variation of the “Bush bounce,” narrative which is sooo old by now – have we broken triple digits on this one yet? I’ve lost count).

Like President Bill Clinton after the Democrats lost control of Congress in 1994, Bush has gone through a period of wrenching adjustment to his reduced status. But just as Clinton did in the winter of 1995, Bush now shows signs of renewed energy and is regaining the initiative on several fronts.

How do I count the ways that these statements are preposterous? Let’s see…under Clinton, our country actually wasn’t stuck in a debilitating war that was draining our treasury and resources and, most importantly, the lives of our military men and women, to say nothing of the impact on their families and friends; our country was enjoying a period of prosperity marked by job growth where our leaders were acting fiscally like adults; we cared about the purity and sanctity of this planet and showed environmental consciousness, etc…

Clinton was able to build on a record of success, upon which Dubya has built nothing but failure.

More important, he is demonstrating political smarts that even his critics have to acknowledge.

Silly me, I keep forgetting that in “Beltway World,” all that matters is politics, because reality departed the scene shortly after January 2001.

His reaction to the planned House vote opposing the increase he ordered in U.S. troops deployed to Iraq illustrates the point.

When Bush faced reporters on Wednesday morning, he knew that virtually all those in the Democratic majority would be joined by a significant minority of Republicans in voting today to decry the "surge" strategy.

He did three things to diminish the impact of that impending defeat.

First, he argued that the House was at odds with the Senate, which had within the past month unanimously confirmed Gen. David H. Petraeus as the new commander in Iraq -- the man Bush said was the author of the surge strategy and the man who could make it work. Bush has made Petraeus his blocking back in this debate -- replacing Vice President Cheney, whose credibility is much lower.

Didn’t Barry Nathan just say in his fine letter that governing isn’t “sport”? Amazing how people not “in the know” grasp the obvious as opposed to our clueless leaders (re: the reference to Gen. Petraeus as Dubya’s “blocking back” – when considering how inappropriate the analogy is, it’s easy to discount its basic absurdity).

Also, Bush said that Petraeus was “the author of the surge strategy”?

I don’t know where the hell Broder got that from, but I’ll tell you what; here is a link to the “60 Minutes” interview Dubya gave to Scott Pelley a little over a month ago. At this time, I won’t go through that and answer Dubya’s ongoing idiocy – only so many hours in the day. But I did a search on all six pages of the online version of the interview for “Petraeus” (the interview being basically a PR piece of sorts for “the surge,”) and found absolutely nothing.

No, Broder, Gen. Petraeus isn’t “the author of the surge strategy.” That ignominy falls upon George W. Bush and no one else (and I love the way you just gloss over Billion Dollar Cheney by saying “his credibility is much lower” as if that statement had the same non-newsworthiness as “the sky is blue”).

And by the way, speaking of “the surge,” I thought Parade Magazine had an interesting column here about why we’re not hearing about a “coalition of the willing” helping us this time around (see “Coalition In Collapse).

Second, he minimized the stakes in the House debate by endorsing the good motives of his critics, rejecting the notion that their actions would damage U.S. troops' morale or embolden the enemy -- all by way of saying that the House vote was no big deal.

I guess, having utterly failed as a political columnist with any credibility, Broder now morphs into the role of dime-store psychologist as if by magic, trying to ascertain some trace, however microscopic, of something approximating leadership from our red-state president.

Saying that the House vote was no big deal (assuming that actually happened, based on what Broder says here) is a slap in the face at everyone who voted for new congressional leadership last November, including your humble narrator. Is it necessary for me to point this out to Broder? In addition to a refresher class in News Writing 101, does he also need a civics lesson?

And third, by contrasting today's vote on a nonbinding resolution with the pending vote on funding the war in Iraq, he shifted the battleground to a fight he is likely to win -- and put the Democrats on the defensive.

We’ll see if that happens; more likely in the Senate than the House, Broder’s cheerleading for Dubya notwithstanding.

Much of their own core constituency wants them to go beyond nonbinding resolutions and use the power of the purse to force Bush to reduce the American commitment in Iraq.

Broder’s “(Democratic) core constituency” is actually about two-thirds of the country by now, including many Republicans (of course, living and reporting inside the Beltway as he does, you’ll have to forgive Broderius Ignoramus for not having a clue about that).

But congressional Democrats are leery of seeming to withhold resources from the 150,000 troops who will be fighting in that country once the surge is complete; that is why they blocked Republicans from offering resolutions of their own in the House or Senate pledging to keep financing the war.

Ugh…

For the record, debate on funding the war is scheduled to take place this week in the House (and as I said, part of me wants to see the Repugs blocked out on that, but that won’t happen, nor should it to be honest). And as for the Senate, as I noted earlier, last Saturday, the Repugs barely defeated a Democratic effort to even discuss the war!

It needs to be pointed out again; the Repugs are going to try and trick the congressional Democrats into passing a resolution that makes it look like, in the process of trying to prevent the surge (which, sadly, Congress really can’t do when all is said and done, and it’s happening anyway at this moment because Dubya decided that he was king long ago and didn’t have to play by anyone’s rules), they’re going to cut off funding for our troops. That explains Huckleberry Graham’s goading in the Senate, because if the Dems vote yes as things stand now, that means they support the surge also and debate on “the surge” is meaningless.

Democrats did not want an up-or-down vote on that question, but Bush has placed it squarely before them.

Playing politics with the lives of our soldiers, of course (and Broder is wrong again; an up-and-down vote is exactly what Reid got in the Senate on Saturday, though it didn’t quite turn out the way we wanted of course).

In other respects, too, Bush has been impressive in recent days.

To Broder, Dubya is “impressive”; if another definition of that word that I’m unaware of is “sadly inept,” then I would have to agree.

He has been far more accessible -- and responsive -- to the media and public, holding any number of one-on-one interviews, both on and off the record, leading up to Wednesday's televised news conference. And he has been more candid in his responses than in the past.

Examples? Anywhere in sight? Hello???

While forcefully making his points, he has depersonalized the differences with his critics and opponents. He has not only vouched for the good intentions of congressional Democrats, he has visited them on their home ground, given them opportunities to question him face to face, and repeatedly outlined areas -- aside from Iraq -- where he says they could work together on legislation: immigration, energy, education, health care, the budget.

With the public eager for some bipartisan progress on all these fronts, Bush is signaling that he, at least, is ready to try.

Wow, over six years into his administration and, according to Broder, Dubya is actually acting like he may want to govern at long last (again, forced into that role based on last November’s results). What a guy!

At his news conference, he also stepped away from personal confrontation with the rulers in Iran, making it clear that he does not necessarily hold its political leadership responsible for shipping arms to the insurgent Shiites fighting in Iraq. He insisted the U.S. military would do whatever is necessary to halt the shipments and protect the troops, but he said repeatedly that these defensive measures are not a prelude to aggressive action against Iran.

Try defining “aggressive action.” Part of the reason why we’re stuck in this mess is because a U.N. resolution to “use force” meant one thing to the Clinton Administration when they presented it to the U.N., but with Dubya, “force” means “pre-emptive war,” but of course nobody realized that until after we’d invaded.

And gosh…exaggerating claims against an aggressor nation based on questionable evidence – I guess we’re just supposed to “clap louder” and completely ignore the fact that that that’s an even bigger reason why we’re stuck in Iraq, but just trust Great White Father Dubya that he’d never do that with Iran, huh?

Nice that our leaders think we’re as dumb as they are, to say nothing of their media stenographers like Broder.

All this is to the good. But Bush, unlike Clinton, is in the middle of a bloody civil war, which can be ended only by the Iraqis themselves.

If you really believe that, Broder, then why aren’t you screaming along with us for our troops to get the hell out of there?

All he claims to be able to do is to provide some breathing space for them by attempting to reduce the violence. As he said, "What really matters is what happens on the ground. I can talk all day long, but what really matters to the American people is to see progress."

That’s been the mantra for as long as this truly horrible war has taken place. We haven’t seen it yet, and no “surge” will produce it either.

And whether the American people will see it, no one knows.

As I read this the first time (or maybe the second – it was so unbelievable I had to go through it twice), I wondered what the reaction would be if someone who knew absolutely nothing about our government suddenly appeared in this country and read this column. They would think that this country is more or less a dictatorship, with someone trying to rule through a cult of personality of one type or another while other functions of government served merely as appendages of a sort to presidential power.

It’s difficult to comprehend, let along communicate, all the ways that this column tries to perpetuate some kind of alternative reality devoid of any sense of journalistic interpretation or analysis. It is nothing more than an attempt to prop up a leader who has become every bit of the miserable failure many predicted he would be, including me (and I take no pride or pleasure from that observation, by the way).

This is one of the most hopelessly jaded columns of partisan hackery not written by J.D. Mullane that I have ever seen. If it isn’t the product of rose-colored bias and journalistic-political favoritism, then the only other explanation is advanced senility on the part of its author.