Entries Tagged 'partisanship' ↓

Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews are finally shoved aside by the NBC brass:

After months of accusations of political bias and simmering animosity between MSNBC and its parent network NBC, the channel decided over the weekend that the NBC News correspondent and MSNBC host David Gregory would anchor news coverage of the coming debates and election night. Mr. Olbermann and Mr. Matthews will remain as analysts during the coverage.

The change — which comes in the home stretch of the long election cycle — is a direct result of tensions associated with the channel’s perceived shift to the political left.

“The most disappointing shift is to see the partisan attitude move from prime time into what’s supposed to be straight news programming,” said Davidson Goldin, formerly the editorial director of MSNBC and a co-founder of the reputation management firm DolceGoldin. [e.a.]

So finally someone noticed that news and views don’t mix! That paying someone explicitly to provoke gets a TV network in hot water.

I’ve been hatin’ on Olbermann for a long time, ever since I read that he considers himself brave and courageous and that some people consider him knowledgeable. Here’s what I wrote in 2006:

I don’t know whom to loathe more—Olbermann or the “journalist” who is the author of this celebrity profile. He is oh-so-impressed that Olbermann throws around some WWII buzzwords:

Conservatives may hate his attacks, but no one doubts that he comes across as one of the smarter guys in the room. When he laid into then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on Aug. 30, he threw in references to Neville Chamberlain and the policy of appeasement. Let’s see NBC network anchor Brian Williams pull that off.

A long time ago, I wrote on this blog that you’ll never hear me complaining about the dumbing-down of the culture:

You will rarely hear me complain about the dumbing-down of culture. All that worried talk about the sorry state of TV, the movies, music videos, video games, hip-hop, whatever. My position on this is: that’s not culture–that’s pop culture. And it’s supposed to be dumb, or dumb enough for a mass audience to get it

In principle, someone who calls her blog Infotainment Rules shouldn’t complain about the dumbing-down of the news, either. Yeah? You think? Well, I’m complaining. But it’s not the infotainment format and packaging that’s the problem. It’s the fucking ignorance of our “journalists”—from Olbermann, who seems to be riding high (I’m doubtful) to the sycophants who profile him—that’s got me down.

Meanwhile, it appears I was wrong. I predicted it would be curtains at MSNBC for Olbermann, who was so grotesquely partisan for the Democrats. Instead, the cable network rewarded him with a seat at the anchor desk on election night. That counts as a trend I’ll have to watch.

So: I was spectacularly wrong in predicting Olbermann’s imminent demise in 2006. And I would be an idiot to predict it now. I’m sure we’ll soon be hearing about how “dissent” is being “stifled” by NBC. That will be  Olbermann’s “argument,” and he’ll have many supporters, I’m sure. But he has been shoved aside—and not a moment too soon.

I’ll keep watching his career, though, and you should too—because he’s a bellwether of the trend toward open partisanship in the newsbiz. That trend will not diminish. It will grow. But probably not at NBC.

Channel-surfing last night, I happened upon Luke Russert, son of the recently deceased Tim Russert, discussing politics with Larry King, who was holding a “Rock the Vote” special. It was pretty astonishing to see his poise in the wake of the sudden death of his father, but I was soon taken with young Russert’s interesting (and politic) take on politics. He’s non-partisan—indeed, he’s an independent [e.a.]:

KING: Luke, why are you an independent?

RUSSERT: Well, I’m an independent because I believe it’s important to vote for politicians and not a party. I like to see what a politician’s going to do and what he says he’s going to do in Washington. Being here in the District of Columbia, we don’t vote for a governor or senator or congressional representatives. You pretty much vote for mayors, city council members and the president of the United States. And I just really like to wait on my vote until the last second to see what each politician has done, what they say they’re going to do, and what the media scrutiny reveals of each politician.

I think it’s very, very important to see how politician holds up to the questions the media asks. One of the things my dad always liked to say is, how are you going to make tough decisions as a commander in chief if you can’t answer tough questions from media. That’s why I’m an independent. I also think it’s kind of ridiculous how people in the United States, if they’re a member of the party, they don’t even listen to the other side of the issue; oh, the Democrats are voting this way, I agree with that; Republicans vote this way, I agree with that. I might be sounding a little Lou Dobbs, but that’s why I’m an independent in that sense.

Compare and contrast with the unappetizing spectacle I wrote about here. What a refreshing change.

There is a sickness afoot in the land when a popular non-political blogger makes note of a politician’s lowering of his own standards and his commenters attack him for speaking his mind.

Jeff Jarvis:

Whenever you want to show how soft big media are on Barack Obama, refer back to Howard Kurtz’ column on their coverage of the candidate’s hypocritical flip-flop on campaign financing. Chapter and verse.

Some comments [e.a.]:

Just drop it. It’s clear you were a Clinton supporter, but if you want a Democrat in the White House in 2009, the political reality is that attacking Obama is the same supporting McCain.

Jeff, would you consider some even handed-ness in your political posts ? It makes your position on press bias seem fairly hypocritical.

Jeff replies:

I am likely to be an Obama voter but that doesn’t mean I can’t hold him to high standards. I am not a member of his cult so I can disagree with him. It’s allowed out here. No, I won’t drop it.

Commenter:

Jeff, you’re entitled to “hold Obama to high standards,” just like the rest of us. And I realize, in a post like this, you’re trying to expose the inherent bias of the media, not bash Obama. But that’s what you’re indirectly doing.

I realize you’re trying to change the media, but please don’t (conciously or unconciously) swiftboat Obama in the process.

Commenter Steve:

So, if I support Senator Obama, I am a cultist?

Jeff responds:

No, Steve, but I’m being told I can’t criticize him and hold him to high standards. That’s a cultist talking.

Last word (not on Jeff’s blog but here on mine, where I’m the editor) goes to this commenter from Jeff’s blog:

Obama supporters panic whenever a story appears to question, criticize, or point out the hypocrisies of their candidate.

Indeed! and get a load of this attack, published at the HuffPo, on Jon Stewart for—gasp!—making fun of the Obama Messiah. Joseph Palermo builds his case by accusing Stewart of having been complicit in selling the war in Iraq to the American people:

Slamming the UN weapons inspectors as ineffectual twits dominated right-wing talk radio at the time and The Daily Show was in effect regurgitating the talking points of those who wanted to bring the country to war. Dissing the UN’s efforts on Comedy Central inadvertently helped make the case for war. It is kind of like when Dick Cheney pointed to the New York Times to buttress his warmongering saying: “Hey, even the liberals agree with us!”

Then Palermo goes on to warn Stewart to watch his mouth when he’s making fun of Obama:

When Jon Stewart seeks “balance” for his targets of satire he can end up reinforcing the false impressions that the Bush Republicans want people to have. It’s unfortunate because political humor is a powerful force that can sway some of those “low information” voters the pundits have been flogging lately.

So too was the case last night when Jon Stewart ran a bit about Barack Obama’s decision to eschew public financing. The Daily Show seized the issue as an opportunity to display “balance” and to poke fun at the Obama campaign. But not only did the bit fall flat it played right into the Republican line, which is full of half-truths and outright lies about Obama’s decision.

During the primaries, Keith Olbermann attacked Stewart just for mentioning Obama’s middle name.

Here’s what I think: this attempt by hyper-partisan ideological enforcers to shut down the debate among Democrats about Barack Obama will backfire. Badly.

Intimidating people who are on your own side (Jarvis and Stewart are both Democrats, from what I can tell) is never a good idea, especially here in America, where, as Jeff said, we don’t—and won’t—shut up.

Undoubtedly, those trying to shut down the debate are the product (or the masters) of our elite universities, where diversity is god but where diversity of opinion is unwelcome.

Those often kindly teachers, however, do have a sense of urgent mission. Even if we put them on truth-serum, the academics who dominate the humanities and social sciences on our campuses today would state that K-12 education essentially has been one long celebration of America and the West, as if our students were intimately familiar with the Federalist Papers and had never heard of slavery or empire. Having convinced themselves that the students whom they inherit have been immersed in American and Western traditions without critical perspective—they do believe that—contemporary academics see themselves as having merely four brief years in which to demystify students, and somehow to get them to look up from their Madison and Hamilton long enough to gaze upon the darker side of American and Western life. In their view, our K-12 students know all about Aristotle, John Milton and Adam Smith, have studied for twelve years how America created bounty and integrated score after score of millions of immigrants, but have never heard of the Great Depression or segregation.

Academics, in their own minds, face an almost insoluble problem of time. How, in only four years, can they disabuse students of the notion that the capital, risk, productivity and military sacrifice of others have contributed to human dignity and to the prospects of a decent society? How can they make them understand, with only four years to do so, that capitalism and individual- ism have created cultures that are cruel, inefficient, racist, sexist and homophobic, with oppressive caste systems, mental and behavioral? How, in such a brief period, can they enlighten “minorities,” including women (the majority of students), about the “internalization” of their oppression (today’s equivalent of false consciousness)? How, in only eight semesters, might they use the classroom, curriculum and university in loco parentis to create a radical leadership among what they see as the victim groups of our society, and to make the heirs of successful families uneasy in the moral right of their possessions and opportunities? Given those constraints, why in the world should they complicate their awesome task by hiring anyone who disagrees with them?

Disagreement is at the foundation of human existence, and American democracy is successful (among other reasons) because it takes this fundamental fact of human nature into account.

Plus: If Barack Obama cannot stomach, answer, and withstand criticisms from his own side, he is unlikely to be able to withstand criticism, or attacks, from his political opponents.

Don’t you hate it when David Brooks uses his New York Times perch to remind his readers that life is full of unexpected turns, expecially ones that reflect well on BushHitler?

Bush is a stubborn man. Well, without that stubbornness, that unwillingness to accept defeat on his watch, he never would have bucked the opposition to the surge.

Bush is an outrageously self-confident man. Well, without that self-confidence he never would have overruled his generals. … The additional fact is that Bush, who made such bad calls early in the war, made a courageous and astute decision in 2006. More than a year on, the surge has produced large, if tenuous, gains. Violence is down sharply. Daily life has improved. Iraqi security forces have been given time to become a more effective fighting force. The Iraqi government is showing signs of strength and even glimmers of impartiality. Iraq has moved from being a failed state to, as Vali Nasr of the Council on Foreign Relations has put it, merely a fragile one.

The whole episode is a reminder that history is a complicated thing. The traits that lead to disaster in certain circumstances are the very ones that come in handy in others. The people who seem so smart at some moments seem incredibly foolish in others.

Yep. (This also applies to Brooks, by the way, who referred to the Iraq war as “a disaster” many times during what he now refers to as “the dark days of 2006.”) He’s not humble enough to acknowledge his own previous cocksureness and foolishness. But he’s out there on the cutting edge of what should be opinion right now. We’ll see how it plays.

Brooks sets the stage:

The cocksure war supporters learned this humbling lesson [about orthodox thinking] during the dark days of 2006. And now the cocksure surge opponents, drunk on their own vindication, will get to enjoy their season of humility. They have already gone through the stages of intellectual denial. First, they simply disbelieved that the surge and the Petraeus strategy was doing any good. Then they accused people who noticed progress in Iraq of duplicity and derangement. Then they acknowledged military, but not political, progress. Lately they have skipped over to the argument that Iraq is progressing so well that the U.S. forces can quickly come home.

But before long, the more honest among the surge opponents will concede that Bush, that supposed dolt, actually got one right. Some brave souls might even concede that if the U.S. had withdrawn in the depths of the chaos, the world would be in worse shape today.

It’s unlikely that there will be many such souls, but count me among those who grudgingly (grudgingly because we are of a certain [anti-Vietnam War] age) admit that Bush’s stubbornness has, on balance, been a good thing for America in the immediate wake of 9/11. Many of America’s cocksure enemies have stood down in the wake of Bush’s cowboy-like cocksure aggressiveness. Bush himself has said he regrets the language he used; I didn’t hear him say that he regrets his “going on offense” against America’s enemies, as indeed he shouldn’t.

Something else has been gained in these long seven years. Brooks doesn’t mention it, but I will:L Islamism now has many respectable enemies—including several of Britain’s most famous public intellectuals and novelists.

The New York Times doesn’t quite approve of such heterodox thoughts as this one expressed by Ian McEwan, the author of Atonement:

“As soon as a writer expresses an opinion against Islamism, immediately someone on the left leaps to his feet and claims that because the majority of Muslims are dark skinned, he who criticizes it is racist.” He added: “This is logically absurd and morally unacceptable. Martin is not a racist. And I myself despise Islamism, because it wants to create a society that I detest, based on religious belief, on a text, on lack of freedom for women, intolerance towards homosexuality and so on — we know it well.”

The Independent, a British paper, referred to McEwan’s words as

an astonishingly strong attack on Islamism

and pointed out that these words could,

in today’s febrile legalistic climate, lay him open to being investigated for a “hate crime”.

Despite adding to the “febrile” climate surrounding this issue, at least the Independent is honest enough to give a full airing to McEwan’s views, which I reprint here with some emphasis [e.a.]:

McEwan – author of On Chesil Beach and the acclaimed Atonement and Enduring Love – has spoken on the issue of Islamism before, telling The New York Times last December: “All religions make very big claims about the world, and it should be possible in an open society to dispute them. It should be possible to say, ‘I find some ideas in Islam questionable’ without being called a racist.”

But his words in the Corriere interview are far stronger, although they do fall short of the invective deployed by Martin Amis. He has said “the Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order”, and told The Independent’s columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, a Muslim, in an open letter: “Islamism, in most of its manifestations, not only wants to kill me – it wants to kill you.”

McEwan’s interviewer pointed out that there exist equally hard-line schools of thought within Christianity, for example in the United States. “I find them equally absurd,” McEwan replied. “I don’t like these medieval visions of the world according to which God is coming to save the faithful and to damn the others. But those American Christians don’t want to kill anyone in my city, that’s the difference.”

But McEwan’s specific irritation is reserved for those who find ideological grounds to condemn his and Amis’s views. “When you ask a novelist or a poet about his vision regarding an aspect of the world, you don’t get the response of a politician or a sociologist, but even if you don’t like what he says you have to accept it, you can’t react with defamation. Martin is not a racist, and neither am I.”

Thank you, Ian McEwan. And may others join you in perpetrating the “hate crime” of speaking out in favor of freedom of expression, even (perhaps especially) when your ideas are out of favor with “expert and elite opinion” [Brooks's phrase].

One of Andrew Sullivan’s readers exposes the limits of even the best reporting. Here’s what the reader wrote to Sullivan:

The New Yorker report you cited is so bad it is scary. If this is what you are reading to figure out what is going then you need a better source. This article is riddled with incorrect facts and easements. It doesn’t just get things sorta wrong, it gets them 180 degrees wrong.

Unfortunately I can’t go through every part of the article, because much of what I would say is classified. I’ll just comment on the part you quoted from a Sheikh Zaidan. Sheikh Zaidan is not a “prominent Sunni tribal leader” at all. Actually, he is a nobody with no tribal power or constituency who probably isn’t even a Sheikh and who is likely still involved with the insurgency. The insurgency has been beaten so bad in Anbar that he is forced to cool his rhetoric. Of course they didn’t make us “crawl on our stomachs”. What happened was, we were killing insurgents like it was cool and the insurgents were killing Iraqis like it was cool. The tribes realized they were getting wiped out at both ends.

For what it’s worth: I believe that the New Yorker’s Jon Lee Anderson got and told the best story he could get, and could tell. But his understanding of the terrain and the larger context—his template, if you will—cannot compete with what is known by readers like Sullivan’s, who are on the ground.

It’s not that one storyteller is right and the other is wrong. Without Anderson’s template, it’s impossible for us to get a handle on a situation that for New Yorker readers is completely alien. Without the corrections to Anderson’s template offered by Sullivan’s reader, we cannot go deeper into the reality of facts on the ground.

The real problem isn’t whom to believe, however. The real problem is that people just aren’t that into finding out the truth about Iraq. They’re into political warfare at home.

update: Heather Hurlburt, who has a place in my heart for “War Torn,” the brilliant piece she wrote in the Washington Monthly in the wake of Democratic losses in November 2002, has just posted a link to bloggingheads.tv webisode in which she has a conversation with Eli Lake about the differences between “neocons” and “Kosovo Democrats.” That’s the kind of Third Way for Democrats that I call for below. Good luck to all of us!]

I’ve written many times that I am not a politico, and it’s true—I’m uninterested in party politics. But that doesn’t mean I don’t think about politics [which puts me in the minority, according to the economist Bryan Caplan]. It just means that I see an inevitable, and tragic, tension between politics and political philosophy.

The tragic component of this tension was recetly highlighted in a New York Sun review of Lesley Chamberlain’s Lenin’s Private War [which I also wrote about here]. Adam Kirsch writes:

Why focus on the deportation of a few dozen intellectuals, when the years before and after the voyage of the Philosophy Steamer witnessed so many deaths? Indeed, the men whom Lenin selected for expulsion — the expulsanty, as they were called — could even be considered lucky. If they had stayed in the Soviet Union, they would certainly have died in Stalin’s purges 15 years later. Even in 1922, Lenin’s decision to banish these potential threats to the state, rather than torture, imprison, or kill them, was unusually mild. …

What these thinkers and writers represented, [Chamberlain] argues, was a vital tradition of spiritual idealism, inherited from the 19th century, which could have sustained a moral opposition to communism. “Though they could never have identified themselves that way, the 1922 expellees were the first dissidents from Soviet totalitarianism,” Ms. Chamberlain writes.

Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with communism, by the way—it sounds lovely. Or it did to me, anyway, when I was young. (And to my father when he was young, and to my grandfather before him. But that’s a story for another day.) No. For Lenin, the threat came from those intellectuals who could—and did—poke holes in his One Explanation for Everything. So devoted was Vlad Lenin to this one explanation that the ideal of communism quickly devolved into totalitarianism ideology of Communism.

Kirsch continues:

What made the men of the Philosophy Steamer objects of suspicion to Lenin, Ms. Chamberlain argues, was that they represented a “third way” for Russia, between the obstinate old regime and the ruthless new one. She believes that religious idealists such as Berdyaev and Frank were the closest thing Russia could find to genuine liberals. The peculiarities of Russian history meant that the language of secular, rights-based liberalism could never find purchase there. The legacy of the Enlightenment was hijacked, instead, by revolutionary Marxists, whose atheism and materialism carried certain Western tendencies to a nihilistic extreme. This helps to explain why Lenin could appear, to Western sympathizers, like the heir to Voltaire and Madison: He, too, was out to emancipate his people from an obscurantist, priest-ridden, feudal regime. [e.a.]

It’s a sad story, and it keeps repeating itself. Those of us who know the story because we have participated in the play—know it in our bones, in our guts, in our hearts, in our collective memory, in our own bitter experiences—sit back and watch the train wreck. We know that the maximalist and absolutist approach in politics, whether it comes from the left or the right, is the death of the rest of us. Often enough, it’s the physical death of us. More likely, though, it’s the death of hope.

[Hitchens isn't] waging a war at all, he’s sitting at a desk writing magazine articles and Slate columns and drinking just like the rest of us.

Young Mr. Yglesias, gleefully trying to smear Hitchens, was dead wrong in this assessment. Christopher Hitchens most certainly is waging war—in the realm of ideas, in the realm of political philosophy. And so are some bloggers, such as Wretchard, of the Belmont Club, who notes today:

The biggest challenge of the campaign in Iraq is not reconciling the Sunnis with Shias; but reconciling the Blue and Red; in creating a consensus foreign policy between the Republicans and the Democrats. Iraq is like Vietnam in this. It is not about a war in a far-away country. It is also about a struggle in America.

I agree with all but one thing. There also needs to be a consensus foreign policy among the Democrats, not just between Republicans and Democrats—that’s the bleeding wound of the culture war: the intra-party way on the left.

I also note that Hill—ignoring the netroots’ continued calls for bitter partisanship—has just billed herself (get it? hardy har har) as the principled compromiser who works within the system:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York unveiled a new stump speech on Sunday, outlining the “four big goals” she would have as president and saying she was willing to “work within the system” and make “principled compromises” to achieve them.

Praising the leadership styles of Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson, Mrs. Clinton described herself as a pragmatist and an alliance-builder. …

“I want to work within the system,” Mrs. Clinton said. “You can’t pretend the system doesn’t exist.”

Is that a Third Way? I dunno, but it looks like she wants to go there. Is anyone surprised?

Lesley Chamberlain’s new book Lenin’s Private War should give pause to those in the leftosphere with an urge to purge

Carlin Romano explains:

In 1922, a year of living dictatorishly, Lenin devoted astonishing time to handpicking intellectuals to be exiled from Russia. In missives to underlings, including a go-getter named Joseph Stalin, he railed against these “bourgeoisie and their accomplices, the intellectuals, the lackeys of capital, who think they’re the brains of the nation. In fact, they’re not the brains, they’re the shit.” He told Stalin in a note, “We are going to cleanse Russia once and for all.” An earlier Bolshevik poster already showed Lenin sweeping enemies from the globe over the caption, “Comrade Lenin cleanses the filth from the land.”

Wikipedia illustrates:

Comrade Lenin Cleanses the Filth from the Land

William Grimes, writing in the NYT, elaborates about how it all went down:

She sees the episode as a continuation of the armed conflict between Red and White forces, part of what she calls the “Paper Civil War,” in which the Bolsheviks closed down independent journals, purged universities and took the first steps in creating a new intellectual class of militant Marxist-Leninists.

“Only when Lenin deported the liberal intelligentsia in 1922 did the overall conflict end,” she writes.

Ms. Chamberlain’s narrative divides into three parts. The first, and the most interesting, deals with the Paper Civil War. Relying on archival material that has surfaced in the post-Soviet period, she traces the quiet campaign by Lenin and his underlings to identify dangerous thinkers, round them up, manufacture legal cases against them and expel them permanently. The thinking and the procedures behind the expulsions resonate profoundly. They are the dress rehearsal for Stalinist terror to come.

Meanwhile, inside the Beltway, the ‘Crat Pack ^TM, heady with its great victory in Chicago and as blissfullly ignorant as ever, continues on its merry way, auditioning for positions (any positions!) in the regime of the ‘Crat Who Would Be President—whoever he or she may be. Happy job hunting, all you whippersnappers! (And I hope your parents taught you that you should always have a Plan B.)

How is it that the extremely busy columnist, author, and television commentator David Brooks

can find the time not only to inject new ideas into the bloodstream of the great national debate (okay: it’s actually the culture war circus) but also to read and coherently critique entire books by his ideological opponents

[H]ey, nobody ever died from contact with pomposity, and Al Gore’s “The Assault on Reason” is well worth reading. It reminds us that whatever the effects of our homogenizing mass culture, it is still possible for exceedingly strange individuals to rise to the top.

Gore is, for example, a radical technological determinist. While most politicians react to people, Gore reacts to machines, and in this book he lays out a theory of history entirely driven by them.

but that a whippersnapper blogger like Matthew Yglesias is too bored *** to engage serious, knowledgeable critics like Noah Pollak on substantive issues

Peretz clearly has the better understanding of Gaza, and the better argument. But he became annoyed, told Yglesias to shove off, and let the ignorant party come away appearing more reasonable. That’s too bad, because Yglesias’ writings on the Middle East, I’m afraid to say, have a distinctively hanging-out-at-the-coffee-shop feel to them. Yglesias believes that “Hamas-Fatah violence is largely the result of deliberate American policy.” If Peretz won’t have a go at this argument, I will.

and entirely dismissive of the ideas (which he won’t even read)+++ of certain public intellectuals in favor of the ideas of other public intellectuals whom he’s more inclined to trust … well, just because (i.e., for unstated reasons)?

I have no real intention of reading a 28,000 word Paul Berman essay on why Tariq Ramadan is bad in The New Republic, so I’ll refrain from commenting on the substance of things. I will note that Ian Buruma’s Iong New York Times Magazine article on Ramadan reached very different conclusions and I’m more likely to take Buruma’s word for it than Berman’s.  

The last time Yglesias chose certain smart people over certain other smart people to take at their word, of course, he ended up supporting the Iraq war. Under the circumstances, I’d be more wary both of trusting my own instincts and of laying out the politically correct stance on issues for others. But then I’m not under 30.

———–

*** and intellectually dishonest: Yglesias pretended that the entire “dust-up,” rather than being a fierce debate about the reason for the horrifically violent fighting between Hamas and Fatah, was a mere ”feud” between him and Marty Peretz and that Jonah Goldberg had “piled on”:

I was going to just ignore New Republic editor in chief Martin Peretz’s efforts to bait me, but when Jonah Goldberg piled on it was just too much intellectual firepower to stay out of the fray. Now, seriously, what Brian Beutler said. And what Brian Ulrich said. I’m done with this feud as there’s really no point in arguing with someone who’s proud of his role in bringing Charles Krauthammer into the national conversation.

+++ at least not all the way through: Yglesias later tackled the Berman piece, in a manner of speaking. He used his second post to attack Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

That is the bottom-line experience of our era: No one, no matter how astute and attentive, can possibly follow everything that is happening in the world—or even a fraction of everything that is being reported about what is happening in the world. The “news” is merely a distillation of the stories that are easiest to “report”—i.e., communicate the essence of—in a given 24-hour period. Even news junkies like me, dedicated to the pursuit of trying to figure out the vague outlines of what is going on, are almost totally clueless. After a while, it is all “video wallpaper.”

In these circumstances, perhaps it’s understandable that Tony Blair’s announcement last week that he would step down as Britain’s prime minister got only a tiny sliver of attention. It came 24 hours after the huge breakthrough in Northern Ireland that certainly didn’t get the attention it deserved.

But it will be Blair’s true legacy, as Time reports.

When Unionists dumped Nobel Peace Prize winner David Trimble as their leader, Blair adapted the process to bring in Paisley. He also employed “creative ambiguity” to get over the toughest hurdles by letting each side believe they were scoring points. Even today the central question of whether Northern Ireland will ultimately be British or Irish remains unresolved, but the matter will be settled in politics.

Perhaps more than anything, though, Blair brought patience and determination. Even when more pressing issues of global importance put demands on him, he still devoted extraordinary amounts of time to Northern Ireland — even though it offered him almost no political benefits.

Blair’s hard work usually bought time, however, and that was crucial. The more people in Northern Ireland became accustomed to a peaceful atmosphere, and the improving economy that came with it, the harder it became to contemplate a return to violence. A decade after he launched the process, Blair — and the IRA leadership — can contemplate retiring in peace.

Of course Blair will have to wait a long time to be vindicated by “opinion” (as he refers to the Western media elite), if BBC Radio correspondent Justin Webb and BBC presenter Katty Kay are any indication. Webb gave Howard Kurtz an interview in which he insulted America in the most extraordinary way (a fact Kurtz commented on as they sat face-to-face ***) just to take a swipe at Blair. And Katty Kay, a frequent panelist on the Chris Matthews Show, isn’t being herself when she isn’t being vituperative. +++

As I said, it will be a long time before Blair’s legacy can be judged. Even Anne Appelbaum, who is actually interested in the Blair phenomenon and addresses it in ”The Riddle That Is Blair“— wonders: is he a genuine humanist or the slickest of slick politicians?

Fundamentally, the man’s character is a riddle. On the one hand, he frequently describes himself as a true conviction politician, a man who sticks to his guns whatever the opinion polls say. Certainly that’s how he explains Iraq. “I decided we should stand shoulder to shoulder with our oldest ally,” he stated in his resignation speech:

“Hand on heart, I did what I thought was right. I may have been wrong. That’s your call. But believe one thing if nothing else. I did what I thought was right for our country.”

Yet, at the same time, Blair is perhaps the most outstanding contemporary example of the politician who wants to be loved and who tries at all times to be all things to all people. He speaks the language of the left when he is talking to his own party, dwells on free markets when he addresses business executives and, at least for the first few years of his term, appeared to believe that getting everyone to agree with him about everything was only a matter of time.

Appelbaum goes on to explain how Blair went about trying to get everyone on board [e.a.]:

But since he couldn’t always “get out and explain to people what we’re doing,” he invented the British version of the modern media machine. Though “spin” wasn’t unheard of in pre-Blair Britain, it is fair to say that he perfected the arts of the well-aimed leak, the removal of fingerprints from the evidence, the careful timing of bad news. On the very day of his resignation speech, the British government quietly revealed that one of Blair’s pet programs was going to cost far more than anticipated — presumably because no one would write about a such a lowly subject on that day of bigger news.

Indeed, his fiercest critics claim that even the decision to invade Iraq is not evidence that Blair “did what I thought was right.” On the contrary, they say: He invaded Iraq because he thought it was going to be popular.

Impugning his motives is par for the course for Blair’s political enemies and rivals and for Britain’s increasingly shrill chattering classes. I was surprised, however, to find a gaping hole in Appelbaum’s logic as she attempts to understand Blair’s contradictions:

Is he deeply moral, a man of conviction? Is he deeply cynical, a man who governs by spin? Or does he use spin to make himself look like a man of conviction?

Did it not occur to Appelbaum that Blair is “deeply moral, a man of conviction” and also “deeply cynical” about how a 21st-century leader must communicate to those he governs (and also those he doesn’t govern)?

Does no one get it that spin is what everyone—politicians more than most!—needs to do in order to be present in the gaze of the public? to get a fraction of the public’s attention? to connect? to communicate?

Or is everyone, including thoughtful writers like Appelbaum, in on the “it’s black OR white” partisan media game?

Sheesh.

——–

*** Reliable Sources, May 13:

WEBB: And you know, the manner of his departing is seen as American too. And not American in a good sense.

(CROSSTALK)

KURTZ: I read a columnist who said it was very American, is that an insult?

WEBB: It is an insult, frankly speaking. Yes. Let’s be blunt about it. It is an insult. Because as I was saying with Winston Churchill, we like our (INAUDIBLE) to go, Margaret Thatcher just went. He is now staying on, he is doing kind of a world tour. He’s not going on until the end of June. What’s going on now? It’s an un- British thing. The fact that he said in his leaving speech, Britain is the finest country in the world, the greatest nation on the face of the Earth, that’s not something a British person would ever say. It’s utterly American (ph).

STEVENSON: Absolutely appalling (ph).

KURTZ: Absolutely appalling? I don’t understand why.

STEVENSON: I was watching it — I was watching with a group of people, and as he came to this “British are the greatest people in the world,” he subsequently referred to them as “it,” which was rather strange. But as he said this, everyone in the room gagged and said, take it back to Texas.

(LAUGHTER)

——-

+++ May 13:

Katty, a columnist wrote this week that Tony Blair is not only disliked by the
British people overall, he’s loathed by his political party. Is that true?

Ms. KAY: He’s not just loathed by his political party, he is loathed by the
British public. I think it’s hard, sitting here, to really understand the
level of vitriol that the British feel for Tony Blair. And you know why?
It’s because he stuck with George Bush so firmly. He became a superstar in
America and as he did so, he was being called “the poodle” back home. The
more he was loved on this side of the Atlantic, the more he was disliked on
that side of the Atlantic. And it wasn’t a coincidence.

GREGORY: And yet one of the things that he, I think, did very
effectively–whether you agree with him or not–in this country is give
articulation to the broader context of what the war was about, the war of
ideas, the war against fundamentalism beyond the nuts and bolts tactical…

Ms. KAY: Without doubt, he was–he was the eloquent voice.

Mr. STENGEL: (Unintelligible).

GREGORY: Right.

Ms. KAY: He was the eloquent voice for George Bush. He was the diplomat for the war in Iraq.

Via ETP, hard evidence that politics is just that—the greatest show on earth. And proof that at a certain level inside the Beltway, after dark, all of those harsh words rendered in print and harsher judgments barked into microphones are left behind. Because at that level they’re civilized people, you see. (Eric Alterman thinks otherwise—he thinks New York is more forgiving after dark than Washington—as he mentions in this fascinating episode of bloggingheads.tv, about which more another time.)

The photo below, featuring Paul Wolfowitz and Arianna Huffington, *** was taken this past Saturday night at a reception before the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner. To read the press last week and over the weekend, you’d think that Paul Wolfowitz is fighting for his very life as the long knives at the World Bank slash him and his girlfriend.

[[ Indeed, he may not survive this attempted takedown. I don't feel particularly sorry for him. I am spitting mad on behalf of his girlfriend, however. And if any case ever cried out for attention from feminists, this is it: an accomplished woman is forced to leave her job, where she's up for a promotion, because her boyfriend, who has nothing at all to do with her work, is appointed the head of the institution she works for. But you would have to put aside other political considerations ("Are you now or have you ever been a Neocon?"---addresssed by Garance Franke-Ruta in that same episode of bloggingheads.tv) in order to come to that conclusion, and I don't see too many people other than sturdy Christopher Hitchens, that noted woman-hater, making this obvious case and standing up yet again for intellectual honesty and a measure of justice. ]]

But back to my point. Here Paul Wolfowitz is smiling warmly at Arianna Huffington, who wrote a blog post just last week titled “Are Gonzales and Wolfowitz the Next to Swim with the Fishes?”

Arianna with Paul Wolfowitz and AOL founder James Kinsey

Left or right, progressive or conservative, Republican or Democrat, hawk or dove—these folks are all the same. Moreover, they are (as is said about the rich) not like you and me. They’re insiders. Their game is about getting there and staying there.

Remember that the next time you feel their intimate presence and read their words via this great new democratic forum, the blogosphere. Not everyone here is created equal. They are not like you and me.
———-

*** She’s so tall! (Jane Fonda is no shrimp, but look at the height difference!)

HuffPo founder Arianna Huffington with actress, activist and radio host Jane Fonda

Who’s afraid of big, bad Fox? Garance Francke-Ruta at TAPPED, that’s who. She dimwittedly believed (with the encouragement of Moveon.org) that John Edwards was actually going to take a moral stand against Fox News and shot from the lip and heaped praise on him before actually doing any reporting … or even thinking about it. Excuse me while I laugh myself silly:

A BOLD MOVE. John Edwards is the first Democratic presidential candidate to pull out of the Fox News sponsored Democratic presidential primary debate scheduled to take place in Nevada later this year, and kudos to him for doing so. None of the Democrats will get a fair hearing on that channel as it currently exists, and freezing Fox out of the loop early is a good way to make a play for fairer coverage later in the campaign season, as well as for fair treatment of the eventual nominee. Fox is biased, but it’s still enough of a news organization that a lack of access will sting mightily and could lead to newsroom reforms.

Oops! A few hours later, she realized the, um, error in her, um, judgment:

A POTENTIALLY AWKWARD MOVE. I’d like to revise and extend my remarks on John Edwards and the Nevada Fox News debate, as I’ve just received new information that casts Edwards’ decision in a rather different light.

That “new information”? Why, it’s that the

Congressional Black Caucus [CBC] Political Education and Leadership Institute plans to announce two debates in concert with Fox News,

and that the CBC has previously worked with Fox News, in 2003.

So I guess Fox News is okay now. ‘Cause the it’s okay with the CBC. And we don’t want any “intra-party” fighting now, do we?

There is a great unsolved mystery that is nagging at me. When Tony Judt and other deeply-concerned-about-their-brethren, non-anti-Semitic Jews suggest that Israel should become a bi-national state, where should all those newly stateless Wandering Jews go?

That question had been keeping me up nights as I wondered how I could fit my deep distress for the stateless Palestinians into my Leftist-and-deeply-sympathetic-to-Israel worldview.

Now I can report that I am finally at peace. I am sure to be able to sleep well tonight, for the first time in years, because I found the answer.

China, it seems, is a nation of philo-Semites—at least they’re philo about the Jews’ enviable talent for making money:

SHANGHAI — Showcased in bookstores between biographies of Andrew Carnegie and the newest treatise by China’s president are stacks of works built on a stereotype.

One promises “The Eight Most Valuable Business Secrets of the Jewish.”

Another title teases readers with “The Legend of Jewish Wealth.” A third provides a look at “Jewish People and Business: The Bible of How to Live Their Lives.”

Also:

Positive stereotypes about Jews and their supposed business prowess have given the Jewish community iconic status in the eyes of the Chinese public.

Israelis: get thee to Shaghai! (again)

p.s. The writer who filed this report for the WaPo, Ariana Eunjung Cha, helpfully explains that

[i]n the United States, where making broad generalizations about races, cultures or religions has become unacceptable in most circles, the titles of some of these books might make people cringe. Throughout history and around the world, even outwardly innocuous and broadly accepted characterizations of Jews have sometimes formed the basis for eventual campaigns of violent anti-Semitism.

I’m curious about who the intended audience for this remark is. (Ms. Enjung Cha lists her credential as “Washington Post Foreign Service.”)

Broad generalizations about Jews—albeit via code words: “neocon,” “Likudnik,” “cabal,” “AIPAC,” “influence,” “agent,” “dual loyalties,” and “New York money people” come immediately to mind—are all the rage. Particularly on the left, and particularly in the leftosphere.

John Judis and Matthew Yglesias might want to take note of this. But then they may be caught up in the War on Martin Peretz, which is so much more important.

Andrew Sullivan links to a devastating column by Nick Cohen. It’s devastating for those like me and Cohen, who are infuriated by the deranged detachment of our fellows on the liberal left, and devastatingly on-target about my liberal-left cohort, which has abdicated moral responsibility and taken on the ill-fitting cloak of moral purity in the wake of 9/11 rather than face the realities that challenge its 30+-year-old worldview:

Why is it that apologies for a militant Islam which stands for everything the liberal left is against come from the liberal left? Why will students hear a leftish postmodern theorist defend the exploitation of women in traditional cultures but not a crusty conservative don? After the American and British wars in Bosnia and Kosovo against Slobodan Milosevic’s ethnic cleansers, why were men and women of the left denying the existence of Serb concentration camps? As important, why did a European Union that daily announces its commitment to the liberal principles of human rights and international law do nothing as crimes against humanity took place just over its borders? …

Why is the world upside down?

Of course Cohen has some answers:

My parents joined the Communist Party, but left it in their twenties. My father encouraged me to read Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s exposés of the Soviet Union and argue about them at the dinner table. He knew how bad the left could get, but this knowledge did not stop him from remaining very left-wing. He would never have entertained the notion that communism was as bad as fascism. In this, he was typical. Anti-communism was never accepted as the moral equivalent of anti-fascism, not only by my parents but also by the overwhelming majority of liberal-minded people. The left was still morally superior. Even when millions were murdered and tens of millions were enslaved and humiliated, the ‘root cause’ of crimes beyond the human imagination was the perversion of noble socialist ideals.

Every now and again, someone asks why the double standard persists to this day. The philosophical answer is that communism did not feel as bad as fascism because in theory, if not in practice, communism was an ideology that offered universal emancipation, while only a German could benefit from Hitler’s Nazism and only an Italian could prosper under Mussolini’s fascism. I’m more impressed by the matter-of-fact consideration that fascist forces took over or menaced Western countries in the Thirties and Forties, and although there was a communist menace in the Cold War, the Cold War never turned hot and Western Europe and North America never experienced the totalitarianism of the left.

Indeed. Never having experienced totalitarianism of the left, my cohort is unable—or unwilling—to take the leap of imagination necessary to confront the fact that totalitarianism, whether from the right, the left, or the fanatically “religious,” is a scourge on humanity.

The good fight today is against the forces of darkness that seek to deprive individuals across the globe of their excruciatingly hard-won political and personal freedoms—supposedly in the name of Allah but actually for bloody revenge and in quest of raw power.

I am a child of the dark forces of the 20th century. Rocked in the kindly bosom of America, I was able to rise above and to soar through my American dreams along with my cohort. But I can never forget where I came from.

You might call me your guilty conscience.

On the other hand, you might call me the unexploded ordnance of the 20th century.

We’re here. We won’t shut up. Get used to it.

update: Allahpundit has the video of Pam Hess blasting her media colleagues on Reliable Sources. (Little did I know when I watched Kurtz this morning that this story was going to get such play.)
The surge is, obviously, a Tet moment. Jim Rutenberg, writing in today’s Times, quotes an administration official:

“The president gets it,” said a senior administration official involved in the planning. “He knows public opinion is not going to change until those images on the evening news improve.”

Surprisingly, there’s a reporter willing to go on the record on television to say that the media should be doing its part. Apparently stunning Reliable Sources host Howard Kurtz, UPI’s Pentagon correspondent Pam Hess said:

[T]here are two kinds of stories about Iraq. There’s the accountability story which we’re all obsessed with covering. And the president’s even added some fuel to the fire by admitting he made a mistake, although not delineating what those mistakes are. But then there is the success stories.

We’re not writing those. We’re not asking those hard questions. We’re only talking about accountability. And again, it’s the country that’s paying.

Earlier on the same program Hess said that the American press was having so much fun covering the politics that it is missing the real story:

What we’re not asking is actually the central question. We’re getting distracted by the shiny political knife fight.

What we need to be asking is, what happens if we lose? And no one will answer that question. If we lose, how are we going to mitigate the consequences of this?

It’s so much easier for us to cover this as a political horse race. It’s on the cover of “The New York Times” today, what this means for the ‘08 election. But we’re not asking the central national security question [i.e., "what happens if we lose?" --ed.], because it seems that if as a reporter you do ask the national security question, all of a sudden you’re carrying Bush’s water. There are national security questions at stake, and we’re ignoring them and the country is getting screwed.

I have a different term for this: I call it media complicity in jihad. I’ve been writing about it since the disgraceful coverage of the release of journalist Jill Carroll.

Joe Klein issues a challenge to his smart-ass detractors [emphasis added]:

The illiberal left just hates it when I point out that the Democratic Party’s naivete on national security–and the left wing tendency to assume every U.S. military action abroad is criminal–just aren’t very helpful electorally. The fact that I’ve been opposed to the Iraq war ever since this 2002 article in Slate just makes it all the more aggravating. But it’s possible to have been against the war and to hope for the best in Iraq. I’d bet that the overwhelming majority of Americans who now oppose the war are praying for a turn for the better in Iraq. Listening to the leftists, though, it’s easy to assume that they are rooting for an American failure.
And so a challenge to those who slagged me in their comments. Can you honestly say the following:

Even though I disagree with this escalation, I am hoping that General Petraeus succeeds in calming down Baghdad.

I’m looking forward to reading the responses.

Meanwhile: Klein isn’t the only one pushing back. Elsewhere in the leftosphere, individual commenters continue to challenge the questionable but firmly held assumptions of certain bloggers.

For example, there was a very interesting comment left on Abu Aardvark’s blog. AA, whose blog I read for his take on media narratives, wrote about the quickly changing focus of the anger (in the Arab media) over Saddam’s execution. What had started out as “calculated” Iraq-based sectarian rage, AA said, ”conveniently” (for the U.S.) turned to rage at Iran.

To which the commenter replied [emphasis added]:

[quoting AA:] Both comfortably align with American interests as understood by the Bush administration, of course, which is convenient.    

[commenter] Yes it does. You state the obvious. What is less obvious, is why you seem to have a problem with [this alignment with American interests]… maybe I’ve misundertsood what your job is again? I thought you were an expert on public diplomacy?

Here is a case where the interests of a large part of the arab world and the United States coincide, and you seem to be denouncing it as a ploy on the part of Arab Governments and the United States. Isn’t it the goal of public diplomacy to find the common ground and open channels of communication? Or am I missing something? You seem to be sowing the seeds of strife here, to me, and you are jumping through hoops to do it!

This part, for instance:

[quoting AA:] quickly - and largely without explanation - morphed into anger with Iran.

Without explanation? Really? You find it hard to understand why people blame Iran for what the Iranian backed militias in Iraq do? Is that so?

Posted by: Craig | January 07, 2007 at 05:01 AM

As my grandmother used to say: it’s the tone that makes the music (TM).

Lefties interested in making political inroads really should examine their oh-so-20th-century attachment to atonality, and get a little more musical.

A couple of years ago, Bret Stephens, writing in the Wall Street Journal about “Easongate,” made an important observation about this phenomenon (he was talking about  media bias, not about lefties per se, but what he said pertains to our political discourse in general.) 

Stephens nailed defamatory innuendo as the culprit in political discourse.

Whether with malice aforethought or not, Mr. Jordan made a defamatory innuendo. Defamatory innuendo–rather than outright allegation–is the vehicle of mainstream media bias.

This is a crucial insight: it addresses something that all those involved in political discourse (and media critics) should understand—that subtext is at least as important as text in political discourse. (If you want an example, look no further than the flap over John Kerry’s “botched joke.” Even if it was a joke—and I’m willing to give Kerry the benefit of the doubt that it was—it contained a defamatory innuendo. Granted, the innuendo was directed at Bush, not at the troops. But when you use innuendo and your audience misunderstands you, it is you who is to blame, not the audience that doesn’t get the joke. Upshot: when you live in a cocoon, stop saying things that you think “everyone” will understand. “Everyone” doesn’t live inside your cocoon.)

Stephens also commended those present at the Davos conference who directed follow-up questions to Eason Jordan when he made his defamatory innuendo about the American military targeting journalists in Iraq.

Had Mr. Jordan’s innuendo gone unchallenged, it would have served as further proof to the Davos elite of the depths of American perfidy.

Here’s to challenging all faith-based assumptions!

Hallelujah! The new year is not even a day old and the New York Times notes some good news: that “a middle stance” has emerged in one of the hottest partisan debates going: climate change.

The discourse over the issue has been feverish since Hurricane Katrina. Seizing the moment, many environmental campaigners, former Vice President Al Gore and some scientists have portrayed the growing human influence on the climate as an unfolding disaster that is already measurably strengthening hurricanes, spreading diseases and amplifying recent droughts and deluges.

Conservative politicians and a few scientists, many with ties to energy companies, have variously countered that human-driven warming is inconsequential, unproved or a manufactured crisis.

A third stance is now emerging, espoused by many experts who challenge both poles of the debate.

These “nonskeptical heretics,” as they’re called by Roger A. Pielke Jr., a political scientist and blogger,

agree that accumulating carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping smokestack and tailpipe gases probably pose a momentous environmental challenge, but say the appropriate response is more akin to buying fire insurance and installing sprinklers and new wiring in an old, irreplaceable house (the home planet) than to fighting a fire already raging.

“Climate change presents a very real risk,” said Carl Wunsch, a climate and oceans expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “It seems worth a very large premium to insure ourselves against the most catastrophic scenarios.” …

“A lot of people have independently come to the same sort of conclusion,” Dr. Pielke said. “We do have a problem, we do need to act, but what actions are practical and pragmatic?”

Mike Hulme, the director of the Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research in Britain, is quoted with an observation that got me thinking [emphasis added]:

“I have found myself increasingly chastised by climate change campaigners when my public statements and lectures on climate change have not satisfied their thirst for environmental drama,” he wrote. “I believe climate change is real, must be faced and action taken. But the discourse of catastrophe is in danger of tipping society onto a negative, depressive and reactionary trajectory.”

As I noted in “No One Likes a Cassandra,” which I wrote the last time the Times carried a common-sensical piece about the global-warming debate, extreme partisanship does a disservice to your cause, whatever it is. Attempting to impose urgency on people is not effective; in fact, it seems that the blowback from it (denial) may be worse than the inertia that causes people to ignore problems that aren’t obviously imminent and threatening.

So I salute all those who seek a Third Way (including the New York Times in this case for calling out the highly partisan Al Gore, who has politicized global warming to no one’s advantage—including his own) to break the many log-jams that stand in the way of our managing the many, many very challenging problems we face in 2007 and beyond.

Yesterday, I mentioned Howard Kurtz’s remarks on Reliable Sources regarding the coming interplay between the media and politicians now that the Democrats have taken control of the Congress.

let’s face it, journalists were bored with one- party rule and they hope the Democrats conduct plenty of investigations in Congress and issue subpoenas so that they can feast on the conflict.

True or false?

Interestingly, Kurtz (who’s a champion of journalism and serious news and who puts down cable sleaze every time he can find a way to elevate network news—as if network news organizations are any better at informing people about the news of the day and every reader of this blog knows I think that is patently untrue) seemed to throw this down as a challenge to the media to be entertaining (something I welcome, because it attracts audiences, who learn something about the issues) rather than as an indictment of his colleagues, who were so obviously in the Democrats’ corner in the run-up to the election.

Today, Kurtz follows up with a column in the Washington Post. that is much more of an indictment (though that’s not how he means it to be taken, I’m sure, and he includes bloggers in the mix):

The media kept saying the war was going badly. The Bush administration said progress in Iraq was being obscured by relentlessly negative coverage.

The media kept saying the federal government’s response to Hurricane Katrina was badly botched. President Bush initially said his administration was doing a heckuva job. …

The biggest change may be in store for liberal commentators, radio hosts and bloggers, some of whom enjoyed a good long gloat last week. For years now, they have been on offense against the administration and the war, and taking potshots is plenty of fun, as conservative pundits learned during the height of the Clinton scandals. But now the lefties will have to spend time defending the Democratic leadership for any missteps and failures. And if Reid and Pelosi compromise with their more moderate colleagues, will hard-driving liberal bloggers turn on them?

As I said the other day, things are going to stay interesting. Meanwhile, McQ, at QandO, quotes Kurtz and comments:

Now the question is whether a press corps that has been openly at odds with the president will hold the newly empowered Democrats to the same tough standards.

As those trying to buy a little time while casting about for an answer might say, “good question”.

If I were to speak strictly on gut feeling, I’d say “no”. While Republicans may be out of power in Congress, as Kurtz points out in his question, the media has been openly at odds with the president and he hasn’t gone anywhere. Why would that relationship change now? Seems to me that piling on is in more in order, and the Dems can only help them in that endeavor.

He predicts how things will play out:

Again, as Kurtz mentions, the problem the media has focused on has been Bush, not so much Congress, so you can almost make book on the premise that anything which happens now will remain Bush’s fault. Gridlock will be the unwillingness of Bush to compromise. Nominees will be “too extreme” and ethics reform will be wonderful, regardless of how cosmetic.

Mark my words.

I do, and I did. And I’ll be watching with bated breath.

see update below

They’re spinning in the wake of the earlier-than-agreed-upon release of the juicy tidbits, but Messrs. Richard Perle, Kenneth Adelman, David Frum, and Michael Rubin have all told journalist David Rose about their deep displeasure with Iraq.

These gentlemen were, of course, part of the dread “neocon cabal” that was charged with brainwashing Bush into toppling Saddam because “the road to Jerusalem is through Baghdad” (a charge that is still being promulgated by Professors Walt and Mearsheimer, of the “Israel Lobby” fame).

Now, in a preview of the full Vanity Fair article, which will appear in mid-December:

Perle says, “The decisions did not get made that should have been. They didn’t get made in a timely fashion, and the differences were argued out endlessly.… At the end of the day, you have to hold the president responsible.… I don’t think he realized the extent of the opposition within his own administration, and the disloyalty.”

Perle goes so far as to say that, if he had his time over, he would not have advocated an invasion of Iraq: “I think if I had been delphic, and had seen where we are today, and people had said, ‘Should we go into Iraq?,’ I think now I probably would have said, ‘No, let’s consider other strategies for dealing with the thing that concerns us most, which is Saddam supplying weapons of mass destruction to terrorists.’ … I don’t say that because I no longer believe that Saddam had the capability to produce weapons of mass destruction, or that he was not in contact with terrorists. I believe those two premises were both correct. Could we have managed that threat by means other than a direct military intervention? Well, maybe we could have.”

They’ve had a soft landing so far. All things considered, Maureen Dowd [$$] went easy on the neocons in yesterday’s column.

Scaling new heights in the annals of Now They Tell Us, [Perle and Adelman] blame the “dysfunctional” Bush team for the “disaster” in Iraq and say that if they had known then what we all know now (and what some of us knew then), they never would have pushed to invade Iraq.

Certainly, this isn’t the last we’ve heard about the Self-Criticisms to End All Self-Criticisms.

update: The furious counterspin to Vanity Fair’s framing this as a “neocons pile on Bush” can be found here, at National Review Online.

Has he crossed the line yet? You be the judge.

Olbermann’s October 31 love letter to John Kerry

On Tuesday’s Countdown, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann came to the defense of Senator John Kerry in the aftermath of the Democratic Senator’s comment that those who don’t study and get an education “get stuck in Iraq,” interpreted by many as an attack on the intelligence of American soldiers. As Olbermann contended that the comment was really meant to be an attack on President Bush’s intelligence, Olbermann accused the Bush team of being “stupid” for not seeing Kerry’s comments as an attack on the President. Olbermann: “Kerry called them stupid, and they were too stupid to know he called them stupid.” Olbermann later charged that First Lady Laura Bush had “gotten into the gutter” and suggested she may have “gone deeper into the muck than Limbaugh” because of her recent comments regarding actor Michael J. Fox’s political activities, that it is “easy to manipulate people’s feelings…when you’re talking about diseases that are so difficult.” 

is now featured on Kerry’s website.

“Countdown with Keith Olbermann”

Keith Olbermann discusses John Kerry’s remarks on “Countdown with Keith Olbermann”

And Kerry thinks Bush is stupid!