The Blue Voice

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Another look at the "liberal" columnist drooling over Bush

Yesterday I linked to a Digby post ridiculing this column by Time's (supposedly) liberal columnist Joe Klein: Why Bush Is (Still) Winning the War at Home Time 06/18/06

I was surprised to see that Bob "the Daily Howler" Somerby was critical of liberal bloggers who attacked Klein's column.

Neil also mentioned in the comments to my post that his impression of the column was that Klein was mostly being critical of Bush. Somerby seems to have had a similar impression. So this led me to take a closer look at Klein's piece and made me think through what it actually is that bothers me about the column.

First of all, I should say that despite being a shamelessly partisan Democrat, I'm more interested in getting the US out of the Iraq War and ending the Bush Doctrine of preventive war than I am in seeing the Democrats gain power. That direction is a catastrophically bad one for the United States. But Klein's column also sheds light on some of the problems Democrats are having in presenting clear foreign policy alternatives and on how dysfunctional the mainstream "press corps" and punditocracy have become.

Whether supporting a war is "liberal" or "conservative" depends on the war. During the Kosovo War, the leader of the antiwar faction in the Senate was Trent "I-heart-Strom-Thurmond" Lott. But from what the public opinion polls are showing, discontent to explicit opposition to the Iraq War is dominant among Democrats/liberals, moderates and some conservative Republicans, with Old Right isolationists being a small but significant piece of the antiwar movement. The only real hardcore supporters of Bush's Iraq War policies are white, Republican-voting Christian evangelicals, a few thousand of whom gave Condi Rice's defense of Bush's war policies repeated standing ovations last week.

There are a couple of things that struck me in particular about Klein's column. One is that on the policy matter central to his column, the Iraq War, Klein supports Bush's "stay the course" policy. He even says that supporting Bush's Iraq War policy is the only responsible position for Democrats to take. Is the public actually is so confused about the Democrats' position on national security issues as the Establishment press keep telling us we are? If so, one reason is that Time's token "liberal" columnist takes a position on the most prominent issue of the day, the Iraq War, that is far closer to that of hardline Christian Right Republicans than to that taken by living, breathing liberals. Klein's policy point is that Bush's policy on the Iraq War is correct, and the only responsible policy for the Democrats is to support that policy, too.

The other very noticeable aspect of Klein's column is that he pimps the standard, Republican-friendly press corps script for the two parties: Republicans are the tough, decisive and manly "daddy party", Dems are the weak, confused, indecisive "mommy party" that can't protect us from Bad Foreigners. Francis Wilkerson reminds us how far from the reality-based world that view is in Who’s Your Daddy Party? American Prospect 06/6/06. But that won't stop our Big Pundits from beating that drum all the way to November of 2008.

Below the fold, I do a "close reading" of Klein's controversial pro-war column. (It might also be called a long "fisking".)

The first two paragraphs are those that Digby ridiculed. In them, Klein gushes enthusiastically about Bush's visit to Iraq and his posturing as the tough, determined war leader. And gushes is really the right word to describe it. Bush had reason, finally, to strut", the "liberal" pundit writes. The Howler claims that Klein's comments there were meant to be critical of Bush. I fail to see how. It sure looks like "man-dude love" to me!

Paragraph three is devoted to ridiculing John Kerry for being a simpering, "awkward", cut-and-run wimp, with a withdrawal plan that Klein considers comtemptible. And then those smart, manly-man Republicans "gleefully" used Kerry's plan to embarass the Democrats. He could have made a paragraph heading: That Kerry, what a loser!

The Howler quotes from paragraphs four and five, with the highlights I indicate in bold:

Last week, in the opening salvo of the 2006 congressional elections, Bush and Rove were reminding voters that the choice would be between the Democratic strategy of "cut and run" and the Republican war against Islamic "fascists," as the President called them. It was clear, yet again, that Bush and Rove would surf the complexities of the conflict for their political advantage. "See, Iraq is part of the global war on terror," the President said. "And if we fail in Iraq, it's going to embolden al-Qaeda types." Rove helpfully added in a New Hampshire speech that al-Zarqawi wouldn't have been nailed if we had pulled out of Iraq, as Representative John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat, recommended last winter.

Rove's assertion was scurrilous and inaccurate. Al-Zarqawi had been eliminated through terrific intelligence work and air power, neither of which required a substantial U.S. ground presence in Iraq. The President's line of attack was accurate but lethally incomplete. His poorly planned invasion of Iraq created the atmosphere that enabled al-Qaeda - and the local sectarian conflicts - to flourish. Iraq had become, in small part, a war against al-Qaeda; for the most part, it is a local sectarian conflict - because of American incompetence. If the President had not allowed General Tommy Franks to "cut and run" - that is, to close his headquarters and begin drawing down the U.S. military presence on May 1, 2003, the very same day as Bush's first cockpit stunt - the U.S. forces might have had a better chance to contain the insurgency But those are complicated arguments to make in a political campaign. And even the wildest accusations, like Rove's disgraceful Murtha gambit, will force a candidate onto the defensive. (Somerby's emphasis bolded)

Somerby describes those comments this way: "At long last, a major, famous mainstream pundit is kicking the wax out of Bush and Rove!"

Let me suggest a less generous reading, focusing on the parts Somerby highlights:

"It was clear, yet again, that Bush and Rove would surf the complexities of the conflict for their political advantage."

Is it clear that this will work to the political advantage of the Republicans? Even if I put on my political science hat (I keep it in the drawer for occasions like this) and forget for a few seconds that I'm a Jacksonian Democrat, it seems pretty unlikely to me that flogging the Zarqawi capture as yet another turning point - and that's essentially what the PR stunts Klein is discussing were about - would politically benefit the Republicans on the whole this year.

The Democrats are facing a real uphill battle to retake even the House majority this November. But it's not because Bush's Iraq War is popular. The polls showed some "bounce" in optimism on the war after Zarqawi's capture, which we can reliably predict will dissipate fast. Bush's own populartiy received little or no help from it.

So why is something so questionable so very "clear, yet again" to Time's "liberal" columnist?

"Rove's assertion was scurrilous and inaccurate."

This reminds me of an incident during Truman's Presidency. At a press conference, a reporter asked Truman about some new sensational charge that the lying, drunkard Senator Joe McCarthy had just made. Quoting from memory here, Truman replied that he hadn't heard about that particular one. "But if that fellow McCarthy said it, it's a damned lie, I can tell you that".

Then there's the hackneyed lawyer joke: "How can you tell if a lawyer is lying?/His lips are moving."

Karl Rove said something "scurrilous and inaccurate". Dog bites man. Tom DeLay is corrupt. Dick Cheney shot somebody in the face. Saying that Karl Rove is being "scurrilous and inaccurate" is hardly news, much less cutting-edge liberal criticism.

"If the President had not allowed General Tommy Franks to "cut and run" - that is, to close his headquarters and begin drawing down the U.S. military presence on May 1, 2003, the very same day as Bush's first cockpit stunt - the U.S. forces might have had a better chance to contain the insurgency."

Okay, this is kind of cute. Look, it's Bush that's "cut and run", not the Democrats!

But is this "kicking the wax out of Bush and Rove!", as the Howler says? Not exactly. This is your classic, DLC-style "Bush hasn't been tough enough on the war" kind of pitch. Plus, it's kind of silly.

And since learning the right lessons from the Iraq War is more important than the Democrats' partisan political fortunes, on what planet would "the U.S. forces might have had a better chance to contain the insurgency" if no withdrawals at all had taken place at the conclusion of the conventional phase of the war? I'll assume for now that the assertion is factually accurate, though I haven't fact-checked it. (Literally, what Klein says is that Bush gave Franks approval to "begin drawing down the U.S. military presence".)

How could Klein write a glib assertion like that after everything that's already been reported about the problems of cournterinsurgency in Iraq? To summarize some of them briefly: The idea of occupying Iraq and installing a government subservient to the United States was effectively impossible. To have the kind of soldier-to-population ratio that could have quickly established a reasonable semblance of control and law-and-order would have required about 500,000 troops, about three times what Gen. Franks had on the ground in Iraq at the beginning of May 2003.

Having 500,000 US troops there is one thing. Having troops that are trained for counterinsurgency and policing work, plus having the Arabic skills to do those effectively in Iraq, that's a whole different thing. The Army ever since the Vietnam War has been training to deliver a decisive defeat to Soviet Army Central pouring through the Fulda Gap in Germany. Even for a decade after the collapse of the USSR, they kept right on training for that. A large scale counterinsurgency war against well-trained, well-armed Muslim guerrillas in an Arabic-speaking country, that they were not prepared for.

And even if they had the 500,000 Arabic-speaking troops there, some of the most important decisions would still have produced terrible consequences. Probably the single most decisive event that made the difference between having a large insurgency earlier rather than later was the looting of Baghdad, beginning the day after the famous toppling of Saddam's statue for the TV cameras. If there had been 500,000 US troops standing aside and protecting only the Oil Ministry buildings, the damage would have been just as great. The same goes for the whole catalogue of screw-ups: dismissing the Iraqi Army, the various changes of course on elections and the government, setting up a constitutional structure that exacerbated ethic/religious/sectional tensions and hatreds, the wretched lack of planning for the postwar, the massive corruption, the loose-cannon mercenaries ("security consultants"), the torturing of prisoners, the mind-boggling levels of corruption, and on and on.

But a ferocious liberal columnist is "kicking the wax out of Bush and Rove" by saying, hey, the problems in the war are not that Democrats want to cut-and-run, it's that Bush let Tommy Franks cut-and-run? Please. Even Joe Lieberman would have trouble saying that one with a straight face. The main problems with the war are that it was unnecessary, criminal under both international law and the October 2002 war resolution, both the Army and the Bush administration was unprepared for the kind of war they are actually in, the American occupation was administered with incompetence of world-historical levels, and the administration has shown a steadfast resistance to facing the situation realistically throughout.

Why can't a liberal Big Pundit who wants to be "kicking the wax out of Bush and Rove" say: The Iraq War was unnecessary. It was illegal. The administration failed to prepare properly. And the whole thing was done incompetently from beginning to end. Why not? In Klein's case the answer seems to be that he "supports Bush's "stay the course" policy and thinks supporting Bush's Iraq War policy is the only responsible position for Democrats to take. That would explain it.

A close look at Klein's concluding paragraph is also worthwhile:

What can the Democrats do? They can play politics or be responsible. The political option is to embrace "cut and run"; call for an immediate withdrawal, as Kerry did; and hope the public is so sick of Bush and sick of the war that it will punish the g.o.p. [sic] in the fall. But embracing defeat is a risky political strategy, especially for a party not known for its warrior ethic. In fact, the responsible path is the Democrats' only politically plausible choice: they will have to give yet another new Iraqi government one last shot to succeed. This time, U.S. military sources say, the measure of success is simple: Operation Forward Together, the massive joint military effort launched last week to finally try to secure Baghdad, has to work. If Baghdad isn't stabilized, the war is lost. "I know it's the cliche of the war," an Army counterinsurgency specialist told me last week. "But we'll know in the next six months - and this time, it'll be the last next six months we get."

Okay, let me try to interpret this. Explaning Gnostic Christian theology would probably be easier. But Klein seems to be saying the following.

If the Democrats want to "play politics", they would call for "an immediate withdrawal". Let's be generous to Klein and assume that by that, he means a phased withdrawal with structured deadlines. That would be the "political" option. But the choice for the Dems is to "play politics or be responsible". So, presumably, supporting Bush's "stay the course forever" option would be the responsible thing to do. That's at least logically clear, so far.

But wait: "embracing defeat" - which presumably means calling for a phased withdrawal - "is a risky political strategy, especially for a party not known for its warrior ethic." By this point in the column, the readers won't have to think twice to realize the party to which he's referring as "not known for its warrior ethic" is not the party headed by George "got-tired-of-that-Air-Guard-gig-and-left-early" Bush and Dick "I-had-other-priorities-than-getting-drafted" Cheney. He clearly means the party whose titular head is still its 2004 Prseidential nominee, Vietnam War hero John Kerry.

So here it gets a bit cloudy. The "political" option would be "embracing defeat". But "embracing defeat" would be "a risky political strategy" for the Dems. So, says Klein, "the responsible path is the Democrats' only politically plausible choice: they will have to give yet another new Iraqi government one last shot to succeed". Responsible, political, plausible - Lordy, it's enough to give a lowly rank-and-file liberal a John C. Calhoun-sized headache!

Then there's that odd quote from the anonymous "Army counterintelligence expert": "I know it's the cliche of the war. But we'll know in the next six months - and this time, it'll be the last next six months we get." Klein even quotes his source as recognizing that it's become a cliche, like "turning points" and "tipping points" and "the insurgency is in its last throes". But he quotes it anyway: in six months, things will be more clear. In six months, we can start withdrawing American troops. In six months, he really will leave his wife and marry you. Honest.

So we could summarize Klein political point of his column like this: the Democrats are the sissy party, so they have no business questioning the Iraq War policies of manly-man George Bush. At least not until six months from now, i.e., mid-November, after the midterm election are over.

Does this actually reflect the thinking of American liberals or even moderates? Hard to see how. And, yet, Time, one of the country's oldest and most widely-read weekly newsmagazines, presents Joe Klein as providing a "liberal" perspective on things. It's not some comma-dancing ideological point. Time's "liberal" columnist takes a position on the Iraq War that is far closer to that of hardline Christian Right Republicans than to that of living, breathing liberals.

One last thing about that strange, Gnostic final paragraph. Klein writes, in what could (probably unintentionally) be a real piece of news, "This time, U.S. military sources say, the measure of success is simple: Operation Forward Together, the massive joint military effort launched last week to finally try to secure Baghdad, has to work."

You've been reading about that Baghdad operation on the front page of your newspaper every day, right? The one that Klein's military sources say is absolutely critical, make-or-break for the war effort? And, of course, you've been hearing on FOX News daily that Baghdad is so insecure that a major military operation is required to bring it under the control of the US and the Iraqi government, three years and several months after the famous statue-toppling scene.

No? Gee, Juan Cole has been wondering about that, too:

The US military operation against Ramadi continued on Monday [06/19/06], though details were scarce. It is a little odd that we can have a major military operation, of great importance to the ongoing war, and yet know almost nothing of its course. Likewise, I have seen no reporting on the progress of the supposed sweep of guerrillas in Baghdad. It doesn't in any case appear to have put a crimp in the car bomb industry, as yet [as of 06/20/06]. (my emphasis)

I should add here that Cole follows the Iraqi news on Arabic sites and TV, and also in the USG Open Source service, which is for some mysterious reason not made available to the general American public who pays for it. And even he's not hearing much about this supposedly critical operation.

I do know there is supposedly to be a sweep going on. I posted about it myself in Can the US and Iraq's Shi'a government take control of Baghdad? 06/16/06, and I linked to this report: Securing Baghdad: Understanding and Covering the Operation by Anthony Cordesman 06/14/06.

So, after the November election, it may be worth referring back Klein's quotation about how critical the Baghdad operation is, when we're being told then that by May of 2007 or so, we should have a much better picture of how the war is going.

posted at 1:28:00 PM by Bruce Miller

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