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November 30, 2006

Darfur or "Wrap Rage"?

It's easy to be self-righteous and cranky when comparing media coverage of the trivial with reporting of consequential matters. Let me try to resist the urge to leap on the soap box and present just the facts.

On its front page today, The Washington Post carries a story on "wrap rage": consumer anger at the hard plastic packaging that now surrounds many toys and that is nearly impossible to penetrate. The article quotes a local consumer proclaiming, "I hate it. I hate it." Another gripes, "It takes at least 40 minutes to get all the packaging off all the toys" on Christmas morning.

This, I repeat, is front-page news.

On page A16, there is a small piece headlined "U.N. Official Calls Violence in Darfur 'Horrific.'" It notes:

The U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Louise Arbour, told a U.N. Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva that the Sudanese government and an allied militia called the Janjaweed were "responsible for the most serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law."

"The atrocities must stop," she said.

Arbour's rebuke came a day after the 47-member Human Rights Council rejected a resolution from European countries and Canada calling on Sudan to prosecute those responsible for the violence. The council instead adopted a resolution urging all parties involved in the conflict to "put an immediate end to the ongoing violations" with a special focus on "vulnerable groups."

The conflict began in early 2003 when rebels rose up against the government, which responded by arming and supporting the Janjaweed, human rights groups say. As many as 450,000 people have died from disease and violence, and 2.5 million have been displaced.

The U.N. Human Rights Council decides not to pursue the practitioners of mass-murder in Darfur, and the news of this decision appears deep in the paper. People are plagued by the difficulty of unwrapping toy packages, and their plight is featured on page one. Oh, did I mention that already?

Posted by David Corn at 04:09 PM

Baker's Partial Wimp-Out

It's a partial wimp-out.

The New York Times is reporting that the Iraq Study Group--the bipartisan panel headed up by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Representative Lee Hamilton--will recommend next week that George W. Bush implement a gradual pullback of 15 brigades of US troops in Iraq. But the group will not call for Bush to set an actual timetable for this withdrawal. The group will also not state whether this redeployment should entail removing troops from Iraq or shuffling them to bases within Iraq or in nearby countries.

The point apparently is to encourage Bush to apply pressure on Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki without forcing him to accept what he has already denounced: a specific schedule for disengagement. But the Baker gang, though soft-peddling the withdrawal option, is slicing the meat rather thin. No matter how gently they put it, Baker and his colleagues--who will also call for a revived regional diplomatic effort--will be asking for Bush to break with his no-retreat rhetoric and to acknowledge a strategic shift is necessary to deal with the mess he has created in Iraq. Which brings me back to an old point: can Bush do this? In recent days, he has been sticking to his latest catch phrase: "complete the mission" (a variant on the discarded "stay the course"). And he refuses to consider the withdrawal of troops as a way to finish the job.

Regardless of what Baker cooks up, the big decision belongs to Bush: will he make any significant changes in his Iraq policy? So far he shows no signs of doing so. Will Baker report's and its half-a-shout for withdrawal compel Bush to reconsider? My hunch is that even though he does not say it publicly, Bush's internal mantra remains the same: stay the course, stay the course, stay the course.

Posted by David Corn at 10:37 AM

November 29, 2006

Baker Report Coming Next Week

A press release from the U.S. Institute of Peace announces:

On December 6, the Iraq Study Group will present its report to President Bush, the U.S. Congress and the American people. A press conference will be scheduled -- time and place to follow.

That gives James Baker less than a week to find a way to pull W.'s fat out of the fire. This is the toughest mission of Baker's career--much harder than winning a recount fight. And never in my years in Washington has a report been so eagerly awaited. There's no reason to expect that Baker and his gang will come up with any answers. The big question is this: does Bush realize how much he has screwed up and is he willing to change direction? If not, what Baker manages to produce will make little difference.

Posted by David Corn at 04:38 PM

The Saudis to Baker's Rescue?

As regular readers know, I'm not hot on conspiracy theories--partly because I don't believe government officials are competent enough to pull off overly intricate schemes (though it does happen occasionally). But here's a modest CT for anyone who--like me--was stunned to read the op-ed by Nawaf Obaid, a Saudi adviser, in Wednesday's Washington Post. He says explicitly that if George W. Bush withdraws troops from Iraq, Saudi Arabia will do whatever it must to protect the Sunnis of Iraq. For years, he notes, Saudi King Abdullah has refused calls to send money and weapons to Iraqi Sunnis. Those calls, Obaid writes, will "be heeded if American troops begin a phased withdrawal from Iraq." He acknowledges this could pit Saudi Arabia versus Iran, which is supporting Iraqi Shiites, in a civil war in Iraq. He ends the piece: "To be sure, Saudi engagement in Iraq carries great risks--it could spark a regional war. So be it: The consequences of inaction are far worse."

It's a chilling piece. It might even be true: a US pullout could lead to a greater civil war that draws in other nations and leads to worse. But I can't help wondering if Obaid's piece is an attempt to provide cover for former Secretary of State James Baker and his Iraq Study Group, which is supposed to be releasing its recommendations within weeks. Baker and his fellow commissioners have a problem: what to say about withdrawing troops. The ten members of the bipartisan panel are likely divided on this critical point. The Democrats on the panel know that their party leaders in Congress have been advocating disengagement. Republicans on the panel know their president has said he will not bring back the troops. How can Baker square this circle?

Are the Saudis coming the rescue? Baker has always been close to the House of Saud. Now a representative of that clan is publicly warning--even if noting his views do not reflect "official Saudi policy"--that withdrawal could lead to all-out war in the region. That certainly raises the cost of proposing a retreat. Anyone considering withdrawing troops ought to be scared by this article. And that could well be the point of it--to help Baker smother any recommendation for withdrawal. But there's something worse: Obaid might indeed be reflecting official Saudi policy and his predictions might be on the mark. Should the prospect of open civil war involving other regional powers trump the argument for withdrawing troops? Not necessarily. (Read Republican Senator Chuck Hagel's argument for withdrawal here.) But withdrawal may substitute one set of grave problems for another. The furies that Bush has unleashed in the Middle East are far from burning out.

Posted by David Corn at 11:21 AM

November 28, 2006

This Just In: Hastings Will Not Get Intell

This afternoon, Nancy Pelosi released a statement:

Congressman Alcee Hastings and I have had extensive consultations, and today I advised him that I would select someone else as Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Alcee Hastings has always placed national security as his highest priority. He has served our country well, and I have full confidence that he will continue to do so.

Given what I've written--see here--I'm heartened. But I do wonder why she announced her decision not to choose Hastings without saying who would get the position. Representative Rush Holt--a possibility I suggested--is not lobbying for the post, according to Democratic Hill sources. But he certainly would like to get it. The betting, though, has to be on Representative Silvestre Reyes. With such a pick, Pelosi could please the Hispanic caucus as she peeves the Congressional Black Caucus. If merit ruled--yeah, right--Holt would get the nod. But that's not how business is done in Congress.

Posted by David Corn at 03:42 PM

Iran-contra: 20 Years Later and What It Means Now

From my "Capital Games" column at www.thenation.com....

It's the 20th anniversary of the Iran-contra scandal. Two decades ago, the public learned about the bizarre, Byzantine and (arguably) unconstitutional actions of high officials in the post-Watergate years. But many Americans did not absorb the key lesson: the Iran-contra vets were not to be trusted. Consequently, most of those officials went on to prosperous careers, with some even becoming part of the squad that has landed the United States in the current hellish mess in Iraq.

Before tying the then to the now, let's revisit the basic narrative. When Congress, by fair vote, decided in the 1980s that the United States should not assist the contras fighting the socialist Sandinista government of Nicaragua, the Reagan White House concocted several imaginative ways to pull an end-run around democracy. This mainly entailed outsourcing the job to a small band of private sector covert operators and to foreign governments, which were privately requested or pressured by the Reaganites to support the secret contra support operation. The "Iran" side of the scandal came from President Ronald Reagan's covert efforts to sell weapons to Iran to obtain the release of American hostages held by terrorist groups supposedly under the control of Tehran--at a time when the White House was publicly declaring it would not negotiate with terrorists. The two clandestine projects merged when cash generated from the weapons transactions with Iran was diverted to the contra operation.

Conservatives for years--make that decades--have argued there was nothing really criminal about the Iran-contra affair and that it was merely a political dispute between the pro-contras Republicans in the White House and the Democrats controlling Congress. Yet at the time the architects of these schemes worried they were breaking laws and placing Reagan in jeopardy of being impeached. Look at how the National Security Archive, a nonprofit outfit that gathers national security records, summarizes a memo documenting a key White House meeting on the clandestine contras program:

At a pivotal meeting of the highest officials in the Reagan Administration [on June 25, 1984], the President and Vice President [George H.W. Bush] and their top aides discuss how to sustain the Contra war in the face of mounting Congressional opposition. The discussion focuses on asking third countries to fund and maintain the effort, circumventing Congressional power to curtail the CIA's paramilitary operations. In a remarkable passage, Secretary of State George P. Shultz warns the president that White House adviser James Baker has said that "if we go out and try to get money from third countries, it is an impeachable offense." But Vice President George Bush argues the contrary: "How can anyone object to the US encouraging third parties to provide help to the anti-Sandinistas…? The only problem that might come up is if the United States were to promise to give these third parties something in return so that some people could interpret this as some kind of exchange." Later, Bush participated in arranging a quid pro quo deal with Honduras in which the U.S. did provide substantial overt and covert aid to the Honduran military in return for Honduran support of the Contra war effort.

The Iran arms-for-hostage-deal was also illegal--or so Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger thought. At a December 7, 1985 White House meeting, Weinberger argued the Iran missile deal was wrong and criminal, according to his notes of the session. Weinberger pointed out to Reagan that selling missiles to Iran would violate a U.S. embargo on arms sales to Iran and that even the president of the United States could not break this law. Nor, Weinberger added, would it be legal to use Israel as a cutout, as was under consideration. Both Secretary of State George Shultz and White House chief of staff Donald Regan, who were each present, agreed that a secret weapons deal with Iran would be against the law. Reagan, though, insisted on proceeding, noting he could answer a charge of illegality but not the charge that he had "passed up a chance to free hostages." Weinberger then quipped, "Visiting hours are Thursdays"--meaning the deal could land someone in jail. After the meeting, Regan told Weinberger he would try to talk Reagan out of the deal. He failed to do so.

Soon both the clandestine contras program and the secret Iran deal were underway, with the relevant agencies--most notably, the CIA, the Pentagon and the State Department--providing back-up and National Security Council officers Robert McFarlane, John Poindexter and Oliver North overseeing operations. In supporting the contras project, the CIA worked with individuals it suspected of being involved in drug-dealing, according to a subsequent CIA inspector general's investigation.

The skullduggery began to unravel in the fall of 1986. On October 5, 1986, a C-123 aircraft ferrying supplies to the contras was shot down by the Sandinistas, and an American named Eugene Hasenfus was captured. He told the Nicaraguans that his flight was part of a CIA-approved operation. Days later, Reagan said of the Hasenfus operation, "There was no government connection with that at all." He was not telling the truth. Shortly after that, Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams testified in Congress that the administration had arranged for no foreign donations--"not a dime"--to the contras--even though he had arranged for a $10 million contribution to the rebels from the Sultan of Brunei.

On November 3, 1986, a Lebanese weekly revealed that the previous May National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane had secretly flown to Tehran. McFarlane's covert mission had been part of the arms-for-hostages deal--which now stood exposed. On November 25, Attorney General Edwin Meese held a press conference and disclosed that funds from the arms sales to Iran had been diverted to the contras support program. (I happened to be watching that press conference with Abbie Hoffman, the former Yippie, who exclaimed, "I couldn't make this stuff up.")

A full-scale scandal was born. Investigations were convened. The Reagan presidency was hobbled. But impeachment never became an issue--in part because Democratic congressional investigators removed it from the table at the start of their inquiries. White House partisans threw up a defense of spin and obfuscation that turned the affair into a political muddle. (That is, mission accomplished.) Oliver North became a hero to conservatives. Bush the Elder, who lied about his involvement in Iran-contra (saying he had been "out of the loop," though noting in a private diary that he had been one of the few officials in-the-know), was elected president in 1988.

The investigations continued. Abrams, McFarlane (who botched a suicide attempt), and a CIA officer named Alan Fiers pleaded guilty to withholding information from Congress. Two other CIA officers--Clair George and Duane Clarridge--were indicted on perjury-related charges. Former General Richard Secord and Albert Hakim, who managed the secret contra supply operation, pleaded guilty to minor charges. North and Poindexter were convicted of various counts, but their convictions were overturned on legal technicalities. Weinberger was indicted for illegally withholding his notes from special counsel Lawrence Walsh.

The affair came to an ignominious finale on Christmas Eve, 1992. George H.W. Bush, who had been defeated by Bill Clinton seven weeks earlier, issued pardons for Weinberger, Abrams, McFarlane, Clarridge, George and Fiers. Only Thomas Cline, a former CIA officer and partner of Secord and Hakim, who was found guilty of tax charges, ended up going to jail due to the Iran-contra scandal.

But history never ends. Twenty years later, Abrams is deputy national security adviser for global democracy in the George W. Bush administration. A fellow who admitted that he had not told Congress the truth and who had abetted a secret war mounted by a rebel force with an atrocious human rights record now is supposed to promote democracy abroad. Other Iran-contra figures are leading players today. Here's a partial list from the National Security Archive:

* Richard Cheney - now the vice president, he played a prominent part as a member of the joint congressional Iran-Contra inquiry of 1986, taking the position that Congress deserved major blame for asserting itself unjustifiably onto presidential turf. He later pointed to the committees' Minority Report as an important statement on the proper roles of the Executive and Legislative branches of government.

* David Addington - now Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, and by numerous press accounts a stanch advocate of expanded presidential power, Addington was a congressional staffer during the joint select committee hearings in 1986 who worked closely with Cheney.

* John Bolton - the controversial U.N. ambassador whose recess appointment by President Bush is now in jeopardy was a senior Justice Department official who participated in meetings with Attorney General Edwin Meese on how to handle the burgeoning Iran-Contra political and legal scandal in late November 1986. There is little indication of his precise role at the time.

* Robert M. Gates - President Bush's nominee to succeed Donald Rumsfeld, Gates nearly saw his career go up in flames over charges that he knew more about Iran-Contra while it was underway than he admitted once the scandal broke. He was forced to give up his bid to head the CIA in early 1987 because of suspicions about his role but managed to attain the position when he was re-nominated in 1991.

* Manuchehr Ghorbanifar - the quintessential middleman, who helped broker the arms deals involving the United States, Israel and Iran ostensibly to bring about the release of American hostages being held in Lebanon, Ghorbanifar was almost universally discredited for misrepresenting all sides' goals and interests. Even before the Iran deals got underway, the CIA had ruled Ghorbanifar off-limits for purveying bad information to U.S. intelligence. Yet, in 2006 his name has resurfaced as an important source for the Pentagon on current Iranian affairs, again over CIA objections.

* Michael Ledeen - a neo-conservative who is vocal on the subject of regime change in Iran, Ledeen helped bring together the main players in what developed into the Iran arms-for-hostages deals in 1985 before being relegated to a bit part. He reportedly reprised his role shortly after 9/11, introducing Ghorbanifar to Pentagon officials interested in exploring contacts inside Iran.

* Edwin Meese - currently a member of the blue-ribbon Iraq Study Group headed by James Baker and Lee Hamilton, he was Ronald Reagan's controversial attorney general who spearheaded an internal administration probe into the Iran-Contra connection in November 1986 that was widely criticized as a political exercise in protecting the president rather than a genuine inquiry by the nation's top law enforcement officer.

* John Negroponte - the career diplomat who worked quietly to boost the U.S. military and intelligence presence in Central America as ambassador to Honduras, he also participated in efforts to get the Honduran government to support the Contras after Congress banned direct U.S. aid to the rebels. Negroponte's profile has risen spectacularly with his appointments as ambassador to Iraq in 2004 and director of national intelligence in 2005.

Another Iran-contra veteran has dramatically returned to the scene recently: Daniel Ortega. On November 7, as the Bush White House prepared itself for congressional elections that would be widely seen as a repudiation of its war in Iraq, the morning newspapers carried the news that Ortega, the Sandinista leader whom the Reagan administration had targeted, had won a presidential election in Nicaragua. The old contras backers now running the Bush administration had to watch their old nemesis (not that Ortega was ever much of a threat) regain power, as their hold on power was slipping. The arc of history is indeed long.

As for the current relevance of Iran-contra, one could argue that the affair taught Reaganites and neocons a lesson, the wrong lesson: you can get away with it. Though the operations ended up being exposed and the Iran deal crashed and burned, the Reagan administration and the first Bush administration did create enough pressure on Nicaragua and forced the expulsion of the Sandinista government in a 1990 election. Perhaps more important for this crowd, no one involved in the shady activity was held accountable. Bush the First was elected. Abrams and other scandal vets were rewarded with prominent posts in the next Republican administration--that of Bush the Younger. The Reaganites had lied to Congress and the public about Iran-contra and ultimately escaped retribution.

This sordid episode hardly served as a warning--either for the Iran-contra alumni who would lead the United States into the debacle in Iraq or for voters who would support an administration staffed with people who twenty years earlier had made their bones in a scandal involving war and truth. One can hope, though, that the disingenuous, reality-defying engineers of the current disaster will be too old or too discredited to return to power two decades from now.

Posted by David Corn at 03:37 PM

November 27, 2006

Cordesman to Bush Administration: "Stop Lying"

Once again, Anthony Cordesman--the hawkish military analyst at the Center for Strategic & International Studies--has accused the Bush administration of misleading the public about the harsh realities of Iraq. Every few months, he produces a report that socks it to the White House and the Pentagon. And he has new one out today. The paper starts:

Iraq is already in a state of at least limited civil war, and may well be escalating to the level of a major civil conflict. What began as a small resistance movement centered on loyalists to the Ba'ath and Saddam Hussein has expanded to include neo-Salafi Sunni terrorism, become a broadly based Sunni insurgency, and now a broader sectarian and ethnic conflict.

The current combination of insurgency, Sunni Arab versus Shi'ite Arab sectarian conflict, and Arab versus Kurdish ethnic conflict could easily cause the collapse of the current political structure, leading to a Shi'ite or Shi'ite-Kurdish dominated government, with strong local centers of power, and an ongoing fight with Iraq's Sunnis. It could escalate to the break up of the country, far more serious ethnic and sectarian conflict, or violent paralysis. It has already led to widespread ethnic cleansing in urban areas by militias and death squads of all three major ethnic and religious groups. If Iraq is to avoid split-up and full-blown civil war, it must do far more than create effective Iraqi Security Forces (ISF). No such effort can succeed without an integrated strategy to forge a lasting political compromise between its key factions: Arab-Shi'ite, Arab Sunni, and Kurd – while protecting other minorities. Political conciliation must also address such critical issues as federalism and the relative powers of the central and regional governments, the role of religion in politics and law, control over petroleum resources and export revenues, the definition of human rights, and a host of other issues.

Who's to blame for the mess? Cordesman doesn't hold back:

Since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, the US has never implemented a realistic, self-critical, or forward-looking approach to any aspect of its policy in Iraq. It is unclear that it could have succeeded under the best of circumstance, and one of its most critical failures has been to consistently deny the fact it was pursuing a high effort in nation building and
stability operations that could easily fail.

In practice, however, the US has neither anticipated the problems it must solve or rapidly learned and adapted to the emerging realities in Iraq. Its national security leadership has become a self-inflicted wound, and the US has lurched from delayed response to response, always reacting too slowly, with two few resources and changes, and in a state
of quasi-denial.

He blasts the Bush administration for trumpeting its policy of standing up an Iraqi security force so the U.S. can stand down. The development of an effective ISF can only occur, he notes, if there is progress in the bigger game: achieving a viable government. Yet, he writes, the "present reality is that progress in Iraq is slow or faltering in each of the areas
necessary to make Iraqi force development successful."

Even when it comes to the attempt to create a working Iraqi security force, Cordesman notes, there's no way to tell if the Pentagon is making any headway:

Progress is difficult to gauge, because so much US reporting grossly exaggerates progress, ignores or understates real-world problems, and promises unrealistic timelines. The US Defense Department has stopped releasing detailed unclassified material about Iraqi Army, Police, and Border Enforcement readiness, only giving information about how many units are "ready and equipped" and "in the lead." These are vague, if not meaningless categories – "in the lead" does not indicate the level of independence from US support, and we do not how many "ready and equipped" soldiers quit or deserted the force.

He also says:

To put it bluntly, the US government and Department of Defense must stop lying about the true nature of Iraqi readiness and the Iraqi force development....Like all elements of strategy, Iraqi force development needs to be based on honesty and realism, not "spin," false claims, and political expediency.

Cordesman maintains that there may still be a way to win in Iraq. This will take time and the continued presence of U.S. troops, he writes, and success will depend on the resolution of the internal political conflicts:

Things can only go well, however, if Iraq can create a working compromise between its sects and ethnic groups, and if US and other outside powers will have the patience and will to support Iraq as it develops into such a state for at least two to three more years of active fighting. Iraq will also need massive additional economic aid to help Iraq unify and develop. Major assistance and advisory programs will be in place until at least 2010, and probably 2015.

These are big ifs. Cordesman is no optimist. He writes, "The present odds of such success are less than even." More likely, Iraq will end up in "years of turmoil," with no particular sect triumphing--or the nation will become divided into parts, officially or informally. His report is rather somber reading. (James Baker, take note.) Cordesman is no fan of withdrawing troops. But he describes a situation that has been so screwed up by the Bush administration that victory--however that might be defined--may well be beyond reach.

Posted by David Corn at 12:59 PM

The Waxman Cometh

In the current issue of Time, reporter Karen Tumulty writes:

In the altered landscape that is Washington, there's a new contender for the title of Scariest Guy in Town. He stands 5 ft. 5, speaks softly and has all the panache of your parents' dentist. But when it comes to putting powerful people on the hot seat, there's no one tougher and more tenacious than veteran California Congressman Henry Waxman. In the Democrats' wilderness years, Waxman fashioned himself as his party's chief inquisitor. Working with one of the most highly regarded staffs on Capitol Hill, he has spent the past eight years churning out some 2,000 headline-grabbing reports, blasting the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress on everything from faulty prewar intelligence and flaws in missile defense to the flu-vaccine shortage and arsenic in drinking water.

Come January, however, the man that the liberal Nation magazine once called the "Eliot Ness of the Democrats" can do even more, thanks to the two words that strike fear in the heart of every government official: subpoena power. As the new chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, Waxman will have free rein to investigate, as he puts it, "everything that the government is involved with."

Tumulty was referring to a piece I wrote in early 2005 about Waxman. To get the original skinny on Waxman, click here. Waxman and his staff must be busy planning a rather busy year to come.

Posted by David Corn at 12:03 PM

November 22, 2006

Iraq's Reality Bandwagon

My latest "Loyal Opposition" column from TomPaine.com....

Iraq's Reality Bandwagon
David Corn
November 22, 2006
www.tompaine.com

We're screwed.

That's the inescapable conclusion drawn from reading The New Republic's recent special mea culpa issue that combines an apology for its "early support" of the Iraq war with a colloquium on what to do now in Iraq. Sixteen foreign policy thinkers were asked to provide a roadmap out of this debacle. No surprise, the magazine received assorted and contradictory advice. Taken together, it's a mind-bending maze of an obstacle course.

New Yorker writer George Packer calls the war "lost" and counsels helping Iraqis who have worked with Americans to obtain visas so they can flee when US troops inevitably withdraw. Former White House counterterrorism aide Richard Clarke urges initiating a 18-month-long pull-out right away. Author David Rieff bluntly advises, "It is time to put the fucking troops on the fucking planes. Now! Before any more of our children die for their country's hubris." Neocon stalwart Robert Kagan argues that "clever plans" are not needed in Iraq; more troops are necessary "to provide the stability necessary so that eventual withdrawal will not produce chaos and the implosion of the Iraqi state." Former US ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith wants to partition Iraq. Reza Aslan, a CBS News analyst, maintains carving up Iraq will be a disaster. Anne-Marie Slaughter, dean of Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School advises the U.S. to threaten a precipitous retreat "unless all parties within and outside Iraq come to the table and hammer out an enforceable peace settlement." Stanford University professor Josef Joffe says the Bush administration should cut a deal with the Sunnis. Swarthmore professor James Kurth argues the U.S. military must crush the Sunni insurgency before leaving Iraq. New Republic literary editor Leon Wieseltier acknowledges the logic of withdrawal but then suggests doing "anything and everything." And so on.

somewhat parallel what the Iraq Study Group--the bipartisan commission chaired by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Rep. Lee Hamilton--is going through. That panel has interviewed hundreds and has several working groups composed of dozens of supposed experts. And somehow it's supposed to craft a consensus get-us-out-of-there plan. Good luck. It's not that there are no options in Iraq; there are no good options. And Democrats counseling withdrawal have to recognize the possibility that the removal of U.S. troops--as justified and appropriate as that might be at this stage--could have ugly side-consequences: more intense civil strife and sectarian violence in Iraq. (I explored this matter here.)

By creating such a vexing dilemma Bush has afforded himself a measure of political protection (yet only a small measure, as the recent election results indicated). No critic of the war can concoct a plan that convincingly promises progress in Iraq. Put in Bushian terms, "Hey, got something better than our plan for victory?" A reader of the assorted New Republic proposals can say of each, "Yeah, maybe. Probably not. Who knows?" It's increasingly possible--especially as the situation in Iraq deteriorates by the week (more bodies, more conflict, more despair)--that the wise men (and one woman) of the Baker Commission will not be able to improve upon The New Republic's grab-bag.

The Baker Commission is unlikely to promote what might be called the Cry for Help Plan. As I suggested previously, Bush's only chance at preventing Iraq from descending further into hell may depend on his ability to admit he, Dick Cheney, Condi Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and the rest really, really messed up big-time. He ought to acknowledge the errors of his ways and explicitly ask the rest of the world to assist him in finding a path out. It seems clear nothing resembling a resolution in Iraq can be forged without pressure from the outside--and that means pressure from states within the region and from states with ties and interests in the area. It may be impossible to obtain sufficient assistance from other nations--such as Iran and Syria--but trying to do so is necessary. The goal: to bring some degree of stability to Iraq, as the United States disengages.

Yet for Bush to achieve such a breakthrough he will have to break with his past practices of denying the harsh realities of post-invasion Iraq, of claiming progress when the opposite is occurring, and of declaring that he has a strategy for victory and it's called winning. (Or is it a strategy for winning that's called victory?) He can do this by fully acknowledging he has mismanaged a war that might have been unmanageable from the start. 

This will be tough for the Texan in the White House. But Tony Blair recently conceded Iraq was a "disaster" (and he has in the past also said that de-Baathification was a mighty blunder). Henry Kissinger has already admitted that full victory in Iraq is a goner. And The New Republic noted it "deeply regrets" its backing for the war: "The past three years have complicated our idealism and reminded us of the limits of American power and our own wisdom."

Not everyone is jumping on the reality bandwagon. The neoconservatives continue to duck responsibility for the war. Don't blame me, says Richard Perle: I only advocated the war, the fault is with the folks who executed it. Kenneth Adelman, a former Reagan administration official who in 2002 declared a war in Iraq would be a "cakewalk," points an accusatory finger at his old friends, Rumsfeld and Cheney, for having bungled the war. (He holds Bush accountable, as well.) None of these war advocates are willing to say that the very notion of invading Iraq to create a pro-West, pro-Israel haven of democracy--via the efforts of exile leader Ahmad Chalabi--was flawed at creation.

For many who opposed this elective war at the start, a critical obstacle was the Bush crowd's lack of seriousness regarding what would happen after the initial military campaign. Bush, his aides and their pro-war allies offered no plan. They dismissed or ignored experts who raised the obvious concerns about the post-invasion period. Sectarian violence? Security challenges? Economic dislocation? They prepared for none of that-and eschewed those who wanted to--including General Eric Shinseki, the Army chief of staff, who said it would take several hundred thousand troops to secure the country after an invasion. It was no secret in Washington in the months before the invasion that the White House reached out to virtually none of the town's Middle East experts to discuss what might occur in Iraq after the invasion. I don't recall any neocons at the time raising red flags about the lack of planning. Perle even told me before the war that Iraq could be taken easily and transformed by a small invasion force of 40,000 troops.

Yet the neocons are not the problem now (unless they succeed in whipping up support for attacking Iran). Bush is the main man. He is increasingly isolated. Congressional Republicans are not rushing to endorse his present course in Iraq. Democrats are ratcheting up pressure for troops withdrawal. Some conservatives, like Sen. John McCain, are calling on him to send in more soldiers. And Washington is generally more concerned with what Baker is cooking up than with anything the president has to say to defend his Iraq policy.

Still, at the end of the day--despite whatever Baker devises, despite whatever any foreign policy experts suggest--it is Bush who has the big decision to make. Does he change his fundamental muddled approach? He might be able to use the Baker report as cover for a course correction. Then again, he and Cheney could chuck its recommendations and continue, as Cheney said before the election, "full speed ahead." To where? They don't seem to know. (Recent news indicates their they-stand-up/we-stand-down training program is a farce.) But it remains their war. The absence of good options is their fault. Bush, Cheney, the neocons and the other war backers placed the United States--and Iraq--in this awful spot. They created a heckuva problem for which there is no good and pain-free solution. They will bear responsibility for the consequences of whatever comes next. 

Posted by David Corn at 11:35 AM

November 21, 2006

Pelosi's Next Big Problem

From my "Capital Games" column at www.thenation.com....

Having unsuccessfully supported Representative Jack Murtha for the No. 2 slot in the House of Representatives, Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi moves on to her next hard decision: whether to name Representative Alcee Hastings as chairman of the House intelligence committee.

This is tough call for Pelosi. The current senior Democrat on the committee is Representative Jane Harman from California, and Pelosi wants her out. There has long been bad blood between Harman and Pelosi, who preceded Harman as the top Democrat on the panel. Pelosi, according to several Capitol Hill sources, has been upset with Harman's performance on the committee and has faulted Harman for not sufficiently confronting the Republicans and the White House. Next in line for the Democrats on the committee is Hastings. But he, too, poses a problem. In the late 1980s, Hastings, then a federal judge, was impeached by the Democratic-controlled House on bribery and perjury charges and removed from office by the Democratic-led Senate. He was later elected to the House and subsequently joined the intelligence committee.

Can Pelosi pick a fellow impeached and convicted on corruption charges to run a committee handling the most sensitive secrets of the government? But can she bypass Hastings, an African-American, and alienate the Congressional Black Caucus? Should she choose the third-ranking Democrat, Representative Silvestre Reyes of Texas. That would upset the CBC but win plaudits from the Hispanic Caucus. To duck the whole knotty issue, should she simply let Harman have the job for a short spell?

In a closer to perfect word than this one, the answer would be obvious: do none of above and name Representative Rush Holt, a New Jersey Democrat on the committee, to lead the panel. (More on Holt in a moment.) But since the House is far from perfect, this is not likely to happen.

Hastings has come a long way since being impeached by the House Democrats. He is currently the senior Democrat on the intelligence panel's subcommittee on terrorism and homeland security. He also serves ably as a Democratic whip. But now that he is close to taking over the intelligence committee, his past has become an item of renewed controversy. Prior to the congressional elections, conservatives and Republicans started raising the obvious question about Hastings: Should a person kicked off the federal bench for conspiring to receive a $150,000 bribe be placed in charge of the intelligence committee? The attack on Hastings was part of the GOP's campaign to frighten voters into not electing Democrats. (Charlie Rangel will be in charge of the tax-writing committee!) But it was a justifiable query; the Republicans had a point. History is not on the side of Hastings or his present-day supporters.

On August 3, 1988, the House voted to impeach Hastings by a vote of 413 to 4. The floor manager of the impeachment resolution was Representative John Conyers, a CBC stalwart to this day, who declared that there was "damning evidence" that Hastings had plotted with another lawyer to obtain a payoff in exchange for reducing the sentences of an undercover FBI agent posing as a convicted racketeer. Five years earlier, Hastings, appointed to the bench by President Jimmy Carter, had been acquitted of these charges by a Miami jury. But Conyers maintained that Hastings had lied at his trial. (A post-trial investigation conducted for the U.S. Court of Appeals had concluded that Hastings had sought the bribe and then faked evidence and testified falsely.)

During the impeachment, Conyers declared, "I looked for any scintilla of racism. I could not find any." He noted that "race should never insulate a person from the consequences of unlawful conduct." No House members defended Hastings during the impeachment proceedings. When the Senate tried Hastings in October 1989, Conyers, who was part of the House prosecution team, told the senators, "We argue that he must be removed from office so that he does not teach others that justice may be sold." The Senate voted 69 to 26 to oust Hastings from office. He became the sixth judge in U.S. history to be removed from the bench by the Senate. In an act of revenge, retribution, or redemption, Hastings three years later ran for a House seat and won.

Hastings has been scandal-free since he entered Congress. House Democratic staffers praise his leadership of the terrorism and homeland security subcommittee. "He's been a hardworking member of the committee," one Democratic aide notes. "For years, no one has raised any issues about him being on the committee." Still, how can Pelosi name to a sensitive position a man once denounced by his fellow Democrats as corrupt? Were he to become chairman, all his actions and statements would be tainted by his past. As the newly empowered Democrats challenge President Bush on such matters as the Iraq war and the so-called war on terrorism, the chairmen of the House and Senate intelligence committees will assume lead roles in the various debates. (Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia is slated to become head of the Senate intelligence committee.) Hastings' past will hobble him as a spokesman for the Democrats on national security.

Under House rules, seniority--which usually dictates which legislator becomes chair of a committee--does not apply to the intelligence committee. Pelosi is not obligated to hand the gavel to Hastings should she bounce Harman from the top Democratic spot on the committee. But Pelosi, according to several senior House Democratic staffers, has already promised Hastings the position. And the Congressional Black Caucus has indicated it would be quite displeased if Pelosi shoved him aside. The CBC was angry at Pelosi last June for forcing Representative William Jefferson, who's under investigation for accepting bribes, to quit the powerful Ways and Means Committee.

Pelosi has not named Hastings yet. Some Hill Democrats have floated the option of giving the job to Reyes. Such talk is partly motivated by racial considerations: trade a Hispanic for a black, and it's a wash. Meanwhile, Harman, according to a senior Democratic consultant, has made an offer to Pelosi: let me remain the top Democrat on the panel, and I'll only chair the committee for two years. Granting Harman this wish would relieve Pelosi--at least, temporarily--of making a decision about Hastings. But House Democratic staffers say that Pelosi's antipathy for Harman is so pronounced that no one expects her to take this easy way out. "Other members, too, are not enamored of Harman," says an aide to a Democrat on the intelligence committee. "She has not been nearly aggressive enough in pushing back on the Republicans--though she has improved a bit on this in recent months."

Which brings us to Rush Holt. He is a former Princeton University physicist and past intelligence analyst at the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research. He specialized in nuclear matters. He knows much about the intelligence bureaucracy and about weapons proliferation and loose nukes, critical national security priorities. First elected in 1998, Holt has not been shy about confronting the administration and the intelligence agencies. He voted against granting George W. Bush the authority to invade Iraq. He has challenged the administration's policies on the detention and questioning of suspected terrorists, arguing the White House has not been mindful enough of civil liberties. He also was one of the few Democrats to charge on to the House floor to oppose the Republicans when they sought to intervene in the Terri Schiavo affair. The Courier News of Bridgewater, New Jersey, endorsed Holt's reelection this year and noted, "Holt offers the kind of intelligence, reasonable and decisive voice that has been all too lacking inside the Beltway during the partisan wars of recent years. But Holt's value in Congress goes beyond that; he has developed a reputation as a thinking man's congressman, a scientist by trade who provides more thoughtful analysis on issues than most lawmakers." Holt calls for beginning a gradual withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. He has warned the administration not to hype the intelligence on Iran's nuclear weapon program, noting the "intelligence on Iran is poor, contradictory, or both."

Tapping Holt, the seventh-ranking of the committee's nine Democrats, would be an unconventional move. The CBC would be agitated--even though its members are already claiming three major chairmanships: Conyers at the judiciary committee, Rangel at the tax-writing committee, and Representative Bennie Thompson at the homeland security committee. The Hispanic caucus could be peeved, too. Other House Democrats might be uneasy about such a sharp slap at the seniority principle (though younger members would be heartened). But this would be a chance for Pelosi to send a signal: the Democrats do regard national security seriously and are willing to put aside political concerns to do the right thing. She would be saying, merit matters most when it comes to protecting the United States. Yet if she sticks with Hastings, she is going to have to defend the quasi-indefensible. It will appear--rightly or wrongly--that she cannot shake free of racial politics and institutional imperatives. She ought to instead adopt a radical stance and give this most important job to the most qualified person.

TIME-OUT FOR TURKEY. I'm taking a few days off from blogging to eat and sleep--that is, if the little ones allow the latter. I'll only blog if I encounter an uncontrollable urge (and my wife doesn't break my fingers). Otherwise, I'll return to the field of honor in a few days. Meanwhile, be truly thankful this week. Let's remember that for all the problems griped about here and elsewhere in the blogosphere, we're fortunate enough to be able to gripe about them among a virtual crowd of friends and strangers.

Posted by David Corn at 04:23 PM

November 19, 2006

Neocons Turning/Darfur Exposed

How long before the neoconservatives endorse Hillary Clinton for president?

I'm not saying that's going to happen, but don't laugh. Sunday's Washington Post front-paged a story on the neocons' abandonment of the Bush administration. The Post is a little late on this. The NCs have long been pissed off at the Bush crowd for making a mess of the war they had advocated for years. This group initially focused its ire on Donald Rumsfeld. The Weekly Standard called on him to resign in April 2004. His sin: sending too few troops to Iraq. Now with Rummy finally on the way out and the debacle in Iraq seeming more a debacle each day, who else can the not-my-fault hawks blame? George W. Bush, the fellow they once heralded as a visionary, and Dick Cheney, their main man at 1600 Pennsylvania. Anyone but themselves.

But back to my opening question. The neocons are well-practiced at turning on political allies. After the first President Bush--with James Baker by his side--dared to apply a slight bit of pressure on Israel, several neocons rushed to endorse Bill Clinton's presidential campaign in 1992, hoping this Democrat would be more hard-line in supporting Israeli policies, including Israel's controversial expansion of settlements in disputed territories. Yes, it might be a stretch to imagine this band contemplating a political dalliance with Clinton's wife--especially when she's slowly drifting toward opposition to the war, while John McCain is calling for more troops in Iraq (troops that don't exist and that might not do much long-term good, according to various military experts). But these folks can spin on a dime if politics and ideology demand it. I'm just waiting for the Standard to call for impeaching Bush and Cheney.

NEVER AGAIN? In the summer of 1941, if someone had projected on to the Washington Monument film footage of German troops locking 3000 Polish Jews into the Great Synagogue of Bialystock and burning it down, would such a move have caused decision-makers in Washington to react to the Nazi's incipient genocide campaign and take action? That's the thought I had the other night when I attended an exhibit at Provisions Library featuring grim and gut-wrenching photographs and videos from Darfur. There were many photos of villages being burned as part of the government-backed genocide campaign there. The most harrowing footage was of a man whose eyes had been gouged out during a raid on his village by the Janjaweed militia supported and enabled by the Sudanese government. At the end of the video, this man was hugging a boy--five years old or so--who clung tightly to the man and whose eyes registered a haunting incomprehension of the horror that has defined his young life.

These images are part of a traveling exhibit entitled "Who Will Survive Today?" that was organized by Darfur/Darfur, a nonprofit group created by a collection of concerned individuals--architects, filmmakers, lawyers, and such. The outfit is aiming to have this show hit 24 cities in 24 months. (You can see the schedule here, and for more on the show, read Suzanne Charle's review at TheNation.com.) The point is obvious: raise awareness.

In Washington, starting November 20, the exhibit will do this in an unusual fashion. For a week, each night (from 5:30 p.m. to midnight) wall-sized versions of the images will be projected on the outside of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Kudos to the museum--which two years ago declared a "genocide emergency" in Darfur--for connecting the past to the present. "Once you see photos of a murdered three-year-old little boy whose face has been smashed or the body of a one-year-old girl who has been shot you cannot honestly look at your own children without doing something to stop this killing," says Darfur/Darfur founder Leslie Thomas, a Chicago-area architect. Thomas, a mother, was obviously speaking for herself. If only that were true for everyone.

For more information on the Holocaust Museum event, click here.

Posted by David Corn at 11:30 PM

November 17, 2006

Democrats and Withdrawal: Asking Too Much?/Latest O.J. Madness and $$$$

From my "Capital Games" column at www.thenation.com....

For Democrats, here's the bad news: now that they have won control of Congress, they are expected to not only criticize President Bush's policies in Iraq but to derive a solution to the mess he has created.

On Thursday morning, incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid met with several journalists, including yours truly. In his opening remarks, he outlined his plans. He noted that he will compel senators to work longer hours and dramatically expand the Tuesday-through-Thursday-at-noon work week that has become routine in the Senate. He said he would cut back on recess time. The first bill he intends to introduce as majority leader, he declared, would target sleazy campaign tactics, and he pointed to the misleading robocalls and false campaign literature used by Republicans in the final days of the recent congressional elections. He then turned to Iraq and called for some form of a "phased withdrawal."

"What we need to do first of all is implement the laws of the land," Reid said, referring to a resolution passed months ago by Congress calling for 2006 to be a year of significant transition in Iraq. "This law has been ignored," he complained. And he noted that 39 senators did vote for a Democratic amendment--another non-binding resolution--urging the beginning of the redeployment of troops from Iraq (without setting any deadlines for their departure). Reid indicated that he and the Democrats would continue to press for initiating a withdrawal: "We're an occupying force." But Reid also said that the United States had "to do a better job" on counterinsurgency and the training of Iraqi security forces. Pointing out that Baghdad now has less than fours of electricity a day, Reid said, "We need to revitalize reconstruction." He also called for a regional conference to work out a path ahead for Iraq.

But here's the rub: can the United States rebuild Iraq and remake its security forces while intense sectarian conflict is under way? And can it do so while removing troops? I asked Reid if the revitalization of Iraq and the creation of an Iraqi military and police force that is not beholden to sects and militias is at this point "a bridge too far." His reply: "It may be a bridge too far, but at least it's a bridge somewhere....There has to be a plan to get us out of there...This is my plan."

There seems to be a contradiction between the two sides of this plan: disengage (via troop withdrawals) but make reconstruction and training work. Reid noted the recent testimony of General John Abizaid, the head of Central Command, who said that progress needed to happen in Iraq in the next four to five months, and Reid compared this remark to the comment of Senator Carl Levin, the Democrat who will become chairman of the armed services committee, who said that redeployment of US troops should begin in four or five months. He appeared to be suggesting that under a Democratic plan there would be a window of opportunity--four or five months--for the Bush administration and the Iraqi government (such as it is) to work things out before US troops would start to leave. But it isn't realistic to expect significant (and positive) change within this time, especially when the situation in Iraq appears to worsen by the week.

As Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus reported on Friday--in an article headlined, "Violence in Iraq Called Increasingly Complex"--the dynamics of the conflict in Iraq are becoming harder, not easier, to sort out and address. He wrote:

Attacks in Iraq reached a high of approximately 180 a day last month, reflecting an increasingly complicated conflict that includes sectarian clashes of Sunni and Shiite militias on top of continuing strikes by insurgents, criminal gangs and al-Qaeda terrorists, according to the directors of the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency.

"No single narrative is sufficient to explain all the violence we see in Iraq today," Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the CIA director, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday.

Attempting to describe the enemy, Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, the DIA director, listed "Iraqi nationalists, ex-Baathists, former military, angry Sunni, Jihadists, foreign fighters and al-Qaeda," who create an "overlapping, complex and multi-polar Sunni insurgent and terrorist environment." He added that "Shia militias and Shia militants, some Kurdish pesh merga, and extensive criminal activity further contribute to violence, instability and insecurity."

These descriptions suggest an increasingly difficult state of affairs that will not be much improved in four or five months.

And if the president does not heed the Democrats' call to start withdrawing troops by the spring, what will they do? After all, Reid noted that when he met with Bush the previous week he did not sense much "willingness to change." So will he, House Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi, who has also advocated a withdrawal of troops, and the Democrats try to choke off funding for the war or attempt to impose legislative mandates upon the commander in chief? "We're not going to back off this," Reid said--without mentioning any specific steps. If Bush stays the course or elects to send more troops to Iraq, Reid said, "We'll speak out loudly." Speaking out loudly, though, will not likely persuade Bush at this stage or lead to any course corrections.

Reid noted that Iraq is "the number-one issue" for the Senate's new Democrats and the war is "hurting our country." He added, "the whole situation [in Iraq] is breaking down." But can Iraq be saved? As Democrats establish their opening position in the coming fight with the White House over Iraq--a battle that will be shaped by whatever former Secretary of State James Baker's Iraq Study Group recommends next month--they are asking for a lot: disengagement from Iraq and a US policy that results in a better Iraq (one with a functioning central government, a revived economy, and effective security forces not under the control or influence of sectarian militias). Redeployment is certainly achievable; making Iraq work may not be. There certainly is no guarantee that the withdrawal will quickly lead to a stable and secure Iraq. Pulling out American troops might remove a possible obstacle to a political accommodation among Iraqi parties that leads to less chaos and violence. The removal of troops, though, could cause the opposite and render it tougher for the Iraqi government (even with much U.S. assistance) to rebuild the nation's infrastructure and to train a worthwhile military and police force--particularly if other nations, including those of the region, do not become more involved in repairing Iraq.

In calling for a phased withdrawal, Reid, Pelosi, and the Democrats need to be careful not to promise that the removal of troops will be accompanied by political, economic, and security improvements. They might have to choose between disengagement and the continuing (though failing) effort to stand up an effective government and Iraqi army. The Democrats also must ponder how oppositional to be should Bush adhere to Vice President Cheney's pre-election vow to go "full speed ahead" with their current Iraq policy.

As the Democrats take over the legislative branch, they are assuming fifty-fifty ownership of one of the most vexing foreign policy challenges in the nation's history: how to undo Bush's war in Iraq. They have to realize that disengagement--even if the correct call--might carry with it ugly consequences and not bolster the prospects for rebuilding and stabilizing Iraq. Sadly, those aims, due to Bush's blunders, may be beyond America's control. So far that has been tough for the Democrats--or Bush--to admit.

******

At the breakfast meeting with journalists, Reid also said:

* The Senate intelligence committee will finish its so-called Phase II inquiry, which is supposed to evaluate how the Bush administration used the prewar intelligence to garner public support for the invasion of Iraq. A year ago, Reid closed down the Senate to protest the Republican delay in producing this report. "That will be completed now," he said. "It may not help us in the future, but it will give us the historical background of what got us into the war." He added, "We're going to get the answers to that out....We have been jerked around....And we're not going to take it anymore."

* He intends to target tax breaks for the oil industry and the monopoly exemption enjoyed by the insurance industry. "We have to rise up," he said.

* He fully backs Howard Dean as the Democratic Party chairman. "I didn't support his running for the chair of the DNC," Reid said. "I was wrong. He was right....I support his grassroots Democratic Party-building."

******

NOT ABOUT THE MONEY? I hadn't wanted to bother decrying the latest O.J. madness: his hypothetical confession and the accompanying Fox television interview with his publisher Judith Regan that is designed to sell the book. But I found myself reading Regan's defense of her actions, posted on Matt Drudge's site--an apologia that focuses on her own traumatic past as the victim of spousal violence. She uses her personal history--and her burning desire to win anything akin to a conviction of Simpson--to justify her publication of his book and the television show, conveniently scheduled for sweeps week. She writes:

What I wanted was closure, not money.

Well, there is a simple way to prove this. She notes that she paid no money to Simpson for the book and the television show but to a third party that will pass the funds to Simpson's children. But if this is really not about money, Regan could renounce all profits and ask that her publishing house, HarperCollins, and Fox donate all the revenues from the project (above costs) to either the families of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman--or to an appropriate charity, if the families did not want to accept such tainted funds. That would make her statement slightly more credible. And she would still have the closure for which she yearns.

Posted by David Corn at 11:50 AM

November 16, 2006

The Latest Sign of Civil War

AP is reporting:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The Iraqi Interior Ministry issued an arrest warrant Thursday for the head of the influential Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars for allegedly inciting violence.

Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani, speaking on state television, said Harith al-Dhari was wanted for inciting terrorism and violence among the Iraqi people. Al-Dhari is the top leader for the country's Sunni minority, and the move against him was likely to inflame sectarian violence already ravaging Baghdad and central Iraq.

Association spokesman Mohammed Bashar al-Faidi told Al-Jazeera television the Interior Ministry's decision “is condemned with all its details. I don't know how to describe it but it represents the bankruptcy of the sectarian government following one scandal after the other.

I hold no brief for al-Dhari. But it seems here's another sign that the situation in Iraq is closer to civil war than reconciliation. A spokesperson for al-Dhari, in response to the arrest warrant, accused the interior ministry "of supporting terrorism by covering for militias that are killing the Iraqi people....The decisions of this government are worthless because it only rules the Green Zone." Well, he's right on those counts. This tussle illustrates the fundamental problem for the United States: what is its role in the Shiite-Sunni conflict Bush's invasion of Iraq has unleashed? Support a government that includes parties in league with death squads? Support the Sunnis allied with forces looking to bring down the central government? Or muddle along in between? There may be no good options--and perhaps no workable ones, either.

Posted by David Corn at 05:57 PM

Murtha Loses--And So Does Pelosi

From my "Capital Games" column at www.thenation.com....

The vote count is in: Steny Hoyer defeated Jack Murtha 149 to 86 for the majority leader post in the House.

There's no way to spin this: this was a big loss for incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The vote wasn't close. Her ally was rejected. This reflects poorly on her. And it will be remembered by her political opponents--particularly those who want to undermine Pelosi's efforts to enact lobbying and campaign reform--that in this contest she endorsed a fellow who has long been accused of slippery ethics. (See the posting below.)

Moreover, Murtha, the candidate with the most ardent antiwar credentials, lost--and did so decisively. How will this be interpreted (or exploited) by pundits and politicos who oppose the Pelosi/Murtha call for the withdrawal of troops? Murtha champions did try to turn the majority leader race into a debate on the Iraq war. Can the vote be read as an indicator that many House Democrats don't support Pelosi all the way on her opposition to the war?

It certainly is true that these sort of leadership races are often decided (via a secret ballot) not by ideological issues but by personal and managerial factors. Think of it this way: how would you vote if you could vote for one of your bosses? You might not pick the person who agrees with you on policy matters. You might select the guy or gal with whom you have--or could have--the best personal relationship. Or whom you think would be more effective as a manager. Or whom you owe a favor.

Still, this vote will be depicted as a slam on Pelosi and on the start-withdrawing-now Democrats. (It perhaps did show that Pelosi has to improve her vote-counting skills.) Pelosi did not have to choose sides in this fight. But because she fiercely lobbied her fellow House Democrats for Murtha--after first saying she would remain neutral in this bitter battle--she begins her tenure as speaker with a loss that was self-inflicted. Now she moves on to what might be a harder task than getting her fellow Democrats to elect Murtha her No. 2: forging a Democratic alternative to George W. Bush's policy in Iraq.

Posted by David Corn at 12:53 PM

November 15, 2006

Another Bloggingheads.tv Face-off/Abizaid and McCain on More Troops/Murtha on Pelosi's "Total Crap"

Yep, it's time for a new episode of Bloggingheads.tv featuring Jim Pinkerton and yours truly. After our last pairing, two--count 'em, two!--viewers wrote in to hail our "chemistry." Thus, blogginghead-in-chief Bob Wright requested that we meet again on the field of honor. And once more, we agreed more than we should have--especially on the war. (I hate when that happens.) But ever faithful to those who want to see pundit blood on the screen, we tried mightily to accentuate our differences when they did occur. And the differences mostly came when the discussion turned toward immigration and Pinkerton predicted a popular uprising against the elites on this issue. He envisions main-street Americans waving pitchforks at Washington politicians (Ds and Rs) who are willing to let more immigrants into this great land of ours. Since last time we did BHTV a pal of mine gave me grief for not challenging Pinkerton on the topic of John Kerry's botched joke, I made sure to deride Pinkerton's prediction of an immigration-fueled revolution. Other than that, we got on just fine. It certainly is a sign of the times that the Washington editor of The Nation and the former domestic policy chief for Bush the First can concur on so much. Look at what the neocons have done.

UNDERSTATEMENT OF THE DAY: General John Abizaid, head of CentCom, testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee about Iraq: "More American troops would have been advisable in the early stages." But he did brush back Senator John McCain, when the leading GOP presidential contender advocated sending more troops now to Iraq. McCain is painting himself into a corner with his call for more troops. He's running against the public mood--and against the White House--on this critical issue. What can save him? The Dems succeeding in pushing Bush to withdraw (or redeploy) troops. Presuming such a move does not lead to peace and stability in Iraq, McCain will be able to say, "See, if you had listened to me...." But short of that, he's tying one big millstone to his presidential ambitions.

SELF-REVELATION OF THE DAY: Roll Call is reporting that at a meeting with Blue Dog Democrats yesterday, Representative Murtha, the majority leader hopeful, said of Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi's grand political reform package, "It's total crap." Murtha, who has been endorsed by Pelosi in his fight against Representative Steny Hoyer for the majority leader post, did say he'd vote for it. But this was one heckuva admission from the fellow who Pelosi wants by her side.

Posted by David Corn at 03:44 PM

Lott-a Love in the GOP

On December 5, 2002, at the 100th birthday party for Senator Strom Thurmond, who in 1948 had run for president as a segregationist, Repblican Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott said,

"I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either."

A blog-fueled firestorm ensued. (Credit to Josh Marshall for banging that drum). And Lott resigned as majority leader, though he remained a senator from Mississippi and became chairman of the powerful rules committee. Wikipedia describes the controversy this way:

After President Bush voiced his own harsh criticism of Lott's remarks ("Any suggestion that the segregated past was acceptable or positive is offensive, and it is wrong. Recent comments by Senator Lott do not reflect the spirit of our country. He has apologized and rightly so. Every day that our nation was segregated was a day our nation was unfaithful to our founding ideals"), Lott's position became untenable. It was obvious he would be unable to remain as Senate Republican Leader, although the official White House line was that Lott did not need to resign....

Under pressure from Senate colleagues, and having lost the support of the White House, Lott resigned as Senate Republican Leader on December 20, 2002. Bill Frist of Tennessee was later elected to the leadership position.

Today, nearly four years after Lott's Strom gaffe, the Republican caucus in the Senate rehabilitated Lott, electing him to be the Senate minority whip--the No. 2 Republican position in that body.

Three questions:

* Is what Lott said any less offensive--or insensitive today--than it was four years ago?

* Are the Senate Republicans so devoid of potential leaders that they have to bring back Lott?

* Is this a big kiss-off to the soon-to-be-gone GOP party chief Ken Mehlman's effort to reach out to blacks?

No. Yes. Yes.

Posted by David Corn at 12:40 PM

November 14, 2006

The Latest Bad News from Baghdad: Is Success Not Possible? UPDATED

Reuters reports today:

Gunmen in Iraqi police uniforms rounded up as many as 100 men at a government building in central Baghdad on Tuesday, in what may be the biggest mass kidnap seen in a city becoming used to such violence.

It bore the hallmarks of sectarian militias operating under cover of the security forces, although senior officials and witnesses differed over how far minority Sunnis were the target.

Other reports place the number of the abuducted up to 150. NPR reports that the nation's education minister has shut down colleges and universities, explaining that there is not enough security for the schools to function. It was unclear if this suspension was temporary or longer. But there seems to be the possibility that higher education in Iraq has been killed. The New York Times reports:

A few hours after the incident, a spokesman for the interior ministry went on national television to report that arrest warrants had been issued for five senior police commanders with responsibilities in the area.

Flashback to yesterday, when President Bush was asked by a reporter about his morning meeting with former Secretary of State James Baker and members of Baker's Iraq Study Group, which will soon be releasing a report on possible alternative strategies for the United States in Iraq. Bush said:

And so we had a really good discussion. I'm not sure what the report is going to say. I'm looking forward to seeing it. I believe this: I believe that it's important for us to succeed in Iraq, not only for our security, but for the security of the Middle East, and that I'm looking forward to interesting ideas. In the meantime, General Pete Pace is leading investigations within the Pentagon as to how to reach our goal, which is success, a government which can sustain, govern, and defend itself, and will serve as an ally in this war on terror.

But as today's horrific event shows, success may not be possible. Right now the Bush administration is supporting a Shia-dominated government in Iraq that cannot control Shia death squads. The United States has helped trained a police force that is infiltrated by various militias and riddled with officers loyal to their tribes and sects and not the government. (And police trainees are regularly targeted by insurgents. Three dozen police recruits were killed by two suicide bombings on Sunday.) The United States has trained hundreds of thousands of Iraqi troops unable and/or unwilling to fight. A month ago, the interior minister was forced to suspend an entire police brigade of 800 or so officers because it was linked to death squad activity. Was this progress (we're rooting out the bad apples) or another sign of failure (we've trained and equipped murderers)?

There is an ugly possibility the Baker commission has to confront: Iraq may be lost already--at least in the sense that the US government may not be able to stop the sectarian violence that is now the number-one problem (as opposed to violence orchestrated by anti-American jihadists). If that is the case, what recommendation could Baker come up with? More important, could Bush contend with--let alone acknowledge--such a reality?

UPDATE: Apparently, most of those kidnapped today have been released. That is a good sign, though news reports have not yet explained what happened. Still, the general chaos continues. And another sigificant development was overshadowed by this episode. Yesterday, according to the Associated Press,

The U.S. Central Command chief confronted Iraq's prime minister on Monday over how Iraqi forces would halt raging violence and signaled a possible prelude to shifts in American policy on engaging Iran and Syria.

The meeting came as sectarian attacks killed at least 90 people throughout Iraq, 46 of them showing signs of torture. The U.S. military announced the deaths of four additional American soldiers.

Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, sternly warned Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that he must disband Shiite militias and give the United States proof that they were disarmed, according to senior Iraqi government officials with knowledge of what the two men discussed....

In their meeting, Abizaid also asked the Iraqi leader to give the U.S. military a firm timetable for when Iraq's security forces could take full control of the country, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the talks.

There was nothing in this brief story about how Maliki responded or what he--or the United States--could do to stop the sectarian strife. Waiting for Maliki to figure this out hardly seems a strategy for victory.

Posted by David Corn at 10:48 AM

November 13, 2006

Was It Wise for Pelosi To Endorse Murtha?/Bush's Me-or-Thee Problem

From my "Capital Games" column at www.thenation.com....

This morning, I called Melanie Sloan, the executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group, to ask about the potential congressional reforms House Speaker-To-Be Nancy Pelosi is expected to push on Day One. But before we got to that, Sloan teed off on Pelosi for having endorsed Representative Jack Murtha, the hawk turned Iraq war critic, in his fight against Representative Steny Hoyer to be the House Democratic majority leader, the powerful number-two job in the body. "Murtha has lots of ethics issues," Sloan exclaimed. "What the hell is she thinking? Corruption turns out to be a major issue in the campaign, and you endorse the guy with the more ethics problems?"

Sloan was referring to exit polls that noted that 42 percent of voters considered corruption and congressional scandals critical to their voting decisions. And she pointed to her outfit's Beyond DeLay site that lists the "20 Most Corrupt Members of Congress." Murtha was not on that roster, but he garnered one of five "Dishonorable Mentions" (along with Republican Representatives Dennis Hastert, the outgoing speaker. J.D. Hayworth, who was defeated in Arizona last week, and Don Sherwood, who was accused by his mistress of choking her and who also lost his bid for reelection).

CREW's low-down on Murtha charges that he abused his position as the senior member of the defense appropriations subcommittee to steer contracts to military firms represented by his brother, a registered lobbyist. The report also notes that Murtha routinely inserted funding earmarks into defense spending bills for contractors that funded his campaigns and hired a lobbying firm run by a former aide on the defense appropriations subcommittee.

Murtha, according to Sloan, was also instrumental in undermining the House ethics committee. In the late 1990s, he successfully pushed (with other legislators) to change the committee's rules to prevent it from accepting ethics complaints from parties outside Congress. He also pressed Democratic leaders to name Representative Alan Mollohan of West Virginia the senior Democrat of the ethics committee. Mollohan has had his own ethics troubles--which have forced him off the ethics committee--and is a member of CREW's Top (or Bottom) 20. (See here.) "Murtha really doesn't like the ethics committee," says Sloan, speculating this may be due to Murtha's involvement in the Abscam bribery scandal of the late 1970s and early 1980s. (The ethics committee chose not to file charges against Murtha, after which the panel's special counsel resigned in protest.) "Murtha seems like a bad choice from our perspective," Sloan said.

The fight to be Pelosi's No. 2 has its odd dynamics. Hoyer is regarded as a centrist sort of Democrat. He's no virgin when it comes to the institutional corruptions of House, readily hitting up corporate interests for campaign cash. But Hoyer has not been accused of ethical violations. Though Murtha advocates a get-out-of-Iraq-now position, he is a hawkish conservative who has attacked Hoyer for being too liberal.

By publicly endorsing Murtha--who has voted more with the Republicans than almost every other House Democrat--Pelosi has backed the fellow who has been less loyal to the party, who has engaged in liberal-baiting, and who is widely considered to be the underdog in the race. Murtha is indeed the Democrats' leading critic of the war, and he and Pelosi, another war opponent, have found themselves in the same foxhole. (Hoyer, like Murtha, voted to give Bush the authority to attack Iraq, but he has not turned on the war and has criticized Democratic calls for withdrawal.) Perhaps Pelosi figured that with the Iraq war likely to be the major source of dispute between her and the White House (and congressional Republicans), she needed an antiwar hawk right by her side. But much of this present tussle might be more personal than policy. Pelosi and Hoyer have long been rivals; she defeated Hoyer to become the Democratic minority leader.

In the Murtha-Hoyer face-off, is the choice ethics versus opposition to the war? Conservative versus centrist? A Pelosi ally versus a Pelosi rival? Whatever it is, siding publicly with Murtha is risky for Pelosi. Should Murtha lose, Pelosi will look like a weak leader--at the start. This is a contest between two imperfect candidates, each carrying different baggage. It might have been wise for her to duck.

ME OR THEE? George W. Bush has a big decision to make: his presidency or his party. Many Republicans--including many on the Hill--want to see their party sharpen its edges (or claws?) and create a more stark contrast with the Dems in preparation for the 2008 elections (The Empire Strikes Back?). That means setting up ideologically oriented battles, not collaborating with Democrats to pass legislation. And they'd like to see the president lead (or, at least, help) with this charge. But Bush has legacy on his mind. Right now, he has to figure this legacy will be dominated by the Iraq war he launched. And, by his own account, this war isn't going to end during his tenure in office. Consequently, he needs to rack up accomplishments on other fronts to add to--that is, counter--the Iraq war legacy. The most likely way to do that is to sign legislation into law. For that to happen, he will have to cooperate (to an extent) with the Democrats. This will put him at odds with the bloodthirsty conservatives of his party. Watch for fun and games on this front in the two years to come.

My pal, Derek McGinty, who hosts the weekly Eye on Washington show (which I appear on regularly), believes divided government will be a godsend for W--for it will lead to legislative accomplishments Bush can claim as his own. Perhaps. Still, I find it hard to believe that this is what Karl Rove was rooting for. Read McGinty's fanciful riff here.

Posted by David Corn at 03:53 PM

November 10, 2006

More GOP Blood?/The Iraq Fight To Come

Today, a prominent Washington reporter said to me, "I have a confession. I'm disappointed. After this election, I wanted to see, on the Republican side, more bloodletting. There's not enough blood on the floor." My answer: give them time. Donald Rumsfeld and Ken Mehlman are out, but the conservatives and Republicans are still processing. The information age has trained us to demand immediate reaction (and gratification). But psychological mechanisms still take place in old-media time. Think of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross's five stages of grief. She listed them this way: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. This week, GOPers have to work through this process in a different order. There can be no denying the election results. So for them acceptance comes first and quickly yields to depression, with anger to follow.

That anger will be fully manifested shortly. There will be fights for Republican leadership positions in the House. Representative Mike Pence, a fiery rightwinger who leads the House conservative caucus, is challenging Representative John Boehner for the Republican minority leader job, accusing his party's leaders of abandoning conservative principles. Dick Armey, the former Republican House majority leader and a libertarian, economics-first conservative, started feuding with James Dobson, the religious right leader, even before the elections occurred.

Don't worry, I told this reporter, there will be more blood soon. Republicans will be divided on what to do in Iraq and whether to stick with Bush--on the war and in general. (See the article below.) And jockeying for 2008 will lead to more internal and nasty strife, not less, within the Republican Party. There will be far more strife than bargaining.

NORQUIST CHANNELS NED LAMONT? Speaking of the coming squabble within the GOP on Iraq, Republican/conservative strategist Grover Norquist had an interesting comment in a post-election on-line colloquium conducted by The National Interest, which included me. Here's what Norquist said:

Iraq is a great big government program that has not worked out very well. Its proponents sound like George McGovern: "you just spent more money and redouble your efforts and hope government will work."

Foreign policy is treated differently in the United States than domestic policy, but the president needs to have the American people see that we have a policy to win and leave. He talks too much about winning and not enough about leaving. "Stay the course" when all you have is bad news all day doesn't sound reasonable to people. You need to explain: we're going to do this, this and this. The plan is what? And we're doing what? And we're going to get what out of it? I think the president needs to come up with a Vietnamization plan for Iraq that makes it clear this not some Hundred Years War.

The Republican natives are clearly getting restless about the war. Any who weren't before E-Day ought to be now, unless they're not sentient. And I have a question for Senator John McCain and the McCainiacs: how well do they think his call for sending more troops into Iraq is going to play with the American electorate? Or Republican primary voters? (You can see the entire National Interest roundtable here.)

There will be plenty of Republican recriminations--and much conflict, as GOPers continue to come to terms with what hit them this week and plot to regain power on Capitol Hill and keep control of the White House.

In the meantime, here's a piece from the just-out issue of The Nation, in which I preview Washington's next major tussle: the fight over the war:

And Now, Iraq
by DAVID CORN
[from the November 27, 2006 issue]

The bitterly fought Congressional election was merely the prelude to the real showdown in Washington: the battle over the Iraq War. Now that the campaign is over, and Democrats have at least won the House, George W. Bush will face increasing criticism from newly empowered Democrats and Republicans no longer self-censored by party loyalty. And part of the at-home fight over Iraq could play out like a soap opera.

For months, pressure for change has been building on the White House. But the elections froze much of the debate. Congressional Republicans by and large stuck with Bush. Democrats, sensing the war was winning the elections for them, didn't feel compelled to compose and promote a detailed alternative. This status quo is no longer operative, as demonstrated by the quick departure of Donald Rumsfeld. Come January Democrats will have the power to investigate Administration policies. They'll be able hold hearings on previous mistakes and current White House decisions. But they'll be expected to do more than blame Bush; they'll have to present an alternative, despite being divided on what to do.

As Democrats struggle on this front, the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan commission chaired by former Secretary of State James Baker, a Republican, and former Representative Lee Hamilton, a Democrat, will be crafting a report assessing the situation in Iraq and proposing policy shifts. Weeks ago, Baker told me there are "no easy solutions," that the Administration had to "admit big mistakes were made" and that his commission would produce specific recommendations or a set of unambiguous alternatives. One option reportedly under consideration is a phased withdrawal of US troops. Another calls for stabilizing Baghdad while the US Embassy works for an accommodation with the insurgents.

Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has already dismissed the Baker report, perhaps prematurely because it could provide out-of-Iraq Democrats a degree of cover. The Baker-Hamilton report--should it advocate a version of disengagement--might well draw stark lines in the postelection debate. Days before the election, Dick Cheney vowed that the Administration would proceed "full speed ahead." But Baker has signaled that he believes a new strategic path is required. The question is, How kindly will Bush and Cheney take such advice?

Baker is the consigliere of the Bush the First clan. Before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, he and Brent Scowcroft, the elder Bush's National Security Adviser, publicly cautioned against the war. Their remarks were interpreted as reflecting Bush Senior's concerns. Bush Junior eschewed the advice, and did what his father had not done: invade and occupy Iraq. Now here comes Baker to pull W.'s bacon out of the fire. But does Bush want to be rescued by a surrogate for his daddy? He might well reject Baker's ideas--which would be an act of family rebellion of global consequence. (But by replacing Rumsfeld with Robert Gates, who was CIA director for Bush Senior and who now serves on the Baker-Hamilton commission, Bush indicated he may not be beyond reach.)

Meanwhile, Republicans will have to choose sides in any family feud. "Before the election, we were hearing from Republican senators that after the campaign they wanted to figure out a bipartisan change of course," says a Senate Democratic staffer. These GOPers could rally around the Baker recommendations (with or without Democrats). Other Republicans could find it hard to cut and run from the President. And 2008 considerations will color calculations on both sides of the aisle.

The election is over; the war is not. With their new power, the Democrats will assume a greater responsibility to address the issue of what to do in Iraq. With diminished power, troubled Republicans will be more inclined to press the leader of their party. With the public, Congress and perhaps his father's crowd arrayed against him, Bush will be in one tight corner.

Posted by David Corn at 11:53 AM

November 09, 2006

Hooray for Gates?

From my "Capital Games" column at www.thenation.com....

Hooray for Robert Gates. Well, almost.

At first glance, the appropriate reaction to George W. Bush's decision to replace Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with Gates might be, here's more of the same: another retread from the Bush I clan with a problematic past. Gates served as CIA director for the first President Bush in the early 1990s--and did so after contentious nomination hearings aired accusations that Gates had skewed intelligence analysis when he was a senior CIA manager. The allegations were quite serious. Several CIA analysts testified he had "politicized" intelligence reporting by making certain that estimates conformed to the conservative political viewpoints favored by the Reagan White House--most notably, that the Soviet Union was a more threatening adversary.

Gates' accusers, including former CIA division chief Mel Goodman, presented a strong case against him, detailing several instances when Gates pushed Soviet-related intelligence in an ideological direction. Larry Johnson, a onetime CIA analyst, recently recalled,

I remember talking to the South African analyst back in 1988, who told me about the time Bob Gates tried to change the lede on an intelligence piece, which argued that Nelson Mandela was NOT a communist. Gates wanted the lede to say that Mandela was a communist. The analyst kicked back hard and ultimately prevailed, but this behavior was consistent with his reputation as a political animal willing to curry favor with the political masters downtown and sacrifice sound analysis.

After the confirmation hearings, Senator Ernest Hollings, a Democrat, concluded that the "cancer of politicization" had spread in the CIA during the period when Gates was a top deputy to CIA chief William Casey.

Gates' nomination to be CIA head was imperiled by other controversies. He had directly engaged in secret intelligence sharing with Iraq in 1986 that critics claimed was illegal. Gates, who apparently possesses a photographic memory, testified that he could not recall key aspects of the Iran-contra affair. Senator Bill Bradley, a Democrat, accused Gates, a career Soviet analyst, of having ignored the changes under way in that country in the late 1980s. "Mr. Gates got it dead wrong," Bradley complained in 1991. Bradley also charged that when Gates was the deputy CIA chief he had neglected the important task of collecting intelligence on Iraq. Despite all this, the Democratic-controlled Senate approved the Gates nomination, and he served as CIA director for fourteen months. (In 1987, President Ronald Reagan nominated Gates to be CIA chief, and then the White House pulled his nomination in the midst of the Iran-contra scandal.)

Considering that he launched a war justified by fraudulent intelligence misrepresented by the White House, the current President Bush might have thought twice before installing at the Pentagon a former intelligence official once accused of cooking intelligence for political reasons. Critics of the administration quickly denounced the Gates-for-Rumsfeld swap, resurrecting the old charges (which I covered extensively at the time). But allow me to offer a limited cheer for Gates.

First off, he's not Donald Rumsfeld. That's a good start. Rummy, the fellow once hailed as a matinee idol for older women who watch C-SPAN, bungled every major decision in the war: how many troops to send (not enough); whether or not to dissolve the Iraqi army (he did); whether or not to mount an extensive de-Baathification campaign (he did); how to respond to the looting and the incipient insurgency in the weeks and months after the invasion (not expeditiously). Of course, Rumsfeld was wrong on the WMD question, and he was wrong to declare before the invasion that the war would last less than six months. His Pentagon was a home to neoconservative war advocates who cherry-picked intelligence data and factoids to craft the false case that Saddam Hussein was in league with al Qaeda. In the years after the invasion, Rumsfeld routinely and falsely claimed the Pentagon was making significant progress in training Iraqi security forces. Looking at his management of the war, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that a local weatherman using a Magic Eight Ball could have done better.

Second, Gates is a conservative but a realist; he's no neocon. For instance, he's advocated trying to reach an accommodation with Iran. That impresses Gary Sick, who during the Jimmy Carter years worked on the National Security Council with Gates. Sick points to the fact that in 2004 Gates co-chaired a Council on Foreign Relations task force that urged "a revised strategic approach to Iran" incorporating selective engagement with Tehran. This was a polite slam against the Axis-of-Evil approach of the Bush-Cheney administration. Sick, a critic of the administration and the Iraq war, views the Gates' nomination as a possible indicator that the Bush administration is turning from "neocon ideology to political realism."

Gates, currently the president of Texas A&M University, hasn't said much about the war in Iraq. In May 2005, he did remark, "For better or for worse, we have cast our lot and we need to stay there as long as necessary to get the job done." But he has also proposed a more narrow definition of success than Bush, noting that the United States could leave once there is "a government that can survive and that will be very different from what preceded it."

More important--and this is what's intriguing about the Gates nomination--Gates is a member of the Iraq Study Group, a panel chaired by former Secretary of State James Baker, a Republican, and former Representative Lee Hamilton, a Democrat. The bipartisan commission's mission is to assess the situation in Iraq and propose policy options. Baker has already said that he believes a strategic shift is needed in Iraq and that his commission will produce specific recommendations in this regard. (The commission is reportedly considering different versions of disengagement, among other ideas.) Baker picked Gates to be on the commission, presumably with knowledge of Gates' thinking on the subject. Thus, it's no stretch to see Gates as an envoy (or a sleeper agent?) of the commission assigned to (or planted within) the Bush administration. Given other possible choices for the Pentagon job (Joe Lieberman?), it's somewhat heartening that Bush has invited into his Cabinet a non-neocon who has been working with Baker to find a way out of Iraq.

Am I yielding to the bigotry of low expectations? You bet. With the mess in Iraq worsening, I am rooting for Baker--and any mole he manages to place within the administration. There's no telling whether Baker will come up with worthwhile and workable alternatives or whether Bush will actually consider a significant course correction (even one concocted by a stand-in for his father). Bush remains the decider-in-chief--and he has been a stubborn one until now.

Though Gates' past government career was marked by troubling episodes, he is now part of a group--essentially, the adults of the Bush I clan--trying to inject some reality into the stay-the-course mentality of the Bush-Cheney White House. That's something Rumsfeld never did. By Bush standards, this is monumental progress.

Posted by David Corn at 07:25 PM

The Macaca Election

So I wonder what Karl Rove thinks of strategic realignment today? All that talk of turning America into a country with a permanent Republican majority rings hollow now that the voters have repudiated George W. Bush and his party. But Democrats ought not reach any dramatic conclusions about grand political shifts. While there are no doubt political tectonic plates that move and grind, politics often turns on small surface-level details. Were John Kerry a slightly better candidate--or had he cast one different vote in his long Senate career (and voted to oppose granting Bush the authority to invade Iraq)--the 2004 election might have ended much differently. Instead of being viewed as a reaffirmation of the invader of Iraq and his Republican comrades, that election would have been characterized as a rejection of a failed commander in chief. (As it were, 49 percent of the public did vote to reject Bush.)

This year, there is a better example of how a major political turnabout can rest upon a tiny pebble. One word decided which party would win the U.S. Senate. One word gave the Democrats full control of Congress and the power to pass whatever legislation they fancy and to block the president's appointments, including his Supreme Court nominations. Because of one word, the Democrats can now dictate funding for the Iraq war. That word is "macaca."

Because incumbent Republican George Allen uttered that racially-charged word--and because he was captured doing so on video--he lost his bid for reelection. Because of his defeat, the Republicans fell one seat shy of retaining control of the Senate. Reaganite-turned-Democrat Jim Webb appears to have beaten Allen by about 7000 votes. There can be no question that Allen's "macaca" gaffe was the decisive moment in the race and that it cost him at least 7000 votes, if not more. Had he called the Webb campaign volunteer a different term ("jerk") or had the comment not been taped and widely disseminated (thank you, YouTube), Allen likely would have won reelection. That one moment changed the contest.

Certainly, there was a political wave in this election. Ask Republican Senators Lincoln Chafee, Mike DeWine, Jim Talent, Conrad Burns, and Rick Santorum, and the two dozen-plus House GOP incumbents handed pink slips by the voters. This wave was triggered by a specific event: the Iraq war. That war has rudely interrupted any realignment Rove was trying to orchestrate. The lesson? Reality has a way of interfering with the well-crafted and clever plans of political strategists. But there's another lesson as well: small matters that have nothing to do with the larger forces can tip much. Just ask the outgoing junior senator from Virginia. Analysts conducting an election post-mortem can probably identify other decisive events in key races. After all, the bottom-line election result--Democrats take the House and Senate--is an amalgamation of the results of hundreds of individual campaigns. But in the next two years, whenever a Republican bemoans what is happening in the Senate, he or she will be right to curse, "Oh, macaca!"

Posted by David Corn at 10:57 AM

November 08, 2006

Brokaw Credits Hubris For Anti-GOP Wave--Well, Sort of

In discussing the election results with Chris Matthews on MSNBC's Hardball last night, former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw referred to Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War. Here's what Brokaw, who previously blurbed our book, said on the show:

Chris, one of the things I think that's happened with Republicans, especially with conservatives around the country, is that the president did not acknowledge that things were not going well until the last month or so, when he said they're not going as well as I would like them to. They kept insisting things were going well when there was a marked deterioration in the original strategy, and what was going on, and then had you October, with more Americans killed than ever before. Republicans come, to a large degree, from the corporate, from the business world and when things don't go well, they know that they have to change. And there was no indication of change going on in this administration.

And then in the closing days of the campaign, the president gave Don Rumsfeld a no-cut contract, said he's here until the very end. Some of the most pointed criticism of the president on the war came from George Will and from Pat Buchanan. And then there were a whole series of books and they were called "Fiasco" and "State of Denial" and "Hubris." And they were detailed accounts of all that had gone wrong before. So, you know, there was the reality on the one side and then what the president was trying to persuade the country, on the other side, was that I've got a plan, stay with me here. And finally people said, look, I've heard the sky is falling too long. I'm going to make my own judgment about this.

It's good to be on the side of reality--especially when you write nonfiction books.

Posted by David Corn at 03:05 PM

Rumsfeld Out; Pelosi's To-Do List

Donald Rumsfeld is out. Why did he leave? Days ago, the president told reporters that he would retain Rummy through the end of his presidency. That implied that Bush wanted Rumsfeld in the job no matter what happened on Election Day and that he believed Rumsfeld was essential to protecting this nation's security. So is this a political decision? After all, how could this administration play politics with such an important position? It wouldn't do such a thing, would it?

Asked at a press conference about the contradiction between his statement of support for Rumsfeld last week and today's announcement, Bush tried to explain it away by noting that Rumsfeld's departure was not finalized until yesterday. That would mean that he told those reporters he was keeping Rumsfeld at the Pentagon for another two years at a time when Rumsfeld's exit was already in the works.

Bush was also asked if Rumsfeld's replacement by former Robert Gates, who was CIA chief for Bush's father, would lead to a "new direction." He said, "I am committed to victory." Pressed on the "new direction" point, he said that Gates would bring in a "fresh perspective." Let's see if (a) he does and (b) that "perspective" changes anything at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

In the meantime, yet more election analysis from yours truly, courtesy of www.tompaine.com:

Democratic To-Do List
David Corn
November 08, 2006
www.tompaine.com

"I hope they don't get it."

A veteran Democratic strategist, standing outside the Democrats' victory party in a Capitol Hill hotel ballroom, was talking about the Democrats and the Senate. The best outcome, he said, was for the Democrats to win back the House--which by this point on Election Night they had--and become the insurgents of Washington, challenging the discredited and sclerotic Republicans of the White House and Senate. With the House in hand, the Democrats would be able to pass popular pieces of legislation--say, raising the minimum wage--and mount whatever investigations they desire. The bills would then be killed by either GOPers in the Senate or the lame duck in the White House. The Democrats would have no true responsibility for governing--that is, for cleaning up George W. Bush's mess in Iraq and elsewhere. But if they were to end up controlling both chambers of Congress, they would become fifty-fifty partners in the government--become the target of a president who would use Democratic control of Congress as an excuse for his own failures and endlessly blame the Democrats for the nation's woes. "One-third is ideal," this strategist remarked. Moments later, the wife of another prominent Democratic strategist told me her husband also wasn't wishing for success in the Senate.

Well, these Democrats may have to settle for both houses of Congress. As I write on the morning after, the Democrats are leading in the not-yet-settled Senate races of Montana and Virginia. If these numbers hold--and it seems that there will be a recount in the James Webb versus George Allen race in Virginia--the Democrats will indeed have the obligation to run the legislative branch. And they will have a rather narrow window in which they can attempt to re-brand themselves as the responsible party of Washington.

Democrats know that this election was more about Bush than them. They won mostly because they were not the other guy. Americans didn't flock to the polls because they yearned to see Representative Nancy Pelosi as House speaker or Senator Harry Reid as Senate majority leader. They wanted Bush out of the White House. But since he was not on the ballot, voters went with the next best thing: booting his comrades out of Congress. So the Democrats--even though they did campaign on a platform promoting various legislative initiatives--take office without a full mandate. But with this win comes the chance to persuade the American public that Democrats do stand for something, do share the values of many Americans and can get the job done. Yet the Democrats will have the political equivalent of ten minutes to prove this.

That's not an impossible task, but there are obvious obstacles. Foremost is the conservative, pro-Republican media attack machine. By the time you read this, the right-wing media will probably be intensifying its campaign to demonize Pelosi and the other Democrats who will assume leadership positions or committee chairmanships. Remember, when Newt Gingrich and his allies took power in the House in the so-called Republican revolution of 1994, the conservative media infrastructure was not nearly as large and as integrated with the GOP as it is today. Now, Mission One for this system is to discredit Pelosi and her fellow Democrats. So expect a ceaseless the-end-is-near attack from this gang.

The other obvious obstacle is Iraq. In their victory speeches on election night, Pelosi, Reid, Representative Rahm Emanuel, the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Senator Chuck Schumer, the head of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, each said the election signaled that the American people crave a course correction in Iraq. Yet the Democrats offer no clear alternative path. Though most tend to favor phased disengagement, they do not agree on how to do this. There will be great pressure on the Democrats to solve the problem Bush created in Iraq--even when there are no good or easy solutions. A failure to craft a coherent and convincing alternative for Iraq could quickly hobble the newly empowered Democrats.

The good news is this: In the House, they can start approving legislation immediately and can initiate investigations. Pelosi has already promised that within the first hundred hours, her Democrats will approve bills that raise the minimum wage, increase funding for homeland security, lower interest rates on student loans and permit the government to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies to lower drug prices. If she pulls this off--with or without a Democratic Senate (where opposition party members can easily block legislation)--she will be able to demonstrate to the public that the Democrats are serious and worth supporting.

She will also have to make certain that the Democrats proceed with the appropriate inquiries. The goal is to hold the Bush administration accountable without appearing vindictive. (See Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay for a lesson in how not to do this.) My hunch is that many Americans--especially those outside the party faithful whom the Democrats will want to keep on their side for 2008--will prefer to see Democrats producing legislative accomplishments rather than acrimonious investigations. But there are plenty of probes that can proceed. Representative Henry Waxman, the new chairman of the government reform committee, should investigate thoroughly the failed reconstruction in Iraq. An estimated $45 billion of the $80 billion spent on Iraq reconstruction has gone down the drain of fraud and waste. What taxpayer would not like to see this fully investigated?

Pelosi and the Democrats--including those in the Senate, if they gain control there--ought to pick their investigations carefully and strategically. (Yes, this means staying away from any talk of impeachment.) But a prudent approach will hardly limit the opportunities. Take global warming. An investigation of how the Bush administration has suppressed scientific data showing the problem of global warming, coupled with hearings on the administrations refusal to do anything significant to redress this threat, could play well.

Let's face it: Pelosi and Reid are not the best media representatives for the Democrats. Democratic representatives and senators routinely hail each for effectively leading their party caucuses, even as they acknowledge these leaders' limitations as the party's spokespeople. And Pelosi is going to have to continue to keep her party together and disciplined on strategy and tactics--traditionally not an easy task for Democrats. (To take advantage of this moment, liberal and conservative Democrats are going to have to play nice with each other.) Pelosi and Reid get credit for the wins on election night, but neither of them is going to sell the Democratic Party using charisma and charm. They can only do so with substance. And many American voters will not grant them much more than a first impression. The Democrats have a shot at winning over the public. But there's a lot they're going to have to get exactly right.

Posted by David Corn at 01:11 PM

Payback UPDATED

Form my "Capital Games" column at www.thenation.com....

Payback's a bitch.

There is no way to spin the election results. They were a repudiation of George W. Bush, his party, his agenda, and his war. The commander-in-chief argues that he is fighting a war in Iraq that is essential to the survival of the United States. The electorate sent a message: we don't buy it. Political genius Karl Rove and GOP chieftain Ken Mehlman, with their scare tactics (defeatist Democrats will surrender to the terrorists; Nancy Pelosi will destroy the nation) and below-the-belt ads, were not able to defy popular sentiment. Comeuppance was the order of the day. Because of Bush, R became a scarlet letter. In Rhode Island, incumbent Republican Senator Lincoln Chaffee, a moderate who voted against the war in 2002 and against Bush in 2004, enjoyed a 66 percent approval rating; still. voters sent him packing. Children, pay attention. If you're a president who misleads the nation into war and then mismanages that war, you might sneak past a reelection but then bring ruin upon your party. The Bush-wreaked reality trumped the Rove-designed rhetoric--finally. The voters chose not to stay his course. The market worked.

The Democrats won control of the House and came close with the Senate. As of 1:00 AM, in Virginia, Reaganite-turned-Democrat Jim Webb was barely ahead of Senator George "Macaca" Allen--though a recount seemed likely. In Missouri, the Senate race was a virtual tie. If the Democrats should win in each, the Senate would be theirs. However, Tennessee--where Democrats were trying to elect Representative Harold Ford Jr., an African-American--was a bridge too far.(See update below.) But even without the Senate, the Democrats will now be able to counter Bush and advance a platform of their own.

At a victory party at a Capitol Hill hotel--attended by thousands of Democrats, many wearing a badge proclaiming, "A New Direction for America"--a senior House Democratic staffer said, "The word has come on down from on high: no gloating. Those of us who were around in 1994 remember Republicans telling us that we were no longer needed and could get lost--literally. We've been told to handle this differently." But it's certainly true that the House Democrats have assumed power in a slightly less triumphant manner than did the GOP in the so-called Republican Revolution of 1994. Though Democrats did have an agenda for the campaign, they know that the election was a referendum on Bush and the rubber-stamp Republicans, not their pet legislative ideas. As Senator Chuck Schumer, the head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee proclaimed, "the message of this election came down to one word: change." That is, boot Bush's compatriots out of office. To do this, voters had to go Democratic.

The voters have "reluctantly given us the keys," said Terry McAuliffe, a former head of the Democratic Party. And, he added, the Democrats will have to prove themselves--quickly. How to do so? By briskly passing legislation on popular issues--boosting the minimum wage, increasing homeland security funding, lowering interest rates on college loans, empowering the federal government to negotiate with pharmaceutical comapnies to achieve lower drug prices for Medicare. Even if such legislation dies in a Republican-controlled Senate or is vetoed by Bush, the Democrats can shape the the coming presidential election. (Another major win in a night of wins for the Democrats was the election of Representative Ted Strickland as governor of Ohio. "You can't win the presidency without Ohio," McAuliffe noted. And with a Democrat running the state, the Ds will have an advantage there in 2008.)

As for the Republicans, this election will unleash the furies within that party. In sorting out this defeat, GOPers will find themselves confronting their internal conflicts. Social conservatives will square off against economics-first libertarians. The party could split along other line--between those who stick with Bush and those who want to cut and run from the albatross-in-chief. It could all get quite acrimonious, especially with 2008 politics influencing the blame-game. Republicans could end up looking like Democrats.

But the bottom-line is clear: the Bush presidency is over. At least, as Bush and Dick Cheney have envisioned it. They can no longer act imperiously. They have lost the public. And there is now an opposition that can check and investigate their actions abroad and at home. But the Democrats still have to complete the sale. At the victory bash, Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi declared, "We need a new direction in Iraq." She didn't say what it would be. The Democratic victory--as sweet as it is for the Democrats--is very much an unfinished work.

UPDATE: As of 2:00 AM, Democrat Claire McCaskill had been projected the winner in the Missouri Senate race, and Jim Webb was leading George Allen in Virginia, by 12,000 votes, with 99 percent of the precincts reporting. Webb was also ahead in all of the counties not fully reported. It looked as if the Democrats would finish election night ahead in enough races to take control of the Senate. But in Virginia, there will probably be a recount--and perhaps a major legal battle.

Posted by David Corn at 12:51 AM

November 07, 2006

Voting

I voted. There were no problems. During the primary elections a few months ago, Montgomery County in Maryland experienced a small disaster with electronic voting machines, primarily because election workers were not adequately trained in how to operate teh devices and election cards were not distributed to the polls. That did not happen today. But there were two moments that caused me to wonder about the security of the voting process.

First, when I approached the desk to receive a voting card, I was asked my name, address and date of birth. The women on the other side did not request any identification--nothing with or without a photo. Anyone who cared to impersonate me--and who knew my address and birthday--could have done so. This was unsettling. After all, when I retrieve packages from the Post Office, I have to show identification. I realize that conservatives have long complained that no-ID voting creates the opportunity for voter fraud. That's undeniable, though it would take an extensive and well-coordinated campaign to engage in fraud-by-impersonation on a significant scale. And Democrats have a point when they contend that voting should be as easy as possible. Nevertheless, it's tough to argue that citizens should not have to show any form of identification to gain access to the ballot box.

Second, after selecting my choices on an electronic touch-screen machine, I pressed the "Cast Ballot" button on the screen, and I received a message: Your vote has been cast. It probably was. But how could I know for sure? I received no receipt. All that happened was some digitalized 1s and 0s were shuffled around inside the machine and zapped to another machine, courtesy of proprietary software not open to public inspection. I have not concluded--as have others--that electronic voting machines are routinely rigged (by Republicans) to change results. But I have for years believed that since they can be rigged--and the evidence is compelling on this front--people are right to fret about the integrity of the voting system.

Sure, all systems are vulnerable to underhanded chicanery. Old-fashioned ballot boxes can be stuffed. But the goal should be to minimize the ability of any would-be tamperers to engage in dirty-trickery that can affect a decisive number of votes, and electronic voting does not pass this test--not yet. When we used to write X's on paper ballots or pull levers on voting machines, voters still had to have faith that all the votes would be counted honestly. Given that it would take a concerted effort of a number of people to falsify the results with those vote-counting methods, it was not hard to have a decent level of confidence in the voting process in most localities. But when we press a finger against the "Cast Ballot" image on a screen, we require a higher degree of faith that the counting system is working as it should and that it has not been tainted by a tiny group of persons. Presumably, a modest programming alteration in some cases could lead to phony results. As I walked away from the machine, I worried about my vote--more than a citizen should have to.

Posted by David Corn at 11:47 AM

Election Day

Vote.

More, later. (I'm hoping the lines are not too long and the electronic voting machines--and the election workers in charge of them--are not wigging out.)

Posted by David Corn at 12:31 AM

November 06, 2006

Do Bush and Cheney Want To Lose?

From my "Capitol Games" column at www.thenation.com....

Is it possible the White House doesn't want Republicans to win the congressional elections on Tuesday? I know this sounds crazy. But consider the evidence.

1. Last week, George W. Bush vowed to retain Donald Rumsfeld as secretary of defense until the end of his presidency. (He said the same about Dick Cheney.) The debacle in Iraq is responsible for Bush's political decline and the GOP's poor electoral prospects. And Rumsfeld is the poster boy for that debacle. (Days ago, the Army Times called for his resignation.) Bush had no obligation to say whether Rumsfeld would remain at the Pentagon for another two years. He went out of his way in the homestretch of an election to tether himself to the fellow who symbolizes the mess in Iraq. Why do that--unless he has a political death wish?

2. On Friday, Dick Cheney said that the administration would indeed stay with its current course in Iraq and move "full speed ahead." He said, "We've got the basic strategy right." He added, "It may not be popular with the public--it doesn't matter in the sense that we have to continue the mission and do what we think is right. And that's exactly what we're doing. We're not running for office. We're doing what we think is right." Perhaps. But the previous week, his boss held a press conference and tried to convey the impression (though false) that the administration was going to rejigger its Iraq policy by introducing and aiming for "benchmarks." Bush's benchmark comments were not sufficient to win the confidence of the electorate. Days later, a New York Times/CBS News poll noted that only 29 percent of Americans approve of how Bush is handling the war in Iraq. So if 71 percent do not have faith in the White House's Iraq policy, why would Cheney make a point of declaring--defiantly--that he and Bush are committed to racing down that unpopular road? It was as if he were shooting the bird at the American public.

3. Speaking of which, on the weekend before the election, Cheney's office had an announcement: Cheney would spend Election Day on his first hunting trip since he shot a friend while trying to kill quail on a private ranch last February. Was this the right time for the White House to remind voters of Cheney's hapless moment? Couldn't Cheney wait until after the election before picking up a gun again? Why won't he be in a toss-up state stumping for a Republican candidate on Election Day? Or knocking on doors? And why does he get the day off? Election Day is not a federal holiday.

All of the above is quite puzzling behavior for a president and vice president facing the possibility their agenda, their war, and their party are about to be soundly refuted by American voters. Do they already know all is lost? On Sunday, I spoke with a former senior Bush administration official who has publicly predicted the Republicans will retain a one- or two-seat majority in the House and keep control of the Senate. But his manner indicated he didn't believe it. "This is what I have to say," he told me. "This is my public position." I asked what his private view was. He rolled his eyes.

Of course, the Republican Party is doing all its can to beat back what appears to be an anti-GOP wave--and that includes airing far-below-the-belt negative ads. Bush and Cheney have been campaigning in conservative areas--in spots where they won't do harm to Republicans. (On Monday, the Republican gubernatorial candidate in Florida elected not to campaign with Bush in the Sunshine State.) And GOPers are talking up the vaunted get-out-the-vote machine created by Karl Rove and Ken Mehlman that is now in motion. So it is bizarre that in the closing days of this critical election Bush and Cheney would so dramatically remind voters of what they don't like about the Bush-Cheney administration. If these episodes are not indicators of a secret desire to lose, they are additional signs that Bush and Cheney are woefully out of sync with the public. This prompts a question: if the electorate does rise up against Bush, his party and their war, will Bush and Cheney be able to process that? If not, the republic may be in for a rather bumpy ride.

Posted by David Corn at 11:32 AM

November 04, 2006

Perle's Non-Mea Culpa: A Video Comentary

Being a neoconservative seems to mean never having to say you're sorry. A new Vanity Fair article quotes several leading neocons who were cheerleaders for the Iraq war but who are now blaming George W. Bush, not themselves, for the debacle there. Below is a video commentary from me about this:

To see that column on my pre-invasion conversation with Perle (which I mention in the clip), click here.

By the way, after comments were suspended on this site due to a hack-attack, a loyal reader created a mirror site that reposts what appears on davidcorn.com and allows comments. You can join in the conversation here. And once this video commentary is up there, please let me know what you think. But be gentle.

Posted by David Corn at 10:37 PM

November 03, 2006

Let the Blame Game Begin!

Another blog posting of mine on The Guardian's Comment Is Free group-blog....

In the final days of the congressional elections campaign, as the Democratic and Republican parties throw tens of millions of dollars into advertising in key House and Senate races, it's not too early to kick off the blame-game.
With the pre-tally predictions favoring the Democrats, it's natural that the Republicans would start to worry about recriminations first. Dick Armey, the former Republican House majority leader, has been assailing Christian conservatives for forcing his party to neglect its small-government agenda in favor of divisive social matters, such as gay marriage and abortion. He has singled out James Dobson, the head of Focus on the Family, and has called such "self-appointed Christian leaders" as Dobson "thugs" and "bullies." (Dobson is also in the news of late for supporting Ted Haggard, the head of the National Association of Evangelicals, who was accused by a male prostitute of being one of his clients.)

At the same time, Armey has also pointed a finger at George W. Bush for mounting a war of "questionable necessity" that has alienated voters from the president's party. Newt Gingrich, the former Republican House Speaker who had to resign in part because of an extramarital affair, accused the Republicans he left behind in Congress of having "drifted away from reform and changed back to a standard political party"--meaning one marked by incompetence and corruption.

On this blog, Quin Hillyer, an editor of the conservative American Spectator, essentially accused Karl Rove of botching the mission. His argument is that the Republicans should have attacked the Democrats more vigorously. The sexually and racially charged ads deployed by the Republicans were apparently not enough. Nor were the repeated claims from Bush, Dick Cheney and other Republicans that Democrats are cut-and-runners who would undermine the country's national security (when they're not busy responding to invitations to gay weddings).

For years now, Bush has been trying to blur the national security issue and convince Americans the war in Iraq (which is not popular) is part of the war on terror (which is popular). He began the campaign season doing just that, making speeches on this point and pushing legislation regarding the detention and interrogation of suspected terrorists.

But he hit two snags. First, the legislation was opposed by leading (pro-war) Republicans: senators John McCain, John Warner, and Lindsey Graham. Bush lost his clean shot at the Democrats, who also opposed the measure.
Second, the war has become increasingly more ugly. This trumps all. The Republicans in Congress have hung themselves by following Bush like lapdogs. They have held few hearings about Iraq policy or the fraud and waste in the Iraq reconstruction program. They have tied themselves to Bush's mast and yielded control over their own fate. Attacking Democrats for disagreeing over the rules regarding the questioning of terrorist suspects could not distract voters from the war.

Hillyer also says the GOP should have made a fuss over Democratic attempts to block conservative judicial nominees. Yet only die-hard Republican voters care about that. And Republicans have them already. (If not, then all is indeed lost for Rove.) He also argues that the Republicans ought to have boasted more about the economy.

Yet despite the boosts in conventional economic indicators, a large majority of the public still feels the country is heading in the wrong direction. That could be because of Iraq. It also could be due to the fact that the growing economy has not yielded much of an increase in wage levels. (Corporate profits are far head of wage increases.) And at the same time, the traditional economic markers do not capture the growing sense of insecurity among American workers. Unemployment may be low, but these days many workers realize that their jobs (and/or benefits) could disappear in a flash. Bush and his party have nothing to say about this widespread and fundamental unease.

No doubt, the Republicans could have played their cards in a better fashion (and we don't know yet that they haven't). But even in politics, reality can shove aside rhetoric. And this election season, Bush could no longer keep the war-and his mismanagement of it-off center stage. If the Republicans do end up losing the House or the Senate, there will be an orgy of finger-pointing (or firebombing) within GOP circles that could well inflame already-present conflicts, such as the tension between libertarian conservatives, who want to minimize government, and social conservatives, who want to legislate morality.

On the Democratic side, there's no reason yet to form firing squads. But should the Democrats not win back at least the House of Representatives, there will be plenty of D-on-D violence. Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic Party, will have a lot of explaining to do-to no avail. So will Representative Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader in the House. And the Democrats will look more hapless than they have ever been. Whatever happens on Tuesday will be a prelude to much political intrigue and change in Washington.

Posted by David Corn at 05:55 PM

What a Pretty Picture; New Bloggingheads.tv Episode

From Reuters:

A senior U.S. general compared Iraq on Thursday to a "work of art" in progress, saying it was too soon to judge the outcome and playing down violence and friction with Iraqi leaders as "speed bumps" on the road.

"A lump of clay can become a sculpture, blobs of paint become paintings which inspire," Major General William Caldwell, chief military spokesman, told his weekly Baghdad news briefing.

"The final test of our efforts will not be the isolated incidents reported daily but the country that the Iraqis build."

Now, flashback to the posting on this site from two days. I published an email from a source who works in the US embassy on communications matters. He wrote:

So far, the book by the former Washington Post Iraq reporter, Imperial Life in the Emerald City, seems the most accurate picture of what is happening here. He writes about everyone coming to Iraq with good intentions and then being trapped in a surreal cocoon and becoming part of the problem. I spend every day trying to make sure I avoid that bubble syndrome, but I fear it is already happening. We are speaking to an audience [in Iraq] we do not understand. All the communications trickery and flack magic in the world cannot fix that.

So I'm thinking, what will Iraqis think when they hear the senior US general in Iraq comparing the horrific chaos there to a "work of art" in progress? On the gaffe-meter, shouldn't this remark rate higher than John Kerry's botched joke?

COMING SOON. Or maybe it's up by the time you read this--another edition of Bloggingheads.tv featuring me and former White House aide (for Bush the First) Jim Pinkerton. We disagree on the meta-significance of the Kerry remark. Pinkerton claims it reveals the limousine-liberal bias of a guy who married an heiress. I note Kerry is a guy who chose to serve in a combat hot-zone and he merely screwed up an anti-Bush gag. We make no predictions about the elections, but concur that they're all about Iraq--and that ain't good for Bush. Pinkerton celebrates the Wall and missile defense. I get practical: do they work? (How many billions of dollars have been thrown down the rathole for missile defense in the past 23 years?) We both hail NASA's decision to fix the Hubble telescope. It's one giant leap for scientists--and a worthy diversion from NASA's fixation on manned and womanned space travel. Hey, anyone remember Bush's grand announcement in the 2004 State of the Union Speech about his humans-to-Mars initiative? He certainly hasn't talked much about that since then. He must have really meant it, right? Check out our chat when it's up.

Posted by David Corn at 10:02 AM

November 02, 2006

Is John Kerry the Problem...or the Iraq War?

Below is a posting of mine from The Guardian's Comment Is Free group-blog....

During the 2004 presidential race, George W. Bush had a problem. If voters viewed the election as a match-up between Bush and the Iraq war, things looked bad for the Republicans. The war wasn't going well; Bush had hyped the threat from Iraq; there were no signs of final victory, the public was justifiably unenthused by the ongoing military action.

But the Republicans won that election because the face-off was not Bush versus his unpopular war but Bush versus Senator John Kerry, the Democratic nominee. It was far easier for the Bush campaign and its allies to pummel Kerry than to defend the no-end-in-sight war. And now the Bush White House - facing what may be a political tidal wave that washes Republicans out of control of at least one house of Congress - has reprised that act, with the media providing much-needed assistance.

As the final week of the campaign began, the Bush White House and Republican spinners were not focusing on Iraq, gay marriage or illegal immigrants. They were zeroing in on a muffed joke that Kerry had made during a campaign rally on Monday. The Massachusetts Democrat had told students that if "you study hard, do your homework and make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq." "He meant to say, according to his prepared text, that if you don't work hard in school, "you end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq. Just ask President Bush.")

The Republicans had a field day with Kerry's quip -- even if there was some truth to his actual remark. After all, US troops are "stuck" in Iraq, and many young Americans join the military because they do not have the career opportunities that would come with a better education. Still, Republicans in search of an issue attacked Kerry, claiming he had suggested US soldiers were dumb, and they demanded an apology, which Kerry, who is not up for reelection this year, eventually provided (after canceling several campaign appearances with Democratic congressional candidates).

What was absurd about this chapter was that Kerry's comment drew more media attention than a New York Times story that disclosed an October 18 classified briefing of the US Central Command reporting that Iraq was edging toward "chaos."

A week after that briefing, Bush had declared publicly that the United States was "winning" in Iraq. This revelation -- and the contradiction between Bush's rosy statement and Central Command's pessimistic view -- should have been driving the news. Yet Tony Snow, Bush's press secretary, spent far more time at the White House daily briefing, assailing Kerry than responding to questions about the bad-news briefing.

And when Vice President Dick Cheney appeared at a Wednesday campaign rally for Senator Conrad Burns -- an endangered Montana Republican linked to convicted Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff -- he did not feel compelled to address the Times story. Instead, Cheney's brief remarks about the Iraq war focused mainly on Kerry's comment. He used Kerry's misdelivered joke to attack all Democrats for wanting to leave Iraq "before the job is done" and thus validating the "al Qaeda strategy."

For two days, the Kerry matter dominated cable news coverage of the elections. On Thursday, it was the lead story in The Washington Post. That edition of the Post had nothing on the front page about what was happening with the actual war in Iraq.
Republicans have little to say about Bush's policy in Iraq, for there is little to the policy. Bush's attempt last week to assuage public concern by announcing there will be "benchmarks" in Iraq fell flat, for the White House could not define the benchmarks and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki immediately dismissed the notion of creating hard-and-fast markers. Days later, Maliki even assailed US military efforts to set up security checkpoints in a Shiite stronghold in Baghdad. So when it comes to Iraq, Republican candidates are left mainly with rhetoric, certainly not results.

Meanwhile, Republicans are buckling under the weight of serial scandals -- beyond the congressional page affair. A Republican congressman running for governor in Nevada (Jim Gibbons) was accused by a cocktail waitress of assaulting her. A Republican congressman running for reelection in upstate New York (John Sweeney) has had to answer questions about a leaked police report alleging he beat up his wife. (He claims the report is a fake.) A Republican congresswoman running for reelection in Wyoming (Barbara Cubin) told an opponent with multiple sclerosis who is in a wheelchair that she wanted to slap him. And campaign aides to Republican Senator George Allen - who has imperiled his own election by using a racist term and engaging in other bone-headed moves -- tackled and punched a blogger who had asked Allen an indelicate question about his first marriage. (The divorce records are sealed.)

Generalizing about congressional elections is a risky enterprise. But it is hard to avoid the conclusion that with the war in Iraq and these less weighty episodes, the wheels have popped off the Republican bandwagon. It may be that Karl Rove and other Republican strategists are able to beat back the tide-just barely. But it's unlikely that the GOP attacks on Kerry will make the difference. If anything, this assault only filled up time for a few days and allowed Republicans to feel like they were back in the good ol' days of 2004. But nostalgia, they should keep in mind, is usually a short-lived phenomenon.

Posted by David Corn at 11:04 AM

November 01, 2006

Winning in Iraq?/No GOP Civil War Yet?

Today, Tony Snow said at the daily White House press briefing that his boss was right last week to say that the United States is "winning" the war in Iraq. Is that so? A few days ago, I sent an email to an acquaintance working within the US embassy on communications matter and asked for his/her thoughts on recent developments. The reply:

So far, the book by the former Washington Post Iraq reporter, Imperial Life in the Emerald City, seems the most accurate picture of what is happening here. He writes about everyone coming to Iraq with good intentions and then being trapped in a surreal cocoon and becoming part of the problem. I spend every day trying to make sure I avoid that bubble syndrome, but I fear it is already happening. We are speaking to an audience [in Iraq] we do not understand. All the communications trickery and flack magic in the world cannot fix that.

Does the White House understand that?

FANNING FLAMES. I spoke to Mike Rogers, who runs BlogActive.com. In mid-October, Rogers outed Senator Larry Craig, an Idaho Republican, as gay. (Craig's office said the allegation was "absolutely ridiculous.") Rogers tells me he has been busy since then calling social conservatives--such as leaders of mega-churches--to tell them about Craig and other leading Washington Republicans who are thought to be gay. "I'm trying to reach out across aisle," Rogers says, "and build coalitions with huge right-wing mega-churches across the country and call out the guys who covered up the Foley scandal. I'm telling these conservatives about the men who are living what the conservatives call the 'homosexual lifestyle' but who are asking the religious conservatives to follow them into the polling booth." In short, he's trying to provoke a clash between the social cons who oppose gay rights (and who, in some cases, demonize gays) and a Republican Party that is a home to in-the-closet gay legislators and staffers.

To prove his point, Rogers, a gay activist, has been playing for the social conservatives what he says is an audiotape of a man who claims to have firsthand knowledge of Craig's sexual orientation. Rogers will not make this tape--or the name of the man--public. But he is doing all he can to convince religious right supporters of Craig and the Republican Party that they are being led by hypocrites. Is Rogers trying to exploit the antigay bigotry of Christian conservatives to undermine the GOP? And does this sort of pot-stirring play to (and thus reinforce) the biases of the antigay right? Rogers says no: "People have a right to their private lives; it's the hypocrisy they don't have a right to."

A gay-hunt within the Republican Party certainly would not help the GOP. And some non-Republican gay politicos, in the wake of the Mark Foley scandal, have been trying to foster such an internal squabble, just when the GOP has been trying to mobilize its base for the coming congressional elections. (As I've previously reported, these people circulated a list of gay staffers on Capitol Hill.) With only days left until Election Day, it does seem the GOP has avoided a nasty public fight on this front (and also avoided more disclosures about other Republican legislators and pages). But this internal conflict--or contradiction--is not going away. Rogers says he's working on other GOP outings for the future.

Posted by David Corn at 12:51 PM