Never Mind the 50 Most Influential Pundits—Here Are 10 of the Best

After the success of its “Top 100 Liberals” and “Top 100 Conservatives,” the UK’s Telegraph has now unveiled its “Top 50 Political Pundits.” All three lists have had many in the media buzzing (like flies around a fresh, steaming cow patty.)

Before you check the lists out, a warning: they’re broken down into mini-lists of 10 or 20, so that to peruse them all, you’ll wind up clicking on 17 separate web pages—a cynical ploy aimed at maximizing the Telegraph’s web traffic to drive up advertising rates.

So never mind the Telegraph’s gimmicky lists, which confuse popularity with influence. Influence is a poor measure in the first place, especially when the news media have become more oriented towards entertainment than analysis. By what criteria are comics like Bill Maher, Keith Olbermann and Rush Limbaugh, or a superficial confrontationalist like Hack Hannity, or Glenn Beck, considered alongside the best journalists and political pundits of our time?

For what it’s worth, here are Newsprism’s Ten of the Best Political Pundits in America, all on the same page and commercialism free:

10. Michael Kinsley—while he occasionally veers off into liberal la-la land, Kinsley is thoughtful, lucid, and incisive. He’s the most reasonable voice from the far left, idealistic yet practical in a Pat Moynihan sort of way.

9. Charles Krauthammer—a solid bedrock conservative with unmatched acumen in foreign policy, Krauthammer’s analysis of the Middle East is spot-on. He’s as hard-nosed as Bush is hard-headed, staunchly nationalistic without succombing to the naive idealism of the neocons.

8.  Christopher Hitchens—an exceptional writer, Hitchens is also stubbornly independent. He defies categorization in an era marked by polarization; he’s loyal only to his own judgment, never taking sides or pulling his punches, lefts or rights.

7. Dick Morris—he’s as sleazy as the Clintons, and as brilliant, a Karl Rove without the charm (or loyalty.) His cynicism is matched by his insightfulness. A mean streak and his hatred for his former employers make him fun to follow.

6. David Brooks—while the market rewards extremism, especially on the right, Brooks is a moderate conservative devoted to what’s best for the country rather than winning an argument. Brooks is highly intelligent and knowledgeable, and his columns range across critical social and political issues.

5. Frank Rich—a writer on par with Hitchens, Rich anchors the New York Times opinion pages and has the ear of journalists left and right. His background as a critic of culture adds depth and dimension to his political analysis.

4. Karl Rove—the man got George Bush elected. Twice. George Bush. He’s been demonized by the left and stained by his association with the policies of his most famous client, but Rove understands American politics as well as anyone. He’s been outthinking the pack for nearly thirty years.

3. Peggy Noonan—both the woman and her writing are graceful and wise. Never pretentious, she has a way of making profound points effortlessly. Her wit is elegant, simple but never simplistic. Noonan may seem as soft as a feather, but that feather cuts like a scalpel. Her criticisms of George Bush, for example, go right to the heart of a presidency with no moral or philosophical foundation.

2. Pat Buchanan—with the best grasp of history in the business, Buchanan puts contemporary issues into a sweeping historical context. His perspective spans the breadth of Western civilization in an era whose memory barely reaches beyond the 24-hour news cycle. To “get” Buchanan, you should read his books and columns; his appearances on MSNBC don’t do him justice.

1. George Will—nobody connects the dots like Will. His commentary reflects attention to the highest principles while at the same time being grounded firmly in contemporary American culture and history. Will compares favorably with William F. Buckley and Walter Lippmann. His wit isn’t dry, it’s arid, a droll sarcasm befitting his bemusement at our increasingly uncivil society. A collection of his columns like The Leveling Wind transcends punditry; he’s a philosopher who happens to write columns.

Newsprism

Looking for the Most Embarrassing Moment in Presidential History? Mission Accomplished!

Like Babe Ruth’s home run record, Bill Clinton’s “shot heard ’round the world” looked certain to remain the Most Embarrassing Moment in Presidential History for a long, long time. Then came George W. Bush.

Five years ago today, Bush, codpiece and all, landed a fighter jet onboard the USS Abraham Lincoln and declared victory in Iraq. Not only was his declaration premature, he made it beneath an enormous banner reading, “Mission Accomplished.”

Like Clinton’s moment of infamy, Bush’s was truly revealing. If Clinton is an egomanaical self-absorbed sex addict with the morals of a (one-eyed trouser) snake, Bush is a deeply insecure arrested adolescent who’s used the US military as a prop for his own self-aggrandizement. The very idea of using fighter jets, an aircraft carrier, and an entire crew of sailors as backdrops in a swaggering draft dodger’s PR stunt is as pathetic as it is ludicrous.

Just as Clinton denied his boner, saying “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” while he wagged his finger at the nation, Bush now denies the “Mission Accomplished” banner referred to the war in Iraq. The Bush administration claims the banner referred to the mission of the USS Lincoln itself; White House spokesperson Dana Perino continued that farce yesterday, saying

President Bush is well aware that the banner should have been much more specific and said ‘mission accomplished’ for these sailors who are on this ship on their mission.

A banner with those words on it would have been as long as a Babe Ruth homerun.

Sometimes it’s the biggest egos, and sometimes the smallest, that require the most stroking.

Newsprism

FoxNews Fails History Lesson

Mistakes are inevitable in the 24-hour pressure cooker of cable news. Misspelled words, mispronounced names, technical glitches—these are to be expected.

But confusing Stephen Douglas and Frederick Douglass in a story about the Lincoln-Douglas debates?

That’s exactly what happened this morning when FoxNews mistakenly aired a graphic showing President Lincoln and former slave Frederick Douglass (video).

The fact that three news personalities didn’t catch the mistake is bad enough. News broadcasts involve more than on-air talent, however. Editors, directors, fact checkers, technicians, and graphic artists all have a hand in what goes out over the air.

No one at FoxNews managed to figure out that an African-American like Frederick Douglass was unlikely to have been running for office in 1858, when African-Americans couldn’t even vote.

As HL Mencken noted, “No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.”

Certainly not FoxNews’s owner, billionaire Rupert Murdoch.

Newsprism

FoxNews’s vapid cheerleading for the worst president in American history reminds Newsprism of another quote from Mencken: “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.”

America’s Dangerous Mis-Spellings of “Ignorance”

How many Americans can correctly spell “ignorance”? How many teachers and bureaucrats?

Two excellent columns by Bob Herbert and George Will came out this week bemoaning the declining state of American education.

At least three root causes account for the sad decline in education in this country.

First, parents have abdicated responsibility for their children’s education to cold, monolithic government institutions that facilitate mediocrity and stifle innovation. Take President “childrens do learn” Bush’s failed No Child Left Behind program. Administered by the pathetically underqualified Secretary of Education, Bush croney Margaret Spellings, NCLB imposes an asinine amount of testing on schools without addressing the underlying problems—as if measuring academic failure enough will turn it into academic success. Heckuva job, Spellie.

Second, the erosion of the nuclear family has left more and more of our children adrift without adequate supervision or an understanding of the value of education. The best predictor of academic performance isn’t social class or school quality; it’s the presence of a solid family structure that inculcates the right values and enforces their pursuit. No amount of government intervention can fix the decline of the American family, though government intervention has surely been a major factor in causing it.

Third, we’re increasingly mesmerized by electronic media, which force us into the role of passive, isolated consumers of what nowadays passes for culture. Today’s American child is lost in an amoral popular culture that priviliges physical beauty over mental acuity and appetite over intellect. Reading is becoming a lost art, one that requires thoughtful deliberation as opposed to passive consumption. Market considerations have all but replaced moral ones, and all too often, mind-numbing gadgets take the place of parenting.

Education is ultimately and essentially the responsibility of each individual citizen, and that requires citizens raised in strong families that value knowledge and wisdom. No teacher, school or government program can provide that.

Henry David Thoreau, America’s philosopher laureate, wrote, “There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.” Two organizations hacking at the root of our education woes are the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the America’s Promise Alliance, run by Colin and Alma Powell (not coincidentally, two devoted couples presiding over strong nuclear families.)

The gravest threat to American democracy isn’t terrorism or global warming. It’s ignorance.

And ignorance can only be cured from within.

Newsprism

Oops, or Poops? HuffingtonPost Headline Embarrassing Mistake, or Outright Lie?

Hollywood leftist news and gossip site The Huffington Post included this headline today:

Legal Experts Predict War Crimes Prosecutions Over Torture Meetings

The problem? The article excerpted and linked to at HuffPo says exactly the opposite. Published in the Center for Independent Media’s Washington Independent, the story begins,

With nine months remaining in President George W. Bush’s term, virtually no legal analyst expects that anyone in his administration will face indictment and prosecution in connection with the torture of terrorism detainees.

The same story ends,

…the likelihood of retributive measures against the Bush administration for torture remains remote.

And in between? More of the same.

Is HuffPo really that incompetent? Or did the editors choose to utterly mischaracterize the article in their headline for partisan political purposes?

Newsprism’s guess: both.

Newsprism

The Perfect Vice President for Either Party: Sam Nunn of Georgia

Former Senator and conservative Democrat Sam Nunn today endorsed Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination, eliciting speculation that he could be on Obama’s short list of potential runningmates.

Newsprism has long considered Nunn, a four-term Senator and former Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and an expert on weapons of mass destruction, among the most credible candidates for the presidency—an office he’s shown little if any interest in.

As Obama’s runningmate, Nunn would shore up the Democrats’ foreign policy credentials substantially and move the ticket towards the center, possibly even putting some states in the otherwise solidly red South in play.

Mr. Nunn would make an equally strong runningmate for John McCain. McCain’s main weakness is the perception that he would continue the utterly failed foreign policy of George Bush, a foreign policy Nunn has challenged with great depth and perspective. Nunn would also pull the Republican ticket towards the center, putting any number of blue states in play.

Nunn  hopes for a sea change in US foreign policy and for political reconciliation domestically. Accepting a spot on either ticket would go a long way towards accomplishing both objectives.

Update: Nunn just told MSNBC that he’s happy in the private sector and not considering a return to public office.

Update: Along with Nunn, former Senator David Boren and former Clinton cabinet member Robert Reich have also endorsed Barack Obama today.

Newsprism

President Bush, Pope Benedict Throw Popsicles at Hell

Arguably the two most powerful men in the world spoke yesterday about profound moral dilemmas, and both essentially failed to do the right thing.

President Bush addressed global warming in a speech at the White House, while Pope Benedict has touched on the pedophile priest scandal in several speeches since arriving in the States on Tuesday.

The President has clearly dragged his feet on global warming for over seven years. His administration has worked to suppress scientific evidence of the causes and scope of the problem while his energy policy and foreign policy have brazenly favored Big Oil (the proof is in their profits.)

Meanwhile, the Pope has twice acknowledged his “deep shame” over the pedophile priest scandal that has rocked the American Catholic establishment over the last decade. If any other organization in this country were responsible for tens of thousands of acts of child sexual abuse, those responsible would face the harshest sanctions allowed by law as well as a public outcry loud enough to deafen the angels. Instead, no bishops have been disciplined and the scandal has essentially been handled with cash payments exceeding $2 billion.

Actions speak louder than words; by that standard, both President Bush and Pope Benedict have remained silent on issues that should be producing a chorus from all of us.

Pope Benedict did meet for 25 minutes with “a handful” of victims of pedophile priests today. While his openness on the issue is welcome, as is President Bush’s addressing global warming, their responses amount to throwing popsicles at Hell.

Newsprism

McCain Proposes Tax Cuts, Curbs on Spending

In a speech timed to coincide with the deadline for filing federal income tax returns and to reach the media covering the Democratic primary, John McCain outlined his economic policies in Pittsburgh today.

McCain’s plan rejects the upper-class orientation of George Bush, embracing instead the populism and pro-growth policies of Ronald Reagan.

The Arizona senator’s tax plan calls for doubling the exemption for dependents from $3500 to $7000, establishing a simplified two-tier tax schedule, eliminating the alternative minimum tax, and suspending gasoline taxes over the summer. In addition, McCain would extend Bush’s tax cuts, reduce corporate taxes significantly, and give tax benefits to businesses for research and purchases of equipment.

In addition to these tax policies, McCain wooed working- and middle-class voters with the promise of readily available student loan funds, government-guaranteed mortgages for homeowners at risk of foreclosure, and a continuation of unemployment insurance for displaced workers.

In terms of government spending, McCain would freeze nonmilitary discretionary spending at current levels for one year while reviewing government programs for waste and fraud, increase Medicare premiums for wealthy retirees, veto any bill that includes earmarks.

McCain’s plan combines tax cuts with curbs on federal spending, a breath of fresh air compared to the irrationally expensive proposals of the two Democratic presidential hopefuls and the equally irrational Bush policy of cutting taxes while dramatically raising spending.

Newsprism finds McCain’s proposals substantive, centrist, and sensible, and therefore likely to be quickly overshadowed by the next irrelevant gaffe or contrived Bittergate.

Newsprism

Bush Administration Going Down in History—and Down and Down and Down

If journalists write the first draft of history, historians write the final one. Judging by two polls of historians conducted by the History News Network, one four years ago and the other last month, Bush has gone from bad to worse—and maybe, to worst.

In 2004, 415 historians were surveyed on Bush’s legacy. 81% believed the Bush administration would be judged a failure compared to 19% who believed it would be judged a success. 12% went so far as to say Bush would go down as the worst president in American history.

In 2008, 109 historians were surveyed. 98% believed the Bush years would be judged a failure compared to less than 2% who believed they would be judged a success. A staggering 61% said Bush would go down as the worst president in history.

The dismal evaluations of Bush aren’t confined to the History News Network, either. Eminent Princeton historian Sean Wilentz wrote in Rolling Stone two years ago that

George W. Bush’s presidency appears headed for colossal historical disgrace…. And that may be the best-case scenario. Many historians are now wondering whether Bush, in fact, will be remembered as the very worst president in all of American history.

Wilentz is joined by presidential historian Douglas Brinkley of Tulane University, who in December, 2006, wrote in the Washington Post that

it’s safe to bet that Bush will be forever handcuffed to the bottom rungs of the presidential ladder. The reason: Iraq … which is an unmitigated disaster.

Many will dismiss the nearly unanimously negative judgment of Bush as evidence of the liberal leanings of historians.

While the field does in fact harbor a preponderance of liberals, historians as a group are notoriously cautious and circumspect, waiting for the historical record before pronouncing judgment. In addition, nowhere near 98% of histrians are liberal, meaning that the vast majority of moderate and conservative historians agree with their liberal colleagues.

Besides, as the most historically grounded conservative commentator, Pat Buchanan, notes, George Bush is anything but a conservative (see here, here, here, here, and here.)

Here’s a sample of the historians’ evaluations of Mr. Bush:

Glib, contemptuous, ignorant, incurious, a dupe of anyone who humors his deluded belief in his heroic self, he has bankrupted the country with his disastrous war and his tax breaks for the rich, trampled on the Bill of Rights, appointed foxes in every henhouse, compounded the terrorist threat, turned a blind eye to torture and corruption and a looming ecological disaster, and squandered the rest of the world’s goodwill.

With his unprovoked and disastrous war of aggression in Iraq and his monstrous deficits, Bush has set this country on a course that will take decades to correct. When future historians look back to identify the moment at which the United States began to lose its position of world leadership, they will point—rightly—to the Bush presidency.

…the paranoia of Nixon, the ethics of Harding and the good sense of Herbert Hoover…. God willing, this will go down as the nadir of American politics.

His domestic policies have had the cumulative effect of shoring up a semi-permanent aristocracy of capital that dwarfs the aristocracy of land against which the founding fathers rebelled; of encouraging a mindless retreat from science and rationalism; and of crippling the nation’s economic base.

George Bush has combined mediocrity with malevolent policies and has thus seriously damaged the welfare and standing of the United States…

His administration has been the most reckless, dangerous, irresponsible, mendacious, arrogant, self-righteous, incompetent, and deeply corrupt one in all of American history.

In the wake of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the United States enjoyed enormous support around the world. President Bush squandered that goodwill by taking the country into an unnecessary war of choice and misleading the American people to gain support for that war. And he failed utterly to have a plan to deal with Iraq after the invasion…. Mr. Bush inherited a sizable budget surplus and a thriving economy…. Bush transformed the surplus into a massive deficit. The tax cuts and other policies accelerated the concentration of wealth and income among the very richest Americans. These policies combined with unwavering opposition to necessary government regulations have produced the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Then there is the incredible shrinking dollar, the appointment of incompetent cronies, the totally inexcusable failure to react properly to the disaster of Hurricane Katrina, the blatant disregard for the Constitution—and on and on.

James Buchanan, Millard Fillmore, move over. Your failures appear to have been misoverestimated.

Newsprism

Bush Announces Exit Strategy, Timetable for Withdrawal

In a speech today at the White House (transcript), a relatively sombre and downcast President Bush (video) announced his exit strategy and timetable for withdrawal from Washington, DC: on January 20, 2009, at precisely noon, Mr. Bush will leave office barring unforeseen circumstances.

At that time, a new president—if the Petraeus/Crocker hearings were any indication, Barack Obama—will inherit the war in Iraq, which Mr. Bush said is “not endless.”

“Not endless” is about as optimistic as the president could be. His hopes for a positive conclusion to the war were sketched out using “if” and ”would” rather than “when” and ”will,” an indication that he isn’t able to realistically predict, or even define, victory:

if we succeed in Iraq, after all that al-Qaida and Iran have invested there, it’d be a historic blow to the global terrorist movement and a severe setback for Iran. It would demonstrate to a watching world that mainstream Arabs reject the ideology of al-Qaida and mainstream Shia reject the ideology of Iran’s radical regime. It would give America a new partner with a growing economy and a democratic political system in which Sunnis and Shia and Kurds all work together for the good of their country.

The fact that after all the US has invested in Iraq the situation there is increasingly untenable is already being touted as a victory for the insurgents and jihadists who continue to tie up our armed forces. A “watching world” has seen terrorist attacks increasing across the globe, due in part to outrage over the arrogance of launching an unnecessary, unjustified pre-emptive war against an already desperate and isolated Iraq. As for transforming Iraq into a prosperous, democratic, and unified ally, one wonders if the happy Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds will all be riding unicorns across rainbows to fields of cotton candy.

On the other hand, the president admitted that failure in Iraq would bring about dire consequences:

If we fail there, al-Qaida would claim a propaganda victory of colossal proportions and they could gain safe havens in Iraq from which to attack the United States, our friends and our allies. Iran would work to fill the vacuum in Iraq…. This would diminish our nation’s standing in the world and lead to massive humanitarian casualties and increase the threat of another terrorist attack on our homeland.

The “propaganda victory” Mr. Bush refers to has already been accomplised by al Qaeda and the Sunni and Shiite insurgents, who’ve fought the world’s only remaining superpower to a draw using geurrilla tactics and improvised weapons and strategies. Iran has already been made the dominant force in the region, and our standing in the world, both economic and moral, declines daily. As for “massive humanitarian casualties,” one wonders what the president considers the nearly 100,000 dead, the two to four million displaced, the ethnic cleansing, and the decimation of Iraq’s already fragile economy—not to mention the cost in American dead and wounded—to be.

The sole silver lining in Bush’s remarks was directed at soldiers deployed to Iraq after August 1, who will serve the traditional 12-month stint rather than the current 15-month stint that has strained our military to the breaking point. This change in policy, however, hints at the damage the Iraq quagmire has done to the military, which the army openly acknowledges and which has left us increasingly vulnerable.

President Bush essentially slathered lipstick on the proverbial pig this morning. Even the centrist Christian Science Monitor characterized the speech as a defeatest hand-off to the next president, who will have to re-define “victory” and come up with a plan for a responsible withdrawal.

The president seems almost delusional in his stubborn refusal to admit what an astronomical miscalculation he made in launching an invasion of Iraq.

All that was missing today in the White House’s Cross Hall was another banner reading, “Mission Accomplished.”

Newsprism

Good News, Bad News from Iraq

In Congressional hearings yesterday, General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker painted a bleak picture of the situation in Iraq more than five years after the US invasion (transcripts.)

The good news: After five years of occupation, minor progress has been made as violence is abating somewhat and political compromise is on the rise.

The bad news: General Petraeus called the progress on the security front “uneven” and noted that ”the situation in certain areas is still unsatisfactory and innumerable challenges remain … Moreover, as events in the past two weeks have reminded us, and as I have repeatedly cautioned, the progress made since last spring is fragile and reversible.” Speaking metaphorically, Petraeus added, “We haven’t turned any corners, we haven’t seen any lights at the end of the tunnel. The champagne bottle has been pushed to the back of the refrigerator.”

Petraeus also asked that troop drawdowns be suspended as the security situation could easily deteriorate at any time. An increase in bombings in Iraq seems to shadow the limited troop withdrawals already underway.

 Violence in Baghdad is on the upswing despite the limited success of the “surge” strategy implemented early last year. Attacks on the fortified Green Zone have increased, killing and wounding dozens of American soldiers. A curfew is in effect in the Iraqi capitol.

Shiite on Shiite violence has risen markedly as militias vie for supremacy throughout Iraq. Moqtada al-Sadr, the Shiite cleric who controls Iraq’s largest militia, is threatening to suspend a crucial cease-fire as American and Iraqi forces clash with Shiite insurgents in Sadr City, the section of Baghdad where his power is centered.

Ambassador Crocker offered few examples but said the political situation is “moving in the right direction” but is not “linear.” He called political progress “uneven” and “frustratingly slow.”

Iran’s influence in the region continues to increase, further destabilizing the political situation in Iraq, where the Iranians hope to establish a friendly Shiite-dominated government rather than the coalition government envisioned by the US. Iran also continues its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Recent violence in the critical port city of Basra demonstrates the ability of Iran to exacerbate the conflict between Shiites and the coalition government.

In short, the steep price paid in American lives and treasure has purchased less than nothing as the US invasion appears to have benefitted our staunchest enemy, Iran, while severely damaging our reputation in the world, eroding our alliances, weakening our military, and further empowering global jihad.

President Bush remains optimistic, citing a few oases of positive developments amid a desert of death and destruction.

The president has accomplished one mission: proving beyond doubt that fools rush in where wise men (like his father and Colin Powell) fear to tread.

Newsprism

President George Bush Assassinated in Theatre

History repeated itself today when a second American president was assassinated in a theatre. The assassination of George Bush, however, lacked the dignity of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, which occurred in the elegant Ford’s Theatre in April of 1865.

President Bush was assassinated in a puppet theatre on al-Aqsa television, which is owned by the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas. After begging for his life, the puppet-Bush is stabbed with the “sword of Islam” (video) by a Palestinian orphan.

According to the Council on Foreign Relations, Hamas is driven by both Palestinian nationalism and Islamic fundamentalism. In addition to its media and terrorist activities, Hamas also supports a wide range of charities in the Palestinian territories of Israel.

Hamas owes a debt of gratitude to Bush, whose insistence on spreading democracy into the Palestinian territories led to a solid Hamas majority in the Palestinian parliament in January, 2006.

While cartoons and videos critical of Islam have led to substantial violence in the past, the depiction of Bush’s assassination has drawn scant condemnation from the Muslim world.

In fact, officials representing Israel and the Palestinians are reportedly in tense negotiations over the meaning of “cartoon violence.”

Newsprism

Related stories from Timeless News (satire):

ROADMAP TO PEACE™ FOLDED BACKWARDS–WRONG TURN MEANS THOUSANDS MORE WILL DIE

ARAFAT DEATH CREATES NEW OPPORTUNITIES FOR DISAPPOINTMENT

ARAB WORLD REACTS TO BERG BEHEADING VIDEO

Saddam Paid the Pipers—Did He Call the Tune?

When Congressmen Jim McDermott and David Bonior spoke from Baghdad on ABC’s “This Week” (transcript)  in October of 2002, their intent was to undermine President Bush’s run-up to an invasion of Iraq. That was their right and, perhaps, their responsibility.

In retrospect, their criticisms of the rush to war and the propaganda that fueled that rush were probably right on target.

But both Congressmen, and McDermott in particular, didn’t simply oppose the impending invasion. They were “useful idiots” parroting the propaganda of Saddam Hussein, one of the worst dictators of this or any century. Moreover, their traitorous performance may have actually aided the Bush administration’s arguments for invading.

McDermott had this to say of Saddam’s totalitarian government:

I think you have to take the Iraqis on their face value … they should be given a chance … We have had complete access to anything we want here, and they have not kept us from anything we asked to do.

And this to say of the administration of George Bush:

I believe that sometimes they give out misinformation … I think the President would mislead the American people.

In other words, McDermott was more than willing to give a little Hitler the benefit of the doubt, but not his own president. That should put “Baghdad Jim” McDermott right up there with “Hanoi Jane” Fonda in the parade of traitors to this country.

There are significant differences between the two, however. Miss Fonda was a naive, impressionable young actress when she went to Vietnam to act as a prop for the Viet Cong. Only the coldest heart would refuse her forgiveness more than thirty-five years later, especially after she’s admitted her mistake and apologized to the nation’s veterans.

McDermott was a grown man representing the nation as well as his Congressional district when he went to Baghdad.

In addition, yesterday it was revealed that McDermott and Bonior travelled to Iraq on Saddam’s nickel. Though they apparently didn’t know that at the time, ignorance is no excuse for allowing oneself to aid and comfort the enemy.

The question has to be asked: Saddam paid the pipers. Did he call the tune?

It looks to me like he did. The pipers just didn’t know it.

Newsprism

Conservative Icon Pat Buchanan Gives Little George Bush a History Lesson

Imagine, if you will, a grizzled grandfather of intellectual conservatism sitting in front of a handsome colonial hearth with a child on his knee. The grandfather is Pat Buchanan, and he’s giving little George Bush a history lesson … if little George is “teachable.”

Now, read this column by Pat “Pops” Buchanan, or at least the excerpts below, and keep that image in mind.

Buchanan’s column begins,

On reading George Bush’s discourse to the New York Economic Club last week, Cicero’s insight came to mind: “To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.”

With Iraq entering its sixth year, the dollar sinking to peso levels, the economy careening into recession, and 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens roosting here, Bush alerted us to what really worries him:

“I’m troubled by isolationism and protectionism … (and) another ‘ism,’ and that’s nativism…”

Buchanan proceeds to lay out the real history of what Bush calls isolationism, protectionism, and nativism and the dynamic global power that history produced. This is followed by a litany of Bush’s failures and this incisive summation of Bush’s philosophy:

In smearing as nativists, protectionists and isolationists those who wish to stop the invasion, halt the export of factories and jobs to Asia, and stop the unnecessary wars, Bush is attacking the last true conservatives in his party.

Which is understandable. For after the judges and tax cuts, what is there about Bush that is conservative? His foreign policy is Wilsonian. His trade policy is pure FDR. His spending is LBJ all the way. His amnesty for illegals is Teddy Kennedy’s policy.

Somewhere along the way, George Bush’s education was miserably neglected. Maybe an MBA characterized by a lackluster academic performance, backed up by two decades watching popular entertainers distort and pervert conservatism, doesn’t make for a qualified chief executive. The proof is in the pudding, as the American people seem to understand well. 

Now Pops Buchanan lifts little George off his lap, and the boy scurries off to play with his toys: a Monopoly board, six trillion dollars’ worth of Monopoly money, GI Joe, and models of a fighter jet and the USS Lincoln.

Newsprism

Pop Culture Conservatism—The Shallow Going Off the Deep End

American conservatism has been dealing for decades with a rift between the social conservatism of evangelical Christians and culture warriors on the one hand, and the libertarian conservatism of free-market individualists on the other. Part of the genius of Ronald Reagan was his ability to energize both factions while smoothing over their differences. Too many conservatives today are altogether ignorant of this rift and therefore risk widening it. 

Over the last couple of decades, another rift has been opened, one that has benefitted conservatism significantly but may at the same time have begun an erosion of its core principles in favor of the superficial and the marketable. This rift separates intellectual conservatism—that practiced by Bill Buckley, Newt Gingrich, George Will, and Pat Buchanan, for example—and a more populist strain that dominates talk radio, the popular book market, and cable news. Instead of “populist conservatism,” however, I think it would be more accurate to label it pop culture conservatism, since its primary home is in the popular media.

Pop culture conservatism emerged out of a long era of American journalism in which liberalism dominated public discourse. The Media Elite, an influential 1986 study of political bias, found that nearly 90% of leading journalists had voted for Democratic candidates in prior presidential elections. When Rush Limbaugh demonstrated in 1988 that a huge audience of disaffected conservatives was ripe for the picking, pop culture conservatism burst onto the scene, and it’s been flexing its muscles ever since. Now, slickly-marketed popular figures like Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Michael Savage, and Laura Ingraham exert far more influence over the conservative movement with their confrontationalism and intemperance than more substantive and measured voices do with reasoning and balance.

Intellectual and pop culture conservatism worked together brilliantly in 1994, when Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America” consolidated the Republican base and swept Republican candidates into majority positions in both Houses of Congress. The result: the Clinton administration was forced to control the growth of government, so that by the time George Bush took office in 2000, the federal budget was in surplus.

A conservative Republican president inheriting a budget surplus should have set the foundation for a serious, measured restructuring and contraction of our imperial federal government. Instead, Bush has grown the government from a $2 trillion “enterprise” to one that will spend well over $3 trillion in 2008, with disastrous economic and monetary results. The numbers speak for themselves:

The federal government’s budget has grown from under $2,000,000,000,000.00 to over $3,000,000,000,000.00 per year!

The very core principles of conservatism—limited government, individual responsibility, individual liberty, market dynamics, free enterprise—have been buried under an avalanche of big government programs and out-of-control spending. It was Republican Senator Ted Stevens and Republican Representative Don Young who tried to push through billions in funding for Alaska’s infamous Bridges to Nowhere.

Intellectual conservatives have strongly condemned this liberal spending spree, but their voices aren’t being heard over the loudmouthed shouting of the pop culture talking heads.

Pop culture conservatism has created a class of citizens and politicians who don’t seem to value or understand the historical and intellectual foundations of classical American conservatism. These surfacy conservatives just spent seven years in power in the White House, most of that time with like-minded Republicans controlling Congress, yet they have done more damage to the institutions of free enterprise and individual liberty than any liberal in memory.

Shallow creatures of the media going off the deep end have helped put conservatism at risk of drowning in the warm, therapeutic waters of liberalism: naive idealism, spiraling debt, and dependence on government.

Newsprism

F.U.B.A.R.

Exactly five years ago, the US invasion of Iraq began with an overwhelming air assault, “Shock and Awe,” intended to minimize civilian casualties and Iraqi military resistance. The strategy was both humane and effective, unlike nearly all that has followed. (Previous posts here at Newsprism have addressed the lessons we can learn from the war and its astronomical economic, political, and humanitarian costs.)

The War has predictably become a central focus of the presidential campaign, with both Democratic contenders promising to draw our troops down substantially and in short order, and the Republican nominee calling for an open-ended committment that could last decades. Neither approach is tenable, the one risking a bloodbath on the order of the Cambodian “killing fields,” the other risking a slow bleed of American lives, treasure, and stature. Meanwhile, the media obsess on trivial gaffes that suggest Barack Obama doesn’t know about al Qaeda in Iraq, or John McCain doesn’t know that Iran is predominantly Shiite.

In the midst of these political calculations and media molehills, more sober and non-partisan voices should be heard.

In an interview with the non-partisan Council on Foreign Relations, Daniel Serwer, the Executive Director of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group, believes that a drawdown is inevitable—we simply can’t sustain the current force. Serwer believes that our next president will inherit a force of around 130,000, an improved but still unstable security situation, and a slowly improving, fragile political situation. His hope is that nascent glimmers of political compromise will take hold in time for provincial elections, and that a sense of Iraqi nationalism will ease the tensions between Shiites and Sunnis. Serwer, a career diplomat specializing in the resolution of ethnic and religious tension, is at best guardedly optimistic, though he sees a long slog towards an uncertain outcome ahead.

Dr. Frederick Kagan, a military historian working with the non-partisan American Enterprise Institute, argued forcefully for, and accurately predicted the success of, the Bush surge to secure Baghdad. He’s recommended that in order to consolidate that success, we must accept longer tours for our troops, more reconstruction funding to rebuild Iraq’s infrastructure, a concerted national effort to recruit new soldiers, an expanded fighting force, and an aggressive push for unity between the warring Shiites and Sunnis. The bottom line for Kagan is American resolve; he calls for “a national commitment to victory in Iraq” and predicts that “failure in Iraq today will require far greater sacrifices tomorrow in far more desperate circumstances.”

Neither Serwer nor Kagan can or would predict the outcome of attemps to reconcile the Shiite and Sunni factions that have in effect divvied up Baghdad and the nation through sectarian violence. Our efforts to this point have sought to facilitate reconciliation, which may or may not be possible. Even if these longstanding and bitter enemies could forge a governing coalition, establishing a democracy wouldn’t be a given. In fact, the best case scenario might be a divided Iraq along the lines of post-WWII Berlin, with neither side practicing anything approaching democracy.

The latest attempt at reconciliation is off to a bad start this week as both Shiite and Sunni factions are boycotting or walking out amid escalating sectarian violence.

In his speech at the Pentagon today, President Bush, seeemingly undaunted, continued to preach his gospel of freedom, democracy, and peace:

…we’re helping the people of Iraq establish a democracy in the heart of the Middle East. A free Iraq will fight terrorists instead of harboring them. A free Iraq will be an example for others of the power of liberty to change the societies and to displace despair with hope. By spreading the hope of liberty in the Middle East, we will help free societies take root — and when they do, freedom will yield the peace that we all desire.

Bush’s idealism flies in the face of the most prescient voice speaking on this war, Colin Powell’s. After removing Saddam Hussein from Kuwait in 1992, Powell, then the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote “US Forces: Challenges Ahead,” which is currently published online in its entirety by the non-partisan Council on Foreign Relations. In the piece, Powell explained why the first Bush administration chose not to invade and occupy Iraq, choosing instead a strategy of containment:

The Gulf War was a limited objective war. If it had not been, we would be ruling Baghdad today—at unpardonable expense in terms of money, lives lost and ruined regional relationships … Would it have been worth the inevitable follow up: major occupation forces in Iraq for years to come and a very expensive and complex American proconsulship in Baghdad? Fortunately for America, reasonable people at the time thought not.

The best minds in America only offer vague hopes that we can succeed in Iraq. The whole debacle could have and should have been avoided. Neither party has a credible plan to retreat with honor or to win.

That’s the true tragedy of this war: we can’t leave without losing our honor and committing a cowardly and immoral act, we can’t stay in sufficient numbers to achieve our stated objectives, and there’s no such thing as a reasonable compromise between the two courses.

The next president will inherit the worst strategic blunder in American history.

Newsprism

Government Give and Take

When the Bush administration took office, the federal government was spending less than two trillion dollars a year. When the Bush administration leaves office, the federal government will be spending well over three trillion dollars a year.

When the Bush administration took office, the federal budget was in surplus. When the Bush administration leaves office, the federal budget deficit is projected to have reached $400,000,000,000. (The budget deficit for February 2008 alone was $175,000,000,000.)

With that kind of expansion, you’d think the government would be improving its regulation of the private sector significantly. After all, what should we taxpayers expect for an additional trillion dollars a year?

Here’s what we’ve received for that astronomical sum:

1. A devalued and declining dollar, which makes every dollar in our bank accounts and in our retirement accounts worth less and less every day and portends rising inflation and a falling stock market.

2. An imploding housing market with no end in sight, which leaves many homeowners with mortgages in a negative equity situation and leaves virtually every homeowner with a net worth that falls every day.

3. A total national debt approaching $10 trillion dollars, which must be paid back by each of us and/or our children and/or our children’s children’s children…who are poorer before they’ve even been born.

4. A crumbling national infrastructure that will require more and more tax dollars just to maintain our roads, bridges, ports and the like in their current condition.

5. A severe tightening of credit that leaves each of us with fewer opportunities to educate our children, invest in our businesses, or improve or upgrade our homes.

Republicans are supposed to be for a smaller government that regulates less, and Democrats for a larger government that regulates more.

Under Bush, we have the worst of both: a much, much larger government that regulates less, and regulates less effectively.

The upside: thank goodness, Mr. Bush gave most of us a $300 tax rebate when he took office, and he’s giving us another $600 tax rebate as he leaves office. Forgive me if I don’t seem grateful.

The government giveth, the government taketh and taketh and taketh away.

Newsprism

Iraq—Five Years and Some Accounting

Five years into the costly Iraq War, the most compelling question is still the initial one: why? Why invade a nation that hadn’t attacked us and didn’t pose a credible threat to us? Why set the reckless and arrogant precedent of pre-emptive war?

The Bush administration has trundled out a series of reasons.

The initial reasoning went like this: Saddam Hussein is working on weapons of mass destruction that could threaten American interests. This reasoning was backed by Condi Rice’s statement that we don’t want the proof of Hussein’s WMD to be a “mushroom cloud” and Dick Cheney’s theory that even a 1% chance of a WMD attack justified invading and occupying Iraq.  Five years on, it’s become clear that the threat was significantly and intentionally exaggerated. As for Cheney’s “1% Rule,” such absolutism and arrogance cannot be taken seriously; can you imagine a world where every nation followed that doctrine?

A second reason involved the suggestion, made repeatedly by administration officials, that Iraq had some connection to al Qaeda and/or the 9/11 attacks. This suggestion has also been repudiated. Saddam’s secular Baathist Party was hostile to the sectarian fundamentalism of al Qaeda and vice-versa. No credible connection between Iraq and either 9/11 or al Qaeda has ever been uncovered.

A third reason is Bush’s alleged crusade to spread freedom and democracy to the Arab world. This is either the height of naivete, or the height of cynicism. Only a naive misunderstanding of how democracy takes hold and develops would lead one to honestly believe it could be imposed militarily on a fractious nation like Hussein’s Iraq. Only the most brazen cynicism would lead one to use freedom and democracy as rhetorical flourishes masking a cold economic and geopolitical calculation.

Considering the political costs of this invasion and occcupation—the elevation of Iran to regional supremacy, the sundering of the fragile truce between Iraq’s Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds, the destabilization of the region and its oil exporting capacity, the loss of America’s moral authority, the erosion of American civil liberties—shouldn’t we be revisiting the real reasons behind what many consider the greatest strategic American foreign policy mistake ever?

And why do we as a nation continue to ignore the costs of this war for the Iraqi people? The tally of documented civilian deaths is approaching 90,000. The number of casualties is probably five to ten times that number. Between two and four million Iraqis have been displaced. Countless millions have been psychologically traumatized in Iraq, and an entire generation has been denied the progress and prosperity the war has delayed or destroyed.

Consider those human costs, and the real reason for the invasion takes on a truly questionable character.

The real reason for the invasion was to establish a front on which to fight al Qaeda and jihadism far from our own shores. President Bush has said as much, with hardly a ripple of reaction: “We will fight the terrorists overseas so we do not have to face them here at home.” We lost 3000 people on 9/11 when a conspiracy planned and executed by mostly Saudis operating in Afghanistan pierced our homeland. Now Iraq has lost 90,000+ and has been set back decades in its development while Bush literally kisses the cheeks and holds the hands of the Saudis, who, along with Exxon and friends, enjoy unprecedented profitability.

Wouldn’t it have made more sense to put even a fraction of the resources we’ve expended in Iraq into Afghanistan, where the Taliban is making a comeback, instead? Deposing Saddam was a noble and desirable goal; wiping out the entire Baath Party infrastructure was neither justified nor desirable, however, unless the real goal was to create anarchy for an extended period during which al Qaeda and its allied jihadists could be fought in a place of our choosing.

We chose Iraq as our battlefield, not as our enemy.

Meanwhile, we’ve suffered 4000 deaths and 40,000 serious injuries, and Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz has estimated the eventual monetary cost of the war at three trillion dollars.

Can any reasonable person justify that kind of disproportionate and wrongly-targeted response?

One man who continues to call Iraq a just war is George Bush, whose ill-conceived and reckless use of force had at least one silver lining: the president, absent from combat when he had the chance, got to land a real live fighter jet onboard a real live aircraft carrier.

Mission accomplished, sir. That was one expensive photo op.

Newsprism

Related news satire at Timeless News

Note: This is not advocating withdrawal from Iraq. I’ve written about the conundrum that makes this war such a profound tragedy: it was immoral to invade in the first place, but it would be at least as immoral to withdraw before a stable Iraq emerges, which might be never.

Bottom Line—A Cool Trillion

The figures below were downloaded from USASpending.gov, the federal government’s official budget web site/scandal sheet.

USASpending.gov was mandated by the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act. When President Bush signed the act, he said:

This bill is going to create a website that will list the federal government’s grants and contracts. It’s going to be a website that the average citizen can access and use. It will allow Americans to log onto the Internet just to see how your money is being spent. This bill will increase accountability and reduce incentives for wasteful spending.

Lovely. Now we know what we’re getting for our $3,000,000,000,000.00 federal budget. For one thing, we get a website that tells us we just spent $3,000,000,000,000.00!

In 2000, the last year under Clinton, the government spent $1.81 trillion. The bottom line during the Bush administration looks like this (in trillions of dollars):

2001: $2.03   2002: $2.28   2003: $2.52   2004: $2.52

2005: $2.6   2006: 2.87   2007: TBA   2008: TBA

The federal budget for 2007 hasn’t been calculated yet. If we didn’t hit the $3 trillion dollar mark last year, we’ll hit it this year. That means that as we near the end of the Bush administration, this President and this Congress have increased the size of government by more than 33%–an increase of a trillion dollars this year alone.

At this rate, during fiscal years 2001-2009, the federal government will have grown by about SIX TRILLION DOLLARS.

And the Democrats are proposing more and larger government programs?

Who do they think they are? George Bush?

Newsprism

Quotes That Will Live in Infamy

Speaking of a certain country’s military operations in Iraq, an infamous world leader said this:

“(They) need to move, move quickly, achieve their objective and get out.”

Meanwhile, another infamous world leader had this to say regarding the presence of foreigners in Iraq: 

“This is the wish of regional nations, that is the withdrawal of foreigners…”

As his occupation of Iraq nears its sixth year, it was President George Bush advising Turkey, which had moved into northern Iraq to confront Kurdish rebels, to “move quickly, achieve (your) objective, and get out.” Good advice, that; it sounds just like Colin Powell’s advice to both Presidents Bush, only one of whom followed the Powell Doctrine.

During a state visit to Iraq, where Iran has a substantial overt and covert presence, it was Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who called for “the withdrawal of foreigners” from Iraq. Pot, meet kettle.

And that, as Paul Harvey would say, is the rest of the story…

Newsprism

Lessons Learned from Presidents Past

Is George Bush’s surge in Iraq working? Is the Iraq War winnable? Should we have invaded Iraq in the first place?

In columns published in The Washington Post last week, liberal Michael Kinsley and conservative Charles Krauthammer paint very different pictures of the situation in Iraq. Kinsley’s “Defining Victory Downward” states it bluntly: the surge has not succeeded in achieving its stated goals, and the ill-conceived war is winnable only if you define winning in the most generous of terms. Krauthammer’s “Democrats Dug In For Retreat” is just as blunt: the surge is the centerpiece of considerable progress in Iraq, where the US can achieve crucial foreign policy goals if only liberal Democrats like Kinsley don’t succeed in derailing that progress.

Somewhere between Kinsley and Krauthammer lies the truth, and the tragedy, of this war. Kinsley and the left are correct in believing we never should have invaded Iraq; Krauthammer and the right are correct in believing we can and must win there.

Invading Iraq has led to hundreds of thousands of casualties, millions of refugees, an empowered Iran, a destabilized Middle East, a discredited America, and an inflamed Muslim world more prone to extremism. But leaving Iraq prematurely would be at least as disastrous, and immoral, as invading prematurely was: more casualties, more refugees, greater Iranian influence, a more destabilized region, and a discredited America even more vulnerable to terrorism.

George Bush combines the worst attributes of two presidents with global ambitions, namely, the humanist idealism of Woodrow Wilson and the nationalist bellicosity of Teddy Roosevelt.

If only President Bush’s world-changing ambitions had been tempered by realism and humility.

When leaving office, two more presidents made clear what their experience in the office had taught them. George Washington warned against foreign entanglements, and Thomas Jefferson against unseemly concentrations of power in the hands of one man.

Newsprism.com

Is Warrantless Wiretapping Warranted?

Congress and the White House are engaged in an ongoing struggle over the Executive Branch’s authority to perform surveillance without a search warrant. At stake: the Fourth Amendment and separation of powers on the one hand, and national security on the other.

Federal judges have already ruled warrantless wiretapping unconstitutional, though the case has yet to reach the Supreme Court, which has thus far refused to hear lawsuits challenging the wiretaps.

Congress allowed Bush’s wiretap program to go forward on a temporary basis last year, but that loophole has now lapsed, leading to the current showdown.

There is precedent for suspending Constitutional rights during time of war: President Roosevelt interned tens of thousands of Japanese Americans during World War II, and President Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War, for example. President Bush has suspended habeas corpus and imprisoned American citizens indefinitely without benefit of counsel–which leads to a crucial question:

Is the War on Terror analogous to WWII or the Civil War?

Of course not. Compare the death tolls: 7431 and counting in the War on Terror, over 400,000 in WWII, over 600,000 in the Civil War. Compare the stakes: the possibility of occasional attacks on American targets vs. world domination by totalitarian dictators vs. the sundering of the American nation. Compare the enemy: a loosely organized band of radical jihadists vs. Axis Powers controlling huge swaths of Europe, Asia, North Africa and the Pacific vs. a determined Confederacy led by Robert E. Lee, a military genius rivaling Napoleon and Alexander.

The president has used the 9/11 attacks to take power from Congress, the courts, and the people. He already has an adequately cooperative Congress, a sympathetic Supreme Court, and the tools–including FISA–to protect us without weakening the Constitution or our civil liberties.

The Bill of Rights couldn’t be more clear:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

The FISA Court already gives the president the authority to delay getting a warrant for three days and to hold court in secret. He’s already suspended habeas corpus, circumvented the Geneva Conventions, signed hundreds of signing statements undermining the separation of powers, and invaded Iraq without a declaration of war.

Are warrantless wiretaps warranted?

Hardly.

Newsprism.com