Waterboarding and the GOP base

Scott Horton is absolutely right about McCain’s answer to waterboarding vs. Romneys:


The moral clarity and vision of McCain’s answer was perfectly balanced by the bankruptcy of Romney’s.

But, there’s a big problem with that. Apparently, “moral clarity” doesn’t sit well with the Republican base.

"democracy" in action - or maybe not

I Al-Maliki Negotiates a Treaty with US and no one knows whether he’ll even submit this “treaty” to the Iraqi parliament for a vote.

And Bush, who doesn’t call it a “treaty” so he therefore doesn’t have to submit it to Congress for a vote, has now, or so he thinks, established permanent bases in Iraq forever.

So even those the vast majorities of both countries are against this deal, neither population has a damn thing to say about it. That’s “democracy” for ya? Right.

The "sickest" play ever

One of the sickest statements (which hasn’t received a lot of attention) is from Rudy’s advisor Mr. Podhoretz:

“My view has been, and I very much doubt that Giuliani would disagree with what I am about to say, what we are doing is to try and clear the ground that has been covered over at least since WWI,” he said. “Draining the swamps is the beginning of the process of clearing the ground, and planting the seeds from which institutions can grow the foundations of a free society.”

In the context of a broader, longer war that he expects will take at least three decades to win, the casualties that the United States has so far endured are “miniscule.” He says that fretting about whether to attack Iran sends only a message of weakness to the combined Shiite and Sunni enemies in the Middle East. And, like Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Podhoretz thinks that the creation of an independent Palestinian state would now only create another terrorist state.

Instead, America should be working to overthrow governments in Saudi Arabia, Syria and Egypt and “every one of the despotic regimes in that region, by force if necessary and by nonmilitary means if possible,” he said. “They are fronts of the war. You can’t do everything at once. And to have toppled two of those regimes in five years or six years is I think a major achievement. And maybe George Bush won’t be able to carry it further, but I think he will. It may have just been given to him to start act one of the five-act play.”

I really find myself unable to say anything after that quote. It’s that sick. War against everybody but Israel? Comparing genocide to a "five act" play?

Smelling "Victory" at Fox News - and yes, it stinks

Military Expert Stephen Biddle's Best Case:

“…if everything goes right and if the US continues to "hit the lottery" with the spread of local ceasefires and none of a dozen different spoilers happens, then a patchwork of local ceasefires between heavily armed, mistrustful communities could possibly hold if and only if the US keeps 80,000-100,000 troops in Iraq for the next twenty to thirty years. And that's the best case scenario of one of the current strategy's smartest supporters. Man.”

So does that smell like “winning” is the stench of “victory” in the air?

Brit Hume thinks so.

“In terms of violence is down, troops are coming out, war’s winding down. Isn’t that victory on your terms?”

So, while Fox News unfurls the “Mission Accomplished” banners yet again, here’s a small dose of reality:

In reality, the return to pre-surge troop levels has more to do with the fact that the Army is overstretched then it has to do with any sort of progress on the ground. Just this week, Army Chief of Staff General George Casey told the Senate Armed Forces Committee that the current demand for our forces exceeds the sustainable supply because of Bush’s open-ended commitment in Iraq.

Yet another pre-mature call by pro-war supporters.

Surrounded - the role of the Village Press

Digby has some good advice for Democrats that should be clear to everyone now:

The Democratic campaigns need to remember that they are battling not only the Republicans but the entire Village press.

Glenn Greenwald’s takedown of Freidman, Dowd, and Kagan/O’Hanlon yesterday shows just how true that is, as well as that a good chunk of the NYT editorial page is also in the hands of the Village Press as well.

Mitt forced into extremism

Yes as Matt says, Mitt Romney “could have tried to run as a political heir to George Romney on the basis of his record in Massachusetts, as a moderate technocrat. But he decided to try to remake himself as the Christian Right candidate..” but what Matt doesn’t say is that without remaking himself as an extremist he’d never make it through the GOP primary.

There is no room in the modern GOP for a moderate. Romney, who could have easily run as one with his record, recognized that and therefore pretends his record doesn’t exist.

A sad commentary on today’s GOP.

Why I lost the "debate" last night

This comment from Matt Yglesias sort of explains why, as a political junkie, I don’t find these debates either interesting, or informative.

“As ever, it's really striking to observe the difference between the audience-generated questions and the journalist-generated questions. Wolf Blitzer's main interest is in asking questions designed to put Democrats on the wrong side of public opinion, even if those questions are about things like driver's licenses or "merit pay" for teachers that aren't really under federal purview. Efforts to reframe those questions by putting those topics in the larger context of immigration policy more generally or education more generally are derided as cowardly dodges. The point, after all, is to force a choice -- piss off an interest group, or say something that could be used in a GOP attack ad.”

It’s all about making the moderator look good, not to find out where the candidates stand on the issues. If that happens, and it sometimes does, it is just coincidence, not a function of the debate format that we’ve become accustomed to. The same thing is true of Tim Russert’s “gotcha” shtick – it’s gotten old and boring, and it doesn’t make anyone look good – especially Tim.

Norman Mailer on Losing Democracy

Two days after Norman Mailer died, I came across this article from 4 years earlier. It was, almost eerily, prescient.


Gaining an Empire, Losing Democracy?
by Norman Mailer

LOS ANGELES -- There is a subtext to what the Bushites are doing as they prepare for war in Iraq. My hypothesis is that President George W. Bush and many conservatives have come to the conclusion that the only way they can save America and get if off its present downslope is to become a regime with a greater military presence and drive toward empire. My fear is that Americans might lose their democracy in the process.

By downslope I'm referring not only to the corporate scandals, the church scandals and the FBI scandals. The country has gone kind of crazy in the eyes of conservatives. Also, kids can't read anymore. Especially for conservatives, the culture has become too sexual.

Iraq is the excuse for moving in an imperial direction. War with Iraq, as they originally conceived it, would be a quick, dramatic step that would enable them to control the Near East as a powerful base - not least because of the oil there, as well as the water supplies from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers - to build a world empire.

The Bushites also expect to bring democracy to the region and believe that in itself will help to diminish terrorism. But I expect the opposite will happen: terrorists are not impressed by democracy. They loathe it. They are fundamentalists of the most basic kind. The more successful democracy is in the Near East - not likely in my view - the more terrorism it will generate.

The only outstanding obstacle to the drive toward empire in the Bushites' minds is China. Indeed, one of the great fears in the Bush administration about America's downslope is that the "stem studies" such as science, technology and engineering are all faring poorly in U.S. universities. The number of American doctorates is going down and down. But the number of Asians obtaining doctorates in those same stem studies are increasing at a great rate.

Looking 20 years ahead, the administration perceives that there will come a time when China will have technology superior to America's. When that time comes, America might well say to China that "we can work together," we will be as the Romans to you Greeks. You will be our extraordinary, well-cultivated slaves. But don't try to dominate us. That would be your disaster. This is the scenario that some of the brightest neoconservatives are thinking about. (I use Rome as a metaphor, because metaphors are usually much closer to the truth than facts).

What has happened, of course, is that the Bushites have run into much more opposition than they thought they would from other countries and among the home population. It may well end up that we won't have a war, but a new strategy to contain Iraq and wear Saddam down. If that occurs, Bush is in terrible trouble.

My guess though, is that, like it or not, want it or not, America is going to go to war because that is the only solution Bush and his people can see.

The dire prospect that opens, therefore, is that America is going to become a mega-banana republic where the army will have more and more importance in Americans' lives. It will be an ever greater and greater overlay on the American system. And before it is all over, democracy, noble and delicate as it is, may give way. My long experience with human nature - I'm 80 years old now - suggests that it is possible that fascism, not democracy, is the natural state.

Indeed, democracy is the special condition - a condition we will be called upon to defend in the coming years. That will be enormously difficult because the combination of the corporation, the military and the complete investiture of the flag with mass spectator sports has set up a pre-fascistic atmosphere in America already.

Norman Mailer's latest book is "The Spooky Art: Some Thoughts on Writing." This comment was adapted from remarks Feb. 22 to the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities and distributed by Global Viewpoint/Tribune Media Services International.

Copyright © 2003 the International Herald Tribune Published on Tuesday, February 25, 2003 by the International Herald Tribune