I was out of it yesterday, not that I'm exactly plugged into the news or anything, but when the alarm went off this morning I heard Ray Suarez say Scott McClellan had criticized John Murtha for "endorsing the policy positions of Michael Moore"(?) Did I hear that right? "Michael Moore is fat" is now the official level of discourse from The Greatest Nation on Earth? Really?
Or is this the start of a whole new rhetorical trend? "We can't allow this issue to become mired in the sticky sentimentality of a Taylor Hackford"? "The times call for start contrast, not the lambent prissiness of a Merchant-Ivory"? "The French position may look attractive, but we don't think Americans will have any patience for this mise-en-scene shit"? Is it time to fire back that Murtha has displayed Gregg Toland-esque depth of focus, or that he's breathed new life into the moribund war drama genre?
Or how 'bout this: Scotty, you're box office poison, sweetheart. Maybe what you guys need is to check out the view from the top of the HOLLYWOOD sign.
Friday, November 18
Ephemera
OK, I just emerged from my day-long coma (see explanation below) and everybody's jumping on Amy Anderson, whoever she is, for this (Atrios via Roger Ailes). The suggestion that they do it for free seems to have offended a few blogger sensibilities almost as much as the contention that Kos is white.
Now, as you may recall, I'm not exactly overwhelmed by blogtopia aggrandizement, and if you catch me in a bad mood I'm liable to toss a "Glen Reynolds--now there's a successful blogger," or "How 'bout that revolutionary All-Star Blogger Convention coverage, eh?" at you. But today I'm just tickled, but not as much as I was by Amy herself:
Because, one, it's certain she's never read what such ephemera can be in the hands of Chris Clarke or Michael Bérubé, e.g., and two, she seems to have an odd blind spot over just how much mindlessness is perpetrated by important, that is to say, paid journalists, despite the fact that the empty calories of Missing White Girl of the Week and Tom Cruise Watch make up such a high percentage of the National diet. It's just a guess, but I'd bet the Enquirer has a greater circulation than Dissent and Commentary combined (which would make them Dissentary, if I may steal the best gag Woody ever wrote). And I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Rita "Howlin' Wolf" Cosby outearns James "James Wilcox" Wolcott.
That the worldview of the terminal journalistic careerist is impervious to any assault from self-reflection doesn't surprise me anymore; I remember catching a panel discussion retrospective on the 2000 election coverage, which included "Dean" Broder and "Steno Sue" Schmidt, giving themselves high marks for their work. I mean, Corporate Medicine, Inc., spends a lot of time going after midwives and chiropractors and herbal remedies, but they manage to examine their own practices from time to time, don't they?
Now, as you may recall, I'm not exactly overwhelmed by blogtopia aggrandizement, and if you catch me in a bad mood I'm liable to toss a "Glen Reynolds--now there's a successful blogger," or "How 'bout that revolutionary All-Star Blogger Convention coverage, eh?" at you. But today I'm just tickled, but not as much as I was by Amy herself:
Then there is the amount of space that many bloggers spend on minutiae. Who cares where they went over the weekend or how their children did in the science fair and what movies they saw? I mean, if I don't have the time and patience to read such ephemera, I suspect that you don't, either.
Because, one, it's certain she's never read what such ephemera can be in the hands of Chris Clarke or Michael Bérubé, e.g., and two, she seems to have an odd blind spot over just how much mindlessness is perpetrated by important, that is to say, paid journalists, despite the fact that the empty calories of Missing White Girl of the Week and Tom Cruise Watch make up such a high percentage of the National diet. It's just a guess, but I'd bet the Enquirer has a greater circulation than Dissent and Commentary combined (which would make them Dissentary, if I may steal the best gag Woody ever wrote). And I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Rita "Howlin' Wolf" Cosby outearns James "James Wilcox" Wolcott.
That the worldview of the terminal journalistic careerist is impervious to any assault from self-reflection doesn't surprise me anymore; I remember catching a panel discussion retrospective on the 2000 election coverage, which included "Dean" Broder and "Steno Sue" Schmidt, giving themselves high marks for their work. I mean, Corporate Medicine, Inc., spends a lot of time going after midwives and chiropractors and herbal remedies, but they manage to examine their own practices from time to time, don't they?
Health Care Makes Me Sick
After opening day of the Upper Respiratory Distress Season I intended to write about how Ah-nuld was fulla shit and nurses deserved twice what they make minimum, and how, if the experience went on much longer I planned to write about my admiration for the famous scene in Kiss of Death were Richard Widmark pushes a wheelchair-bound woman down a flight of stairs. Which was a joke, mostly.
But then at 3AM Thursday morning, just I as was finally putting down the guitar and heading for bed there was a large commotion upstairs. My Poor Wife, who'd been sleeping, if somewhat fitfully, was up and having trouble breathing or standing. There's a procedure to be followed, or maybe it's a game to be played, under these circumstances. I have to ask her what she wants to do. She will not say, "Get me to a doctor." I have to coax it out of her being careful not to slight my known aversion to the medical profession. "Would some broth help? Do you want some steam?" Finally it's decided we need to go to MedCheck. Yes, dear, I know the one closest to us is closed. That is, shuttered; both the nearest and second nearest 24-hour doctor shops have shut down in the last three years. Still, there's one a couple miles away. Start the car. It's decided to turn cold, and it's around 20º with a 15-mile-an-hour wind. Get her bundled up and half-carry her to the car. I didn't take the time to call the place, so of course we get there to find it closed at 11.
Not a big deal, because it's on the way to the hospital. Now, I've spent enough time in emergency rooms to dread them, but it's cold and a good hour after the bars closed and we're on the city's Preferred North Side, so it's all but deserted and there's even a place to park for free, although it's still a block and a half from the door. Got her through admissions and into a room. She was feeling slightly better at this point, because it's the panoply of modern science as much as the care she craves. My opinion, anyway. And people were coming in and out and listening to her lungs and playing Twenty Questions and making one of the machines on the wall spit out oxygen; I meant to ask if it could get me a Scotch, neat, but I forgot. I was doing my usual health care patter; the doctors seem to enjoy it and I like to take 'em out of their routine and see what happens. Plus, my wife and I have been together nearly thirty years now, and we've got the Bickersons routine down so well we sometimes convulse total strangers in stores. Only she wasn't really up to playing much, so it was mostly a monologue.
Now somebody else comes in and listens to her, and they wheel her out for chest x-rays, and I get to concentrate on just how fucking uncomfortable I am. The teevee is playing a Lakers game I already know the result of, and it's up in the corner for the benefit of the bedridden, so it kills your neck just to look at it. And I'm sitting on a plastic chair which is the most uncomfortable thing I've even sat in. Ever. It's a Catholic hospital and my speculation is the things are made by a community of Flagellants. They bring her back. Time passes. I managed to grab a copy of Montaigne's Essays off my nightstand but I'm so sleepy the text just keeps floating around. Doctor comes back after reading the X-rays. No pneumonia, so they make the thing on the wall spit out some vapor concoction. It's like a Dremel Moto-tool for hospitals. Five minutes of this, then some time for her heart rate to return to normal, then another listen. No go. We're going to have to give you the long version.
The hour-long version.
And this In-a-Gadda-da-Vida of pharmacology sends the heart rate to the moon, so by now I'm sitting on this hair-shirt of a stool of theirs with my neck cocked at an unnatural angle watching the sunrise on the local morning shows I'd be screaming about except the speaker is over by my wife's bedside so I can't hear the inanities. What I can hear, clearly, is the woman on the morning shift at the nurses station who is counted among the masses who believe that "goes" is synonymous with "said". "She goes" this, then "He goes" that, probably fifteen times. I have a headache, a neck cramp, an imputed rash on my butt, and a throbbing pain from plantar fasciitis. I'd ask for an aspirin, except I'm sure it'd wind up on the bill for $40.
I amused myself by duplicating the hand gestures the "reporters" made; I highly recommend it if you find yourself in similar circumstances. Finally they check back, but she still doesn't sound good enough, so it's one more shot before they admit her. Five more minutes--this time the tech tells her to breathe deeply, which they haven't mentioned before. I'm thinking of seeing if I can figure out how to make the Dremel spit out morphine, but there's always someone around. I start pacing. There's room for three of 'em before I turn around. Now we're into what used to be called the morning news programs but now consist of interviews with idiots who line up on the street to say Hi to the Folks Back Home, plus a very special in-the-studio performance by Carlos Santana with Michelle Branch, who left her voice with her producer somewhere.
I'm trying, really, to be solicitous of my poor sick wife but I'm about to ask to be admitted myself. It obviously showed on my face since a nice employee caught my mug as I was taking the three steps toward the door and asked if he could get me a coffee or anything. He was probably surprised to learn later that my wife had finally been released, since my scowl must have suggested terminal cancer to him.
But then at 3AM Thursday morning, just I as was finally putting down the guitar and heading for bed there was a large commotion upstairs. My Poor Wife, who'd been sleeping, if somewhat fitfully, was up and having trouble breathing or standing. There's a procedure to be followed, or maybe it's a game to be played, under these circumstances. I have to ask her what she wants to do. She will not say, "Get me to a doctor." I have to coax it out of her being careful not to slight my known aversion to the medical profession. "Would some broth help? Do you want some steam?" Finally it's decided we need to go to MedCheck. Yes, dear, I know the one closest to us is closed. That is, shuttered; both the nearest and second nearest 24-hour doctor shops have shut down in the last three years. Still, there's one a couple miles away. Start the car. It's decided to turn cold, and it's around 20º with a 15-mile-an-hour wind. Get her bundled up and half-carry her to the car. I didn't take the time to call the place, so of course we get there to find it closed at 11.
Not a big deal, because it's on the way to the hospital. Now, I've spent enough time in emergency rooms to dread them, but it's cold and a good hour after the bars closed and we're on the city's Preferred North Side, so it's all but deserted and there's even a place to park for free, although it's still a block and a half from the door. Got her through admissions and into a room. She was feeling slightly better at this point, because it's the panoply of modern science as much as the care she craves. My opinion, anyway. And people were coming in and out and listening to her lungs and playing Twenty Questions and making one of the machines on the wall spit out oxygen; I meant to ask if it could get me a Scotch, neat, but I forgot. I was doing my usual health care patter; the doctors seem to enjoy it and I like to take 'em out of their routine and see what happens. Plus, my wife and I have been together nearly thirty years now, and we've got the Bickersons routine down so well we sometimes convulse total strangers in stores. Only she wasn't really up to playing much, so it was mostly a monologue.
Now somebody else comes in and listens to her, and they wheel her out for chest x-rays, and I get to concentrate on just how fucking uncomfortable I am. The teevee is playing a Lakers game I already know the result of, and it's up in the corner for the benefit of the bedridden, so it kills your neck just to look at it. And I'm sitting on a plastic chair which is the most uncomfortable thing I've even sat in. Ever. It's a Catholic hospital and my speculation is the things are made by a community of Flagellants. They bring her back. Time passes. I managed to grab a copy of Montaigne's Essays off my nightstand but I'm so sleepy the text just keeps floating around. Doctor comes back after reading the X-rays. No pneumonia, so they make the thing on the wall spit out some vapor concoction. It's like a Dremel Moto-tool for hospitals. Five minutes of this, then some time for her heart rate to return to normal, then another listen. No go. We're going to have to give you the long version.
The hour-long version.
And this In-a-Gadda-da-Vida of pharmacology sends the heart rate to the moon, so by now I'm sitting on this hair-shirt of a stool of theirs with my neck cocked at an unnatural angle watching the sunrise on the local morning shows I'd be screaming about except the speaker is over by my wife's bedside so I can't hear the inanities. What I can hear, clearly, is the woman on the morning shift at the nurses station who is counted among the masses who believe that "goes" is synonymous with "said". "She goes" this, then "He goes" that, probably fifteen times. I have a headache, a neck cramp, an imputed rash on my butt, and a throbbing pain from plantar fasciitis. I'd ask for an aspirin, except I'm sure it'd wind up on the bill for $40.
I amused myself by duplicating the hand gestures the "reporters" made; I highly recommend it if you find yourself in similar circumstances. Finally they check back, but she still doesn't sound good enough, so it's one more shot before they admit her. Five more minutes--this time the tech tells her to breathe deeply, which they haven't mentioned before. I'm thinking of seeing if I can figure out how to make the Dremel spit out morphine, but there's always someone around. I start pacing. There's room for three of 'em before I turn around. Now we're into what used to be called the morning news programs but now consist of interviews with idiots who line up on the street to say Hi to the Folks Back Home, plus a very special in-the-studio performance by Carlos Santana with Michelle Branch, who left her voice with her producer somewhere.
I'm trying, really, to be solicitous of my poor sick wife but I'm about to ask to be admitted myself. It obviously showed on my face since a nice employee caught my mug as I was taking the three steps toward the door and asked if he could get me a coffee or anything. He was probably surprised to learn later that my wife had finally been released, since my scowl must have suggested terminal cancer to him.
Thursday, November 17
Cue Carnac the Magnificent
Slate asks: What's the most influential book you read in college?
David Brooks, columnist, the New York Times
This is going to sound awfully pompous (but hey, I went to the University of Chicago), but the two most important books I read in college were Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France and Hobbes' Leviathan . I loathed both books at first reading, but they both explained how little we can rationally know about the world around us and how much we have to rely on habits, traditions, and intuition. I've been exemplifying our ignorance on a daily basis ever since.
Har, har, har. Really. Is there a center to David Brooks at all? Jeez Louise, if you asked me that question when I was in my mid-twenties I might have apologized for sounding pompous. In middle age I realize that everything I did back then was pompous. You're supposed to be discovering new intellectual continents in college, unless you're just there hoping to add to the world's sum total of knowledge in marketing techniques. If it sounds so pompous now to say it changed your world then, what are we supposed to make of that column a couple months back that insisted on "Conservative" intellectual superiority because y'all sit around discussing Burke and Hobbes on weekends?
And David, really, if you're gonna try the self-deprecation schtick, do it as an aside. This isn't the first time you've erected a twenty-five foot billboard reading "DAVID BROOKS IS DISARMINGLY MODEST".
David Brooks, columnist, the New York TimesThis is going to sound awfully pompous (but hey, I went to the University of Chicago), but the two most important books I read in college were Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France and Hobbes' Leviathan . I loathed both books at first reading, but they both explained how little we can rationally know about the world around us and how much we have to rely on habits, traditions, and intuition. I've been exemplifying our ignorance on a daily basis ever since.
Har, har, har. Really. Is there a center to David Brooks at all? Jeez Louise, if you asked me that question when I was in my mid-twenties I might have apologized for sounding pompous. In middle age I realize that everything I did back then was pompous. You're supposed to be discovering new intellectual continents in college, unless you're just there hoping to add to the world's sum total of knowledge in marketing techniques. If it sounds so pompous now to say it changed your world then, what are we supposed to make of that column a couple months back that insisted on "Conservative" intellectual superiority because y'all sit around discussing Burke and Hobbes on weekends?
And David, really, if you're gonna try the self-deprecation schtick, do it as an aside. This isn't the first time you've erected a twenty-five foot billboard reading "DAVID BROOKS IS DISARMINGLY MODEST".
Mr. Run Amok
Funny how the mind works. Because of my nursing duties it wasn't until this evening that I heard about Bob Woodward getting caught in FItzgerald's net (note to NY Times, NBC, et. al.: let's call it for what happened, or what we found out about, today. What this does or doesn't do to the case against Libby is speculation. What Libby's laywers say about the news is a response. The story today is that Bob Woodward, media hotshot and a managing editor of the Washington Post, sat on his story for two years. Bob Woodward, Press Titan, spent two years trying to duck a subpoena while he used his journalistic standing to slag Patrick Fitzgerald and agitate for a Federal shield law). And the first thing I thought about was three or four years ago when Howie Kurtz conducted a reader poll on media bias and allowed he was shocked, shocked! to learn that some readers imagined there was a right-wing tilt to the press when everybody knew it learned so far left it needed corrective shoes.
And here the stinkiest chunk of Limburger at his own cheese shop was a Bush administration stenographer. (Your winnings, sir.)
In fairness, Howie wrote the "Woodward Apologizes" piece and it was a quotefest about his journalistic ethics. Meaning their lack. One can only hope it signals the beginning of a staff-wide attack of conscience like they had at the Times.
A couple things are now quite clear, and all the jibber-jabber about "how this affects the case" aren't going to make them disappear. There's no justification for a Federal shield law (the Soviet-Heroic "Free Flow of Information Act of 2005", cosponsored by Indiana's non-narcotic sleep aid and "respected foreign affairs authority" Senator Dick Lugar, and 6th District Congressman Mike Pence, about whom I can't say too little) when the Press cannot be trusted not to abuse the privilege it already enjoys. That thing now looks like the "Guaranteed Sobriety and Save Driving Habits of Bush Family Children Act".
The other is that WaPo, and the Times, are going to have to find a way to face up to their actions, and I suggest a race to see who can tell the truth first about the hunting of Bill Clinton from 1992 onward as a nice springboard into the Bush years. Otherwise, as I think we all know, this Pajamas Media thing is gonna eat both their lunches.
And here the stinkiest chunk of Limburger at his own cheese shop was a Bush administration stenographer. (Your winnings, sir.)
In fairness, Howie wrote the "Woodward Apologizes" piece and it was a quotefest about his journalistic ethics. Meaning their lack. One can only hope it signals the beginning of a staff-wide attack of conscience like they had at the Times.
A couple things are now quite clear, and all the jibber-jabber about "how this affects the case" aren't going to make them disappear. There's no justification for a Federal shield law (the Soviet-Heroic "Free Flow of Information Act of 2005", cosponsored by Indiana's non-narcotic sleep aid and "respected foreign affairs authority" Senator Dick Lugar, and 6th District Congressman Mike Pence, about whom I can't say too little) when the Press cannot be trusted not to abuse the privilege it already enjoys. That thing now looks like the "Guaranteed Sobriety and Save Driving Habits of Bush Family Children Act".
The other is that WaPo, and the Times, are going to have to find a way to face up to their actions, and I suggest a race to see who can tell the truth first about the hunting of Bill Clinton from 1992 onward as a nice springboard into the Bush years. Otherwise, as I think we all know, this Pajamas Media thing is gonna eat both their lunches.
Wednesday, November 16
Shut The Fuck Up
Via the remarkable Fact-esque, this from Stephen Hadley:
And what if Superman had worked for the Nazis? God, I love this game.
Here's what I don't get: this sort of shit would be laughed out of a Freshman-year logic class, but at the highest reaches of the US government it goes unchallenged. Show your work, Mr. Hadley...how have we "gotten" one of the hijackers? Speeding While Arab? Alleged throat-slashing gesture aimed at hysterical suburban airline passenger? That's enough to bring out the brass knuckles and the crank telephone, just to see if we can come up with anything interesting?
Or the alternative: we get wind of nefarious activities. What do we need torture for? Any information gained from torture is suspect, and you've already got some sort of lead, presumably even enough for the pre-9/11 Bush administration to take some action. You're either in possession of some solid evidence, or you're advocating wanton torture, which I think even a die-hard sports fan like yourself, Mr. Hadley, will admit has a few drawbacks.
All right, for the sake of argument, let's do the Full Cheney. You've "gotten" your suspect, and you know he's planted a mythical suitcase bomb which will take out a major American city in 24 hours. He won't talk. The clock is ticking. So fucking torture him already if that's going to save the world. Just shut up about it. Law or no law, who's going to complain?
This has nothing whatsoever to do with sanctioning torture as an instrument of the US government or its third-party S&M chums. Licensed torture isn't going to be employed only in your Doomsday scenario. It's going to be employed routinely, to extract mundane information or to break up an otherwise boring day. War is hell. Motherfucking awful things happen in a war which no sane person would wish on anybody. In the wholly unlikely event of someone in the field being faced with this Hollywood plotline of yours, he'd do what had to be done. He'd do it just to save the lives of a few of his comrades. But the least that a civilized world demands, if it's not too late for that, is that he'd be praying to God he was right.
Surely there's someone sitting in Mr. Hadley's audience with a laptop. Surely there's someone who can google up a pic of Lynndie Englund and say, "Here, sir, is this the world we need to save?"
But ... you see the dilemma. What happens if on September 7th of 2001, we had gotten one of the hijackers and based on information associated with that arrest, believed that within four days, there's going to be a devastating attack on the United States...
And what if Superman had worked for the Nazis? God, I love this game.
Here's what I don't get: this sort of shit would be laughed out of a Freshman-year logic class, but at the highest reaches of the US government it goes unchallenged. Show your work, Mr. Hadley...how have we "gotten" one of the hijackers? Speeding While Arab? Alleged throat-slashing gesture aimed at hysterical suburban airline passenger? That's enough to bring out the brass knuckles and the crank telephone, just to see if we can come up with anything interesting?
Or the alternative: we get wind of nefarious activities. What do we need torture for? Any information gained from torture is suspect, and you've already got some sort of lead, presumably even enough for the pre-9/11 Bush administration to take some action. You're either in possession of some solid evidence, or you're advocating wanton torture, which I think even a die-hard sports fan like yourself, Mr. Hadley, will admit has a few drawbacks.
All right, for the sake of argument, let's do the Full Cheney. You've "gotten" your suspect, and you know he's planted a mythical suitcase bomb which will take out a major American city in 24 hours. He won't talk. The clock is ticking. So fucking torture him already if that's going to save the world. Just shut up about it. Law or no law, who's going to complain?
This has nothing whatsoever to do with sanctioning torture as an instrument of the US government or its third-party S&M chums. Licensed torture isn't going to be employed only in your Doomsday scenario. It's going to be employed routinely, to extract mundane information or to break up an otherwise boring day. War is hell. Motherfucking awful things happen in a war which no sane person would wish on anybody. In the wholly unlikely event of someone in the field being faced with this Hollywood plotline of yours, he'd do what had to be done. He'd do it just to save the lives of a few of his comrades. But the least that a civilized world demands, if it's not too late for that, is that he'd be praying to God he was right.
Surely there's someone sitting in Mr. Hadley's audience with a laptop. Surely there's someone who can google up a pic of Lynndie Englund and say, "Here, sir, is this the world we need to save?"
Grab Bag
Indianapolis Star photo by Matt Detrich.
I had just finished dinner with my Poor Wife (who yesterday brought home the annual High School Student Walking Petri Dish Death Germs cold she gets every year--the warm weather this year has delayed it from its usual end-of-September starting date) when there was a loud boom and an intense, magnesium flash and the lights flickered once and went out. I went into the kitchen to grab a flashlight and there was another flash, kinda brown at the edges.
We in Hoosierland went another round yesterday with what the teevee weather hairdos like to call Possible Tornadic Activity. All we'd gotten here was some high wind activity and a couple of precipitation events, but that had passed already. I got a couple more flashlights going and went outside, and just across the property line was a large sycamore limb on the power line burning like a Yule log. I ran over to the neighbors', not sure if they were home, but they were busy grabbing their own flashlights. They'd been outside when it happened and were still purblind from the flashes. The branch was throwing off sparks like crazy in the wind, but everything was too wet to burn, and power, and modern life, was restored in thirty minutes.
Not so my notes for today's posts, so just imagine they are funnier.
The bloggy goodness that is Corndog featured some exorbitant praise for a comment I'd left there. Ordinarily this sort of thing embarrasses the hell out of me, and this is no exception, but since I really have to make every idea count I would like to mention my fondness for the idea that the Bee Gees squandering of their harmonic talents was like Bach writing strictly for the accordian. Even if it was my idea. I'd like to teach the World to simile. Shut up.
And at the risk of causing the ever-delightful Julia any more respiratory distress, I was driving home this afternoon and the story of a gag popped into my head. I don't remember the comic's name, but I'd recognize his face if that helps any. It's a bit about a blind skydiver, and the punchline is, "Did you ever hear a German shepherd scream at 20,000 feet?" And then he explains that he originally told the joke as, "Did you ever hear a dog..." and nobody got it. And he's right, in a way that can't really be explained. Wording is everything.
So, I wanted to note that the third blurb for "Santa's Letters to Penthouse" was supposed to come from "the WettSpott DOT COM". I meant to put a .com in there somewhere and just forgot. And I think third is the right place.
Likewise, in the post about grandma's candies a couple weeks back my Viet Vet cousin really should have awakened screaming, in a cold sweat, and had his wife say, "What is it, honey? Charlie again?" To which he'd reply, "No, dammit...BRACH'S!"
Okay, I think this is about how long the thing was supposed to be.
Tuesday, November 15
Rumsfeld: I Was Just Issuing Orders
Sunday Washington Post: "Wrestling With History" by David Von Drehle
It's not all that surprising that Rumsfeld would morph into the administration's version of Terrell Owens, aggrandizing himself at the expense of his quarterback and his teammates when things go south. Think back to those Pentagon briefings, the ones the Press just couldn't get enough of. The days when Rummy was the cantankerous star of the wildly successful, seven-nights-a-week ratings powerhouse, The Shock and Awe Show.
So now it turns out he wasn't 100% on board with this war thing. Well, Mr. Secretary, let's take a look at TO. He's a cog who imagined himself to be the whole Swiss movement. He's a man who plays a boy's game for a living. He shouldn't have said what he said the way he said it, and he was justifiably suspended, but I think we can all agree that he was under no obligation to resign. You sir, on the other hand, are the Secretary of Defense, with direct responsibility for the most powerful military force in the world. If you didn't agree with the way the war was planned you did have an obligation to resign.
Sure, we can still find a few useful idiots to speak up in your defense:
but the game is up. We know the ability to fug the facts is part of the playbook. That too went spectacularly wrong. And you have seen it, even if Hanson can't focus for having spent twelve years in close-up examination of the former President's genitals.
Previous administrations did not cut our standing troop strength in a vacuum. We produced a lighter-weight military (the one you've tried post-facto to take credit for) as part of a new strategic alignment with a new world political situation. We had no need to maintain an Army that could take on the Soviet Union on two fronts when there wasn't one anymore. We didn't need sufficient troops to occupy a sizable chunk of the Middle East because the idea was absurd and obviously self-destructive.
We know, for example, that you're the one who overruled the professionals' request for more troops. We know you saw Iraq as a laboratory for your ideas. What we don't know is why we would commit our citizens to a war where we'd planned for only the rosiest of rosy scenarios.
And we don't know exactly how many of the 2200 and rising coalition deaths should be laid directly at your office door, to say nothing of the Iraqis we've liberated from all earthly care.
It's the modern American disease, the Big Idea. You were going to transform the military, "bring it into the 21st century" in that smarmy catchphrase of Republicans everywhere who want to ignore the unpleasant realities that interfere with their Vision. But every Tom, Dick, and Sheila in this country has a Vision. The smart guys--and you're supposed to be one of them, Mr. Secretary--are supposed to understand that there's also nuts and bolts that have to be tightened and gears to be kept oiled. The DoD is not a fantasy football league. At least it's not supposed to be.
Von Drehle implies, to say the least, that Colin Powell was brought on board largely to buoy what many saw as an illegitimate presidency, and was immediately tag-teamed by Rumsfeld and Cheney. So we can certainly add part of the blame the smug refusal to build an international coalition before the invasion to the list.
Still, there's one thing to be said for the wanton destruction of our international standing...we can travel even lighter.
And we haven't even touched on the over-reliance on National Guard and reserve troops, the logistical failures, the reduction in training, and, of course, the use of torture, all of which passed across Rumsfeld's desk, though there can be little doubt the last of those came from above.
The final irony is that Rummy's leaner, meaner, fighting machine has wound up costing us uncounted hundreds of billions of dollars, flushed recruitment down the drain, and fractured our manpower and materiel, probably for a generation. Some laboratory.
If only he could show us the memo.
"It's still classified, I suppose?" says Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, looking toward his assistant.
"It's still classified," Lawrence DiRita replies, "along with a lot of the underlying planning."
Rumsfeld nods, apparently disappointed. He is interested in sharing the memo because the memo, as he outlines it, demonstrates that his critics are utterly mistaken. He did not dash heedless and underprepared into Iraq. Rumsfeld foresaw the things that could go wrong -- and not just foresaw them, but wrote them up in a classically Rumsfeldian list, one brisk bullet point after another, 29 potential pitfalls in all. Then he distributed the memo at the highest levels, fed it into the super-secret planning process and personally walked the president through the warnings.
It's not all that surprising that Rumsfeld would morph into the administration's version of Terrell Owens, aggrandizing himself at the expense of his quarterback and his teammates when things go south. Think back to those Pentagon briefings, the ones the Press just couldn't get enough of. The days when Rummy was the cantankerous star of the wildly successful, seven-nights-a-week ratings powerhouse, The Shock and Awe Show.
So now it turns out he wasn't 100% on board with this war thing. Well, Mr. Secretary, let's take a look at TO. He's a cog who imagined himself to be the whole Swiss movement. He's a man who plays a boy's game for a living. He shouldn't have said what he said the way he said it, and he was justifiably suspended, but I think we can all agree that he was under no obligation to resign. You sir, on the other hand, are the Secretary of Defense, with direct responsibility for the most powerful military force in the world. If you didn't agree with the way the war was planned you did have an obligation to resign.
Sure, we can still find a few useful idiots to speak up in your defense:
Victor Davis Hanson of the Hoover Institution chalked up America's troubles in Iraq to the huge cuts in active-duty troops that were begun by the first President Bush and continued under President Clinton. "In reality, [Rumsfeld] has carefully allotted troops in Iraq because he has few to spare elsewhere -- and all for reasons beyond his control," Hanson argued.
but the game is up. We know the ability to fug the facts is part of the playbook. That too went spectacularly wrong. And you have seen it, even if Hanson can't focus for having spent twelve years in close-up examination of the former President's genitals.
Previous administrations did not cut our standing troop strength in a vacuum. We produced a lighter-weight military (the one you've tried post-facto to take credit for) as part of a new strategic alignment with a new world political situation. We had no need to maintain an Army that could take on the Soviet Union on two fronts when there wasn't one anymore. We didn't need sufficient troops to occupy a sizable chunk of the Middle East because the idea was absurd and obviously self-destructive.
We know, for example, that you're the one who overruled the professionals' request for more troops. We know you saw Iraq as a laboratory for your ideas. What we don't know is why we would commit our citizens to a war where we'd planned for only the rosiest of rosy scenarios.
And we don't know exactly how many of the 2200 and rising coalition deaths should be laid directly at your office door, to say nothing of the Iraqis we've liberated from all earthly care.
It's the modern American disease, the Big Idea. You were going to transform the military, "bring it into the 21st century" in that smarmy catchphrase of Republicans everywhere who want to ignore the unpleasant realities that interfere with their Vision. But every Tom, Dick, and Sheila in this country has a Vision. The smart guys--and you're supposed to be one of them, Mr. Secretary--are supposed to understand that there's also nuts and bolts that have to be tightened and gears to be kept oiled. The DoD is not a fantasy football league. At least it's not supposed to be.
Von Drehle implies, to say the least, that Colin Powell was brought on board largely to buoy what many saw as an illegitimate presidency, and was immediately tag-teamed by Rumsfeld and Cheney. So we can certainly add part of the blame the smug refusal to build an international coalition before the invasion to the list.
Anything Powell favored, the Defense Department opposed. Powell suggested more allies; Rumsfeld announced he was ready to go it alone. Powell favored a larger force; Rumsfeld weeded out troops unit by unit. Ultimately, the invasion was a repudiation of the Powell Doctrine in U.S. military affairs. The force deployed was light and lethal -- but not, history has clearly shown, the master of all contingencies. Nor was there a clear exit strategy, merely the hope of garlands and easy reconstruction -- a point war critics have often made and Rumsfeld has never rebutted in detail.
Still, there's one thing to be said for the wanton destruction of our international standing...we can travel even lighter.
And we haven't even touched on the over-reliance on National Guard and reserve troops, the logistical failures, the reduction in training, and, of course, the use of torture, all of which passed across Rumsfeld's desk, though there can be little doubt the last of those came from above.
The final irony is that Rummy's leaner, meaner, fighting machine has wound up costing us uncounted hundreds of billions of dollars, flushed recruitment down the drain, and fractured our manpower and materiel, probably for a generation. Some laboratory.
Monday, November 14
Best Sign at Yesterday's Game
"Houston, You Have A Problem"
Which reminded me of my all-time favorite. Back in the early days after Indianapolis stole the Colts (in case I haven't apologized to Baltimore recently, I'm sorry; as much for keeping the name as swiping the team) it was fairly standard for teevee announcers to slip up and say "Baltimore" two or three times a game. They usually caught themselves at it. But when Joe Willie Namath came to town he must have said "Baltimore" twenty times, and never looked back once. I happened to go to the next game were he was in the booth, and hanging from the second deck was a bedsheet reading:
"Indianapolis Welcomes Broadway Jim Namath"
which almost made watching the Ol' Dolts lose by thirty worth it.
Which reminded me of my all-time favorite. Back in the early days after Indianapolis stole the Colts (in case I haven't apologized to Baltimore recently, I'm sorry; as much for keeping the name as swiping the team) it was fairly standard for teevee announcers to slip up and say "Baltimore" two or three times a game. They usually caught themselves at it. But when Joe Willie Namath came to town he must have said "Baltimore" twenty times, and never looked back once. I happened to go to the next game were he was in the booth, and hanging from the second deck was a bedsheet reading:
"Indianapolis Welcomes Broadway Jim Namath"
which almost made watching the Ol' Dolts lose by thirty worth it.
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Saturday, November 12
Clarification
That's a screenshot from the cached Wikipedia entry for Scooter Libby. I was up late futzing around, and I decided to check if I'd missed a new post at World O'Crap. There were new comments on the thread devoted to me (okay, that's the real reason I went there in the first place), with both Beth and Rowan Berkeley (who'd left a comment to my original post) raising questions about the accuracy of the Liebowitz story. I checked the Wiki entry and there was no "Irving Lewis Liebowitz" in the story. I thought for a moment I'd hallucinated the whole thing, until it occurred to me to check the cache.
I should have known better than to use Wikipedia as a source without attribution. I did pose my comments in the form of a question, but I'll admit that, as I said, I thought this was something I'd missed. It didn't occur to me that it might'nt be the case.
One more thing: I was not trying to portray Libby as hiding or denying Jewish ancestry, nor the Republican party as a place where one would find that advisable. I asked only why I couldn't find any info about the change. I'd have asked the same question if it had claimed he was born Irving Lewis Bongo-Shaftsbury.
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