p m carpenter's commentary

Bad news and good news

A fresh Washington Post-ABC News poll shows a 37 percent approval rating for Congress, which prompted Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to observe: "The approval rating of this Congress is now down to what we believe is the lowest recorded point in polling history, having apparently squandered whatever political capital they may have achieved with the American people last November the 7th in a record short period of time."

Why, in historically ranking the rating, did the Republican senator insert the oddly placed "what we believe is"? Because it ain't so; because last October, with Republicans in corrupt charge of both houses, an NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll put Congress' approval rating at less than half of today's (16 percent), which was, in fact, "the lowest recorded point in polling history." Mitch was only permitting himself some of that wiggle room reserved at his party's Department of Severe Memory Loss, which is a rather nasty Republican habit, one of many that put them back in the minority.

Nevertheless the minority leader's comment about Democrats "having apparently squandered ... political capital" approached some level of truth, although things aren't quite as bad for the one party over the other: "46 percent of Americans say they approve of the job Democrats in Congress are doing, 34 percent say they approve of the congressional Republicans' performance."

What's more, if anything is genuinely "apparent," it's that as much disarray reigns in the electorate's preferences as in the Democratic Congress: "Iraq is the dominant theme, but no clear consensus emerges about what Congress should do. About half of Americans ... said that Democrats have done too little to push Bush on his war policy. Others said in interviews that Congress has neglected domestic issues while focusing on Iraq."

"Neglected" is perhaps a bit strong, since of the six domestic issues slated for attention by Democrats last fall, half have been acted on: "an increase in the minimum wage, enactment of new homeland security recommendations and federal funding for stem cell research, which Bush vetoed." Furthermore, "Before the end of the week, Democrats are likely to make good on their promise to tighten rules on congressional ethics and lobbying," and "the House and Senate plan to pass a significant expansion of the 10-year-old federal health program to insure children of the working poor," which Bush will also veto, naturally.

Still, to the unending bafflement of many -- me included -- Congressional Democrats continue to miss the boat on health care. As Paul Krugman recently noted: "9 in 10 Americans -- including 83 percent of self-identified Republicans -- support an expansion of the children’s health insurance program." But that's not the half of it; for as Krugman has also noted in past columns, roughly 60 percent support national health insurance for all. It's the one, surefire domestic priority that could win Democrats life-long friends and voters, as did Social Security and Medicare, yet they sit and ponder and, in the end, do nothing.

For a while they can afford to do nothing, however, since their best vote-getter is, without a doubt, the Republican Party. Its 12-year regime of corruption, wrong-war boosterism and anticonstitutionalism was a political gift that will spit benefits for years to come.

And that was the best part of the Post's poll reporting, which quoted these two gentlemen of heartwarming disaffection:

Republican Dale Vaughn, 73: "The first thing I would have liked them to do is impeach [Bush]. They're not going to get anywhere trying to hold back funds or change his opinion with these silly all-night sessions. He's ignorant. He's not going to change."

Even better was Tad Pfister, "a former Republican county chairman in Nogales, Ariz.," who "acknowledged his disappointment with the Democratic majority, especially over Iraq, which turned him against his former party in the first place. But he promised patience, and he's not going back to the GOP. 'There's no way they can do anything to get out of Iraq. They're trying hard, but they can't succeed,' he said. 'We're just going to have to wait until next election and see a Democrat in the White House.'"

Now I'm under no illusions that a Democratic White House will recommence the millennium incompetence-free, or that a more sizable Congressional Democratic majority will suddenly wake up, for instance, to the vast reality that Americans prefer responsible health care over its mismanagement or absence. But seeing one Republican quoted as wanting Bush's butt impeached and another -- a "former Republican county chairman," no less -- gleefully anticipating a Republican president's retirement ... well, for the time being, it can't get much better than that.

Brinkmanship and gangsterism

Q. How can the U.S. make the Middle East cauldron of regional divide even hotter?

A. Why, by dropping $20 billion of fresh military hardware into it, of course.

Which, reports the New York Times, is precisely what the Bush administration will do for Saudi Arabia, along with Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, by selling them a "package of advanced weaponry ... which includes advanced satellite-guided bombs, upgrades to ... fighters and new naval vessels."

But no doubt the arms-sale mother lode to Saudi Arabia is a reward for the supportive role its been playing in Iraq, right? Not quite, since "United States officials contend [it's playing] a counterproductive role in Iraq."

OK, so it's not a reward. But at the very least, the U.S. will -- will it not? -- seek specific assurances from Saudi Arabia that it will be more supportive of the American effort in Iraq as a condition of receiving the arms package? Again, not quite, since it is reported that "the administration has not sought specific assurances from Saudi Arabia that it would be more supportive of the American effort in Iraq as a condition of receiving the arms package."

So if it's not a reward, and not a carrot to encourage the Saudis to reverse their counterproductivity in Iraq, what exactly is the deal here?

Well, our Metternichian geniuses say "the plan to bolster the militaries of Persian Gulf countries is part of an American strategy to contain the growing power of Iran in the region and to demonstrate that, no matter what happens in Iraq, Washington remains committed to its longtime Arab allies."

That would be the same Metternichian imbeciles who endowed the "growing power of Iran" and have made regional problems for their "longtime Arab allies" even more problematic, but what the hell. With their track record, they must figure that dumb luck, if nothing else, will eventually stumble on an intelligent geopolitical call.

So far, their diplomatic efforts at assuring that additional firepower is kept to a reasonable minimum are working out well, too. The arms deal started at less than $10 billion, is now more than double that, and the "higher figure is a rough estimate that could fluctuate depending on the final package." If you've ever read of infatuation with an arms deal fluctuating downward, let me know.

Adding to the destabilization, however, is that all this talk of shipping satellite-guided weaponry to the Saudis is -- surprise! -- making Israel "nervous." But, yet again, not to worry. For the way to de-destabilize and de-nerve the nervous is to double down -- let's say, "by promising Israel $30.4 billion in military aid over the next decade..., an increase of nearly 43 percent."

As a flashy display of "Who's on first" balance-of-power diplomacy, "A senior administration official said the sizable increase was a result of Israel’s need to ... maintain its advantage in advanced weaponry as other countries in the region modernize their forces."

That is, as we modernize their forces, we can upgrade Israel's, so we can then counterbalance with more modernization, so we can then re-upgrade Israel's ...

And, finally, the administration is deploying the mobster's fundamentalist reasoning of, If we don't get in on this, somebody else will: "In defending the proposed sale to Saudi Arabia and other gulf states, the officials noted that the Saudis and several of the other countries were in talks with suppliers other than the United States. If the packages offered to them by the United States are blocked or come with too many conditions, the officials said, the Persian Gulf countries could turn elsewhere for similar equipment."

Thus our modern-day Metternichs and military-industrial machine happily comingle the idiosyncratic logic of drug-dealing gangsterism and advanced-weaponry brinkmanship.

Yes, things should turn out just fine.

Obama's pulled punches as the true political correctness

There, yesterday, was the Washington Post's neo-post-realist, Charles Krauthammer, piling on by squaring off the "grizzled veteran" vs. the "clueless rookie," and having a delightful time doing it. Any opportunity to flex brawn over brains is a welcome one for conservatives of a geopolitical bent, as is every opportunity to puff their much-preferred opponent.

Krauthammer was positively giddy about Senators Clinton and Obama's Monday night rumble over the "vision thing." As he recapped it, Obama -- "clueless rookie" that he is -- would be so foolish as to waste "the prize" of negotiation with foes, while Clinton -- "the grizzled veteran" -- is admirably tough, tough, tough. Charles likes tough; I suppose because it's worked so well for the past seven years.

He was just as giddy about the post-debate rumble, in which Clinton labeled Obama "irresponsible and frankly naive," to which Obama countered with the poignant irony that "I think what is irresponsible and naive is to have authorized a war without asking how we were going to get out."

Obama could have, and perhaps should have, added: "What's more, it would have been irresponsible and naive to have actually believed George W. Bush's promise of diplomacy in 2002. But we all know that no one really believed him, so it's just plain insulting for anyone who voted for the war then to say now that it was about anything other than political cover -- which has translated, to date, into 3600 dead Americans, about a half-trillion on credit, and a total loss of world respect."

Talk about bombs bursting and rockets' red glare. The "grizzled" Clinton camp would have gone ballistic with downright apoplectic fury that its nearly sole competitor would lay bare the awful truth -- a truth everyone knows, but goes politely unspoken.

But Krauthammer couldn't resist a bit more neoconservative slamming, reminding Obama's "enthusiasts" who "might want to write ... off" his naivete "as a solitary slip" that "this was the second time." Recidivist thoughtfulness is what I'd call it, but of course Charles had a vastly different take. To wit ...

"During the April 26 South Carolina debate, Brian Williams asked what kind of change in the U.S. military posture abroad Obama would order in response to a hypothetical al-Qaeda strike on two American cities.

"Obama's answer: 'Well, the first thing we'd have to do is make sure that we've got an effective emergency response -- something that this administration failed to do when we had a hurricane in New Orleans.'

"When the same question came to Clinton, she again pounced: 'I think a president must move as swiftly as is prudent to retaliate.' Retaliatory attack did not come up in Obama's 200-word meander into multilateralism and intelligence gathering."

But, again, Obama might have countered that "swift retaliation" could likely lead to attacking the wrong country again -- wink, wink, ye grizzled veteran -- which was, after all, what the -- her -- 2002 "irresponsible and naive" rush into George Bush's war came down to.

Now I'm sure this model of retaliation is fine with Mr. Neo-Post-Realist Krauthammer -- one American foe is as good as another, so let's just wipe them all out -- but I doubt the Clinton camp wishes folks to be reminded of that little strategic boo-boo.

Opposite Mr. Krauthammer's piece was E.J. Dionne's, which, I think, pretty much got right the dispute as it stands: "The eagerness with which Obama's camp kept the battle going reflected a cardinal rule in politics: Front-runners should be wary of picking fights with challengers. In this case, Clinton allowed Obama to make one of her prime vulnerabilities, the Iraq vote, a central part of the campaign dialogue.... Clinton started a battle about experience and Obama turned it into a debate about change."

Yet Obama, as suggested above, has failed to escalate the battle to its bloodiest, bitterest and logical conclusion. Why? Because of another cardinal rule: because, of course, as he fights for the ticket's top slot, he's also jockeying for secondary position -- just in case. So honesty is tempered to avoid permanent alienation. And that's the ultimate political correctness.

We the Junkies for Thompson-Gingrich in '08

As The Politico so depressingly reported yesterday, Newt Gingrich "has been sending signals making clear that a presidential candidacy for him is becoming less likely."

Damn. We've been waiting all year for him to throw his oversized hat into the ring, and I, for one, just don't know if I can face a Newt-less race. His imperious pontification makes conspicuous the dreadful banality of his competitors, and makes him a desperate political junkie's fix.

Also distressing is that Gingrich has alerted the Associated Press that if Fred Thompson "runs and does well, then I think that makes it easier for me not to run."

Did you catch that phrasing? Fred's run would "make it easier" for Newt to resist -- that is, somehow thwart the riotous clamor for his salvational candidacy. Sadly, should he find the inner Nietzschean will to resist, his vast egocentricity and colossal self-aggrandizement could very well be squandered.

There is, however, some upbeat and offsetting news. It seems Newt has also been cozying up to the furtive Mr. Thompson, he of that tantalizing, come-hither look. "Privately, [Gingrich] and some of his closest advisers have been meeting with ... the lobbyist-actor and former Tennessee senator," reports The Politico.

So all may not be lost. Newt's former communications director has shifted -- or, permit me to dream, has been shifted -- to the Thompson campaign, and Mr. Big Ideas dined "with Thompson ... at the former senator's home in McLean, Va., on July 16, according to two Republican sources close to both men. A Thompson aide would say only that 'a good policy discussion' was had over the meal."

Of that I have no doubt, though I imagine the discussion was a trifle one-sided. Newt likely had the education crisis unilaterally resolved before appetizers, immigration reformed by the entree, and world peace imposed through U.S. hegemony by dessert.

But I say all may not be lost because of the intriguing potential -- perhaps even deliberate suggestion by the former senator's camp -- of a Thompson-Gingrich ticket in the works. Naturally we'd prefer Gingrich-Thompson, but, as The Politico ... lamented?:

"Gingrich would face considerable hurdles [as a presidential candidate]. Aside from the practical challenges of building a campaign organization just months before the first primaries, a Gingrich bid would summon coverage about his conduct as speaker, both public and private."

Yet once Dick Cheney is pried from the West Wing, I have every confidence we'll resume our national indifference as to who the veep might be, hence the media-circus potential of a mere Gingrich-v.p. candidacy would be happily hindered. Or at least that's the story the media should peddle to the Thompson campaign, if they know what's good for them -- and us junkies.

A certain Merle Black, full professor of the dark political arts, is quoted by The Politico as saying "in the extremely unlikely event of a Gingrich nomination, Democrats would relish his candidacy as the second coming of Barry Goldwater."

But hold up a moment. We'll gladly settle for Newton L. Gingrich as William E. Miller, Barry's '64 running mate chosen mostly because, as the pragmatic Arizonan said, "he drives Johnson nuts."

Which is precisely what Newt could do for Fred. Just imagine all those marvelous months of vice-presidential candidate Gingrich, out there on the stump, independently privatizing Social Security and the TVA and local fire departments, and thoroughly unnerving Thompson Central but endlessly delighting us, the politically addicted and easily amused.

If there's a God in heaven, He'll hear our prayers and grant us this modest but fervent request: Please let it be "Thompson-Gingrich in '08."

The entertainment value of impeaching Gonzales

Vast swaths of the Republic can no longer stomach George W. Bush, largely, it would seem, because of the petulant, even adolescent defiance that defines him. Democrats and independents across the board, in addition to growing chunks of Republicans and even the normally complacent media have simply had enough.

Most of this wintery discontent stems from the president's immutable stubbornness on the Iraq war. He occasionally flashes some seeming modification -- be it military, political, or diplomatic -- but it always, and soon, shows itself as nothing more than p.r. prestidigitation. He's intent on slogging it out till 2009 with the same ole, same ole, and the more he's reprimanded, the more he digs in.

But, it seems to me, it's the farce of Alberto Gonzales' clinging tenure -- front-page news earlier this week and again today -- that more pointedly epitomizes Bush's juvenile combativeness.

With respect to Iraq he has at least some thin shred of defense. No matter how we got there, no matter how egregiously his administration manipulated us into it, the monstrous problem of leaving intelligently remains. Even some of Bush's harshest critics concede that staying longer might help prevent the worst bloodbath since Rawanda, and leaving sooner might be dumber than having gone in to begin with. I don't happen to agree; nevertheless the argument is out there, and Bush has that cushion.

But as for his keeping Alberto at Justice? There lies presidential behavior of the wholly indefensible -- and of the purely, petulantly defiant. The attorney general's continued tenure has not the slightest justification or even a trifling of straightfaced defenders.

Gonzales' bedazzling exercises in proving his guilt beyond all reasonable doubt before anyone could possibly presume his innocence are on routine, Capitol Hill display. They have become a national joke. At Judiciary Committee hearings the country's top law enforcement officer sits and blinks and evades and grins and in general makes a deliberate ass of himself, as well as any notion of impartial justice.

He either knows nothing or has already testified to it or it's under investigation so he can't. Whatever's left is merely blatant obfuscation, which even his aides are forced to concede is confusion-causing "linguistic parsing."

Not even Donald Rumsfeld was so universally despised and distrusted by oversight members of Congress. This week alone Senator John D. Rockefeller IV bluntly labeled Gonzales as "untruthful." Senator Charles Schumer told him to his face: "You’re deceiving us."

Senator Russ Feingold was "appalled" at Gonzales' latest testimony, which he charitably characterized as "misleading at best," and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse said he harbored "exactly the same perception."

The Senate Judiciary Committee's chairman, Pat Leahy, summed up virtually everyone's best judgment with, "I just don’t trust you," and even the committee's ranking Republican, Arlen Specter, slapped Gonzales with the outspoken threat that his "credibility has been breached to the point of being actionable." For a sitting attorney general, actionable = impeachment.

Yet Congressional scorn should be heaped less on Alberto -- who is just a hapless button man -- and more on his benefactor, whose executive blessing of this farce transcends even his contempt for the Constitution. It goes deeper. It goes to who George really is -- merely a petulant child who won't tolerate being told what's permissible, what's not, and who his playmates can be. And if you try, he'll dig into petulant defiance even more.

On the other hand, I'd love to see Congress get "actionable" -- not so much to rid us of Alberto, who'd only be replaced by more button-man haplessness, but so we can all watch Master George throw public tantrums and chew the carpet. Lord knows we could use the comic relief.

CNN's YouTooCanMakeItMeaningless.com format

I suppose it's pointless to grumble again about presidential "debate" formats, since it's the preformatted 800-pound gorillas on parade who dictate them and disallow any that might actually allow debate. Their keepers know that spontaneity is for exhibitionists, dipsomaniacs and the suicidal. The real thing is just too risky, too dangerously real.

So grumble I must.

It was, however, with some sliver of some hope that some expectations might be upended somewhat, if only by sheer accident, in CNN's YouTube format Monday night. But the techno-novelty only reaffirmed politics' one universal constancy: Nothing -- absolutely nothing -- can dismember a script from its candidate. Whether it's Jim Lehrer or a melting snowman asking the questions about global warming, the answers will be the same, word for prepackaged word.

The only worthwhile viewing came during the post-debate "analysis." For example CNN's Jeffrey Toobin acknowledged some pre-debate reservations, but quickly -- and judiciously -- declared the event a success and that the YouTube variation is "here to stay." Jeffrey's contract should now be safe.

Flipping over to Fox, there was stealthy Dick Morris, sneering and swiping at even Hillary's earthly existence, let alone her stage performance. Back to CNN, where a sprinkling of reporters from around the country was rather pathetically detailing 24-person polling results on who won, placed and showed. All in all, though, the real race was the one to the journalistic bottom.

In the debate itself there were but two moments of potential -- both wasted, naturally.

One was Senator Obama's seeming eagerness to meet personally in his first presidential year with the various dictators and strongmen of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea. "The notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them, which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration, is ridiculous" (which is redundant).

At which point Senator Clinton saw her opening. Obama had dropped his left, so Hillary came in hard with her right, implying that Obama possessed a profoundly unsophisticated diplomatic mind. "I don’t want to be used for propaganda purposes -- I don’t want to make a situation even worse." (At which further point John Edwards saw his opening to achieve sophistication parity: "I think actually Senator Clinton’s right.... Before that meeting takes place, we need to do the work, the diplomacy, to make sure that that meeting’s not going to be used for propaganda purposes." Good boy.)

Bam. Obama was hurt, bleeding like the public treasury. But did he have a chance to counterpunch? -- that is, actually debate the point? Silly us. Next question.

At any rate Dick Morris cleared it up for us afterward, saying Hillary's punch might appeal to the snooty, inside-the-Beltway crowd, but Obama was speaking for "the people." I, for one, and as one, was glad he cleared it up.

The other moment of sword-crossing hope -- quickly dashed, of course -- was Obama's patting of Hillary on the head for her Pentagon inquiry on troop-withdrawal plans. He noted, however, that "The time for us to ask how we were going to get out of Iraq was before we went in."

Frankly, Hillary looked like she'd been zapped by a cattle prod. But again, did she have a chance to respond? To counterzap?

No way. Because matters of manipulated war and a tricky peace can and shall be answered in 30 seconds, so that there's plentiful time to ask which environment-haters flew to the non-debate by private jet. The snowman wants to know.

I understand why the candidates crave these farces. What I don't understand is why I watch them.

Fred Barnes on Pixie Dust

Fred Barnes, the amusing Weekly Standard's amusing executive editor and one of Fox New's many ideological enforcers, has been reduced to Panglossian comforts. He's searching everywhere for proof that he and his kind do indeed live in the best of all possible worlds, despite volcanic right-wing troubles erupting to the contrary.

In fact, his latest Weekly Standard essay borders, if you'll pardon my mixing of philosophical realms, on the Platonic Ideal of Voltaire's Panglossism. It is but one of Barnes' splendid experiments in the world turned upside down, as he positively transcends the right's extreme discomfort by finding hope where he can. (Hence we see the Weekly Standard's spiritual division of labor: Billy Kristol wins the war in Iraq; Freddie Barnes wins the one at home.)

Things only seem bad is the unspoken and yearning essence of his "An Unusually Effective Minority: Bush and the congressional GOP embarrass the Democrats." The 2006 election was indeed "calamitous," Barnes concedes, but also scarcely defining.

For "the biggest surprise in Washington in 2007 is who's turned out to be the strongest force in town." Regrettably, the article's title spoiled the hidden surprise in Barnes' Crackerjack analysis: "The most powerful group is President Bush and congressional Republicans."

"Full-scale cooperation seemed unlikely. But it's happened," beams Barnes, who then proceeds to flash a peculiar understanding of our government's constitutional structure of separate powers: "True, Bush and the Republicans aren't dominant. They're a minority, but an unusually effective one." I'm unclear who's an extension of whom, but I know Fred knows, so we'll skip that.

But his biggest salvational thrill is, as I said, trumpeted all too soon in the title: The Republicans are really giving Congressional Democrats what for, boy, and really embarrassing the lot of them.

Praise be, says Barnes. The Iraq war rages undiminished despite Democratic protests and parliamentary maneuverings, and the Dems are just as ineffective in their domestic agenda. "Of the 'six for '06' bills touted by House Democrats, only one has become law," he notes. "And that one, which raises the minimum wage, passed not on its own, but only because it was tacked onto the Iraq funding bill. Senate Democrats have fared no better."

From all this, he concludes the "Democrats are stymied, foiled, and frustrated." And he isn't wrong.

Yet only once does Barnes use the explanatory word that Democrats will, in turn, beat his pals with over the head in the 2008 campaign; the one that has led to their being stymied, foiled and frustrated: "Republicans have hindered or obstructed them at almost every turn."

Mr. Barnes and his ideological brothers are presently gleeful about the tactic, but if there's one word that can un-stymie, un-foil and un-frustrate the Dems in 2008, it's the drumbeat of Republican "obstructionism." Other than Iraq, Dems can drench their 2008 message in that singular concept -- over, and over, and over.

He'll live to regret reveling in it now, but don't feel sorry for him. You can't keep Dr. Fred Barnes-Pangloss down. He should have no problem finding a 1964-like silver lining around the 2009 Republican minority -- an exceedingly minor minority, and all because of its preceding, grinning but short-sighted obstructionism.

Nincompoop Strategery

I'm sure you read it. And I'm sure your jaw dropped at merely the headline -- "The Pentagon Gets a Lesson From Madison Avenue: U.S. Needs to Devise a Different 'Brand' to Win Over the Iraqi People." And I'm sure your jaw continued its plunge as you waded in disbelief through the reporting on this year's indisputable winner of the "They Did What?" Awards.

For starters, I was rather shocked that the Joint Forces Command -- a name that manifests what they're smoking -- permitted the release of written evidence that it has lost its mind. Second, I was incensed the JFC didn't offer me the chance to bid on the "research" gig. I gladly would have done it for $350,000, or $300,000, or $100, instead of the Rand Corp.'s piratical price of $400,000. Even the $100 would have been negotiable; and charging even half that still would have sparked pangs of guilt within me for taking advantage of the incredulously challenged.

Nevertheless four-hundred grand of your money is what the JFC shelled out for the mind-bendingly obvious: Iraqi civilians, caught in the flying lead between urban insurgents and occupational forces, can indeed "help identify enemy infiltrators and otherwise assist U.S. forces."

However -- and this almost certainly was the costly part, requiring, as it would, months of thumb-twirling thought -- "they are less likely to help, the study says, when they become 'collateral damage' in U.S. attacks, have their doors broken down or are shot at checkpoints."

Apparently, until last week, the JFC was of two minds about the occupational advisability of innocent civilians being "shot at checkpoints." Their ballistic elimination, said one school of thought, would undoubtedly enhance the odds of our shooting the right people in the future.

True, one can't argue with math, said the other school, yet something about whacking those we're supposed to be there to help just doesn't seem right -- seems almost counterintuitive.

Well, gee, what would Madison Avenue do? wondered these two thoughtful schools of thought. Let's ask esteemed clinical psychologist and Pentagon/Rand Corp. toady Todd C. Helmus, said one. Our treat.

Realizing tremendous good fortune had come his way, Todd played along, agreeing to look into this matter of martial dispute. He then played golf while his middle schooler pondered and wrote the 211-page pioneer report that recommended "establishing a brand identity that places what you are selling in a positive light."

We're pretty sure that means don't shoot innocent civilians, thunk both schools. Get a dispatch off to Patraeus straightaway and release the study, thereby proving to taxpayers there's more depth to and a higher learning curve within the military mind than they might otherwise suspect.

Unfortunately, Todd's middle schooler felt duty bound to include in his report the additionally obvious: "that it could be too late for extensive rebranding of the U.S. effort in Iraq."

But plucky Duane Schattle, who labors daily on our imperialistic behalf at the JFC's "urban(e) operations office," countered that "cities are the battlegrounds of the future."

Did you get that, Tehran?

Crackpot hysteria

I'll say upfront that today's column is likely to irritate some readers, because some are likely to misread it as a defense of, or at least an insufficient assault on, the Bush administration. It is neither.

Having said that, let us proceed.

A Counterpunch article -- "Impeach Now: Or Face the End of Constitutional Democracy," by Paul Craig Roberts -- got a lot of blogosphere play this week. Roberts worked for the Reagan administration, was a Wall Street Journal editorial page associate editor and a contributing editor of the National Review. Not exactly the portfolio of a man inclined to call for impeachment. That alone made his article especially alluring to those who already understood the national imperative of a Bush-Cheney ouster.

But beware of citing Mr. Roberts as a thoughtful convert and ally, for a closer reading reveals a first-rate crackpot.

Let's first allow that much of what he wrote contained the unavoidably conclusive:

1) Bush has put in place all the necessary measures for dictatorship in the form of "executive orders" that are triggered whenever Bush declares a national emergency....

2) Many attentive people believe that the reason the Bush administration will not bow to expert advice and public opinion and begin withdrawing US troops from Iraq is that the administration intends to rescue its unpopular position with ... operations that can be used to expand the war to Iran.

3) If the Bush administration wants to continue its wars in the Middle East and to entrench the "unitary executive" at home, it will have to conduct ... operations that will both frighten and anger the American people and make them accept Bush's declaration of "national emergency."

4) A series of ... attacks would be spun by the captive media as a vindication of the neoconservatives' Islamophobic policy, the intention of which is to destroy all Middle Eastern governments that are not American puppet states.

5) Unless Congress immediately impeaches Bush and Cheney, a year from now the US could be ... at war with Iran.

All perfectly sensible. Right? But the ellipses are there for good reason. I redacted the portions that destroy Roberts' seeming reasonableness in their absence -- little jewels of hysteria mixed with sobriety that strive to make the hysterical seem more sober, and the sober more properly hysterical.

Here's what's missing from the above, which I've matched numerically:

1) immediately followed by ... Recent statements by Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff, former Republican senator Rick Santorum and others suggest that Americans might expect a series of staged, or false flag, "terrorist" events in the near future.

2) again, ... false flag ...

3) and again, ... some false flag ...

4) and yet again, ... staged or permitted ...

5) ... a dictatorial police state ...

My, all that leaves one in a state of breathless panic. But let's deconstruct it a bit and see what's left of reasonable value.

There's no doubt that what Michael Chertoff said was dumb. But on viewing the Chicago Tribune interview (which I did) it's plain that his "gut feeling" comment was purely off-the-cuff, unscripted, blurted out before he gave it any thought, which, of course, was what made it so dumb for a high government official. But I too have a gut feeling we're in for some bad business. Who doesn't? True, I would try to watch my words more carefully if I were also Homeland Security Secretary, but dumb extemporaneity is nevertheless inevitable.

Furthermore, we're now going to start treating clowns like Rick Santorum as oracles of insight? After rightly belittling the man as a human geyser of the inane, we're now going to accept him as a fountain of wisdom? And even further, what Santorum actually said in a radio interview, quoted by Roberts at some distance from his "staged-event" speculation, was that "Between now and November, a lot of things are going to happen, and I believe that by this time next year, the American public's going to have a very different view of this war." And "a lot of things" is a whole lot different language than "suggesting" administration-staged terrorist attacks.

Who else is among the "attentive people" whom Roberts quotes? Well, none other than the former senior editor of the John Birch Society's magazine, The New American, a credential that Roberts slyly neglects to mention. But what the good Bircher actually wrote is, once again, far different from what Roberts implied. What William Norman Grigg wrote was that the GOP is "praying for a terrorist strike" for political reasons. About that I have no doubt. Again, who would? But it doesn't imply a "staged" strike.

Roberts also seasons his hysteria with 9/11-conspiracy-theory nonsense: "Alternatively, the administration could simply allow any real terrorist plot to proceed without hindrance." In other words: OK, all you psychoneurotics, beware of another inside job.

And his piece is imbued with even more of the clumsily frivolous:

"Throughout its existence the US government has staged incidents that the government then used in behalf of purposes that it could not otherwise have pursued."

An example or two perhaps? How about these?

"According to a number of writers" -- I like that; "a number of writers" -- "false flag operations have been routinely used by the Israeli state. During the Czarist era in Russia, the secret police would set off bombs in order to arrest those the secret police regarded as troublesome. Hitler was a dramatic orchestrator of false flag operations. False flag operations are a commonplace tool of governments."

True again. But what about the ones you teased us with, Mr. Roberts -- the ones you said "the US government has staged"? Why is it we instantly veered to Israel, Czarist Russia and Nazi Germany? Any competent editor or community-college writing instructor would have laughed and then blue-penciled that one right off the page.

Near the end of Roberts' piece is a profoundly accurate observation: "Only a diehard minority believes in the honesty and integrity of the Bush-Cheney administration." But only an equally diehard minority could believe that with armies of political enemies encircling it, and with a disgruntled military increasingly hostile to its imperialist fantasies, and with the absolute impossibility of a conspiratorial cabal of more than one remaining secret long enough to "stage" another 9/11 and then establish a literal "dictatorship" -- that from all this, the administration could pull off a Hitlerian coup d'état.

No, the real threat of neglecting dual impeachment was elucidated by the Nation's John Nichols and constitutional-scholar Bruce Fein on "Bill Moyers Journal" last week (transcript here). In brief, the real threat is long term: Each president accepts as s.o.p. whatever that president's predecessors managed to get away with. Corrupt and unconstitutional power is institutionalized, and its impunity feeds more of it.

Therefore the urgency of Congressionally repudiating Bush's lawless "standards that are totally anathema to a democratic society," as Mr. Fein articulated so cogently. Otherwise -- eventually, inexorably -- we will suffer an authentic "dictatorial police state."

My principal beef, however, is with the "staged-attack" hysteria and dreadfully sloppy and bumptious arguments of Mr. Roberts' ilk that serve only to make a laughingstock of the intellectual virtue of genuinely thoughtful demands for impeachment now.

The paradoxes of the GOP's predicament

Republican presidential hopefuls are tripping over themselves in their race to the reactionary bottom, where, it so happens, right-wing bottomfeeders -- also known as "the base" -- appropriately enough reside.

Throughout presidential primary seasons this frantic competition in pandering to the most authoritarian, regimentally minded and Jesus-loving among us is a normal, GOP ritual-by-necessity. Candidates go "hunting where the ducks are," to use Barry Goldwater's memorable phrase -- meaning the scattered swamplands of hypernationalistic and compassionate-less conservatives.

It's the only way to survive Round One, after which the victor just as frantically careens to the center in preparation for Round Two: the general election, in which, occasionally, some semblance of reason reemerges.

But these are not normal times, especially for the GOP. And it's the numerous hopefuls' struggle to ideologically outdo one another to the right and thereby survive Round One that almost assuredly will k.o. the victor in Two.

Because in this particular election cycle they're mired in the granddaddy of all political paradoxes.

Mr. Bush is the personification of what the base wants in a candidate: that is, to repeat, hypernationalism and compassionate-less conservatism. Yet as The Politico succinctly characterized John McCain's ills, his "campaign is bleeding out because of its ties to President Bush's policies." And with the immigration bill now legislatively deported, "Bush's policies" are reduced to one: the Iraq war.

But wait. McCain supports Bush on Iraq. If Bush is the personification of what the base wants, and if the Iraq war is this decade's joystick of hypernationalism, then why is McCain bleeding out because of his love affair with Bush & Iraq?

Because, it would seem, McCain was merely foolish enough to be loudest on an issue that the base knows is going to bury its candidate in the fall of 2008. The bottomfeeders may be authoritarian, regimentally minded and Jesus-loving, but they ain't completely stupid. They can see that given the country's Iraq hangover, John McCain's too conspicuous saber-rattling would plunge him into a general election inferno.

Yet to pile paradox on paradox, as McCain bleeds and fades away, his (soon erstwhile) competitors will be expected by the base to pick up the hypernationalistic slack. Because the base just can't help itself. Martial triumphalism is what makes its bloodthirsty day. It's what drives the joyful juices from its brass balls to its soft head. And the urge to revel in it during the primary season's here-and-now, against later electoral logic, will endure.

So at candidates' rallies the base's demand for rip-snorting nationalism will go forth -- to support not so much the unpopular war in McCain's brazen fashion, but its tribalistic-warlord commander in chief, who is nevertheless dripping in and defined by the war. The candidates will be obliged to oblige, of course, since each is trying his best to out-wing the others rightward.

And every vulgar, primordial minute of it will be captured on video tape; to be replayed endlessly in the general by the Democratic candidate, and on every broadcast outlet but Fox, and to the horror of the less-than-militaristically enthused general electorate.

Oddly enough, it's that RNC-newsletter nonsubscriber and Shiite unholy man, Moktoda al-Sadr, who is blazing the only strategic way a Republican could possibly win in 2008: He has, of late, "re-emerged with a shrewd strategy that reaches out to Iraqis on the street while distancing himself from the increasingly unpopular government."

Yet just as oddly, and just as paradoxically, that's the one and only guaranteed way for a Republican to lose the primaries.