p m carpenter's commentary

Another Power-Grab -- Bush's Unexceptional Bullying in the Face of Congressional Timidity

Yale law professor Bruce Ackerman's opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times, "Bush Isn't the Only Decider," is perhaps another of those documents that historians will look at 100 years from now and ask: He got it, others got it -- in fact, everyone seemed to get it -- so why didn't anyone do anything about it?

The "it," as the op-ed's title suggests, concerns the unfettered growth of presidential power. And Ackerman's example -- the deep cause of concern du jour -- is merely the latest: the recently signed Bush-Maliki declaration that guarantees economic and political aid as well as American "security assurances and commitments to the Republic of Iraq to deter foreign aggression."

There's a word for this sort of "agreement," which the White House says should be in final form by mid-summer -- a treaty. You may recall from your outdated high school civics text that the Senate once routinely engaged in the approval or rejection of such a thing; plus a quick check of the U.S. Constitution -- no doubt also referenced somewhere in your text -- will avail formal provisions for such legislative meddlesomeness.

But, in George Bush's carefree world of monarchic pragmatism, all that fuss of Senatorial approval and advice and consent is just so much needless bureaucracy. Hence, as Professor Ackerman notes, "his White House 'czar' on Iraq, Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute," has "made a remarkable suggestion: Only the Iraqi parliament, not the U.S. Congress, needs to formally approve the agreement." Tough call indeed for the Iraqis: something -- quite a bit, actually -- for nothing.

Yet, as constitutional-fussbudget Ackerman further notes, Lute's "suggestion does not even pass the laugh test." While "American presidents do have unilateral authority to make foreign agreements on minor matters..., the Constitution requires congressional approval before the nation can commit itself to the sweeping political, economic and military relationship contemplated by the 'declaration of principles' signed by Bush and Maliki."

He goes on to remind us "there is no constitutional provision or precedent authorizing this new form of Bush unilateralism," and then flatly states that in the absence of "congressional consent, the constitutional separation of powers is at an end."

Some would say that is less a futuristic condition than a fait accompli. I'm not quite as pessimistic -- yet -- since Congress still has a year to grow some cojones. There's always hope, even if hope, at this late stage, is all we have. But Ackerman's observations did put me in mind of a recent television interview with journalist Michael Oreskes, executive editor of the International Herald Tribune and co-author of The Genius of America: How the Constitution Saved Our Country, and Why It Can Again.

In the interview, Oreskes pointed out what should be commonplace knowledge, but has instead transmogrified into a rather profound observation these days.

When asked if the Founders would not be disheartened if not crestfallen over George Bush's executive power-grabs, Oreskes said, bluntly, "No." They wouldn't be surprised one bit. In fact, they would see them as the natural order of things -- they knew their ancient history of democratic failures, they had just defeated one power-happy "executive," and they understood that these peculiar creatures of executive office naturally wish to inflate their authority at every turn.

And that, dear friend, is exactly why they wrote the Constitution as they did. They anticipated -- and this is my characterization; not, heaven forbid, Mr. Oreskes' -- that representative democracy would, in time, produce morons and demagogues precisely of George W. Bush's disposition. Civic virtue and classical republicanism would not hold. Therefore they threw up barriers -- all manner of checks and balances -- to restrain the constitutional executive who, over time, would naturally yearn to corrupt his proper role and limitlessly expand his powers.

The trick, of course, is for Congress to push back. What George is doing was expected by the Founders. What they would find surprising, however -- what, in fact, would dishearten and leave the Founders crestfallen -- is that Congress has shown so little determination to exercise and reassert its own constitutional authority.

The Bush-Maliki declaration and its attendant implications merely present one more opportunity for Congress to do so. If it shirks its duty, again, then it's just one more, and perhaps final, step to one-person rule -- or, as Professor Ackerman warned without my hesitation of "perhaps," "the constitutional separation of powers" will be "at an end."

Another Republican Debate, Another Rhetorical Amateur Hour

Wasn't that a lovely spectacle last night? If Republican presidential candidates get any nastier, they may start slapping restraining orders on each other.

The CNN-YouTube debate was a portrait in theatrical but ill-performed aggression and irrelevancy -- and the only thing that saved the party's most formidable candidate was that most of the questions were taped days or even weeks ago, thereby sparing him a grilling on the latest accusations of accounting fraud.

As The Politico reported yesterday, "As New York mayor, Rudy Giuliani billed obscure city agencies for tens of thousands of dollars in security expenses amassed during the time when he was beginning an extramarital relationship with future wife Judith Nathan in the Hamptons, according to previously undisclosed government records.

"The documents, obtained by Politico under New York’s Freedom of Information Law, show that the mayoral costs had nothing to do with the functions of the little-known city offices that defrayed his tabs, including agencies responsible for regulating loft apartments, aiding the disabled and providing lawyers for indigent defendants."

Whoops. All for the love of a (another) good woman, while the other little lady waited for hubby to come home from the Hamptons. Democratic pundit Bill Press yesterday described Rudy as "a ticking time bomb," and this report on what amounts to official malfeasance could be the final tick, assuming Rudy's opponents gang-slam him with the proper elan. But given their performances last night, I wouldn't count on it.

It was often as though the debate was their first crack at delivering well-rehearsed lines. Mike Huckabee -- who's now playing the religion card with elaborate unsubtlety; pasting 'Christian Leader' on his TV ads -- was, as usual, the most articulate, but his cornered emphasis on a reasonable immigration policy couldn't have helped him much among rabidly anti-immigration Republicans.

Just ask John McCain, who's one splendid moment last night came not on the dominant topic of immigration, but on the torture issue, as he slapped the clueless and bobbing Mitt Romney upside the head with, "How in the world anybody could think that that kind of thing could be inflicted by Americans on people who are held in our custody is absolutely beyond me."

John, need we remind you these are Republican primaries in play, in which inhumanity doubles as populist king.

Other than that, McCain seemed a bit off his game, occasionally stumbling in search of that flawless sound bite he's delivered a thousand times. What's absolutely beyond me, John, is how anyone could commit himself to a grueling two years of saying the same damn thing twelve times a day. But in so doing, I suppose you deserve a little credit and a little cut slack, for stamina, if nothing else.

Tom Tancredo and Duncan Hunter -- two political obscurities still squeezing their 15 minutes -- had no business even being on stage, although they ignored issues of actual importance to the American people, such as health care, just as handily as the more prominent candidates. Fred Thompson demonstrated he's still shooting for 'Fred Who?' status, bollixing a line on Giuliani's employment practices that he had days to perfect -- this guy was really a professional actor? -- and proving once again he's open to a presidential anointment, but not an election.

And, finally, there was poor Ron Paul, a befuddled constitutionalist among imperial stormtroopers, looking and sounding as out of place as any authentic libertarian would in this age of superpowered Republican arrogance.

If anything of value was gleaned from last night's debate, it was only that CNN's YouTube format stinks. Given the dated, prerecorded questions, the majority of seven had little to no opportunity to skewer and possibly eliminate the 800-pound-gorilla minority of one -- Rudy -- over his yet additional scandal.

On the other hand, as amateurish and lackluster as their sputtering aggressions were, the majority probably would have screwed that up, too.

Bush's Legacy-hunting At A Self-imposed Dead End

For an administration that has postured as the daring, rootin-tootin global good guys of reality-altering action, this White House for seven years has stranded itself high atop a chair shrieking at that one mouse that roars: the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

The charitable view is that the neocons in charge weren't as stupid as they seem. They recognized real trouble when they saw it -- the intractability of a decades-long, regional problem that has reverberated throughout the world -- and decided to back off from the potential of any image-spoiling failure.

Better to treat the symptoms of Islamic distrust of the United States, and not its root causes, because those causes are, after all, so damned intractable. Better, and far more thrilling for public consumption, to go elsewhere with guns blasting. Better to forget the whole scene at the trouble's center, and simply hope for the best.

The less charitable view is that the neocons were, and remain, simply hopelessly adrift in their own conflicted positions.

Their boss envisioned a two-state solution; but only the final product of the solution -- two states. He possessed not a clue as to how to get there, and often made matters even worse.

For example the administration endorsed much of Israel's conflict-continuing stubbornness -- such as its blanket refusal of the Palestinian right of return -- making the honest brokerage of a deal as unbelievable as it is unworkable.

So now, with typical glitz and fanfare, the administration steps into the negotiating game at the eleventh hour, having done about as much damage as it could do.

For two terms it has issued nothing but high-minded pronouncements and printed unreadable road maps. Now, desperate for some legacy other than geopolitical chaos, it stages an Arab-Israeli summit -- which, just as typically, it says isn't a summit at all. Summits, you see, are expected to produce results.

But the only result expected is another dead end, hence the administration has made its greatest effort in preemptively lowering expectations. For this outfit, that isn't difficult.

For starters, Bush's aides "insist that [he] does not intend to negotiate personally the two-state peace he has pronounced as his vision." Well, I take it back. That's progress, right there.

Otherwise, aides have laid it out bluntly: "The president is not a gambler," said his press secretary; and "We have said from the very beginning, and the president made clear, that it is the parties themselves that have to make the peace," said the national security adviser among a chorus of expectation-lowering.

But it was Bush himself who put it most bluntly: "The United States cannot impose our vision," he said on the first day of the non-summit. And it was therefore Bush himself who, true to form, put it most incorrectly.

A two-state solution has always been possible, if only the United States would do what it refuses to do: impose.

Someday -- and this is as certain as today's continued volatility in Gaza -- Israel will either withdraw to, or be forced into, its 1967 borders. There is no other solution that promises a lasting peace. But it is likely a peace that will come only from an imposer: that being the United States.

We have always had the military- and economic-aid leverage needed to make it happen, not to mention the troops required within an international peacekeeping force, if only those troops weren't scattered throughout the Middle East hither and yon.

What the United States has always lacked, however, was the political will to make it happen. And Mr. Bush, for all his Superman blustering about global reordering, has lacked that will in even greater quantities than his predecessors.

So, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict will be merely one more problem left for his successor among a roiling vat of problems either wholly created or gutlessly exacerbated by the Bush administration.

And that will be its ultimate legacy.

The Talented Rudy Giuliani, Like it Or Not

It's Republican presidential candidates, for a change, who are waging internal warfare. They're suspending their country-club manners and putting aside those Reaganesque caveats on unified civility and going at each other like Democrats.

The spectacle isn't nearly as juicy as the old days of political mayhem -- the really good old days of America's first full century, when presidential hopefuls accused one another of monarchism, atheism, adultery, bigamy, and even murder. Those were the fanatical days of politics as the national sport -- the bloodier the better -- probably never to return. But we junkies will take what we can, and be thankful for it.

The principal problem for junkies outside the Republican circle, however, is that the meanest junkyard dog appears -- and I stress "appears" -- to be coming out on top. Love him or hate him, you have to admit Rudy Giuliani is molding himself into one helluva formidable national candidate, and it's only because he finds himself in his most profitable of natural habitats: that, simply, of junkyard doggism. It's what Rudy does best.

Plus, he's able to shift strategic gears without flinching or apologizing. For months his campaign downplayed the significance of winning, placing or showing in the early states of Iowa and New Hampshire, since Mitt Romney was thumping him in those states, anyway -- a kind of "You can't fire me, I quit" approach -- and Rudy seemingly possessed the subsequent, Super Tuesday firewalls of the East-coast states and Illinois.

But suddenly, it's a whole new ballgame.

Rudy is now tearing at Mitt's pant leg in both the early states, and he's admirably open about his reasons for the modified strategy: "It is not inconceivable that you could, if you won Florida, turn the whole thing around," he said on the campaign trail in New Hampshire. "I'd rather not do it that way. That would create ulcers for my entire staff and for me.... We want to win as many of the early ones as possible. That's why we're here and not in Florida right now."

Consequently, the only folks getting ulcers are Rudy's opponents.

Last weekend Giuliani was positively gleeful as he tore into Romney over a Willie Horton redux, and, to hardcore conservatives' delight, he's stomping the former governor for seeing to it that Massachusetts citizens were -- Heaven forbid -- provided health care, Hillary-style: "When you look back on Romney's governorship of Massachusetts, there's only one accomplishment, and he's running away from that." Which he is.

Rudy also had some fun with Fred Thompson, who is rumored to be in the race but spends inordinate amounts of time these days assailing, of all things, Fox News. "Asked about Thompson's criticism that he spends too much time talking about his record in New York, Giuliani laughed. 'I will not really respond to Fred, because it might discourage him from campaigning, and he's doing so little of it I don't want to discourage him.'"

There's no good comeback to a dig like that.

What's working most for Giuliani seems to be twofold: He has loosened up; he has started to enjoy himself on the campaign trail -- he's not the uptight attack dog he once was; he's now the smiling attack dog. And he's following Karl Rove's dictum of, "Never explain; explaining is losing."

He simply blows off criticism of his often deplorable record. Bernie Kerik as his right-hand man and a Homeland Security chief? Hey, mistakes happen. Problems with his 9/11 management? Hey, nobody's perfect. Those other mistakes in the past -- any of them? Hey, mistakes are part of experience, and he promises he'll make more in the future. So stuff it.

Meanwhile, compared to Rudy's casualness with fangs, his major opponents appear defensive, nervous and out of kilter -- except for Mike Huckabee, who already sees himself in the number-two catbird seat.

In short, if Rudy's friendly junkyard-dog routine prevails in the primaries, he'll likely play it to even greater effect in the general election, since appearing defensive, nervous and out of kilter seems to come alomst naturally to Democratic presidential candidates.

Bobby Kennedy's Forgotten Lesson

It was serendipitous timing that I happened to be reading Evan Thomas' marvelous biography of Robert Kennedy yesterday -- and was up to the early Kennedy administration period -- when I took a break to read more current goings on. Serendipitous, because given the twofold timelines it soon became hard to separate history from modernity.

The current material, from the Washington Post, was "U.S. Notes Limited Progress in Afghan War" -- reporting that quickly departed from noting "limited progress" and instead largely outlined a failing effort. Gloomy, to be kind, pretty much captured its essence:

"Intelligence analysts acknowledge the battlefield victories, but they highlight the Taliban's unchallenged expansion into new territory....

"While the military finds success in a virtually unbroken line of tactical achievements, intelligence officials worry about a looming strategic failure....

"While U.S. and other NATO forces have maintained a firm hold on major cities, they have been unable to retain territory in the vast rural areas where 75 percent of Afghanistan's population lives, several sources said. Ground hard-won in combat has been abandoned and reoccupied by Taliban forces."

The underlying problems run deep, from "lackluster counterinsurgency efforts by Pakistani forces" to -- even deeper -- "the absence ... of a strategic plan that melds the U.S. military effort with a comprehensive blueprint for development and governance throughout the country."

Almost needless to mention, these "contrasting views echo repeated internal disagreements over the Iraq war," as well.

So how did Robert Kennedy fit into all this?

Just after reading the Afghan war article I returned to the Kennedy biography, and thereupon started reading about the presidential brother's enthusiastic efforts in the innovative field of "counterinsurgency" -- a term, noted the author, reportedly coined by RFK.

His enthusiasm was ginned up by a 1961 Khrushchev speech, in which the Soviet premier predicted that communism would triumph not through conventional warfare -- the escalation to nuclear was too great a danger -- but through insurgent campaigns of national liberation and guerrilla activity.

In response to the speech, and at RFK's personal intervention and direction, "Almost overnight, a new and faddish weapon was added to the Cold War arsenal: counterinsurgency."

Special Forces were now to wage "people's wars" in winning the "hearts and minds" of the local populace being bullied and deceived by communist insurgents. The U.S. would triumph, thought RFK, through implementing "civilizing missions that ranged from land reform to child delivery."

On paper, it sounded like a boffo idea. But, wrote Thomas, "other government officials could see not only the limitations of trying to win the war of 'hearts and minds,' but also the dangers of trying."

For instance "one of RFK's pet ideas was to train the police forces of developing countries [Bernie Kerik-style, no doubt]." Said one State Department official: "He thought that by making their cops more like ours, we could stop communism."

But the official and his colleagues "knew, from firsthand observation, that the fragile democracies of Asia and Latin America had 'no control over their security services....' By making them more 'professional' [Sunni insurgents, anyone?], the well-meaning Americans risked simply making them more efficient engines of repression."

Observed Thomas, these counterinsurgency methods seemed, "certainly in theory, a better way to defeat communist movements in the Third World," from Vietnam to Cuba. "The actual experience, however, became a lesson to Robert Kennedy in the limits of power...."

RFK did indeed learn his lesson, and his following, all-too-brief years became a monument to spectacular character development and extraordinary intellectual growth.

Contrast his learning curve with what we have in the White House today, and the missing historical pieces explaining our failures in Afghanistan and Iraq fall into place.

Attention, comrades: Things are much better than our sorryass reality would indicate

The swindle continues, reports the New York Times. "With American military successes outpacing political gains in Iraq, the Bush administration has" -- don't tell me, let me guess -- "lowered its expectation of quickly achieving major steps toward unifying the country, including passage of a long-stymied plan to share oil revenues and holding regional elections."

Oh, shoot. Three-card monte is no fun when you spoil it like that.

The press could very nearly start reporting on the Iraq debacle with a journalistic transparency that exposes the honestly absurd, to wit: "Today, the Bush administration breathlessly announced another goalpost moved, another diplomatic sleight of hand, another p.r.-propaganda razzle-dazzle that transmutes yet another stunning failure into another smashing success."

Why not? Since the Bush administration is determined to debauch the American soul and corrupt every last strain of American decency with a gleeful intractability not seen since the German victory at Stalingrad, journalism might as well have a little fun, too. We're all in Bush's Orwellian sewer together, so we might as well concede defeat ... ah, impending victory.

Which is precisely, of course, what the administration is doing -- again. Its taking three, surefire and certain developments on Iraqi ground and reframing them as the daring-do of proven progress:

The short-term American targets include passage of a $48 billion Iraqi budget, something the Iraqis say they are on their way to doing anyway; renewing the United Nations mandate that authorizes an American presence in the country, which the Iraqis have done repeatedly before; and passing legislation to allow thousands of Baath Party members from Saddam Hussein’s era to rejoin the government..., largely symbolic since rehirings have been quietly taking place already.

Remember the absolute need for political "reconciliation" in Iraq -- the reconciliation that only a U.S. escalation would bring, guaranteed? Well, forget that. What Iraqis really need, says the administration now, is "accommodation," even though, oddly enough, Iraqi officials themselves insist, "We need a grand bargain among all the groups." No you don't. You're doing swimmingly well, since doing better is impossible.

And achieving the swimmingly good is so dazzling, especially when it's in the bag. The homespun swindle has even the Iraqis puzzled. The administration says with tortured angst it simply must assist them in passing a budget, to which a prime ministerial adviser said: "Every state needs a budget. It’s impossible to function without a budget. It does not need any push from anyone." One can almost see him swatting at Ryan Crocker, like a perfectly healthy grandmother who needs no assistance crossing the street.

Yet the much bigger puzzler is right here at home.

"The changing situation" in Iraq -- achieving the already achieved, that is, reports the NYT in a related piece -- "suggests for the first time that the politics of the war could shift in the general election next year, particularly if the gains continue. While the Democratic candidates are continuing to assail the war -- a popular position with many of the party’s primary voters -- they run the risk that Republicans will use those critiques to attack the party’s nominee in the election as defeatist and lacking faith in the American military."

Run the risk? Is there is one American soul alive who does not know with a certainty approaching a passed Iraqi budget that, no matter what happens there, "the party's nominee" here will be blistered by the GOP attack machine as "defeatist and lacking faith in the American military"?

And is there one American soul alive who doesn't know with equal certainty that the Democratic nominee will cower and equivocate in the face of that blistering fire; that the nominee will retreat from declaring with unOrwellian clarity that the noble admission of a failed and wrongheaded policy isn't synonymous with "defeatism" -- and that another year or two of this kind of success will leave no American military to have any faith in?

Yeah, that's what I thought. It's in the imperial genes -- every world power watches itself go over that cliff just up ahead, singing along the way with Orwellian self-assurance: "Things are much better than our sorryass reality would indicate."

The Bush Administration's Self-imposed Break From the Destruction

For those who haven't noticed, the White House has been rolling out a new political strategy aimed at making itself "relevant" again.

In brief, it entails buttering up a disgruntled, disaffected public, so that it can rebuild some leverage over an alienated, apoplectic Congress, so it can then continue having its way on wasteful war spending.

That's the plan for the coming and final year -- a plan that is both humorous in its execution, and tragic in its necessity.

First the funny part. What the White House has devised is a "kitchen table" approach -- sounds homey, doesn't it? -- in which the president seizes on "new and more creative ways of engaging the public as his days in office dwindle and his clout with Congress lessens." And since the president and Congress aren't talking to each other these days, the former is simply back-dooring through executive orders what it laughably calls fresh, domestic "initiatives."

Why laughably? Because they're just more of the same old new and creative flimflam we've come to know and expect from this Orwellian outfit.

For instance last month Bush "traveled to the shore of the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland to announce federal protection for two coveted species of game fish, the striped bass and the red drum." And "Just this weekend, thanks to an executive order by Mr. Bush, the military is opening up additional air space -- the White House calls it a 'Thanksgiving express lane' -- to lessen congestion in the skies."

Sure enough, targeted portions of the public thrilled to these executive innovations through executive order. But, sure enough, there was another side to them; one, ah, a little less ballyhooed: "Fishing for red drum and striped bass ... is already prohibited in federal waters; Mr. Bush's action will take effect only if the existing ban is lifted. And the Federal Aviation Administration can already open military airspace on its own, without presidential action."

For a change, however, the White House's overt Orwellian humbug is actually comforting. For as incompetent as this administration is, any muted subtleties on matters such as fishing rights and airspace would have only indicated that it simply wasn't aware of the preexisting legalities. Better to make a big splash and let us know it's on top of its usual game.

But the necessity behind the White House's new groove isn't nearly as laughable. Yes, Bill Clinton also shifted to "small ball" politics in his second term -- as Bush's strategists once doggedly denied they would ever do but now eagerly pursue -- yet the reasons for Clinton's doing so weren't to avert the public's eyes from the absolutely worst record in two-term presidential history -- bar none; hands down; indisputably, empirically, factually true.

When one surveys the wreckage wrought upon us in a mere seven years, the concentrated blow is staggering. Put aside the administration's failures, such as immigration reform and tax-code reinvention, and think only for a moment on its "successes."

At home -- the obliteration of a budget surplus; a deepening chasm between the rich and poor; an effective delay of health care reform; an educational initiative that doesn't educate; environmental protections ignored; a looming Baby Boomer crisis shoved aside; an economy heading into the tank; a Big Brother intimidation of the citizenry; and, in general, laws violated and flaunted with abandon.

Abroad -- a troubled Middle East exacerbated; no movement whatsoever on a Palestinian-Israeli accord; two wars, both failing, and another in the works; nuclear proliferation; a mind-numbing trade deficit; armed forces spent and depleted; alienated and angry allies; empowered foes; unapprehended enemies; and a world that, quite simply, hates us.

Did I overlook a few items? A dozen? A thousand? You betcha. When historians sit down to write narratives of this administration, they'll have two choices: short, pulp fictions about its masterful strokes, or honest, multivolume expositions of nitwitted reversals of fortune that no matter how many volumes are scribbled, they still won't do reality justice.

So, as the administration busies itself with redundant executive orders in preparation for the final onslaught, try to take some satisfaction that for a while, at least, it's relatively harmless.

****

... to support p m carpenter's commentary -- and thank you!

You Want Stupid? I'm Your Man

Barack Obama should get down on his knees and thank God for Robert Novak, the unsubstantiated-rumor-spreading columnist who will write anything to claim a scoop. For, it seems to me, the Prince of Journalistic Darkness just helped save Obama's butt.

The timing of Novak's latest recklessness could not have been more ideal for Obama, or worse for Hillary Clinton. But to Obama's credit, it was his own exploitation of Novak's recklessness that was the real butt-saver.

Last week, at the Democratic presidential debate in Las Vegas, the Illinois senator went and committed the same clarity-mangling contortions on the complex issue of drivers licenses for illegal immigrants that the New York senator had just previously committed, to her considerable woe. Already trailing Clinton by a wide margin in Iowa, things suddenly looked even worse for Obama. The media were all abuzz about his public humiliation by CNN's Blitzkrieg Wolfman, and having to issue post-debate press releases full of defensive explanations is the most counterproductive use of a candidate's time.

That Thursday night, it looked bleak for Obama. Really bleak. So two mornings later I foolishly wrote a piece equally full of political prediction -- always a risky business of the first magnitude. Titled "Bye-Bye, Obama," it speculated "Whether ... out of naiveté or just plain intellectual stubbornness, the senator hurt himself badly, and perhaps even mortally." I then further self-impaled by saying Obama's misstep "screamed a campaign-ending, George Romney 'brainwashed' moment." In effect, I declared it all over for Barack.

But little did I know that that same morning Robert Novak would be just as reckless. In the New York Post -- a laughable rag I'm not in the habit of scanning before arching my fingers over this keyboard early each day -- Novak had inadvertently penned a reprieve for Obama in the form of unsubstantiated scuttlebutt.

"Agents of Sen. Hillary Clinton," wrote the lugubrious Novak, "are spreading the word in Democratic circles that she has scandalous information about her principal opponent for the party's presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama."

That one line -- and don't you love it?; "agents," like some nefarious, anthropomorphic fog right out of "Casablanca" -- changed the topic and shifted the buzz within the media, and within a nanosecond. Drivers licenses? Illegal immigrants? Obama's humiliation? Poof. Gone. Now, suddenly, the talking heads and scandal-adoring scribblers had something else to chew on.

The dud of a bombshell saved Obama's butt -- and he played the distraction exceptionally.

The commentariat -- uniformly, from what I could tell -- was perplexed at Obama's personal engagement of the substance-lacking scandal. He should let surrogates and aides address it, they chided, and not lower himself into the cesspool of ignominious doings.

But, by putting his own face on the dust-up, the senator cranked it into a whirlwind. He knew exactly what he was doing -- no amateur, this Obama -- and he couldn't have done it better or to greater effect.

His personal intervention added fuel to the subject-changing news cycle, and what's more, his comments reinforced not only his own sagging message about Hillary as "a creature of a discredited Washington establishment" up to its old tricks, but fortuitously piggybacked on John Edwards' gloomy admonitions about our "corrupt political system," now spearheaded on the left, says Edwards, by you-know-who.

The upshot of all this? Barack Obama is now in a neck-and-neck contest with Hillary Clinton in Iowa. Consequently she's been cornered into a head-to-head strategy -- a prospect almost unimaginable before and especially immediately after the Las Vegas debate.

Obama's was one of the slickest tactical pivots I've ever witnessed -- and writing him off a week ago was one of the dumbest things I've ever done.

****

... to support p m carpenter's ocassionally stupid commentary -- and thank you!

The Hobgoblin of Big Minds: The New York Times' Mysterious Disappearance During the McClellan Imbroglio

What in bloody hell is going on at the New York Times?

It was bad enough that the Washington Post buried the snipped McClellan revelations on page 15 (and that, by the way, was an Associated Press story, not a Post piece), but for the Times' news department to blow them off entirely is, for me at least, less aggravating than it is downright dumbfounding.

My only guess is that having originally made the decision to ignore the most significant development in the Plame affair since Scooter Libby's unconscionable commutation, the Times then decided to make it appear that theirs was a stand on journalistic principle: they are above the gossipy fray, a publisher's teasing, the unsubstantial musings of a quick-buck artist. In doing so, they then swiftly got caught up in one of Emerson's foolish consistencies.

That observation was confirmed this morning. I scanned the Times' online pages looking for some belated reference to the McClellan story. Nothing. So I migrated to the Times' internal search box, whereupon I typed "Scott McClellan," still thinking that some journalistic act likely had been committed by the Times, but was merely beyond my ken.

The results? Number 1) "Times Topics: Scott McClellan; News about Scott McClellan, including commentary and archival articles published in The New York Times," whose related links were topped not by news about Scott McClellan, but by a Mar. 7 piece on the Libby verdict. Number 2) A Sept. 1 story on Tony Snow's departure. And number 3, my favorite) An Apr. 26 "Arts, Briefly" piece in -- yep -- the Arts section, literally footnoting that "A memoir by Scott McClellan ... is to be published next spring by PublicAffairs, The Associated Press reported."

Gee, I wonder what ever became of that? Did anything of interest happen to happen between that announcement and the publishing date? I scurried to today's Arts section to check out the latest in political news, but alas, those arts reporters were covering only the arts, the pikers.

But let it not be said, as I indeed said in my opening, that the Times' editors entirely ignored the story. For this will be their defense: They let loose their blogger, Mike Nizza, on it, who noted Tuesday in "The Lede" that it is "intriguing" that "Mr. McClellan appears to hold President Bush partially responsible for statements to the White House press corps in 2003 that later proved to be inaccurate."

I like that. "Inaccurate" -- like little more than the miscalculation of a restaurant tip.

By the next day, however, after the McClellan story had blanketed other legitimate news operation's political coverage, The Lede was in full-blown damage control -- and I can only assume at the behest of embarrassed Times editors. Story? What story? They knew all along it was nothing but pestiferous hubbub, unworthy of their high-minded attention.

Or, as The Lede condescendingly put it: "After a day of wide coverage and swift reactions on the Web, the publisher, Peter Osnos of PublicAffairs, told MSNBC that Mr. McClellan 'did not intend to suggest Bush lied to him' about two senior aides’ roles in leaking the identity of Valeria Plame Wilson.... When we wrote about this yesterday, that was clearly one of the possible outcomes, although one that will disappoint opponents of the president who were hoping for him to be directly tied to one of the biggest scandals of his administration."

Blogger Nizza then concluded by quoting a right-wing blogger: "'Sorry, suckers,' Greg Sargent wrote at The Horse’s Mouth, 'It looks like McClellan will actually exonerate Bush for his role in Plamegate.'"

So let me get this clear in my muddled and amateurish head. The Times now depends on MSNBC to get hot-button stories straight -- certainly before venturing any reporting itself -- and on right-wing apologists to authoritatively assess their ultimate outcome -- and with that breadth and depth that only right-wing apologists do so well.

Got it. Bottom line: Put down the paper, turn on the tube. And for heaven's sake, let us certainly not venture into the story's vice-presidential implications, since the publisher pointedly omitted saying that McClellan did not intend to suggest that Dick Cheney lied to him. What's a little old news about possible White House obstruction of justice, after all? Yawn.

But here's an alternative bottom line: The Times blew it -- big time, to use the justice-obstructing vice president's favorite colloquialism. It then tried covering its butt, rather than the story, by relegating coverage to, and belittling others' coverage in, a blog.

May the journalistic gods help us should the House Judiciary Committee ever gin up impeachment proceedings. The Times, you see, already covered that sort of stuff back in '74, and it wouldn't want to just garishly pile on today.

Now forget all this crap and go have a marvelous Thanksgiving, right after you ...

... to support p m carpenter's commentary, because writers need to eat, too -- and thank you!

A Final Plea To Congress To Out This Accountability-Denying, National Security-Breaching, Justice-Obstructing Administration

Former Press Secretary Scott McClellan remains the master of Orwellian obfuscation, only these days for fun and profit.

The Bushies -- who now include a long and growing list of former acolytes, such as McClellan -- as well those constitutionally charged with overseeing their misdeeds, can't even do scandal in a traditional way. You'll recall during the Nixon administration there was a thing called the smoking gun -- guns, actually. We had real investigative committees grilling thoroughly corrupt insiders and getting to the actual truth. The guns blasted and smoked almost daily. Mistakes were made, indeed, but we got to the criminal bottom of each and every one, and before the chief perp left office.

In a way, those were the days. As dark and squalid as they were, we nevertheless pulled ourselves out of the muck by exposing it to the clean light of day. And we did it by the book, which is to say, the U.S. Constitution.

Today? We see medals donned on the criminally incompetent. We witness internal promotions in repayment for the most despicable of on-the-job screw ups. We watch neocon nincompoops escape accountability and settle into cushy think-tank jobs. We get Congressional excuses and foot-dragging and table-offing.

And, we get memoirs -- those telling-all while saying-nothing memoirs, guaranteed to rake in the cash for the criminals, incompetents and nincompoops.

In April, we'll get Scott McClellan's: "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and What’s Wrong With Washington."

Mr. McClellan probably does know much of what actually happened, but if you think he's about to tell us, think again. His publisher, PublicAffairs, will release 400 pages of little more than fog and shadows. That's what "Scottie" excels at generating; and that, of course, is the principal if not only reason he was Bush's spokesman. Clarity is the enemy of national betrayal.

His story on the Plame affair, no doubt, will stop where his publisher's teaser leaves off: "I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest-ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so."

What the hell does that mean? Of course they "were involved" -- an inconsequential passive usage that fails to compete with even the just as inconsequential but at least more rhetorically ominous, "mistakes were made."

Note what he didn't write: "five of the highest-ranking officials in the administration were directly and knowingly responsible for my doing so."

The latter may well be the case, but we won't read or hear it from Scottie. Indeed, he's already gone as far as he'll publicly go, without penalty of perjury. On the day Scooter Libby was convicted of just that, McClellan, who had long since left his White House podium, "made no suggestion" to CNN's Larry King "that Bush knew either Libby or Rove was involved in the leak. McClellan said his statements to reporters were what he and the president 'believed to be true at the time based on assurances that we were both given.'"

What's more, "In recent conversations and in his many public speaking engagements, McClellan has made it clear he retains great affection for the president." So don't count on anything more appearing in print, come April.

So when it does come to getting at the truth, what's missing? Think back to the Nixon days, and the missing piece looms large.

An aggressive Congress; one willing to take on a sitting president, to let the subpoenas fly and the investigators delve -- one willing to demand answers that travel beyond the obfuscating fog and arrive at the liberating truth. McClellan's "teaser" may in fact say little of authentic substance, but it does profoundly add to Congress' already plentiful cause for investigating obstruction of justice at the highest level.

I realize there are Democratic swing districts that might be endangered by an aggressive Congress, and that upholding the rule of law and enforcing constitutional imperatives pale in comparison to such electoral exigencies. But millions who retain some affection for the Constitution are beggin ya: Give it a go, anyway. You might be surprised at the public's reception -- a public that has had enough of this accountability-denying, national security-breaching, justice-obstructing administration.

****

... to support p m carpenter's commentary, because writers need to eat, too -- and thank you!