Monk

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I've been meaning to get something on the General Petraeus chapter in our Iraq War woes, as there have been some serious questions about the authenticity of his public statements.

This is Frank Rich's column, so it is a bit shrill (which is often the cost of being a strong writer of rapier rhetoric). In the end, Mr. Rich suggests that it would Be Petraeus's fault if we take some terrorist attacks, for distracting us in Iraq. Of course, it really would be the terrorists' fault, as well as perhaps President Bush's responsibility for his Iraq-mania. At most General Petraeus is Bush's enabler, but if it weren't Petraeus, it would be someone else - it's just that Bush now has his man.

I wish it were Lincoln and Grant, but I'm not a believer.

( Frank Rich )

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The war is hardly the only area where the Bush administration is trying to expand its powers beyond all legal justification. But the danger of an imperial presidency is particularly great when a president takes the nation to war, something the founders understood well. In the looming showdown, the founders and the Constitution are firmly on Congress’s side.

-- Adam Cohen for The New York Times

Mr. Cohen gives us the historical and constitutional grounding for the argument that Congress does have a determinative voice in matters of war. I must confess that I had thought that Bush really did have all the cards as commander in chief, in spite of the level of popular and Congressional disapproval, and this was just one of the consequences of electing the man to a second term. But I guess it's not that simple.

( Adam Cohen )

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In a coordinated public relations offensive, the White House is using reliably friendly pundits — amazingly, they still exist — to put out the word that President Bush is as upbeat and confident as ever. It might even be true.

What I don’t understand is why we’re supposed to consider Mr. Bush’s continuing confidence a good thing.

Remember, Mr. Bush was confident six years ago when he promised to bring in Osama, dead or alive. He was confident four years ago, when he told the insurgents to bring it on. He was confident two years ago, when he told Brownie that he was doing a heckuva job.

Now Iraq is a bloody quagmire, Afghanistan is deteriorating and the Bush administration’s own National Intelligence Estimate admits, in effect, that thanks to Mr. Bush’s poor leadership America is losing the struggle with Al Qaeda. Yet Mr. Bush remains confident.

Sorry, but that’s not reassuring; it’s terrifying. It doesn’t demonstrate Mr. Bush’s strength of character; it shows that he has lost touch with reality.

-- Paul Krugman for The New York Times

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George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Joe Lieberman are all flying over New Orleans in a Blackhawk, surveying the progress that has been made in rebuilding the city and the levees. As they fly over the Ninth Ward, Cheney looks out the window, grins, and says, "You know, I could throw a thousand-dollar bill out the window right now and make one of those poor bastards very happy."

Bush says, "Well, I could throw ten hundred-dollar bills out the window right now and make TEN people very happy."

Not to be outdone, Lieberman chimes in, "Oh yeah? Well, I could throw a hundred $10 bills out the window and make a HUNDRED Americans very happy."

Hearing this, the copter pilot rolls his eyes and says, "Man, I could throw all three of you out the window and make 300 million Americans very happy."

-- Andrew Sullivan Blog

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“I want you to move to the Green Zone, meet with the Iraqi factions and do not come home until you’ve reached one of three conclusions: 1) You have resolved the power- and oil-sharing issues holding up political reconciliation; 2) you have concluded that those obstacles are insurmountable and have sold the Iraqis on a partition plan that could be presented to the U.N. and supervised by an international force; 3) you have concluded that Iraqis are incapable of agreeing on either political reconciliation or a partition plan and told them that, as a result, the U.S. has no choice but to re-deploy its troops to the border and let Iraqis sort this out on their own.”

-- Thomas L. Friedman for The New York Times

Mr. Friedman also lets off some steam. The above quote is the mission that he argues President Bush should charge our best negotiators. But you can tell there isn't a lot of hope left in Dubya.

We have what you might call a presidential crisis: no president.

( Friedman )

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I cannot recall Ms. Dowd ever being this unrestrained. She seems to be genuinely pissed off over the historic fuck-up that is our president. So, without further ado...

( MoDo Storm )

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David Brooks used to work with Bill Kristol, as I recall, and it looks like Mr. Kristol called Brooks for a favor, not wanting to be the only one glorying in Bush's excellent leadership. It must have been a big favor, for Brooks to come out and make himself look like such a fawning idiot:

I left the 110-minute session thinking that far from being worn down by the past few years, Bush seems empowered. His self-confidence is the most remarkable feature of his presidency.

Ignorance is bliss, buddy.

As I was reading this column, I had to keep reminding myself that this isn't a Dowd satire, but the punchline never came, just the lame cover that if there is failure it is because no man could have been great enough to save the day, forgetting that it is Dubya's own major-league fuck-ups that have brought us to this.

( Brooks )

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Mr. Blair committed funds to improve the teaching of Islamic studies in British universities; announced a new effort to develop "minimum standards" for imams in Britain; and, most significantly, declared that henceforth the government would be giving "priority, in its support and funding decisions, to those leadership organizations actively working to tackle violent extremism." Routine but vague press releases against terrorism would no longer do.

-- James Woolsey and Nina Shea for The Wall Street Journal

Here is an interesting piece about how the British have apparently been taking more effective action in discriminating between extremist and moderate Muslims, and showing by contrast how poorly the Bush Administration has been acting in this regard, arguably distorted by all that oil money. For all the aggressive action taken in going to war in Iraq, you might like to think they would act smart in some of the simpler things to counter extremism and terrorism, but I guess that would be unrealistic.

( article )

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But Bush has the good fortune of having finally found his Ulysses S. Grant, or his Creighton Abrams, in Gen. David H. Petraeus. If the president stands with Petraeus and progress continues on the ground, Bush will be able to prevent a sellout in Washington. And then he could leave office with the nation on course to a successful (though painful and difficult) outcome in Iraq. With that, the rest of the Middle East, where so much hangs in the balance, could start to tip in the direction of our friends and away from the jihadists, the mullahs and the dictators.

... What it comes down to is this: If Petraeus succeeds in Iraq, and a Republican wins in 2008, Bush will be viewed as a successful president.

I like the odds.

-- William Kristol, "Why Bush Will Be a Winner" in The Washington Post

Well, Dubya now has a president for his fan club. All he needs are members. What an off-note column this was against pretty much all the rest of the media. What if he is proven right!? In any case, I think the Bush daughters owe Kristol a sweaty, nasty threesome.

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The truth is that Iraq has upped the ante in the war against terrorists. Our enemies’ worst nightmare is a constitutional government in the heart of the ancient caliphate, surrounded by consensual rule in Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Turkey; ours is a new terror heaven, but with oil, a strategic location, and the zeal born of a humiliating defeat of the United States on a theater scale. The Islamists believe we can’t win; so does the New York Times. But it falls to the American people to decide the issue.

-- Victor Davis Hanson, "The New York Times Surrenders" in City Journal

Mr. Hanson gives a moving argument that America should not pull out of Iraq. Against all the hue and cry to bring the troops home. It is hardly just the Times. The American people have decided long ago, at least since the 2006 elections.

For me this goes back to the General Shinseki controversy, when he was fired by the Bush Administration for going against their line on the troop levels needed to secure Iraq. He and the army believed that they needed around 400,000 troops to do the job, more than double the troops the Administration called on.

( Read more... )

(The Debate)

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