Brokaw Credits Hubris For Anti-GOP Wave--Well, Sort of

In discussing the election results with Chris Matthews on MSNBC's Hardball last night, former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw referred to Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War. Here's what Brokaw, who previously blurbed our book, said on the show:

Chris, one of the things I think that's happened with Republicans, especially with conservatives around the country, is that the president did not acknowledge that things were not going well until the last month or so, when he said they're not going as well as I would like them to. They kept insisting things were going well when there was a marked deterioration in the original strategy, and what was going on, and then had you October, with more Americans killed than ever before. Republicans come, to a large degree, from the corporate, from the business world and when things don't go well, they know that they have to change. And there was no indication of change going on in this administration.

And then in the closing days of the campaign, the president gave Don Rumsfeld a no-cut contract, said he's here until the very end. Some of the most pointed criticism of the president on the war came from George Will and from Pat Buchanan. And then there were a whole series of books and they were called "Fiasco" and "State of Denial" and "Hubris." And they were detailed accounts of all that had gone wrong before. So, you know, there was the reality on the one side and then what the president was trying to persuade the country, on the other side, was that I've got a plan, stay with me here. And finally people said, look, I've heard the sky is falling too long. I'm going to make my own judgment about this.

It's good to be on the side of reality--especially when you write nonfiction books.

Posted by David Corn at November 8, 2006 03:05 PM

Rumsfeld Out; Pelosi's To-Do List

Donald Rumsfeld is out. Why did he leave? Days ago, the president told reporters that he would retain Rummy through the end of his presidency. That implied that Bush wanted Rumsfeld in the job no matter what happened on Election Day and that he believed Rumsfeld was essential to protecting this nation's security. So is this a political decision? After all, how could this administration play politics with such an important position? It wouldn't do such a thing, would it?

Asked at a press conference about the contradiction between his statement of support for Rumsfeld last week and today's announcement, Bush tried to explain it away by noting that Rumsfeld's departure was not finalized until yesterday. That would mean that he told those reporters he was keeping Rumsfeld at the Pentagon for another two years at a time when Rumsfeld's exit was already in the works.

Bush was also asked if Rumsfeld's replacement by former Robert Gates, who was CIA chief for Bush's father, would lead to a "new direction." He said, "I am committed to victory." Pressed on the "new direction" point, he said that Gates would bring in a "fresh perspective." Let's see if (a) he does and (b) that "perspective" changes anything at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

In the meantime, yet more election analysis from yours truly, courtesy of www.tompaine.com:

Democratic To-Do List
David Corn
November 08, 2006
www.tompaine.com

"I hope they don't get it."

A veteran Democratic strategist, standing outside the Democrats' victory party in a Capitol Hill hotel ballroom, was talking about the Democrats and the Senate. The best outcome, he said, was for the Democrats to win back the House--which by this point on Election Night they had--and become the insurgents of Washington, challenging the discredited and sclerotic Republicans of the White House and Senate. With the House in hand, the Democrats would be able to pass popular pieces of legislation--say, raising the minimum wage--and mount whatever investigations they desire. The bills would then be killed by either GOPers in the Senate or the lame duck in the White House. The Democrats would have no true responsibility for governing--that is, for cleaning up George W. Bush's mess in Iraq and elsewhere. But if they were to end up controlling both chambers of Congress, they would become fifty-fifty partners in the government--become the target of a president who would use Democratic control of Congress as an excuse for his own failures and endlessly blame the Democrats for the nation's woes. "One-third is ideal," this strategist remarked. Moments later, the wife of another prominent Democratic strategist told me her husband also wasn't wishing for success in the Senate.

Well, these Democrats may have to settle for both houses of Congress. As I write on the morning after, the Democrats are leading in the not-yet-settled Senate races of Montana and Virginia. If these numbers hold--and it seems that there will be a recount in the James Webb versus George Allen race in Virginia--the Democrats will indeed have the obligation to run the legislative branch. And they will have a rather narrow window in which they can attempt to re-brand themselves as the responsible party of Washington.

Democrats know that this election was more about Bush than them. They won mostly because they were not the other guy. Americans didn't flock to the polls because they yearned to see Representative Nancy Pelosi as House speaker or Senator Harry Reid as Senate majority leader. They wanted Bush out of the White House. But since he was not on the ballot, voters went with the next best thing: booting his comrades out of Congress. So the Democrats--even though they did campaign on a platform promoting various legislative initiatives--take office without a full mandate. But with this win comes the chance to persuade the American public that Democrats do stand for something, do share the values of many Americans and can get the job done. Yet the Democrats will have the political equivalent of ten minutes to prove this.

That's not an impossible task, but there are obvious obstacles. Foremost is the conservative, pro-Republican media attack machine. By the time you read this, the right-wing media will probably be intensifying its campaign to demonize Pelosi and the other Democrats who will assume leadership positions or committee chairmanships. Remember, when Newt Gingrich and his allies took power in the House in the so-called Republican revolution of 1994, the conservative media infrastructure was not nearly as large and as integrated with the GOP as it is today. Now, Mission One for this system is to discredit Pelosi and her fellow Democrats. So expect a ceaseless the-end-is-near attack from this gang.

The other obvious obstacle is Iraq. In their victory speeches on election night, Pelosi, Reid, Representative Rahm Emanuel, the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Senator Chuck Schumer, the head of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, each said the election signaled that the American people crave a course correction in Iraq. Yet the Democrats offer no clear alternative path. Though most tend to favor phased disengagement, they do not agree on how to do this. There will be great pressure on the Democrats to solve the problem Bush created in Iraq--even when there are no good or easy solutions. A failure to craft a coherent and convincing alternative for Iraq could quickly hobble the newly empowered Democrats.

The good news is this: In the House, they can start approving legislation immediately and can initiate investigations. Pelosi has already promised that within the first hundred hours, her Democrats will approve bills that raise the minimum wage, increase funding for homeland security, lower interest rates on student loans and permit the government to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies to lower drug prices. If she pulls this off--with or without a Democratic Senate (where opposition party members can easily block legislation)--she will be able to demonstrate to the public that the Democrats are serious and worth supporting.

She will also have to make certain that the Democrats proceed with the appropriate inquiries. The goal is to hold the Bush administration accountable without appearing vindictive. (See Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay for a lesson in how not to do this.) My hunch is that many Americans--especially those outside the party faithful whom the Democrats will want to keep on their side for 2008--will prefer to see Democrats producing legislative accomplishments rather than acrimonious investigations. But there are plenty of probes that can proceed. Representative Henry Waxman, the new chairman of the government reform committee, should investigate thoroughly the failed reconstruction in Iraq. An estimated $45 billion of the $80 billion spent on Iraq reconstruction has gone down the drain of fraud and waste. What taxpayer would not like to see this fully investigated?

Pelosi and the Democrats--including those in the Senate, if they gain control there--ought to pick their investigations carefully and strategically. (Yes, this means staying away from any talk of impeachment.) But a prudent approach will hardly limit the opportunities. Take global warming. An investigation of how the Bush administration has suppressed scientific data showing the problem of global warming, coupled with hearings on the administrations refusal to do anything significant to redress this threat, could play well.

Let's face it: Pelosi and Reid are not the best media representatives for the Democrats. Democratic representatives and senators routinely hail each for effectively leading their party caucuses, even as they acknowledge these leaders' limitations as the party's spokespeople. And Pelosi is going to have to continue to keep her party together and disciplined on strategy and tactics--traditionally not an easy task for Democrats. (To take advantage of this moment, liberal and conservative Democrats are going to have to play nice with each other.) Pelosi and Reid get credit for the wins on election night, but neither of them is going to sell the Democratic Party using charisma and charm. They can only do so with substance. And many American voters will not grant them much more than a first impression. The Democrats have a shot at winning over the public. But there's a lot they're going to have to get exactly right.

Posted by David Corn at November 8, 2006 01:11 PM

Payback

From my "Capital Games" column at www.thenation.com....


Payback's a bitch.

There is no way to spin the election results. They were a repudiation of George W. Bush, his party, his agenda, and his war. The commander in chief argues that he is fighting a war in Iraq that is essential to the survival of the United States. The electorate sent a message: we don't buy it. Political genius Karl Rove and GOP chieftain Ken Mehlman, with their scare tactics (defeatist Democrats will surrender to the terrorists; Nancy Pelosi will destroy the nation) and below-the-belt ads, were not able to defy popular sentiment. Comeuppance was the order of the day. Because of Bush, R became a scarlet letter. In Rhode Island, incumbent Republican Senator Lincoln Chaffee, a moderate who voted against the war in 2002 and against Bush in 2004, enjoyed a 66 percent approval rating; still. voters sent him packing. Children, pay attention. If you're a president who misleads the nation into war and then mismanages that war, you might sneak past a reelection but then bring ruin upon your party. The Bush-wreaked reality trumped the Rove-designed rhetoric--finally. The voters chose not to stay his course. The market worked.

The Democrats won control of the House and came close with the Senate. As of 1:00 AM, in Virginia, Reaganite-turned-Democrat Jim Webb was barely ahead of Senator George "Macaca" Allen--though a recount seemed likely. In Missouri, the Senate race was a virtual tie. If the Democrats should win in each, the Senate would be theirs. However, Tennessee--where Democrats were trying to elect Representative Harold Ford Jr., an African-American--was a bridge too far. But even without the Senate, the Democrats will now be able to counter Bush and advance a platform of their own.

At a victory party at a Capitol Hill hotel--attended by thousands of Democrats, many wearing a badge proclaiming, "A New Direction for America"--a senior House Democratic staffer said, "The word has come on down from on high: no gloating. Those of us who were around in 1994 remember Republicans telling us that we were no longer needed and could get lost--literally. We've been told not to handle this differently." But it's certainly true that the House Democrats have assumed power in a slightly less triumphant manner than did the GOP in the so-called Republican Revolution of 1994. Though Democrats did have an agenda for the campaign, they know that the election was a referendum on Bush and the rubber-stamp Republicans, not their pet legislative ideas. As Senator Chuck Schumer, the head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee proclaimed, "the message of this election came down to one word: change." That is, boot Bush's compatriots out of office. To do this, voters had to go Democratic.

The voters have "reluctantly given us the keys," said Terry McAuliffe, a former head of the Democratic Party. And, he added, the Democrats will have to prove themselves--quickly. How to do so? By briskly passing legislation on popular issues--boosting the minimum wage, increasing homeland security funding, lowering interest rates on college loans, empowering the federal government to negotiate with pharmaceutical comapnies to achieve lower drug prices for Medicare. Even if such legislation dies in a Republican-controlled Senate or is vetoed by Bush, the Democrats can shape the the coming presidential election. (Another major win in a night of wins for the Democrats was the election of Representative Ted Strickland as governor of Ohio. "You can't win the presidency without Ohio," McAuliffe noted. And with a Democrat running the state, the Ds will have an advantage there in 2008.)

As for the Republicans, this election will unleash the furies within that party. In sorting out this defeat, GOPers will find themselves confronting their internal conflicts. Social conservatives will square off against economics-first libertarians. The party could split along other line--between those who stick with Bush and those who want to cut and run from the abaltross-in-chief. It could all get quite acrimonious, especially with 2008 politics influencing the blame-game. Republicans could end up looking like Democrats.

But the bottom-line is clear: the Bush presidency is over. At least, as Bush and Dick Cheney have envisioned it. They can no longer act imperiously. They have lost the public. And there is now an opposition that can check and investigate their actions abroad and at home. But the Democrats still have to complete the sale. At the victory bash, Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi declared, "We need a new direction in Iraq." She didn't say what it would be. The Democratic victory--as sweet as it is for the Democrats--is very much an unfinished work.

Posted by David Corn at November 8, 2006 12:51 AM

Voting

I voted. There were no problems. During the primary elections a few months ago, Montgomery County in Maryland experienced a small disaster with electronic voting machines, primarily because election workers were not adequately trained in how to operate teh devices and election cards were not distributed to the polls. That did not happen today. But there were two moments that caused me to wonder about the security of the voting process.

First, when I approached the desk to receive a voting card, I was asked my name, address and date of birth. The women on the other side did not request any identification--nothing with or without a photo. Anyone who cared to impersonate me--and who knew my address and birthday--could have done so. This was unsettling. After all, when I retrieve packages from the Post Office, I have to show identification. I realize that conservatives have long complained that no-ID voting creates the opportunity for voter fraud. That's undeniable, though it would take an extensive and well-coordinated campaign to engage in fraud-by-impersonation on a significant scale. And Democrats have a point when they contend that voting should be as easy as possible. Nevertheless, it's tough to argue that citizens should not have to show any form of identification to gain access to the ballot box.

Second, after selecting my choices on an electronic touch-screen machine, I pressed the "Cast Ballot" button on the screen, and I received a message: Your vote has been cast. It probably was. But how could I know for sure? I received no receipt. All that happened was some digitalized 1s and 0s were shuffled around inside the machine and zapped to another machine, courtesy of proprietary software not open to public inspection. I have not concluded--as have others--that electronic voting machines are routinely rigged (by Republicans) to change results. But I have for years believed that since they can be rigged--and the evidence is compelling on this front--people are right to fret about the integrity of the voting system.

Sure, all systems are vulnerable to underhanded chicanery. Old-fashioned ballot boxes can be stuffed. But the goal should be to minimize the ability of any would-be tamperers to engage in dirty-trickery that can affect a decisive number of votes, and electronic voting does not pass this test--not yet. When we used to write X's on paper ballots or pull levers on voting machines, voters still had to have faith that all the votes would be counted honestly. Given that it would take a concerted effort of a number of people to falsify the results with those vote-counting methods, it was not hard to have a decent level of confidence in the voting process in most localities. But when we press a finger against the "Cast Ballot" image on a screen, we require a higher degree of faith that the counting system is working as it should and that it has not been tainted by a tiny group of persons. Presumably, a modest programming alteration in some cases could lead to phony results. As I walked away from the machine, I worried about my vote--more than a citizen should have to.

Posted by David Corn at November 7, 2006 11:47 AM

Election Day

Vote.

More, later. (I'm hoping the lines are not too long and the electronic voting machines--and the election workers in charge of them--are not wigging out.)

Posted by David Corn at November 7, 2006 12:31 AM

Do Bush and Cheney Want To Lose?

From my "Capitol Games" column at www.thenation.com....

Is it possible the White House doesn't want Republicans to win the congressional elections on Tuesday? I know this sounds crazy. But consider the evidence.

1. Last week, George W. Bush vowed to retain Donald Rumsfeld as secretary of defense until the end of his presidency. (He said the same about Dick Cheney.) The debacle in Iraq is responsible for Bush's political decline and the GOP's poor electoral prospects. And Rumsfeld is the poster boy for that debacle. (Days ago, the Army Times called for his resignation.) Bush had no obligation to say whether Rumsfeld would remain at the Pentagon for another two years. He went out of his way in the homestretch of an election to tether himself to the fellow who symbolizes the mess in Iraq. Why do that--unless he has a political death wish?

2. On Friday, Dick Cheney said that the administration would indeed stay with its current course in Iraq and move "full speed ahead." He said, "We've got the basic strategy right." He added, "It may not be popular with the public--it doesn't matter in the sense that we have to continue the mission and do what we think is right. And that's exactly what we're doing. We're not running for office. We're doing what we think is right." Perhaps. But the previous week, his boss held a press conference and tried to convey the impression (though false) that the administration was going to rejigger its Iraq policy by introducing and aiming for "benchmarks." Bush's benchmark comments were not sufficient to win the confidence of the electorate. Days later, a New York Times/CBS News poll noted that only 29 percent of Americans approve of how Bush is handling the war in Iraq. So if 71 percent do not have faith in the White House's Iraq policy, why would Cheney make a point of declaring--defiantly--that he and Bush are committed to racing down that unpopular road? It was as if he were shooting the bird at the American public.

3. Speaking of which, on the weekend before the election, Cheney's office had an announcement: Cheney would spend Election Day on his first hunting trip since he shot a friend while trying to kill quail on a private ranch last February. Was this the right time for the White House to remind voters of Cheney's hapless moment? Couldn't Cheney wait until after the election before picking up a gun again? Why won't he be in a toss-up state stumping for a Republican candidate on Election Day? Or knocking on doors? And why does he get the day off? Election Day is not a federal holiday.

All of the above is quite puzzling behavior for a president and vice president facing the possibility their agenda, their war, and their party are about to be soundly refuted by American voters. Do they already know all is lost? On Sunday, I spoke with a former senior Bush administration official who has publicly predicted the Republicans will retain a one- or two-seat majority in the House and keep control of the Senate. But his manner indicated he didn't believe it. "This is what I have to say," he told me. "This is my public position." I asked what his private view was. He rolled his eyes.

Of course, the Republican Party is doing all its can to beat back what appears to be an anti-GOP wave--and that includes airing far-below-the-belt negative ads. Bush and Cheney have been campaigning in conservative areas--in spots where they won't do harm to Republicans. (On Monday, the Republican gubernatorial candidate in Florida elected not to campaign with Bush in the Sunshine State.) And GOPers are talking up the vaunted get-out-the-vote machine created by Karl Rove and Ken Mehlman that is now in motion. So it is bizarre that in the closing days of this critical election Bush and Cheney would so dramatically remind voters of what they don't like about the Bush-Cheney administration. If these episodes are not indicators of a secret desire to lose, they are additional signs that Bush and Cheney are woefully out of sync with the public. This prompts a question: if the electorate does rise up against Bush, his party and their war, will Bush and Cheney be able to process that? If not, the republic may be in for a rather bumpy ride.


Posted by David Corn at November 6, 2006 11:32 AM

Perle's Non-Mea Culpa: A Video Comentary

Being a neoconservative seems to mean never having to say you're sorry. A new Vanity Fair article quotes several leading neocons who were cheerleaders for the Iraq war but who are now blaming George W. Bush, not themselves, for the debacle there. Below is a video commentary from me about this:





Click HERE


To see that column on my pre-invasion conversation with Perle (which I mention in the clip), click here.

By the way, after comments were suspended on this site due to a hack-attack, a loyal reader created a mirror site that reposts what appears on davidcorn.com and allows comments. You can join in the conversation here. And once this video commentary is up there, please let me know what you think. But be gentle.

Posted by David Corn at November 4, 2006 10:37 PM

Let the Blame Game Begin!

Another blog posting of mine on The Guardian's Comment Is Free group-blog....

In the final days of the congressional elections campaign, as the Democratic and Republican parties throw tens of millions of dollars into advertising in key House and Senate races, it's not too early to kick off the blame-game.With the pre-tally predictions favoring the Democrats, it's natural that the Republicans would start to worry about recriminations first. Dick Armey, the former Republican House majority leader, has been assailing Christian conservatives for forcing his party to neglect its small-government agenda in favor of divisive social matters, such as gay marriage and abortion. He has singled out James Dobson, the head of Focus on the Family, and has called such "self-appointed Christian leaders" as Dobson "thugs" and "bullies." (Dobson is also in the news of late for supporting Ted Haggard, the head of the National Association of Evangelicals, who was accused by a male prostitute of being one of his clients.)

At the same time, Armey has also pointed a finger at George W. Bush for mounting a war of "questionable necessity" that has alienated voters from the president's party. Newt Gingrich, the former Republican House Speaker who had to resign in part because of an extramarital affair, accused the Republicans he left behind in Congress of having "drifted away from reform and changed back to a standard political party"--meaning one marked by incompetence and corruption.

On this blog, Quin Hillyer, an editor of the conservative American Spectator, essentially accused Karl Rove of botching the mission. His argument is that the Republicans should have attacked the Democrats more vigorously. The sexually and racially charged ads deployed by the Republicans were apparently not enough. Nor were the repeated claims from Bush, Dick Cheney and other Republicans that Democrats are cut-and-runners who would undermine the country's national security (when they're not busy responding to invitations to gay weddings).

For years now, Bush has been trying to blur the national security issue and convince Americans the war in Iraq (which is not popular) is part of the war on terror (which is popular). He began the campaign season doing just that, making speeches on this point and pushing legislation regarding the detention and interrogation of suspected terrorists.

But he hit two snags. First, the legislation was opposed by leading (pro-war) Republicans: senators John McCain, John Warner, and Lindsey Graham. Bush lost his clean shot at the Democrats, who also opposed the measure.

Second, the war has become increasingly more ugly. This trumps all. The Republicans in Congress have hung themselves by following Bush like lapdogs. They have held few hearings about Iraq policy or the fraud and waste in the Iraq reconstruction program. They have tied themselves to Bush's mast and yielded control over their own fate. Attacking Democrats for disagreeing over the rules regarding the questioning of terrorist suspects could not distract voters from the war.

Hillyer also says the GOP should have made a fuss over Democratic attempts to block conservative judicial nominees. Yet only die-hard Republican voters care about that. And Republicans have them already. (If not, then all is indeed lost for Rove.) He also argues that the Republicans ought to have boasted more about the economy.

Yet despite the boosts in conventional economic indicators, a large majority of the public still feels the country is heading in the wrong direction. That could be because of Iraq. It also could be due to the fact that the growing economy has not yielded much of an increase in wage levels. (Corporate profits are far head of wage increases.) And at the same time, the traditional economic markers do not capture the growing sense of insecurity among American workers. Unemployment may be low, but these days many workers realize that their jobs (and/or benefits) could disappear in a flash. Bush and his party have nothing to say about this widespread and fundamental unease.

No doubt, the Republicans could have played their cards in a better fashion (and we don't know yet that they haven't). But even in politics, reality can shove aside rhetoric. And this election season, Bush could no longer keep the war-and his mismanagement of it-off center stage. If the Republicans do end up losing the House or the Senate, there will be an orgy of finger-pointing (or firebombing) within GOP circles that could well inflame already-present conflicts, such as the tension between libertarian conservatives, who want to minimize government, and social conservatives, who want to legislate morality.
On the Democratic side, there's no reason yet to form firing squads. But should the Democrats not win back at least the House of Representatives, there will be plenty of D-on-D violence. Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic Party, will have a lot of explaining to do-to no avail. So will Representative Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader in the House. And the Democrats will look more hapless than they have ever been. Whatever happens on Tuesday will be a prelude to much political intrigue and change in Washington.

Posted by David Corn at November 3, 2006 05:55 PM

What a Pretty Picture; New Bloggingheads.tv Episode

From Reuters:

A senior U.S. general compared Iraq on Thursday to a "work of art" in progress, saying it was too soon to judge the outcome and playing down violence and friction with Iraqi leaders as "speed bumps" on the road.

"A lump of clay can become a sculpture, blobs of paint become paintings which inspire," Major General William Caldwell, chief military spokesman, told his weekly Baghdad news briefing.

"The final test of our efforts will not be the isolated incidents reported daily but the country that the Iraqis build."

Now, flashback to the posting on this site from two days. I published an email from a source who works in the US embassy on communications matters. He wrote:

So far, the book by the former Washington Post Iraq reporter, Imperial Life in the Emerald City, seems the most accurate picture of what is happening here. He writes about everyone coming to Iraq with good intentions and then being trapped in a surreal cocoon and becoming part of the problem. I spend every day trying to make sure I avoid that bubble syndrome, but I fear it is already happening. We are speaking to an audience [in Iraq] we do not understand. All the communications trickery and flack magic in the world cannot fix that.

So I'm thinking, what will Iraqis think when they hear the senior US general in Iraq comparing the horrific chaos there to a "work of art" in progress? On the gaffe-meter, shouldn't this remark rate higher than John Kerry's botched joke?

COMING SOON. Or maybe it's up by the time you read this--another edition of Bloggingheads.tv featuring me and former White House aide (for Bush the First) Jim Pinkerton. We disagree on the meta-significance of the Kerry remark. Pinkerton claims it reveals the limousine-liberal bias of a guy who married an heiress. I note Kerry is a guy who chose to serve in a combat hot-zone and he merely screwed up an anti-Bush gag. We make no predictions about the elections, but concur that they're all about Iraq--and that ain't good for Bush. Pinkerton celebrates the Wall and missile defense. I get practical: do they work? (How many billions of dollars have been thrown down the rathole for missile defense in the past 23 years?) We both hail NASA's decision to fix the Hubble telescope. It's one giant leap for scientists--and a worthy diversion from NASA's fixation on manned and womanned space travel. Hey, anyone remember Bush's grand announcement in the 2004 State of the Union Speech about his humans-to-Mars initiative? He certainly hasn't talked much about that since then. He must have really meant it, right? Check out our chat when it's up.

Posted by David Corn at November 3, 2006 10:02 AM

Is John Kerry the Problem...or the Iraq War?

Below is a posting of mine from The Guardian's Comment Is Free group-blog....

During the 2004 presidential race, George W. Bush had a problem. If voters viewed the election as a match-up between Bush and the Iraq war, things looked bad for the Republicans. The war wasn't going well; Bush had hyped the threat from Iraq; there were no signs of final victory, the public was justifiably unenthused by the ongoing military action.

But the Republicans won that election because the face-off was not Bush versus his unpopular war but Bush versus Senator John Kerry, the Democratic nominee. It was far easier for the Bush campaign and its allies to pummel Kerry than to defend the no-end-in-sight war. And now the Bush White House - facing what may be a political tidal wave that washes Republicans out of control of at least one house of Congress - has reprised that act, with the media providing much-needed assistance.

As the final week of the campaign began, the Bush White House and Republican spinners were not focusing on Iraq, gay marriage or illegal immigrants. They were zeroing in on a muffed joke that Kerry had made during a campaign rally on Monday. The Massachusetts Democrat had told students that if "you study hard, do your homework and make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq." "He meant to say, according to his prepared text, that if you don't work hard in school, "you end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq. Just ask President Bush.")

The Republicans had a field day with Kerry's quip -- even if there was some truth to his actual remark. After all, US troops are "stuck" in Iraq, and many young Americans join the military because they do not have the career opportunities that would come with a better education. Still, Republicans in search of an issue attacked Kerry, claiming he had suggested US soldiers were dumb, and they demanded an apology, which Kerry, who is not up for reelection this year, eventually provided (after canceling several campaign appearances with Democratic congressional candidates).

What was absurd about this chapter was that Kerry's comment drew more media attention than a New York Times story that disclosed an October 18 classified briefing of the US Central Command reporting that Iraq was edging toward "chaos."

A week after that briefing, Bush had declared publicly that the United States was "winning" in Iraq. This revelation -- and the contradiction between Bush's rosy statement and Central Command's pessimistic view -- should have been driving the news. Yet Tony Snow, Bush's press secretary, spent far more time at the White House daily briefing, assailing Kerry than responding to questions about the bad-news briefing.

And when Vice President Dick Cheney appeared at a Wednesday campaign rally for Senator Conrad Burns -- an endangered Montana Republican linked to convicted Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff -- he did not feel compelled to address the Times story. Instead, Cheney's brief remarks about the Iraq war focused mainly on Kerry's comment. He used Kerry's misdelivered joke to attack all Democrats for wanting to leave Iraq "before the job is done" and thus validating the "al Qaeda strategy."

For two days, the Kerry matter dominated cable news coverage of the elections. On Thursday, it was the lead story in The Washington Post. That edition of the Post had nothing on the front page about what was happening with the actual war in Iraq.Republicans have little to say about Bush's policy in Iraq, for there is little to the policy. Bush's attempt last week to assuage public concern by announcing there will be "benchmarks" in Iraq fell flat, for the White House could not define the benchmarks and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki immediately dismissed the notion of creating hard-and-fast markers. Days later, Maliki even assailed US military efforts to set up security checkpoints in a Shiite stronghold in Baghdad. So when it comes to Iraq, Republican candidates are left mainly with rhetoric, certainly not results.

Meanwhile, Republicans are buckling under the weight of serial scandals -- beyond the congressional page affair. A Republican congressman running for governor in Nevada (Jim Gibbons) was accused by a cocktail waitress of assaulting her. A Republican congressman running for reelection in upstate New York (John Sweeney) has had to answer questions about a leaked police report alleging he beat up his wife. (He claims the report is a fake.) A Republican congresswoman running for reelection in Wyoming (Barbara Cubin) told an opponent with multiple sclerosis who is in a wheelchair that she wanted to slap him. And campaign aides to Republican Senator George Allen - who has imperiled his own election by using a racist term and engaging in other bone-headed moves -- tackled and punched a blogger who had asked Allen an indelicate question about his first marriage. (The divorce records are sealed.)

Generalizing about congressional elections is a risky enterprise. But it is hard to avoid the conclusion that with the war in Iraq and these less weighty episodes, the wheels have popped off the Republican bandwagon. It may be that Karl Rove and other Republican strategists are able to beat back the tide-just barely. But it's unlikely that the GOP attacks on Kerry will make the difference. If anything, this assault only filled up time for a few days and allowed Republicans to feel like they were back in the good ol' days of 2004. But nostalgia, they should keep in mind, is usually a short-lived phenomenon.

Posted by David Corn at November 2, 2006 11:04 AM

Winning in Iraq?/No GOP Civil War Yet?

Today, Tony Snow said at the daily White House press briefing that his boss was right last week to say that the United States is "winning" the war in Iraq. Is that so? A few days ago, I sent an email to an acquaintance working within the US embassy on communications matter and asked for his/her thoughts on recent developments. The reply:

So far, the book by the former Washington Post Iraq reporter, Imperial Life in the Emerald City, seems the most accurate picture of what is happening here. He writes about everyone coming to Iraq with good intentions and then being trapped in a surreal cocoon and becoming part of the problem. I spend every day trying to make sure I avoid that bubble syndrome, but I fear it is already happening. We are speaking to an audience [in Iraq] we do not understand. All the communications trickery and flack magic in the world cannot fix that.

Does the White House understand that?

FANNING FLAMES. I spoke to Mike Rogers, who runs BlogActive.com. In mid-October, Rogers outed Senator Larry Craig, an Idaho Republican, as gay. (Craig's office said the allegation was "absolutely ridiculous.") Rogers tells me he has been busy since then calling social conservatives--such as leaders of mega-churches--to tell them about Craig and other leading Washington Republicans who are thought to be gay. "I'm trying to reach out across aisle," Rogers says, "and build coalitions with huge right-wing mega-churches across the country and call out the guys who covered up the Foley scandal. I'm telling these conservatives about the men who are living what the conservatives call the 'homosexual lifestyle' but who are asking the religious conservatives to follow them into the polling booth." In short, he's trying to provoke a clash between the social cons who oppose gay rights (and who, in some cases, demonize gays) and a Republican Party that is a home to in-the-closet gay legislators and staffers.

To prove his point, Rogers, a gay activist, has been playing for the social conservatives what he says is an audiotape of a man who claims to have firsthand knowledge of Craig's sexual orientation. Rogers will not make this tape--or the name of the man--public. But he is doing all he can to convince religious right supporters of Craig and the Republican Party that they are being led by hypocrites. Is Rogers trying to exploit the antigay bigotry of Christian conservatives to undermine the GOP? And does this sort of pot-stirring play to (and thus reinforce) the biases of the antigay right? Rogers says no: "People have a right to their private lives; it's the hypocrisy they don't have a right to."

A gay-hunt within the Republican Party certainly would not help the GOP. And some non-Republican gay politicos, in the wake of the Mark Foley scandal, have been trying to foster such an internal squabble, just when the GOP has been trying to mobilize its base for the coming congressional elections. (As I've previously reported, these people circulated a list of gay staffers on Capitol Hill.) With only days left until Election Day, it does seem the GOP has avoided a nasty public fight on this front (and also avoided more disclosures about other Republican legislators and pages). But this internal conflict--or contradiction--is not going away. Rogers says he's working on other GOP outings for the future.

Posted by David Corn at November 1, 2006 12:51 PM

Who's Losing What?

George W. Bush is on the campaign trail, claiming that Democrats, if they triumph in the congressional elections, will forfeit the war in Iraq to "the terrorists." Such an assault might be effective--if American voters didn't already believe that Bush has been losing the war. The trendlines are moving in the wrong direction: more deaths (of US soldiers and Iraqi civilians), more attacks, more chaos within the Iraqi government. As Bush thumps his chest and says his "goal is to win," the reality there undercuts his rhetoric. Ponder the front-page of Tuesday's Washington Post. The top-of-the-page article reports that the Iraqi police are thoroughly infiltrated by the militias they are supposed to control. "How can we expect ordinary Iraqis to trust the police when we don't even trust them not to kill our own men," asked Captain Alexander Shaw, who works for a Washington-based military unit that oversees the training of police in Baghdad. Good question. Can Bush provide an answer?

And look at foreign correspondent Anthony Shadid's recent piece in the Post. Under the headline, "This is Baghdad. What could be worse?" he writes of a recent trip to Baghdad:

It had been almost a year since I was in the Iraqi capital, where I worked as a reporter in the days of Saddam Hussein, the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, and the occupation, guerrilla war and religious resurgence that followed. On my return, it was difficult to grasp how atomized and violent the 1,250-year-old city has become. Even on the worst days, I had always found Baghdad's most redeeming quality to be its resilience, a tenacious refusal among people I met over three years to surrender to the chaos unleashed when the Americans arrived. That resilience is gone, overwhelmed by civil war, anarchy or whatever term could possibly fit. Baghdad now is convulsed by hatred, paralyzed by suspicion; fear has forced many to leave. Carnage its rhythm and despair its mantra, the capital, it seems, no longer embraces life.

"A city of ghosts," a friend told me, her tone almost funereal.

What's the plan for de-ghosting Baghdad, Mr. President?

Recently, a former CIA officer who had worked on the Iraq invasion (and who heartily supported it) sent me this note after traveling in Iraq:

It is like a Mad Max movie now, just teetering on complete chaos in Baghdad, with the Maliki government on the ropes. It is hard to believe we have reached this point. Yet no one in our government is accountable or responsible for this policy failure? We sail along blissfully ignorant, chanting the refrain to stay the course, as the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down. I have some understanding now of what Lincoln must have been seeing and thinking when he said, "I fear for the republic."

I couldn't tell whether he was referring to their government or ours.

Posted by David Corn at October 31, 2006 11:19 AM

Does Dick Armey Believe the GOP Deserves To Lose?

I posted this in my "Capitol Games" column at www.thenation.com....

Last week, I noted that when I was interviewing former House Republican majority leader Dick Armey for PajamasMedia.com, the retired congressman told me that his Republican pals in Congress might deserve to lose the coming elections for having made the wrong call on Iraq. I did not quote Armey directly on this point; I paraphrased our conversation. And Armey's office complained to Pajamas about my posting, saying that Armey had expressed no such sentiment. I have reviewed the audio of the entire interview--a video excerpt of which can be viewed here--and below is what he said. You can decide if my "might deserve to lose" formulation fits Armey's remarks.

Armey noted that "the war in Iraq is the 800-pound gorilla in the room." He remarked that the war was of "questionable necessity" and "questionable execution." He added, "As long as Democrats can keep the discussion on Iraq, our party loses ground. That's why you see Republicans, particularly in Senate campaigns, expressing some different points of view....The war in Iraq, is, I think, the big, big issue of the election." I reminded Armey that he is quoted in the book I co-wrote with Michael Isikoff, Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War, saying he deeply regretted his vote to give President George W. Bush the authority to launch the war on Iraq. I asked:

Do you still regret that vote today and if so, if people like you, if Republicans voted the wrong way, is it not, according to the rules of the marketplace, a good thing to sort of pay a price now, at least in political terms. Should people hold your party to account for making the wrong vote?

Here's how Armey replied:

I think it was the wrong vote. I felt it at the time....And yes, if you make a bad vote, in the final analysis, you need to expect to live with it. And to some extent that is happening now--with current officeholders. You might say, "Well, Armey, he dodged the bullet because he made his bad vote and then retired by the time the country woke up to it." But right now I don't think very many people seeking office are going to be running around to very many constituents and saying, "You better reelect me because I voted to get us into Iraq."

Armey went on to say

I'm not clear why we got in here [in Iraq] in the first place. We're mired down here. It doesn't seem to me we're making any progress. I wonder if they're doing it right and how in the heck are we ever going to get out of it. And then you take a look at that and say, who's to blame? Well, there's only one guy to blame, and that's your commander in chief...I don't know how you get out of [Iraq]. Sooner or later, there's going to have to be a decision to get out, probably with some disregard for the consequences.

This is how I read Armey's remarks: (a) he believes invading Iraq was misguided and that Republican members of Congress should not have voted to hand Bush the authority to launch that war; (b) legislators sometimes have to pay for a "bad vote." Does that mean he wants the Republicans to be voted out of office? Clearly, not. He hopes that his party--despite this grave mistake--keeps its stranglehold on Congress. And he's certainly not calling for Bush to resign. But, at the same time, he recognizes that the Republican party's unabashed and across-the-board support of the Iraq war is indeed legitimate cause for voters to boot it out of power.

Armey's great passions in life are free-market economics and country and western music. He cannot deny the workings of the political marketplace: you screw up, you ought to be voted out of office. Does that mean he believes the Republicans "might deserve" to lose?

For Hubris, Armey recalled for us a moment in December 2002--two months after he had voted to give Bush the authority to attack Iraq. He was driving along a stretch of Texas highway when a country song came on about a fellow who looked in the mirror and saw a stranger. The line hit him hard. Against his better instincts, he had voted for the war, though he had serious doubts about the intelligence on Iraq's WMD that had been presented to him personally by Vice President Dick Cheney. Listening to this song, Armey thought that he had become that stranger. He had been untrue to himself. And he was thankful that he was about to retire from the House.

Now it seems that he will have no beef with those voters who on Election Day punish his Republican colleagues for having committed the same mistake he did. Armey might even be able to suggest an appropriate song for his party-mates that day: "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry."

Posted by David Corn at October 30, 2006 01:18 PM

An Expanded Edition of Hubris?

From CNN:


Democrats will aggressively investigate pre-Iraq war intelligence failures if they win back the Senate, a Democratic leader said Friday.

While releasing a report on U.S. contracting problems with the Iraq war -- which he called "the most significant waste, fraud and abuse in the history of the country," Senate Democratic Policy Committee Chairman Byron Dorgan said Democrats will hold "aggressive oversight hearings" on pre-war intelligence, contracting, and a other issues related to the war.

"There's no question that we will finally understand what happened," with intelligence failures, the North Dakota Senator said.

Asked about Republican concerns that Democrats want to get back at Republicans -- possibly even impeach President Bush -- Dorgan said, "it's not retribution," but an attempt to make up for Republicans who "abdicated oversight" of the war because they have "one party control and no one wants to embarrass anyone."

Perhaps this will produce more material for the paperback edition.

Posted by David Corn at October 27, 2006 04:04 PM

Dirty GOP

A week and a half to the elections. Expect plenty of foul play: dirty ads, push polls, false charges, etc. And it may sound unduly partisan to say so, but most of this can be expected to come from the Republicans. Take a look at the front-page article in today's Washington Post headlined "The Year of Playing Dirtier." It notes,

On the brink of what could be a power-shifting election, it is kitchen-sink time: Desperate candidates are throwing everything. While negative campaigning is a tradition in American politics, this year's version in many races has an eccentric shade, filled with allegations of moral bankruptcy and sexual perversion.

At the same time, the growth of "independent expenditures" by national parties and other groups has allowed candidates to distance themselves from distasteful attacks on their opponents, while blogs and YouTube have provided free distribution networks for eye-catching hatchet jobs.

"When the news is bad, the ads tend to be negative," said Shanto Iyengar, a Stanford professor who studies political advertising. "And the more negative the ad, the more likely it is to get free media coverage. So there's a big incentive to go to the extremes."

But this is no bipartisan effort. All of the examples of dirty politics the article cites are Republican attacks on Democrats. As the Post reports,

The result has been a carnival of ugly, especially on the GOP side, where operatives are trying to counter what polls show is a hostile political environment by casting opponents as fatally flawed characters. The National Republican Campaign Committee is spending more than 90 percent of its advertising budget on negative ads, according to GOP operatives, and the rest of the party seems to be following suit.

And some of the examples are pretty ugly. Check out the article to see.

Now, let's think back to the days of the 2000 campaign. A presidential candidate vowed that he would change the tone in Washington. That man was George W. Bush. He obviously didn't mean it. As the titular head of the GOP, Bush could say something about the current Republican assault. But he doesn't seem to care if his party veers further into the gutter. No doubt, it will get worse in the days ahead.

Gotta run. More later.

Posted by David Corn at October 27, 2006 03:51 PM

Winning But Getting Worse?

Here's a posting I contributed to the "Comment Is Free" group blog run by the Guardian newspaper....

On Wednesday, President George W Bush said, "Absolutely, we're winning" the war in Iraq. But he also remarked, "I'm not satisfied" with the situation in Iraq. He further noted, "Last spring, I thought for a period of time we'd be able to reduce our troop presence [in Iraq] early next year." Then he acknowledged that was now not going to happen. To sum up his position: the United States is succeeding in Iraq but conditions there have gotten worse. This is what an election can do to a politician: make him talk nonsense.

With congressional elections less than two weeks away and the predictions dire for Republicans, Bush is in a bind. The only national news of the moment - besides the fuss over Madonna's adoption of an African boy - concerns the Iraq war and the congressional page scandal. Neither of these two stories helps the president's party. There's not much Bush can say about the sordid page affair, as prominent house republicans - including House Speaker Denny Hastert - appear before the house ethics committee to offer private testimony about who knew what when. Iraq is another matter. That's the president's pet project - and it's the number-one drag on his party. Charlie Cook, a veteran and non-partisan analyst who tracks congressional races, estimates that the war is responsible for about 70 percent of the public's anti-Republican mood. Each day's news stories make it seem that Iraq is closer to civil war. So the White House has to try to do something-anything-to stop the bleeding from this political wound.

Yet on Iraq Bush is burdened with two conflicting aims. Because he has for years issued unduly optimistic pronouncements about developments in Iraq, in this election season he has had to confront the charge that he's detached from reality. His recent decision to drop the "stay the course" phrase from his rhetoric was an acknowledgement that he had come to be seen as inflexible and out of touch. At the same time, however, Bush has to defend his Iraq enterprise and convince an increasingly sceptical public that it has not been one gigantic blunder. What a fix to be in. Bush has to demonstrate he does recognize Iraq is a mess, but he also must be a cheerleader for that mess.

It's tough to do both at once. The White House, though, has obviously calculated that attempting the impossible (even if that means suffering the darts of pesky columnists) is better than staying mum. Karl Rove and other Republican strategists apparently were worried that public support for Bush and the war could in the next two weeks slip further than it has and further imperil Republicans in the elections. So they had Bush present conflicting messages in the hope that some undecided voters (as well as true-blue Republican supporters whom the party needs to keep enthusiastic) would hear what they want to hear from the president.

Still, the meta-dynamics of the congressional race are out of the hands of Rove and the Republicans. They cannot turn around the public attitudes about Bush and his war. Senator Bill Frist, the Republican majority leader, said on Tuesday that Republican candidates should not focus on Iraq. (In an email sent out this week, Frist claimed that Representative Nancy Pelosi, the Democrat who would become House Speaker should her party gain 15 or more seats, would "compromise 100% of our National Security.") Regarding the war, Bush at best can tread water and endeavour to prevent further slippage on this front. But his Wednesday statements are not likely to help much.

How the Republicans handle the on-the-ground mechanics in the key House and Senate races will have a greater impact on the overall outcome of the elections. The National Republican Congressional Campaign has identified 33 House races (out of 435 contests) to target. Twenty-nine of those involve a Republican incumbent. Party officials will dump money and below-the-belt negative ads into these races, praying this will be enough to protect their majority in the House. At this late stage, what Bush has to say counts for little. With the war, he's already made his point.

Posted by David Corn at October 26, 2006 12:49 PM

A Real October Surprise

Below is my "Loyal Opposition" column from TomPaine.com....

A Real October Surprise
By David Corn
October 25, 2006

My fellow Americans,

As you might have heard, my White House reached an important decision this week. From now on, neither I nor any member of my administration will use the phrase "stay the course" when referring to United States actions in Iraq. Our repeated use of that term had allowed our opponents to charge that this administration is inflexible and stubborn, and not interested in pursuing new options and strategies in Iraq.

At first, administration officials and I were reluctant to renounce our vow to "stay the course." But then I realized that our hesitancy only proved the point. And as I thought about this change in message, it occurred to me that not only was such a change warranted, it ought to pave the way for other necessary changes. After all, the course we're on is obviously not working as I had expected and hoped. We invaded Iraq over three-and-a-half years ago, yet the violence there--now spreading through horrific sectarian conflict--has intensified. Heck, let's be honest and call it a burgeoning civil war. American citizens of this nation are right to feel discouraged, disappointed and frustrated. And the people of Iraq are right to be angry.

So I intend to do more than expunge those three words from the lexicon of this administration; I intend to forge a new course.

Before we move ahead, though, we must come to terms with what has brought us to this difficult point.

We can only succeed in Iraq and in the greater struggle against al-Qaida--note that I am also no longer using the vague and meaningless phrase "war on terror"--if we have a sound policy based on competence and credibility. Until now, the actions of this administration have caused Americans and people in other nations to doubt the United States on both counts. That must be changed. So let me state clearly: The war in Iraq was a mistake. There were no weapons of mass destruction. The prewar intelligence was not conclusive, and I and other administration officials were wrong to state there was "no doubt" about it. We were wrong to declare that Iraq was a "gathering threat." In fact, as we now know, there was nothing gathering about it.

Certainly, Saddam Hussein, a murderous tyrant, presented a problem. But he was not the "immediate" and "direct" danger my administration said he was. Officials of this administration--myself included--epeatedly suggested that his brutal regime was in league with the mass-murdering evildoers of 9/11. That, too, was not the case.

By making these assertions and then repeatedly stating in the post-invasion period that progress was under way (an unduly optimistic assessment), this administration undercut its own credibility. But even if we started this war in error and committed subsequent missteps, none of that can be undone. We are where we are today. And if we are to lead the rest of the world in seeking solutions to the problems in Iraq and elsewhere, we must regain our credibility. That can only come with a frank admission that what we previously said and did was false and misguided.

Then there is the matter of competence. The United States is fortunate--blessed--to be the most powerful and influential nation in the world. This creates obligations--which we, as Americans, accept--and expectations as well. Millions of Iraqis are entitled to expect that the United States, after vanquishing the armies of Saddam Hussein, would be prepared to confront the ensuing and obvious challenges of securing, rebuilding and revitalizing Iraq, as Iraq attempts to transform itself into a functioning and stable democracy.

Sadly, the United States was not ready to take on these tasks and, worse, we made fundamental miscalculations--dissolving the Iraqi army, mounting a de-Baathification program that went too far and deploying an insufficient number of American troops following the initial military action--that shaped the landscape to our disadvantage, and, I am sad to say, to the disadvantage of the Iraqi people, who have suffered more than was necessary.

To move ahead, we must show the world--particularly our friends and allies in Iraq--that we believe in accountability and responsibility and, more important, that we can learn from our mistakes. So today I am announcing that I have requested and received the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Of course, he alone is not to blame for our problems in Iraq. As commander in chief, I do assume full responsibility. But America is not a parliamentarian-style democracy. When policies fail, governments do not fall. Still, clearly a new team is needed.

I will be announcing Secretary Rumsfeld's replacement shortly, as well as other dramatic changes in the composition of my administration. And, while Dick Cheney will remain as vice president, I do expect his office to have less influence in the crafting of foreign policy. I've instructed my aides to revive the traditional working relationships between the State Department, the Defense Department and the National Security Council. My goals are two-fold: to ensure we have a strong, competent and well-coordinated national security team and to enhance global confidence in the United States’ ability to handle the challenges in Iraq and other parts of the world.

With bolstered credibility and competent leadership, this administration can start to take the steps necessary for resolving the mess in Iraq. We are now in the middle of an election season and both parties are fighting vigorously for control of Congress. I will not wait for election results to begin a bipartisan process of evaluating policy alternatives. Nor will I wait for the recommendations of the Iraq study group headed by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Representative Lee Hamilton. With U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians tragically dying at accelerating rates, every single day counts. Every hour counts. Starting tomorrow, I will be calling groups of Democrats and Republicans to the White House for extensive and meaningful consultations. I want to see what ideas others have. I want everyone to be part of this process: Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Jack Murtha, Joe Biden, Ted Kennedy, Dennis Kucinich.

It was my administration that took us into Iraq, but what we face now is a problem for all Americans. To deal with it, I will also ask Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright, and Al Gore to join us. And let me take a moment to note that I do realize that had it not been for those mis-designed butterfly ballots in Palm Beach County, Al Gore would likely be president today and we would not be stuck in Iraq.

I will extend the discussion--and the search for alternatives--beyond Washington. If we are to reach any resolution in Iraq, we need to better involve our allies, other powers and Iraq’s neighbors. And this does mean talking to all of its neighbors, including Iran and Syria, despite our well-founded differences. I have asked my father for advice on this, and he has volunteered to serve as my emissary to the nations of the region. He knows the Middle East and its leaders well. When I asked him to take on this assignment, he said, "Son, better late than never." I could not agree more. And I can now say without equivocation, “"Dad, you were right not to take the war to Baghdad in 1991."

Staying the course is now history. I will not merely tweak the rhetoric; I will rethink our policies and chart a new path ahead. And we must face facts: Total victory may not be possible. We might have to settle for less—despite the loss of nearly 3,000 brave U.S. soldiers and tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) Iraqi civilians.

After being in charge of this war for more than three years, I've learned Iraq is not black and white. There are no easy solutions. Indeed, there may be no good solutions at all. We might have to settle for a muddle. But with the two years I have left as your president, I will do all I can to make sure it is the best muddle possible. As I do so, I ask Americans for their forgiveness, forbearance and support. God bless America and God help us.

Posted by David Corn at October 25, 2006 02:02 PM

Gone Debatin'

I'll be traveling most of the day on Wednesday. If no post appears, check back soon.

Posted by David Corn at October 24, 2006 10:49 PM

How Big Will the Anti-GOP Wave Be?

I posted this in my "Capital Games" column at www.thenation.com....

This morning at a briefing on the congressional elections, an event that featured former Representatives Dick Armey, Jennifer Dunn, and Dick Gephardt and that was sponsored by a Washington law firm, political analyst Charlie Cook--an independent handicapper trusted by Ds and Rs--offered good news for the Democrats. He compared 2006 to 1994, the year when Republicans shockingly seized control of both houses of Congress, netting a whopping 52 House seats. Cook noted that in October 1994, 39 percent of Americans said they believed the country was heading in the right direction and 48 percent thought it was on the wrong track. Now the right direction/wrong track numbers are far more negative: 26 percent to 61 percent. In October 1994, President Bill Clinton's approval rating was 48 percent. These days, President George W. Bush is about 38 percent. The approval rating for Congress in 1994 was 24 percent (with 67 percent disapproving). Today, it's lower: 16 percent (with 75 percent giving Congress a thumb's down). In 1994, Republicans had a 6 point lead in polls asking respondents to say whether they preferred a GOP or Democratic candidate. Now the Democrats have a 15 point edge. But when asked if their own member of Congress deserved reelection, 49 percent in 1994 said no; now only 45 percent say no. (In both years, 39 percent said boot the bum out.)

The bottom-line: out of five key indicators of the national politicalmood, four are significantly worse for the Republicans in 2006 compared to the Democrats in 1994. As Cook put it, the 2006 political wave (at this moment) is bigger than that of 1994. But that does not mean the Dems are going to win as many seats as the GOPers did twelve years ago. Gephardt cautioned that congressional districts are far more gerrymandered these days than they were in 1994 (which means fewer are in play) and that Republicans have had a year to prepare for this election and build a wall to hold back the coming storm. In 1994, he said, the Democrats were taken by complete surprise. And Dunn--perhaps trying to convince herself--maintained that her party had plenty of money to dump into the limited number of House contests up for grab and would be able to prevent the Democrats from picking up more than a dozen House seats. The Democrats need 15 seats to obtain control of the House.

Still, Cook, who attributes 70 percent of the electorate's sour mood to Bush's war in Iraq, was predicting a Democratic gain in the House of at least 20 seats and perhaps 35. As for the Senate, Cook described it as a toss-up, with control of that body resting on what will happen in Missouri, Virginia, Tennessee, and New Jersey. The Democrats, according to Cook, probably will need three of these four races to win the Senate. He warned that there is a fair bit of "volatility" within the electorate and that it is nearly impossible to predict what will happen by adding up outcomes in individual House races. In 1994, he recalled, he and other trackers foresaw a GOP gain of 20 to 30 House seats--but nothing like what happened. "When there is a wave," Cook said, "they always go bigger than you expect."

Democrats, who have not done much to shape the current political dynamic, can hope so. For nail-biters, the immediate questions are obvious. Can Bush and Karl Rove do anything in the last two weeks of the campaign to change the weather? There's not much time left for an October Surprise. Can they pull off a November Surprise? If not and the forecast doesn't shift, can the Republicans construct fortifications to beat back the wave in just enough spots to keep their majority afloat in Congress? Cook thinks not. I'm not going to be as gutsy and make any predictions except this: Rove is either about to meet his Waterloo or to confirm his reputation as an odds-defying political genius.

******

It's always gratifying to know you got something right. At this pre-election briefing, I conducted interviews with top-dog Washingtonians (former Secretary of Defense William Cohen, Armey and Dunn) for the Pajamas Media website, and I had the chance to talk to Armey about Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War, the book I co-wrote with Michael Isikoff. In the book, we chronicle how Armey first objected to the idea of going to war in Iraq, questioning the necessity of such an action and telling President Bush an invasion would lead to a quagmire. But after Dick Cheney pressured Armey, the Texan relented and voted in October 2002 to give President Bush the authority to launch a war against Iraq. In the book, we quote Armey saying he regretted that vote. So this morning I asked Armey if we portrayed his story accurately. Yes, he said: "I still think it's one of the worst votes I made." The Republican Party, he added, might deserve to lose the coming elections for having made the wrong call on Iraq.

Posted by David Corn at October 24, 2006 12:11 PM

Buy These Books

Sharp-eyed readers of this blog by now might have picked up on the subtle hints that I have a new book out and that I am hoping that every visitor to this site buys at least three copies. This has been a tough season for authors. The publishing industry has released a flood of books this fall. That means more competition for precious media bookings, for the small number of slots on the bestseller lists, and, most important, for the attention of potential customers and readers. Even books that don't compete directly with serious works--say, former New Jersey Governor James McGreevey's screw-and-tell memoirs--suck up available space on media outlets and at the front tables in the chain bookstores.

Hubris has been doing well in this difficult environment, hitting the bestseller lists of The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Boston Globe. It was No. 1 for a while on Amazon.com. But there are plenty of other good books out now that you should be purchasing--and several are written by friends of mine. So instead of plugging my own, let me flack their works. So buy these books:



* All Governments Lie by Myra MacPherson. When I was in college, I couldn't decide whom I wanted to be when I grew up: Jack Kerouac or I.F. Stone. I did end up writing a novel (see below). But more important, I now hold a post--Washington editor of The Nation--that once belonged to Izzy Stone, one of the best independent American journalist of the latter half of the 20th Century. Izzy, some like to say, was a blogger before blogs. For years, he opted out of organized media and sent out (that is, sold) a weekly newsletter to tens of thousands of subscribers. He showed what one smart fellow could do on his own when it came to digging out truths and presenting analyses missed by the rest of the media. He remains an inspiration (despite the right's never-ending attempts to smear him as a Soviet agent). MacPherson, who once was a reporter for The Washington Post, chronicles his life and casts Stone as a model (and lesson) for the journalists of today.



* Heist by Peter Stone. Speaking of Izzy Stone, one of the better muckrakers in Washington these days is his nephew, Peter Stone, a reporter at National Journal. Because the NJ is a fancy, high-priced magazine originally designed to serve those willing to pay top-dollar for quality journalism explaining the workings of Washington (say, lobbyists and libraries), many Americans are unfamiliar with its work. Stone has been writing about the sleazy world of Washington lobbydom for years. Consequently, he was well-positioned to cover the rise and fall of Jack Abramoff and his Republican buddies. If you want to know how lobbying (for Indian gaming and other matters) really works, turn to Stone.

* Blood Brothers by Michael Weisskopf. On the night of December 10, 2003, Weisskopf, a correspondent for Time was riding with a US military convoy in northwestern Baghdad. He was there to contribute to his magazine's cover story declaring the US soldier in Iraq the Person of the Year. But he became part of the story. An RPG landed in his vehicle. Not realizing what the object was but working on pure instinct, he grabbed for it, intending to hurl it far from the truck. He immediately felt the red-hot object burning through the flesh of his right hand. Before he could react, the device exploded. Weisskopf and the soldiers riding with him survived--most likely because his hand muffled the blast. But that hand was gone. When Weisskopf came to moments after the blast, the end of his arm looked like a decapitated chicken. He worried he was going to die. He didn't. Instead, he ended up in Ward 57 at Walter Reed Medical Center, a wing reserved for Iraqi war amputees. This book recounts the painful rehabilitation and reentry into normal life of Weisskopf and other Ward 57 patients. It's a close-up and personal look at one cost of the war--a cost that doesn't get much attention. Credit to Weisskopf for not obsessing with his own tale and focusing on that of the soldiers that drew him to Iraq and his new life.

* Mad Dogs by James Grady. Over the past fifteen years, I've had the immense pleasure of being a pal of the fellow who wrote Six Days of the Condor (which became the film Three Days of the Condor). It is in large part because of Grady that I also have had something of a career as a fiction writer. (See Deep Background, my 1999 novel). In Grady's latest thriller, five former CIA operatives who each went psycho due to a mission gone bad (one nearly infiltrated a pre-9/11 meeting of al Qaeda terrorists that included two of the hijackers-to-be) bust out of the high-security mental hospital set up by the agency to house its basket-cases. Their self-assigned mission: to find out why their shrink was brutally murdered within their ward. The book is a fast-paced road-trip of covert-op crazies trying to come to terms with their personal histories and the internal bureaucratic intrigue of the post-9/11 intelligence establishment. If real-life intelligence screw-ups are not thrilling enough for you, try this smart action novel of espionage and angst.

*Not Enough Indians by Harry Shearer. Shearer would make the original Renaissance Man look like a slouch. He does umpteen voices on The Simpsons (including Mr. Burns), produces a weekly radio show of political satire (Le Show), writes the "Eat the Press" column at HuffingtonPost.com, and regularly appears in Christopher Guest's films (The Mighty Wind). He is also renowned for his membership in a band called Spinal Tap. Clearly, this fellow has too much time on his hands. To fill up those lonely downtime moments, he wrote his first novel. It's--no surprise--a comedy. The book tells the story of a down-on-its-luck town in upstate New York that fails to entice a Walmart and then goes "tribal"--that is, it petitions the federal government to certify itself as an Indian tribe in order to win the right to open a casino. Soon the town is home to the biggest "gaming" (as the industry calls it) operation in America. And hijinks ensue. Shearer's writing is reminiscent of Garrison Keillor's accounts of his fictitious Lake Wobegone but--again, this is no surprise--with much more of an edge.

Posted by David Corn at October 23, 2006 12:06 PM

HUBRIS on C-SPAN

On Saturday, C-SPAN's BookTV broadcast a talk that Michael Isikoff and I gave last week at Politics & Prose, a bookstore in Washington, about our new best-selling HUBRIS: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War. At the end of the broadcast, C-SPAN advised any viewer looking for more info on the book to visit this website. So if you took that advice, this is what you can do. Click here for a posting about recent reviews of the book. You also can click here to see the press release that lists some juicy tidbits from the book. Or you can, of course, click here to buy the book at Amazon.com. Believe me, we appreciate every sale.

Posted by David Corn at October 21, 2006 09:04 PM

Conservative Realism or Disingenuous Callousness?; Corn vs. Greenberg Day 4

Here's my latest "Capitol Games" column at www.thenation.com....

Last week, The Nation and The National Interest held a public discussion to explore whether these days foreign policy realists of the right could make common cause with foreign policy idealists of the left. (The event was titled, "Beyond Neocons and Neolibs: Can Realism Bridge Left and Right" and can be viewed here.) After all, both groups share an opposition to the messianic crusaderism and bullying interventionism of the neocons that has yielded the Iraq war. Speaking for the left were Kai Bird, co-author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, and Sherle Schwenninger, a senior fellow of the World Policy Institute and a regular contributor to The Nation. The hardheaded crowd was represented by Dov Zakheim, an undersecretary of defense from 2001 to 2004 and now a vice president of Booz Allen Hamilton (who supported the invasion of Iraq), and Dmitri Simes, a former Nixon adviser and now publisher of The National Interest

The presentation showed there was not a lot of territory to share. In his opening remarks, Bird noted that Henry Kissinger had been wrong about everything, and he referred to Vietnam and the US support of the military junta that in 1973 overthrew Salvador Allende, a democratically elected socialist, in Chile. Invoking Kissinger as the embodiment of all that has been wrong with U.S. foreign policy for decades was a deep insult to the conservative realists. Kissinger is the honorary chairman of The National Interest. Bird's salvo prompted Zakheim to defend Kissinger, particularly on Chile. (Nixon and Kissinger, via the CIA, had backed efforts to topple Allende.) "Chile," Zakheim said, "doesn't look to me like a failure....Quite a success. It wasn't doing that well in the 1970s." Simes then chimed in: "I'm not appalled by what Kissinger and Nixon have done in Chile. I'm not aware of them ever endorsing torture."

There's realism; then there's callousness. More than 3,000 Chileans were killed by the junta that was encouraged and then supported by Nixon and Kissinger; millions of Chileans lost all their political rights for years, as well. That's hardly "quite a success." And Simes is wrong to suggest that Kissinger was unaware of the abuses of the Chilean regime. The coup occurred on September 11, 1973. A quick search at the website of the National Security Archive, a nonprofit outfit, produced a November 16, 1973 cable from Jack Kubisch, the assistant secretary of state for Latin America, to Secretary of State Kissinger that noted that the Chilean junta had carried out "summary, on-the-spot executions." The cable also reported that military and police units had engaged in the "rather frequent use of random violence" in the post-coup days.

Weeks earlier, at an October 1 meeting Kubisch told Kissinger about a Newsweek story that maintained that over 2700 Chileans had been killed by the junta and added that the government had only acknowledged 284 deaths. Kissinger noted that the Nixon administration did not "want to get into the position of explaining horror....[W]e should not knock down stories that later prove to be true, nor should we be in the position of defending what they're doing in Santiago. But I think we should understand our policy--that however unpleasant they act, the government is better for us than Allende was."

Here were some early indications for Kissinger of the brutality of the Chilean junta. He obviously cared little about what was happening to Chileans apprehended by the junta. And he tacitly went along with the regime's violent means. Two years later, he showed his scorn for human rights concerns when he met with the Chilean foreign minister. At the start of that meeting, according to a State Department memo, Kissinger pooh-poohed the human rights issue. He told the Chilean, "Well, I read the briefing papers for this meeting and it was nothing but human rights. The State Department is made up of people who have a vocation for the ministry. Because there were not enough churches for them, they went into the Department of State." Kissinger added that it was a "total injustice" to fixate on Chile's human rights record.

In August 1976, according to another State Department document, Kissinger was briefed on Operation Condor, a secret project concocted by the Chilean junta and other military dictatorships in South America to conduct "murder operations" against opponents of those regimes. By the way, two months later, Kissinger met with the foreign minister of the military regime of Argentina, which at that time was conducting a dirty war that would come to "disappear" at least 10,000 people (and maybe over 30,000), and Kissinger took a rather casual attitude toward the abuses in that country. As a State Department memo recounted, Kissinger told the Argentine,

Look, our basic attitude is that we would like you to succeed. I have an old-fashioned view that friends ought to be supported. What is not understood in the United States is that you have a civil war. We read about human rights problems but not the context. The quicker you succeed the better‚ The human rights problem is growing one. Your Ambassador can apprise you. We want a stable situation. We won't cause you unnecessary difficulties. If you can finish before Congress gets back, the better. Whatever freedoms you could restore would help."

In other words, get your abuses over with quickly, while I look away. Unfortunately, the fascistic and anti-Semitic Argentine military regime would continue to disappear and torture its citizens for another seven years.

I'm all for reaching across the ideological divide, seeking common ground, making alliances. And Simes--unlike Zakheim--advocated working together whenever possible. Referring to the current course in US foreign policy, he noted, "This republic is facing a mortal damage," and the Bush administration is "pursuing policies that make us more vulnerable."

But foreign policy intellectuals should not forget about the past as they move ahead. I appreciate the fact that realists fancy being hardheaded. Simes noted that he was aghast at the corruption and state violence he saw when he recently visited Russia. But he added that since the United States needs Russian assistance in dealing with Iran and North Korea a realistic approach has prevented him from insisting that Washington pressure Moscow too forcefully on issues of corruption and political rights.

Such calculations--whether correct or not in the particulars--are understandable. They have a logic to them (whether you agree or not with that logic). But, please, let's be realistic about past decisions and calculations. It's not realism to sugarcoat history and to deny responsibility for actions taken. Those who distort the past cannot be expected to save American foreign policy from those who distort the present.

CORN VS. GREENBERG RE WOODWARD. Day 4. He gets the last word in out face-off on The New Republic site. You can see it here. I'll read it, too. Afterward, I'll post some final thoughts on this site.

CORN AND ISIKOFF ON C-SPAN. We'll be on C-SPAN's Book TV discussing Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War, on October 21 at 8:00 pm, Eastern time.


Posted by David Corn at October 20, 2006 10:44 AM