Month: April 2006

Horrible

John Kass goes after Bush as Commander in chief of leaks, comparing him to the Arkansas Word Splitter.  But look at it this way: The nasty boy Joe Wilson, a schemer of the first water, goes public in that East Coast Paper of ill repute, initials NYT, with public statement misleading public about what’s going on with Sadaam and uranium, etc., and Bush wants to call him on it. 
 
Does he go on air with a fingering of Schemer Joe, whose own official report gives the lie to his East Coast Paper report?  No, it’s beneath him, but in the war of words that hurt the war effort he should be shot down.  It’s done to him via Cheney and a man named Scooter, though that’s what Prosecutor Fitz has to prove (I think: it get murky here, what with ancillary charges having moved front and center), and to defend self Libby wants to know what Fitz has and describes what he wants, and it says President B. has declassified stuff to shoot down bad info — in the usual Wash. way, without which East Coast Paper and others could not survive, giving it to reporters on background w/permission to use. 
 
It’s a horrible thing, to be sure, that there’s a political angle here — Wilson Scheming, East Coast Paper loving it, etc., White House countering — but such things do happen, and Wash.-based and other reporters will simply have to live with it, shocked though they may be.  In fact, the whole thing may be a wake-up call to them to play things down the middle and stop grinding axes, but I doubt it.

The lady protests a lot

And the Washington media is probably too polite to call her on that spousal left foot in her mouth,

says John Kass today, winding up his column about the very loud of mouth Congresswoman Schakowsky whose husband caught an excellent break in federal court the other day.  Yes, there’s this politesse among Beltway denizens.  Touching.

It wasn’t quite the end of the column.  Kass had this to add as to the congresswoman’s offensive volubility:

 So I’ll say it. Jan? Please put a sock on it.

Well said.

The lady protests a lot

And the Washington media is probably too polite to call her on that spousal left foot in her mouth,

says John Kass today, winding up his column about the very loud of mouth Congresswoman Schakowsky whose husband caught an excellent break in federal court the other day.  Yes, there’s this politesse among Beltway denizens.  Touching.

It wasn’t quite the end of the column.  Kass had this to add as to the congresswoman’s offensive volubility:

 So I’ll say it. Jan? Please put a sock on it.

Well said.

Angle on gotcha

This from Glenn Reynolds:

My take: The latest “Bush leaked” story — which doesn’t hold up very well when you look at the actual story — is basically a “spoiling attack” by the NYT and other media who fear subpoenas in the Libby case. As with all their efforts on this front, it’s likely to backfire. The more they say that leaks are bad, even as they rely on politically motivated leaks from insiders for their bread and butter , the more vulnerable they become. That’s why the Plame affair has been more damaging for them, long-term, than for Bush. Bush will be leaving in a couple of years, but the Times and other media will be living with the world they’ve created, and I predict that their position in this regard will be no better if a Democrat is elected in 2008.

They say leaks are bad?  Are they sure?

Angle on gotcha

This from Glenn Reynolds:

My take: The latest “Bush leaked” story — which doesn’t hold up very well when you look at the actual story — is basically a “spoiling attack” by the NYT and other media who fear subpoenas in the Libby case. As with all their efforts on this front, it’s likely to backfire. The more they say that leaks are bad, even as they rely on politically motivated leaks from insiders for their bread and butter , the more vulnerable they become. That’s why the Plame affair has been more damaging for them, long-term, than for Bush. Bush will be leaving in a couple of years, but the Times and other media will be living with the world they’ve created, and I predict that their position in this regard will be no better if a Democrat is elected in 2008.

They say leaks are bad?  Are they sure?

Gotcha, gotcha

Chi Trib’s Mark Silva has Bush dead to rights in Trib’s on-line-only “The Swamp,” B. having leaked classified info when he said no one would leak such in his administration — dated quote is supplied.  But wait.  B. and Cheney can de-classify what they want for a good reason, Silva admits and it says here.  Gotcha, Silva — who should have better things to do than lie in wait for the Great Satan in the White House, so as to catch him in his speech.
The sudden press flap over Scooter Libby’’s alleged “revelation” that President Bush declassified intelligence information related to Iraq is silly but all too predictable. The entire flap relies on mixing terms and “misunderstanding by innuendo” — a technique of demagoguery, not journalism. The flap is yet more evidence that the national press is more interested in playing “gotcha” with the Bush Administration than reporting the news.
That’s Austin Bay, who gives chapter and verse on the what and why of this.  He’s hereby recommended to Silva and swamp-like colleagues.
So what’’s the story here? That someone who worked in the White House selectively passed properly declassified material to the press? That’s not a scandal; that’s Beltway business as usual. I’d love to hear that reported– it’s not news per se, but it would be refreshingly open and honest media analysis.
Bay is a retired Army reserve colonel who won a bronze star for service in Iraq in 2004, writes novels and non-fiction, consulted in war games at the Pentagon, and has a booming media career at this point.  Quite a source for any enterprising Washington reporter.

Hidden persuaders

U. of Chi’s John Mearsheimer and partner in production of the much-discussed “israel lobby” paper may have talked to Chi Trib for yesterday’s story, he dismissing the discussion as a “food fight,” but Harvard’s daily newspaper, The Crimson, find them still unavailable for comment, as noted by PowerLine blog.

Gotcha, gotcha

Chi Trib’s Mark Silva has Bush dead to rights in Trib’s on-line-only “The Swamp,” B. having leaked classified info when he said no one would leak such in his administration — dated quote is supplied.  But wait.  B. and Cheney can de-classify what they want for a good reason, Silva admits and it says here.  Gotcha, Silva — who should have better things to do than lie in wait for the Great Satan in the White House, so as to catch him in his speech.
The sudden press flap over Scooter Libby’s alleged “revelation” that President Bush declassified intelligence information related to Iraq is silly but all too predictable. The entire flap relies on mixing terms and “misunderstanding by innuendo” — a technique of demagoguery, not journalism. The flap is yet more evidence that the national press is more interested in playing “gotcha” with the Bush Administration than reporting the news.
That’s Austin Bay, who gives chapter and verse on the what and why of this.  He’s hereby recommended to Silva and swamp-like colleagues.
So what’s the story here? That someone who worked in the White House selectively passed properly declassified material to the press? That’s not a scandal; that’s Beltway business as usual. I’d love to hear that reported– it’s not news per se, but it would be refreshingly open and honest media analysis.
Bay is a retired Army reserve colonel who won a bronze star for service in Iraq in 2004, writes novels and non-fiction, consulted in war games at the Pentagon, and has a booming media career at this point.  Quite a source for any enterprising Washington reporter.

Hidden persuaders

U. of Chi’s John Mearsheimer and partner in production of the much-discussed “israel lobby” paper may have talked to Chi Trib for yesterday’s story, he dismissing the discussion as a “food fight,” but Harvard’s daily newspaper, The Crimson, find them still unavailable for comment, as noted by PowerLine blog.

Mearsheimer in Trib

It’s here.  Chi Trib’s Ron Grossman does the Mearsheimer-Israel lobby story today. 

A University of Chicago professor has ignited an intellectual firestorm in halls of ivy and corridors of power with an essay in a highbrow British journal.

is the lead.  2nd graf calls the paper “a simple diagnosis.”  Grossman cites qualified support for it anyhow, even from some Israeli commentators.  But he notes:

“The Israel Lobby” smacks of the age-old accusation that a secret cabal of Jews aims at world dominance,

neatly summing up objections. 

He also, happily, further identifies Mearsheimer — “a former West Point cadet” and no “stranger to controversy.”  Regarding the latter, he cited his 1990 essay “proposing that Germany be encouraged to develop atomic weapons” and his fervent opposition to the Iraq war in 2003 on grounds that “it would give the Israelis an opportunity for an ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza.”

“The precedent is there [to forcibly expel Palestinians], and it behooves us to make sure it does not happen again,”

he said at the time.  Indeed, in the current essay, he and his co-author, Stephen Walt, say “the creation of Israel entailed a moral crime against the Palestinian people,” this in reference to the 1948 evacuation of Palestinian refugees.

Grossman quotes Mearsheimer as dismissing the current controversy as a “food fight.” 

He and Walt find no “compelling moral cause for sustained U.S. backing” of Israel.

The Trib got to this one in the nick of time, I’d say, but did justice to it.  Grossman was just the one to do it.  It’s a typically reliable, sensible piece by him in which he quotes the subject, who comes off as overly fond of the hot expression (“ethnic cleansing,” for instance) and naively arrogant (“food fight”).