disappointment

bush: there have been disappointments. abu ghraib obviously was a huge disappointment during the presidency. not having weapons of mass destruction was a significant disappointment. i don't know if you want to call those mistakes or not, but they were — things didn't go according to plan, let's put it that way.

matthews: i found it interesting that the president, who admitted he was wrong about WMDs as a justification for war, called it a "disappointment." if a police officer in the line of duty in the middle of the night shoots a fellow because he thinks he's got a gun, it turns out he's got a wallet, your reaction if you're a police officer is not that you're disappointed he didn't have a gun, it's shame that even if it was a technical mistake that you've made, that you've killed a guy without reason. why does the president use the word "disappointment" when he says they didn't have the WMD to justify us going in? i think it's an odd use of the word.

walsh: and finally ... the point that you made earlier, about a cop who shoots an unarmed man, does not then regret that the guy did not have a gun. he regrets that he killed an innocent man. and he regrets that he didn't take the extra 30 seconds maybe to ascertain whether the guy was armed.

quote of the day

born-again democrat john cole @ balloon juice:

my iraq war retrospective i see that andrew sullivan was asked to list what he got wrong about iraq for the five year anniversary of the invasion, and since i was as big a war booster as anyone, i thought i would list what i got wrong: everything. and i don’t say that to provide people with an easy way to beat up on me, but i do sort of have to face facts. i was wrong about everything. i was wrong about the doctrine of pre-emptive warfare. i was wrong about iraq possessing wmd. i was wrong about scott ritter and the inspections. i was wrong about the un involvement in weapons inspections. i was wrong about the containment sanctions. i was wrong about the broader impact of the war on the middle east. i was wrong about this making us more safe. i was wrong about the number of troops needed to stabilize iraq. i was wrong when i stated this administration had a clear plan for the aftermath. i was wrong about securing the ammunition dumps. i was wrong about the ease of bringing democracy to the middle east. i was wrong about dissolving the iraqi army. i was wrong about the looting being unimportant. i was wrong that bush/cheney were competent. i was wrong that we would be greeted as liberators. i was wrong to make fun of the anti-war protestors. i was wrong not to trust the dirty smelly hippies. i mean, i could go down the list and continue on, but you get the point. i was wrong about EVERY. GOD. DAMNED. THING. it is amazing i could tie my shoes in 2001-2004. if you took all the wrongness i generated, put it together and compacted it and processed it, there would be enough concentrated stupid to fuel three hundred years of weekly standard journals. i am not sure how i snapped out of it, but i think abu ghraib and the negative impact of the insurgency did sober me up a bit. war should always be an absolute last resort, not just another option. i will never make the same mistakes again.

smackdown

i have a video that i like to indulge myself with on occasion. it helps remind me not only that incidents of real television journalism are still technically possible under the present administration but also that incidents of real television journalism have in fact occurred.

too often on today's talking heads programs are guests allowed to distort, obfuscate, propagandize and outright lie without any meaningful challenge from the host. often the simplest follow-up question would suffice.

in this video, a too-rare instance of how real interviews should be conducted, secretary of defense donald rumsfeld makes an appearance on march 14, 2004 with new york times columnist thomas friedman on cbs' face the nation, hosted by bob schieffer.

the interview proceeds unremarkably until schieffer brings up the administration's claims that iraq posed an "immediate threat" to the nation — a threat that of course proved spectacularly hollow when no wmds were found.

rumsfeld then not only flatly denies that the white house had ever made any such claims but also blithely accuses his critics of spreading "folklore" and smugly invites schieffer to produce evidence of any of such statements from the white house. clearly this is a man who knows that he is not about to be challenged.

boy, was he wrong!

friedman: we have one here. it says "some have argued that the nu-" — this is you speaking — "that the nuclear threat from iraq is not imminent, that saddam is at least five to seven years away from having nuclear weapons. i would not be so certain."

just the sight of rumsfeld's crag collapsing like cheap plaster is well worth the price of admission. but little did rummy know that friedman was just warming up.

just as rumsfeld drifts off into a catatonic ralph kramden stammer, friedman admits that the phrasing is "close" (i.e., "imminent" is not "immediate") — and rummy gladly runs with the bait. the change in his demeanor, his relief at being handed such a welcome exit, is both immediate (no pun intended) and undisguised and is just as quickly replaced with his familiar smirk as he glibly relaxes back into the interview. no harm done — all in good fun, really ...

rumsfeld: i've tried to be precise, and i've tried to be accurate ...

hold on now — i ain't done with you yet, sucka!

friedman: "no terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world and the regime of saddam hussein in iraq."

smackdown!

what more priceless theater than rummy reduced to blubbering incoherence on national television, hoist high on his baldface lies like a prize halibut?

this type of "gotcha!" journalism, however, is very easy to accomplish. statements by officials like rumsfeld are a matter of public record — any research intern could do the work that these over-priced celebrity news personalities are supposed to be doing. so why aren't we seeing more of these public figures being held with their feet to the fire?

the answer, i believe, at least in part, is access. television journalists and their network sponsors (and by extension the media as a whole) know that the continued success of their venue depends on their access to the movers and the shakers. what politician, pundit or priest would risk entering the studio just to run a gauntlet of their own deceit? programs like face the nation would quickly become ghost towns populated by faceless and impotent nth-level bureaucrats.

but would that be so bad — the closing of their precious access to the liars and the spinners — if it also meant that the liars' and the spinners' access to the eyes and ears of the masses were also consequentially closed? after all, access is a two-way street — the liars need these venues for the peddling of their noxious wares as much as, if not more than, their network enablers.

the sad reality, however, is that as long as disreputable networks like fox exist to serve as a ready rostrum for the sultans of spin, other stations will remain at a competitive disadvantage if they desire to both attract powerful guests and maintain any semblance of credibility and responsibility. unfortunately, in the marketplace of ideas, fact is no more valuable than fiction.

rumsfeld: we're dealing with people that are perfectly willing to lie to the world to attempt to further their case. and to the extent people lie, ultimately, they are caught lying and they lose their credibility, and one would think it wouldn't take very long for that to happen dealing with people like this. — remarks on al qaeda, the taliban and the aljazeera news network, october 28, 2001

history lessons

those who do not learn the lessons of history shall be doomed to rewrite it.

house columnist richard cohen, writing three years ago in the washington post on the appearance of then-secretary of state colin powell before the united nations to present evidence of saddam hussein's secret weapons program:

the evidence he presented to the united nations — some of it circumstantial, some of it absolutely bone-chilling in its detail — had to prove to anyone that iraq not only hasn't accounted for its weapons of mass destruction but without a doubt still retains them. only a fool — or possibly a frenchman — could conclude otherwise. ... but the case powell laid out regarding chemical and biological weapons was so strong — so convincing — it hardly mattered that nukes may be years away, and thank god for that. in effect, he was telling the french and the russians what could happen — what would happen — if the united nations did not do what it said it would and hold saddam hussein accountable for, in effect, being saddam hussein. ... if anyone had any doubt, powell proved that [iraq] has defied international law — not to mention international norms concerning human rights — and virtually dared the united nations to put up or shut up. there is no other hand. there is no choice. — "a winning hand for powell", february 6, 2003

cohen today, (re)writing on the third anniversary of the invasion:

colin powell, you may recall, soiled his stellar reputation with a united nations speech that is now just plain sad to read. almost none of it is true. ... whatever bush's specific reason or reasons, the one thing that's so far missing from the record is proof of him looking for a genuine way out of war instead of looking for a way to get it started. bush wanted war. he just didn't want the war he got. — "bush wanted war", march 30, 2006

i guess cohen didn't want the war he got either. so what of his reputation? (all right, to be honest, it was never "stellar".)

it is of course always a good thing each day a war pundit joins the rest of us in the so-called "reality-based community". but the one thing that's so far missing from the record is proof of his mea culpa.