quillnews

Sometimes BS means: Bigtime Serious!

The insightful Howard Fineman hit a standup triple in his column this week in Newsweek under the head: "Un-explainer in Chief."  Fineman seeks to plumb the depths of Bush 43 incredible bounts of silence or inarticulatness that go for agonizing stretches between supremely written and delivered more formal addresses. What can be at work here?  Fineman's nails it: 

George W. Bush is in choppy water over the Dubai ports issue. And he is so, in large part, because, unlike Clinton, he is a man of bullet points, not explanations; of slogans, not systems; of certitude, not complexity. I've known Bush for a long time and I know that he distrusts talk, at least public talk. He'd rather make a decision—give an order—and then go out and attack a felled tree with a chain saw. He is confident to the point of arrogance when he makes a "tough call." But he objects by nature to the demand that he explain his reasoning or the process behind it. Why he is this way, I don't quite know. In part, perhaps, it's a sense of entitlement that comes from being a fourth-generation national leader (counting his great-grandfather, Samuel Bush, an Ohio industrialist who founded the National Manufacturers' Association). Another reason is his father's political saga. Junior hated watching his dad's painfully compulsive need to explain himself in public and vowed: not me. Then there's West Texas, where Bush learned his social Tough Guy ways on the playgrounds of Sam Houston Elementary and San Jacinto Junior High, and then later at the Midland Petroleum Club. The ethic out there is to distrust talkers. You shake hands. Finally, there is Bush's tongue-tied-in-public nature. He's unsure of himself without a simple script.It's almost as if Microsoft had George W. Bush in mind when they invented PowerPoint.The man-of-few-words approach has its virtues, and they matched the moment in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and, for the most part, since. Bush's deep belief in his vision of global democratization, coupled with the eloquence of speeches crafted for state occasions by Michael Gerson, carried the day. Dazed and confused and searching for old verities after the terrorist attacks, I think most Americans found some comfort in Bush the Growling Cowboy.

Quillnews comment: Bush 43 is so petulent in his contempt for uses of "public talk" that he can't bring himself to see it as anything other than b.s. He doesn’t trust it and won’t do it. Instead, Bush 43 universally relies on the image of the "Growling Cowboy" as his only personae, a solitary silence or at best a "yep...nope" during so many of his performances on the public stage that the US CEO has crippled his Administration communications capacity. You know, sometimes the audience demands a little Elvis!  It is my view that this willful blindness to a critical aspect of his job must be overcome; or Bush 43 and his team will otherwise be squandering a critical tool in pursing the war on terror. I'm serious. Stay tuned...

Cheney (part 2) - I'll tell ya when I'm good and ready...

I just can't leave this shotting accident alone.  First the VP should never have been put in a position where it was even possible for him to shoot a campanion by accident. That's a no brainer. But when you get into the weeds a bit and learn that the shooting occured Saturday, that WH chief Card and political guru Rove knew about it and decided not to alert the wider public and instead leave the communications matters in the hands of Cheney and his staff, who then handled the problem by letting the ranch owner report the mishap Sunday afternoon...  This is so wrong on so many levels it defies belief!  What political world do the Bush & Cheney crowd perceive that they occupy that a sitting VP can shoot another human being and not talk about it until they are good and ready.  I've defended the VP on a host of matters that were essentially just stupid PR (the most obvious the private way the VP developed the May 2001 National Energy Policy).  In the previous cases it wasn't on substance that I disagreed, it was on style points or clumbsy stage craft or poor performance art. Usually, Cheney and his boss are quick to act to protect the historical perogatives of the executive branch, and on this point I am very sympathetic. The NSA wiretapping program for example.  Bush and Cheney have attempted to inch back the balance of power that weak executives like Clinton have allowed to erode.  But in this case, what possible benefit -- except Cheney's own convenience or sense of strong silent man mojo -- is there to delaying the announcement of the shotting mishap for a day. Avoid Sunday newpapers, talk shows?  Hardly seems worth the benefit. Cheney says now he wanted to  make sure the facts were straight!  Uh huh. And delaying the announcement a day so everybody knows you are by definition covering someting up helped precisely how?  The cable comics will no doubt create all manner of public fun out of this. WH Press secretary McClelland can wear an orange tie to press briefing to avoid being "shot."  Frankly trying to make light of this one leaves me cold. This lack of responsiveness by Cheney and Bush is arrogant private sector politics played by members-only no-trespassing country clubbers who don't believe anything they do on their private property is anybody's business.  In fact Cheney has set himself and his boss up for an unnecessary political problem that won't go away because - you know - what was done was inexcusable. Quillnews view: Delay the announcment a day?  Bad decision. Very bad.

Shooting 78-year olds is for the birds!

Meaning no ill-will to Dick Cheney and his unfortunate hunting campanion, I have to take a time-out to reflect on yesterday's bird hunting accident. Having hunted birds along the Ohio River, and having learned marksmenship and shooting skills from NRA instructors as a Scout, I have a sensitivity to hunting accidents. One of my father's GM exec pals shot a hunting companion back in the day.  So did Adlai Stevenson as a young man. This kind of thing can happen and every hunter is trained against the hazards inherent in hunting flying birds. Cheney is a Westerner who breathes hunting and fishing and the comraderie that accomplishes their pursuit. And as an oil exec he can certainly be given no fault for suiting up with some pals for a hunting outing. But Cheney is not a private sector big shot now, nor is he just a portly rich guy who can do what he likes. He is the Vice President of the US. What the hell is up with this?  Who can say it wouldn't be Cheney on the other end of the unfortunately aimed shot?  Whose bright idea was it to have this guy with his responsibilities and his job wandering around the South Texas bush with armed 78-year olds!  Quillnews opinion: Not good. Not good at all. (AP)

Oscars & Oil: Syriana, Bush’s SOTU & Political Winds

Bush 43's identification of the country's addiction to oil in the State of the Union Address came just as Syriana, the Hollywood oil thriller, was gathering Oscar nominations for George Clooney as best supporting actor, and Stephen Gaghan, for best original screenplay. (WB, Oscars)  Clearly, oil has a buzz in Media-ville!  For Quillnews, this symmetry of interest from the right and left is worth noting. The consensus that oil is linked to our national security has been building for a while. The political left has hammered petroleum and all its enablers as the font of all modern evil for decades.  But the political right in recent years has also isolated our oil use as a strategic vulnerability to the country's national security. Both have political views on what government must do. Bush 43's Advanced Energy Initiative in the SOTU is a common sense political response.  Quillnews view: let the political horse trading begin… (Briefing)  Quillnews readers won't be surprised if I don't join the cheer-leading on this new list of proposed government give-aways just yet.  I thought Cheney’s Energy report in May 2001 was balanced political response as well.  Unfortunately the VP’s report didn’t have enough “transparency” to suit DC’s process fetishists who couldn’t understand how it was possible to fashion an energy policy that didn’t include energy taxes, allocations, mandates and other government orders about who should do what and how much everybody should pay.  Personally, Quillnews will get down with spending billions of tax dollars on bat guano-boiler research, when the greens okay exploration drilling in ANWR and the outer continental shelf, offer up a few siting endorsements for fuels refineries, LNG terminals and nuke power plants. (Ha! As if...)

(Editor's aside:  On a personal note, I still don’t understand why Ted & the other rich swells on Cape Cod's coast think wind turbines off Martha’s Vineyard would be so bad. My son, while earning engineering and business degrees, slogged in the intern trenches in Sao Paolo, Brazil working in a factory making wind turbine blades for GE Wind. (Private pix at left).  Zowie.  Those awesome blades are the length of half a football field.) 

But rather than get deep into the switch-grass about which new energy technology will get the fed spendolas (Capital Hill and their K St. pals will work it out depending on the political spending skills of the favor seekers), this post wants to focus on the broader political dynamics at work.  Part of the Bush 43’s rhetorical initiative is being stimulated at least in part by a sophisticated political action campaign from Hollywood left, as well as a somewhat more sober-sided defense establishment initiative from hard line national security pros from the right.  From the right, Frank Gaffney, the hard-line chief of the Center for Security Policy has been working on our national security vulnerabilities associated with reliance on oil for some time. (NRO, NRO2, Gaffney book).  Fair enough.  I completely share Gaffney’s overriding concern for our country's security vulnerabiliities because of oil, but disagree with Gaffney’s conclusions on what to do about it. (His arguments: SAF, Letter, Energy Blueprint). My criticism of Gaffney’s approach is here: "Geo green puts the US in the Red."  Other Quillnews posts on geo-security and oil make my arguments. 

The anti-oil import crowd that is growing on the right is being supplemented on the left by a new political action crew that is based in Hollywood, and which is using socially-aware movies as the platform catalyst for internet driven political action.  Said another way, Hollywood is using new age web political action teams as part of their new business model to market their films to advance a political agenda.  The latest example of Syriana, a product of Time Warner’s Warner Bros. unit, and a companion for-profit business unit in a corporate media network that includes CNN, Time Magazine, et al, is the hot flick of the moment and it is being marketed under the darkly ominous legend: Everything is connected.   (Editor’s aside: as in all contemporary narratives in Media-ville, modern life can be explained by the movement of dark forces that are hidden behind veils of government and private sector secrets that all protect the princes of privilege against people…blah, blah, blah.  For details, read what passes for contemporary political news accounts prepared by the Sixties Dead Enders and their ilk who still control editing and production desks at the MSM's networks and big print shops.) 

George Clooney’s politics are well-known.  Despite my view he’s a political nutcake, his movie Syriana is still a terrific thriller.  One of his movie’s executive producers is a guy named Jeff Skoll, who made his gazillions as an early brain behind Ebay, and who today has his own Skoll Foundation to promote good works, which include giving former VP Gore a platform to show his power point presentation to audiences eager for some explanation of why, among other unsolved ills, the weather behaves so weird.  (Editor’s note: Gore’s explanation is that it’s all Bush 43’s fault!)  Skoll also has formed Participant Productions, which operates under the legend:  Movies have the power to motivate. You have the power to act.  This is a imaginative new technique to use the web to rally like-minded partisans together for political action.

Again, all fair enough.  But check out the partners on the political action campaign that Warner Bros. is using as part of Syriana’s marketing plan and which is being pushed by Skoll’s action network: The NRDC and the Sierra Club. (Here, here, here )  These groups may once have been marginally coherent, but today they operate as part of the anti-growth left, who along with moveon.org and PIRG et al, are funding the stupid and dishonest Exxpose Exxon campaign, whose main purpose is to demonize the oil industry and lobby against the use of oil anywhere all the time.  This crew works the political left to dominate policy debate in the Democratic Party.  The incoherence of their policy views – tax oil to discourage its use, spend government funds on hyper-expensive alternative energy production, and prevent use of coal, nuclear, LNG – is stunning.  The only independence this policy view would create an America that is independent of gainful employment, but which possesses staggering amounts of poverty. Only a media dominated by the like-minded anti-growth boobs would give this set of nincompoops any slack in the public square at all.  Still, their political clout in the public debate – at the moment – is so great the President of the United States believed he was compelled to give away $22 billion on, among other things, switch grass production, as part of his argument that the US has a duty to protect and defend freedom.   

Quillnews view: despite disappointment at the content of the oil and national security debate so far, this is all very good news: at least we are on the right subject. Oil is important -- Big time.  The world wants more and must use it wisely and well.  No fooling.  Free people want all they can get at the lowest possible price and have proven through history they will do whatever it takes to get it.  Regardless of politics, Syriana’s makers got that part right.

ExxonMobil’s “porno” profits get pandering pols pumped – again!

About 25 years ago, as an oil company soldier I attended a public political gathering assembled by an Illinois congressman outside of Chicago to hear discussion about - among other subjects - government plans in DC to deal with the calls for “windfall” profits taxes to “punish” oil companies for the “obscene profits” they were getting as a result of the skyrocketing oil prices caused by the Iranian revolution.  There was much deep brooding and earnest thought in evidence all session; at least until financial journalist and TV commentator Louis Rukeyser began speaking at lunch.  Rukeyser, at least, was having none of the “whoa is me, chicken little” tone to the meeting.  An ardent capitalist and believer in free markets, Rukeyser said:

Everybody is complaining about oil companies’ obscene profits… Not me. I hope they become positively pornographic!!! 

This defiant outburst in favor of markets helped cleared the air.  Of course a company dealing with a commodity will see its revenues (and profits) spike up with short term market fluctuations!  So what?  Rukeyser reminded everyone such commodity prices would surely go down soon enough, which would be true as well in the case of the oil industry when oil price decontrol and deregulation of gasoline supplies helped caused the collapse of the oil price in 1986 and the overwhelming depression in the oil industry as a result.  Yesterday’s announcement by ExxonMobil of its earnings for the 4th Q and full year 2005 brought all this back.  (CNN, EM)  I mean, let’s face it: ExxonMobil’s $36 billion profit for one year is a lot of loot!  But hang on a sec.  Is the proper response to a fantastic quarterly and annual result, a political attack on the company or industry that accomplished the task?  For political operatives whose existence is devoted to anti-market, collectivist and anti-economic growth policies the answer is yes.  For the rest of us: let's not gag on ExxonMobil's numbers. 

In the spirit of a healty digestion of these results, let’s recall how all felt last week when GM issued a report on its 2005 results: losses of $3.4 billion!  (GM, GM2) Coupled with the bankruptcy of GM’s parts flagship Delphi weeks earlier, Ford’s announcement that it was closing 14 plants and laying off 30,000, and predictions that GM and Ford would be idling armies of workers and continue to lose market share for the foreseeable future… Zowie. (Ford, Ford2) When the political and social commentators discussed these auto industry developments, the question on everybody’s lips: what shall we do?  Seems to me that the question in the case of both ExxonMobil and GM is not what should be done today, but what did the managers of these companies and their industries do years ago that led to such a spectacular financial success for ExxonMobil and spectacular financial ruin for GM today? 

In the case of ExxonMobil and the oil industry, look back a decade ago, in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Empire and the rise of the state companies in oil producing countries, when the free market’s oil industry -- the for-profit corporate enterprises exemplified by ExxonMobil -- faced soft commodity prices, excess industry capacity and weak earnings that could not attract the investor dollars required.  Ten years ago, the executives and managers from proud, long-standing companies with iconic names, Amoco, Arco, Mobil, Conoco, Unocal, Texaco, to name just a few, were all independent and running their companies' assets to compete in an emerging globalized world market. On the lips of every executive at those companies and also at Exxon, Chevron, Phillips was the same question: do we buy or do we sell?  In time, the executives of these companies worked out values, and the investors in the oil industry cheered while massive corporate enterprises were vaporized (sending soldiers like me who saluted the shield like that above to wander on the road).  Let me put this simply: the oil industry (exemplified by ExxonMobil) made decisions that organized their infrastructure for profitability.  The auto industry (exemplified by GM) did not.  The oil industry shrunk, idled excess capacities, rationalized redundancies, sacked armies of employees and otherwise went through a painful industry retrenchment that was devastating to its participants and cheered by the shareholders. The auto industry did not. Granted, because of its vast labor force, the nature of its products and technology and the political impact of its operations among influencial constituencies resistent to change, the auto industry did not have the flexbility enjoyed by the leaner, more capital intensive and more ruthlessly efficient oil industry, where 9 of 10 exploration wells are dry as dust, busting all involved, including the ever-optimistic wildcatters who, despite the odds, keep coming back for more.

Still, a corporate executive must face the realities at hand. For whatever reasons, GM executives did not take the steps required to meet their market challenges.  As ExxonMobil’s chief Lee Raymond explains the trick for an oil company is to organize itself to survive when oil prices are high and when oil prices are low.  That’s what it takes to maintain a technological, engineering and financial institution that does what ExxonMobil aspires to do – reliably provide an essential commodity at prices the customer can afford. This requires a competitive return on investment (profits) over the long haul, the ability to respond to market fluctuation in supply costs and move product prices up and down (no price controls), and to satisfy shareholders and investor’s demands for earnings (be competitive on Wall St.).  Stable earnings are a must!  This demand of the investor market requires a corporate energy company to be profitable enough to reassure energy producers and their customers who invest in their projects that they can expect the corporate partner to deliver affordable fuel for the life of their investment (which can last more than 50 years).  This is what big-time, adult corporations based in America do better than any in the world. One of the results of these management skills is that the American people are the most properous in human history, and capable of defending freedom for themselves and all who aspire to join in.   

Of course, ExxonMobil is a convenient political target - it's the biggest and the most successful outfit in history. The oil industry – because of its size, scope and universal presence in today’s economy – also stimulates arguments about issues of war, peace, economic development, environmental impacts, social justice among other tangled matters.  The oil industry is Big Time: its operations are woven into the fabric of modern life. Political soldiers working on the anti-market, collectivist side of public policy arguments will use ExxonMobil as their favorite whipping boy.(Exxpose Exxon, Cartoon) A look at the backers of the Exxpose Exxon campaign is a list of the leftists and the extreme environmentalists who seem today to dominate the Democratic Party. (EE Patrons) ExxonMobil's operatives are prepared to explain their embarrassment of riches. (Release)  They are armed with the background information that will give context to any discussion of profits and losses.  This essay is good.  TCS is among those free market commentators having some fun with the issue. (TCS, That 70's Energy Policy).  Quillnews advise: let's just remember to keep it simple: success is good, failure is bad.

Hmmm. I wonder...

what the Democratic Party's position is on the Demography issue articulated by Mark Steyn?  Afterall, free people are not suicidal.  Are there any adult D's willing to talk seriously about what it will take for free people to remain free?  (VDH)  Some "centerist" D's wonder if the current D voices are asking the right questions (WT). Are there others willing to focus honest efforts on alternative public policy options?  Will the D's trained seals in the MSM flap their flippers on any subject except the current delusional opposition fashions in DC and MSM?  Do the professionals managing the Democratic party operations actually think they will be able to raise funds from the private sector's established PACs with the political approach program aimed at pro-impeachment, anti-military, media sedition and maximum civil liberties for the enemy?  The R's aren't stupid and are laughing at how easy the D's are making their job for '06.   

"New Battlefield" (Part 10) - Post Murtha: Will DC fireworks clear the air?

Jack Murtha did everybody a favor last week. His assertion that the solution to the US problems in Iraq was to leave was so over the top that it forced the DC political community to step back from the abyss and avoid a pell-mell route not seen in metro DC since Capitol swells ran over each other from Manassas to Georgetown in freight and flight after Bull Run. The apparent collective collapse of DC community’s consensus and political nerve has been building for months.  Time, facts and fate have all conspired to erode the people’s faith in their political leadership. House Rs made sure with their legislative maneuvers Friday (Murtha's ideas were voted down 403-3) that the cut-and-run crowd could win only 3 votes on the record! (Editor's aside:  Despite this show vote Friday, the confidence in leadership has been falling with some justification.  News reports focus on the negative, problems and anxieties and human tragedies.  The good news efforts are meek. And some of the rhetoric and behavior of political leaders in DC in recent months will be remembered in history for its outlandish perfidy. These guys are every bit as odious as the Copperheads of the Civil War.)  Pols from both R and D were facing elections in ‘06 with their earlier coalition playbooks in tatters and without an agreement on a path to victory. When Bush 43 finally began to speak up in defense of US policy last Friday, the collection of war experts with hyperactivity disorder on Capitol Hill couldn’t contain themselves. First the Senate weighed in with an astonishingly ill conceived piece of legislative mischief, putting into words what everybody knew to be true (the US needed to start drawing down its troop levels in Iraq), but had the best chance of being implemented only if it was left unstated. (Note to Sen Biden: that was the plan, Stan!)

Then Murtha, a cranky House cardinal, who has appropriations dollar power over his colleagues, blew his top. Murtha’s been building to this for some months. In fact, his statements a year ago had all the elements of a devoted friend of uniformed services and their care, but a very reluctant warrior on Iraq. Give Murtha his props: he's a decorated Marine combat vet, D pal of military approps and veterans affairs; a man’s man type guy from west Pa. who believes in old fashioned pork politics and loyalty to the corps. But Murtha may have been losing a step lately. His nasty and demagogic crack about Cheney’s multiple deferments revealed a too-heavy, uncertain hand. Still, he was a kind of Marine whose bravery and skills were more than adequate to storm and take the beach, but, like any Marine he didn’t have the heft or depth or fire power to hold the beach for good. Reinforcements would be required. Murtha might have the chops to shoot off his mouth and get people’s attention, but his illogical statement did not outline an operational plan that any general officer would approve. He could take the beach in Media-ville for a day or so, but he could not hold it. In fact, the emotional and political power of Murtha’s document is overwhelmed by its intellectual and policy incoherence. This statement was the Congressional equivalent of the cut-and-run rants advocated by International Answer, Peace Action and Michael Moore. Quillnews observations: There are a few lessons to be learned from this round of political mud wrestling.

1. Rumsfeld's regime is over: If there is one thing that Murtha’s break down last week revealed it is the lack of trust by the senior uniformed services in the war fighting regime and leadership of SecDef Rumsfeld. Murtha has the ear of these uniformed officers and their senior civilian managers, and his expression of rebellion is a serious event that any CEO like Bush needs to recognize and to address. A well-trained CEO like Bush 43 should not be surprised. Rumsfeld is a “pacesetting” executive and, after five years at the Defense Department, his personal style, his operational demands on subordinates, and the flaws in his policies have finally resulted in Rumsfeld losing control of his own executive team and the DoD support community represented and advocated by Murtha.  Quillnews predication: After a successful Dec 15 election in Iraq, Rumsfeld will leave DoD in early '06 and a new military leadership team will implement the next phase of US military presence in Iraq in ’06 and beyond, completely changing the poisoned dynamics of the defense policy debate for the next phase in The Post Sept 11 War. Much of this is merely leadership fatigue. In fact, Rumsfeld's regime will be remembered for its stunning successes, its breath in defense policy and operational reform and in his personal brilliance and selfless public service. Rumsfeld has been among the most consequencial national security and war leaders in history.  But the government's political and administrative process must recover from the failures of the intelligence sector in its WMD predictions, and from the mismanagement and misfortunes of the early post-Saddam phase of the Iraq campaign - whose architect was Rumsfeld.  Future course?  Think McCain's plan of more force, for longer.  Long term: the US is there to stay and will have a joint force agreement with the democratic government of Iraq that will equal any committment made in South Korea or NATO.
2. Engagement on the war’s “new battlefield” is essential to freedom’s survival: Bush 43 rhetorical offensive advocating US war policy, goals and objectives must continue. But the new battlefield of this new war against stateless Islamic fascists requires new battle tactics. Military firepower and victory in the field are not enough. If the last year proves anything to Bush as a war leader, it is that he has a duty to organize the government’s war-making assets to engage political and rhetorical arguments at all levels, from Iraq fire team to command HQ to DoD to the State Department, to ensure that the military’s point of view – using facts, images, rhetoric – and the war's rational is given a just hearing in the public square so it can be understood and supported or rejected by the people on the merits.  The people of the US and their government can no loner rely on the for-profit corporate communications institutions of the MSM, and the flawed professional corps of journalists and professional communicators who inhabit their ranks, to be the sole arbitrers of what is and what isn't told in the public square.  The government through its uniformed and civilian public servants has a duty to expose all lies and distortions immediately, illuminate the facts of the matter and develop and distribute and enough video, image and text information to explain and justify the war operations to ensure the airtime, space and ink to present the war's case to the people on their own behalf. This not only allows the people to hear the military story of the efforts and sacrifices of the heroic volunteers in their service, it will deny our enemies and opponents the Media-ville airtime, space and ink they can use against against us in the public square. These are elementary communications operational tactics and strategy and the Bush 43 team’s failure to operate like an serious modern communications organization in Media-ville this past year has nearly destroyed his presidency and lost the public's support for what otherwise has been a hard, but successful Iraq campaign.

3. The solution to the big lie is more news: The D’s “big lie” strategy was a short-term success in eating into Bush 43’s support because of the administration’s communication’s incompetence, but more importantly because the Bush 43 team has been paralyzed by their own corporate work processes that favor too-long top down planning and operational control and group loyalty despite poor performance. (Editor’s aside: Why was Karen Hughes given the State Dept public diplomacy job and promptly allowed to not show up for work for 9 months during a war?)  Bush 43, his executive team, and their managers either aren’t flexible enough to adapt and adjust, to pivot and shoot when necessary and as the dynamic business they are in -- politics during wartime - demands.  Either that or they are dangerously stupid as executives and do not understand the first thing about surviving in the corporate and controlled communications environment of the MSM - something the private sector has done for years. At the same time, the US has not developed an adequate capacity to counter jihadist propaganda.  In this environment, domestic D propagandists, like any student of the dark communications arts knows, could further erode Bush’s political standing during this period of drift if they merely shouted the lies their deluded, ill-informed, or deranged followers and paymasters believed.  Shame on them for their short term  big lie campaign.  Still, the Ds have overplayed their hand.  The big lie technique works only in a dictatorship. In a democracy, opponents can strike back.  The facts do emerge - eventually; the people when armed with all the facts and after due consideration get it right.  Bush 43’s team finally got it into gear last week.

4. Time for Iraqi leadership to step up: Aside from the curious wonder at the political pyrotechnics in DC last week, there is one lesson that the leaders of the new Iraq need to understand from all the rough and tumble of a democratic people trying to solve a problem. Saddam has been out for nearly three years. The internal Iraq political processes have been working themselves out. The people have shown bravery and courage. But the political leaders of the new Iraq must get their act together to have the people vote Dec 15 and then organize a new government to control their own country and its riches and their future promptly. It is time for the Iraqi forces to find and destroy the enemies who wish to keep them enslaved. The US will stand ready to help this process along. Americans are generous; its volunteers are brave and will sacrifice and die to ensure freedom and liberty. American will die for their beliefs. But they don’t want to be played for suckers. It is hard to beat the assessment of Sen. Warner, R of Va., and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee who tried to put the best light on last week’s senate action: "[this is a] strong message to Iraqi people and the Iraqi government that you have got to come to grip with your internal problems. It's a signal to the Iraqis that we mean business." 

5. Time for US leadership to step up:  The political classes in DC have been in hyperspace in recent months over the breakdown of the Bush team's leadership aura, and the GOP hegemony his reelection a year ago had seemed to portend. Much of this was inevitable. But DC leaders, the political and professional management and their patrons in the private sectors who fund the campaigns of American politics, need to focus on the main issue here: The people of the US are in a war for survival and will not tolerate anything short of victory. The Post Sept 11 War is not a limited war like Korea or Vietnam. US enemies in this war will not negotiate a peace, or behave anew if we adjust this behavior or that. Our enemies seek the destruction of our country, our civilization and our way of life. This is a real war of arms and ideas, within a dysfuctional social culture and within one of the world's great religions.  And the free people of the US will not lose this war, nor see their liberty and freedom consumed by its course. The American people get it.  Don't be fooled by the delusional or those in denial.  Don't let the few social science cultists who manipulate or dominate the MSM persuade you into thinking that their editorial judgment and parochial professional, personal or partisan agendas represent the thinking of the American people. The people will never forget the Sept 11 attack nor yield to its perpetrators. And no matter what form this fight takes over the next years or decades, it will not matter what political party or any economic, social or public policy agenda is at risk at any given moment. The people of the US will destroy this enemy, secure their future freedom and will destroy any who get in the way. The sooner the political leaders of the US accomodate themselves to this reality, the sooner this war will end and our domestic political food fights can resume their rightful role as entertaining discussions on how to create value and wealth and spread the blessings of life and freedom.  (Further reading: AS, WSJ, WSJ2, Rumsfeld, Cheney, PL, Video, Murtha, Murtha in '04, CQ, Bloomberg, WS, VDH, RCPM, RCPM2, IP/JK, McCain, TB, MG, SH, No End But Victory)  (Post script: Clinton in '98, now WSJ, MM, Google, WS) (Update: OC/RCP, NW/Fineman, Time/Klein, Barone, Peters/NYP)  Part 11

Go with Jo Mo

I've been watching Joe Lieberman since his New Haven days when I worked for the local sheet and tried to get my news stories on page one (I was successful once in three years). I headed for NYC in '73 and tried my news hand there, with somewhat more success.  But I had no staying power in daily ink.  Lieberman was way way more successful in his end of the publicity trades, getting ink and elected steadily since '70 to a variety of posts and evolving over time, in an extremely well chronicled series of public statements and actions, into a centerest D of such distinction that a plurality of voters voted to make him VP in '00. Our federal system of electors had other ideas; Lieberman returned to the Senate where he has remained a consistent voice of reason and good sense.  However, few times has his voice been more needed that it is today. His speech on the floor of the Senate against a troop withdrawal time table in Iraq is a mark of honor.  The pro-victory forces are lucky to have Jo and his Mo on our side.  As for President Bush 43, he was at the job in Alaska again Monday,giving the issue of our mission in Iraq the time and attention it deserves, and debunking the shameless attempt by some Senate Ds to rewrite history and say something is so that isn't.  Our troops deserve support like they are getting from Ds like Leiberman, not pot-shot political positioning by pols (D & R) pandering to fund-raising phonies.  (RCP, RCP2, WS, AP, Bush, PL, MM, RNC, Frist)

Sen. Rockefeller had a clue in '02. What happened since?

You wouldn't think it by listening to Sen. Rockefeller, D of W.Va., ranking D on the Senate Intelligence Committee, today.  He has been so unhindged, so obtuse, and so out-to-lunch on the so-called intelligence issue lately it is hard to actually understand what he thinks or why. Indeed, not to be unkind, but in fact I believe he has, well, lost it on this subject. (Editor's aside: Could it be that this usually sound fellow became undone after Sept 11 because of the institutional failure of his committee and colleagues to adequately prepare the nation for the dangers he must now acknowledge we have faced for years and years and which went unchallenged? Could there be some psych transferrence underway here as Jay Rock shifts blame for who is responsible for the nation's peril?)  However, in a moment of lucid thought on TV Sunday on Fox, Rockefeller said that he believed the Bush 43 administration had decided within two days of Sept 11 to topple Saddam. (Okay, interesting. Follow up question, please: Why do you say that, Senator?)  He also confirmed that he expressed this view to the governments of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria during visits he made to those countries in early 02 as part of his Senate duties.  (Okay, interesting. Another question, please: why did you do that, Senator?) (Update: Rocky responds, kind of PL, PL2.)

I was working as a back bencher in the oil industry's lobby corps in DC at the time and can affirm that Rockefeller was expressing what was the conventional thinking at that time, and what every hand on Embassy Row and in the corporate sector's lobby corp was telling their bosses in their home offices everywhere in the world.  The reasons were obvious and well understood and well articulated at the time. The so-called intelligence issues of WMD and Saddam's links with this gang or that gang were all very interesting.  But completely beside the point.  Rockefeller knew this in his bones, so did everybody else: Saddam was a menace the US - in the wake of the Sept 11 attack - could afford to tolerate no longer.  US credibility in the war against jihadists was at stake.  When the US said something, as it did in 1991 and in countless UN resolutions since, it must be prepared to back it up with force.  Otherwise our adversaries in the region would not believe we would do as we say.  This would have catastrophic consequences for the US in the post Sept 11 hot and cold and long war of nerves with the jihadist enemy and their state enablers. The logic of the need to rid the region of Saddam was like iron, and the consequences even harder to accept: it meant war by the US - alone if necessasry - because only the US was capable of making war successfully, and because habitual fense-sitters, short-term opportunists and appeasers could afford to dawdle and trim knowing the US could not.  Much of DC spent months and months trying to find another way while also navigating a consensus of support in the world community, whose behavior revealed national character as in no event since World War 2.  But in the end, Bush 43 had the clarity of mind to focus on this essential truth and not blink when faced with the decision to make war. Rockefeller knew Bush 43 understood the cruel logic in front of him within days of Sept 11, and also knew by early '02 that unless Saddam proved he was clean it meant war.  Why do so many find that so hard to admit today what was so obvious then? (NRO, NRO2, WS, PL, RNC, Frist, Frist2, WSJ/NP).

"Deeply irresponsible" vs. "Deeply regrettable"? Nope! The D's big lie campaign is anti-American and immoral.

Bush 43's selected Nov 11 - Veterans Day - to begin his long overdue rhetorical defense of the Iraq war. Timing and staging is important in Media-ville. But as appropriate as the staging for the words was -- Bush 43 was about a year late.  Part of this is his fault, part not.  It takes political energy to sustain a war and the various phases of The Post Sept 11 War will take years. Pacing is important, and at the beginning of of the year, Bush 43 believed he had another 4 years to work with.  He felt confident risking his political leadership on a real if ordinary problem - paying for retirment.  A few of us wanted to say: you know, DC smart guys, just figure it out!  But months and months of presidential time and capital went into this chatter.  Other matters were also crowding the presidential script: Supreme Court vacancies to fill, a grand jury or two, and of course for this administration there is that all important summer vacation.  As for the managing the daily and heart-breaking traumas of the war in Iraq, Bush 43's message packagers set Labor Day as the time to begin talking about the war again so our national community could share emotions, feelings and rationales -- all necessary for a democratic people to wage a lethal war.  But this time (as it always does) real-life intervened: a wind storm swept away all the costumes and stage props for the Media-ville actors, nearly all of whom were left covering their privies in shame at their naked inadequatecy!

(Editor's aside: Historians will no doubt study Bush 43's unique sense of timing and pacing. Bush 43 is a champion poker player, and a master of the rope-a-dope political counter-punch; he was elected governor and president twice each after all. Perhaps there is a genuis at work here, but as much as I support Bush 43's lead and policy on the Post Sept 11 War, I believe his sense of timing failed him this time. When studying and evaluating his presidency, communications professionals and scholars will focus on Bush 43's communication silences: for example the early months of 2001; the post-Afghan pre-Iraq war 2002; the post-Saddam 2003; the anti-war Demo primary season through the summer of 2004 when the message managers of the Bush 43 team simply disappeared from the stage. In the media age where alll national brands are obliged to define themselves in Media-ville every day or have your competition do it for them - Bush 43's willingness to let the other guy say anything he wants has been truly remarkable.  His counter-punch abilities have worked so far, but I fear Katrina so damaged his leadership that the wind storm also has dangerously and disasterously threatened the war effort.)

Now at least, the issue is joined again. The war in Iraq is righteous.  The decision to overthrow Saddam was righteous. The liberation of the Iraqi people is righteous.  Saddam was a threat to his people and his neighbors.  He gave aid and confort to our enemies, and he held sway over a vital commodity the world's economy depended on.  After Sept 11 revealed the US vulnerabilities and the capacity and nature of our enemies, removing Saddam was a prudent and just decision in defense of the US and freedom.  It turns out that perhaps the world's intelligence agencies were wrong in their calculations on Saddam's WMD capacity, but there was no debate that Saddam kept the WMD issue in play by keeping the world guessing, that he had used them in the past, and might again and was using the entire WMD issue to his maximum political advantage in a region where the US has vital interests and where our vowed enemies lurk. And - you know - after Sept 11, the US called Saddam to show his cards.  He refused.  Game over.  Senate Ds, anti-war loons and anti-American lefties can repackage this decision as a "big lie" for the weekend food fights now, but getting rid of Saddam was an easy call. That is the truth.

Bush 43's speech Friday was well-argued and delivered.  His NSC chief lined out the arguments well the day before. Good.  More briefings please. The "Bush Lied" crowd among the Senate Ds won't get a free ride any longer. (Commentary, WSJ, LFG, PL) The Copperhead, appeasement, cut-and-run, yellow back, let-the-other-guys-win because this is just another quagmire like Vietnam like the Sixties Dead Enders say is a loser!  The Pro-Victory forces are being organized now; communications technology is on the side of freedom. (NRO, BSC, Santorum)  There is room for debate on war tactics. If critics want to know how to take the administration to task for the mistakes in the war opertions, read Sen. McCain talk Thurs at the AEI - a patriot who knows the US must win and is offering suggestions on ways to do it quicker. As Bush 43 said: “While it’s perfectly legitimate to criticize my decision or the conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began.”   Sen. Kennedy, dean of the quagmire Ds, said Bush 43's speech Friday was "deeply regrettable."  Hmmm.  From where I sit, what is regrettable is the craven pandering by Ds who know better to the anti-militarism, intellectual snobbery and anti-Americanism of the mouthy and media-savvy left.  This is a loser strategy for a great American political party and morally wrong.  (Speech, WSJ, McCain, NSC, WP, WS, CNN, PL, PL2, IP, MM, WS, WS2)