Another "Pseudo-Expert Roundup" On Iraq

The Times has yet another presentation of various "experts" on Iraq, and "how to see this mission accomplished." Honestly, I've only read one of the comments, that of Danielle Pletka, because history indicates that her brand of "expertise" is usually good for a laugh.

No doubt both Al Qaeda and Iran overplayed their hands and alienated Iraqis. At the same time, the surge convinced both Sunni and Shiite rejectionists that United States forces would remain the strongest in Iraq for the time being. American leaders need to recognize, however, that power calculations, not principle, have driven these conversions.

Okay... she's stating the obvious, but there's nothing unreasonable in that.

No, we should not shun friends where we find them, even fair-weather friends.

Somebody suggested we should shun our friends? Who? Where? When? (If somebody advised caution on dealing with "fair weather friends", that's understandable and correct - is that what she means? It's certainly not what she said.)

Nor is it right, as some Democrats have suggested, that our Iraqi allies are merely mercenaries.

Must we go through this every day? Name the Democrats who have suggested "our Iraqi allies are merely mercenaries". Name just one. (Didn't think so.)

But Americans must understand that we will need to maintain an imposing presence in Iraq for a long time to come, ensuring that all sides have enough of a stake in the new order so that violence loses its appeal.

Now that's a weak excuse for a punch line, although it reflects a clownish sense of reality.

We must "maintain an imposing presence in Iraq" - how imposing?

We must be there for "a long time to come" - how long?

And what form of low-wattage thinking comes up with the fantasy that we can ensure that "all sides have enough of a stake in the new order so that violence loses its appeal"? (Oh yes... American Enterprise Institute-branded low-wattage thinking.) So, Ms. Pletka, give us one successful example of nation similar to Iraq, full of ethnic tensions and on the verge of civil war, where that was achieved. I'm cutting you a break here, by pretending Iraq isn't in a state of civil war - so it should be easy, right? Just one example, from all of human history.

You promise to get back to us with an answer, maybe, in the next round-up of the pseudo-experts?

We Knew He Was Unethical....

Now Tom DeLay's trying to redeem himself by establishing himself as an idiot.

Two years ago this week, Nancy Pelosi – as part of a concerted campaign of opportunistic mendacity – said she and her party had a “commonsense plan to help bring down skyrocketing gas prices.” Their "plan" conveniently came to fruition after Democrats voted against a comprehensive energy plan that would increase fuel production and open up untapped oil reserves.

Now, you ask yourself, what party controlled Congress during the preceding six year period, and what was their track record for opening up every inch of U.S. soil to oil exploration and drilling? But that's just standard DeLay-type politics - covering up for his own ineptitude and failures (by his own measure) by pointing the finger at others.

So why do I say he's trying to prove himself an idiot?

• He seems to think that exploration for oil involves sticking a straw into the ground and sucking it out. Even if we started exploring for oil in ANWR two years ago, it won't be until the next President is leaving office that there will be significant oil production. And yes, I'm assuming a two term President. Granted the picture would be a bit different if DeLay hadn't been such a complete failure (again, by his own measure) as a Congressional leader, but that only brings us to our second point of idiocy....
• Cars don't run on crude. Cars run on gasoline. Even if Congress found a way to magically teleport crude oil out of the ground, it wouldn't increase the amount of gasoline available during peak season because the refineries are already operating at maximum capacity.
• In what is probably the least idiotic of his idiotic assumptions, DeLay also assumes that other oil producing countries won't react to an increase in oil supply by reducing their own production in order to keep their profits up. Has he never heard of OPEC?

You know, George Bush and Dick Cheney engaged the energy industry in a series of secret meetings, and came up with a secret energy policy that... well, I'm not sure what it was supposed to do, but the only visible outcome was a huge increase in profits for the energy industry. To this day, we're still not allowed to know who Cheney met with while planning out this energy policy - the truth is that embarrassing. DeLay and his ilk went along for the ride.

So it sure is convincing to hear the disgraced Tom Delay squawk, "It's all the Democrats' fault."

Sometimes It's Better To Keep Your Mouth Shut....

The Washington Post ran an editorial by Gary MacDougal on race relations that gets off to a weak start:

It is easy to be outraged by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's abhorrent remarks, whether accusing our country of willfully spreading AIDS or being deserving of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Okay... so who's actually outraged by Jeremiah Wright's comments about AIDS? Did anybody thump their fist against the table, demanding to know, "How could he think such a thing?" Or did they have more or less the same reaction as to John McCain's woeful ignorance on vaccinations - which suggest that the government is knowingly spreading an "autism epidemic" and is covering up the facts. If you prefer, we can stick with AIDS - if you want to convince the world that your goal isn't to spread AIDS, perhaps you should do better than advancing abstinence education as the front-line AIDS prevention program for Africa, and supporting failed abstinence education policies in U.S. schools.

Q: “So no contraception, no counseling on contraception. Just abstinence. Do you think contraceptives help stop the spread of HIV?”

Mr. McCain: (Long pause) “You’ve stumped me.”

There are other Republicans who make McCain look informed on these subjects. If you listen to that type of claptrap and come away with the idea that the Republican Party doesn't care about the spread of AIDS, or is deliberately spreading misinformation that may contribute to the spread of AIDS, you're making the mistake of attributing to evil something that can be explained by stupidity. And yes, all of these statements - Wright's, McCain's and Senator Frist's, are outrageous, but Wright's AIDS comments seem peripheral to the outrage directed at him.

So what about "being deserving of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks"? Yes, there's been outrage over Wright's remarks. But fundamentally, they're no different from those of many white religious leaders - largely 'conservative'-branded religious leaders. Active voice versus passive voice.

Am I being unfair? MacDougal said, "It is easy to be outraged" - and it's always easy to be outraged. And if you're the sort who turns off your brain the moment you hear something that "outrages" you, perhaps you don't need to consider the comparably outrageous statements made by John McCain and the preachers he actively embraces in his bid for the White House.

But Wright has done more, and worse, than tarnish Obama's presidential campaign.

Consider the corrosive effect Wright and others like him have on their communities as they rob thousands of listeners of the American dream: hope that through their hard work they can have better lives.

While I have nothing against wearing your politics on your sleeve, two paragraphs into the editorial, is there any doubt remaining that the editorial was written by a rich white guy? The type of person who thinks that the entire African American community has some sort of hive mind, embracing victimhood based solely on the rhetoric of preachers? There's no sin in recognizing the corrosive effect of "race men". But when you elide the reasons why the words of the race men resonate, or suggest that but for words of negativity African Americans would realize "how good they really have it," well, you give yourself away.

Imagine getting up each morning to go to work in a society that doesn't want you, doesn't respect you and seeks to hold you back. Your spiritual leader has told you this, after all. With powerful rhetoric, Wright has asserted, for instance, that white America sees black women as useful only for their bodies. If this is the message you got from your mentor, would you expect that you could succeed? Would you try very hard, if at all?

Okay... so the reason that the "prominent black professionals" that attend Wright's church have achieved both educationally and professionally is... he's convinced them that there's no reason to go to work in the morning? Poor Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey, totally stripped of ambition?

MacDougal also suggests that making statements about hurdles (real or imagined) imposed by society are the beginning and end of the story. I haven't delved into Wright's sermons, but I have heard about one of his more famous themes - "the audacity of hope". It's easy to caricature Wright based upon a few sound bites. But perhaps the reason so many successful African Americans attended Wright's services was because he inspired them to strive and succeed despite all obstacles.

Through my work with the Illinois governor's task force on human services reform and its efforts to reduce welfare dependency, I have encountered misguided community "leaders" like Wright who tell their followers, for example, that the job market is stacked against them and that the jobs that are available aren't good enough - that they are entitled to more. The underlying message: You can't win because of who you are, regardless of what you do.

Okay - my standard challenge: Name one. Just one. I won't hold my breath.

I have attended positively focused black church services, and I know that the Rev. Wright does not speak for a monolithic black church.

You figured that out all by yourself? You think that's something that needs to be explained?

But I also recall a conversation I had during a visit to the maximum-security prison in Joliet, Ill. As I sat in the library there, talking with three men about why they were incarcerated, one man said: "Look around this room - almost everybody here is black. This is white man's genocide. You put us in here to keep us down." Where would this 20-something black man, or other relatively uneducated young people, get such an idea? From the vitriol spewed by the Rev. Wrights of this world.

Good for MacDougal. He was in a prison, talking to a group of inmates, and didn't even notice that the prison population was largely African American until somebody pointed it out to him.

We're in Thomas Friedman "taxi driver" territory here - a dubious anecdote that is impossible to verify, that conveniently just happens to be 100% consistent with the author's argument. It's a safe bet that I've talked to a lot more African Americans tangled up in the criminal justice system than Mr. MacDougal, and I've not once heard a claim of "white man's genocide". Nor anything even slightly resembling a claim of "white man's genocide".

Now, that's not to say that I haven't heard claims that sentencing policies have had a disproportionate effect on the African American community, due to more severe sentencing for crack as compared to an equivalent quantity of powder cocaine. It's not to say that there isn't an argument that law enforcement is much more diligent about rounding up street dealers (who happen to be disproportionately African American) as opposed to drug dealers who work inside private parties or workplace settings, a population of drug dealers that is much more likely to be white. (The latter group is much harder to detect and catch, so this is a sensible use of limited manpower.) There's also an argument that law enforcement is not willing to put enough pressure on drug dealing in poor communities, often African American communities, to result in a shift of drug activity to other areas of the city. And there's the fact that the white guys from the suburbs who buy drugs are rarely picked up and prosecuted along with the street dealers. Should MacDougal ever find the time to engage these prisoners past the level of the sound bite, he will probably find a lot more nuance in their views than is convenient to his piece.

But really, "Where would ... relatively uneducated young people, get such an idea?" MacDougal thinks the problem is that they're spending too much time in church? It isn't possible that he looked around his own community, saw the violence, crime level, poverty, and de facto segregation, and drew a few inferences from that?

The black middle class has grown in recent decades, enabling more and more African Americans to move out of cities and into the suburbs. This exodus in pursuit of better schools and crime-free neighborhoods is understandable; in many areas, though, inner cities have been left with a shortage of middle-class role models and community leaders.

That's another argument that bothers me. That somehow, African Americans who succeed "owe it to their communities" to live in impoverished areas and serve as role models. You would think MacDougal was unaware that many successful African Americans have never lived in the inner city. Why is it only African American communities that have this dire need for "middle-class role models and community leaders"? I don't think MacDougal would have any great difficulty finding and moving into an impoverished white community to serve as a "role model" - when should I expect his "change of address" card?

In the old days, Chicago's South Side, called Bronzeville, was a vibrant community anchored by black doctors, lawyers and businesses. It produced entertainers such as Nat King Cole and Dinah Washington.

Ah, yes... The good old days. What could possibly have changed between "the old days" and the present that might have resulted in wealthy, successful African Americans moving out of de jure segregated communities and into the suburbs? Well, Dinah Washington died in 1963, and Nat King Cole died in 1965... so maybe, just maybe, something happened right around 1964 that affected where African Americans worked and lived.

Today, the South Side is a place where some Chicagoans refuse to venture at night. Productive employment is sorely lacking, and on many streets, drug dealing and loitering still abound.

So roll in a sufficient police presence to get that "drug dealing and loitering" off the street. Or is it that you don't actually want the drug dealing to move out of that community (and into another).

In cities across America, blacks have been left behind in dangerous neighborhoods with poor schools. Often, they must leave their neighborhoods to achieve economic self-sufficiency but face barriers to successful employment.

Okay, so after leaving their communities, African Americans "face barriers to successful employment"? MacDougal's response:

This challenge has not gone unnoticed. Each year the federal government spends hundreds of billions of dollars - specifically, more than $10,000 per poor person for welfare, Medicaid, the earned-income tax credit, job training and food stamps. Put another way, taxpayers are doing their share.

So the status quo is the solution? And if not for the rhetoric of certain African American preachers, everything would be coming up roses?

We need to work together to help people move from dependency to self-sufficiency.

But we should be clear that this "working together" thing won't involve the dedication of any additional financial resources?

I have encountered negative messages in many states. A community "leader" in Miami's Overtown neighborhood, for instance, told me that he counseled unemployed people not to work on nearby construction projects because racist employers abused them. Pressed for an example of such abuse, he cited an employer's failure to pay overtime for Saturday work.

We're up to a conspiracy of two? Reverend Wright and an unnamed "community 'leader'" who dares to suggest that African Americans should only work for employers who pay them what they earn? Is the message he hopes to send to the African American community, "Your only hope is to take any job you can get, even if your employer is cheating you"? Is that the message he carries to his children's school on "career day"?

Two blocks away, more than a dozen homeless men were camped out under a bridge. Yet a man who was supposed to be guiding people was counseling against working.

Color me skeptical. A "man" who was "supposed to be guiding people" - what's this person's job title? And this guidance session was taking place under a bridge, with Mr. MacDougal listening in?

Something that occurs to me, but perhaps is beneath MacDougal's attention, is the high correlation between homelessness and mental illness. While Mr. MacDougal's advice to the homeless apparently begins and ends with, "Get a job, any job, even if you're cheated on your wages," somebody who knows what he's talking about might recognize that a homeless, mentally ill person might lose Social Security disability benefits and jeopardize Medicaid eligibility by "getting a job" - even assuming a significant population of employers at all interested in employing the homeless, and a significant population of homeless people capable of holding those jobs.

Life isn't fair for people of any skin color.

Life isn't fair to anybody, but it's more fair to some people than it is to others. But why bring race into it? Ah, perhaps MacDougal is reminiscing about the times he was pulled over for "driving while white" through an affluent neighborhood. Or got passed over for a job interview because his name sounded too ethnic. Or showed up to tour an apartment and was told, "Sorry, we just rented the last one." Yup, take it from me, it's tough to be a white guy.

Positive thinking isn't going to solve America's race problems.

It took you long enough to admit that. So what will?

Oh... you're out of space? How unfortunate. Maybe next time....

"First We Stay As Long As It Takes To Win..."

"Then we can stay forever."

John McCain is pulling the crybaby act (again) over his "100 years in Iraq" statements.

For some reason, though, he still won't simply answer the question, "How long will you keep troops in Iraq if American blood continues to be shed?"

"Condescending" vs. "Not Condescending"

Following up on Michael Gerson's explanation of what's "condescending" to working class voters,

Lower-income whites, he argued, "feel their dreams slipping away," and so they turn to resentment against busing and affirmative action, "anger over welfare" and "fears of crime."

* * *

This is the same argument, expressed more bluntly at a San Francisco fundraiser, that Obama made about bitter, small-town Americans who cling to guns and religion. He does not even admit the possibility that these folks might have actual convictions on issues such as affirmative action, welfare, crime, gun ownership or the meaning of the universe.

Let's take a look at how the right-wing press treats working class voters. Speaking of Hillary Clinton, Quin Hillyer writes:

IN TERMS OF POLICIES, her actions and positions have been directly opposed to the interests of blue-collar workers who pay taxes. Take welfare reform, for instance.

Welfare reform? Didn't Gerson put that topic off-limits?

Perhaps the single most successful programmatic reform in the past 30 years, [welfare reform] saved taxpayers tens of billions of dollars, gave people incentives to find jobs, and quite arguably played a big role in a decade of improving statistics in areas ranging from drops in crime to drops in the teen birth rate and the divorce rate.

Oops - he mentioned crime. How condescending.

As for the "teen birth rate" dropping? Teen births (and teen pregnancy) are on the rise. But maybe he only wants to look at overall statistics, not trends, and suggest that "correlation is the same as causation". If he believes that he's not being condescending - just ignorant. If not... let's check Gerson's list of things elitists do.... Nothing's there about assuming your audience won't see through cheap subterfuge, so apparently it's not condescending to present misleading statistical claims.

This is the woman who tried to foist a massively bureaucratic health care plan onto the American people in 1993 and 1994, but when told that her plan would be devastating to the small mom-and-pop shops that provide most jobs in America, dismissed those concerns with these words: "I can't be responsible for every undercapitalized entrepreneur in America."

Well, according to census data, in 2004 small employers (business with employees, but with < 10 employees) employed 12.7 million people. Move that up to < 20 employees and they employed 21.2 million people. Move that up to < 100 employees, and it's 41.8 million people. Out of 115 million paid employees. There were also close to 20 million nonemployer firms, but those firms wouldn't have been affected by mandates to insure employees. Oh, let's include them anyway. We'll call every business with < 100 employees a "mom-and-pop shop" - assuming some joint operation by husbands and wives, now we're probably around 70 million jobs out of 145 million. So we're close to half.

Let me check Gerson's list.... Lying, lying, lying... nope, not on the list of condescending acts. So I guess Hillyer's okay.

This is also the woman who has spent an entire career supporting legal positions (and judges) that are contrary to the deeply held views of most white workers. Strong support for racial preferences? Check.

Oops. That suggests working class voters care about affirmative action.

Judges who rule against basic Christmas displays in the public square? Check.

Wow. A condescending depiction of judges who uphold the First Amendment as attacking Christianity. But it's not clear that Gerson would view this as suggesting that working class voters "cling to religion" in defiance of actual facts and issues as opposed to "having actual convictions on the meaning of the universe" (even if at odds with the Constitution), so it's hard to tell if Gerson would see this as condescending or not.

Fortunately, I'm sure that any day now Gerson will rip apart the condescension of the right-wing press toward working class Americans. Surely he'll devote column after column to the same issue, tirelessly demonstrating how elitist the right wing media, political leadership, and leading pundits are toward working class voters.

Any day now.....

"They're All Happy Campers"

Remember years ago, when Dan Quayle visited American Samoa?

You all look like happy campers to me. Happy campers you are, happy campers you have been, and, as far as I am concerned, happy campers you will always be.

Exceptionally patronizing and condescending, right? Well, maybe not. Because if you read the likes of Michael Gerson, it's "patronizing" to suggest that blocks of voters are anything but happy campers.

The roots of Gerson's thesis, of course, are the wishes of his Republican masters to expand upon Barack Obama's "bitter/cling" comments, and advance the idea that he is "elitist" for generalizing in any way, whatsoever, about any group of people. Well, no, scratch that - as far as his masters are concerned, it's fine to generalize about blocs of voters who lean Democratic. Not a one of them would criticize somebody for alluding to Democrats or liberals as part of a "Tax-Raising, Latte-Drinking, Sushi-Eating, Volvo-Driving, New York Times-reading, Body-Piercing, Hollywood-Loving, Left-Wing Freak Show". What's forbidden, apparently, is to generalize about voters who lean Republican or who are in the amorphous political "center". The only way to escape that trap, it seems, is to follow the Quayle model of treating them as "happy campers".

Moreover, you must plug your ears to political reality. The "happy campers" of this nation have no resentment of affirmative action. They have no fear of crime. They don't "feel their dreams slipping away". African-American "happy campers" who came of age in an era of Jim Crow and segregation (and here Gerson seems to be speaking both individually and collectively) cannot be said to have "bitterness and biases" resulting from their experiences with legal and institutionalized discrimination.

Gerson explains, "The only thing more insulting than being attacked is being explained." Except it's not "insulting" to be explained, unless the explanation is wrong or "the truth hurts". It's insulting to be "explained away", but that's very different from being "explained", and that expansion on Gerson's actual words doesn't fit Gerson's accusations against Obama. (Besides, Gerson's prior profession was speechwriter, so we shouldn't need to read extra words into his column to have it make sense.)

Gerson proceeds to exemplify how, despite his earlier claims, it's okay to generalize about "they don't vote for us, anyway" voter blocs. Gerson presents extreme elements of "Black theology" that he attributes to James Cone, then tells us that Rev. Wright was mentored by Cone (guilt by association) even though Gerson has apparently been unable to put Cone's words directly into Wright's mouth, then he implies that anybody who goes to a church that is in any way associated with "Black theology" (guilt by association by association) must either accept those views as basic beliefs of their pastor or have been "asleep in the pew".

Although not offered as an defense of his generalizations, Gerson writes, "Most people would rather be termed right or wrong than be dismissed." See? So Gerson wasn't being patronizing, condescending or dismissive when he generalized what he sees as the worst of "Black theology" to all churches that advance some aspect of "black liberation theology" (those are his terms and his capitalization, and it is he who uses the terms as synonyms), and in suggesting that those churches follow a philosophy that is "not Biblical." He was simply telling all of the ministers of those churches, and everybody in their congregations, "You are wrong." Don't go reading a James Baker-type attitude into that. (And don't you dare suggest that Gerson wouldn't dream of offering a similar analysis of a mainstream white Christian movement.)

What's perhaps most interesting about these continuing, relentless right-wing assaults on Obama, Reverend Wright, and his so-called "elitism" (the difference in that regard between Obama and the other candidates being principally one of image, not substance) is that it suggests that Obama remains the Republicans' most feared opponent for the fall campaign.

... And The Spin Machine Keeps On Spinning

Robert Novak is smarter than a lot of his fellow columnists. Unlike, for example, a Michael Gerson, who happily says the most stupid things to advance the Republican agenda, Novak puts those words into the mouths of others. Perhaps accurately, but let's just say I wouldn't recommend talking to him about a controversial subject lest you become his convenient foil.

Novak starts out by reminding us that it's important for Obama not to be seen as an angry black man.

Did [the latest speech] solve Obama's pastor problem? Leading Democrats certainly hope so, but they are not sure. His vulnerability transcends relations with a radical preacher. If Obama comes to be seen not as a presidential candidate who happens to be black but as a black candidate in the mold of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, he will face a difficult struggle in the general election against John McCain even if he bests Hillary Clinton.

That's clever. Novak could have issued a straightforward acknowledgment of the fact that only "teh stupids" would conclude that Obama is "in the mold of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton", and that nobody who is familiar with Obama's record would make such an obvious error. But candor is not consistent with Novak's goal, which (of course) is to keep the tarnish on Obama's image, not to clean it off.

So who is Novak's foil?

My friend Armstrong Williams, the African American conservative, told me, "It is not unusual to hear in many black churches the same language that Reverend Wright is being criticized for." I raised this with NPR reporter and Fox commentator Juan Williams (no relation to Armstrong). "Not at all," replied Williams, who also is African American. "It's ridiculous. I never have heard that in church."

Wright's demagoguery is so unusual in Juan Williams's view that it was necessary for Obama to separate himself from it two months ago. Instead of orating about race in America, Williams says, Obama should have repented as a "sinner" partaking of lies from the pulpit. It was a post-partisan, post-racial opportunity lost by the candidate.

From what I can see, Williams is Episcopalian. I can't say that I'm surprised that his church experiences would depart from... well, pretty much any church that doesn't offer staid, conservative services that follow centuries of church doctrine and tradition. It would seem, well, vapid to speak of a "white church" experience by comparing Episcopal services to the preaching style of John Hagee, Oral Roberts, Jimmy Swaggert, Rod Parsley, Jim Bakker.... "That's not a 'white church' experience - I've never heard anything like that in church." Well, duh.

"Partaking lies from the pulpit"? Williams was truly suggesting that Obama's immediate response to the Wright controversy should have been to condemn the entire church, all of its works, and everybody who attended services while Wright was leading the church? That, to Novak, would have been taking a "post-partisan, post-racial opportunity"? I think the laugh track on the Washington Post website must be broken, because at this point we should be hearing raucous laughter. (But at least at this point he's not (overtly) trying to put that suggestion into Williams' mouth.)

The "thrown under the bus" line should be retired, but of course Novak drags it out:

Nobody knows whether Obama's performance has damaged his candidacy permanently, but his supporters hope the issue is out of the news. The difficulty is that Jeremiah Wright, thrown under the bus by his former parishioner, can reemerge any time he wishes and renew discussion of the Democratic presidential front-runner's real identity.

And if Wright doesn't wish, he'll have partisans like Novak trying to bring the issue to the forefront at every opportunity.

But for Novak to suggest that Obama's statement threw Wright under the bus? After suggesting that the proper response to the initial scandal would have been to throw Wright, his entire church, and his entire conversation under a Mack truck and run over them fifty or sixty times? If you were ever in doubt that Novak is a man with no shame....