Obsidian Wings

Quick Note

by hilzoy

Business Week:

"This ad asserts a McCain campaign talking-point that Obama wouldn’t make time for wounded troops unless cameras were allowed to follow him, but did make time to work out at a gym. This, of course, is a lie. It’s a blatant lie. Steve Schmidt, a disciple of Karl Rove’s who worked on George W. Bush’s 2004 ad/communications effort, though, is playing the Rovian playbook that says that it doesn’t matter if it’s true as long as your target audience (non-college educated white working class voters) won’t bother to find out the actual truth, and believe that it “sounds like it might be a true.” (...)

What the McCain campaign doesn’t want people to know, according to one GOP strategist I spoke with over the weekend, is that they had an ad script ready to go if Obama had visited the wounded troops saying that Obama was...wait for it...using wounded troops as campaign props. So, no matter which way Obama turned, McCain had an Obama bashing ad ready to launch. I guess that’s political hardball. But another word for it is the one word that most politicians are loathe to use about their opponents—a lie."

Of course they did.

***

But remember:

"The best aspect of a McCain presidency is that, while it would probably follow the policies of George W. Bush, it would put an end to the politics of Karl Rove."

And:

"That healing gift is what McCain, at his best, brings to the presidential race -- not the brass marching band of military valor but the tolerance of someone who has truly suffered."

Right. It's not his fault. He may have said that he approved these messages, but since we all know that John McCain is a man of honor -- with a healing gift, no less! -- he couldn't possibly have meant it.

The Next Act, Waiting in the Wings

by Eric Martin

If John McCain were a woman, the pundits would incessantly discuss his unseemly ambition, his lust for power, his cold, calculating willingness to say and do whatever it takes, to compromise any principle, in order to win.  Maureen Dowd would have still one more muse to cheer up her sad little existence.  In any case, McCain is a man and so such traits are barely noticed, and if they are, they are treated as positives for the most part.

Not by all, however.  Billmon does a good job of shining a light on the real McCain, and it ain't pretty.  Yeah, I said "billmon."  He's back - sort of, and for how long I can't say.  So get 'em while he's hot.

Ignatius Hearts McCain

by publius

David Ignatius:

McCain's triumph, finally, was that he got over Vietnam. He didn't fulminate against antiwar activists. . . . That healing gift is what McCain, at his best, brings to the presidential race -- not the brass marching band of military valor but the tolerance of someone who has truly suffered.

John "Healer" McCain:

I had the courage and the judgment to say I would rather lose a political campaign than lose a war. It seems to me that Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign.

What is it Atrios says? Ah yes... Kill me now.

I Came As a Rat

by Eric Martin

More like this please. When they hit you, hit them back harder:

You know, I might just end up going bankrupt, but this fool is willing to put his money on the proposition that the American people have had enough exposure to the tactics of Karl Rove that they're just not buying this crap the way they did in 2000 and 2004. It also helps that exposure to 8 years of the bring-back-the-Gilded Age economic policies of the GOP have made it so most people can't afford to buy it anymore. A tug on the pocketbook, and a disastrous calamity of a war, tend to sharpen the discerning eye of the electorate. Hell, even the media seems to be catching on (somewhat).

Further, McCain's whole-hog (whole-rat?) implementation of the Rove-playbook runs the risk of reminding people how they were duped in past elections. With Bush's approval ratings hovering in the 20s, it's safe to say that many Americans are looking at Bush as a bill of goods sold via a dishonest mix of fear and loathing, and regretting their choices.

Think about it: Since 2000, Al Gore has been collecting various accolades and statuettes (Nobels, Oscars, etc) looking prescient and statesmanlike in his effort to raise awareness of a true existential threat (not hyping fake ones for various ulterior motives). The Clinton-era economy, and the esteemed position of America in the world, seem almost fairy-tale like in comparison to our present predicament, making Gore look even better for the nostalgic.

The Pentagon just concluded, after an exhaustive study (via the conservative Rand Corporation), that the much-maligned John Kerry approach to fighting terrorism is also the right way to fight terrorism. That is, law enforcement and intelligence as opposed to reliance on the military (with the latter being the Bush administration approach). Oops! Bonus: John Edwards was right as well in his call to abandon the counterproductive "War on Terror" frame. He is so naive isn't he!

In short, if you run a campaign like Karl Rove you might end up reminding people of other recent Rove campaigns and what the voters got for backing Rove's candidate [hint: it makes this lousy t-shirt look like the deal of a century]. Any and all responses from the Obama camp to McCain's use of Rove-ian smears should drive home the connection to Bush.

Outrage of the Day

by publius

Using the title "Celebrity Skin" to discuss the McCain ad, Michael Crowley offers a timid half-hearted compliment of Hole:

Terrible video [Hole's "Celebrity Skin"] but this album actually had its moments.

"Had its moments" -- please. Don't make out with Courtney on Saturday night and deny her on Sunday. Unlike the cowardly Crowley, I'm not afraid to say it -- Hole rocks. Live Through This is also very good, particularly the first half of the album.

Take it away Courtney -- we love you.

UPDATE: And this too. Melissa Auf der Maur on bass added value (which this video illustrates). Mess with me people and I'll do this all night. I've been having high school nostalgia anyway, so I'll move on to Siamese Dream if I have to. Then Dirt. And then there's just no telling...

Haunted by a Past I Just Can't See, Anymore

by Eric Martin

A couple of insights from Matt Duss illustrate the key components of John McCain's gameplan for lightening the load of the Iraq war albatross dangling from his neck.  First: frame the issue as hinging on the magical Surge, not the decision to invade itself.  Second: blur the distinctions between the candidates' positions on Iraq going forward (and everything else for that matter).

It’s transparent spin for McCain to present the surge (however he’s defining it this week), rather than the invasion itself, as “the crucial point” upon which to judge his national security record. This is like a gambler protesting that he shouldn’t be criticized for having lost a thousand dollars at the craps table, because “the crucial point” is that he just won back twenty dollars at blackjack. The wise choice, of course, would have been not to gamble in the first place.

The attempt to create tunnel vision around the Surge is particularly Rove-ian in that the underlying strategy is to attack one's opponent on his/her strength - employing heatlthy doses of mendacity and dirty tricks with amplification from an easily manipulated media.  No surprise there I guess.

Interestingly, just as Lieberman tried to blur his pro-war image for his 2006 Senate reelection bid, John McCain has been experimenting with new, sane foreign policy looks, dressing up his militaristic hegemonism in multilateralist drag, and insisting that he “detests war,” while promising more wars to come. Unfortunately, a few journalists have responded positively to McCain’s liberal internationalist karaoke, ignoring McCain’s actual record, his advisers, and the majority of his past statements, highlighting a few notes of pragmatism in an attempt to buttress the tired “Maverick McCain” narrative.

McCain’s latest head-fake in the direction of the mainstream has been his grudging acknowledgment of a 16-month Iraq withdrawal timetable, which Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has indicated he supports. As McCain tries to blur his position to appear slightly less completely out of step with both the American and Iraqi political consensus, it’s become Lieberman’s job to hold the hard-line on Iraq.

It’s quite simple: Lieberman’s position is McCain’s. Both continue to be committed to the War on Terror, the war in Iraq, and coming soon, a war in Iran. Despite their presentation of themselves as men of principle, both are savvy politicians who understand the need to fudge their positions at various times to make them a bit more palatable to voters. But don’t be fooled. Just as Lieberman reverted to type once he won reelection, so a President McCain will cast off any pretense of international cooperation or consensus building as he pursues victory against the “transcendent challenge of our time.”

This goes hand in glove with the Naderite coke v. pepsi obfuscation that served us so well in 2000, back when key states swung for Bush over Gore by mere handfuls of voters (hint: Ohio and Florida come November).  I expect to see this meme out in force again this fall, flogged by "neutral" media types, McCain surrogates, Naderites (much to the joy of the McCain camp), and assorted others.  It's already making the rounds of some of the wonkier shops.

In truth, it makes about as much sense in 2008 as it did in 2000: f[expletive] all.

Shorter Washington Post: McCain is Lying

by publius

Good for the Post -- this is what the press should do. No one's asking the media to pick sides -- we're just asking them to call BS to (1) create incentives to tell the truth and (2) inform a busy public who doesn't always have time to investigate the truth. If the Obama campaign does something similar, the Post should slap it on page A1 too.

So, credit where credit's due.

Fighting Monsters at DOJ

by publius

I think we can all agree now that the Bush administration’s politicization of DOJ was a disgrace. I didn’t think anything about DOJ could surprise me anymore, but the Goodling emails were so bad that they did. It’s just an all-around disgrace.

But the entire sordid affair got me thinking about Steven Teles’s excellent book “The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement.” It’s a fascinating book, but I always thought there was a bit of whitewashing. Specifically, I think Teles tended to ignore the darker side of the legal conservative movement — as symbolized by Goodling. (What I’m really trying to say is that he only looked at one side of Harvey Dent’s face in writing the book).

But first, let’s look at the good side — i.e, the non-burned-and-exposed-bone side of the face. I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with legal conservatism. Unlike other parts of the conservative movement, I respect it intellectually. There are hacks, sure. But they take ideas seriously — and they actually demand competence (compare, e.g., Roberts v. Miers).

Teles provides some hard evidence justifying this point of view. The easy explanation is the conservative movement is one giant business-fronted movement. But it’s not. Teles shows how the movement only succeeded after it replaced business hackery with conservative idealism. These people took their ideas (e.g., individual freedom) seriously — that’s what motivated them.

But there’s a darker side to the movement too — one that Teles didn’t spend nearly enough time on. As intellectually sophisticated as the legal conservative movement is, it’s also motivated by a passionate, visceral and borderline-creepy hatred of liberals. (Take any recent Scalia opinion on some social issue — it’s clear that liberal hatred is driving a big part of the ship).

When you spend some time reading legal conservative sites, you’ll see a lot of ressentiment swirling around the Great Liberal “Other” — and it’s all mixed together with defensiveness, victimhood, and inferiority complexes. It’s a dangerous brew — the kind of brew that causes people to justify doing bad things.

And that’s where Monica Goodling comes in. When she went to sleep at night, I doubt she was riddled with guilt. She wasn’t thinking “another good day of imitating a Third World banana republic Monica.” In her own head, I’m sure she thought she doing the right thing. Rationalization, after all, is a wonderful thing. People don’t generally think they’re bad — unless they’re the Joker and just don’t care.

Anyway, the pathological liberal hatred is what allows people like Goodling to justify doing all kinds of bad things. Goodling didn’t see herself as evil. She saw liberals as evil — thus, it was critical to get the Christian Soldiers in there, law be damned. The liberal elites were destroying her country.

In making this criticism, let me be clear that I’m not talking about her law school. The Harvard Federalist Society breeds the same level of liberal hatred that Regent does. It’s a systematic flaw in the broader movement — one based in part on the fact that the movement has been constructed in opposition to the liberal “Other.”

Legal conservatives can be very persuasive when they focus on text, structure, and even originalism. But they lose me completely when they lapse into their babbling about evil activist judges who want to free child molesters and steal your guns and eat your baby. For me, the anti-liberal animosity taints the intellectually respectable parts.

I suppose this same concept extends far beyond law. Imagining that you’re fighting monsters turns you into a monster. If all liberals are evil, then I’ll ignore the law and hire people without “spotted owl” and “homosexual” on their Lexis/Westlaw search result. If Democrats are destroying the country, I’ll have the U.S. Attorneys abuse their office and prosecute political opponents. If all Muslims are terrorists, I’ll ignore the fact that our latest “precision bomb” killed a bunch of kids in Baghdad. If all Muslims want to kill us, then that justifies detaining and maiming innocent people.

In other words, what Nietzsche said: “Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster.” It’s good advice.

Imagine That

by Eric Martin

Apropos* of a recent post on this site which sparked a discussion of the conservative vs. liberal approaches to "family values" issues, this from TAPPED is worth taking note of:

Contraception: It works! Here's a sobering fact: 30 percent of teenage girls in the U.S. become pregnant. But Brookings researchers report that providing contraception through Medicaid is a cost-effective policy option that reduces unplanned pregnancies. While this might seem like a no-brainer, the report notes that there was concern that women were insufficiently committed to family planning and might not take advantage of available contraception options. Apparently, that isn't the case: providing this option reduces unplanned pregnancies by 15 percent.

Which directly contradicts the Douthat/Salam thesis that because "working class whites" are hit harder by the economic impact of things like teen pregnancy, it's rational for them to vote for conservative candidates who oppose things like contraception and an expansion of Medicaid, in favor or preaching about the values of abstinence.  It's not rational or in ther economic interest. 

(* fixed as per slarti)

The Plumage Don't Enter Into It

by Eric Martin

Michael Totten joins the chorus of Iraq war supporters gathering confetti for the impending victory parade. Says Totten:

The civil war between Sunni and Shia militias likewise is over. We know that now because we can look back in hindsight. Not one single person was killed in ethno-sectarian conflict in May or June of this year. That particular conflict had been winding down since December of 2006 when the monthly casualties began freefalling in an almost straight line from a high of more than 2,000 a month down to nothing. Nobody won that war. It’s just over.

Over?  That is every bit as brash as "Mission Accomplished" was five years ago.  While it is true that many former Sunni insurgents have ceased attacks on the Shiite-led Iraqi government and US forces (opting, instead, to collaborate with US forces in going after AQI and, in turn, establish local fiefdoms and receive money, arms and other support) that represents a temporary, contingent and highly precarious truce.  Not an end but a pause (and not a complete pause either). 

As recently as Friday, Sunni leaders reieterated their demands: either the Maliki government must integrate their cadres into the Iraq Security Forces (ISF), or they will resume the fighting (and they want more money to boot).  The Maliki government has, thus far, made it clear that it will only allow a tiny fraction of the Sunni forces into the ISF, and so the stage is set for a future battle.  Making matters worse, many of these Sunni elements have been quite brazen in stating their intention to lay low in anticipation of the right opportunity to launch operations to "retake" Baghdad from the Shiites - which explains, in part, Maliki's reluctance to welcome large numbers of these groups into the ISF.

Further, there has been little to no progress in dealing with Iraq's roughly five million internally and externally displaced citizens - many of them Sunnis expelled from their homes in and around Baghdad that might have expectations about returning and reclaiming what was taken.  But trust us: two months of dubious data telling of zero deaths and it's time to declare the conflict "over" (some creative categorization of the hundreds of deaths still going on?). I mean, what could go wrong?

Totten doesn't even acknowledge the existence of other ethnic/sectarian flashpoints in his calculus of the various "wars" in Iraq.  Flashpoints like, say, Kirkuk.  From the indefatigable Brian Katulis:

The unsteady calm evident across much of Iraq after months of declining violence was shattered this morning by multiple bombs in Baghdad and Kirkuk.

The attacks killed nearly 50 people, with at least two dozen dead in each city. In Baghdad, female suicide bombers struck three times during a Shi’a religious procession in the Karrada neighborhood. But the attack was particularly ominous in Kirkuk, where a suicide bomber targeted Kurds protesting the recently vetoed provincial elections law. Angry Kurds then attacked the nearby headquarters of Turkoman parties, setting fire to and taking pot-shots at the buildings.

These attacks include incidents of the Sunni/Shiite violence that was supposedly over and done with, and the first signs of new ethno/sectarian fronts opening up in Kirkuk (Kurd v. Sunni and Kurd v. Turcoman).  The underlying conflicts leading to these incidents of bloodshed, again, do not lend themselves to easy solutions:

Today’s bombing took place against this background of increased Arab-Kurd tension over delays on Kirkuk’s status and the elections law. What the Kirkuk dispute serves to illustrate is that Iraq’s problems are fundamentally political in nature. The challenge is not security, which has improved dramatically over the last year, but political accommodation and power-sharing between Iraqi factions.

Thus far, the U.S. strategy and political discourse has been narrowly focused on the security situation, arguing over whether the “surge” has worked or not. This debate is beside the point. Iraq’s conflicts will not solve themselves peacefully unless political compromises and deals are made. As long as they remain unresolved, Iraq’s security gains will remain fragile and open to violent destabilization.

Ah yes, "political accommodation and power-sharing between Iraqi factions" - you know, the primary goal of the Surge. The one that hasn't been achieved, but which it is poor form to point out - an unwillingness to let the good news wash over us. Totten goes on, undettered by reality:

Casualties from insurgent warfare haven’t slacked off as completely, but they have almost slacked off as completely. If all violent trends continue in their current downward directions, this war, too, will taper off to non-existence or relative insignificance. We’ll know in hindsight, too, when that war finally is over after no has been killed by insurgents for a few months.

What looks now like the last dying gasp of the various anti-Iraqi insurgencies is all that remains of these various wars in Iraq.

Almost slacked off as completely?  Meaning, almost down to zero?  Actually, roughly five hundred Iraqis died in the months of May and June - as documented using Totten's own sources (which don't track Iraqis killed by US forces - those don't count apparently).  Matt Yglesias puts this "near complete" cessation of violence in context:

If you look back to the summer of 2005, you'll see that few people at the time regarded conditions in Iraq as "good" or even acceptable. And yet things got so much worse over the course of 2006 and early 2007, that improvement in 2008 to bring us back to the kind of level of violence we had three years ago -- except with more walled-off and ethnically cleansed neighborhoods in place -- is now represented as a great triumph. James Vega has a forceful post up at The Democratic Strategist reminding us of how perverse this is.

It's beyond perverse.  Although to John McCain, it's the new normal:

We have succeeded. Sadr city is safe. Basra is safe. Mosul is safe. The people of Iraq are now leading normal lives.

Other than those people getting blown to bits.  And their loved ones.  And neighbors.  And the people living in walled off, segregated neighborhoods from which they dare not venture far for fear of being murdered.  Other than the ones that plan for, or live in fear of, the next rounds of civil wars, etc.