McCain vs. the press

I have to agree with Bob "the Daily Howler" Somerby's recent criticism of Josh Marshall's superficial approach to some of the election reporting. In this video on McCain's testy performance before the Des Moines Register editorial board, Josh makes commentary about how obviously nasty McCain is.



My take on it is different. Yes, McCain's a mean old man and that comes through here.

But he's posturing as the offended, vicitimized war hero facing down the hated "liberal press". Not only for Republicans but for some independents, this comes off as showing toughness.

Listen to the first question, where the questioner jams him a bit on his false claim that Obama supported comprehensive sex education for Obama. If the questioner had been prepared, she could have cited the bill which McCain's campaign claims supports his claim and explained that the claim is plainly false. True to the increasingly standard press dysfuntion, she didn't. McCain essentially rolled the questioner in that exchange, simply reporting over and over that the ad was true.

Tags: establishment press, josh marshall, mainstream media, mainstream press, mccain

Confederate "Heritage" Month Coming Early?

Since Jefferson Davis is no longer available, why not Ron Paul?

Every April since 2004, I've been celebrating Confederate "Heritage" Month by posting daily at Old Hickory's Weblog about various aspects of pre-Civil War history and the use in more recent times of Lost Cause dogma, aka, neo-Confederate ideology.

Ron Paul finally got the attention of a number of liberals when he came out last Sunday on Meet the Press as opposed to civil rights laws, accused Abraham Lincoln of starting the Civil War as part of his nefarious intent to destroy the Constitution and worried that the US had been way too hasty in abolishing slavery.

After that, liberals who can't figure out that the guy is a flaming rightwinger probably wouldn't be able to see it if he put together an ad campaigning featuring himself yelling, "I hate n*****s!" They would claim that, well, he's expressing a personal opinion, but he still supports the Constitution.

I'm going to link to a few posts that have come out in response to Paul's overt neo-Confederate stance. But I want to make the point first that, yes, politics makes strange bedfellows, I don't mind if he's against the war, some of his support up to now comes from his criticism of the Iraq War, and yadda, yadda. But not only is the guy a flaming rightwinger who panders to racists and nativists. His criticism of the war is poor quality. He says things like he's opposed to the war because it was fought to enforce UN resolutions, which is false and also echoes a stock prowar argument. Among the New World Order paranoids who are his most enthusiastic and longtime supporters, the UN is a particularly sinister element of the Jewish World Conspiracy against good Christian American white folks.

And what about his response to Business Week when asked how he would respond to a "hostile" action by Iran and he responded that he would treat it like Kennedy did the Cuban Missile Crisis? And we're supposed to think this guy is some kind of antiwar hardliner?

Josh Marshall at TPM picked up on Paul's pro-Confederate comments to Timmy Russert in You're No Abraham Lincoln 12/24/07, saying straightforwardly that what Paul said was "morally and historically wrong". TPM has the video clip, which I'm also including at the end of this post. Marshall also asks caustically, "Did Paul give in to the heavy media pressure to come up with a clear position on slavery and the Civil War?"

No, but he wanted to make sure his tribe of hardline rightwingers know that he's one of them, despite the praise he's been getting from liberals who should know better.

In a 12/26/07 post, Antipodes, he returns to the "alternative universe" of the Paulians. Here he grouses a bit along the lines of, why should I have to bother about Ron Paul one way or the other, because his poll showing is pitiful.

There are a couple of reasons. One is that Paul has been a chief conduit for mainstreaming themes from the white-supremacist, militia-type far right into the Republican Party, although admittedly it's increasingly jarring to see any form of the word "mainstream" in the same sentence with "Republican Party". In connection with that, the Old Right isolationist viewpoint that Ron Paul represents is working hard to appeal to today's peace movement. But their basic orientation is not fundamentally different than Dick Cheney's unilateralist nationalism, despite differences on specific policies. And I don't want to see the revived peace movement marginalize itself by embracing Old Right unilateralist approaches.

The other is what Taylor Marsh notes in a post at her blog that is otherwise way too generous to Paul (Mormons for Ron Paul 12/23/07), "If he'd run as an independent I believe all hell would break loose politically with Democrats jumping across to vote for him on the issue of Iraq and foreign policy alone." We won't know until after a few primaries whether Paul is interesting in such a move. But it's unthinkable that some Republican movers and shakers haven't toyed with that idea as a way to keep the White House in Republican clutches.

Jane Hamsher at FireDogLake writes on Russert Roasts Ron Paul on Meet the Press 12/23/07, observing that, "Russert expresses the outrage of the Village Elders at Ron Paul for being...well, Ron Paul. And rocking the Republican boat."

That's probably true. But not every "alternative" viewpoint to the press corps conventional wisdom is a good alternative. And within today's GOP, even though there's not much discussion among Presidential candidates of the Civil War, the neo-Confederate viewpoint is more-or-less respectable.

Glenn Greenwald continues to sing Paul's praises, although he has said that he's not supporting him or anyone else for President, in Various items Salon 12/24/07 (item 4).

Meanwhile, the invaluable Edward Sebesta at his Anti-Neo-Confederate blog makes his own debunking of Paul's pseudohistory in Ron Paul whistles Dixie 12/24/07.

Digby notes that Paul also embraces not just neo-Confederate pseudohistory but also creationist pseudoscience in Dogwhistling Into Hell Hulabaloo blog 12/23/07. She also points out that Paul is very much a mainstream Republican on creationism. Also, she looks at Paul's far-right affinities in Tucker And Air Force Amy 12/26/07. That report talks about conservative journalist Tucker Carlson observing during Ron Paul appearances that Paul's audiences typically responded most enthusiastically to a line about how the Federal Reserve Bank is unconstitutional, a longtime rightwing talking point and one of the John Birch Society's big causes. Digby observes, that...

... it should be of more than a passing interest to mainstream journalists who are writing about Ron Paul that his biggest applause lines are echoes of an underground right wing radicalism that's coming up to the surface. I don't know what it means, but it's usually not a good sign.

And Daily Kos (Markos Moulitsas) digs up a telling quote from Ron Paul from 1992, reflecting a position he's given us no reason to think he's changed, in The overt racist in the GOP field 12/26/07. As Moulitsas says with sarcasm, "But Paul is against the war in Iraq and he wants FREEDOM! So that must make his racism okay."

At the history-oriented Edge of the American West blog, a couple of recent posts challenged Paul's pseudohistory, Ron Paul: Very Gradual Emancipationist by Ari Kelman 12/23/07; Slavery did too cause the Civil War by Eric Rauchway 12/24/07; Ron Paul: Not a Third Party Candidate by Kelman (with a comment by me) 12/26/07; and, About forty-five years ago. When did you start? by Rauchway 12/26/07.

Shoot, with the post I already have in the can for April relating the Mexican War, aka, la guerra de los Estados Unidos a Mexico, I could fill up the whole month of Confederate "Heritage" posts just by quoting those posts linked here and commenting on them.

Ron Paul on the evils of Abraham Lincoln from his Meet the Press appearance of 12/23/07:



Tags: ari kelman, authoritarianism, digby, edward sebesta, eric rauchway, glenn greenwald, jane hamsher, josh marshall, lost cause, markos moulitsas, neo-confederate, neo-confederates, racism, ron paul, taylor marsh

Iran War update

Josh Marshall's growing TPM media operation has been providing some helpful video summaries on the significance of the new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on the Iranian nuclear program. This one is called "Inside the Iran Bamboozle". Notice that Josh manages to say straightforwardly that Cheney and Bush have been trying to prepare the country for war against Iran. Good for him!



It's certainly worth noting that Seymour Hersh was telling the public about this developing NIE over a year ago, TPM also provides a video of a recent CNN interview with Hersh.

Notice that Hersh says this report has been circulating at the "highest levels" in Cheney's government for at least a year and "probably longer". All the while they were working up a case for war against Iran, for a long time based on the alleged nuclear weapons threat.



Here are links to some of Hersh's New Yorker articles on Iran:

The Iran Plans: Would President Bush go to war to stop Tehran from getting the bomb? 04/17/06

Last Stand: The military’s problem with the President’s Iran policy 07/10/06

The Next Act: Is a damaged Administration less likely to attack Iran, or more? 11/27/06. This is the article in which Hersh discusses the CIA findings that Iran had discontinued its nuclear weapons program in 2003. Hersh reported that the White House (meaning at least Cheney) didn't want to hear that. They wanted propaganda to justify war:

The White House’s dismissal of the C.I.A. findings on Iran is widely known in the intelligence community. Cheney and his aides discounted the assessment, the former senior intelligence official said. "They’re not looking for a smoking gun," the official added, referring to specific intelligence about Iranian nuclear planning. "They’re looking for the degree of comfort level they think they need to accomplish the mission."

The Redirection: Is the Administration’s new policy benefitting our enemies in the war on terrorism? 03/05/07. Talks about Iran as a political factor in Iraq.

Shifting Targets: The Administration’s plan for Iran 10/08/07

One aspect of this story that shouldn't get entirely lost is the fact that Ayatollah Khamenei has said that the possession and use of nuclear weapons is against the Islamic religion. (See Fishing for a Pretext to Squeeze Iran by Juan Cole Truthdig.com 03/13/06) Sure, he could be faking, and he could always issue a new declaration based on changed circumstances. It would be foolish and reckless to take the assurance at face value.

But it's also foolish and potentially reckless to just ignore counter-indications, as well. If Iran hawks are pointing to President Ahmadenijad's religious fanaticism as evidence that Iran would be undeterrable with a nuclear weapon, shouldn't the talking heads chattering about this on TV at least take into account that Khamenei, the actual holder of the highest power in the Iranian theocracy especially when it comes to foreign policy and issues of war and peace, is explicitly condemns the possession of nuclear weapons as un-Islamic.

Robert Scheer writes today in It Turns Out Ahmadinejad Was the Truthful One Truthdig.com 12/05/07:

The whole episode shows that our democratic system retains at least some essential checks and balances, but it also is depressing to see that, in this instance at least, the fanatical leader of a theocracy seems to have a higher regard for truth than does the president of the world’s greatest experiment in representative democracy.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who took office as Iran’s president in August of 2005, two years after Iran’s nuclear weapons program ended, has now been vindicated in his claims that Iran has abandoned the weaponization program. Not so Bush, who has summarily dismissed the intelligence community’s findings and, using his favorite tactic in dealing with debacles, is sticking to his original story. A story, as in the case of the earlier Iraq threat inflation, that too many in the mass media and Congress, including some leading Democrats, have bought.

Scheer's Truthdig site also features a podcast on the NIE and its significance by Scott Ritter, Scott Ritter on the NIE Report and War With Iran 12/04/07. Ritter has cast himself as a prickly Paul Revere warning about the danger of the Cheney-Bush administration launching an unnecessary war against Iran.

This is the PBS Newshour report on the NIE, which includes prowar comments by Missouri Republican Sen. Kit Bond, one of the most hardcore torture supporters in Congress: U.S. Policy on Iran Under New Scrutiny after Weapons Report 12/04/07. Unfortunately, the Democratic "balancing" guest, West Virigina Sen. Jay Rockefeller, discussed the issue mildly and blandly, while torture-lover Bond pimped the administration's line with enthusiasm, repeatedly talking about how Iran had been actively supporting efforts to kill "our troops", and twice mentioned the charge, based on a dubious translation, that Iran wants to "wipe Israel off the map". Or, in Bond's formulation, "the leader has promised to wipe Israel off the map." (See the Juan Cole article linked above on the translation issue.)

The Newshour also reported on the story in Iran Halted Nuclear Arms Program in 2003, Report Finds 12/03/07. That report features David Kay, who wrote one of the reports that confirmed that Iraq had no WMDs at the time of the 2003 invasion.

And our Dear Leader is still ready to plow ahead with his anti-Iranian policy, apparently unchanged by the NIE's information, at least in what he says in this TPM video of his statement today. His demand that Iran "come clean with the international community" is very reminiscent of his pre-Iraq War posturing.



Tags: david kay, iran war, josh marshall, nonproliferation, nuclear nonproliferation, robert scheer, scott ritter, seymour hersh

Wilson/Plame Scandal: Other Weblogs on the CIA Front Company Story

Several other Weblogs are weighing in about the exposure of the CIA front company. And not all of them were as restrained as my previous post, especially about Robert Novak.

CalPundit (Kevin Drum):

Well, why would anyone feed Robert Novak information about a CIA front company just so that he can make the point on national TV that Valerie Plame is a Democrat? Is it really worth doing that just to add minutely to the Republican meme that this is all a partisan feud rather than a genuine national security matter?

Why indeed. The bottom line, I think, is that these guys just don't care. When it comes to dealing with enemies, they lash out with everything they've got no matter how trivial it is and no matter what collateral damage it might cause. There's just no sense of proportion at all.

Billmon:

So way to go, Bob! You've not only outed one of the CIA's leading agents in the field of WMD nonproliferation, you just made doubly sure that her front company was exposed, too! ...

Welcome to the complete and total abasement of the Republican Party. By now there must be tears rolling down the cheeks of that statue of Lincoln out at the Lincoln Memorial.

Josh Marshall hasn't commented on this story yet, but I expect he will. Marshall's has been the blog to watch on this story. (Later addition: Marshall's post on this particular story.)

Tags: joseph wilson, kevin drum, josh marshall, robert novak, valerie plame