Writing Life

I finished reading Scott McClellan’s memoir: What Happened: Inside the Bush White and Washington’s Culture of Deception. This is my first political memoir of a recent event. Normally, I’d pick up a book written many years after the fact, letting distance provide some context. But, I just had to have this book as McClellan worked the media and blog circuit. As you may know, he was a loyal Bush supporter and fellow Texan who served as White House Press Secretary from July 2003 until April 2006.

The memoir focuses primarily on the selling and secrecy around the Iraq War and the outing of a CIA agent as payback for challenging the weapons of mass destruction (WMD) claim for the war. It touches ever so briefly on the political effects of Hurricane Katrina on the Bush presidency.
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The Post, and others, report that Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE)’s plan to partition Iraq passed with bipartisan support today in the Senate, on a vote of 75 to 23. What’s interesting, though, is that I thought Iraq was a sovereign nation? Why is the United States Senate declaring that Iraq should be divided into three autonomous regions with a weak federal government? I thought that would be up to the Iraqis? [Yes, I am being sarcastic here, just in case you missed it.]

And, while Bush played with his generals in Iraq and Congress bipartisanly rejected doing anything about it (through abdication by Republicans or lack of skill/power by Democrats), it seems that the Tabliban are resurgent in Afghanistan. Thanks Mr. Bush.

William Greider has an op-ed in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer about former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. During his tenure through several presidents, Greenspan was the wizard who made America, or at least an affluent few, very very rich. He was lauded by all and covens were set up to figure out the mystical meaning to his cryptic utterances. Over the weekend, his memoir was published. In it, there were a few bombshells, like calling the Iraq war a war about oil; calling Bush Jr.’s fiscal policies horrible, and unbelievably, for the right, praising Bill Clinton’s fiscal stewardship of America.

Greenspan backed away from his Iraq claim with some fudge language at the beginning of the week. However, his verbal skills seem to have lost their luster. As the op-ed notes, Greenspan appears to be trying to distance himself from the utter failure of Republican fiscal and war policies. Even though he played no small part in cheering some of those policies on, or remained silent while others were implemented. It’s a strange circus these days, with former Republicans Administration staffers (and Mr. Greenspan), saying they disagree with the policies they themselves helped usher in and cheer on. But, in our 24-hour news cycle, short-attention span world, maybe they can get away with it. Hopefully, more people like Mr. Greider will continue to call out these folks and pull the curtain back to show their true nature.

Relieved of the need to run for reelection next year, retiring Republican Senators John Warner (VA) and Chuck Hagel (NE) have decided to speak their minds, as ABC News reports. In response to Warner’s question about whether General Petraeus’s plan is making America safer, the General said “Sir, I don’t know actually.” (Huffington Post has video.)

Hagel challenged both men, but laid into Ambassador Crocker for trying to claim that Iraq might spiral into civil war if the U.S. left. Hagel rebuffed Crocker, saying “We going to see Iraq devolving into a civil war? Come on. Our National Intelligence Estimate says we’re already in a civil war.”

While many probably haven’t heard of and most probably don’t have a large stake in it, the Catholic Church has said that the return of the Tridentine mass (spoken in Latin with many differences from the post-Vatican II service) is okay as long as parishioners request it. However, this article from the Guardian newspaper, raises something I didn’t know. During the Good Friday services (the Friday before Easter), there’s a call for Jews to be converted to the truth that is the Catholic faith. It’s being seen as anti-Semitic and a throwback to olden times.

Second, check out Sunday’s New York Times editorial that calls for an immediate and orderly withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. I’m not sure where the Times has been over the last five years (the beginning of which saw it championing going to war), but it’s nice to see this piece now.

If they’re not doing bong hits, they might want to consider it. The editorial board of the Washington Post has been shifting further and further to the right. It used to suck, back in the early 90s. By that, I mean the editorials seemed to include poorly chosen topics, which were crudely written. In the mid 90s, there was a shuffling of staff and a resurgence of that page. It’s been going down again, since the late 90s and especially since the trumpeting of starting the Iraq war on its editorial and front pages.

So, given that background, maybe I shouldn’t be surprised to see today’s editorial, A Principled Ally. As British Prime Minister Tony Blair stepped down yesterday, global pundits pondered his legacy. A central theme has been trying to understand Blair’s unflinching support of George W. Bush and his wars. Acting more like a cheerleader than a statesman, Blair did all he could to support Bush’s preemptive war policies at home and abroad.

Today’s editorial chastises those who would reflect on Blair this way. In language that reminds me of ex-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the editorial writers throw glory on Blair, enshrine the myth that the Iraq war is a fight against global terrorism and bash any nation that dares to challenge U.S. reasons for going to and continuing the war. The editorial goes so far as to say that the U.S. owes Blair and Britain a great debt since Blair supported the Iraqi invasion and continues to keep British troops in the country.

I would go so far as to say that if Blair had stood up to Bush, publicly and privately, we would owe the British an even greater debt: stopping us from this aggressive war that distracted our attention from the real terrorists. Additionally, this war has pushed to the background many domestic issues that need to be addressed, such as deteriorating civil rights, lack of affordable health care, the destruction of the environment and the rape of the middle and lower class by a tiny, entrenched rich class.

Forty years ago, on a 1967 Face the Nation news episode, Robert F. Kennedy said the following with respect to the Vietnam War:

Do we have the right here in the United States to say that we’re going to kill tens of thousands, make millions of people, as we have, millions of people refugees? Kill women and children, as we have? I very seriously question whether we have that right. Now we’re saying we’re going to fight this so that we don’t have to fight in Thailand. So that we don’t have to fight on the west coast of the United States. So that they won’t move across the Rockies. But do we… our whole moral position changes tremendously.

This is why I like RFK so much, even though I was only about a year old when he was taken from us. But his words about a different war at a different time struck me as I look to the television and newspapers today. The argument proffered in that war was that we had to fight the communists there so that we wouldn’t have to fight them here. The same is said about terrorists in Iraq. It was specious then and remains so today.

Bush, who claims to love and emulate right-wing icon Ronald Reagan, might have his own spot in history like Reagan did. However, I think Mr. Bush will find himself on the wrong side of the quote. See this LA Times story about Bush’s desire to build a WALL around neighborhoods in Baghdad in order to sustain and support the democracy he brought to the country. (Please take note of the heavy sarcasm in the previous sentence.) Building a wall is not a solution but a stalling tactic, or worse, an ostrich head-in-the-sand move. Others have built walls, most have come down, all will eventually fall.