Matthew Duss

So I Guess She Won't Be Cradling Bush's Foot, Then.

Maybe if Peggy Noonan tried to avoid writing things like:

This, truly, is a good man. And that is a rare thing. Agree with Mr. Bush's stands or disagree, there can be no doubting the depth of his seriousness and the degree to which he attempts to do what he is convinced is right, and to lead his country toward that vision of rightness. We have had many unusual men as president and some seemed like a gift and some didn't. Mr. Bush seems uniquely resolved to be as courageous as the times require and as helpful as they allow. There is a profound authenticity to him, and a fearlessness too. A steady hand on the helm in high seas, a knowledge of where we must go and why, a resolve to achieve safe harbor. More and more this presidency is feeling like a gift.

She wouldn't look so silly years later when she writes something like:

George W. Bush destroyed the Republican Party, by which I mean he sundered it, broke its constituent pieces apart and set them against each other. He did this on spending, the size of government, war, the ability to prosecute war, immigration and other issues. Were there other causes? Yes, of course. But there was an immediate and essential cause.

On the other hand, someone who writes something like:

I first saw [President Reagan] as a foot, highly polished brown cordovan wagging merrily on a hassock. I spied it through the door. It was a beautiful foot, sleek. Such casual elegance and clean lines! But not a big foot, not formidable, maybe a little ...frail. I imagined cradling it in my arms, protecting it from unsmooth roads.

Is clearly already playing for the silly team. And I haven't even mentioned the dolphin thing.

(c/p to TAPPED)

More Gasoline For The Fire

Just what the Middle East needs, more high-tech weapons floating around:

The Joint Direct Attack Munition is a kit that, when added to the back end of a 500- or 2,000-pound "dumb" bomb, turns it into a lethal, all-weather "smart" weapon. The bomb can hit within four feet of a target when launched from a fighter aircraft more than 10 miles away. The kits and bombs are a prominent part of the $20 billion U.S. arms package for Persian Gulf states that has been in the works since last summer. President Bush discussed the package with Arab leaders during his recent trip to the Gulf.

[...]

[The Congressional Research Service] notes that "significant arms sales, prolonged military training programs, material pre-positioning and basing arrangements, joint exercises and direct military interventions have characterized U.S. policy toward the Gulf region." In short, without much public debate, the Bush administration has expanded previous multilateral cooperation with Gulf states on defense, including "discussion on securing key sites, in spite of historic sensitivities regarding sovereignty and foreign participation in the regional energy industry," the CRS report says.

I commented on the arms deal last August, noting that it represents a clear admission of failure of President Bush's Iraq-centric Middle East security strategy. It also represents an abandonment of Bush's program of democracy promotion for a return to a policy of supporting the Arab authoritarians we know, in an effort to contain the numerous, and not yet fully comprehended, bad effects of the Iraq war.

(c/p to TAPPED)

Friday Guitar Blogging

Hubert Sumlin, with Robert Cray.

Here's Hubert's homepage.

What We Need Is Awareness, We Can't Get Careless.

I strongly recommend Brian Katulis's article from yesterday. As he indicates, we are in a key moment for progressives on national security right now. Given the momentous and comprehensive failure of conservative ideology in the Middle East, progressives have an opportunity to redraw the boundaries of the national security debate in the U.S., and it's imperative that we recognize and make the most of it. Katulis offers some very smart suggestions on how to begin to do that.

I think a big test for progressives is how we continue to deal with the myth of the surge. It's a tough one: people like hearing good news better than bad news, and tend to be more forgiving of sunny BSers than they are of hard truth-tellers. We're also confronted with an administration and a deep-pocketed neoconservative faction whose reputations are tied to Iraq, and who have proven time after time that they have no compunction about hiding behind the troops in order to advance astonishingly dishonest claims about the war's progress, or about mau-mauing the press into accepting those claims. But make no mistake: What is being sold as the surge's success is in reality simply the result of a reversal in policy toward empowering Iraqi warlords and militias and entrenching the forced segregation and fragmentation of the country toward achieving a short-term drop in violence while preparing the ground for future conflicts. Promoting this as "success" is as cynical and mendacious as anything this administration and its enablers have done.

Michael Massing has a devastating article collecting the accounts of many Iraqis' experiences under the American occupation, and how this has discredited America in their eyes for at least a generation. This, as well as the rise of Iran, the vindication of Osama bin Laden's claims about Western intentions, the proliferation of new, cheaper, and deadlier guerrilla tactics, the strengthening of anti-Americanism throughout the region, and not any "Anbar miracle," is George W. Bush's true legacy in Iraq. Any suggestion of where to go from here should begin with that.

Monday Mornings Just Got A Whole Lot Grimmer.

The New York Times leaves a flaming bag of poo on America's doorstep, in the form of Bill Kristol's first regular column.

But gratitude for sparing us a third Clinton term only goes so far. Who, inquiring minds want to know, is going to spare us a first Obama term? After all, for all his ability and charm, Barack Obama is still a liberal Democrat. Some of us would much prefer a non-liberal and non-Democratic administration. We don’t want to increase the scope of the nanny state, we don’t want to undo the good done by the appointments of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, and we really don’t want to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory in Iraq.

As Ezra points out, the analysis in the column, such as it is, is utterly uninteresting. But, of course, Kristol is not an analyst, he's a propagandist, and I'll say this for him: He knows how to ladle it. This paragraph spoons like a thick reduction of right-wing talking points, a demi-glace of conservative bushwa, as if Kristol sensed that his tenure will be short (it's already been far too long) and thus wanted to kick things off with his most impressive sauce. We have the requisite complaint about "the nanny state" (except, of course, when the state nannies the media barons who fund Kristol's magazine, and all his rich friends);  praise for unitary-executive backing justices Alito and Roberts (who also support said nannying in the name of "freedom"); and, finally, the implicit suggestion that, if a Democrat is elected, the terrorists will win in Iraq. I have to ask: Given that Kristol's record of error seems to be matched only by his ubiquity, is it really necessary for the Times to provide yet another concession for this stuff?

Oh yeah, it gets worse: Kristol also approvingly quotes America's most strident advocate for profiling and internment of Arab-Americans, Michelle Malkin, thus lending some mainstream legitimacy to one of the right's most reprehensible, bottom-feeding hatemongers. In this, Kristol is performing one of the classic functions of the erudite conservative pundit, as perfected by William F. Buckley, acting as a transmitter for ideas and characters that most decent Americans find objectionable, putting clean clothes and a decent vocabulary on the obsessive bigotry and intolerance which lies at the heart of American conservatism. Unlike Buckley, however, Kristol can now do this from the op-ed pages of America's foremost newspaper. Sweet.

(c/p from Tapped.)