Here's a Washington political riddle where you fill in the blanks: As Alberto Gonzales is to the Republicans, Blank Blank is to the Democrats -- a continuing embarrassment thanks to his amateurish performance.
If you answered " Harry Reid," give yourself an A. And join the long list of senators of both parties who are ready for these two springtime exhibitions of ineptitude to end.
Absolute nonsense, on several levels. First of all, Broder's base description of Gonzales -- that of a bumbling underling who just can't seem to get his durned story straight, is far more generous of a characterization than a lifelong toady like Gonzales deserves.
How about this: Gonzales is a liar, and a bad one, a painfully inept and obvious one. There is already plenty of circumstantial evidence indicating that the eight U.S. Attorneys were purged for blatant partisan purposes, and there would doubtless be much more corroborating evidence -- that is, if only the amiable doofuses in the DoJ and the White House hadn't "lost" 5 million e-mails, many of which were on a parallel e-mail system specifically designed to circumvent the Hatch Act. So we have several visible layers already of fairly clear intent to deceive, to obfuscate, and in Gonzales' case, to continue providing the unwavering one-way loyalty Bush has always expected of his lackeys.
Reid, on the other hand, has discovered a knack for lobbing verbal scuds which have rankled the seersucker suits of the serious thinkerati. He has realized that he is not working for Dean Broder nor Richard Dice Cohen, nor MoDo and her superficial high-school mean-girl bullshit. Reid is not craving their approval, nor awaiting the next tender touch from one of them at some cocktail-weenie suckfest, with or without Rich Little.
Is Reid perhaps being a bit impolitic, maybe even a bit contemptuous, of the administration's shenanigans? Hell, yes. If these aren't circumstances which call for such seriousness and clarity of purpose, then perhaps Broder can enlighten the class and let us all know just when it's okay for the opposition to oppose, without worrying about using the correct goddamned salad fork in the process.
This is the context of what Reid said, which sparked
"I believe myself that the secretary of state, secretary of defense and -- you have to make your own decisions as to what the president knows -- [know] this war is lost and the surge is not accomplishing anything as indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq yesterday," said Reid, D-Nevada.
He has stated, quite simply if perhaps clunkily, what he believes. Exactly how is this analogous to yet another scandalized chunk of this corrupt floater of an administration falling on his sword to protect his even more corrupt superiors, by lying through his teeth to the United States Senate? I can accept that many pragmatic-minded Democrats may find Reid's assertion somewhat cringeworthy, although factually correct. But "embarrassing"? Not likely, not from anyone who isn't just worried about political skin.
I hate to break it to Broder, but militarily this war is lost. It has been for some time, and the real nut of Reid's assertion is not that it's lost, it's that Bush's own military advisors tacitly understand that. How else can you explain Bush reading the Hamilton-Baker report, firing the generals who agreed with it, and installing people who would endorse his idea for One More Surge of indefinite length and scope? What the hell kind of way is that to run a railroad?
If Broder's employers ran their business the way Bush runs the country and shills for his empty ideas, Broder would be looking forward to a retirement pension of Monopoly money. Worse yet, he probably knows it, but it would be bad form to say so, apparently.
....Reid's verbal wanderings on the war in Iraq are consequential -- not just for his party and the Senate but for the more important question of what happens to U.S. policy in that violent country and to the men and women whose lives are at stake.
Bush's fatuous arguments are also consequential, as are Cheney's, and they and their minions have decided to play a monumental game of constitutional chicken with the people's duly elected agents of change. Reid has no obligation to endorse this destructive foolishness; indeed, his duty is to speak his mind on the subject, especially if it can save some lives in the long run.
The administration has been wrong about everything, every damned thing, in this war, catastrophically so. And now, three months into this surge that they just had to have, with no abatement of the level of violence, merely a dispersal, the major strategic initiative in Baghdad seems to be trying to sneak in a wall around the Sunni neighborhoods, apparently to make it that much easier for the Shi'a to seal them in and exterminate them the day after we finally depart this misbegotten venture.
Reid's main fault, in a dumbed-down political world bent on spotting shiny objects, is that he's a milquetoast orator and lackluster firebrand. Rhetoric of this sort needs someone who can step up and be a force of nature, compelling and tight with the narrative, ready with facts and questions and demands for an explanation.
I think these people owe us all an explanation, the media enablers included. I want an explanation from Bush on what precisely are the necessary metrics for achieving the stated goals, and how they plan to accomplish them with the current agenda of cheap shots eviscerating the Constitution. And I'd like Broder and his colleagues to explain why they keep letting these moral cretins get away with it, by spending more time crafting cheap, baseless equivalences than enumerating the myriad ways this administration has comprehensively failed at even basic governance.
[Update: Scott Horton at Harper's No Comment blog has compiled an extensive list of Broder's increasingly incompetent and factually weighted harrumphing. This one was my favorite:
Let me disclose my own bias in this matter. I like Karl Rove. In the days when he was operating from Austin, we had many long and rewarding conversations. I have eaten quail at his table and admired the splendid Hill Country landscape from the porch of the historic cabin Karl and his wife Darby found miles away and had carted to its present site on their land. (May 18, 2003)
Says it all. I know, I know, these weasels with their faux ecumenicism whinge about the unfairness of it all. "Can't we even dine with these people as friends and equals?", they loudly proclaim.
No. Clearly you can't handle the excitement; it makes you forget about the whole "afflicting the comfortable" part of your job. You have failed, and continue to fail, at comprehensive, honest, and insightful coverage. You have left it up to the vituperative bloggerses you scornfully dismiss, to do your job for you, over and over again. And we're never gonna let you forget it.]
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