In recent months the very good Alan Murray seems in my eyes to be behaving kind of like Neptune behaved before the discovery of Pluto: his orbit seems to me to be warped by the gravitational pull of something of which I am ignorant, and so his columns seem to make less sense than they used to.
For example, consider this week's column, on the dangers of "partisanship" in the 9-11 Commission. There are indeed powerful dangers of partisanship, as we have seen: the Bush administration has sought partisan advantage by trying as best as it can to deprive the 911 Commission of information both through spurious classification claims and through minimizing the Commission's contact with George W. Bush. The Bush administration has been pursuing a partisan strategy of undermining the 911 Commission because of the elephants in the kabuki theater: the person whom the Bush administration thought was the most qualified to direct the United States's counterterrorism efforts--long-time Republican hawk Richard Clarke--and the person whom the Bush administration thought was the second most qualified to direct the United States's counterterrorism efforts--bipartisan long-time security hawk Rand Beers--have both gone apeshit and concluded that the best thing they can do to fix what went wrong on 911 is to do all they can to kick George W. Bush out of the White House in November, and--in Clarke's case, at least--to also destroy the career of Condoleezza Rice.
Whatever you think of Clarke and Beers--and recall they are the two people the Bush administration thought most qualified for the counterterrorism chief job--it's not that they are Democratic partisans dedicated to advancing the interests of the Democratic Party by electing Democratic politicians to office. What's going on is something very different from standard "partisanship," and I don't understand why Murray assimilates it to standard partisan sniping. Such a judgment as Clarke and Beers have made--that the administration they served is unqualified and incompetent--is remarkable, particularly so in view of the administration's (formerly) high opinion of Clarke and Beers.
And yet Alan Murray does not focus on any of these in his discussion of "partisanship" and the 911 Commission: not the Bush administration's attempts to slow the flow of information to the 911 Commission, not Richard Clarke's status as a long-time Republican hawk in good standing, not the fact that Clarke and Beers were by the Bush administration's own judgments the best people for their Bush administration jobs. He has other aims and other concerns than talking about the elephants in the kabuki theater. And I am not quite sure why or what these aims and concerns are:
Posted by DeLong at April 22, 2004 04:41 PM | TrackBack | | Other weblogs commenting on this postWSJ.com - Political Capital:"Critics who complain that 9/11 Commission Chairman Thomas Kean and Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton have spent too much time on television needn't worry. They'll be off the air soon. The reason? They make lousy cable-TV guests. They are thoughtful, careful, judicious and reasonable. Most of the time, they agree with each other. In fact, in public, the former Republican governor and former Democratic congressman always agree with each other.... But what's bad for those of us in cable TV is good for the nation. Messrs. Kean and Hamilton knew from the beginning that a partisan split would destroy their commission. So they have tried to work together to achieve a bipartisan bottom line. Their job is to find out what went wrong and how to fix it -- not to help one party win the November election.
It hasn't been easy, though. First, Richard Clarke hijacked their efforts. In private testimony, the former White House head of counterterrorism was tough on the failings of both the Bush and Clinton administrations in fighting terrorism, but less intent on settling scores. It was only after his public testimony was scheduled that the publication date of his book was moved up, his "60 Minutes" appearance fixed, and hard-edged attacks on President Bush and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice began. He "dropped a bomb into the middle of our hearings," Mr. Kean says. That played into the hands of a couple of Democratic commission members -- in particular, Richard Ben-Veniste -- who seemed more inclined to turn the commission into a partisan brawl. Democrats, after all, had more to gain by playing the blame game: President Bush is up for re-election; President Clinton isn't.
Mr. Ben-Veniste may have overplayed his hand. Some on the commission strongly suspect he was a source for two New York Times stories critical of Attorney General John Ashcroft in the days before his public appearance. (Mr. Ben-Veniste's response: "I don't provide information that is not in the public domain.") In any event, Mr. Ashcroft responded by coming to his public hearing with guns loaded. He cited a hastily declassified memo that Democratic Commissioner Jamie Gorelick had written while at the Clinton Justice Department that reinforced the barriers between criminal and intelligence investigations -- barriers now thought to have hindered efforts to prevent attacks like 9/11.
Mr. Ashcroft was exaggerating when he said Ms. Gorelick built the "wall." The wall existed both before her memo was written and for months after Mr. Ashcroft took office. Moreover, Ms. Gorelick was an unfortunate target: She has been, insiders say, among the least partisan of the commission's Democrats. Still, the Ashcroft dagger had its effect. House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner called on Ms. Gorelick to resign. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay wrote a stinging letter to Mr. Kean, who was appointed by President Bush, attacking the chairman for allowing "partisan mudslinging, circus atmosphere pyrotechnics, and gotcha-style questioning."
Mr. Delay clearly wishes the commission had kept its hearings private, to avoid any danger of damaging the president's re-election. Perhaps Mr. Kissinger would have agreed. Mr. Kean doesn't. "I've long believed that in government, the more open you are, the more transparent you are, the better," he said in an interview Friday. In his response to Mr. DeLay, he said that open debate is a "tradition of freedom that our troops around the world defend."...
Brad, you've put you're finger on something that I've noticed too; Alan Murray being the latest example.
It's eerie, and I'm scared.
It's like those early scenes in the film "Invasion of the Body Snatchers". She looks like my wife and talks like my wife, but she isn't. I'm sure of it. Something's different. Something's wrong.
My next post will be preternaturally calm. Yesterday's concerns are gone. Everything's O.K.
Take this injection and let the pod do its work.
Murray's comments as to how Clarke allegedly highjacked the hearings seems to be something Karl Rove might have emailed him. Sad.
Posted by: Harold McClure on April 22, 2004 04:57 PMThat's "your finger", not "you're finger". Funny how the pods have perfect grammar.
So, I'm elected President in 2004. On Inauguration Day, I say to Alan Murray, you go hide while I count to 100. Take all of your corrupt friends with you. Hide really well. Cause when I find you ....
Posted by: John Thullen on April 22, 2004 05:20 PMI saw Paul Gigot sneaking into Alan Murray's basement with a suspicious package last night.
This morning, Murray no longer had that human bipartisan look in his eye.
Weird. Evilly weird, not incompetently weird.
Posted by: John Thullen on April 22, 2004 05:25 PMWe are living an Augustinian coup. Read your Shakespear.
Posted by: Eli Rabett on April 22, 2004 05:34 PMThough Murray is now the more important person, for a very long time, Clarke was. Murray has become more important not through his own elevation, but by Clarke leaving one of (who knew?) the most important jobs in the country. Any chance that affected Murray's behavior?
I don't think Brad's incredulity at Clarke's behavior stems from an expectation that political beliefs matter more than all others (Brad?), but certainly Clarke's choice between political loyalty and following his professional obligations to their logical conclusion would not surprise an awful lot of public sector professionals. Clarke was not "schedule C" as far as I know. He was a pro. The press likes to make policy disputes among government officials political, but many are not. Many public sector pros feel an obligation to the forest they protect, the battalion they command, or the fight against terrorism they are responsible for, and put that above partisanship. Clarke had a choice to make, and, right or wrong, it looks like the honorable one.
Posted by: K Harris on April 22, 2004 05:39 PMEli Rabatt:
I love Shakespeare. I read Shakespeare.
Somehow I don't think I have time before the coup is complete to look up "Augustinian coup".
It's late (in the history of the Republic). Explain, please. Which plays?
Thank you.
Posted by: John Thullen on April 22, 2004 06:14 PMJulius Caesar, Anthony and Cleopatra. Staring James Baker, Anthony Scalia, William Rehnquist, Richard Cheney, John Ashcroft and a cast of a few hundred.
Using a smidgen of paranoia compare and contrast the end of the Roman Republic to what has happened in the US in the last four years. Hail Caesar
Posted by: Eli Rabett on April 22, 2004 06:32 PMIn any civilised and rational political discourse, the fact that not only did Bush's first counterterrorism chief get demoted, then resigned in disgust, then testified against his former employers under oath, but his next counterterrorism chief resigned in disgust and joined the campaign of his election opponent, might just make people think twice about his conduct in the "war on terror". Sadly we do not have that discourse.
Posted by: Ginger Yellow on April 22, 2004 07:00 PMAh, Ginger, it's just pure coincidence. (Like the fact that both their accounts of things square perfectly with the account from his Treasury Secretary, which he made before he knew Clarke was going to join him in denouncing Bush.) As Michael Kinsley says, this administration has adopted the philosophy of Chico Marx, who demanded indignantly: "Who are you gonna believe? Me or your own eyes?"
Posted by: Bruce Moomaw on April 22, 2004 08:24 PMEven the elephants are apeshit.
Posted by: Lee A. on April 22, 2004 09:20 PMClarke strikes me as the professional type people here seem to think he is, and is a good witness.
But I think people have misunderstood what "counter-terrorism chief" means in this administration. Rice explained it, sort of.
See, there's strategic thinking, and then there's tactics and operational information. Strategy here flows downward from a small group: Rice, Rumsfeld, Cheney. They quite overtly do not want operational-level information to affect strategy-- they reorganized the NSC in Feb. 01 especially to ensure that plans would never be tainted by operational information (aka field information, aka intelligence). And Rice was adamant about that distinction in her testimony.
Not being among the principals, Clarke was on the operational side, hence, as Cheney said, "out of the loop"-- he had no strategy role. His job was rather to make the world conform to the dictates of strategy. But he, fool that he was, wanted the planners to respond to the actions of others in the world out there. For some reason he thought the strategic level should pay some attention to what the rest of us laughingly call the real world.
So we shouldn't make too much of Clarke's job title. No matter what he knew or what his experiential base was, his job description in this administration was to hew wood and draw water, and only at the behest of the lordlings.
This kind of insanity is what's called "management" in some of the finest schools.
Think of yourself as the ideal Republican (I mean no irony): the good-thinking, family-oriented (besides golf), hard-working and patriotic CPA, say a partner, just an example. It must be real hard, deep inside, to be represented by G.W. Bush. Now take a guy of this type and caliber or more, and throw him in this Administration. Most of such guys, I believe, have been asking God, everyday: "Do I betray You, my Lord, or your Caesar?"
Posted by: Jean-Philippe Stijns on April 22, 2004 09:49 PMP.S. If you aggree with the above, does it imply logically, that the true loyal types in this Administration, do not really believe in God? ;-)
Posted by: Jean-Philippe Stijns on April 22, 2004 09:58 PMThe heartland seems to be rallying around Bush but the political elite-- even conservatives-- are leaning heavily the other way. Whenever the Bush campaign gets a positive spin a book by an insider gets dropped as if orchestrated for the effect of knocking them back down. The Bush Admin has generated real fear among the insiders of a serious American failure based on a huge strategic blunder plus a lot of tactical screwups and corruption. But, now the next fear is creeping in. What happens if we really demand accountability? Will Cheney allow it? Will the need for accountability lead to retribution against those who sat by quietly during the early days of this administration? Me, I'm in favor of pushing it as hard as possible. Build more jails if necessary.
Tina Brown's recent WaPo piece plus others with dark hints at imminent widespread GOP defection, Woodward turning negative, along with Lugar's strong language has led me to this opinion. I think Alan Murray senses the risk of proving Bush culpability. The effect on the til now barely tuned in heartland might be too explosive.
Posted by: dennisS on April 23, 2004 06:10 AMClick on my URL to see more about Alan Murray's disintegration. I think I've given up posting on him...Like Brooks I'm not sure its worth the time and effort.
here's the link again:
http://econ4dean.typepad.com/lerxst/2004/03/alan_murray_mis.html
Posted by: lerxst on April 23, 2004 07:44 AMI suspect what is happening is the admin is losing traditional republicans. But they are still telling polls that they will vote for Bush.
But on election day I suspect they just will not vote.
So the polls could be very bias and we will be surprised by low turnout for the election.
Posted by: spencer on April 23, 2004 07:53 AMdeanS -- One of my many nightmares is that Bush will succeed in getting reelected even after most of the rational conservatives and moderate Republicans have jumped ship. Purely by relying on slick media ads, Fox News, Limbaugh, church groups, and various scuzzy surrogate groups and rumor-spreading campaigns.
He would then be a lame duck with nothing to lose, no political debts to anyonbe with a brain in their head, plus a grudge against liberals and more power than any man has ever had in human history.
Posted by: Zizka on April 23, 2004 09:06 AMZizka, I think that's the awful scenario we've all feared for a long time. (And, some of that "we" includes old-style Republicans and other conservatives, as opposed to the radicals that run the GOP today.)
But, I'm sensing a new fear in various writings that's more immediate. What kind of shocks are we going to experience between now and November, and worse how will we react? Terrorist attack? Another Supreme Court decision settling the election, or worse? Domestic political violence? (Kerry's and Gorelick's lives have been credibly threatened.)
In the panic of having to face accountability for Plame and other criminal issues along with general malfeasance will the worst adminstration ever in the history of this country acquiese to peaceful handover of power? Or, even more likely will their hardcore 40% let them be judged?
In my mind the old fear got replaced by a new one this past week. I think the big bumps are between now and November, not later. Yet I'm not willing to turn down the heat. I think the 25 year-old radicalization of the Republican Party is a disease that needs to be cured and I can't think of another way than to shine an intense light. Therefore Murray's wobble on the 911 commission, while understood, won't get my support.
Posted by: dennisS on April 23, 2004 09:49 AM
BDL pretends that we should weigh Clarke's opinions more heavily because of the facts of Clarke's biography, when transparently this respect is due solely to the particular opinions Clarke happens to hold. If Clarke was pro-Bush, would BDL consider his views to have any importance whatsoever?
The particular criticisms Clarke has of Bush administration policies may be quite significant, but there is really no significance to the fact of Clarke being a partisan opponent of Bush. It seems to me that conservatives in general are not particularly impressed with Clarke (despite earnest assurances from people like BDL and Fred Kaplan that Clarke is some sort of angelically pure Republican) because they just aren't buying his particular points about badness of the war on Iraq and the goodness of the Clinton administration's anti-terror efforts.
In fact, I really think BDL gets it 100% wrong - I actually think Clarke has a lot of good points about the poor performance of the Bush administration, but whereas BDL thinks that Clarke's decision to become more partisan ("...do all [he] can to kick George W. Bush out...") makes him a more effective critic, I think it has made him a far less effective one. His criticisms have become lost in partisan noise, and sure, he appeals all the more to the left, but I don't see how this hurts Bush....
Good teeshirt: "Zizka and dennisS are where it's at."
Joe Mealyus: You have also given answer to another thread, on why the media has painted "partisanship" onto the 9/11 Commission so lopsidedly: to discredit Clarke by association, without risking to attack him on the facts.
Posted by: Lee A. on April 23, 2004 12:19 PM"Zizka and dennisS are where it's at."
Blush. But, London's where it's *at*.
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