Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal (2004)

I generally don't bother with Ignatius, because he's always been this dimwitted, but when i read this in the howler today, i too grew incensed.

What a self-serving, platitudinous piece of crap.

To engage in a tiny bit of blog-triumphalism, i'd say the presence of blogs is rapidly rendering the op-ed pundit as we know him or her obsolete and economically inefficient, and for virtually all of them (ignatius included, of course) not one moment too soon.

Not professionalism, but anti-intellectualism and lack of appropriate expert opinion.

Ignatius' comments were dumb and Somerby was right to say so but why weren't many Democrats opposed to this war? This was not a tough call. Many inside the military, not to be confused with the peace, love and understanding crowd, had serious reservations about invading Iraq (and that's putting it mildly).

The press failed. The press had company in their failure.

Well, as someone who was opposed but not very opposed, it was because I could not imagine that they would attack without true, solid evidence of a really nasty ongoing nuclear weapons program. I mean, if Saddam Hussein doesn't have a really nasty ongoing nuclear weapons program, what reason is there to attack? You compromise your war against Al Qaeda. You're responsible for putting Iraq back together. You are likely to face a Lebanon-like insurgency (as we have). You have given Iran a potential opening to the south shore of the Persian Gulf. And lots of young Americans die.

Given all the downsides of invading, it seemed to me that nobody rational would invade unless there was a big upside to invading as well--and destroying a nasty active nuclear program was the only possible upside I could see.

In a sense, Ignatius is right. A professional is one who does what he is told, like Colin "I was just following orders" Powell.

As for why the Democrats went along with this, it's because they were scared they would be seen as cowards if they voted against it, and they thought they could take the issue off the table before the election. (This is the same reason why none of the Democratic leaders are calling for our withdrawal now.) That, and many of them agree with the whole empire bit.

Nobody seriously thought that Iraq was anywhere near acquiring nuclear weapons.

Every time I think the inability of the media to do its job can't further incense me, something like this arises.

"I need a good cause before I interview people." Good God. Woodward/Bernstein, Upton Sinclair, that woman whose name I've temporarily forgotten who took on Standard Oil; all of them should be up in arms about this attitude. And if those who are dead do so, it might actually get the attention of this moribund "Fourth Estate."

And that's a nice little fillip about applauding the estate tax line.

I think the following is just plain false:
"Because there was little criticism of the war from prominent ... foreign policy analysts"

And it renders the following statement utterly ridiculous:
"In a sense, the media were victims of their own professionalism."

He seems honest here, though.
"The uniformed military privately had serious questions about the Iraq mission, but these only occasionally made their way into print."

And, again, it renders the following statement utterly ridiculous:
"In a sense, the media were victims of their own professionalism."

DICK: First thing we do, we kill all the journalists.

JACK CADE: Nay, that I mean to do. Is not this a lamentable thing, that our forests should be razed for paper? That paper, pulped, and printed on, should undo reason?

DICK: There is not reason in it.

JACK CADE: There is not reason for there is not truth, the pocketbook which holds money is used for the drawing out of a man's thoughts, opinions, and arguments. And again it is this cursed paper that has beggared our minds.

DICK: Truly the root of the tree from which the paper is made is the root of all evil. Secondly let us kill all the lumberjacks.

JACK CADE: You are like a Bush economist for spending of your murders.

DICK: Third let's kill all the economists. And those who comment on blogs.

JACK CADE: Those are the worst abusers of paper, for using none at all. How now! who's there?

"I could not imagine that they would attack without true, solid evidence of a really nasty ongoing nuclear weapons program"

we must let go of the mythology of good intentions. the evidence just doesn't support it.

Senior Administration officials who made the decision deserve 90 percent of the blame for Iraq.

So what we're talking about here is who deserves the remaining 10 percent.

I move that this share be evenly divided between the press corps, which was superficial as always, and the Democrats, who failed to serve as the loyal opposition we needed. Between them, there was nobody to forcefully but respectfully make the case that invading Iraq was a really awful idea.

Remarkable when you think about it.

Selise - I expect Brad DeLong has let go of the mythology of good intentions awhile back. But back in 2002, it was still hard for a lot of people to believe the Bushies would deliberately scam us into a major war. Even if they knew they were pulling scams on domestic policy, it made no sense for them to do it overseas.

Actually, it still doesn't, since Iraq's going to be an albatross around Bush's neck, this year and forever. It only makes sense when you realize they were scamming themselves as well.

Ida Tarbell?

When I was reading Ignatius' column yesterday morning, I remembered that just last year, the WaPo did a big series on the Nature Conservancy being involved in sweetheart land deals with their major donors and board members. It wasn't an issue until the Post made it an issue.

They couldn't have done the same thing with Iraq? Gimme a break.

When everything goes slightly wrong, and all the slightly wrongs add up to freakin' disaster, it's time to look at what was out of kilter in the first place.

It seems to me the first mistake, the one that laid down an off-kilter foundation for the whole mess, was the identification of 9/11 as an act of war, rather than as a terrorist crime. This misidentification caused it to seem natural to have a "war" on "terrorism," this latter a noun which suggests a thing one can make war on. And so it went.

Of course it doesn't help that America has fashioned itself as a society that makes wars on cancer, inflation, poverty, lack of self-esteem, kitchen grease and rectal itch. I guess once the Japanese are better at making cars and the Scandinavians are better at making software, America has to specialise in something it is still Number One at -- and war is an obvious candidate.

Had 9/11 been seen with some balance -- a horrible death toll, roughly equal, pari passus, to the loss of the Titanic, and a wicked clever crime by a group of dedicated brave desperadoes -- then reasonable steps could have been taken.

The Taliban, as we have seen, would almost certainly have given bin Laden up, while remaining in power and continuing to take DEA money for shutting down heroin operations. Saddam Hussein would have continued toiling on his novel. Colin Powell might have found some time to talk sense to Ariel Sharon.

It's not mere 20-20 hindsight. I was one of many who said at the time "No, it's a crime, not a war," an obvious truth, a simple bit of observation.

What to do now? Identify the invasion of Iraq as a mistake, wind it up and pay the repar... uh repair work. Oh, yeah, and on the subject of stopping terrorism, maybe slapping Sharon and Arafat around a little would help some.

Howbe we asign Arafat to Wolfie and Sharon to Negroponte?

Wow--Ignatius makes being a reporter sound very easy! Apparently you sit at your computer waitng for email, the phone, or a fax to tell you what to write. Then you write it. And then you can go back home! Where do I sign up?

"I could not imagine that they would attack without true, solid evidence of a really nasty ongoing nuclear weapons program. I mean, if Saddam Hussein doesn't have a really nasty ongoing nuclear weapons program, what reason is there to attack?"

Professor DeLong, that's an incredibly obvious circular argument!

A better press core. Ignatious knows why and how we were bambozzled into this nonsensical war. the reporters, Democrats, and pundits are all eating from the same table. Can citizens expect them to bite the hand that feeds them? Fear of destitution (living like Jane and Joe six-pack)from paycheck to poverty drives them to ignore the obvious. The thing is, that sort of thinking has allowed this administration to push their idiotic ideas forward to fruition. Money reigns supreme still and yet.

"Wow--Ignatius makes being a reporter sound very easy! Apparently you sit at your computer waitng for email, the phone, or a fax to tell you what to write. Then you write it. And then you can go back home! Where do I sign up?"

Posted by Rob at April 28, 2004 06:35 AM

Why, at: Meedya Horz R Us, of course.

However, given the current economy, you'd probably have to bribe somebody to get a position.

JackM, I think that Brad had one guiding belief, and one guiding hope:

Belief: 'They're not that stupid - they can't assume that they could do this with no good reason, and get away with it!'

Hope: 'The US *can't* be in at the point where the administration could be that stupid!'.

I really don't think it is fair to categorize the yes and no votes on the Iraq resolution as unconditional support for war or unconditional opposition to war. That misses the nuances.

I thought the Iraq invasion was a bad idea from the start. I did not believe the Bush administration on the WMD because they had proven to be untruthful and untrustworthy. However, Congress is dependent on the President to implement policy and they must trust him. Presidents must protect that trust. Trust is evidently not important to this President because he has misled Congress on numerous important issues. Congress must believe that the President is telling the truth when he comes to them with information as serious as WMD in Iraq.

Since the end of Iraq War 1, we had been patrolling a no fly zone and bombing Iraq at least once per week. Saddam was contained but the Iraqi people were stalemated. Iraq's economy was deteriorating and the sanctions were having negative effects on the Iraqi population. Other countries were becoming more lax about the sanctions. In short, the sanctions, while working, were coming to the end of their life and a new policy had to be implemented.

We needed a new Iraq policy, but Iraq War II was not the correct policy option. Legitimately, some Democrats lent their support to Mr. Bush in the hopes that the threat of war would start a process that would lead to reform of Iraq. This would have been ideal. I would have voted yes for such a proposition.

However, the Bush administration was hell bent on removing Saddam by force and did not consider wiser options. Given the intentions and unilateralism of the Bush administration, what was needed was a brake on their rush to war. Thus the only sensible vote in 2002 was no.

At the same time, Congress is dependent upon the President to administer the policies set forth by Congress. If the President cannot be trusted or does not live up to the policies of Congress, then there is little that Congress can do. Congress was in a tough position. Voting no might mean they were undermining the support needed to force a non-military solution to Iraq. Voting yes was hoped to provide support for a non-military solution. Mr. Bush took the yes vote and dismissed all non-military solutions.

The press supported going to war and presented it as a dualistic yes or no choice. The press ignored many of the nuances such as using the threat of war to reform Iraq. The press did not report on possible alternatives to both the war and the status quo.

I still can't see how anyone failed to see that, psychologically, Bush wasn't going to allow anything, anything, to come ahead of invading Iraq. He is just that kind of person. And anything more complex than "we have to invade Iraq" was irrelevant to his plan that "we have to invade Iraq."

Listen to Bush and tell me what he ever says that is more complex than "we have to invade Iraq."

The headlong rush to war in 2002 was the product of two radioactive tendencies in the American character: McCarthyism (the political manifestation and use of paranoia), and sheer power. In tandem, these tendencies create disasters like Vietnam, and now Iraq. The media, like the average citizen, were afraid to buck the group hysteria. America's warrior class itself is whipsawed between the terror of impotence and the ambiguity of terror.

Ignatius hopes to confuse us by confounding straight news reporting, an honorable and indispensable profession, with op-ed journalism--the bent service he provides. We're back in the Roman Empire, folks, and the best guide to what is going on, reading fresh as if written today, is Juvenal.

Thanks to David Lloyd-Jones for the comment on our designating this a "war" on terrorism.

Ever since 9/11, I have been shaking my head over the fact that it has become holy writ that we are in a "war" against terrorism, and that any other formulation is a kind of appeasement.

Actually, we defined things on bin Laden's terms. A war between the West and Islam is exactly the way he wanted to cast things, and we played right into his hands. Calling it a war was a monumental mistake, which only glorifies the terrorists and contributes to their recruiting and mythmaking. We should call them what they are: thugs and murderers.

I hope Kerry's perfectly correct comment that law enforcement and intelligence is our frontline weapon against terrorists will get the reasoned consideration that it deserves. I fear, however, that this will be used to demagogue even further as Kerry is pilloried by the right for a "law-enforcement only" approach to terrorism. Kerry said, and I agree, that law enforcment and intelligence are our primary resource in fighting terrorism, to be backed up by military action when appropriate. We don't need war rhetoric to take appropriate military action when called for. We could have taken the Taliban out for harboring mass murderers.

Bush's "up yours" attitude toward our traditional and potential allies has made all of us more vulnerable. This is the most dramatic failure of Bush's "war" on terrorism

Publicly doubting the Administration in a time of national crisis is a high risk career strategy for an American journalist. Most figured it was better to stay with the herd, particularly with so much uncertainty about the ultimate outcome. Not particularly courageous, but nevertheless standard human behavior.

The TV media was more guilty than the print media in the rush to war.

If someone went on TV and voiced doubts about the wisdom of attacking Iraq, he wasn't invited back, because he wasn't "on message." So the pro-war message prevailed.

I don't watch much TV--I read a lot of newspapers and articles online. And I think there was enough information in the print media for discerning Americans to decide the war was a bad idea.

But there aren't enough discerning Americans who have the time or take the time to read.

Somerby is the best hope we have for resuscitating our moribund democracy. He is the one who has most precisely diagnosed its central pathology: the press corp is corrupt and no longer serves as a check on the claims made by politicians. If a pol finds that he can lie without suffering consequence, he will do so.

I love Somerby's website but, unfortunately, I find it hard to read because it is so infuriating.

For what it is worth, I emailed the public editor at NYT about the Daily Howler and Somerby and asked if they read it and what they do about it. Okrent's assistant, Arthur Bovino, emailed back to say they do have Somerby's site bookmarked and they do check on it and follow up.

Jim H,

I’m not so sure about the 90/10 split. I think we had a terrible case of the press and the Democrats each wanting the other guy to go first. Dems were afraid of being accused of being craven, traitorous polecats (the Cheney treatment), while the press needed to pretend it was just quoting somebody, without having an “agenda”. God save us from even a whiff of an agenda, a liberal-elite-media bias. No, no, defending against cynical right-wing name-calling is the highest calling of today’s journalists. Reporting is well down the list.

There were no good intentions from the White House, only bloody-minded determination to lead the nation into war. Whether that determination had a better than 10% chance to be derailed by Democrats willing to stand on principle and a press willing to report the news, rather than the debate, will never be known.

It is perhaps just an oddity that the most polarized, partisan US political culture in human memory was not enough to lead Democrats to turn partisanship into something useful. Bah.

Death/inheritance taxes are essential! One of the fundamental tenents of capitalism is the "survival of the fittest- rule of the jungle" law. But Lions born in the jungle don't come into the world inheriting 400 Million dollars and a phalanx of security guards. No-one likes "Trust-Fund Kiddies". They are a drain on society.

Inheritance is the Privileged, Royalty-Entitlement loophole of true capitalism. And this entitlement is what the press were applauding?? I give up...

The Post's economic and financial coverage is just amateurish and sub-par. They were scooped by the NYT and the WSJ on the Riggs bank story. They still (sigh) publish James Glassman's column. Clueless.

"We needed a new Iraq policy, but Iraq War II was not the correct policy option. ....

"However, the Bush administration was hell bent on removing Saddam by force and did not consider wiser options."

And those wiser options were what exactly (and why didn't the Clinton Admin. try them in the eight years they had)?

Shorter Patrick Sullivan: "Clinton had eight years to screw Iraq up as badly as Bush has done in three. It's your responsibility to tell me exactly why he didn't."

I didn't support the war because I had no faith that doing so was actually going to make the United States safer. How could I? If the best case for war was that put forward by Colin Powell, Saddam certainly didn't seem to be much of threat to America. Even Iraq's power had been greater, well, what had Saddam ever done to us? Perhaps tried to assassinate George H.W. Bush, although that's uncertain. Shot at American aircraft flying over the "no-fly-zones" for a decade without ever actually hitting one. The Administration studiously avoided actually publishing a plan for post-Saddam Iraq. We were certainly going to be in charge of a dramatically underdeveloped nation, crippled by wars a decade ago and never recovered, with a religiously and ethnically divided population, one that had a deep-seated popular animosity to Israel and a significant minority that preferred some kind of Islamic theocracy. Where was the plan? Prewar, I was asking my Congressional delegation: How can we be sure that the new Iraq turn out like Algeria in 1991, where an Arab democracy elects a theocratic parliament and sparks a military crackdown--this time by the United States or its surrogates--and internecine violence and terror? How much will the war and occupation cost the United States? How long will the occupation last? For the good this is supposed to do, how much will Americans pay?

Naturally, I got nothing in response. Since then, I realized that the Administration heightened the threat of weapons of mass destruction as a kind of mirror image to its minimizing the difficulties of occupation. The threat had to be sufficiently dire in order to make it worth spending lives and treasure to stop it. Cast it in the most horrifying fashion. In turn, the war and occupation had to be easy in order to justify the meagerness of the threat. "Scenario it rosily," to borrow from Garry Trudeau.

This is not serious governance. This is not a serious "war on terror." This is a game of "Battleship" all grown up, played with real lives and real materiel.

Whatever Patrick R. Sullivan is, he is not "shorter".

Why indeed, Patrick?

Could it be that Clinton had more important fish to fry? bin Laden. Ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. Preventing ethnic cleansing and a major Kosovo refugee crisis in Europe. Israel Palestine peace process. North Korea nukes. Stabilizing Haiti to prevent another boat people crisis. NAFTA. Mexican financial bailout. Domestic terrorists like McVeigh and Olympics bomber. Any administration has to prioritize. Otherwise they do a halfassed job of everything.

We learn that Iraq was Junior's number one priority on day one. Other important issues including bin Laden, NK nukes, Israel Palestine peace all took a back seat or no seat under Junior. Did Bush have his priorities straight? Do you agree more with the priorities of Bush or the priorities of Kerry? These are useful questions for evaluating presidents and policies.

People are missing a teachable lesson here:

The Democrats need to have people in the party who regularly fling crap at the Republicans.

Most reporters don't like going out on a limb, but reporting a comment from the opposition is not. It's safe.

That's how a failed land deal story stayed alive for 6 damn years.

"Congress is dependent on the President to implement policy and they must trust him...If the President cannot be trusted or does not live up to the policies of Congress, then there is little that Congress can do."--Bakho--

Bakho, you are being much too generous with these remarks. This congress has been shamelessly shielding and protecting Bush. Does anyone believe that Bush has commited no impeachable offense (especially given recent history with Clinton)?

"Has history ever rewarded a nation which allows such fops to serve in high places? Disaster awaits if these people aren’t countered..."

I thought we were mid disaster already.

Bush has shown he cannot be trusted and Congress has to keep him on a short leash.

As for Clinton, Congress did not approve of his Kosovo policy, but he was able to do it in spite of Congress.

back in the day (1999) "Although Congress voted against a declaration of war in Kosovo, it also decided not to withdraw troops in a decisive 139-290 vote. In addition, the House Appropriations Committee approved a supplemental military spending bill of $12.9 billion, an amount more than twice the sum Clinton requested. This approval of funding for the bombing raids blurred Congress' stance on the issue, because it could just as easily have cut funding, making the operation more difficult to continue. Moreover, the funds were expressly not for deployment of ground troops, and whether the President will attempt to deploy ground troops without Congressional approval remains speculative."

Not that the president is supposed to act without Congress, but the President does have broad powers.

There are two longstanding lessons that many war supporters need to relearn: a.) the law of unintended consequences is particularly strong during war; b.) the Hippocratic Oath ("first do no harm") makes a helluva lot of sense.

Would that the backbone administration and its enablers had remembered both of these....

Good god.

Two-party state, soft totalitarianism. That whirring sound is Orwell spinning in his grave. Why oh why indeed...

mainly in the LRB), but I actually fioricet found it worked better on film, ultram its fulgurous succession of metaphors, buy ambien digressions and tangents counterpointed ionamin with what seemed like an endless buy meridia loop of the almost entirely featureless adipex M25 as seen from a car windscreen--it buy ultram wasn't really a loop I don't think, soma

Re bakho's last comment, the greater point is that the only way these days for Congress to really restrain a president who wants to commit troops abroad to conflict is to use the power of the purse, and that's politically *very* difficult to do.

Matthew Saroff wrote, "The Democrats need to have people in the party who regularly fling crap at the Republicans."

Right. That is Eric Alterman's point about how the Right deals with the media in the US: the Right "works the refs," and it's an effective tactic. So we need to start working the refs, too.

John Stein, yes. Tarbell was who I was thinking of; I ended up googling "Standard Oil" and muckraking, and the first hit was a site with the full text of her 1904 book.

All being professional means is that you do it for money rather than love. Harshly put - you're a whore. Someone who is a complete professional does it only for the money and not for love - and therefore looks after the bottom line - not the truth.

The other way to handle the press is to do what Bush did at his press conference: ignore their questions and talk about your own agenda. Kerry should lecture the press about the Vietnam flap that it is a non-issue, Republican gutter politics, whatever, These non-issues do not impact the lives of Americans and Kerry should concentrate on issues that are important to people's lives. Kerry should talk about the economy and fiscal policy. If he keeps dragging the press focus onto the economy no matter what they ask him, they will have to write about the economy. Clinton was a master of this.

This reminds me of the Administration's statements that if only they had known Al Queida was planning to fly planes into the WTC they definitely would have taken action during the Spring and Summer of 2001.

If-only-itis must be contagious for bedfellows.

It is a common mistake in going to war to begin at the wrong end, to act first and to wait for disaster to discuss the matter.

Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War

No one starts a war - or rather, no one in his senses ought to do so - without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war and how he intends to conduct it.

Clausewitz, On War

So did anyone know what they wanted beyond "Regime Change"? And how anything beyond "Regime Change" would be achieved?

Online Casino Bonus