The new normal since President Obama declared "We will not accept attacks like Paris as the new normal."

 Attacks targeting civilians linked to or inspired by ISIS - from NYT

Declaring War On The New Normal

Last fall, in the wake of the October ISIS bombing in Ankara (103 dead), ISIS destruction of an Russian plane over Egypt (224 dead), the November ISIS bombing in Beirut (43 dead) and ISIS massacre in Paris (130 dead), President Obama said: "We will not accept attacks on civilians in places like Paris as the new normal."

After the December ISIS inspired massacre in San Bernardino (14 dead), we wrote a post analyzing  President Obama's speech outlining his strategy to degrade and destroy ISIS. After reading the Graeme Wood Atlantic article entitled  "What ISIS Really Wants" we concluded the Obama strategy would do absolutely nothing to change the "new normal" terror dynamic until and unless the ISIS "Caliphate" was dislodged from Syria and Iraq:

The simple fact is this -  only ground troops can remove an enemy from territory they hold. And if we don't remove them - despite the President's platitudes - Paris and San Bernardino and the downed Russian Airliner are the new normal, and nothing will change that. 

We have a choice. We can continue a low grade war of attrition against ISIS (think "body counts" and Vietnam), with no firm timetable or strategy to decisively destroy ISIS and wait for ISIS and the Caliphate to wear down and collapse.  Or we can adopt a more focused assertive military posture and decisively remove ISIS from the territory they claim as a Caliphate. It does not have to be our ground troops, but is has to be a significant, overwhelming force. In either case, for whatever length of time the Caliphate is permitted to exist, Americans, Europeans, moderate Muslims and "infidels" the world over will continue to be gunned down, bombed, stabbed and massacred in these random "soft-target" attacks launched by True Believers in the Caliphate. Welcome to the New Normal."

Current Status Of The New Normal - President Obama talks the talk.

Since the San Bernardino massacre in December, the Obama administration has been repeatedly questioned by the press and Congress about the status of the President's strategy to defeat ISIS. Administration flacks and the President himself cite bombing sortie statistics, body counts, and incremental territorial gains as evidence that the strategy is working. More recently the President continued to talk the talk, as exemplified by his comments during his historic visit to Cuba in the first minutes of an exhibition baseball game. Here he is interviewed by ESPN on the very day of the ISIS attack in Brussels ...

Common Sense - ISIS, Caliphate, & the New Normal

 ISIS Terrorism Chart & Map ripped from the New York Times  

In the last year we've seen: the ISIS aligned Boko Haram massacre in Nigeria in December; an ISIS inspired Paris Charlie Hebdo massacre in January; the ISIS pledged Al Shabab Kenyan school massacre in April; another ISIS massacre of civilians in Kobani in July; the ISIS October bombing in Ankara.  Within the last 30 days we've seen: the ISIS credited downing of a Russian airliner killing all aboard; an  ISIS bombing in Beirut; the ISIS enabled Paris massacre; American True Believers pledged to ISIS precipitating a massacre in San Bernardino. All this in addition to the uncounted beheadings, crucifixions, slavery, rapes and other routine horrors that are a daily reality within the ISIS controlled Caliphate in Syria and Iraq.

In his comments at a press conference after the most recent Paris massacre President Obama - "vowed not to "relent" against ISIS, saying Sunday that the world will not accept attacks on civilians in places like Paris as the "new normal."

On Sunday, December 6th, in the wake of the San Bernardino killings, President Obama spoke from the Oval Office about the administration strategy to deal with ISIS related terror. In contrast to earlier, carefully crafted language about degrading and containing ISIS/ISIL, he upped the ante saying "We will destroy ISIL" Immediately after making that firm declaration, he qualified it by saying what we would not do:

"We should not be drawn once more into a long and costly ground war in Iraq or Syria.... The strategy that we are using now -- air strikes, special forces, and working with local forces who are fighting to regain control of their own country -- that is how we'll achieve a more sustainable victory, and it won't require us sending a new generation of Americans overseas to fight and die for another decade on foreign soil."

Let's just accept the President's rhetoric at face value and play this out. Let's even go along with his odd assertion that we should implement additional regulation on guns and ammo to thwart terror, despite the fact that the regulations he advocates would have done absolutely nothing to prevent nor limit in any way what we saw in San Bernardino (or any other terrorist attack in the United States).

Here is the problem - despite the President's platitudes, until and unless we destroy the ISIS "Caliphate" the terrorism we have seen in the last year will absolutely continue to be the "new normal" indefinitely into the future.

We are engaged in a very significant counterterrorism operation with ISIL. We have always been engaged in a very significant counterterrorism operation with ISIL.

"We at war with ISIL... In the same way that we are at war with Al Qaeda and its affiliates around the globe...”
White House press secretary Josh Earnest

"At this moment, for example, in 1984 (if it was 1984), Oceania was at war with Eurasia and in alliance with Eastasia..."  George Orwell 1984

"First, we will conduct a systematic campaign of airstrikes against these terrorists. Working with the Iraqi government, we will expand our efforts beyond protecting our own people and humanitarian missions so that we’re hitting ISIL targets as Iraqi forces go on offense. Moreover, I have made it clear that we will hunt down terrorists who threaten our country, wherever they are. That means I will not hesitate to take action against ISIL in Syria as well as Iraq."  - President Barack Obama - 9/10/14

So now we are at war with the ISIL Sunni terrorist rebels in Syria and Iraq in support of the Post-Maliki Iraq government (after we helped pressure him out),  which aligns us with the Shia Iranian regime, Syria's Assad regime, and Russia.

"In no public or private utterance was it ever admitted that the three powers had at any time been grouped along different lines. Actually, as Winston well knew, it was only four years since Oceania had been at war with Eastasia and in alliance with Eurasia. But that was merely a piece of furtive knowledge, which he happened to possess because his memory was not satisfactorily under control. Officially the change of partners had never happened..."  - George Orwell 1984

"... after careful deliberation, I have decided that the United States should take military action against Syrian regime targets. This would not be an open-ended intervention. We would not put boots on the ground. Instead, our action would be designed to be limited in duration and scope. But I'm confident we can hold the Assad regime accountable for their use of chemical weapons, deter this kind of behavior, and degrade their capacity to carry it out."  - President Barack Obama - 9/10/2013

And one year ago, we were aligned with Sunni Syrian rebel in opposition to the Shia Assad regime and their allies Iran and Russia.

Clinton & Obama admit 2007 Iraq war policy positions were influenced by politics. So was President Bush 2004 Iraq war policy. One is worse.

"Politics has no place in war policy." That's a good one!

A war-time memoir from a former Secretary of Defense  is nothing new.  It is unusual, perhaps unique, for the number two man in the United States military chain of command to publish a memoir while his Commander in Chief is still in office and the war is still going on. I plan to read  Bob Gate's new book "Duty" when available to the general public later this week.  Part of my interest in the book stems from hearing Bob Gates speak at the MPSF Speaker Series last year.

Like most, I've had to be satisfied with observing other's observations of the memoir as excerpts are revealed in the press and political talk show circuit.   Rather than comment on the commentary (there are plenty of pundits filling that role), I'll wait until I've had a chance to read it myself.  However, there is one excerpt getting a lot of attention that deserves a second look.

Defense Secretaries Past, Present and Future - Robert Gates at the MPSF Speaker Series

During Steve Croft's softball 60 Minutes interview with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, the President reflected on advice he received from Robert Gates shortly after coming into office:

"I remember Bob Gates, you know, first thing he said to me, I think maybe first week or two that I was there and we were meeting in the Oval Office and he, obviously, been through seven presidents or something. And he says, "Mr. President, one thing I can guarantee you is that at this moment, somewhere, somehow, somebody in the federal government is screwing up."

I expect that Gates was cautioning the new President about the inevitable surprises and disappointments of governance as opposed to how the President used the anecdote in this interview. To whit -  the President used it as a fig leaf to dismissively hide and deflect attention from the politically convenient disinformation campaign orchestrated in his administration and delivered via Susan Rice a few days after the attack on our embassy in Benghazi, Libya. Might have been a good opportunity for a follow up question from Steve Croft as opposed to simply accepting the popular "mistakes were made" non-answer. But I digress...

Regardless how his advice was misused, one of President Obama's best decisions was to keep Robert Gates on as Secretary of Defense and avail himself of the benefit of his experience.

Gates has an extraordinary history of public service, including leadership roles in the Air Force, CIA, and serving in the administration of seven presidents. I had an opportunity to hear the former secretary of defense Robert Gates speak in Marin at the invitation of the MPSF Speaker Series. I've been to a few of these events over the last couple of years and always come away impressed (although some more than others).  He spoke for about an hour and then responded to questions gathered from audience.

I thought some of his more interesting comments came during Q&A and I'd share them here.  I do not have the benefit of a recording or transcript - so the comments I am attributing to Gates are from memory and paraphrased.  In no particular order a  few of his thoughts on our presidents, the presidency and challenges that face us:

Chuck Hagel was thinking "out of the mainstream" in February 2003

President Obama stuck to his guns and nominated Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense setting the stage for a bipartisan nomination fight.  As noted in a previous post, some who opposed the nomination are continuing to smear him with unfounded and despicable charges of antisemitism. Of those limiting objections to policy differences, the criticism of choice is that his views are far out of the mainstream of American thought on Foreign Policy:

Senator Lindsey Graham on CNN's "State of the Union":

“I like Chuck Hagel,” Graham began. “He served with distinguish in Vietnam as an enlisted man — two Purple Hearts. But quite frankly, Chuck Hagel is out of the mainstream of thinking, I believe, on most issues regarding foreign policy."

Bill Kristol:

"In any case, Friedman confirms that on Israel as well, Hagel's views place him out of the policy-making mainstream. Tom Friedman came to praise Chuck Hagel. He may have ended up burying him."

Jennifer Rubin

"He is far out of the mainstream of both parties on everything from Russian anti-Semitism to Hamas to Iran sanctions."

This criticism reminds me of another time that Chuck Hagel was thinking "out of the mainstream" of Foreign Policy thought.  On February 20, 2003 Chuck Hagel spoke at the Landon Lecture Series at the University of Kansas. It is instructive to consider what constituted "mainstream thought" at that moment in time.

Hagel for Defense

Chuck Hagel in Vietnam

I'd like to think that a nomination of Republican Chuck Hagel for Secretary of the Defense would be considered on its merits. I'd like to think his nomination would be deliberated in the Senate where his record, his qualifications and the policies he advocates would be subject to scrutiny in a public confirmation hearing. We may never get the chance to see that hearing. After the administration floated a trial balloon indicating that Hagel was on the SECDEF short list, the very same neocons who brought us the Iraq War launched a smear campaign as a preemptive strike to head off the nomination. Robert Wright at The Atlantic sums it up:

Neocon Stooge Endorses Obama

As he did in 2008, Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama for President. John McCain is not any happier about his endorsement than when Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama for President over John McCain four year ago.   It is an open question whether the endorsement will sway any votes, but one should not underestimate the salesmanship of Colin Powell. Recall he was very persuasive in his 2003 presentation to the United Nations General Assembly:

"My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence... Indeed, the facts and Iraq's behaviour show that Saddam Hussein and his regime are concealing their efforts to produce more weapons of mass destruction... Leaving Saddam Hussein in possession of weapons of mass destruction for a few more months or years is not an option. Not in a post-September 11th world."

Regardless, the Dividist is delighted with Powell's endorsement. This endorsement means we can take the same post we wrote four years ago, and run it again with only minor edits.

Live Blogging the Live Bloggers Final Presidential DebateBinder Full of Bloggers Edition

UPDATED: 23-Oct-2012

Welcome to the The Final Presidential Debate of the 2012 Election and the latest edition in the continuing saga of "Live Blogging the Live Bloggers blogging the Debates!"   The Dividist fondly recalls when he conceived this series to cover the first 2008 Republican debate, lo those many years ago, and first asked the question:

"There are plenty of live-bloggers covering the debate tonight, but who is covering the live bloggers? The Dividist rushes in where other, more sensible bloggers, fear to tread."

Tonight's debate is scheduled for 8:00 PM EST at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida. But that is not important. This will be the last debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney before the election two weeks from now. That is not important. It is going to be focused on foreign policy. Not important.  The second debate went to President Obama on points. The first debate was forfeited to Romney when the President failed to show up due to a scheduling conflict.  The VP debate happened in there somewhere and Joe Biden smiled a lot. Tonight is the rubber match. None of that is important. The debate will be competing directly with the 7th game of the National League Championship Game between the San Francisco Giants and the St. Louis Cardinals (Currently no score after one inning).  Not important.

What is important is that my Chicago Bears are playing the Detroit Lions on Monday Night Football during the debate.  So... in aggregate we can expect no one in California, Michigan, Illinois, Missouri, Minnesota, Wisconsin, nor any real NFL or MLB fans will be watching this debate.What is wrong with these people? Can they not read a football schedule?   Do they not want people to watch these debates?  Wait... I wonder...

FULL DISCLOSURE:  The Dividist will be pretending to watch the debate, will try to live blog the live bloggers blogging the debate, but will really be watching the Bears game. So this is likely to be more lame than usual. Proceed at your own risk.

As always, we select a variety of bloggers from across the political spectrum,and attempt to live blog their live blog efforts. I don't know who we will include, in the past we've used used  Daily Kos from the left, VodkaPundit or HotAir from the right, look to either Reason or Cato for a libertarian point of view and the Moderate Voice, and/or Donklephant as a centrist blog.  Andrew Sullivan is  a reliable live-blogger, as is Chris Cillizza's Fix. Since this one has a foreign policy focus, we'll also monitor the Economist.

If past is prologue we will likely guess wrong about which blogs to monitor and will be scrambling once things get started. Refresh your browsers for latest content once the debate is underway. Because of the derivative nature of this enterprise, I do run quite a bit behind the actual debate. Just setting expectations to lower the bar.

The Dividist has not bothered to look up the polling on the expectations game.   The President has all the experience in Foreign policy in this debate. He killed Osama Bin-Laden. The expectation is there is no way he can lose a foreign policy debate. So he probably will.

Da Bears & Da Candidates have taken the field ...

Robert McNamara Remembered - lessons from a liberal technocrat

"I come to bury Caesar not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones.
So let it be with Caesar."

- William Shakespeare (Marc Antony's eulogy)

Marc Antony's intent was masked by his words, and the words that Shakespeare put in his mouth are the opposite of what Shakespeare knew to be true. As a rule - it is the good that men do that live after them. We are reluctant to speak ill of the dead. We prefer to celebrate the song and dance man, but forget the child molester and drug abuser. So let it be with Michael. But what of Robert? Almost lost among the Michael Jackson Memorial media circus last week was the notable death of Robert McNamara. Perhaps he is an exception to the rule of remembering only the good men do.

Robert McNamara died in his bed on Monday July 6th. Words like those of Shakespeare's Antony, words crafted to deceive, words considered only as a means to a political end, are words that seem particularly apropos when remembering Robert McNamara.

McNamara has been a frequent topic on this blog. The recurring theme and the unanswered question: What did he know to be true about the Vietnam War, when did he know it, what actions did he take and fail to take as a consequence, and why did he chose not to tell the American people what he knew? It seemed an important lesson for today. From a September, 2006 post:

In 1995, Robert McNamara (widely referred to as "the architect of the Vietnam War") writing in his memoir "In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam", revealed that as early as 1967 (with 25,000 American dead) he no longer believed that America could win the war in Vietnam, and as a direct consequence of expressing that view, resigned (or was fired) from the LBJ administration. This McNamara quote is excerpted from Harold P. Ford's analysis "Thoughts Engendered by Robert McNamara's In Retrospect":

"We were wrong, terribly wrong... Enemy morale has not broken . . . . It appears that [the enemy] can more than replace his losses by infiltration from North Vietnam and recruitment in South Vietnam. . . . Pacification has if anything gone backward. As compared with two, or four, years ago, enemy full-time regional forces and part-time guerrilla forces are larger; attacks, terrorism and sabotage have increased in scope and intensity. . . . In essence, we find ourselves--from the point of view of the important war (for the [hearts and minds] of the people)--no better, and if anything worse off. This important war must be fought and won by the Vietnamese themselves. We have known this from the beginning . . ." Robert McNamara -"In Retrospect" (pp. 262-263).

Neither McNamara nor LBJ chose to share that insight with the American public. Ultimately it took 50,000 American lives for a majority of Americans to learn that their government could not be trusted on the reasons for, nor the "light at the end of the tunnel" progress in, Vietnam. It is reasonable to posit, that if McNamara had recognized in 1968 that his loyalty was owed first to the American people, and second to the LBJ administration, had communicated what he knew then to the American people, we might have seen a better end, a quicker end, and fewer deaths and casualties in Vietnam.

McNamara had a bit more nuanced view of his own actions. While he acknowledged his analysis and the consequent administration decisions on Vietnam were dead wrong, while he regretted his support of that war, he remained unapologetic about putting loyalty to his president ahead of his obligations to the American people. He had no problem rationalizing his decision to keep the American people ignorant of what he knew to be true about that war.

The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer was one of the few broadcast news outlets not distracted by the Michael Jackson death-a-palooza, and explored this very question on the night of his death. An excerpt:

The full segment includes interviews with documentarian Earl Morris and biographer Deborah Shapley. Also interesting, the complete 1995 interview between Macneil and McNamara, as well as a spirited round table discussion between a young Senator John McCain, George McGovern, McGeorge Bundy and Robert Scheer, also available on the PBS site:

Recommended viewing.

The picture of Robert McNamara that emerges from the interviews, the book and the documentary differs from contemporaneous reporting when his memoir was published. There is no contrition on display. No quest for redemption is in evidence as some suggested at the time. This is the technocrat, the policy wonk, the engineer poring over the wreckage of an airplane he designed and offering observations on why it crashed and burned. His hope for his memoir:

"I hope what it will do is cause us to examine what happened then and try to prevent it in the future."

Examining the McNamara lessons can drive a blogger to drink. So let us start at our favorite watering hole, The Repeating History Bar. Here we find another senior administration official choosing personal loyalty to a president over their duty to the American people. Many have compared McNamara to Rumsfeld. I have done so myself. But in the context of the lessons learned from McNamara and Vietnam, the more apt comparison is Colin Powell. From a more recent post:

Colin Powell enabled the GWB administration to garner the support needed to put us on this course [in Iraq]. I suspect that Colin Powell, out of misplaced loyalty, like McNamara on Vietnam, failed to be forthright and honest with the American people about Iraq. Should Colin Powell, in future memoirs, like McNamara, proclaim that he knew that the Iraq occupation was a wrong policy, he will, like McNamara, have blood on his hands for every day that passes between the time that he recognized the mistake, and the day he finally comes clean with the American people. It took McNamara 27 years. How long will it take Powell?"Make no mistake. It was a critical decision point, a nexus in history, when in 2002 Colin Powell walked into the Oval office to advise the President. As he related to Tim Russert:

"when I took it to the president and said, “This is a war we ought to see if we can avoid,” I also said and made it clear to him, 'If, at the end of the day, it is a war that we cannot avoid, I’ll be with you all the way.' That’s part of being part of a team."

Powell understood that this was the wrong path. Powell understood that the rationale for action in Iraq did not pass muster on the lessons he extracted from Vietnam, the Powell Doctrine. Powell could have told Bush that he did not support the policy and resigned. Instead Colin Powell enabled George W Bush to make the decision to prosecute the occupation, much like McNamara enabled LBJ to expand our footprint in Vietnam. Colin Powell sold the war to the American people. After Cheney and Bush, Powell is the man most responsible for the war decision.

That lesson went unheeded. How about another lesson? A cautionary tale about the hubris of having the "best and the brightest" liberal ideologues run the country:

ROBERT MACNEIL: You say you were prompted to write this book because you were heartsick at the cynicism, even the contempt with which people view their political institutions today. How did you think this book might dispel that cynicism?

ROBERT MCNAMARA: I hope it will explore why the leaders did what they did. My associates were properly described by that pejorative term, "the best and the brightest." They were young, intelligent, well-educated, hardworking, dedicated servants, they're people in their government, and they were wrong.

Now, I think, if our people understand that, then we can talk about, why were they wrong? How can we avoid similar errors in the future?

ROBERT MACNEIL: But as you document, if the best and the brightest that Kennedy and Johnson could muster year after year made the mistakes you admit and they refused to listen to their critics, to use your phrase, "were blind prisoners of their assumptions," and in the process sent nearly 60,000 Americans to their deaths, would that not confirm or deepen people's cynicism about government today?

ROBERT MCNAMARA: Well, no, I think -- I hope what it will do is cause us to examine what happened then and try to prevent it in the future.

The last administration did not learn from the lessons of McNamara. One wonders - Could our brand spanking new administration comprised of today's "best and the brightest" liberal ideologues learn anything from Robert? Perhaps they need no lessons, after all they are so supremely confident in their intellect and ability that they:

• Believe the country is best served by accumulating power unto themselves far beyond what is proscribed in the constitution.
• Think they can safely manage the currency and economy destroying Frankenstein monster of massive spending and deficit on a level never attempted before.
• Are perfectly comfortable preempting and substituting their judgment for that of the market.
• Know exactly how the automotive industry should be structured, how many car companies we should have, which should succeed, which should fail, how many dealers they need, and what kind of cars they should build.
• Understand the rule of law does not apply to them and should really be considered purely advisory.
  
• Can, of course, re-design the entire health care system, supremely certain that they can cut costs and improve care without rationing services.
• Oh - almost forgot. They can also pacify Afghanistan.
  

Nothing to worry about there.

Rest in Peace Robert McNamara.

Your political and intellectual heirs are in charge.

UPDATE: McNamara's favorite poem

A punctuation mark for the man and the post...



The Palace - Rudyard Kipling

"WHEN I was a King and a Mason - a Master proven and skilled
I cleared me ground for a Palace such as a King should build.
I decreed and dug down to my levels. Presently under the silt
I came on the wreck of a Palace such as a King had built."

Divided and Balanced.™
Now that is fair.

Technorati tags: Afghanistan, Colin Powell, Michael Jackson, , Vietnam, Robert McNamara, Iraq, hubris, The best and the brightest, Barack Obama.

Neocon warmongers for Obama!

I was not going to bother, but the Powell and Adelman endorsements have apparently been declared by the blogging powers that be as a mandatory post for all political bloggers. I have no choice but to declare a "Yossarian", as I have periodically done before. and paraphrase Joseph Heller's famous protagonist from Catch 22 - "What if everyone was blogging about the Powell endorsement?" I can only respond as did Bomber Pilot John Yossarian: "Then I'd be a damn fool not to".

The topic was not all that interesting, because I don't believe that either Powell or Adelman's endorsement will have any meaningful impact on this election. Obama will be elected for exactly one reason - the country is in the grip of an economic meltdown and market panic during the last few weeks of the election. A poorly executed McCain campaign did not help, but the economic fear swamps all other considerations. Under this kind of economic cloud the electorate will sweep the incumbent party out and the opposition party in. If McCain had kept it close, these endorsements might have made a difference and been important for Obama. As it is, the endorsements are bringing "coals to Newcastle". Unfortunately, Obama and the Democrats will claim a mandate, and with no meaningful opposition in Washington, we are on a high-speed hell-bound train to the inevitable bad governance, corruption and abuse of power that always accompanies single party rule.

Back to Adelman. Obama supporters have breathlessly covered his endorsement as a shocking validation of everything that is wrong with the McCain campaign. After all, this is a "loyal", lifelong Conservative Republican. I have a couple of problems with that characterization. First, it is astonishing that anyone who believes the Iraq war was a mistake (as do I) would put any credence in Adelman's judgment or take anything he says seriously. Adelman is most famous (infamous?) for his 2002 Washington Post editorial where he pitched the Iraq War as a "cakewalk":

"In 1991 we engaged a grand international coalition because we lacked a domestic coalition. Virtually the entire Democratic leadership stood against that President Bush. The public, too, was divided. This President Bush does not need to amass rinky-dink nations as "coalition partners" to convince the Washington establishment that we're right. Americans of all parties now know we must wage a total war on terrorism. Hussein constitutes the number one threat against American security and civilization. Unlike Osama bin Laden, he has billions of dollars in government funds, scores of government research labs working feverishly on weapons of mass destruction -- and just as deep a hatred of America and civilized free societies."

Adelman was a neocon's neocon. And the neocon "might makes right" eagerness to wield the military as a instrument of policy rather than as a last resort, coupled with their willingness to sacrifice the Constitution, rule of law, bill of rights, and common decency on the alter of "security" is the very reason why the Republican Party is about to rendered completely irrelevant.

As regards his professed "loyalty" to the Republican Party or conservative principles, recall that in a 2006 Vanity Fair article, Adelman was only too eager to hold himself and the Neocon philosophy blameless, while throwing everyone else in the Bush administration under the bus. It stands as one of the most gratuitous examples of craven CYA finger pointing ever committed to print. But hey! This is one of the key architects of the philosophy that may have destroyed the Republican party, or at least rendered it politically impotent for a generation. So why not pay attention to him and his endorsement for Obama? Neocons for Obama!

Colin Powell is a more interesting study. He has been a frequent topic of posts on this blog. Powell is a man I deeply respected in the Bush41 administration, and would have whole heartedly supported for President in 2000. If we had used the Powell Doctrine as a guiding principle in 2003 as we did in the first Gulf War, we never would have gone down the disastrous Neocon path in Iraq.

But the big question about Colin Powell remains - Why did he enable the Bush administration to support a policy he knew to be in contradiction to the successful doctrine that bears his name? Why did he choose loyalty to the administration over loyalty to the American people? I asked this question in an open letter and a 2006 post where I wondered "whether Colin Powell might, in the judgment of history, carry the label of being to Iraq what McNamara was to Vietnam":

"In 1995, Robert McNamara (widely referred to as "the architect of the Vietnam War") writing in his memoir "In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam", revealed that as early as 1967 (with 25,000 American dead) he no longer believed that America could win the war in Vietnam, and as a direct consequence of expressing that view, resigned (or was fired) from the LBJ administration.... Neither McNamara nor LBJ chose to share that insight with the American public. Ultimately it took 50,000 American lives for a majority of Americans to learn that their government could not be trusted on the reasons for, nor the "light at the end of the tunnel" progress in, Vietnam. It is reasonable to posit, that if McNamara had recognized in 1968 that his loyalty was owed first to the American people, and second to the LBJ administration, had communicated what he knew then to the American people, we might have seen a better end, a quicker end, and fewer deaths and casualties in Vietnam... Colin Powell enabled the GWB administration to garner the support needed to put us on this course. I suspect that Colin Powell, out of misplaced loyalty, like McNamara on Vietnam, failed to be forthright and honest with the American people about Iraq. Should Colin Powell, in future memoirs, like McNamara, proclaim that he knew that the Iraq occupation was a wrong policy, he will, like McNamara, have blood on his hands for every day that passes between the time that he recognized the mistake, and the day he finally comes clean with the American people. It took McNamara 27 years. How long will it take Powell?"

Make no mistake. It was a critical decision point, a nexus in history, when in 2002 Colin Powell walked into the Oval office to advise the President. As he related to Tim Russert:

"when I took it to the president and said, “This is a war we ought to see if we can avoid,” I also said and made it clear to him, 'If, at the end of the day, it is a war that we cannot avoid, I’ll be with you all the way.' That’s part of being part of a team."

If Powell understood that this was the wrong path, Powell should have told Bush that he did not support the policy and resigned. Colin Powell enabled George W Bush to make the decision to prosecute the occupation. Colin Powell sold the war to the American people. After Cheney and Bush himself, Powell is the man most responsible for the war decision.

At some level Powell knows this. He is a study in contradictions. As a consequence of failing to act on what he knew to be right in 2002, he has spent years explaining and justifying his actions. I cannot help but feel that this endorsement is yet another attempt to assuage his conscience, rehabilitate his reputation and scrub the blood off his hands.

Divided and Balanced.™ Now that is fair.

Technorati tags: Yossarian, 2008 election, Colin Powell, Barack Obama, Iraq, Ken Adelman, neocon

A palpable public mood for change. Or not.

As noted in a previous post, I read David Mayhew's "Divided we Govern" during my sea-faring holiday. This is a book I had intended to read for some time. It is a foundation work of scholarship on which we have built the divided government voting heuristic promoted in this blog.

The book is a bit of a tough slog for the casual reader, a group in which I include myself. I recommend reading it while trapped on sailboat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean for two weeks when you have little else to do. Working through extensive footnotes and supporting material that some would consider dry, perhaps arid, maybe even Sahara Desert-like, requires some perseverance. But Mayhew writes with clarity, and if you bring a curiosity of why things really get done (or don't) in Washington - it is fascinating.

There is a pervasive belief - a nugget of "conventional wisdom" - that if you want to "get things done" in Congress, whether legislation, investigations to clean up governmental abuses, or just promote "change", a single party must control the Presidency and both legislative branches to avoid gridlock. It certainly seems intuitively obvious that the the federal government would be more productive if it all branches are run by one party. David Mayhew proved this conventional wisdom flat wrong, at least in the modern era. He puts the proposition to the test by rigorously quantifying and analyzing all legislation and investigations (the two primary functions of Congress) from 1946-2002. First published in 1991, the book was updated with a second edition in 2005. This book is the seminal work that debunked the notion that the federal government functions more effectively with unified single party control.

Watching the ubiquitous blue "Change" signs waving at the Democratic convention and listening to McCain's born-again "Change" message at the Republican convention, I was reminded of another Mayhew theme in the book. In his data, he documents periods spanning many years, where Congress becomes very productive in what Mayhew calls a legislative and/or investigatory "surge". Having completely dismantled any consideration that single party government is correlated with these productive congressional eras, he speculates on other factors that might drive these legislative surges.

This portion of the book is considerably less rigorous statistically, but it is interesting and potentially directly relevant to what we are seeing in this 2008 election season. Specifically, Mayhew explores the notion that the primary pre-requisite for theses periodic legislative "surges" is a pervasive "public mood" demanding "change". He wrote this more than a decade before the Obama candidacy, but his analysis may be the key to unlocking one of the great puzzles of this election. What does "change" really mean in this context?

"... causes of legislative surges can be found in extended expressions of "public purpose" or creedal passion." To put it another way, they can be located in a certain kind of "public mood" that favors change via government action (Some "moods" have that aim; others, as in the private- oriented 1920s, discourage government action). A "mood" seems to be one of those phenomena that drive political scientists to despair by being at once important and elusive. But perhaps something useful can be said. In principle, a "public mood" probably has the following features. First, much of at least the politically aware public, inside and outside Washington, shares a certain outlook about what can and should be done right now on a wide range of political issues. Second, a large number of people who possess that outlook bring considerable intensity to it; they are not lukewarm. Third, to the extent that the outlook calls for it, an appreciable number of people go on to engage in, to use a term that is probably as serviceable as any, citizen action. They actually do things: They may form organizations, persuade others, go to meetings, give money, write letters, join protests, approach members of Congress, in general make themselves heard and felt. Fourth, the outlook in question is in some sense dominant: Non- sharers of it have a hard time wholly resisting its intellectual or political appeal or mustering intensity or action against it... Fifth, a "public mood" has a beginning and an end. The outlook, the intensity, and the citizen action emerge or balloon at some detectable juncture, and then several years later, at another juncture, they deflate or disappear... An anti-government mood may not call for much citizen action, but a mood favoring change through government action requires -or at least seems to be associated with- a great deal. Levers need to be moved." - David Mahew - Divided we Govern

The examples offered by Mayhew of documented decade-long legislative surges that were driven by a palpable "public mood favoring change" included reconstruction in the 1860's, the "progressive"movement in the 1910's, Roosevelt's "New Deal" of the thirties and the civil rights/ womens' rights/environmental and social programs of the LBJ/Nixon era (yes, you read that right - Mayhew documents that the generally liberal legislative surge of that era equally bracket both the LBJ and Nixon presidencies.) The question on the table, is whether the much heralded appetite for "change" that has been promoted by the Obama candidacy and adopted by the McCain candidacy, is in the category of a "public mood favoring change."

If you look at Mayhew's five criteria for a "palpable public mood", it is easy to conclude all the conditions have been met. Certainly if the Obama campaign is used as a proxy for that public mood, we can certainly check off criteria 2 through 5:

#2 - Observable supporter intensity? - Check.
#3 - Large numbers engaging, joining and doing things? - Check.
#4 - Difficult for opposing views to resist? - Well the Clintons will agree, and since McCain adopted rather than fight the mantra - Check.
#5 - The mood has a beginning and an end? - Certainly the beginning is in evidence. - Check.

But then we have criteria #1: A common outlook about what can and should be done right now on a wide range of political issues.

So exactly WTF is it? What specifically is this public political appetite that Obama and McCain are trying to feed? What are the specific political issues that both Obama and McCain supporters broadly agree must be changed right now? The phenomena is real, but do we know what it is really about?

We can ask the candidates. In their acceptance speeches, both candidates endeavored to define and promote the "change" they represent. Obama offered an unremarkable litany of liberal Democratic policy positions. McCain offered an unremarkable litany of conservative Republican policy positions. So each candidate, acutely aware of a "palpable public mood for change", wraps themself in the rhetoric of change, then explicitly pitches the proposition that the same partisan bromides that Republicans and Democrats have been flogging for decades, represent the change that the public seeks. Tough sell.

Here is the rub - Mayhew's criteria specifies that the kind of pervasive public mood for change that results in a real legislative surge, that results in real change, must include broad agreement on what can and should be done across the partisan divide. Do we have that now? Do we have broad agreement on environmental policy? global warming? education policy? taxing policy? deficits and spending policy? judicial appointments? abortion? religious participation in governmental policy? same sex marriage? right to work? Equal pay? Immigration policy? homeland security? I don't think so. So they are all off the list. Moreover, both presidential campaigns are useless at articulating what exactly this "change" means. So we are left to our own devices.

Here is my take on what this inchoate public impulse for "change" really means, and by extension, what this election is really about. Your mileage may vary.

Consensual Change Champions

(In reverse order)

2nd Runner Up - Health Care / Energy Policy (tie)
These are both a close call for me, I profess no certitude about either, but I am saying that they both make the cut. Barely. In both cases, there seems to be a hue and cry in the electorate that "something must be done." For both issues, strong sentiment is generated on both sides of the partisan divide. While there are obvious policy disagreements between Republicans and Democrats on these issues, it is possible to craft a general solution statement with which most Americans will agree. Not an overwhelming majority, but a majority. On health care - most Americans want a solution where people do not fall between the cracks, and are not risking financial ruin to get the care they need. On energy policy, most Americans will agree we need to drill and develop more in America, conserve more, build nukes, and work aggressively to invest in and develop alternative energy sources. Both candidates are missing the boat to some degree on these two issues. McCain and the Republicans are misreading the degree to which Americans are willing to socialize medical care. Obama and the Dems are misreading the degree to which Americans are willing to drill for fossil fuels here and develop nuclear energy as part of the solution.

First Runner-up - The War in Iraq.
12-24 months ago, this was the number one issue that was driving the "change" mantra and the fuel that propelled the Obama candidacy. The change that people wanted, was quite explicit. A large majority of Americans wanted us out of the quagmire of Iraq. If the status of the war in Iraq was the same now as it was then, there would be no contest. Obama would be 20 points ahead in the polls. But events have overtaken the campaign rhetoric and morphed the meaning of "change" in the process.

Violence in Iraq is down, and the Iraqi government has effectively removed the issue from the campaign. Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki set a time "horizon" for us to be mostly out by 2011, so - that is going to happen regardless of who is elected president. It is not a presidential campaign issue anymore.

Yes, looking back, Obama was right and McCain was wrong about the war in 2002. But McCain was right and Obama was wrong about the surge in 2006. It is a political wash. The war was the "Change" issue, but now it has been rendered effectively moot. Getting out is still part of the "change" people want, but, looking forward, there is simply no practical difference in the rate at which we can and will redeploy out of Iraq regardless of whether McCain and Obama are elected president. It is even reasonable to postulate that we will be able to reduce our military footprint faster with a McCain presidency. The only difference between the candidates on Iraq, is the rhetoric they use to posture for their respective base.

Change Champion - Exorcise the Bush administration, and punish incumbent Republicans.
That is it. That is what is left of the "pervasive public mood for change" mandate, once the issue of the war in Iraq was rendered moot by Maliki. There is broad agreement among Americans that the occupation of Iraq was a mistake, that the strategic execution of the war was flawed, and the Bush administration was largely incompetent (see - he was a uniter not a divider!) Blame for the war falls squarely on the Bush administration, enabled by a gutless, ethics challenged, mostly Republican Congress. The punishment for the Republicans will be meted out in the congressional elections. It is very possible that the Democrats will finish with a 100 seat majority in the House of Representatives, and secure a filibuster-proof 60/40 majority in the Senate. The Republican party may well be rendered impotent as a opposition party in Congress. So that leaves the presidency.

The issue that is now determinative in that contest, is whether the electorate believes that McCain/Palin is an extension of the Bush administration. If the Obama campaign succeeds in painting that picture (hence the oft-repeated "McCain is 90% Bush" canard), Obama wins. If McCain succeeds in separating himself from Bush and painting himself as a maverick, the "pervasive public mood for change" does not hurt him, and may even help his candidacy. Early indications are that his acceptance speech and the Palin pick accomplished exactly that.

Which means we may still have a change election, but it may be John McCain that leads it.

Divided and Balanced.™ Now that is fair.

Technorati tags: Iraq, 2008 election, John McCain, Divided Government , Republican, Democrat, Maliki, Barack Obama , change .

John! - Remember that "Iraq stands up, we stand down" bit?

UPDATED: Apparently McCain is taking my advice (see end of post). Good. Very Good.


Conventional Wisdom is that Maliki's statements about a time horizon for our withdrawal from Iraq is a big plus for Obama and a negative for McCain. On the right - AllahPundit says that the McCain camp "discomfort is palpable" and Ross Douthat writes that Maliki's comments have "placed John McCain in a difficult spot". On the left - Jonathon Chait crows that Maliki endorsing a US withdrawal is "a huge huge deal" and Markos Zúniga agrees that these event "suck for him [McCain]". In the center - John Whitehouse is sure this is "the perfect time for this story to break as far as the Obama campaign is concerned..." and Justin Gardner wonders if "...Maliki stabbed McCain in the back?" while explaining that "this puts McCain in a particularly precarious position." Among the libertarian leaning Doug Mataconis scores this "a big win for Obama". Main stream media like NBC, Politico, and the Washington Post agree.

Yes - it is virtually unanimous. Bloggers and pundits across the political spectrum agree that the Maliki withdrawal time-frame statements are bad news for McCain and great news for Obama.

It is truly astonishing that they could all be so very wrong.

In fact, the entire story out of Iraq this week works to McCain's political advantage. Well... let me be more clear. It should work to McCain's political advantage and could work to McCain's political advantage, if only John McCain and his campaign could get out of their own way and get the narrative right.

If McCain has been politically wounded by this, then it is a self-inflicted - shoot yourself in the foot- reload - shoot the other foot - kind of injury. Maliki has served up on a silver platter a perfect opportunity for McCain to undercut Obama's support among independent voters. Whether he chooses to partake of this opportunity is another matter altogether.

The simple fact remains that a majority of Americans (59%) think the Iraq War was a mistake and (51%) think the war is going badly [NYT/CBS Poll PDF]. Among those Americans are many conservatives, libertarians, and independents who would be inclined to vote for McCain were it not for the Iraq War. I am among them. Many or these voters find the 2009 prospect of the largest concentration of single party power since FDR to be disquieting - to say the least. There is ample reason to fear the what might emerge out of the very real possibility of a 100 vote Democratic party majority in the House of Representatives, a 60-40 filibuster-proof Democratic Party plurality in the Senate, all "led" by a 95% toe-the-party-line voting record Barack Obama as President. Despite the concerns and enormous risk inherent in that concentration of power, as it stands today, many independents may still choose to vote for Obama on the basis of the single overriding issue of getting out of Iraq.

I presented the independent voter conundrum in my Iraq War anniversary post - It's still the war stupid:

I find myself impaled on the horns of a dilemma. The choice:

• RED PILL - Divided Government (good) but Permanent War (bad)
  

• BLUE PILL - Single Party Democratic government (bad) with expanded majorities, possibly a filibuster proof Senate (really bad) and Obama at the controls of a Cheney designed unitary presidency (really really bad).

Pick your poison.

Maliki and the Iraqi government has resolved the dilemma. They are clearly behaving like a real sovereign government and stating they are ready for us to leave. All McCain need do to take advantage of this opening, is follow this simple 3 step process:

Step 1- McCain must strongly embrace the Iraqi government position on American withdrawal. This does not mean any change of position for McCain. All he has to do is say exactly, word for word, what he said in 2004:

Question: “What would or should we do if, in the post-June 30th period, a so-called sovereign Iraqi government asks us to leave, even if we are unhappy about the security situation there?”

McCain’s Answer: “Well, if that scenario evolves than I think it’s obvious that we would have to leave because — if it was an elected government of Iraq, and we’ve been asked to leave other places in the world. If it were an extremist government then I think we would have other challenges, but I don’t see how we could stay when our whole emphasis and policy has been based on turning the Iraqi government over to the Iraqi people.”

Step 2 - McCain should repeatedly point out that if the Iraq government is ready for us to leave, it means that the surge worked. McCain can rightfully claim that he was right and Obama was wrong on the surge strategy and pound that point over and over. He can legitimately say that his aggressive support for the surge created the path out of the quagmire. It is a perfect time to declare victory. He can even use this construct from his rejected NYT Op-Ed piece:

"Progress has been due primarily to an increase in the number of troops and a change in their strategy. I was an early advocate of the surge at a time when it had few supporters in Washington. Senator Barack Obama was an equally vocal opponent. "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there,” he said on January 10, 2007. “In fact, I think it will do the reverse." Now Senator Obama has been forced to acknowledge that “our troops have performed brilliantly in lowering the level of violence.” But he still denies that any political progress has resulted..."
Then add this one sentence:
The success of the surge in creating room for political progress in now undeniable - even for Senator Obama. The elected Iraqi Government has stated that they are ready to stand on their own. My friends, our job in Iraq is done. We have victory.

Step 3 - McCain should leave himself the exact same wiggle room that Obama uses - by holding out the possibility that the pace of the draw-down can and will be "refined" by evolving conditions on the ground.

This would do so many good things for McCain's campaign. It would render moot Obama's single strongest issue against McCain. It puts McCain on the same side as the majority of American voters. It creates space between McCain and Bush. It makes it easy for independents, moderates, and libertarians to vote for McCain on the basis of maintaining the checks and balances of divided government.

Finally, it is just the right thing to do and the way for McCain to get on the right side of history. Our military leadership wants a draw down in Iraq, because we need to rebuild our forces and reinforce Afghanistan. The majority of Americans want out, because we cannot afford to maintain this level of military presence in Iraq. And now the Iraqi government want us out by the end of 2010, because they want their country back. It is inevitable that we will be mostly out of a combat role in Iraq in this 2010 timeframe.

Maliki's statement simply reinforces that there is no practical difference on what our military posture will look like in Iraq by the end of 2010 regardless of who is president. With that realization Obama loses his biggest advantage in November, and we can potentially avoid the disaster of single party Democratic government with expanded and potentially filibuster proof Democratic majorities.

Net net. As a voter I get my cake and eat it too. I can vote to limit the concentration of single party power in Washington, and get also get a quicker or at least equivalent draw down in Iraq by supporting McCain. It's all good.

Just do it John. After all, It is exactly what this administration said we wanted all along...

"When the Iraqis stand up, we stand down."

The Iraqi government is standing up.

Time to stand down.

UPDATE: Friday 25-July-2008
John McCain wisely decided to take my advice today. ABC picks out the interesting quote in a CNN interview:

"During a Friday interview with CNN, McCain called a 16-month withdrawal from Iraq "a pretty good timetable. That answer came when McCain was asked by Wolf Blitzer about the Iraqi prime minister's recent description of a 16-month timetable as "the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes."

The Left of center blogosphere calls it a flip-flop, and completely misses the point. Sure it is. So what? Most Obama supporters cheered when Obama flip-flopped moved to the center on a whole host of issues. With a similar move, McCain just took away the single biggest issue advantage that Obama had with Moderate/Center/Independent voters - Iraq.

If there is no practical difference on an Iraq withdrawal time frame, then Independents will vote based on other priorities. Like maybe avoiding a single party Dem government with a toe-the-line Democratic party president, 100 vote Democratic majority in the House, and a filibuster proof Democratic Senate promising more taxes, more regulation, more spending programs, more money for faith based initiatives, less free trade, mandatory government service, etc. etc. None of that stuff comes into play if all the Independent voter cares about is Iraq. But as far as I can tell, Iraq as a distinguishing issue between these candidates just went away. Good on ya John.

X-posted at Donklephant.

Divided and Balanced.™ Now that is fair.

Technorati tags: Iraq, 2008 election, John McCain, Divided Government , Republican , Democrat, Maliki, Barack Obama .