Indicting the Popular Consensus
May 23rd, 2006According to this column and a former NSA Director, Patrick Fitzgerald is going after Dick Armitage, Colin Powell’s former Deputy, and not Karl Rove. I haven’t written about the leak for awhile, and I ignored this report that Rove had been secretly indicted because, as anyone with half a knack for history will attest, “secret” typically means “doesn’t exist.” Richard Nixon’s plan to end the War in Vietnam, or Kerry’s for Iraq, for instance. Besides the fact that secret leaks such as this one typically mean fraud or deception, Fitzgerald is not a man who leaks. This isn’t a Bush-league Kenneth Starr we’re talking about.
Now, about the article: if it is true that Fitzgerald is going after Armitage, I’d be thrilled. While I can’t deny that I would love to see Karl Rove do jail time, and I’m certain that he was very much an integral part of this whole fiasco, the Fitzgerald Prosecution is not about seeking out members of the Bush White House: it’s about Valerie Plame and all that entails. This spin doesn’t make sense to me, however: Armitage was against the War. Why would he seek to discredit Wilson? Why would he out Plame? It doesn’t add up, and it seems, to me, to be an attempt to spin Fitzgerald’s investigation by redirecting focus frm Rove.
If Armitage does wind up indicted, and proof that he’s the target arises, by all means that’s excellent. But I’m not so sure I buy this report anymore than I bought the TruthOut one — and I was right in that case. Caution is an excellent thing to have, and it’s one of the reasons Fitzgerald is so deliberate — so excellent!
If you’ve read more than a handful of my entries, I am sure you’ve come across my attacks on conventional wisdom. Today, the WSJ debunks the myths about the Iraq War, and, humorously, its debunking itself needs a debunking from someone who wholeheartedly supported, and supports, the Iraq War. That person is me.
The myths he debunks, in reverse order, are that “Promoting democracy in the Middle East is a postwar rationalization”; “Because weapons of mass destruction stockpiles weren’t found, Saddam posed no threat”; “The Bush administration pressured intelligence agencies to bias their judgments”; and “The president misled Americans to convince them to go to war.” I find no problem with his debunking of the first two, but the last ones are surely not myths. Bush was absolutely misleading, about the costs of War and about what we knew about his capabilities. Donald Rumsfeld declared that we know “where they [WMD] are” at one point, remember?
So the WSJ gets it half-right. They’re batting .500. That’s better than they usually do once I’m through lobbing a forkball down the middle of the plate.
Amongst Conservatives, the Conventional Wisdom is that, since the 1960s, Liberals have substituted “feeling for deep thought” and have now gone into the ditch. This ignores the fact that Conservatism is the ideology which attracts some of the shallowest positions and politicians in politics. Despite the facts, there are those who charge that Deep Liberal Thought is Dead.
I will say this: I think the “Give Peace A Chance” doctrine of some modern Liberals (oh Ramsey Clark, at what Communist Convention art thou?) is shallow and reactionary much like some Hard-Right Nuke the World ideas are ridiculous. Sometimes, there are shoddy Liberal ideas or phrases, too, that aren’t very deep or meaningful. It’s certainly the same with Conservatives. But, in my view, it is absurd to declare Deep Thought of any sort to be dead. To defend Liberalism!
Democrats have to run campaigns. They have to appeal to the public. Sometimes that means simplifying their positions into catchphrases. Perhaps the author doesn’t understand the basics of politics, that you have to simplify your message to get it across. If he wants to read deep Liberal Thought, he can find it in a million different bookstores or Libraries. If he genuinely believes that thirty second commercials should be loaded with deep political thought, he’s dreaming. And if he wants to mislead his reader into believing that Liberalism is devoid of modern thought, he can keep on doing what he’s doing.
I will say, to close, that the article was spurred, by his admission, because Harry Reid called the Senate bill making English the official language “racist.” Isn’t it? It’s a reactionary move meant to belittle diversity. The author argues that it’s a reasonable way to maintain American identity. Well, we haven’t had an official language through millions of immigrants before. American identity isn’t going to be helped by something like this, and our identity is in no need of rescue. America’s identity is strong. And its identity, aside from a beacon of freedom, is as the melting pot. Maybe the author would understand that if he’d taken “Government 101.”
Reid’s reply to the bill wasn’t particularly deep, to be sure. It didn’t have to be, as the bill itself was shallow and worthy of ridicule. That’s simple enough, eh? Although I’m sure that somehow though I know not how this proves Liberal Thought dead!