Will Dubya stand hat in hand or act like a man? All eyes and ears -- and mouths -- are focussed on what he could, should and finally, what he will do to lead us out of the desert. Above, Tuck's hat, gloves, umbrella and briefcase form a still life with the remnants of our Thanksgiving Lite table decor.
"What he did for the father, Baker is now poised to do for the son," writes in-house token voice of the right Jeff Jacoby in The Boston Globe with what we used to call "thinly veiled contempt":
This week, the Baker-led Iraq Study Group formally presents its report to President George W. Bush. Its key recommendations are reportedly that US troops in Iraq be gradually withdrawn and that the United States turn to Iran and Syria for help in reducing the violence. One study group member, speaking to The New York Times, summed up the bottom line : "We had to move the national debate from whether to stay the course to how do we start down the path out."
The president will be urged by many to waste no time implementing the Baker group's ideas. Which is indeed what he should do -- assuming that he has come around to favoring defeat in Iraq, the death of the doctrine that bears his name, and the empowerment of the worst regimes in the world. If, however, Bush prefers success to failure and would rather live up to, not abandon, the principles he has articulated in the war against radical Islam, he should politely accept the ISG report and then do the opposite of what it recommends.
Otherwise, as someone wrote yesterday -- unfortunately, we couldn't locate the source -- our enemies will know they have nothing to fear, while our allies will be reminded that you can't count on the US in a pinch. As we wrote our dear blogfriend Barry Campbell -- rock Republican and familiar of Mr. Gato and the Chows -- in the comments in response to his declaration of support of what he calls "Adult Supervision in the form of James Baker":
We have two things to say about Realpolitiker James Addison Baker III:
1. He abandoned our Iraqi friends once our military had chased Saddam's goons out of Kuwait. That only made things worse down the line.
2. What's this thing about negotiating with terrorists/terrorist sponsors? I know in my weak horse/strong horse bones that to talk -- and I'm not referring to back-channel talks, which I am given to understand are always in the mix -- with Iran and Syria is to feed the enemy's fantasy that they are winning.
Our hope -- we know, we know, it's not a strategy -- is that GW will take Jeff Jacoby's advice and do the opposite of what the Iraq Study Group recommends. There are several other "studies" being leaked and/or published this week, so there's plenty of cover and plenty of food for thought out there to keep the talking heads busy. "Tell me I'm crazy, maybe I know," but our gut tells us Bush Pater -- who caved to the smarmy Senator George Mitchell and betrayed those of us who had trusted him when he said "Read my lips, no more taxes" -- is part of God's plan only inasmuch as he fathered the man of the hour. We voted for George W. Bush for President. We did not vote for Regent Baker to take over the reins of government when the going got tough. Things are complicated in that Baker was the family consigliere who took care of things when the Gore lawyers tried to confuse the stupidest of our fellow Americans with visions of hanging chads back in November and December of 2000. Lots of mischief spilled out of that Pandora's Box, but we've got work to do and a relentlessly "anti-democratic" media to do battle with, as we've known -- again in our bones -- for years but is now documented in a scholarly tour de force by Jim A. Kuypers, assistant professor of communication in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences at Virginia Tech [via Little Green Footballs]:
Convincingly and without resorting to partisan politics, Kuypers strongly illustrates in eight chapters “how the press failed America in its coverage on the War on Terror.” In each comparison, Kuypers “detected massive bias on the part of the press.” In fact, Kuypers calls the mainstream news media an “anti-democratic institution” in the conclusion.
“What has essentially happened since 9/11 has been that Bush has repeated the same themes, and framed those themes the same whenever discussing the War on Terror,” said Kuypers, who specializes in political communication and rhetoric. “Immediately following 9/11, the mainstream news media (represented by CBS, ABC, NBC, USA Today, New York Times, and Washington Post) did echo Bush, but within eight weeks it began to intentionally ignore certain information the president was sharing, and instead reframed the president's themes or intentionally introduced new material to shift the focus” . . .
The book is essentially a “comparative framing analysis.” Overall, Kuypers examined themes about 9-11 and the War on Terror that the President used, and compared them to the themes that the press used when reporting on what the president said.
“Framing is a process whereby communicators, consciously or unconsciously, act to construct a point of view that encourages the facts of a given situation to be interpreted by others in a particular manner,” notes Kuypers.
Oh, and did you know? Ratzinger's fellow Bavarian-by-birth Henry Kissinger has agreed to become an advisor to Pope Benedict XVI. Reframers of the debate are already on the case, positing a Papal-Jewish conspiracy to destroy Islam. Always all about them.
More food for thought just in from Donald L. Horowitz at the Journal:
If the Iraq Study Group thinks the road to peace in Iraq runs through Iran and Syria, it has missed the point. Neither country has had any interest in fostering stability at a price we would or should be willing to pay. The only chance for peace in Iraq lies in changing the Kurdish-Shiite deal so that the Sunnis are incorporated into an undivided federal Iraq with a real central government, limited regional autonomy, and a new agreement on the distribution of oil revenue . . .
There are three main options facing Iraq. One is gloves-off repression. The second is protracted conflict, gradual partition, large-scale ethnic cleansing, and the prospect of external intervention or even outright warfare among states in the region. The third is a last-ditch political effort to reconstitute an Iraq that keeps it whole and includes Sunni interests. This alternative aligns the U.S. squarely with ethnic inclusion and territorial integrity, both worthwhile causes, and with Iraqi political forces whose agenda happens to coincide with ours . . .
Keeping all the contending groups attached to Iraq would be a major achievement. If, however, this plan fails, nothing will be lost over and above what is already lost. For the U.S. administration, the plan is an attractive option, for it offers what the electorate demanded: real progress or a drawdown of troops. President Bush's newfound power, paradoxically produced by an election loss, makes this a serious option and the threat underlying it credible with the Iraqi regime. There is no reason not to go down this road.
So much contention, so little time. We're encouraged by this headline from the NYT this morning:
Amid Hints Bush Will Change Iraq Policy, Clues That He Won’t
As Lucianne comments, "Hints? Clues? Engage brain before typing, and use the phone."
Kuypers is as a guiding light in the fog of liberal academia and the MSM.
Posted by: goomp | December 04, 2006 at 09:21 AM
we shall see about the President...
i sort of feel we failed the Man.
certainly he is, nor is his Administration, perfect, but in context with the rest of the folly in Washington, they have done well since 9-11.
but we asked him, at least it seemed at the time, to agressively go after the various threats posed in the World, especially in the Arab Region, and then many grew impatient when some aspects proved difficult.
i guess, i feel this President and his Administration, deserved a greater defense from the unethical MSM partisans desperate to undermine.
'Kuypers calls the mainstream news media an “anti-democratic institution”'
no doubt about it...
that study is deeply concerning.
how can our Nation determine sound policy and healthy governance with this unethical manipulation?
Stalin's Pravda would be impressed.
Posted by: hnav | December 04, 2006 at 12:22 PM
Anymore I'm not sure where the President stands or what he will do. One thing is sure, he and the Republicans still don't know how to do end runs around the media machine. Not to mention the fact that many times they don't even appear to be trying.
As usual, we'll have to watch and wait for a response of some sort. Will he stand up and say "we stay the course until the job is done"? or will he say, "oh, I guess you want us to leave now, so we will because it will make the Mr. Baker happy"?
Posted by: Teresa | December 04, 2006 at 01:16 PM
(Sissy, I answered your observations/questions in e-mail and in the old post, but am copying the response here as well.)
(1) Yes, the US, at the time, decided against continuing the fight on into Iraq once Kuwait was liberated, and that decision just looks wiser every day;
(1a) We *did* in fact toss *some* of our enemy's enemies (a more precise description than "allies" or "friends") to the wolves after Gulf War I; on the other hand, we gave the Kurds (for example) nothing more than a decade of air cover and they emerged with a functioning de facto government. Lesson learned, the "friends" have to do the bulk of the heavy lifting themselves, which none of the current crowd of "friends" aside from the Kurds are prepared or able to do, and
(2) Depending on how you define the terms "negotiate" and "terrorist," almost everyone does it, including Israel. Hell, "our man" in Iraq right now, Mr. Nouri al-Maliki, is beholden to the Shia terrorist strongmen of Iraq as his power-base in the current war of "all against all."
Unless we intend for our grandchildren to be in that wretched country as an occupying force, we'd damned well better find *someone* with power to negotiate with, and as for the other side's "fantasies" of winning, those Shia "fantasists" are currently kicking our collective asses; when that happens, unless you intend to press for *all-out* war against *all* of those who oppose you (show of hands? anyone?) you negotiate.
You may find realism damnable in this situation, but so far, historically, realpolitik has a much better record in that region than neoconservative nation-building.
Posted by: enrevanche | December 04, 2006 at 03:52 PM
enrevanche's grandchildren will be Muslims if his views prevail.
Posted by: goomp | December 04, 2006 at 05:00 PM
>> enrevanche's grandchildren will be Muslims if his views prevail.<<
Disengaging from this disastrously botched, incompetently conducted battle is prudent. So is planning to win the long-term war, which our current strategy or any variation on it simply will not do.
Posted by: enrevanche | December 04, 2006 at 06:45 PM
The assumption that Mr. Baker will in any way direct the policies of the President of the United States is ludicrous and demeans the intelligence and strength of this good man. Certainly Mr. Bush will listen to Mr. Baker. He will listen to a lot of people. But then, I believe, he will make his own decisions based on a far broader base of information available to him than any single adviser can (or indeed should) possess.
I still believe in the fundamental decency and resolve of this good man, George W. Bush. He has been the target of nearly inconceivable rage and hatred for 6 years and still is able to hold his head high - which is far beyond the ability of ANY of his detractors. They would be in a rubber room by now, had they been subject to the same unreasoning, foaming-at-the-mouth hysterical invective.
Posted by: Gayle Miller | December 05, 2006 at 04:49 PM