Thinking Out Loud: Don't Rule Out Bush Just Yet

Tim Dunlop points to a piece in Counterpunch that invites the kind of "thinking out loud" that the blogosphere and the First Amendment allow. Amy Goodman and Jeremy Scahill rely primarily on remarks and documents from Joseph Wilson to point the finger at Karl Rove and/or Dick Cheney. They write this to contradict Cheney's MTP statement that he didn't know Wilson:

Wilson was formally commended by the Bush administration for his bravery and heroism in the weeks leading up to the war. In that time, Wilson helped evacuate thousands of foreigners from Kuwait, negotiated the release of more than 120 American hostages and sheltered nearly 800 Americans in the embassy compound. "Your courageous leadership during this period of great danger for American interests and American citizens has my admiration and respect. I salute, too, your skillful conduct of our tense dealings with the government of Iraq," President Bush wrote Wilson in a letter. "The courage and tenacity you have exhibited throughout this ordeal prove that you are the right person for the job." Wilson says that he heard from people who were at meetings chaired by Bush in the lead up to the Gulf War, "When people would come up with an idea, George Bush would often lean forward and ask them, 'What does Joe Wilson say about that_ What does Joe Wilson think about that_'

This more than answers the concerns of Glenn Reynolds and others as to why Wilson was picked for the Niger mission. Dunlop suggests that Wilson's record of service in his role as ambassador to Iraq during Bush I was the basis for his hiring:

[T]he VP's office interpretted Wilson's fine service to Bush I as evidence of partisanship rather than as what it was, evidence of integrity.

Let me offer a slight modification. The White House, perhaps the Oval Office, saw Wilson's record as one evincing loyalty to the Bush family and a team-player attitude. When Wilson wouldn't put himself on the record as supporting the Niger claim, that was disappointing. When he came out publicly and exposed the President as either an incompetent or a liar, all hell must have broken loose.

One of the Right's defenses on behalf of Rove in particular and the WH staff in general is that outing Plame seems such an ill-suited means to any conceivable end. Revenge does not pursue the rational course. Revenge combined with arrogance can be expected to take unwarranted risks for little or no practical gain.

More than 11 weeks passed after it became likely that someone in the White House had broken the law and presented a security risk. If the perpretrator was some over-zealous underling, how simple and wise it would have been to conduct an in-house investigation, fire the evil-doer and end it. What a risk it was to let this simmer until it has reached the current boiling point. The Right has a point that this story points to an irrationality on the part of the WH that strains credulity, unless...

One's theory of the case helps determine who is questioned and what questions are asked. Isn't it too early to assume that it could not have been the President of the United States who wanted to "get" Joe Wilson_

Plame Summary

The Eschaton alums at Corrente have a very good summary of the Plame Affair with accompanying discussion of a proper name for all this in the comments.

California Under McClintock: Back to the Future_

Calpundit pointed yesterday to a story in the Los Angeles Times about McClintock aide John Stoos's connection to the Chalcedon Foundation. The Sacramento Bee reports today that Stoos's role in the campaign is "under discussion" because of the controversy that has arisen because of his views.

I thought TRC readers might be interested in a June 17 piece that appeared here discussing Chalcedon in the context of Reconstructionism. It follows below.

Separating the Wheat from the Chaff

One thing that the Plame affair is accomplishing is distinguishing those bloggers on the right who think independently and truly value integrity from those who follow the party (the Republican Party, that is) line no matter what. Dan Drezner, who is taking a lot of heat, is an example of the former. Tom at "Tbogg" gives us the archetype of the latter as he excoriates the "sloppy logic of Glenn Reynolds whose credibility is rapidly approaching Ari Fleischer's."

I paid a visit this morning to Donald Sensing's "One Hand Clapping" expecting to find some leftover crow. Donald's initial reaction to the Plame story on Saturday morning was based on his personal experience as an attendee at a seminar where Joseph Wilson spoke. Sensing's impression of Wilson was a very positive one. He concluded his initial entry on the story with this:

I found Wilson to be expertly knowledgeable on the Middle East and quite sober-minded. I rate his credibility extremely high, so I find the charges he has made very credible and very disturbing.

He took something of a beating on this from the commenters and began to back off. By the last "update" to the entry, he was calling the story "manufactured."

By Monday evening, he was falling back to the "Novak denies she's covert" defense, but by Tuesday morning, he was ready to go on the offensive. "The Plame Affair -- a manufactured scandal_" was the headline. He writes:

This fact is almost convincing in itself, IMO, that the entire affair has been contrived by Bush opponents from the beginning. First, it is not at all clear that federal law was violated in naming Plame as a CIA employee. The law concerned makes it a crime to reveal the identity of a "covert agent ... [whom] the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States. ..." The law does not criminalize naming those who are not so protected. No evidence has been offered, by Wilson or anyone else, that Plame's employment fits into the protected category. The fact that Novak says the CIA itself confirmed her identity and employment to him decisively proves, again in my opinion, that her identity was not legally protected. The call for special counsel comes almost immediately on the heels of Wilson's complaints. Gee, that seems fast for "numerous Democratic leaders" to get their heads together on a matter so foggy. It almost seems like it was planned that way all along.

The comments began to pore in from Bush critics this time. I cited to him the MSNBC summary of the CIA's own referral that asserted that its agent's identity was classified and that the media would not have been able to guess her identity absent the leak. Another commenter referred Donald to WH Counsel Gonzalez's letter to WH staffers that acknowledged Plame's "undercover" status. I returned and left a comment pointing Sensing and his readers to Kevin Drum's excellent point-by-point refutation of Bush defenders' dodges.

I really expected to see some softening of Sensing's position by this morning. He might acknowledge that the story has moved right on through the "Novak defense line." It didn't happen. He spends this morning attacking Wesley Clark, trying to squeeze good news out of Iraq casualty numbers, and bashing Tom Daschle for wanting a special counsel appointed. Concerning the facts of the Plame affair, Sensing writes:

I am going to presume that by now everyone knows what that issue is about, and won’t waste space re-describing it.

He certainly won't waste space relating facts, most of which have come from the CIA, DOJ or the WH itself, that obliterate his analysis of the day before.

It's too bad. People can log on to the RNC site and get the party line. Maybe that's what Glenn Reynolds was suggesting this morning:

I don't have much trouble resisting people's efforts to bully me into advancing their agendas. What worries me more, in a way, are the friendly emails from people saying that they get all their news from InstaPundit. Don't do that! It's "InstaPundit," not "InstaNews Service." And this is, as Eugene properly notes, an amateur activity. I don't even get to blog all the stuff that interests me -- I've really fallen behind on space, guns, and even nanotechnology lately-- much less stuff that's important, but that doesn't interest me. What you get here -- as with any blog -- is my idiosyncratic selection of things that interest me, as I have time to note them, with my own idiosyncratic comments. What's more, to the (large) extent that it's shaped by my effort to play up stories that Big Media are ignoring, it's even more idiosyncratic. I hope you like it, but making it your sole source of news is probably not a good idea.

There must be a lot of pressure on widely-read pundits on the Right. Some of them are showing extraordinary integrity. Some are understandably waiting for more facts to develop before they commit themselves. But for some, it's clear that pundit = cheerleader.

Obscure Bible Passage of Day: Ezekiel 22:27-28

Its officials within it are like wolves tearing the prey, shedding blood, destroying lives to get dishonest gain. Its prophets have smeared whitewash on their behalf, seeing false visions and divining lies for them, saying, "Thus says the Lord God," when the Lord has not spoken. (NRSV)

Comment

It's an ancient partnership: the wolves and the whitewashing prophets.

Devouring Their Own_

The right-wing Internet news outlet NewsMax has turned its appetite for conspiracy on its own:

12) Many have wondered if Tenet has 'something' on the Bushes. Now many more are wondering who made those six phone calls - and who authorized them_

13) We need to reverse things: if the Clinton White House had sold out an active-duty CIA agent as 'payback' for some whistle-blowing article, we would be outraged. This crime is no less serious because it was done in a Republican White House.

14) Long ago, in a piece entitled "Bush's Achilles Heel," I wrote that this Bush's weakness was the entire mystery, secrecy and sometimes-illegality of the intelligence community. This Plame leak now threatens to become a huge story - involving lawbreaking, revenge, abuse of power and the inevitable cover-up. Plus the 10 Democrats running for President and the media are going to have a field day with it.

The myth of the well-disciplined, tightly run, "corporate-style" White House is dissolving.

Don't Miss These on the Plame Affair

James C. Moore, Co-Author of Bush’s Brain," The Political History of Karl Rove, explains why people would ever suspect that this leak traces back to Rove.

Daniel Drezner's most recent post and the comments following will give you a real feel for the way the Right is struggling with this story.

Two stories by my colleagues at Open Source Politics are not to be missed. Mark A. R. Kleiman helped keep this story alive through the late summer. He provides the overview here. Lilith Devlin explains why this story is important.

Ted at Crooked Timber dissects Scott McClellan's press conference yesterday and comes to the conclusion that he doesn't really deny any involvement on the part of Rove.

Obscure Bible Passage of the Day: Isaiah 59:1-8

See, the Lord's hand is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear. Rather, your iniquities have been barriers between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear. For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue mutters wickedness. No one brings suit justly, no one goes to law honestly; they rely on empty pleas, they speak lies, conceiving mischief and begetting iniquity. They hatch adders' eggs, and weave the spider's web; whoever eats their eggs dies, and the crushed egg hatches out a viper. Their webs cannot serve as clothing; they cannot cover themselves with what they make. Their works are works of iniquity, and deeds of violence are in their hands. Their feet run to evil, and they rush to shed innocent blood; their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity, desolation and destruction are in their highways. The way of peace they do not know, and there is no justice in their paths. Their roads they have made crooked; no one who walks in them knows peace. (NRSV)

Comment

Tough language from Third Isaiah condemning a lying, violent and corrupt leadership.

Christian Hawks No Longer Soaring

The reaction of the blogosphere's "Christian hawks" to the Valerie Plame affair reveals a new uncertainty and even disillusionment among those who looked to George W. Bush to "restore honor, dignity and integrity to the White House.

Responses to the revelations of the past few days fall into four categories:

Ignore the whole thing:

Catholic blogger Chris Burgwald writes a lot at Veritas about the alleged negative skewing of media coverage of Iraq, but as of Wednesday morning, there was not a word discussing the Plame scandal.

Protestant Mark Byron attacks Paul Krugman's blistering tone about Bush corruption in today's New York Times, but avoids mentioning the most recent accusations made against the administration.

Wait and see:

Joshua Claybourn links to Jeff Cooper and urges readers to learn more about the case without offering his own view yet.

Jeffrey Collins specifically endorses the "wait-and-see" approach while he counsels the White House to avoid the temptation to stonewall.

The guys in Fly Over Country think it's a serious enough matter to bring down Bush, but are reserving judgment and counseling patience until more facts are in.

Agonize about it.

Donald Sensing is obviously torn. He had seen Joseph Wilson at a foreign relations seminar and initially wrote this about him:

I happen to have been a seminar attendee in 1993 in which Wilson was a speaker one day. There were only about two dozen attendees, some of us military and others civilian government factotums from all branches of government. So we had very informal and engaging discussions with the daily speakers. I found Wilson to be expertly knowledgeable on the Middle East and quite sober-minded. I rate his credibility extremely high, so I find the charges he has made very credible and very disturbing.

As the comments from his conservative readers piled up, Sensing began to back off. Finally, he joined the "denial" crowd:

Bill Hobbs posts that Plame's "secret identity" probably wasn't ever really secret to begin with, and that Wilson is less balanced and sober-minded than he seemed to me to be 10 years ago, writing in The Nation that under Bush, "America has entered one of it periods of historical madness." So now I am starting to think that the whole doth stinketh of manufactured scandal.

This position, of course, ignores the substance of the formal request for investigation made by the CIA:

CIA lawyers followed up the notification this month by answering 11 questions from the Justice Department, affirming that the woman’s identity was classified, that whoever released it was not authorized to do so and that the news media would not have been able to guess her identity without the leak, the senior officials said.

Sensing has been transformed into the fourth category:

Engage in denial:

By this morning, Sensing was deeply immersed in denial and citing Robert Novak's careful phrasings to prove that no law had been broken.

It must be difficult for these people. The Plame Affair reveals the very heart of this administration. While they have claimed to put the security of the nation above all else, even to the point of dragging us into a war with little international support, it is now becoming clearer day by day that the national security is far less important to them than their own political power. Honor, dignity and integrity have vanished like so much mist. Some of us knew it was a mirage all along.

UPDATE: Chris Burgwald has posted here in response to my entry. I'll leave it to you to "classify" his views. Also, my apologies to Chris for initially misspelling his name and my thanks to him for his politeness in drawing my attention to it.

FURTHER UPDATE: Josh Claybourn has also posted in response, and basically maintains his position and his open mind. Someone commented on Calpundit's link to my post in a way that seemed to say I was criticizing the "wait-and-see" position. I'm not. It's quite reasonable at this point for those who support Bush and the war to take their time, see what facts come out, and digest all this.

FURTHER UPDATE: First, I owe Mark Byron an apology. He had mentioned the Plame matter in a posting about a number of matters over the weekend and I just missed it. He has now posted two extended discussions and recommends an independent counsel and jail cells for higher-ups if they ordered subordinates to leak.

Black/White Coalition

Ralph Luker highlights an unusual story out of Georgia that again involves a public display of the Ten Commandments. What's unusual is the rally last week that involved both a self-proclaimed Klan leader and members of an African-American congregation called House of Prayer.

Go here and scroll to 9-29.

The Forgetful Scribe

As the true character of the Bush administration reveals itself, it seems more and more likely that we will get to be as familiar with those who work in this West Wing as we once came to know Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Colson and Dean. Before this is all over, we can expect the revelations to include stories of ethics compromised and reputations squandered that are well-suited for TV melodrama if not Shakespeare.

One of the most fascinating figures in this emerging mini-series is Presidential speechwriter Michael Gerson. Nicknamed "the Scribe" by his boss, Gerson is one of the most influential speechwriters ever. His re-phrasing of David Frum's "axis of hate" into "axis of evil" in the 2002 State of the Union address has had a profound effect on foreign policy and the perception of Bush abroad. The Evangelical constituency considered so critical to Bush's re-election hopes are directed to him as their contact point with this administration. Faculty members at his alma mater, Wheaton College in Illinois, wrote him about the AIDS crisis, and Gerson wrote back suggesting they listen to the upcoming 2003 SOTU. Bush followed by announcing a $15 billion package. Both David Frum and Bob Woodward paint Gerson as a White House "insider" and Presidential confidant.

In college, Gerson was headed for the pulpit or the university lectern rather than the central corridors of power. He was studying theology at Evangelical Wheaton College when his writing style attracted the attention of born-again felon Chuck Colson. The former Nixon aide enlisted Gerson to help him write a book, and before long, Gerson was rising through the Republican ranks as an advisor to Dan Coats, Jack Kemp and Bob Dole. After a stint as a journalist with U. S. News and World Report , Gerson joined the Bush team.

Early in the adminstration, "the Scribe" was regarded as something of a progressive influence on Bush. E.J. Dionne Jr. called him "his party's best wordsmith when it comes to describing the struggles of the poor and the obligations of citizens to share each other's burdens." Greg Zoroya wrote in USA Today:

He is a true adherent of Bush's compassionate conservatism, who finds his writing inspiration in the moral intensity of speeches by John and Bobby Kennedy, and the civil rights movement. "I'm an extraordinary fan of Martin Luther King," Gerson says. "He had that rare ability to take a moment and place it in the context of our whole history."

Lately, though, he has been connected more closely with winning Congressional and public support for the war on Iraq. The personal trait that is being discussed more and more is not his faith, his intensity nor even his eloquence, but his forgetfulness. Again this Sunday on Meet the Press, Gerson's name was mentioned as someone who received the Tenant memo in October, 2002 discounting the reliability of the Niger uranium sale reports. Again, he was included among those who "forgot" that memo when it came time to draft the 2003 SOTU:

MR. RUSSERT: ...And then your top deputy, Stephen Hadley, on July 23, said this.

Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley told reporters that he received two memos from the CIA in October that cast doubt on intelligence reports that Iraq had sought to buy uranium from Niger to use in developing nuclear weapons. Both memos were also sent to chief speechwriter Michael Gerson and one was sent to national security adviser, Dr. Condoleezza Rice, Hadley said.

DR. RICE: ...It's a matter, Tim, that three-plus months later, people didn't remember that George Tenet had asked that it be taken out of the Cincinnati speech and then it was cleared by the agency. I didn't remember. Steve Hadley didn't remember. We are trying to put now in place methods so you don't have to be dependent on people's memories for something like that.

It may be time for Chuck Colson to have a "come to Jesus" talk with his former protege Michael Gerson about the dangers of getting entangled in the lies and forgetfulness of an administration desperately engaged in a cover-up. Unless, of course, Gerson has an interest in pursuing prison ministry too.

I Spoke Too Soon

Last week I lauded the people of Palmerston North, New Zealand for the civil tone of their discussion about whether a cross atop the city's clock tower should be removed. Things have deteriorated since then, and most of the usual roles we see in American dramas over religious symbols have been filled.

There's the leader of a right-wing nationalist party, New Zealand First, who has injected himself into this local controversy to defend Kiwi culture from "newcomers," especially Muslim newcomers. There's the atheist who's threatening to take the matter to the Human Rights Commission. The mayor asserts that "majority rules" should settle the matter in favor of leaving the cross up.

One city council woman is urging a cooling-off period before things get completely out of hand:

People are getting extremely emotional about the whole thing. It's not the right context for a decision to be made . . . I think it's the Palmerston North community's business but I don't think it's New Zealand's business. I just hope people can start becoming a bit calmer about it and think about the things that have been said.

What was it Rodney King said_

Display Problems

I now have received the second feedback form mentioning display problems with the site using IE. Apparently, some lines disappear within the entries. If others are having this problem, please use the feedback form to the left. Also, if anyone with expertise in MT has an idea as to the source of the problem, please use that same form. I use IE on all three of our computers and cannot reproduce the problem on any of them.

UPDATE: I've changed one setting on the stylesheet. Has this cured the problem for those who were having it_ Has it created a screen that is too wide for those who use Opera_ Your continued feedback is appreciated.

2ND UPDATE: I believe I've solved the problem with some modifications to the stylesheet. Let me know if you continue to have difficulties.

Point of Comparison

Edward Rothstein expresses skepticism in the Arts section of the New York Times about Maria Rosa Menocal's case for the existence of a tolerant, Muslim-dominated culture in the Andalusia of pre-Isabella Spain. Menocal, a professor of Spanish and Portuguese at Yale, writes in The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain that Andalusia's culture was "rooted in pluralism and shaped by religious tolerance" in a period of about three hundred years that lasted until 1030 CE.

This culture was centered in Cordoba, "the ornament of the world," and produced such scholars as the Muslim Averroes and the Jew Maimonides. It was marked, Menocal claims, by the participation of members of all three "religions of the Book" in governing and by tolerance for the practice of the minority faiths of Christianity and Judaism.

Rothstein is not convinced. He points to the violence that settled power struggles within the ruling class and claims that Christians and Jews were really "second-class citizens" in Andalusia. During this three hundred year "golden era," there were pogroms and massacres and forced exiles of religious minorities and Maimonides left town because of persecution.

Judging the Andalusia of the 1st millenium CE by the standards of 21st century America is unhelpful if we're looking for historical examples of pluralistic and tolerant societies. We learn the most about a culture when we first compare it to its surrounding environment before evaluating it in light of our own principles and standards. Otherwise, we are saying little more than, "people were sure primitive back then."

A strong argument can be made that our culture is as tolerant and peaceful as any in the history of the world, yet we are facing ever-greater challenges as inter-cultural contact brought about by globalization continues to increase. As far as we have come, we must go even further, and we must encourage other cultures to do the same. Efforts like that of Menocal to find instances of tolerant, pluralistic cultures in the past should not be easily dismissed. Of course, Rothstein is right that 10th century Andalusia was not an ideal world, but the success that culture enjoyed in being uniquely tolerant and diverse for its time can serve as an example for us in these difficult times.

For a more positive assessment of Menocal's book, I recommend two sources. Back when he still met the standards to write for The Nation, Christopher Hitchens discussed Menocal's book and finds the Andalusia she portrays to be a place "where civilization touched a point hardly surpassed since fifth-century Athens." Christian Science Monitor reviewer Jane Lampman notes the role that Cordoba played in rescuing Europe from the "Dark Ages."

The Right Christians Expanding...

...with the help of money from Nigeria. I haven't received one of these e-mails yet but it must be on the way. If Montana reporter Lorna Thackeray, who describes herself as "obscure," has received an offer from Mrs. Gloria Shinkaffi, surely The Right Christians will be on the list. Here's the deal. Mrs. Shinkaffi is a recent convert to Christianity. She's dying and doesn't know what to do with the $5 million she has received from her husband. No doubtedly moved by the Spirit, this is her idea:

I selected your organization/ministry as one to benefit from this gesture upon recommendation as a result of your status quo,” she informs me. “I am willing to donate the sum of $5 million to your ministry for the development of evangelism and also for the less privileged around you.

Our "status quo" is as highly recommended as they come. And think what I could do to build the readership of The Right Christians. We could start with a mass e-mailing campaign...