Rob's piece about the “do anything to win” moral relativism exhibited by many well-known conservative Republicans shook loose a few cobwebs and reminded me of a Rick Perlstein commentary from July titled The Church of Bush.  This is a must read for anyone disturbed by what I would describe as a conservative messianic cult of personality that has become the bedrock of support for the Bush-Cheney re-election effort.  Perlstein culls much of the material for this piece from going to a small GOP sponsored “Parties for the President” gathering in Portland, Oregon and comes away convinced that modern American Conservatism has increasingly cut itself loose from its own admirable intellectual traditions in favor of a bewildering modern day “Divine Right of Kings.” 

The conventional wisdom about this election is that Bush will avoid major combat in Iraq until after the election in order to mute criticism of the disaster there.  However, it is very possible that the Bush Administration, for reasons of political expediency, will attack Fallujah earlier.  Such an attack would make it difficult for Sen. Kerry to attack his Iraq policy, demonstrate that Bush is a strong leader, and undercut one of Bush's greatest weaknesses in the Iraq war, his handover of almost all of Western Iraq to Sunni extremists.  Furthermore, such a move would be in line with Bush's reputation as a political gambler.

Such an interpretation seems to be backed up by evidence of U.S. action in the Fallujah area.  On Sunday, two U.S. soldiers were killed at a logistics base on the western outskirts of Baghdad.  Yesterday, seven U.S. Marines were killed in a suicide bombing attack near Fallujah.  All of this activity may presage an early move on Fallujah.

Why would Bush take such a risk?  Because the payoff would be great.  A successful Fallujah operation would mute Kerry's criticism of Bush's Iraq mess.  Remember that during the month of August, Kerry's numbers slipped during fighting in Najaf.  Furthermore, any attacks on Bush's war leadership during an offensive could make Kerry look like a political opportunist, seeking advantage in the polls at the expense of the boys overseas.  Kerry's hands would thus be tied.

Furthermore, Fallujah is the biggest blot on Bush's war record.  The President told the nation that the Iraq Governing Council was going to communicate “with the insurgents to ensure an orderly turnover of that city” and insist that “those who killed and mutilated four American contract workers be handed over for trial and punishment.”  Yet these things never happened.  The killers of the contract workers were never brought to justice and Fallujah, like Ramadi and most of Western Iraq, remains in the hands of insurgents.

Furthermore, it might do much to strengthen the terror-Iraq linkage.  Zarqawi, the terrorist responsible for many of the worst acts of terror in Iraq, seems to have taken up residence there.  Killing or capturing him might make the dubious terrorism-Iraq link seem stronger in the minds of wavering Americans.

Finally, Bush is a gambler.  Indeed, the entire Iraq invasion was a gamble--based on the flawed premise that an overwhelming conventional victory in Iraq would result in the Arab world moving away from the support of anti-U.S. elements in their midst.  An attack on Fallujah before the election would be in keeping with known Bush behavior.

Although such a strategy is not without risks, a clean up of the Fallujah mess might provide the President with a boost.  Bush could prove his war credentials by launching an offensive, and Kerry could not attack him for it.

The solution for Kerry is simple.  The drumbeat must advance on economic issues first, Iraq second.  The first is the area where he will reach the undecideds and leaners and the second is an area where the base is already convinced.

The concept of personal responsibility is under attack.  Forces opposed to the idea that a person is responsible for his or her acts and should face their consequences have made a recent appearance on our shores.  Surprisingly, the assault comes not from the lefty pinkos who are named as the usual suspects in such attacks, but from the Right.

The Right has now come to embrace the worst sort of cultural relativism.  Its pundits and politicians attempt to explain away many of the more glaring examples of personal failure with relativist language which it once condemned.

At the top of these shameless moral relativists is one Rush Limbaugh, a righty pundit who apparently has a “radio show” where he preaches daily to “dittoheads,” persons who apparently lack the ability of thought and merely ditto their leader’s rants.

When news of the Abu Ghraib tortures first came to light, Rush told America that they should take it easy on the people who engaged in torture at the Iraqi prison.

"You know, these people are being fired at every day. I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You heard of need to blow some steam off?"

According to Mr. Limbaugh’s philosophy of moral action, should a person suffer stress or emotional dissonance, striking another in one’s custody is OK.

But Rush isn’t the only person on the Right embracing the new moral relativism.  Examples of it seem to popping out all of the time.  Take, for example, the ballooning budget deficit.  Republicans are certain that despite the fact that they hold both houses of Congress and the White House, that the massive tax cuts and uncontrolled pork spending they have engaged in are not the cause of the problem.  According to President Bush, “[t]he reason we are where we are, in terms of the deficit, is because we went through a recession, we were attacked, and we're fighting a war.”   Not a mention of the huge tax cuts or spending increases.

The President seems to be involved in several of these incidents of moral relativism.  For example the so-called “Intelligence Failure of the CIA.”  According to the purveyors of this theory, President Bush was not responsible for the Iraq disaster, it was the CIA, who failed to warn him that his entire strategy in the war on terror sucked.   Had he had the good data, the theory goes, he would have never have gone to war in Iraq.  Of course the theory does not meet head on the idea that as an element of the Executive Branch, it was Bush who was responsible for making sure the CIA was doing its job.  No mention either of the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans, the outfit responsible for most of the failed intelligence involved in the Iraq debacle.

These new moral relativists are slowly destroying the most conservative American value: personal responsibility.  Their moral relativism does not square with the noble idea that the captain, as leader of the ship, should go down with it.  The American electorate has not forgotten.

A while ago, in a speech before the Democratic Leadership Council, Bill Clinton suggested that people who feel uncertain preferred somebody who was “strong and wrong” to somebody who was “weak and right.”  What was originally a critique of the Democratic Party's fumbling on national security was of course criticized at the time as a vicious attack on President Bush, but recently it seems like an apt description of the quality of the commentary and analysis provided by our beloved media.  While I understand that we rely on experts, pundits, journalists and the actual subjects of media attention to enlighten us on the finer points of the issues of the day, I am often struck by how little of their output actually turns out to be true or even bears any resemblance to observed reality.

A couple questions: First, how many times have you picked up a newspaper or turned on the TV to find forceful public figures making bogus statements with near impunity, and, far from being critically taken to task for it, are often praised for their insight, or at the very worst, elicit grudging admiration for their audacity?  Secondly, how many times have you had to listen to the same talking heads with the unimpeachable credentials and long track records of professional incompetence offer up pie in the sky wishful thinking as sober analysis?

The reason I ask these questions is that we're going through a period in this nation's history in which we've seen one catastrophic policy disaster after another, and yet if you pay attention to those supposedly in the know there seems to be no one to blame and no definite answers as to how we got here, merely conjecture.  Much of what happens to this country relies on the integrity of its public debate and truth be told we're not well served by those who are supposed to be moderating that debate by giving us the tools to sort out the issues.  Instead the Fourth Estate seems determined to play the role of passive onlooker and or accomplice to the machinations of those acting in bad faith and the American people are often the worse for it. 

In my last post I wrote about how our system demands that the media hold public figures accountable for what they do and say and that includes so-called experts and opinion makers.  So in this “bombast for all and accountability for none” media circus where some views are more equal than others I offer the following suggestion:

2.)  If they're consistently wrong, stop taking them seriously!

I like to think of this as the Richard Perle rule so here goes:

People that have demonstrated a long history of deceit and malfeasance should not be treated as experts, nor should they be given a platform to influence public debate.  Moreover, as a rule,if these people are allowed to contribute to our national debate, they should always be challenged to backup everything they say and do.  Everything!

Truth be told, the people we rely on to hold forth usually have a long track record of positions and statements that even a little research would easily discredit.  So somebody dust off that long lost tool know as “the follow-up question” and use it aggressively.  Think of it not as “trust but verify,” but “verify then trust.”

Hint:  How long do you think the sad red-baiting of the 1950's would have gone on if somebody had actually cornered Joseph McCarthy on the day he announced the list of Communists working at the State Department and then demanded that he produce real evidence and not merely wild accusations?

Okay, that's a veryspeculative question but you can see what I'm getting at. Now how about this?

Hint:  Would you believe me if I told you that there was a group of national security policy experts writing reports in the late 1970's saying that the Soviet Union was not only militarily superior to the U.S., but that its bankrupt command economy would soon surpass the United States in GDP growth?  Now, would you be surprised if I told you many of those same experts were most recently in charge of planning and promoting the Iraq war?

Sadly, Wolfowitz, Bolton, Ledeen, Feith and the rest of the gang are virtually assured subsidized positions of influence in the cozy world of conservative Washington think tanks, but I can't help wondering how much less damage they could have done if someone had long ago discredited they Pax Americana dreams and openly questioned their personal and professional integrity.  When I use the word “questioned” I'm not just talking about Tim Russert playing gotcha with quotes like, “Senator, you said this in 1991, but said the exact opposite in 2002, what gives?”  Instead it's about forcing these people to defend their actions, ideas and statements; it's about weeding out base and false assertions that poison our public debate; and, if the notorious few somehow attain positions of power, it's about being suspicious of their every move.

I know we can't always have perfect information nor are we always willing to call a spade a spade, but many time in our history a healthy skepticism and a strong push for accountability has helped us as a nation to change course when we've needed to.  Ultimately it all comes down to protecting the public good by doing all you can to ensure the integrity of our ongoing public debate called Democracy.  I realize in the fast-paced world of our 24/7 new cycle that the media probably won't be that brave, but it should be.....for our sake, if not its own.

We here at the Iron Mouth have studiously attempted to avoid being aggegators--many others have fulfilled this role far better than we ever could.  But an article appeared in the Village Voice which we could not ignore.  Written by Rick Perlstein, author of the excellent Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus, the article says so much about the recent Republican National Convention that it must be read.  Please read Passionate Conservatism: Karl Rove's Republicans Swerve Right on the Way to the Middle.

Hat tip to: Atrios.

Policy issues aside, there is something that has been lacking in President George W. Bush's speech delivery for a long time.  This, more than any of the errors which have dogged his Presidency, is responsible for his slow downward arc in the polls.

The phenomenon was first noticeable in his 2004 State of the Union message, but it has grown.  The disastrous April 14 press conference gave us our most startling example of how much the President has lost the ability to communicate with the voters.

The President is no longer the convincing, genuine man he was even a year ago.  The tiny smirk he used to display before delivering jabs at his opponents, a characteristic that used to enrage Democrats like myself is gone.  Instead, a close examination of the man on television shows that his lip now bends down in a half frown on its left side, as if somewhere inside something is deeply troubling him personally. 

Compare these photograph from a period right after September 11, 2001 with these recent photos, including one from last night's speech.

Bush's use of the television camera is no longer what it used to be either.  Before, his technique of staring right into the camera when delivering key lines was a welcome change from the old style of ignoring television’s existence.  It engaged the viewer and strengthened the President's message.  It now seems rehearsed and lacks its earlier effect.

Similarly, for some time now, Bush's eyes have seemed to dart around, as if looking for a response--it’s as if he is looking for a reaction from the audience instead of trying to evoke it in them.

The President's loss of his ability to connect with the voters is more responsible for the steady erosion in his polling than the problems in Iraq or the economy.  Had Bush been able to give a Churchillian Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat speech, the country might have rallied around him, despite the difficulties.  Instead, his own apparent lack of confidence has led to a credibility gap which has brought him to the brink of losing the White House.

Tonight George W. Bush will accept the nomination of his party for four more years in the highest office of the land.  In those four years, the nation has seen terrorists attack our soil, three years of ruinous war, tax cuts targeted towards the wealthy, the return of enormous deficits, hundreds of dead American servicemen, the breakdown of alliances which had kept the peace for nearly fifty years and most worrying, the erosion of the liberties we as Americans hold most dear—in short we have seen an America that has lost its way—an America led astray.

Looking back on these four years I think it important that we compare where we were the last time a President asked the nation to allow him four more years as the Chief Magistrate.  On August 29, 1996, in the heart of our country, Chicago, William Jefferson Clinton asked his fellow citizens to elect him once again.  Here are excerpts from his speech that night:

Four years ago, you and I set forth on a journey to bring our vision to our country, to keep the American Dream alive for all who were willing to work for it, to make our American community stronger, to keep America the world's strongest force for peace and freedom and prosperity.

Four years ago, with high unemployment, stagnant wages, crime, welfare, and the deficit on the rise, with a host of unmet challenges and a rising tide of cynicism, I told you about a place I was born -- and I told you that I still believed in a place called Hope.

Well, for four years now, to realize our vision we have pursued a simple but profound strategy -- opportunity for all, responsibility from all, a strong united American community.

Look at what's happened. We have the lowest combined rates of unemployment, inflation, and home mortgages in 28 years. Look at what happened -- 10 million new jobs, over half of them high-wage jobs; 10 million workers getting the raise they deserve with the minimum wage law.

A tax cut for 15 million of our hardest working -- hardest pressed Americans, and all small businesses.

Our country is still the strongest force for peace and freedom on Earth.

The federal work force is the smallest it has been since John Kennedy. And the deficit has come down for four years in a row for the first time since before the Civil War, down 60 percent on the way to zero. We will do it.

I believe that Bob Dole and Jack Kemp and Ross Perot love our country, and they have worked hard to serve it. It is legitimate, even necessary, to compare our record with theirs, our proposals for the future with theirs. And I expect them to make a vigorous effort to do the same.

But I will not attack. I will not attack them personally or permit others to do it in this party if I can prevent it.

My follow Americans, this must be -- this must be a campaign of ideas, not a campaign of insults. The American people deserve it.

I want to build a bridge to the 21st century in which we create a strong and growing economy, to preserve the legacy of opportunity for the next generation by balancing our budget in a way that protects our values, and ensuring that every family will be able to own and protect the value of their most important asset, their home.

Let me say again, every tax cut I call for tonight is targeted; it's responsible; and it is paid for within my balanced budget plan. My tax cuts will not undermine our economy. They will speed economic growth.

My fellow Americans, I want to build a bridge to the 21st century that makes sure we are still the nation with the world's strongest defense; that our foreign policy still advances the values of our American community in the community of nations. Our bridge to the future must include bridges to other nations, because we remain the world's indispensable nation to advance prosperity, peace and freedom, and to keep our own children safe from the dangers of terror and weapons of mass destruction.

We have helped to bring democracy to Haiti and peace to Bosnia. Now the peace signed on the White House lawn between the Israelis and the Palestinians must embrace more of Israel's neighbors. The deep desire for peace that Hillary and I felt when we walked the streets of Belfast and Derry must become real for all the people of Northern Ireland.

My fellow Democrats and my fellow Americans, I know that in most election seasons foreign policy is not a matter of great interest in the debates in the barber shops and the cafes of America, on the plant floors and at the bowling alleys. But there are times -- there are times when only America can make the difference between war and peace, between freedom and repression, between life death. We cannot save all the world's children, but we can save many of them. We cannot become the world's policeman, but where our values and our interests are at stake, and where we can make a difference, we must act and we must lead. That is our job, and we are better, stronger, and safer because we are doing it.

Let us commit ourselves this night to rise up and build the bridge we know we ought to build all the way to the 21st century. Let us have faith -- and let us have faith -- faith -- American faith that we are not leaving our greatness behind. We're going to carry it right on with us into that new century -- a century of new challenge and unlimited promise.

Let us, in short, do the work that is before us, so that when our time here is over, we will all watch the sun go down -- as we all must -- and say truly, that we have prepared our children for the dawn.

My fellow Americans, after these four, good, hard years, I still believe in a place called Hope, a place called America.

Thank you, God bless you, and good night.

But don't just read it, hear President Clinton speak his own words. (Requires Real Player) Find Here

By popular demand, Comments are now on.  Play nice.  Talk amongst yourselves:  Suggested topic:  Tony's Take on Zell and Fake-Medal George.

Today's the 65th anniversary of the Germans' Blitzkrieg on Poland, and here is the poem W.H. Auden wrote about it. Always a puzzling disavowal, Auden wished it deleted from his vast collected work. Few people can.

Yours -- E.K. (Got Comments? Write me at ekblog@yahoo.com)

SEPTEMBER 1, 1939
by W.H. Auden

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.

Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.

Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.

Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism's face
And the international wrong.

Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.

The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.

From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
"I will be true to the wife,
I'll concentrate more on my work,"
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the deaf,
Who can speak for the dumb?

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.                                ©1940 W.H. Auden

On September 1, 1939, lightning hit and killed 835 sheep that had been bedded down for the night on the top of Pine Canyon in the Raft River Mountains of Box Elder County in northwestern Utah. Rain from a passing thunderstorm wet the ground and sheep, causing the lightning's electrical discharge to move completely through the herd of female sheep and lambs. The next morning, fifteen sheep (out of 850) were found alive but in a dazed condition. The sheepherder was knocked temporarily unconscious, but escaped death because he was in a tent. However, burned spots on his canvas tent revealed he probably missed the fate of the sheep by only a slim margin. (Text and photo courtesy of the Utah Center for Climate and Weather and the National Weather Service.)

Lots of ink and hand wringing about the state of the Kerry campaign appeared out of nowhere yesterday on the evening news and the Internet.  Suddenly the air is full of "Kerry shake-up" rumors.  Of course when you look close its always "Democratic sources outside the Kerry campaign” who are predicting the gloom and doom.  These sources are of course never named.  The Iron Mouth calls for truth in news: they are “Democratic sources angling for a job.”   

What about the timing?  I'm willing to bet that on any given day, there are a large number of “Democratic Sources outside the campaign” who are anxious to let the world know of their plan for the Kerry effort.  So why does the story “break” on day 2 of the GOP convention?  Enter the Television Producer--the person whose job it is to find “stories” to play on the news.  The Producer calls a few people he knows, perhaps on Zell Miller's staff, who will gladly tell him the candidate is in trouble.  Thus TV news drama is heightened--and Bush handlers don't call the Network to threaten banishment to the overflow press room for the Network's correspondents because they led with a story explaining that the President of the United States had to change his position on the winnability of the War on Terror. 

Let's face it--Kerry had a tough two weeks--but that's to be expected.  Bush planned his big SBVT push to be during the month of August when Kerry would be laying low, trying to save money because he had an extra month in which he had to make his $75 million work.  So it is nearly inevitable that Kerry would take a hit at this point in the campaign.

But the fact of the matter is this, campaigns go in cycles and sometimes you're up and sometimes you're down.  We need some of that ol' Clinton toughness--the kind that got us through a real scandal--one where our guy did do something wrong.  So stick to your guns John.

Ponder and deliberate before you make a move.

Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Can We Win The War on Terror?

Yesterday morning, President Bush was asked by Matt Lauer of the Today Show if the War on Terror could be won.  The President replied “I don’t think you can win it. But I think you can create conditions so that the — those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world.”  Bush was wrong.  The War on Terror could have been won.  But the Administration failed to see the War on Terror in coherent policy terms.  This strategic failure continues to this day and threatens to result in defeat for the United States.

The goal of the United States in the War on Terror should have been simple—to dismantle terrorist networks planning to attack the U.S. by physically capturing or killing their members and destroying their ties to the communities which supported them.  Thus a proper strategy for the United States in the war would involve an all-out attempt to capture the leaders and footsoldiers of al Qaeda, coupled with a public-relations blitz to separate the Arab masses and terrorist funders from al Qaeda’s brutal brand of Islam. 

A quick application of the ideas of the celebrated military theorist von Clausewitz supports this conclusion.  Clausewitz held that war was state policy by means of force.  A corollary to this concept was that the center of gravity of resistance to this policy must be identified and blow after blow must be directed towards it.  In popular uprisings of the sort similar to today’s terrorist campaigns, Clausewitz held that personalities of the uprising’s leaders and public opinion were the center of gravity. Clausewitz also advised that the best way to begin a war was with the defeat and destruction of the enemy’s fighting forces. 

Yet this Administration has never approached the War on Terror with anything approaching a coherent strategy of any type.  Although it acted to quickly eliminate the Taliban and the terrorist training camps as Clausewitz would have advised, it quickly lost focus once major military operations in Afghanistan ended.  It never adopted a unified strategy with which to pursue the goal of eliminating Islam-inspired terrorism aimed at the United States.  Major al Qaeda leaders remain alive to inspire, if not direct, their followers.  Rather than capture these leaders and take down their networks, the Bush Administration instead sought to graft the major thrust of its pre-September 11th Middle East policy—eliminating the régime of Saddam Hussein—onto the War on Terror. 

Setting aside theories that the War on Terror was a smoke-screen for neocons to fulfill pro-Israel wish lists, the Administration apparently hoped an attack on Iraq would result in victory in the War on Terror.  According to the most coherent of these dubious theories, Islamic peoples surrounding the new successful Iraqi democracy would demand the same of their leaders, somehow causing Muslim public opinion to accept pro-Western values.  Other theories implied that American victory over Hussein would make anti-American elements in Islamic countries cower in fear.  Even on their face these two ideas suffer from an incompatibility which has played a large role in the looming specter of an American defeat in Iraq, a defeat sure to embolden our enemies and balk our friends.

This war is not lost, however.  But the chances of victory are much less now.  Victory requires twin Gordian feats:  a stable Iraq must be created while drawing out the troops necessary to hunt and kill terrorist leaders, and the massive damage created to world public opinion by the ill-conceived adventure in Iraq must be reversed.  It is clear that a second Bush administration can do neither.