Michael R. Gordon's Iran Reporting -- Iraqi WMD Redux?

I just sent this Letter to the Editor of the New York Times.

August 8, 2007

Re: Michael R. Gordon's Iran Reporting -- Iraqi WMD Redux?

Dear Editor,

I was dismayed to read Michael R. Gordon's article, "Iran-Supplied Bomb Is Killing More Troops in Iraq, U.S. Says" (August 8, 2007). Citing Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno and unnamed "American military officials," Mr. Gordon and his editors once again allow government officials to use the news pages of the New York Times as a propaganda sheet.

Mr. Gordon's entire article consists of unsupported assertions by military officials that Iran is responsible for the deaths of American soldiers. Once again, readers are forced to ask: Has the New York Times learned nothing from the Judy Miller fiasco? How can Times editors allow its journalists to repeat bellicose government propaganda uncritically, without a trace of skepticism, and without bothering to do the most basic research about the claims made by the government?

With Mr. Gordon's August 8 article, the New York Times once again effectively vouches for the truthfulness of the administration's claims about Iran's complicity in the death of Americans in Iraq -- despite the dubious and widely-disputed nature of those claims, without providing any context for, or doing the most basic research about the likely veracity of, those claims. Instead of skepticism and actual research into the veracity of the government's claims, Mr. Gordon's article simply passes on the claims, barely pausing to introduce such phrases as "according to military officials" and "military officials say."

At one juncture in his article, Mr. Gordon actually asserts that "American intelligence officials have presented evidence that the weapons come from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iran," without troubling himself to describe the alleged evidence to his readers!

The quality of the New York Times' Iraq coverage, as evidenced by the stenographic work of Mr. Gordon and his editors, is lamentable. It was bad enough that the New York Times failed to function as an independent news organization during the run-up to the Iraq war. But it is absolutely inexcusable that the Times is rushing down this same path once again.


Sincerely,

[Eric]

Tom Friedman: Still a Clown on Iraq

Tom Friedman has a column (behind the subscription wall) in today's New York Times, titled Only Halfway There. Here's the central point of Friedman's column, in his own words:

But if Democrats really want to be taken seriously on foreign affairs, they need to recognize that they have only half a policy on Iraq.

I don't know about you, but my jaw just about hit the floor when I read that. Can you think of anyone less entitled "to be taken seriously on foreign affairs," less qualified to be giving foreign policy credibility lessons in the wake of the Iraq debacle, than Thomas Friedman?

But hey, "don't play with matches" is good advice, even when it comes from an arsonist, right? So let's see if Friedman has a point, despite having served as one of the most influential cheerleaders for the disastrous Iraq war and notwithstanding his near-perfect record of total misjudgments concerning Iraq since 9/11.

Here is Friedman's first paragraph, in its entirety:

I’m glad Democrats are keeping the pressure on President Bush for a withdrawal date from Iraq. It’s the only way to keep him and Iraqis focused on the endgame. But if Democrats really want to be taken seriously on foreign affairs, they need to recognize that they have only half a policy on Iraq. And it’s the easy half.

So Democrats need to come up with the "other half" of the Iraq policy in order to be taken seriously on foreign affairs. And what would that be? Friedman purports to answer his question in the following paragraph:

You can’t be in favor of setting a date to withdraw from Iraq without also being in favor of a serious energy policy to radically reduce our dependence on oil — now. To call for withdrawing from Iraq by a set date, no matter what the situation is on the ground there — without a serious energy plan here — is reckless. All we would be doing is making ourselves more dependent on an even more unstable Middle East, because any U.S. withdrawal from Iraq is likely, in the short run, to be destabilizing.

Sorry, but that doesn't make any sense.

First, "being in favor" of a serious energy plan to "radically reduce our dependence on foreign oil" is very different from actually reducing America's dependence on foreign oil in the near-term. The Democrats -- who have just re-taken the House and the Senate and do not control the White House-- don't have the ability to implement a radical change in energy policy in the short term. Can Friedman really not understand this? I am tempted to think that Friedman's emphasis on Democrats "being in favor" of his preferred energy plan is a concession to this reality.

Incredibly, Friedman never makes clear whether he is saying that (1) Democrats cannot credibly advocate withdrawal unless they also advocate Friedman's energy plan, or (2) any credible Iraq plan must make withdrawal contingent on first implementing Friedman's energy plan. But it doesn't really matter, since both arguments are basically absurd, for essentially the same reason.

For either of the arguments Friedman might be making (i.e., (1) or (2)) to make sense, it would have to be the case that staying in Iraq somehow mitigates the effects of lacking Friedman’s preferred energy policy. In other words, not having (or not advocating) Friedman’s preferred energy policy only counts as a reason not to leave Iraq (or not to advocate leaving Iraq) if staying in Iraq somehow compensates for not having (or not advocating) Friedman’s energy policy.

After all, Friedman isn’t just saying “Hey, I have a good idea for a new energy policy.” Rather, he’s saying, “It doesn’t make sense to leave Iraq unless you also implement (or advocate) my ideas for a new energy policy.” But… why? Whether or not Friedman’s ideas about energy policy are good ones, why should accepting them be pre-conditions for leaving Iraq? Here’s the best that Friedman can manage:

All we would be doing is making ourselves more dependent on an even more unstable Middle East, because any U.S. withdrawal from Iraq is likely, in the short run, to be destabilizing.

But how would leaving Iraq make the United States more dependent on Middle East oil? It's almost certainly true that any U.S. withdrawal from Iraq is likely to be destabilizing in the short run. But how does short term destabilization entail increased dependence on foreign oil? Put differently: how is it that staying in Iraq makes the United States less dependent on Middle East oil than it otherwise would be? None of this makes sense.

Thomas Friedman, ladies and gentlemen. Still a clown when it comes to Iraq.

Maureen Dowd's Latest: Vicious Meme Queen Strikes Again

Maureen Dowd's column in today's New York Times, titled "Monkey on a Tiger," is an unbelievably dumb "pox on both their houses" piece about how both Democrats and Republicans just can't help themselves and keep "reverting to type", i.e., Congressional Democrats keep being a bunch of weak, ineffectual, fence-straddling feminist hippies and leading Republicans (Bush, McCain) keep plowing ahead on the Iraq war.

In addition to being characteristically twitty and substance-free, Dowd's column is also an occasion for her to promote vicious memes about Democrats. And that's the nature of Dowd's power, her special gift: even though she plainly isn't knowledgable (or even well-informed) about politics or public policy, she is a very, very talented crafter and promoter of successful memes, or images, about politicians and political parties.

Here's Dowd's opening paragraph:

There was a touch of parody to the giddy Democrat takeover this week: Nancy Pelosi indulging her inner Haight-Ashbury and dipping the Capitol in tie-dye, sashaying around with the Grateful Dead, Wyclef Jean, Carole King, Richard Gere, feminists and a swarm of well-connected urchins.

This is how Dowd portrays Democrats: ridiculous, San Francisco-based, childish, unserious, self-indulgent, beholden to feminists and movie stars and stoners. Needless to say, Dowd's opening paragraph is entirely gratuitous and totally substance-free -- but it sets the stage for any discussion of Democrats by Dowd: first, they must be ridiculed.

After the ritualistic mockery, Dowd makes stuff up in order to promote the idea of Democrats-as-hypocrites:

The first act of House Democrats who promised to govern with bipartisan comity was imperiously banishing Republicans from participating in the initial round of lawmaking. Even if Republicans were brutes during their reign, Democrats should have shown more class, letting the whiny minority party offer some stupid amendments that would lose.

This is pure, unadulterated bullshit. The Democrats did not campaign on a blanket promise to "govern with bipartisan comity." Rather, Pelosi and Congressional Democrats explicitly campaigned on a promise to enact new legislation to "drain the [GOP] swamp" within the first 100 hours after assuming control of the House!

Was Maureen Dowd actually unaware of the Democrats' 100 Hours pledge? Or did she know about it but choose to misrepresent the facts instead, to conform them to the vicious spin she was promoting? And which would be worse, rank incompetence or gross dishonesty? For what it's worth, the Democrats' 100 Hours platform was hardly a secret -- here is an excerpt from an AP article by David Espo published in the Washington Post on October 10, 2006:

WASHINGTON -- Franklin Roosevelt had his first hundred days.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi is thinking 100 hours, time enough, she says, to begin to "drain the swamp" after more than a decade of Republican rule.

As in the first 100 hours the House meets after Democrats _ in her fondest wish _ win control in the Nov. 7 midterm elections and Pelosi takes the gavel as the first Madam Speaker in history.

Day One: Put new rules in place to "break the link between lobbyists and legislation."

Day Two: Enact all the recommendations made by the commission that investigated the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Time remaining until 100 hours: Raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour, maybe in one step. Cut the interest rate on student loans in half. Allow the government to negotiate directly with the pharmaceutical companies for lower drug prices for Medicare patients.

Broaden the types of stem cell research allowed with federal funds _ "I hope with a veto-proof majority," she added in an Associated Press interview Thursday.

All the days after that: "Pay as you go," meaning no increasing the deficit, whether the issue is middle class tax relief, health care or some other priority.

To summarize: Maureen Dowd misrepresented the facts -- just invented her own facts -- in order to portray the Democrats' fulfillment of a clearly-articulated campaign promise as hypocritical and lacking in "class." Could Maureen Dowd possibly be a bigger hack?

Here is Dowd's concluding line about Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats:

Perhaps the Democrats’ power-shift into overdrive is a neurological disorder, or neuropolitical disorder.

Now that's rich! Maureen Dowd -- vacuous, vicious and utterly indifferent to the truth -- thinks that the Democrats suffer from some sort of "disorder."

Maureen Dowd is a Sexist Idiot

The vicious, superficial, Gore-bashing, Democrat-baiting, GOP-meme pushing, High School Kewl Kid pundit Maureen Dowd is back in full form. Her column in today's New York Times, titled "Squeaker of the House" (subscription required), is a hit piece on Nancy Pelosi that recycles all the inane (and GOP-friendly) memes elite Beltway pundits have been repeating ad nauseam about Pelosi and Democrats in the past couple of weeks, with a heaping dose of sexism thrown in for good measure.

Dowd leads off her column by repeating Botox jokes about Nancy Pelosi and Hilary Clinton:

Ted Olson, the former solicitor general and eloquent Republican lawyer who argued the Bush v. Gore case before the Supreme Court, was warming up the rabidly conservative Federalist Society crowd for John McCain with a few sexist cracks about Botox.

The new Congress could amuse itself, he said, by “searching for any sign of movement in Speaker Pelosi’s forehead.” The Senate, he added, would be entertained by “the expressionless, Pelosi-like forehead of Senator Clinton.”

Let's be clear about what Dowd is doing here: she's circulating these sexist memes about Pelosi and Clinton. Her column isn't about the "eloquent" Ted Olson or the "rabidly conservative Federalist Society Crowd" -- it's about Nancy Pelosi. And these are the ideas Dowd chooses to push in that context. Of course, immediately after pimping the Botox jokes, Dowd adds:

It reminded you of just how idiotic Republicans can act sometimes.

Idiotic? I'm not so sure. Rather, I'd say these "rabid conservatives" have Dowd's number -- they know they can count on her, and twits like her, to repeat and promote this hateful stuff.

Dowd continues:

The only thing worse than hearing the first female speaker of the House filleted in such a lame way was seeing the first female speaker of the House flail around in her first big week in such a lame way. It reminded you of just how idiotic Democrats can act sometimes.

Nancy Pelosi’s first move, after the Democratic triumph, was to throw like a girl. Women get criticized in the office for acting on relationships and past slights rather than strategy, so Madame Speaker wasted no time making her first move based on relationships and past slights rather than strategy.

Here's Dowd's argument: Even worse than Ted Olson's sexist cracks about Pelosi and Clinton is the fact that sexist stereotypes about the shortcomings of women in professional settings are actually true of Pelosi, judging by Pelosi's conduct to date as Speaker-elect of the House of Representatives. The sexists are right about Pelosi! Politically speaking, she "throws like a girl." Wow! That's quite a charge. But here's what Dowd comes up with by way of evidence for this startling claim:

Instead of counting votes behind closed doors or even just choosing the best person for majority leader, Ms. Pelosi offered an argument along the lines of: John Murtha’s my friend. He’s been nice to me. I don’t like Steny. He did something a long time ago that was really, really bad that I’m never, ever going to tell you. And I’m the boss of you. So vote for John.

Let me be charitable about this: Maureen Dowd has no idea what she's talking about. Let me be uncharitable about this: Maureen Dowd is a sexist idiot.

Dowd stumbles across the phenomenon of politics, as if for the first time. Had she given this a moment's thought, or had she consulted with someone with an actual interest in politics, she would surely have discovered that loyalty is an exceedingly important factor in making political decisions, that "just choosing the best person" is not a meaningful option in this context, any more than it would be in the context of choosing a husband or a wife.

Dowd takes this mundane reality about politics and the political process -- that loyalty and a history of cooperation are important factors in forging political alliances -- and renders it in crude, sexist terms for the sole purpose of belittling Pelosi. Consider Dowd's trademark manufactured quotes. Apparently Pelosi said something "along the lines of" "He’s been nice to me. I don’t like Steny." Where does this come from? It comes from Maureen Dowd. Maureen Dowd literally invents quotations to mock Pelosi as an irrational schoolgirl! Could Dowd be more of a hack?

Dowd then considers Nancy Pelosi's opposition to Jane Harman as Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Dowd writes:

Everyone in Washington was perplexed at Ms. Pelosi’s ham-handed effort to sabotage not only Mr. Hoyer but her former friend and fellow Californian, Jane Harman. In what looks like another self-defeating personality clash, she has been maneuvering to bypass the senior member of the House Intelligence Committee and give the chairmanship either to the ethically challenged Alcee Hastings of Florida or a compromise candidate, Silvestre Reyes of Texas.

Everyone in Washington was perplexed by this? Of course, that is an outright falsehood. Pelosi is widely known to disapprove of Harman's performance on the House Intelligence Committee, on the grounds that Harman has been insufficiently partisan and has demonstrated a Lieberman-like propensity to defend the Bush Administration, notably over the warrantless wiretapping program. That Pelosi doesn't like the idea of Jane Harman -- a prominent Democratic hawk and feverish early supporter of the Bush Administration's Iraq policy -- as Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee indicates good judgment on Pelosi's part. It doesn't make sense to entrust the leadership of key House Committees that will be tasked with investigating the Bush White House to Democrats who have been fellow-travellers of the Bush Administration and whose reputations could be damaged as a result of these investigations.

And what does Dowd offer up by way of evidence that Pelosi's opposition to Harman amounts to nothing more than a "self-defeating personality clash"? She quotes "one top Democrat who knows both women". Here's the quote:

“Jane was very aggressive about going on TV; she was on TV so much she could have gotten a SAG card,” said one top Democrat who knows both women. “Nancy resented that and felt Jane was leeching attention away from her leadership role. That had a lot to do with poisoning the relationship.”

What do you even say about this kind of stuff?

So we've come full-circle. We're back to the good old Bill-and-Monica, War-on-Gore days. Maureen Dowd is back, in full form. Yuk.

UPDATE @ 6:00 PM

A few of Maureen Dowd's Greatest Hits:

* Maureen Dowd comlains that Gore and Kerry "allowed themselves to be painted as girlie men" -- having herself been an incessant portrayer of Gore and Kerry as girlie men.

* Maureen Dowd makes up the phony "Who among us doesn't like NASCAR" quote.

* Maureen Dowd writes that Kerry is struggling to prove his manhood to George W. Bush.

* Maureen Dowd says that Kerry is coming off as "Bush's woman" on Imus.

* Maureen Dowd writes of Gore that he "has to pay a fortune to a woman [Naomi Wolf] to teach him how to be a man," and generally makes stuff up to push the meme of Gore as a phony.

* Maureen Dowd ridicules Gore's beard in 2001, likens him to Pepe Le Pew.

Telegrams from Outer Space: David Brooks Edition

David Brooks wrote another characteristically boneheaded op-ed piece in the NYT yesterday, titled "The Grand Delusion." And yes, the irony of the title is completely unintended. Brooks does his best work (illustrating the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of "moderate" Republicanism) by accident.

Here's my favorite part of the op-ed:

To his eternal credit, after 9/11 George Bush quickly understood that the terror threat was fundamentally an ideological threat, a product of deep historical consciousness.

What do you even say to a guy who thinks Bush deserves "eternal credit" for understanding the fundamental nature of the terror threat? Isn't that just completely and totally wrong, in an Orwellian up-is-down way? Isn't the truth of the matter that Bush's "understanding" of the terror threat is fundamentally cartoon-like? Look, you may or may not agree with me that Bush is an imbecile and that his access to objective reality appears to be so tenuous as to be virtually non-existent. But to claim that Bush deserves "eternal credit" (eternal!) for apprehending some elusive truth about the real nature of the "terror threat" is just, well, boneheaded.

Front Page News at the New York Times

On the front page of the NYT website right now, they're running a fawning love letter to Donald Rumsfeld by David Cloud. This hard hitting journalism is headlined "Rumsfeld Also Plays Hardball on Squash Courts."

You can't make this stuff up. Reports the intrepid Cloud:

In some ways, squash offers a window into Mr. Rumsfeld’s complicated psyche, revealing much about his stubborn competitiveness and seemingly limitless stamina. Pentagon officials and employees say Mr. Rumsfeld’s play closely resembles the way he has run the Defense Department, where he has spent six years trying to break the accepted modes of operating.

And this:

On the court, “he is very aggressive and he is very intense,’’ Mr. Di Rita said.“He is very good at getting inside your head. He’s everything you would expectDonald Rumsfeld to be.”

And in case you were looking for it, here's the bit they threw in by way of an excuse to put this drivel on the front page of the most valuable newspaper real estate in the entire world:

Mr. Rumsfeld himself has suggested that his ideas about transforming the military into a smaller, more agile force, like the one he pushed for in invading Iraq, were influenced by his squash playing.

In an interview with the military writer Thomas P. M. Barnett last year, Mr. Rumsfeld said, “I play squash with him,” gesturing at Mr. Di Rita. “When I pass him in a shot and it’s a well-played hard shot, I saw [sic] speed kills. And it does. If you can do something very fast you can get your job done and save a lot of lives.”

I'd make a joke about what a crap squash player he must be if military ideas were influenced by his game, but it's obviously just a cheap laugh line the reporter wrote into the article, not even a recent quote.

So what's an article like this doing on the front page of the NYT at the height of election season, with one war raging in the background and another one possibly in the works? I don't know, but this line makes it sound like Cloud thinks this Elizabeth Bumiller-style portrait is the price to pay for lining up a squash date with Rumsfeld: "Mr. Rumsfeld has declined invitations to play against reporters, as well as to describe his game for this article."