The Romance of Halberstam
The accidental death of David Halberstam, onetime war correspondent and author of The Best and the Brightest (1972), has inspired the sort of mournful, sometimes impassioned, obituary language reserved for deceased journalists. THE SCRAPBOOK, in its wisdom, looks upon this as a form of professional courtesy: Only among journalists, after all, is the death of a journalist a national calamity.
Yet Halberstam's demise has yielded an unexpected chief mourner: Democratic foreign policy guru Richard Holbrooke, who first met Halberstam in 1963 when Holbrooke was a Foreign Service officer in Saigon. Holbrooke wrote an op-ed memoir in the Washington Post about Halberstam's Vietnam reporting ("In long overpowering sentences, he conveyed deep anger and a sense of betrayal") and recounted what he must have assumed was a charming story about Halberstam and fellow journalist Neil Sheehan who, in Holbrooke's word, "despised" the senior U.S. commander in South Vietnam, Gen. Paul Harkins. "After some wine," wrote Holbrooke, "they conducted a mock trial of the four-star general for incompetence and dereliction of duty. In his rumbling, powerful voice, David pronounced Harkins 'guilty' of each charge, after which Neil loudly carried out the 'sentence': execution by imaginary firing squad against the back wall of the restaurant."
Next, Holbrooke turned up in a brief Halberstam essay by George Packer in the New Yorker. Once again, Halberstam's dyspepsia was front and center: He felt a "personal, vengeful rage" against American officialdom in South Vietnam, according to Packer, and at a Fourth of July party at the ambassador's residence in Saigon--THE SCRAPBOOK could see this coming--"refused to shake hands with General Paul Harkins." Then Holbrooke made an interesting observation: "David changed war reporting forever," he said to Packer. "He made it not only possible but even romantic to write that your own side was misleading the public about how the war was going."
From THE SCRAPBOOK's perspective, this was one of those unintentionally revealing moments, for not only did Holbrooke capture the essence of the Halberstam mythology in one sentence, but he diagnosed everything that has gone wrong with American war journalism in the half-century since Halberstam and Neil Sheehan passed through Saigon.
Of course, it was always possible for American journalists to write critically about their "own side" in wartime--even George Washington had his detractors--but until Halberstam (and others) it was not considered "romantic." Now, alas, such pathology in journalism is not just pertinent to careers, but obligatory for success. It certainly explains the determination of the media to concentrate on failure, to marshal its facts in support of ideology, and to regard its "own side" with suspicion and hostility, no matter the circumstances. As legacies go, David Halberstam's is mixed: "Romantic" it may be--but highly destructive, too.
Debating the Moderators
THE SCRAPBOOK can't tell you who won the first Democratic and Republican presidential debates--truth be told, we're not convinced debates matter at all--but we can say who lost: the media. Faced with two 90-minute windows in which to showcase no less than 18 presidential contenders, the producers at MSNBC opted for the most confusing, superficial, and pretentious format possible.
First, to go along with the many candidates, there were needless multiple moderators--two for the Democrats (Brian Williams and David Stanton) and three for the Republicans (Chris Matthews, John Harris, and Jim VandeHei). Then there were the silly "Show of Hands . . ." questions, in which the moderators asked candidates to raise a hand if "you believe there is such a thing as a global war on terror" or do "not agree--believe--in evolution." But the cameras never showed clearly which candidates raised their hands and which did not.
There were the absurd time restrictions, in which candidates had to tell America how they would win--or lose, as the case may be--in Iraq and extend health care insurance to every American, whether they like it or not, in 60 seconds or less. And there were the Trivial Pursuit questions, as in Jim Vandehei's demand that Rudy Giuliani explain "the difference between a Sunni and Shia Muslim"--the complex details of which have about the same importance to U.S. foreign policy as the difference between a Methodist and a Lutheran. Giuliani answered correctly, incidentally--no doubt to the chagrin of everyone who thinks conservatives are the "stupid party." Speaking of which, maybe next time Vandehei can ask Barack Obama who coined that phrase. We won't hold our breath, however.
Alas, there were no time restrictions on the moderators, who would interrupt the candidates at the 61- or 31-second mark only to go on to ask a question in three different ways, or confront a candidate with an overly long, conventional Beltway interpretation of his or her flaws. The highpoint--or lowpoint--was when Delaware senator Joe Biden turned the tables on Brian Williams:
WILLIAMS: Senator Biden, words have, in the past, gotten you in trouble, words that were borrowed and words that some found hateful. An editorial in the Los Angeles Times said, 'In addition to his uncontrolled verbosity, Biden is a gaffe machine.' Can you reassure voters in this country [as opposed to the voters in Belgium?] that you would have the discipline you would need on the world stage, Senator?
BIDEN: Yes.
The audience laughed uproariously, and Williams could barely conceal his embarrassment. Life is full of simple pleasures.
Dana Milbank Is Confused
In a war on terror speech last week, President Bush talked about al Qaeda. In his May 3 Washington Post column, Dana Milbank informed his readers that Bush mentioned al Qaeda 27 times. For Milbank, who apparently counted, that was 27 times too many.
"It's time to play the Qaeda card," he observed snottily. Milbank thinks talking about al Qaeda in Iraq is a ploy by a scheming White House to change the subject away from "sectarian strife and civil war in Iraq." Interesting theory. Someone forgot to tell the president. Shortly after Bush began talking about the war on terror, he also said this: "The terrorists and extremists and radicals set off a wave of sectarian violence that engulfed that young democracy's capital. It threatened to destabilize the entire country."
Milbank also repeated the mainstream media myth that "al Qaeda had no ties to Iraq before the U.S. invasion in 2003," this time sourcing the claim to a report by the Pentagon Inspector General. Better, apparently, to cite a non-expert like the IG--a glorified auditor--when most people who might actually know something about the subject say otherwise. Like former CIA director George Tenet for one, who writes in his new book that "there was more than enough evidence to give us real concern about Iraq and al-Qa'ida." Or former Iraqi prime minister and longtime CIA asset Ayad Allawi: "I believe very strongly that Saddam had relations with al Qaeda. And these relations started in Sudan. We know Saddam had relationships with a lot of terrorists and international terrorism." Or Barham Salih, deputy prime minister of Iraq: "The alliance between the Baathists and jihadists which sustains al Qaeda in Iraq is not new, contrary to what you may have been told. I know this at first hand. Some of my friends were murdered by jihadists, by al Qaeda-affiliated operatives who had been sheltered and assisted by Saddam's regime."
And, in any case, the Pentagon IG report never claimed that "al Qaeda had no ties to Iraq" before the war. Oops.