Joe Klein Strikes Back
We mocked Time columnist Joe Klein in this space last week for credulously reporting that the White House had decided to "destroy" Brent Scowcroft (top adviser to Bush's father, and mentor to Secretary of State Condi Rice) because of Scowcroft's complaints about the Iraq war. The basis for Klein's accusation? An unnamed "prominent Republican" who claimed to have received "talking points" on "how to attack" Scowcroft from the White House but who "was so disgusted that [he] deleted the damn e-mail" before reading it. The actual email, we pointed out, was a well-reasoned, and civil, response to Scowcroft's arguments.
Well, Klein wasn't about to take this affront lying down. He emailed an angry rejoinder to The Scrapbook last week under the cleverly benign heading, "Your Item About My Column." But we weren't fooled. To the contrary, we were disgusted. We sensed a vicious personal attack on The Scrapbook--in keeping with the scurrilous methods of the Mainstream Media (MSM)--so we deleted the email before reading it, as we do with all our hate mail. But trust us, it was probably unbelievably vile. . . .
Okay, we're joking. We did get an email from Klein, but it wasn't really an attack. "Thanks for confirming that the White House did indeed send out a memo disputing Brent Scowcroft's opinions," Klein wrote. "That helps make the larger point of my column, which you neglected to mention: the Bush administration has spent too much energy spinning the war and paid not nearly enough attention to figuring out how to fight an ever-growing insurgency. Perhaps you didn't mention my main argument because you agree with it?"
Umm, no, actually. We didn't mention Klein's "main argument" because it struck us as preposterous and uninteresting, whereas the anecdote about the unread email struck us as preposterous in a different way, and quite interesting to boot. The "main argument," captured in the headline "The Perils of the Permanent Campaign," was not reality-based. There is a permanent campaign in Washington--but it's the one launched by George W. Bush's enemies starting with the Florida recount, and relenting only briefly in the six months after 9/11.
We think the insurgency in Iraq, while deadly serious, cannot fairly be depicted as "ever-growing." No, the main thing this page faults the Bush administration for is not spending nearly enough energy countering its critics, thereby allowing them to utter ever more outlandish untruths about the war in Iraq with scandalously little rebuttal. Answering Scowcroft's critique is the sort of thing the White House should be doing more of--and the president should liberate his subordinates to do so publicly, and on a daily basis.
We are amused, we'll admit, at what Klein somehow neglects to mention: Our apparently unanswerable criticism of his source. It's funny how many of the reporters who intone about "the president's unwillingness to admit error" (a Klein phrase) share that trait themselves.
Academic Freedumb
On June 8, 2002, detecting "grave issues of academic freedom and due process" in the case, the American Association of University Professors formally denounced the University of South Florida for taking steps to terminate the employment of a faculty member alleged to be an operative of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. AAUP investigators had "all the information needed" to evaluate the "charges presently articulated and the evidence presently available," the association confidently announced. And none of it amounted to squat: USF computer science professor Sami al-Arian's public statements "fell well within the ambit of academic freedom," and the terrorist connections attributed to him were "too insubstantial to warrant serious consideration as adequate cause for dismissal."
Last week down in Tampa, however, during closing arguments in the martyred professor's federal terrorism-conspiracy trial, even his own attorneys felt obliged to acknowledge, as one of them put it, "that Sami al-Arian had an affiliation with the people in Islamic Jihad." There's "no question about it," co-counsel William Moffitt agreed; his client had "lied" about his involvement with the group for years.
Does that fall well within the ambit of academic freedom, one wonders?
Also: Doesn't the AAUP owe the University of South Florida one heck of an apology, already?
Abramoff and Bongo
You can't make this stuff up, alas: In 2003, according to Philip Shenon's November 10 story in the New York Times, ex-lobbyist and onetime GOP wunderkind Jack Abramoff--who, besides being under indictment in Florida on wire fraud and conspiracy charges, is the subject of ongoing investigations by the Justice Department and the Senate Indian Affairs and Finance committees--offered to arrange a meeting between President Bush and Omar Bongo, president of the West African nation of Gabon since 1967. Abramoff's price: $9 million.
"Our good friend . . . felt it would be helpful if I were to outline in a letter the current situation relating to the prospects of our working together," Abramoff wrote Bongo in a July 28, 2003, letter released two weeks ago as part of an Indian Affairs Committee document dump. "Our firm"--that would be Greenberg Traurig, where Abramoff worked at the time--"is one of the very top lobbying and public affairs firms in the nation." And "we have a wealth of powerful corporate and government clients." And "our success rate is exceptional." Included with the letter was a draft lobbying contract for the $9 million, which was to be paid, curiously, not to Greenberg Traurig but to Grassroots Interactive, one of Abramoff's many shell companies. Abramoff's closing line: "With high regard and much admiration."
Bongo didn't accept the offer. But the letter got us thinking: What sort of man earns Jack Abramoff's "high regard" and "admiration"?
From the State Department's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, Gabon edition, circa 2003:
The Government's human rights record remained poor; although there were some improvements in a few areas, serious problems remained. The Government continued to limit citizens' ability to change their government. Security forces reportedly beat and tortured prisoners and detainees, prison conditions remained harsh, and security forces sometimes violently dispersed demonstrations. Arbitrary arrest and detention were problems. Authorities routinely infringed on privacy rights. The Government continued to restrict freedom of the press and movement. Violence and societal discrimination against women and noncitizen Africans continued to be problems. Forced labor, child labor, and trafficking--particularly in children--remained problems.
It's not all bad, though: According to the State Department report, "there were no political killings during the year." Fine company Abramoff was keeping.
Annals of Neoconservatism
"As that uber-neoconservative Hermann Goering told his trial at Nuremberg: 'Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.'"
( New Statesman, Nov. 14, 2005)
"George W. Bush does not appear in his book. Neoconservatives do: Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) is mentioned a couple of times, and Pat Robertson gets his share of attention."
("Sociologist" Alan Wolfe, reviewing Jimmy Carter's Our Endangered Values in the Washington Post, Nov. 6, 2005)