Rumsfeld's "Heckler"
The story line was compelling: A face-off between a beleaguered secretary of defense and a brave former intelligence professional. "Rumsfeld Heckled by Former CIA Analyst" blared the headline on the ABC News website. The AP reported that a "former CIA analyst, Ray McGovern, asked [Donald Rumsfeld], 'Why did you lie to get us into a war that caused these kind of casualties and was not necessary?'" When we Nexised "Ray McGovern and Rumsfeld" last Friday, the day after their confrontation during Rumsfeld's appearance in Atlanta, 50 stories turned up.
What all but one failed to report was the relevant fact that McGovern is not simply a veteran of the CIA but a hard-left conspiracy theorist who blames the Iraq war on "O.I.L." As McGovern that night told MSNBC's Tucker Carlson, the only member of the mainstream media with the elementary curiosity to broach the subject, O stands "for oil; I for Israel; and L for logistics, logistics being the permanent . . . military bases that the U.S. wants to keep in Iraq."
McGovern's extremism on the subject is no secret. He was the star witness in June 2005 at a mock impeachment hearing organized in the basement of the Capitol by John Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee. As Dana Milbank reported at that time in the Washington Post, McGovern "declared that the United States went to war in Iraq for oil, Israel and military bases craved by adminis,tration 'neocons' so 'the United States and Israel could dominate that part of the world.' He said that Israel should not be considered an ally and that Bush was doing the bidding of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. 'Israel is not allowed to be brought up in polite conversation,' McGovern said. 'The last time I did this, the previous director of Central Intelligence called me anti-Semitic.'"
Milbank further reported that "at Democratic headquarters, where an overflow crowd watched the hearing on television, activists handed out documents repeating two accusations--that an Israeli company had warning of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and that there was an 'insider trading scam' on 9/11--that previously has been used to suggest Israel was behind the attacks."
It was all too much for Democratic party chairman Howard Dean, who the following day joined the unnamed previous director of Central Intelligence in his low opinion of McGovern: "As for any inferences that the United States went to war so Israel could 'dominate' the Middle East or that Israel was in any way behind the horrific September 11th attacks on America," Dean pronounced, "let me say unequivocally that such statements are nothing but vile, anti-Semitic rhetoric."
In January, McGovern popped up again, this time as front man for an exceedingly unsavory group called Not In Our Name. According to the group's press release, McGovern served war crimes "indictments" from a "people's tribunal" on the Bush White House. Not In Our Name is a coalition formed in 2002 by the likes of the Maoist Revolutionary Communist party. It is commonly referred to as anti-war, but it's no such thing. Some of its constituent groups profess a deep belief in revolutionary violence--which is to say, they are pro-war, they just want the United States to lose.
The moral of the "Rumsfeld heckler" story is clear. So long as someone is trashing the Bush administration's Iraq policies, most journalists these days will happily sanitize the critic's unseemly views. As long as Cindy Sheehan was an attractive club to swing against the Bush White House last summer, she was portrayed simply as a grieving mother who had lost her son in Iraq. Which she was, but she was also, rather like McGovern, an enthusiast for the violent left who called Bush a "lying bastard," said that "this country is not worth dying for," and called the Islamist insurgents in Iraq "freedom fighters."
Rumors that McGovern will be lecturing on the Israel lobby at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government this fall appear to be unfounded.
Patrick Kennedy Update
In last week's issue, The Scrapbook brought you the woefully under-reported tale of how Rhode Island Democratic congressman Patrick Kennedy had last month wrecked his car pulling into a CVS parking lot in his home state. His own handwritten account of the accident (in a police report supplied to us by Boston Herald columnist Howie Carr) looked like it had been scrawled with his teeth so that he could keep his cocktail-shaker hands free. Police on the scene in Portsmouth reported that Patrick "appeared normal," though "normal" is a relative term when it comes to the Kennedy clan. After all, Patrick's dad Teddy, according to a witness in Cousin Willie's 1991 Palm Beach rape trial, once visited his son and son's date "with no pants," walking "kinda wobbly."
Patrick, who usually takes a year or two off between career-debilitating incidents such as trashing yachts and pushing around female airport security guards, this time decided a quick follow-up was in order. Early last Thursday morning, at 2:45 a.m., he was involved in a single-car accident near the Capitol building. According to a letter obtained by Roll Call from the acting chairman of U.S. Capitol Police chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police, Greg Baird, to the acting chief, Christopher McGaffin, Kennedy's Ford Mustang had its lights turned off and nearly collided with a police cruiser before smashing into a security barricade.
Patrick himself was "observed to be staggering" and claimed he was "late to a vote." Baird wrote that Capitol Police Division units were prohibited from performing field sobriety tests, as two sergeants said they were taking over, and a Capitol Police House Division official gave Patrick a ride home. While Baird's letter suggests foul play, Patrick has since attributed his behavior to an unwholesome combination of prescription drugs and a relapse into dependence on painkillers.
But two witnesses, including a hostess at the Hawk 'n' Dove, one of Patrick's regular Capitol Hill watering holes, told the Boston Herald that Patrick had some additional "medicine" that evening. "He was drinking a little bit," she said. Now, the pile-on has begun. So much so, that we almost feel bad for Patrick Kennedy, who has announced he'll be reentering rehab at the Mayo Clinic.
We hope his critics will give both him and his police protectors the benefit of the doubt. After all, who ever heard of a Kennedy covering up a car accident? It's just not their way.
Book Notes
Congratulations to Matthew Continetti, a staff writer here at The Weekly Standard, whose new book The K Street Gang: The Rise and Fall of the Republican Machine (Doubleday) hit bookstore shelves April 18. An unflinching chronicle of the astonishing career of conservative activist-turned-super-lobbyist-turned-fraudster Jack Abram-off and his cronies, the book is a great read. As his colleague, we wholeheartedly recommend it. As a conservative, we hope the book will contribute to the mucking out of Washington's Augean stables, and that it will therefore need no sequel.
D'oh
We wrote an egregiously incorrect caption for one of the photos accompanying Michael Fumento's article "Back to Falluja" last week. The sign in Karma threatening, in bad English, "Go out of our country saveges [sic]" was of course not an "Iraqi warning to foreign insurgents" but a warning from Iraqi insurgents to Americans.