He's Not the Boss of Us
That Bruce Springsteen is not a fan of the present administration will not shock regular readers of THE SCRAPBOOK. He spent the closing hours of the 2004 campaign crooning with John Kerry by his side, desperately trying to push him over the top in Ohio. George W. Bush's presence haunts the Boss's new album, Magic, as Banquo's ghost haunted Macbeth. During the publicity blitz that has accompanied the album's release, Springsteen has repeatedly cited the left's tiresome laundry list of grievances--Bush's shredding of the Constitution, his ignoring of the Bill of Rights, and, most of all, his war in Iraq, which in the eyes of the military analyst cum rock star is Vietnam redux, only worse.
Springsteen, of course, didn't serve in the Vietnam-era army; his biographer Dave Marsh noted, "Springsteen beat the draft in the classic Sixties fashion. 'They gave me the forms and I checked everything. Even said I was a homo and all that.'" Nor has he in his three-and-a-half decades as a rock-and-roll star participated in any USO activities or gone to visit military bases or hospitals. He's remained comfortably ignorant in his circa-1968 view of the U.S. Army, or perhaps April 22, 1971, might be a more accurate dating of the Springsteen sensibilities. That was the day when John Kerry appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and testified that U.S. soldiers had "raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam."
Kerry's famous refrain "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" has inspired one of Spring-steen's new songs, this one about the war in Iraq:
A downtown window flushed with light Faces of the dead at five (faces of the dead at five) A martyr's silent eyes Petition the drivers as we pass by Who'll be the last to die for a mistake?
The saving grace is that Springsteen's anachronistic political rants seem to serve as white noise, even to his diehard fans. When the Toronto Star's Greg Quill reviewed Springsteen's recent Toronto show, effusively praising the concert and Magic's political agenda, he noted that, "The new songs--all of them given specially dramatic lighting effects and video treatments on the large screens that hung on each side of the stage--prompted a mass sit-down" from a crowd that had stood through the rest of the show. Quill went on to speculate that the sit-down "perhaps denoted a form of worship or meditation." Or perhaps it just denoted boredom?
Friends of Hillary
Where did Joseph Wilson turn when the right-wing smear machine maliciously attacked the retired ambassador for telling the truth about President Bush's rush to war in Iraq?
You're right. He wasn't telling the truth, and we don't care about Joe Wilson anymore, either. THE SCRAPBOOK asks because we do care about his interlocutors. Here is what Wilson himself said in a chat on a left-wing website.
"Two people in Washington helped us [Wilson and his wife, Valerie Plame] understand the broader implications of the fight we have found ourselves in: Sid Blumenthal, and Hillary Clinton." (No, we don't care about Sidney Blumenthal either.) "They had both been through the character assassination gauntlet, and were able to get us to see that the fight wasn't personal, however painful it might be, but was all about how we conduct public debate and discourse in our democracy. I cannot tell you how many times they told us to pull up our socks and quit feeling sorry for ourselves because the future of the country is what really matters. I am eternally grateful to both for their wisdom and their profound understanding of the pernicious threat posed by the forces of the far right. If you haven't read Sid's books .??.??. you really should. It is an honor for me that my dear friend is part of Valerie's day here with you. This has been a long battle, far longer for the Blumenthals and for the Clintons than for us, but bruising to all who have been subjected to the viciousness and the lies of the right. Very few have emerged from the fire tempered rather than broken by the experience. Thanks to Sid and Hillary, I think we have, and I think that is reflected in what you have already seen of Valerie's interviews."
What's that, Joe? "I cannot tell you how many times they told us to pull up our socks and quit feeling sorry for ourselves because the future of the country is really what matters." How many times, exactly? Byron York reported that Clinton and the Wilsons had dinner last spring, but pointed out on National Review Online: "Joe Wilson's words seem to suggest that she offered much more extensive counsel. It would be interesting to know more." Yes, it would.
Our question: When did Joe Wilson become politically acceptable again? Back in 2004, Wilson announced his support for John Kerry and Kerry embraced Wilson and his fight against the Bush administration. At one point, the Kerry campaign even set up a website to highlight Wilson's attacks on the Bush administration. But in July 2004, a unanimous, bipartisan report from the Senate Intelligence Committee left Wilson's credibility in tatters.
Here is how a news story in the Washington Post put it at the time:
Former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, dispatched by the CIA in February 2002 to investigate reports that Iraq sought to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program with uranium from Africa, was specifically recommended for the mission by his wife, a CIA employee, contrary to what he has said publicly. .??.??. Wilson's assertions--both about what he found in Niger and what the Bush administration did with the information--were undermined yesterday in a bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report.The panel found that Wilson's report, rather than debunking intelligence about purported uranium sales to Iraq, as he has said, bolstered the case for most intelligence analysts. And contrary to Wilson's assertions and even the government's previous statements, the CIA did not tell the White House it had qualms about the reliability of the Africa intelligence that made its way into 16 fateful words in President Bush's January 2003 State of the Union address. .??.??.
Kerry's campaign quickly disappeared its pro-Wilson website and quietly distanced itself from the discredited "truth-teller."
Not Hillary. Maybe it was all of their commiserating over right-wing conspiracies or hobnobbing over dinner, but when Wilson endorsed Hillary Clinton for president back in July, the Democratic frontrunner was thrilled with the support.
"Joe Wilson has stood up to this administration and held it accountable for the misinformation that led us into the Iraq war," she said in a statement.
Given that Clinton is getting advice from Sandy Berger, who destroyed classified documents he took from the National Archives, one shouldn't be too surprised that she would welcome Wilson's support.
But just how much did Clinton support Wilson in his disinformation campaign against the Bush administration? It would indeed be interesting to know more.