June 22, 2006

6/22: Nothing To See Here

People buzz about some bloggers selling their influence. People buzz about Dems coming up with new ideas -- tacitly admitting they have none of their own, says the right, or putting themselves in position to win in the long run, says the left. People even buzz about North Korea. But mention WMDs, and people explode.

We felt like commenting more, but we're just going to let this story speak for itself.

IRAQ I: So There.

The year is '03. Everything in the news -- and on the primative blogosphere -- has to do with WMDs. No, wait, it's 2006, the blogosphere is anything but primative, and WMDs remain very much in the news, thanks to a presser held last p.m. featuring Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) and House Intel. Cmte chair Peter Hoekstra (R-MI). Fox News has the write-up, and Hugh Hewitt sat down with Santorum later yesterday. Glenn Reynolds has transcripts, links and just about every other publicly available document on this story.

And then the blogosphere exploded. We begin with gloating righties, many of whom trumpeted a similar refrain: We told you so. Small Dead Animals header: "Line forms here to kiss my..." Ninth State, probably intending the pun: "Talk about a bombshell." Assorted Babble header: "WMD in Iraq Documents Prove it."Macsmind: "As we said all along Saddam DID have WMD." Anticipating the claims of the left, he adds: "The report is valid and leaves absolutely NO room for question." Flopping Aces: "What are the lefties going to do? How will they spin this one?" Wizbang: "One day the story of WMD in Iraq will be known, at least partially. For now, the information is coming out in bits and pieces. Bottom line -- those who said there was no WMD in Iraq were wrong." Sundries Shack: "500 shells is not a small number. Any half-trained artillery unit could do a lot of damage on unprotected troops or on any town full of civilians." HyScience, Blogs of War, Prairie Pundit, Austin Bay, PunditGuy, Dean's World, Squiggler and All Things Beautiful add their thoughts.

Confederate Yankee wants to know where the headlines are: "If correct, their claims of found chemical weapons -- mustard gas or sarin, filled or unfilled, degraded or in perfect condition -- would seemingly vindicate the Bush Administration and bury a key canard of leftist opposition to the war, that soldiers and civilians have 'died for a lie.' Likewise, it would be worth it for the media/anti-war/Democratic Party camps to begin questioning the story, on the chance that Santorum and Hoekstra have buried themselves with inaccurate information. Everyone should be talking about this ... so why aren't they?" All Things Conservative: "And Democrats respond: Well, it's only 500 so the war is still illegal. To which I say: Fair enough, but if anyone continues with the 'Bush lied, people died' canard, we now know who is really lying, yes?" Baltimore Reporter: "If you want to see who the liars are, see who ignores this story, as they ignored Saddam's ties to terrorists and Bin Laden's group." Stromata: "I predict, with absolute confidence, that the bien-pensant media will not see in this news justification for any action taken by the Bush Administration." Captain Ed sees legitimate reasons for the timing of the documents' release: "Some will claim that the release is strictly for political purposes. They may have a point, but I doubt it will have anything to do with domestic politics. If Bush wanted to use it for that, he would have done so in October 2004 and not in June 2006. This information changes the picture about our pre-war intelligence in time for the Iranian confrontation -- and I suspect that the White House wants to declassify it in order to convince European leaders that our intel actually paid off." GroupIntel thinks these are just the tip of the iceberg. The Corner and Hot Air link to pertinent documents and transcripts. Classical Values offers, in an odd "druidical afterthough": "Am I the only one remembering that today is the longest day of the year? How come no one is questioning the timing? "

Other righties, though, are a tad skeptical. Decision '08, noting that the admin let Santorum and Hoekstra report the findings, instead of jumping on the news themselves: "These are not the missing WMDs. Clearly, we expected to find stockpiles of usable, deliverable chemical and biological agents and an ongoing program for their manufacture. That we found neither is by far the biggest intelligence embarassment of modern times, and it is not going to be erased by this flimsy attempt." Patterico is "staying calm for now." Belmont Club: In context with North Korea and Iran, "a pile of 500 gas artillery shells though it is everything that 500 gas artillery shells ought to be, may not seem like a hill of beans in this crazy world." USS Neverdock thinks the real stockpiles of post-'91 weapons were sent to Syria. Outside The Beltway also thinks there's more to be found. Chester offers four reasons this information hasn't come out yet. Riehl World View points to some MSM articles from '04 showing that most of the information actually has come out before. Freedom Watch thinks the declassification of the report now, coupled with the Bush admin's failure to get the information out two years ago, when the report was filed, is a huge mistake on the admin's part.

Skepticism, however, persists from the left. The All Spin Zone: "Fauxnews, of course, swallowed this story whole." Anonymous Liberal: "Since 2003? Degraded? These hardly seem like the long lost, mythical WMD. And if they are, why have several independent commissions and the White House itself subsequently acknowledged that there were no WMD?" Professor Bainbridge: "Everybody knows Saddam used chemical weapons on the Kurds and in his war with Iran. It would be astonishing if we hadn't found some munitions. But there's nothing new here to suggest that Iraq had a WMD program sufficiently threatening to justify the war." Ellec at News Hounds: "What a coincidence." The blogger watched the Hannity & Colmes segment on which both Santorum and Hoekstra appeared, and actually applauds Alan Colmes' performance. Colmes noted that the weapons, classified in the report as pre-1991, probably couldn't have been deployed at all. Ellen reports on the whole segment. Democratic Daily refutes other GOP arguments on the story, and so does Jay Currie. TBogg compares Santorum to Joe McCarthy and thinks 500 shells ain't nothin': "Tell you what: If the neocons can find someone at the CPA to remember where they put that $9 billion they misplaced in 2003, maybe they can figure out how Saddam misplaced 500 artillery shells from pre-1991." Noting that the DoD is calling the report old and out of date, Bark Bark Woof Woof concludes Santorum's looking out for other priorities: "It should be noted that Mr. Santorum is in a desperate battle to retain his Senate seat -- recent polls show him far behind his Democratic oppoent, Robert Casey Jr. -- so next week, I fully expect him to launch an impeachment inquiry into the activities of President Clinton." Daily Kos header: "Santorum Makes S*%# Up." A Blog For All, John Aravosis, Think Progress, State of the Day, The Agonist, The Sideshow and Atrios comment.

IRAQ II: Liability Waiver

The New York Times's Nagourney and Rutenberg, in an article, slavishly praised, not unusually, by 'The Note,' tick-tock the WH's decision to "embrace" the "War" -- globally speaking -- and try to turn into a wedge issue for the midterms. "That emerging Republican approach reflects, at least for now, the success of a White House effort to bring a skittish party behind Mr. Bush on the war after months of political ambivalence in some vocal quarters. As President Bush offered another defense of his Iraq policy during a visit to Vienna on Wednesday, Republicans acknowledged that it was a strategy of necessity, an effort to turn what some party leaders had feared could become the party's greatest liability into an advantage in the midterm elections."

John Aravosis doesn't buy it. "George Bush's lies and incompetence have already killed 2,500 American soldiers. It's hard to spin their deaths as a good thing when they were killed by a president's folly. Second, Bush's incompetence has turned Iraq into an Islamo-fascist state that we now can't do anything about. And finally, George Bush's incompetence has handed us our most humiliating defeat since Vietnam."

Attygood's Will Bunch doesn't like how the Pentagon is dipping a toe into politics. Eric Boehlert finds it "so odd" that "despite the fact poll after poll shows Americans, completely fed up with the Iraq failure, agree with the Democratic initiative to start bringing the troops home, it's Republicans who are being portrayed by clubby Beltway insiders as having the winning hand." Apparently :if Karl Rove signs off on a political strategy (hit the Dems hard over Iraq), the press assumes it's a work of genius and shows little interest in dwelling on the pertinent questions, such as isn't there an obvious risk Republicans run in making the hugely unpopular war in Iraq, and specifically the notion that U.S. troops should pretty much stay there indefinitely, the centerpiece for their 2006 campaign? That angle has received a fraction of the attention the press has showered on whether Democrats will pay the price for Iraq." More from MediaNeedle, MyDD, BrilliantAtBreakfast and the dog.

IRAQ III: Piecing Together Pendelton

Before WMDs popped back up on the radar, some bloggers were concerned with the military's charging eight soldiers with the kidnapping and murder of an innocent Iraqi civilian. The New York Times provides deets. Blogs of War sums up the arguments of many on the right: "It's the rush to judgement and politicization of these events, especially by fellow Americans, that really irks so many of us. I hope that these men are ultimately found to be innocent but most importantly justice must prevail." Mary Katharine Ham: "I'm hoping that all the backtracking on Haditha may have taught the press to chill out just a little bit during this trial and let the evidence come out as it comes out before we start publicly convicting troops." Michelle Malkin links to soldiers' families' websites.

RightyBlue Star Chronicles thinks U.S. troops aren't getting a fair shake: "I notice in the news today a lot about Gitmo and the treatment of terrorists. I notice a lot about how bad the economy is (which is an out and out lie). I notice a lot of interviews with democrats like [H]illary [Clinton] and [J]ohn [K]erry about how we need to get out of the 'quagmire' of Iraq. I notice there are reports about the outrages our troops are doing to the poor terrorists. I see NOTHING about our Soldiers being captured, tortured, having their eyes gouged out, and finally being murdered by decapitation." Lefty Taylor Marsh, offering links with more background on the case, agrees, to an extent: "My assessment is that there is something wrong with the case that just doesn't seem quite right. One thing is certain and that's the fact that our soldiers are getting the shaft from the civilian and military leadership, which started long ago." Amygdala, citing reports that the family of one of the accused thinks he's taking the fall for failure to more quickly investigate unrelated events in Haditha: "I won't say 'the system works'; whether it works depends on outside pressure, and other factors, and it works rather sporadically, shall we say." Rhymes With Right: "It pains me to type those words. Having grown up in a military family, I would like to believe that each and every soldier is a hero in uniform, flawlessly following the rules and orders laid out for them. But having grown up surrounded by sailors and Marines, I know that isn't the case."

KOS/ARMSTRONGATE: On The Icon Of Progressive Politics

Let's get this out of the way: We've not seen or read anything -- and we read it all -- that proves or even strongly suggests that either Markos Moulitsas Zuniga or Jerome Armstrong have entered into a "buy one, get one free" relationship, or that Markos profits financially from his political action (aside from The Daily Kos site itself). Timelines and logical fallacies notwithstanding, the facts suggest that both men are (a) bloggers, (b) fallible, messy human beings like everyone else (c) and who have done nothing wrong. That said -- this is a fascinating story. The sociology of the liberal blogosphere has been laid out for all to gawk at. Simmering tensions between liberal and centrist bloggers are erupting. Conservatives are gloating -- but then blindly making generalizations that ignore their own side's history of shenanigans. The story does raise questions for Markos -- questions that he, as a public figure (an "icon of progressive politics") with an audience, has begun to answer.

So it turns out that there might be a strategy behind the (relative) silence among the upper rungs of the liberal blogosphere about the Kos/Armstrong "controversy." The New Republic'sPlank'er Jason Zengerle obtained a "missive" that Markos sent to "Townhouse," the "private email list comprising elite liberal bloggers, including Jane Hamsher, Matt Stoller, and Christy Hardin Smith. And what was Kos's message to this group that secretly plots strategy in the digital equivalent of a smoke-filled backroom? Stay mum!" More Zengerle: "So far, Kos's friends in the fiercely independent liberal blogosphere seem to have displayed a sheep-like obedience to his dictat. And while it's true that Kos himself hinted at the controversy in this blog post yesterday, he didn't come anywhere close to addressing the questions that really matter. You might even call Kos and company's behavior in this whole affair just another case of politics as usual. So much for crashing the gates." Zengerle updates his post here.

And the floodgates open.Steve Gilliard : "Pretty much everything he wrote is bullshit."

Markos himself: "TNR and its enablers are feeling the heat of their own irrelevance and this is how they fight it -- by undermining the progressive movement. Zengerle has made common cause with the wingnutosphere, using the laughable "kosola" frame they created and emailing his "scoops" to them for links. This is what the once-proud New Republic has evolved into -- just another cog of the Vast RIGHT Wing Conspiracy." More: "But I do admit being surprised by the sheer creativity of their invented attacks, such as my supposed "pay for play" scheme. Let me be crystal clear. I deny that charge completely. I have stated the sources of my income and they do not include money from people asking me to shill for anyone or anything. Problem for these writers, is that the law doesn't protect such defamation. The truth is an absolute defense to libel cases. If they have evidence for those smears, then they have nothing to fear. But if they, say, recklessly invented all manners of illegal or unethical activities by me without bothering to see if they bore any basis in truth, then they'll have plenty to worry about."

No joke: Stirling Newberry blames Joe Lieberman. "This current tirade from the establishment wing of the Democratic Party is not coincidental - Jerome and Markos now have real power, and more over, there is a real schism within the establishment over Joe Lieberman. Well, the Liebermanites have sunk to the challenge. The schism is over whether to back Joe Lieberman should he decide to leave the Democratic Party and run as an independent should he be defeated, or seem likely to be defeated, in the primary against Ned Lamont. This schism comes because while the hierarchy wants to insulate itself from the voters, doing so in such an obvious fasion would be fatal to their support." The Agonist, channelling Walter Lippmann (a TNR founder), defends Markos: "The New Republic, or rather, The Joe Lieberman Weekly, sucks. Why is a liberal publication purposefully trying to destroy an icon of progressive politics, especially when he is legally precluded from commenting on the issue?}." Non-Kos-lover Ezra Klein at Tapped, a member of the Liberal Ad Network, calls TNR's work "gotcha journalism." He writes: "Markos sent an e-mail over a closed list saying he thought the story was worthless and the best way to respond was to deny it oxygen or impact. And so he, and others, did. The e-mail could have been sent to a private CC list of the biggest bloggers, but he instead transmitted it through a semi-private message board with hundreds of members. One of the many hundreds of members forwarded the note to Zengerle, who breathlessly posted it up on the Plank." More: " Zengerle's follow-up post is a series of dark insinuations over the financial leverage Kos holds on the other bloggers. As the causal chain goes, Markos and Jerome founded the Liberal BlogAds Network, and thus have their talons lightly piercing the skin of all of our necks. The idea here is that Kos asked the other bloggers not to write about Jerome's closed SEC scandal, and because he can deny them revenue by expelling them from the list, a thousand keyboards instantly ceased clicking." Klein says it isn't so. "I'm a member of the Liberal BlogAds Network. I've mocked Kos's "Libertarian Democrats" concept, derided his elevator pitches, and generally been surly and disagreeable when it suited me. The idea that Markos can just throw folks off the list is a bit silly, particularly for any of us who remember the endless e-mail thread when Jerome and him tried to create some uniformity in the rules for entry." Max Sawicky check-checks.

Vodkapundit is warming the popcorn. As is Powerline. Riehl continues to track Jerome Armstrong. Captain Ed "can state pretty clearly that, as far as my involvement with conservative bloggers go, we have never sent around e-mails telling each other to not blog about an issue."

Glenn Reynolds, who is inclined to defend Kos (even though Kos says mean things about Instapundit), has a nice set of links. His take: "As for the scandal aspects, well, this seems to me like politics as usual. Perhaps, following Kinsley's Law, that's the real scandal, but -- except to the extent, probably small. that this causes Kos's readers to lose faith in him as something new and special -- I don't see a big scandal in this, though I can't help noting that if something like this were going on on the right, the bloggers of the "Townhouse" list would probably be somewhat less charitable."

Trevino at RedState (which knows a thing or two about "scandal,") concludes that "the internal mythos of online political activism on the left is almost wholly false. The storyline they tout is that they're a group of "regular" people -- chief among them, dim-bulb Hollywood producer Jane Hamsher, natch -- who rose up, seized control of the discourse, freed the people from the imposed narrative, etc., etc. "

Mark at Decision08 wonders if it "Isn't it more than just a little richly ironic that the centrist liberals (if you catch my drift) that Kos has threatened to 'make radioactive' have unveiled the backscratching hypocrisy that might yet do him in?"

Writes Daniel W. Drezner: " What's going on is not illegal, or even out of the ordinary in Washington, DC. It's politics as usual. The only reason the story is noteworthy is because bloggers like Kos have persistently said that they and theirs -- a.k.a., the netroots -- are not about politics as usual. Over time, however, that claim looks less and less viable. The question is whether bloggers like Kos find that their legions of readers are turned off by these kind of revelations, or whether they comfortably adjust into being middleweight power brokers. UPDATE: Commenters seem to be very upset that I'm accusing Moulitsas and Armstrong of corruption. I find this puzzling since I specifically did not do that. All I'm saying is that as Armstrong and Moulitsas rub elbows with powrerful Democrats on a repeated basis, it becomes tougher and tougher for them to play the role of independent outsiders without a stake in the system."

DEMOCRATS: Finally Admitting It -- They Got Nothin'

David Broder's column today focuses on blogs, bloggers and their role in the Dem party, as well as some of the new approaches the party is taking towards policy ideas, including launches of a dead-tree journal and a website run by top party strategists. Noting the success of righty think-tanks, Bull Moose Blog writes: "These publications may also give birth to ideas that help the donkey assume power." But there's more than that, he says: "The most successful Democratic President since FDR has been Bill Clinton. Yes, he was a man of ideas - welfare reform and national service were two notable ones that became law. But, perhaps most importantly, Bill Clinton had the right attitudes. ... Don't get the Moose wrong - he is not denigrating ideas. But, ideas must reflect attitudes that connect with the American people." Needlenose: "In a vacuum, all of these can be seen as worthy endeavors. In the immediate wake of a disappointing electoral defeat -- say, in December 2004 or early 2005 -- I'd be completely in favor of them. But could someone tell these people that we're five months away from a major election, with Republicans at nearly record-breaking levels of disrepute all across the United States?? Now isn't the time to be navel-gazing and feeling sorry for ourselves."

Says ParaPundit: "While Broder seems to hope that the think tanks can get beyond emotion and insults at this point I see little reason for his optomism. His description of the 'nutroots' is pretty accurate." Righty QandO takes the column as a warning, but concludes about Dems' plans: "Certainly not cutting edge stuff and certainly nothing which is going to help the left break out of the idea desert they find themselves lost within." "In theory," writes Ankle Biting Pundits, "their idea isn't a bad one. It's at least an attempt to mirror the methods used by the conservative movement decades ago that has borne so much fruit in recent years." RedState thinks Broder's just beating up on Kos for fun.

NORTH KOREA: Shoot It Down

Two biggies of the Dem defense establishment -- Ashton "Not Kutchar" Carter and ex-Sec/Def William Perry, make the case in a Post op-ed for shooting down North Korea's test-missile if it launches. Conservative bloggers and warbloggers were the first to react. Some betrayed ignorance at the distinction between op-eds, which are meant to provocative, and the opinion of the newspaper. Whether that ignorance was willful or tactical is beyond the scope of this introduction. Provocate, the article certainly did!

Blue Crab Boulevard wonders if this is "an attempt by some Democrats to prove how warlike they are? Could be. Is this a smart move politically or militarily? To quote the estimable authors, 'We think not'. Generally launching missiles at a foreign power with an enormous standing army right next door to one of our allies would be considered, how shall I put this, idiotic? Insane? Dumb as a box of rocks? All of the above, I think." USS Neverdock channels the UN. "Just pre-emptively launch a missile attack, without warning, on a fellow member of the UN and destroy state property? Evidently the Post doesn't think North Korea and China would consider this an act of war. Strange coming from a newspaper that is anti-war, no? What ever happened to the left wing media's demand that all such actions must be santioned by the UN?" (Hey guy -- it's an op-ed... it's not the Post's opinion. Cool down.) Neverdock notes that the authors refer to "failed diplomacy." That would be, he writes, the Clinton admin's failed diplomacy. Mark In Mexico headlines his post: "Washington Post says attack North Korea-- Holy Jeezus!" (Again we say: ey guy -- it's an op-ed... it's not the Post's opinion. Cool down.) Some conservative bloggers like the idea. PrairiePundit: "Their proposal makes some sense and is worthy of serious consideration." Dem Laura Rozenwonders if Carter, with whom she studied, ever ran this idea through diplo channels? Josh Marshall was "genuinely" surprised at the op-ed. "All sorts of people write all sorts of columns. But Bill Perry isn't some nut. Far from it. He was Bill Clinton's second defense secretary. He's a very shrewd, level-headed guy. And he's been deeply involved in the North Korea issue for years. Carter was an assistant secretary of defense under Perry."

IN THE STATES: Bluegrass Blog Blowup

It appears that the admin of KY Gov. Ernie Fletcher (R) has blocked access to several sites -- including a number of Dem and lefty blogs -- from state employees' computers. Bluegrass Report has all the details. Meanwhile, our own Beltway Blogroll offers another perspective on the scandal.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Let's All Keep This In Mind

Jane Hamsher, who is taking care of her seriously ill mother, reminds us all that there are more important things in life that what one blog says about another.

LEST WE FORGET: Take A Trip Down Memory Lane

We'd like to thank one Ms. Emily Bucy for introducing us to this site back when we barely knew what the internet was. Back when we measured site downloads in minutes rather than seconds, Emily had already turned us on to HomeStarRunner's best section ever, StrongBad Emails. Our favorite remains the English paper, and our nom de guerre remains "The Yellow Dart."

CORRECTION

In the 6/21 edition of blogometer, we noted Amygdala called Abu Zubaydah a "low-level fruitcase." In fact, he suggested that the terrorist was a "fruitcake." We apologize for the typo.

Posted by at June 22, 2006 12:33 PM