reflectivepundit

Vice-President’s Contempt for the Press Means Contempt for the American People

By Brigitte L. Nacos
What Dan Fromkin of the Washington Post reveals today about Vice-President Cheney’s rules of the game as they apply to his press entourage is another proof of the arrogance of power at the highest levels of government. This is how Fromkin sums up Cheney’s handling of the press while he traveled the world: 

“After nine days of almost completely ignoring the small pool of reporters who diligently followed him around through seven countries, Vice President Cheney yesterday finally agreed to a short group interview. But only on one condition: The reporters would have to agree not to tell anyone that the person they talked to was him. Cheney's insistence on being identified as a "senior administration official" -- even when the transcript shows he spoke in the first person -- is in some ways laughably trivial. But in other ways, the vice president's decision to extort reporters into a ridiculous agreement reflects the contempt Cheney has for the press corps.”

I go with the latter interpretation: this is not a laughable matter but utter disregard for the role of a free press and democratic transparency. Cheney’s behavior does not only display his contempt for the news media—but, more importantly, his contempt for the American people. Obviously, this vice-president is convinced that members of the press corps and of the general public are ignorant and easy targets for his manipulations.

When a president seems more like an American king and a vice-president more like an emperor, it is time for the press watchdog to bark. But don’t hold your breath. In the end, most in the media opt for access to those in power at the expense of the public interest.

Talking to Iraq’s Neighbors: A Real Effort in Diplomacy or a Move to Silence Critics?

By Brigitte L. Nacos
As she testified before the Senate Appropriation Committee on Tuesday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Senators that the United States will participate in multilateral talks with officials of Iraq and neighboring countries, including Iran and Syria--up to now shunned by Washington diplomacy. While the State Department still makes a distinction between “discussions” (yes) and negotiations (no), the sudden shift in favor of what the Iraq Study Group and many administration critics recommended looks like the right move. “Better late than never," said Leon E. Panetta according to the Washington Post. The White House chief during the Clinton presidency and member of the Iraq Study Group mentioned the agreement with North Korea and Dr. Rice’s recent involvement in efforts to revive the Israeli-Palestinian road map toward peace as proof that, as Panetta told Glenn Kessler of the Post, "the administration is finally recognizing that part of its arsenal is strong diplomacy."

Let’s hope that the agreement to participate in a regional conference on Iraq signals a real change in the Bush administration’s approach to international relations rather than a mere public relations move to silence critics.  Or, as Steven C. Clemons of the Washington Note writes, “Time will tell whether this is meaningless flirtation -- or whether this is a carefully crafted "confidence building measure" that could lead to more meaningful engagement between the US and Iran over outstanding issues -- and between the US and Syria.”
The stakes are too high for mere flirtations or publicity stunts at a time when hardball threat tactics and real or threatened sanctions did not work.

In today’s Washington Post, columnist David Ignatius writes,

Everybody knows that economic sanctions don't work. Just look at the decades of fruitless pressure on Cuba. But guess what? In the recent cases of North Korea and Iran, a new variety of U.S.Treasury sanctions is having a potent effect, suggesting that the conventional wisdom may be wrong.

I am not convinced. What we need are serious diplomatic efforts. Let’s hope that’s what the administration has in mind.

How to Get Out of Iraq?

By Brigitte L. Nacos
The short-circuited American-led coalition’s efforts in Afghanistan in the months following 9/11 have allowed Osama bin Laden and Company as well as their Taliban ally to recover and prepare for more and far more devastating terror attacks on the U.S.and other western states (see, for example, Frank Rich and No Quarter). Yet, there is no end in sight for the Iraq fiasco and its costs in human lives and suffering as well as financial resources, all of which distracts from fighting Al Qaeda and like-minded terror groups and cells. While Democrats in Congress are divided on whether and how to stop the so-called troop surge and the president is biking rather than participating in a White House drill on highest level responses to massive terrorist attacks on major American cities, the focus should be on a reasonable exit strategy that will not make the mess in Iraq greater than it is already.  This way, the administration may finally pay more attention to the Al Qaeda threat and preventative efforts as well as preparedness for the worst case scenario.
 

The Success Story Iraq a la Vice-President Cheney

By Brigitte L. Nacos
As Vice-President Richard Cheney renewed his criticism of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s plan to curb some funding for the Iraq war, he also continued to tout Iraq as success story or, actually, as “success stories.” Just as the White House spun Prime Minister Tony Blair’s plan to begin a withdrawal of British troops from Iraq into evidence for the success of the coalition forces, Cheney told Jonathan Karl of ABC News,

In Iraq, what we've done now is we've taken down Saddam Hussein. He's dead. His sons are dead. His government is gone. There's a democratically elected government in place. We've had three national elections in with higher turnout that we have in the United States. They've got a good constitution. They've got a couple hundred thousand men in arms now, trained and equipped to fight the good fight. They're now fighting alongside Americans in Baghdad and elsewhere. There are--lots of the country that are in pretty good shape.

He did admit, “We've got to get it right in Baghdad. That's the task at hand. I think we can do it.” But he rejected the suggestion that the administration’s new “surge” strategy is a response to a failing old strategy. “A failed strategy?” he said. “Let's see, we didn't fail when we got rid of Saddam. We didn't fail when we held elections. We didn't fail when we got a constitution written. Those are all success stories.”

The Vice-President should now travel to Iraq and bring the good news to the many Iraqis who must have missed the fruits of these wonderful  “success-stories.”

The Clinton-Obama Clash: How the Media Create and Run with Campaign Controversy

 By Brigitte L. Nacos
During Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign, the New York Times was the first major mainstream news organization to report on what blossomed into the so-called Whitewater scandal. Now, a column by Maureen Dowd of the Times about nasty anti-Hillary and anti-Bill remarks by Hollywood executive David Geffen, a former friend of the Clintons but now a supporter of and fundraiser for Barack Obama, cued literally all news organizations to hype the Geffen attack and reactions of the two campaigns into something more than common exchanges between competing candidates: a Clinton-Obama clash or feud or mudslinging fest or even war. “The Clinton and Obama camps went to war, rocking computers all over the country with incendiary e-mails,” writes columnist E.J. Dionne Jr. in today’s Washington Post. He laments that

the Hollywood news pushed the Republican eye-scratching over Iraq onto the back pages. It also shrank coverage of the first big Democratic forum in Nevada (only Obama skipped it), where the candidates sparred about serious issues, notably over how to achieve universal health coverage. Oh, but health care is so boring compared with a Hollywood big shot who drops hints about Bill Clinton's love life. Yeah? Tell that to the family of someone who died of cancer because she had no insurance and couldn't afford a screening test.

Indeed, just as the news of the last few days highlighted the bizarre court-room fight for the final resting place of Anna Nicole Smith and the tiring troubles of Britney Spears instead of truly important matters, the Clinton-Obama non-story was and is receiving far too much attention. But the usually so perceptive Mr. Dionne should not blame the two campaigns but rather the real culprits: the news media that continue to over-report the matter because they strive on controversy and conflict and drama—as long as the story line is simple and involves well-known figures.

Success or Failure in the War on Terrorism

By Brigitte L. Nacos
The post-9/11 military actions in Afghanistan by the U.S.-led coalition were characterized as highly successful by the political class and observers in the media and elsewhere—even after it became clear that the top echelon of Al Qaeda and the Taliban leadership had managed to escape into the mountainous region of Pakistan. Instead of concentrating on these obvious targets of U.S. counterterrorist efforts—most of all bin Laden, al-Zawahiri und other core members of Al Qaeda, the Bush administration made Iraq the centerpiece of its war against terrorism. The lack of attention to the real culprits of 9/11 allowed the Al Qaeda leadership to strengthen its grip on its global terrorism network and to reestablish a number of training camps in Pakistan as Mark Mazetti and David Rohde reported in the New York Times. Considering that Taliban forces, too, have regained enough strength to become a factor in southern Afghanistan, one would be hard pressed to still consider Afghanistan a success story in the war on terrorism. An editorial in today’s Washington Post laments that the United States once again remains passive while Al Qaeda operates and strives in a new safe haven. The editorial criticizes President Musharraf’s deal with the Al Qaeda allied Taliban but fails to point to the real roots of the problem: The Bush administration’s failure to finish the counterterrorist mission against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the first place—a mission that was—unlike Iraq--widely perceived as a legitimate response.

What to Expect from a Hamas-Fatah Unity Government?

By Brigitte L. Nacos
It may well be that the unity deal struck by the leaders of Fatah and Hamas will bridge the differences between the two factions and thus prevent further civil strife in the Palestinian territories—for the time being. That is certainly good news for the suffering Palestinian population. What else can one expect from a new Hamas-Fatah government? As the Washington Post reports,  President Mahmoud Abbas has demanded up front that now the international aid boycott must be ended—although the new power sharing agreement does not fulfill the conditions set by the so-called quartet of Middle East negotiators (European Union, Russia, United States, and United Nations), namely, to renounce violence, embrace the existing peace agreements, and—most of all--recognize Israel. Without accepting these preconditions for lifting the sanctions, there is no reason for re-channeling aid to the Palestinian government and for bringing about a new start of a credible peace process.

Make the Rich Richer and the (Upper) Middle Class Poorer

By Brigitte L. Nacos
You do not have to be an expert on budgets and taxes to be up in arms about the administration’s budget proposal for the coming fiscal year: While insisting on hundreds of billions of dollars more for the catastrophic military deployment in Iraq (and a fraction of that for the neglected efforts in Afghanistan), the administration wants to cut billions of dollars out of Medicaid and Medicare. This is particularly unpalatable because the administration is determined to making the tax cuts for the very rich permanent—not only on the back of the poor and the aged but also at the expense of the middle and the upper-middle class that struggle increasingly to send their off-springs to college and save for their old age. The so-called Alternative Minimum Tax in particular has become a dirty trick to eliminate the tax reductions for the upper middle class and in fact tax ever more of their members  at higher rates every year. As the Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus points out in today’s column, “in an irony that only a tax geek could love, the AMT has been transformed from its original purpose, a means of assuring that the wealthiest pay at least some taxes, into a way of underwriting tax cuts for the wealthiest.

No Stomach for an Indirect €œNo Confidence Vote

By Brigitte L. Nacos
In his Washington Post column, Howard Kurtz concludes that "many pundits €œseem to be writing off President Bush."€ He mentions New York Daily News columnist Michael Goodwin who wrote, "If America were a parliamentary democracy, we would have a no-confidence vote and a new prime minister by spring."€ We all know, of course, that the American presidential system, unlike the parliamentary one, does not provide for a no confidence vote and the removal of the chief-executive by the legislature. But even if such a provision existed, it is likely that not enough members of Congress would have the stomach to remove the President. Just look at what Shailagh Murray and Jonathan Weisman report about a number of Senate Republicans making political calculations on whether a vote for a resolution against the additional troops for Iraq would sit well with voters in their respective states. At the same time, supporters of the President’s Iraq policies try hard to prevent a debate and vote on a resolution against the so-called troop surge. Even if a tough anti-surge resolution were to be adopted, Political Critic concludes correctly, that President Bush "is expected to carry on with his troop surge no matter what Congress has to say." Indeed, Vice-President Richard Cheney said so in no uncertain terms.

Welcome to Another Reflectivepundit Blogger

 I am more than happy to announce that my colleague David Epstein, Professor of Political Science at Columbia University, has agreed blog on the reflectivepundit site and has posted today for the first time. I hope very much that many, many posts will follow. David is a first-rate American government expert and will predominantly blog on domestic politics and policies.
Brigitte L. Nacos