Joe Scott 3: The Body Politic

Arnold: Now a Republicrat?

01 December 2005 |permalink | email article

The 2006 California gubernatorial race just got more interesting with the stunning disclosure by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, after the failure of his ìyear of reformî initiatives, that heís named a longtime liberal Democratic activist, Susan P. Kennedy, as his chief of staff.

In an extreme attempt to remake his more recently perceived image as a right-wing conservative, the governor seems to have adopted the ìcanoe theoryî of politics long practiced by former Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown, a master of reinvention: ìPaddle a little to the right, straight ahead or a little to the left.î

Republican conservatives are furious about a betrayal by the governor for whom they went all to help defeat Gov. Gray Davis, the Democrat Schwarzenegger crushed in the 2003 recall election. Their lament: was he really a closet liberal on conservative issues?

But Mervin Field, the dean of California pollsters, sees the move as a plus for the governor - reaching back to his moderate image when elected. He believes that image may appeal to increasingly independent state voters who are reliable swing voters. Many Democrats agree. Conservatives may be angry but Field told The San Francisco Chronicle “that for every two votes he loses, he picks up three somewhere else.î

That said, Iím far from convinced that grassroots Democrats ñ union members, teachers, nurses and public safety employees - will soon forget the bitter initiative campaign the governor waged against them when it comes to Campaign 2006.

Kennedy, his new top aide, was deputy chief of staff and cabinet secretary to Davis. She is former executive director of the California Democratic Party and communications director for U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

In 1992, as the partyís director, the intensely partisan Kennedy worked for the state chairman, Phil Angelides, now state treasurer and one of two major candidates for the Democratic nomination to run against Schwarzenegger next year.

Some Democratic operatives who know her liberal philosophy were taken aback by Kennedyís statement she supported and voted for all the governorís failed initiatives and is intent on breaking up the partisan gridlock in Sacramento.

A major player in recruiting Kennedy was the governorís wife, Democrat Maria Shriver, who sat out the initiative campaign and, in another ironic move, recently hired the former Cabinet secretary to Davis, Daniel Zingale, to be her chief of staff. Even former GOP Gov. Pete Wilson, whose operatives gave Schwarzenegger conflicting advice, had high praise for Kennedyís political moxie. Go figure!

My Nov. 11 post suggested the governorís best hope for reelection might be the formation of a quasi-coalition government ñ certain to put movement conservatives, editorial writers and wing nuts ìon code red alert.î Whether he will now reposition himself as a Republicrat ñ or pull an Ariel Sharon stunt and abandon the GOP to run as an independent ñ is the intriguing question.

Fatal Exit Flaw: No Iraq Army

01 December 2005 |permalink | email article

President Bush still doesn’t get it. After Baghdad fell, he was flown onto an aircraft carrier and prematurely declared victory with a giant ìMission Accomplishedî banner strung from the Flag Bridge.

At the U.S. Naval Academy yesterday the stage of a huge hall of the campus was adorned with a giant background emblazoned with the words, ìPlan for Victoryî where he again used a military venue in an attempt to regain public confidence about his management of the war in Iraq.

It was a sobering speech he should have made two and a half years ago after the invasion. He laid out what he called a strategy for victory ñ a copycat version of the Afghanistan mission, rejecting artificial timetables for withdrawing U.S. troops and offering a first vague hint of extricating American forces. What it lacked was a specific vision to avert a quagmire - a clear “they stand up, we stand down” policy which now appears inoperable in the short run.

His remarks coincided with a 35-page document outling a new strategy he candidly said, ìwill take time.î The report says increasing numbers of Iraqi troops have been equipped and trained ñ an assertion disputed by military commanders in the field ñ and a point Bush conceded in noting U.S. forces cannot withdraw until sufficient Iraqi forces are able to ensure stability and public order.

Here is the underreported, and central, flaw in Bushís strategy - and the subject of a must-read essay, ìWhy Iraq Has No Army,î by James Fallows in the December issue of The Atlantic Monthly.

An orderly exit depends on a viable security force. But Fallows contends the Iraqis arenít even close, and the White House has never taken the problem urgently. He blames much of the problem on the inability of the military to solve its major language problems, citing the author T.X. Hammes, who was then in Iraq and a Marine colonel, saying U.S. forces and trainers should have about 22,000 interpreters instead of just one or two per company.

Fallows believes the U.S. must choose one of two difficult alternatives:

ìIt can make the serious changes ñ including certain commitments to remain in Iraq for many years ñ that would be necessary to bring the Iraqi army to maturity. Or it can face the stark fact that is has no orderly way out of Iraq, and prepare accordingly.î

The Coverup Continues

29 November 2005 |permalink | email article

An increasingly defensive President and Vice President continue to hammer on a central theme: there was either an explicit or implied link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda in terms of the 9/11 attacks - sufficient justification to rush to war in Iraq when the real enemy was operating out of Afghanistan.

But in another piece of serious investigative reporting about the Bush administrationís prewar propaganda last week, Murray Waas wrote this in the nonpartisan National Journal that 10 days after the attacks:

ìPresident Bush was told in a highly classified briefing that the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to the attacks and there was scant evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda.î

This information was contained in the Presidentís Daily Brief, a CIA assessment also shared with the vice president and other high government officials.

Waas also finds ìfew credible reportsî of Iraq-Al Qaeda contacts involved Husseinís efforts to infiltrate Islamic terrorist groups, which he regarded as anathema to his secular regime. Apparently the Iraqi dictatorís antipathy to Islamic radicals in 2001 was the same as in 1983.

That year, Donald Rumsfeld, a Reagan emissary, embraced Saddam as a secular ally in the U.S. struggle against Iranís theocratic fascist rulers. Contemplate this cynical flip-flop about making nice then with a bloody tyrant and wonder how Rumsfeld can today keep a straight face in his Pentagon briefings.

The New York Timesí Frank Rich has it right: Bush and Cheney should release the rest of the Presidentís Daily Briefs and other prewar documents that are trickling out instead of fighting the release of such information. That should include unclassified documents found in post-invasion Iraq requested from the Pentagon by the pro-war, neoconservative Weekly Standard.

Instead, the undynamic duo continues to dissemble. Rumsfeld, 22 years after embracing Saddam, now says ìitís timeî for the Iraqis to take charge of their country. No wonder a growing majority of Americans will question today’s rosy new White House strategy for victory which so differs from the facts. Update to follow.