Year: 2003

A slightly different take than Cheryl Merrill and Dana Milbank:

Mr. Sullivan, I was present for the surprise visit by the President. It was truly wonderful to be there, and my buddies and I really are grateful that President Bush would take a real risk to come see u. He flew about 12 hours to spend 2 hours with us, he served food to the troops, but he never got a chance to eat himself, at least not until he got on the plane, I’d imagine. For 2 hours, the President walked amongst us, not a receiving line where we came to him, stiff and formal, but coming to us, reading our names on our uniforms and greeting us by name. He looked me in the eye when he shook my hand, he joked with some, whispered to others, spoke a little Spanish to my friend. 2 hours of almost non-stop motion, how exhausting after a 12 hour flight! He did it to be with us, and we appreciate it.

Thanks for the email – and thanks for all you’re doing.

It seems as if Dana Milbank, one of the most ferociously anti-Bush White House reporters, is mighty steamed by the president’s visit to Iraq. He did get Rich Bond to give him his nut graf, but when a reporter is quoting Sid Blumenthal on president Bush, you know he’s scraping the barrel. The message to the Iraqis? Not that Bush is intent on victory. But rather that “Bush doesn’t think their country is secure. It underscores the insecurity, and it conveys insularity.” A president occupying a country thousands of miles away conveys “insularity.” Ohhh-kay. And the strong commitment to the task at hand would merely one day come back to haunt the president, as the “chaotic and dangerous situation” in Iraq eventually proves, er, Dana Milbank right. Memo to Dana: I know it was Thanksgiving yesterday, but you can sure make your anti-Bush screeds a little subtler than this one. Ask Pincus. He’ll help.

A classic deranged response from the anti-war left to the president’s Iraq trip. It’s a letter to the editor in the San Francisco Chronicle:

Editor — President Bush visiting Iraq for Thanksgiving? His arrogance and overblown self-importance really exposes him. Bush doesn’t do his job by bringing the troops home. Instead he flies for a photo-op with them to use in his re-election campaign. He was there a total of two hours.
These men and women in the military are not protecting me, and I do not want or need their protection. Bush should get off the big lie that they are there to protect me as an American. I would rather die than be protected in that way.
I am ashamed to be an American as long as Bush is in office.
CHERYL MERRILL
San Francisco

I’d love to see Cheryl go hand to hand with al Qaeda on her own, wouldn’t you?

“Concerning his ‘flight from Waco’ before heading to D.C./Baghdad, Bush mentioned that he and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice sat in the Secret Service car, dressed causually with baseball caps. What really impressed me is his accompanying statement that ‘we looked a normal couple.’
Even as a proud American, I freely admit that we have serious work left to us regarding race relations. That an American President (white) blithely compared his sitting in an official vehicle, while on a secret government mission, with his black female National Security Adviser, and compare the two of them with ‘a normal couple’ I think is a positive step for our society as a whole.
Granted, it is not monumental, it is not pushing aside Wallace to get black kids into the school house and get an equal education, but it is important.
I don’t even remember Bill Clinton ever feeling his way to say/do anything like that as President!”

We know the Bush family likes to keep secrets, to spring surprises on unsuspecting outsiders, to hold decisions close and unveil maneuvers and initiatives with some aplomb. But the visit to Baghdad was spectacular even by those standards. The president said what almost all of us feel: that those troops out there are doing enormously difficult work and they deserve immeasurable thanks. By also serving them dinner, he demonstrated something important: that even the president is essentially indebted to these men and women. He is their servant, not they his. It was a perfect visual sign. The president’s message to Iraqis was also important: we have to convince the Baathists that we will not falter an iota in accomplishing a peaceful transition to democracy. Some have interpreted the plans for some troop reductions next year as a sign that the president is micro-managing the war to time with his election prospects; or that we are about to pull a Clinton and wriggle out of a commitment. This trip is the best response to both doubts. It reaffirms resolve, raises morale, and asserts our intention to get this done right. It’s called leadership. And we just saw some.

From my correspondent who keeps his eye on the French media:

The evening news on the popular French TV station TF1 led with Bush’s visit to Iraq today, and its Baghdad reporter referred to the “anti-American resistance” in explaining why the trip was so dangerous. http://www.tf1.fr (streaming video under “20h” at lower right of “News” box). Evidently, this term is catching on as the French expression for those who hope to drive the Americans out and bring Saddam back to power. You know, like the French resistance that fought so bravely against their Nazi occupiers in the last war.
I believe this expression is pretty new. I googled “resistance anti-Americaine” (both with and without the accent mark on “resistance” and with and without the hyphen) and turned up essentially nothing except an old Vietnam reference and a November 13 article in the Nouvelle Observateur entitled “Iraq with the Anti-American Guerillas,” which textually refers only to the “resistance” in careful quotation marks.

Well, that’s why I’ve always put the term “French Resistance” in quotation marks as well. Meanwhile, French reporters have photo evidence of the recent Baathist attack on a DHL plane. The French had been hanging with the Saddamites for a few days before the attack. No word on whether the missiles were also made in France.

EMAIL OF THE DAY: “As a fellow immigrant, I savored your musings about how Americans “resolve the nationalist dilemma.” May I add one little point beyond primary colors: This is the only country whose national anthem begins with a question and ends with a question. No bombast, no exhortation, no boast, none of the usual stuff of most national anthems, just questions. It must mean something, no?”

CANADA’S SANTORUM: Once again, the issue of homosexuality splits the conservative coalition. This time, in Canada.

Not only will the former Republican Massachusetts governor, Bill Weld, support the Supreme Judicial Court’s ruling on ending discrimination in marriage, he says he plans to officiate at a wedding as soon as he can. That’s a visual: a Republican former governor marrying two people of the same sex. I’m also really heartened that, from the article at least, my own private discussions with Weld helped persuade him of the justice and importance of this. Weld was a great governor, a great Republican, and a great American.

THE TORIES SNEAK AHEAD: It’s only a poll; and it’s only a small lead, but the British Tories are now ahead of Blair’s Labour Party. I’d say this paradoxically strengthens Blair’s hand against the lefties in his party. They can’t afford to wreck his policies for much longer without risking their own seats.

Mickey informs me that the Senator from Massachusetts didn’t even vote on the Medicare bill. After all his harrumphing about the horrors of the legislation, he couldn’t even put himself on the record. Kerry is emerging as the worst of all the viable Democratic candidates. He has the backbone of Clinton and the charm of Gore.

“SACRIFICE”: I don’t disagree with Tom Friedman’s basic analysis of what is now going on in Iraq. If Mosul is turning against us, we truly are in trouble. And the resistance of Ayatollah Sistani to the current transition process is the first real sign that, on top of Saddam’s resistance, we are also about to witness the long-predicted power-struggle between Kurds, Shia and Sunni. It’s going to get tougher still. I don’t buy the argument that the administration never warned of a long and difficult post-war in Iraq, because the record shows it did. Whether it did enough – in emphasis – is debatable. But what I really don’t buy is Friedman’s argument that, somehow, “sacrifice” is a prerequisite for a successful occupation in Iraq. I wish he’d spell out what he means by “sacrifice.” For most anti-war liberals, it means rescinding tax cuts. But they didn’t want the tax cuts in the first place. And, oddly enough, the 8.2 percent third quarter growth rate – fueled in part by the tax relief – does help us in Iraq, not least because it suggests Bush will be re-elected, and so long-term American resolve in Iraq is more credible. And, in any case, there is real sacrifice. Who does Friedman think is paying the bills for the war and occupation? The cost to this country – in terms of current and future fiscal health – is real, and will affect everyone. And that is not to speak of the costs in human lives and injuries. Maybe I’m missing Tom’s point here. But this call for “sacrifice” sounds noble, but, upon inspection, seems like a convenient but empty way to support Bush’s policies, while attacking Bush as president. How about Friedman making the real sacrifice – on the op-ed page of the NYT no less – and confessing that, on foreign policy, he’s now closer to the Bush administration than to any of the current Democratic candidates?

ON THANKSGIVING: I really should sit down one day and re-write and expand this little piece I wrote seven years ago on why I am thankful for America. But it still conveys my essential feelings. Maybe an immigrant feels grateful on this day with more immediacy and awareness than others. But the joy of America is that even the distinction between immigrant and native-born is usually blurred. Anyway, here it is, republished again. Have a great and relaxing day. and thanks for both reading this site and for making it possible to keep on the web.

An interesting analysis of the effects of the November 20 al Qaeda bombings in Istanbul:

The bomb blasts of November 20, 2003 may have signaled Turkey’s Israelization. That is why people felt this different fear – and much higher levels of personal insecurity.

They knew that radical Islamic terrorists did not show any mercy, not even on a Ramadan day. These terrorists did not make any distinctions between Muslims and non-Muslims. Isn’t that the same fear they feel in Israel?

Day after day, whether there is a break of two days or a week-long interval, there is always at least an attempted suicide bomb attack – and the constant realization that the peaceful daily routine has been broken.

Isn’t this the fear of the people in Israel – when they go to a bazaar or a shopping center – that they worry whether they will see the end of the day alive?

Isn’t it one of the reasons why Jews in Israel have developed the custom of never leaving the home with a bad word to one another? They leave their home always with a kiss and a smile on their face – thinking it might be their last memory of their loved ones.

A recent editorial from the Guardian:

The challenge which the Chief Rabbi issued last year, remains as relevant today: why is the liberal left not sufficiently concerned about the growth of anti-semitism? On this year’s anti-war march in Paris, Jewish peace activists were beaten up by other demonstrators. There were less dramatic confrontations on London’s million-strong march. It did not matter to the attackers that Jewish writers and activists have been vocal against the Iraq war. Nor did the attackers care that many criticise the current Israeli government’s policies towards the Palestinians. Their victims were targets just because they are Jews.
Even the police are now being more proactive in pursuing people spreading virulent anti-semitic literature or inciting religious hatred. Could not the liberal left, which in an earlier era vigilantly sought to protect Jews from prejudice and bigotry, rediscover its old values?

Maybe the alarm many have been sounding will finally force a new reckoning.