The Dish

Enviro-activists go all terrorist on us. The Washington Post story is here. I have to say that while I completely abhor the violence, I don’t abhor the sentiment. Parking a 7-foot high Hummer in your neighborhood is about as irritating as watching one careen down the small streets of Provincetown. We have to create a social stigma toward people totally contemptuous of the environment. I agree with this woman:

Another neighbor, Lani Fremaux, 58, said she bought a T-shirt months ago with a picture of a Hummer and above it the word "Bummer." She wore the shirt proudly but said she is so upset with recent events on her street that she might retire it.

"They’ve got everything at their disposal in this city to make a statement in a legal way," Fremaux said of the bat-wielding men who struck out at the Hummer. "I consider this a hate crime."

Well: a hate crime is a stretch. These owners of massive, gas-guzzling behemoth cars deserve social opprobrium. They also deserve to have their property respected.

It’s now a meme for the Republican right, desperate to find some gleam of optimism from the Bush end-game. Don Surber celebrates 14 percent approval here. Nick Gillespie links, and provokes a Weigel push-back:

Yes, Americans hate Congress. No, they don’t hate the Democrats. Not yet.

I’m no fan of Pelosi or Reid, but they don’t have the votes to do anything about the prime issue they were elected on. But yes, the grandstanding and cots-mongering was cheesy. I enjoyed this bloggy rant:

I don’t quite understand the oohing and aahing about the Senate doing what many of my students do on a routine basis. So a bunch of rich people who only work half the year (true, I only work half the year, but I don’t make $165,000 a year) stayed up all night once? So what? Are we supposed to be awed by how seriously the Senate is taking the question of withdrawing troops? Only a group as self-congratulatory and narcissistic as the Senate could believe that such a transparent and empty gesture as an all-nighter could substitute for intelligent and informed discourse.

Congress, of course, never has sky-high ratings, as this piece from Pollster explains. Handy historical  data:

Larry Flynt’s reign of terror continues.

Unused, of course.

Abu Dhabi, 9 am.

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"I’m a terrible long-term planner," – secretary of state, Condi Rice, Businesweek.

He has, alas, played the partisan role before – writing an op-ed in 2004 that had the effect of supporting the Bush administration’s re-election effort. A reader notices another unfortunate slip:

The most telling aspect of the Petraeus interview was his use of the phrase "precipitous withdrawal." He used it without any previous use by Hewitt.  That misleading phrase, coined by partisan right-wingers, is the very dishonest description of the belief of most Americans that the U.S. has to leave Iraq, preferably no later than April 2008.  Why did Petraeus use what amounts to the talking points of the administration?

I’m reminded of Arianna’s eavesdropping on an Acela cell-phone chat by Bill Kristol:

Kristol was sitting a row behind me, talking on his cell phone with someone who apparently shared his optimism. "’Precipitous withdrawal’ really worked," I overheard him say, clearly referring to the president’s use of the term in that morning’s press conference. "How many times did he use it? Three? Four?" he asked his interlocutor, and the conversation continued with a round of metaphorical back-slapping for the clever phrase they had "come up with."

If Petraeus wants to appear as an objective, military professional in September, he is not going about it the right way.

Ambers says they’re giving Fred a pass. A rare moment of lucidity.

The Republican operative, Hugh Hewitt, writes:

The commentators objecting to the general being interviewed by an avowed Republican who is also a journalist no doubt don’t object to Tim Russert, George Stephanopoulos and Chris Matthews running talk shows depsite their past partisan attachments. This amusing double standard says nothing about the ability of those Dems who are also journalists to conduct interviews, but volumes about the gullibility of the anti-intellectuals who want General Petraeus only to speak to the MSM and thus through the filter of MSM. That’s an absurd straight-jacket which the [sic] neither the military nor any other institution in America ought to put on.

The notion that Hewitt is equatable with Stephanopoulos, Russert or Matthews is absurd. Hewitt is not a former pol; he is a current pol. He is a key advocate of one major Republican candidate and he is the author of books urging the creation of a one-party state in America, the GOP. He has no interest whatever in the truth, only propaganda. Any listener to his show will be in no doubt about this. Here are two of his "questions" to Petraeus:

Some of the arguments about Iraq in the United States argue that it’s possible for American troops to withdraw to their bases and just strike at al Qaeda, sort of an Anbar only option, I guess. Does that make any sense to you at all, General Petraeus?

You know, that…in the forward to that manual that you wrote with General Amos, it said you needed a flexible, adaptive force led by agile, well-informed, culturally astute leaders. You’re just describing that kind of a force. Is it increasing in its lethality and effectiveness on an exponential basis, General?

One of his responses to a Petraeus set-up answer was simply: "wow." He is as much a propagandist as Michael Moore but much, much more partisan than Moore. For Petraeus to allow himself to be used in this way is a serious failure of judgment. And used he was. Just look how Hewitt coopted the military leadership for the Bush-Cheney narrative. This is pure Weimar: stab-in-the-back reactionaries trying to coopt the military for an agenda of one-party rule in defense of the homeland. Petraeus will regret his misjudgment. For him to aid, abet and ally himself with such a vicious and extreme partisan can only serve to undermine his critical presentation in September.

There are only a handful of foreign policy writers and thinkers who I think of as real innovators, people who can surprise and suddenly illuminate a situation, think creatively and outside the boxes of the various isms. Edward Luttwak is one of them; Mark Helprin is another. I have a soft spot for Helprin from his novels. I also disagree with him strongly on some issues. But he’s always stimulating and sharp. His op-ed in the NYT today is a home-run. What we desperately need right now is less recrimination – can we all agree that the current crew is simply unhinged? – and more imagination with respect to exploiting the opportunities opened up by the moral and strategic catastrophe of the Iraq occupation. My own hope is protecting Kurdistan and turning the South of Iraq into a major headache for Tehran’s mullahs. An oil crisis would be great for the planet too. Helprin argues that, for reasons unforeseen, we now have a rare window of opportunity for an Israel-Palestinian deal. Yes, I know, and Helprin has all the necessary caveats. But read it all. Money quote:

The sudden and intense commonality of interest between the Palestinian Authority and Israel is the equivalent of the Israeli-Egyptian core of 1977. But today, the Arabs, in the second circle, have largely reversed position. Fearful of Iran’s sponsorship of war, chaos and revolution, they will apply their weight against the rejectionists.

Egypt, the Persian Gulf states and Jordan have so much to contend with at home and in the east that they cannot afford an active front in their midst, and are therefore forming ranks against Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas, bringing most of the rest of the Arab states with them.

This is extraordinary and it is where we are now: on the verge of a rare alignment of Israel and the Palestinian Authority, the leading Arab nations and the major powers. Though it is true that one of Moscow’s chief interests is to keep the Middle East roiled so as to preserve the high oil prices that are now Russia’s lifeblood, when the region moved from Soviet to Western arms Moscow was relegated to the periphery, where it remains. Though Europe is militarily paralyzed, it wields great economic incentives; and though the United States has of late been a graceless lummox drunkenly knocking everything awry, its powers remain pre-eminent and its will constructive.

This is Condi’s chance. Take it, madam secretary.