Tapper-Hewitt

A reader writes:

Wow, that interview is crazy to listen to. Hewitt has that practiced calm, that "Oh we’re just having a nice conversation here" gas-lighting technique to wrap around his insane paranoia and propaganda about "The MSM". I mean, to use himself and Limbaugh as examples of some kind of outsiders, some kind of Davids facing down the "Beltway/Manhattan Elites" is just disingenuous and bizarre. It’s all that "Who, me?" stuff that works when they preach to their choir, but the undertones of hostility and contempt are loud and clear. To paraphrase "Broadcast News", the Devil isn’t going to convince anyone if he has a long, red, pointy tail. He’ll look attractive and helpful and he’ll get a job where he influences a great God-fearing nation and he’ll never do an evil thing. He’ll just bit by bit lower standards where they are important. I’m not saying Hewitt’s the Devil, but what he does is wrong, and dishonest.

I mean, does Hewitt realize that there is just as much suspicion of "The MSM" from the Left as from the Right? I’m sure he does, and I’m sure he’d just say that only shows how unhinged the wacko left is, that "The MSM" looks conservative from that distant "fringe". But it’s like the frog in the pot that doesn’t realize the water is coming to a slow boil; the tectonics of this country are shifting and the vast, populist heartland they once felt they represented is becoming a bit pissed off that they are being lied to.

Look, I know Jake and like him a lot. That disclosed, he really isn’t a classic example of a knee-jerk left-liberal journalist. They do exist; but he’s not one of them. He’s tough on liberals and Democrats – look at his recent roasting of Harry Reid. Sure, I do think there’s something lame about MSM reporters not being able to just say what their politics are. But if Jake’s politics were exposed fully, he’d be a conservative Democrat or liberal Republican. He’s certainly not a reflexive partisan liberal. That Hewitt makes even Tapper the enemy just goes to show how deep Hewitt’s nutty partisanship goes. My advice: never go on his show. Not only is he an unrepentant apparatchik, he’s really good at it.

The Magic Forest

Does it contain a missing link between apes and men? The Guardian reports on the Congo:

The most detailed and recent data comes from Cleve Hicks, at the University of Amsterdam, who has spent 18 months in the field watching the Bili apes – named after a local town – since 2004. His team’s most striking find came after one of his trackers heard chimps calling for several days from the same spot.

When he investigated he came across a chimp feasting on the carcass of a leopard. Mr Hicks cannot be sure the animal was killed by the chimp, but the find lends credence to the apes’ lion-eating reputation.

"What we have found is this completely new chimpanzee culture," said Mr Hicks. Previously, researchers had only managed to snatch glimpses of the animals or take photos of them using camera traps. But Mr Hicks used local knowledge to get closer to them and photograph them.

"We were told of this sort of fabled land out west by one of our trackers who goes out there to fish," said Mr Hicks whose project is supported by the Wasmoeth Wildlife Foundation. "I call it the magic forest. It is a very special place."

Liberals Against Withdrawal, Ctd

A reader writes:

Your reader is right, we do owe it to Iraq to fix what our elected leaders have broken.  As Bush et al like to point out, however, only the executive branch can execute the war. Since the only available commander-in-chief has proven himself radically incompetent, unaccountable, and prone to dubious military engagements, we have little reason to believe that we can expiate our obligations to the Iraqis by allowing the White House to be even more profligate with our collective blood and honor.

It is possible to incur a debt one cannot repay, and I fear that is what we have done.  I hope – though I by no means assume – that if our next president is both very clever and has a strong sense of honor he or she will find a way to make good.  In the meantime I doubt it will help to leave that future president an exhausted, demoralized military with which to work.

Yes, this is the problem. Even if we were convinced that we should stay in Iraq to prevent genocide, how can we morally keep entrusting the troops to Bush and Cheney? And how, with Bush and Cheney in charge, can we know they won’t continue to make the same appalling mistakes they have made so far? Bush himself has said he disapproved of his own war-management last fall. One might ask if he won’t say the same about his war management today a year from now? I’m afraid Petraeus is not an answer. He’s a good and decent general; but he cannot perform miracles, or defy reality. The reality is: Iraq no longer exists. Right now, we’re asking young Americans to die to keep Bill Kristol’s grand political narrative from being one notch less than absurd. I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Another reader writes:

Nice piece by the anti-war liberal who rightly is concerned at the moral implications of withdrawal.  But he had a more cogent point when he noted there was a reason Saddam was so brutal – that he had to be to keep a lid on all the centuries of brewing tension.  And that’s the problem with staying…we can only bring peace to a unified Iraq by imposing draconian measures on the country, a la Saddam, or by picking a new Saddam and sticking around long enough for him to do so.  I don’t think it would be moral to do so.  Nor do we have the stomach for it.  I fear the only outcome that offers a prayer of bringing the violence to a relatively quick end is to partition the country – Kurd, Shia and Sunni – and stick around long enough for each group to get out of the other’s territory.

Soft-partition via withdrawal. It may be the best we can do. And it could be leveraged against Iran’s leadership.