Let's do a who's who here:
Norman Podhoretz:Tentacles of Rage (A must read! ~ Emit)
The Republican propaganda mill, a brief history
LEWIS H LAPHAM / Harpers Magazine v.309, n.1852, September 2004 1sep04
~snip~
So many saviors of the republic were raising the alarm of culture war in the middle eighties that I now can't remember whether it was Bob Bartley writing in the Wall Street Journal or William Bennett speaking from his podium at the National Endowment for the Humanities who said that at Yale University the students were wallowing in the joys of sex, drugs, and Karl Marx, disporting themselves on the New Haven green in the reckless manner of nymphs and satyrs on a Grecian urn. I do remember that at one of the high-end policy institutes in Manhattan I heard the tale told by Norman Podhoretz, then the editor at Commentary, the author of several contentious books (Making It and Why We Were in Vietnam), and a rabid propagandist for all things antiliberal. What he had to say about Yale was absurd, which I happened to know because that same season I was teaching a seminar at the college. More than half the number of that year's graduating seniors had applied for work at the First Boston Corporation, and most of the students whom I'd had the chance to meet were so busy finding their way around the Monopoly board of the standard American success (figuring the angles of approach to business school, adding to the network of contacts in their Filofaxes) that they didn't have the time to waste on sexual digressions either literal or figurative. When I attempted to explain the circumstance to Podhoretz, he wouldn't hear of it. Not only was I misinformed, I was a liberal and therefore both a liar and a fool. He hadn't been in New Haven in twenty years, but he'd read William F. Buckley's book (God and Man at Yale, published in 1951), and he knew (because the judgment had been confirmed by something he'd been told by Donald Kagan in 1978) that the college was a sinkhole of depraved sophism. He knew it for a fact, knew it in the same way that Jerry Falwell knew that it was Satan who taught Barbra Streisand how to sing.
If Kristol was the most engaging of the agents provocateur whom I'd encountered on the conservative lecture circuit in the 1980s, Podhoretz was the dreariest—an apparatchik in the old Soviet sense of the word who believed everything he wished to prove and could prove everything he wished to believe, bringing his patrons whichever words might serve or please, anxious to secure a place near or at the boot of power. Unfortunately it was Podhoretz, not Kristol, who exemplified the character and tone of mind that edged the American conservative consensus ever further to the right during the decade of the 1990s.
The networks of reactionary opinion once again increased their rates of production, several additional foundations recruited to the cause, numerous activist organizations coming on line, together with new and improved media outlets (most notably Rupert Murdoch's Fox News and Weekly Standard) broadcasting the gospels according to saints Warren Harding and William McKinley. By 1994 the Conservative Political Action Conference was attracting as many as 4,000 people, half of them college students, to its annual weekend in Arlington, Virginia, there to listen to the heroes of the hour (G. Gordon Liddy, Ralph Reed, Oliver North) speak from stages wrapped in American flags. Americans for Tax Reform under the direction of Grover Norquist declared its intention to shrink the federal government to a size small enough "to drown," like one of the long-lost hippies in Bel Air, "in a bathtub."
~snip~
Although as comfortably at home on Capitol Hill as in the lobbies of the corporate law firms on K Street, and despite their having learned to suck like newborn lambs at the teats of government patronage (Kristol's son, William, serving as public-relations director to Vice President Dan Quayle; Podhoretz's son-in-law, Elliot Abrams, a highly placed official within the Reagan Administration subsequently indicted for criminal misconduct), the apologists for the conservative cause continued to pose as embattled revolutionaries at odds with the "Tyranny of the Left." The pretense guaranteed a steady flow of money from their corporate sponsors, and the unexpected election of Bill Clinton in 1992 offered them yet another chance to stab the corpse of the liberal Goliath. The smearing of the new president's name and reputation began as soon as he committed the crime of entering the White House...~ snip~
http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2004/Republican-Propaganda1sep04.htmMona CharenWhy Jews should support W
By Mona Charen
~snip~
Republicans support Israel only because they think it portends the Second Coming of Jesus
I've always had trouble understanding this objection. I don't think it's true, but even if it were, what's the problem? In fact, Republicans support Israel for many reasons. They tend to support all democracies fighting off non-democratic enemies (Taiwan and South Korea, to name two others). They sympathize with Israel's predicament as a tiny outpost of enlightenment and liberty amid a raging sea of fanaticism and backwardness. They appreciate Israel's loyalty to the United States. Democrats, by contrast, tend to see Israel as the oppressor of the Palestinians -- "a people of color," in the argot of the left -- and therefore as unworthy of support.
It is true that some Protestant Republicans have religious reasons for supporting Israel. They read the Bible literally and believe that the land was given to the Jews by God. Some (though I've never heard this said by any Christian, only by Jews) may further believe that Jewish sovereignty in Israel is a prerequisite for the Second Coming.
Why is that troubling? It ought to be comforting to Jews. After all, would you prefer to have someone on your side because they like you (which can change) or because they believe it is part of G-d's plan for the world to have a Jewish homeland? As for the end times, maybe they're right, and maybe they're wrong. We can leave that part to G-d. For now, Jews should know who their friends are.
There was very little talk of Israel at the Democratic National Convention this year, probably because the delegates are not fond of Israel. The delegates are always to the left of the party regulars, and wherever you find leftists you find hatred for Israel. From college campuses, to some elements in the press, to the anti-globalization movement, to candidate Howard Dean calling Hamas members "soldiers," left-wingers have little love for the Jewish state.
In 2002, when Israel was enduring almost daily suicide attacks on its civilians, it was Majority Leader Tom DeLay who shepherded through a strong congressional resolution expressing solidarity with the people of Israel. On another occasion, when Sen. Mitch McConnell attempted to brand the PLO a terrorist organization, then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle blocked it as "counterproductive."
At the Republican Convention, by contrast, Israel was invoked often and affectionately, and each mention was met with rousing ovations.
Finally, Israel has had no better friend in the White House than George W. Bush. It would be a well-deserved expression of appreciation if Jewish votes provided the margin of victory for this best of all friends to Israel.
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0904/charen_Jews_4_bush.php3Kate O'Beirne:Paraphrased from wikipedia:
She is the author of Women Who Make the World Worse: and How Their Radical Feminist Assault Is Ruining Our Schools, Families, Military, and Sports. She was vice president of government relations at Heritage Foundation, responsible for keeping Washington policymakers abreast of Heritage proposals and research findings in all areas of the Foundation’s study, while serving as a contributing editor for National Review. In 1992, President of the United States George H. W. Bush named her to the Presidential Commission on Women in the Armed Forces, although she has never served in the military.
She is currently a political analyst for MSNBC's Hardball, and is the Washington editor of National Review. Her column, "Bread and Circuses," covers Congress, politics, and U.S. domestic policy.
She has been a regular contributor on CNN's Saturday night political roundtable program, The Capital Gang, as well as a commentator for the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_O'BeirneKate O'Beirne is married to James O'Beirne, White House liaison to The Pentagon:
James O'Beirne:Before anyone could go to Baghdad, Chandrasekaran (who had spent six months in Iraq before the war started in March 2003, and then was the Post's Baghdad bureau chief from April 2003 to October 2004) reports, they first had to go through the office of Jim O'Beirne in the Pentagon.
To pass muster with O'Beirne, a political appointee who screens prospective political appointees for Defense Department posts, applicants didn't need to be experts in the Middle East or in post-conflict reconstruction. What seemed most important was loyalty to the Bush administration.
O'Beirne's staff posed blunt questions to some candidates about domestic politics: Did you vote for George W. Bush in 2000? Do you support the way the president is fighting the war on terror? Two people who sought jobs with the US occupation authority said they were even asked their views on Roe v. Wade.
The result, Chandrasekaran says, was that officials in many key areas, "lacked vital skills and experience." Many people involved in the effort to rebuild and stabilize Iraq now see this decision making process as "one of the Bush administration's gravest errors."
"We didn't tap – and it should have started from the White House on down – just didn't tap the right people to do this job," said Frederick Smith, who served as the deputy director of the CPA's Washington office. "It was a tough, tough job. Instead we got people who went out there because of their political leanings ...
One former CPA employee who had an office near O'Beirne's wrote an e-mail to a friend describing the recruitment process: "I watched résumés of immensely talented individuals who had sought out CPA to help the country thrown in the trash because their adherence to 'the President's vision for Iraq' (a frequently heard phrase at CPA) was 'uncertain.' I saw senior civil servants from agencies like Treasury, Energy . . . and Commerce denied advisory positions in Baghdad that were instead handed to prominent RNC (Republican National Committee) contributors."
Republicans Only Need Apply?
February 15, 2007 12:02 PM
~snip~ The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is now investigating the role of O'Beirne and allegations of what Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., called "an organized and systematic screening process."
In a letter to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Waxman complained the Pentagon was refusing to cooperate and threatened to issue a subpoena for O'Beirne's testimony and Pentagon documents.
Read the letter sent to Secretary Gates from Chairman Waxman.
The committee also asked for all e-mails between O'Beirne and the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, and "other think tanks, political parties or activists."
A spokesperson at the Pentagon said he was "unaware" of Waxman's letter. A call to O'Beirne’s office was not returned.
In his interview with ABC News, Smith, the former CPA chief of staff, says he personally saw O'Beirne favor Republican candidates over others.
"We did not send our A-team to Baghdad," Smith said, recounting how O'Beirne pushed for a candidate based on the fact that he had been involved in counting chads during the presidential election recount in Florida in 2000.
Smith says he attempted to talk to O'Beirne about changing his hiring policies, but "that fell on deaf ears," he said.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/02/republicans_onl.htmlWaxman to DOD: Turn Over Iraq Cronymaster
By Spencer Ackerman - February 13, 2007, 6:12 PM
James O'Beirne, get ready to meet Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA).
As part of Waxman's ongoing hearings into cronyism at the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee today demanded that Defense Secretary Bob Gates provide the committee with pertinent information relating to O'Beirne. O'Beirne, as readers of Rajiv Chandrasekaran's Imperial Life in the Emerald City know, was the Defense Department official who screened potential candidates for CPA jobs on such mission-critical qualifications such as whether or not they voted for George W. Bush or agreed with Roe v. Wade. Apparently, Waxman's earlier requests to interview O'Beirne were "mislaid," according to Defense Department officials.
In a letter to Gates (PDF), the chairman hopes to avoid "compulsory measures" to learn more about O'Beirne. Gates has until next Tuesday to turn over documents; the staff of Waxman's committee wants to interview O'Beirne by March 2.
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002566.phpWe deserve accountability for Iraq contracting abuses
By Harry Reid - Sep 18th, 2006 at 6:09 pm EDT
~snip~
And it's interesting to note the person selected to do this is a man by the name of
O'Beirne. I was on a talk show with a woman by the name of Kate O'Beirne, and I thought it just happened to be her husband. Here are some of the questions asked: "Did you vote for George W. Bush 2000?" They even asked questions, how the applicant felt about Roe v. Wade. People being interviewed for purposes of helping rebuild war-damaged Iraq were asked questions on Roe v. Wade. The Questions had nothing to do with one's competence, their education background or their experience.
The article says, "From June 2003 to June 2004, it was clear that O'Beirne lacked vital skills to do what he was supposed to do."
"A 24 year-old who never worked in finance but applied for a White House job was sent to reopen Baghdad's Stock Exchange."
The daughter of a prominent neoconservative commentator and a recent graduate from an evangelical university for home-schooled children were tapped to manage Iraq's $13 billion budget, even though they had no background in accounting.
Interviews with scores of former personnel over the past two years depict an organization that was dominated and ultimately hobbled by administration ideologues."We didn't tap -- and it should have started from the White House on down -- just didn't tap the right people to do this job," said Frederick Smith, who served as the deputy director of the CPA's Washington office. "It was a tough, tough job. Instead we got people who went out there because of their political leanings."
Many of the staff members were more interested in other things, in instituting a flat tax. People sent there with no background, no education academic experience, set out to create a flat tax in Iraq.
They were interested in selling off government assets and ending food rations and otherwise zoning a new nation, it looked a lot like the United States. Many spent days quartered in a green zone in a walled off enclave in Central Baghdad with resort-size swimming pools. Mr. President, this picture here kind of says it all. Here's Paul Bremmer who - they dumped General Garner after a few weeks and brought him in. Here he is. Here he is on his thrown. He's on a throne surrounded by Iraqis. ~snip~
I say to anyone within the sound of my voice, to recruit the people he wanted, he sought resumes from the offices of Republican Congressman, conservative think tanks and G.O.P activists.
He discarded applications from those his staff deemed ideologically suspect, even if they applicants possessed Arab language skills or postwar rebuilding experience. Smith said O'Beirne once pointed to a young man's resume and pronounced him an ideal candidate. His chief qualification is he had worked for the Republican party in Florida during the presidential election recount in 2000. I'm not making this up. I mean, this is hard to comprehend. ~snip~
Saturday, January 13th, 2007 ... finished Imperial Life in the Emerald City
As the book wore on, it turned into a chore to read, as it intruded into my more recent memories of events. I’d forgotten a lot of stuff from the beginning in the past several months, especially the gross mismanagement of the CPA.
It’s a little shocking to confess that after the book, i can now see why some of the neocons truly believed that they could have pulled this insane adventure off. The invasion of Iraq was always a mistake, but with the right people at the right time in the aftermath, Iraq would not be in civil war today. It might even have turned into a democracy, although more socialist than the free market zealots would have liked. However, thanks to Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Jim O’Beirne, most of the best qualified, most capable candidates were excluded, as the CPA was staffed mostly with political hacks and lickspittle loyalists. If good people made the cut (and they did,) it was almost by accident. It has to have been one of the worst examples of political cronyisms in American history.
The head-up-ass antics of the Young Republican cronies were the most entertaining. The financial stuff left me puzzled. The bizarre inability of the CPA to comprehend Iraqi demographics and politics was frightening, as even though i kept abreast of the stories as they unfolded, none of it makes any sense in retrospect. The book wraps up after Bremer takes off, with the country still a sprawling mess, except for a reunion of the former Green Zone staffers who still boast of their drinking the Kool-Aid. They remained unrepentant in 2005.
I just don’t know. This horror story is still unfolding, so the book felt unfinished.
http://orbis-quintus.net/blog/?cat=126Paul Gigot:WSJ’s Paul Gigot: ‘We Didn’t Go To War Because Of Al Qaeda Links’
This morning on Fox News, Wall Street Journal editor Paul Gigot said the Pentagon report on Douglas Feith’s activities are irrelevant, claiming, “We didn’t go to war because of al Qaeda links.” Watch it...
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/02/11/gigot-iraq-qaeda/Wall Street Rift: Journal Reporters Reject Gigot Line
By Gabriel Sherman
The Wall Street Journal news staff can live with occasional opposition from the paper’s editorial page. What it can’t live with is the editorial page’s support.
“People feel like we’re walking around with knives in our backs,” one news staffer said. “We rely on our editors to stick up for us. There’s really a feeling we’ve been left to twist in the wind.”
The initial wound came June 30, when The Journal’s editorial page praised reporter Glenn Simpson’s handling of the news of the Bush administration’s secret program of tracking international bank transfers. The editorial described Mr. Simpson, unlike the perfidious reporters of The New York Times, as having received the story from the Treasury Department, which was willing to “offer him the same declassified information”—because, the editorial conjectured, the administration “felt Mr. Simpson would write a straighter story than the Times.”
Journal sources said that editorial-page editor Paul Gigot produced that characterization of the paper’s news operation without speaking to Mr. Simpson, Washington bureau chief Gerald Seib or managing editor Paul Steiger. Instead, Mr. Gigot consulted with a Treasury spokesperson. Mr. Steiger was not even aware the editorial was running, according to a Journal source, till he saw a front-page blurb promoting the piece late in the day on June 29.
~snip~
But the current disputed facts concern The Journal’s own news-reporting practices. And the news staff has viewed the editorial as an outrageous presumption—made worse by Mr. Steiger’s lack of a public response.
“To have Paul Gigot as our captain is bullshit,” one staffer said. “It’s not for real.”
“I’ve been here 16 years, and in my 16 years, this is something different,” political reporter Jackie Calmes said.
~snip~
http://www.observer.com/20060717/20060717_Gabriel_Sherman_media_offtherecord.aspKalb to Gigot: WSJ "dead wrong" for publishing editorial attacking NY Times on bank-tracking story
Summary: On Fox News' Journal Editorial Report, Marvin Kalb described a Wall Street Journal editorial as "dead wrong" for criticizing The New York Times and defending the Journal over their reports on a U.S. program designed to monitor international financial transactions. Kalb, who is a senior fellow at the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, told Wall Street Journal editorial page editor Paul Gigot: "I think you declared war on another American newspaper without due cause. It is mean. It is mean-spirited."
"ead wrong" was how Marvin Kalb described a June 30 editorial in The Wall Street Journal criticizing The New York Times and defending the Journal for their June 23 articles detailing a U.S. program designed to monitor international financial transactions. Kalb made his comments to Wall Street Journal editorial page editor Paul Gigot during a discussion on the July 8 edition of Fox News' Journal Editorial Report, which Gigot hosts. Kalb told Gigot: "I think you declared war on another American newspaper without due cause. It is mean. It is mean-spirited." Kalb later added: "I don't know that you have a right, on the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal, which was also fed this story by the government, to accuse the Times of treason. That's terrible."
The June 30 editorial, titled "Fit and Unfit to Print," purported to distinguish the Times' June 23 article from the Journal's (subscription only), as well as the circumstances under which they were written. But, as Media Matters for America has noted, there appears to be no relevant basis for differentiating the two reports. While the Times noted experts' legal and privacy concerns and the Journal did not, both articles revealed nearly identical details about how the financial surveillance program operated -- the basis for critics' allegations that the Times report threatens national security.
Nonetheless, in defending the Journal's decision to publish the story, Gigot claimed that the Journal article on the bank-tracking program does not "make that leap of faith and say, which The New York Times has said, that they think in fact the terrorists already knew it. We are not omniscient. That's what the Times is saying." Kalb responded: "No, no, no. ... You don't have to be a particular genius to figure this out -- the terrorists themselves must know. It is the oldest rule of journalism and terrorism: Follow the money."
Kalb and Gigot also discussed the genesis of the Journal's story, on which the Journal's editorial appeared to contradict itself. As Media Matters noted, while the editorial suggested that the Journal published its report on the bank-tracking program as a result of the Bush administration's approaching the paper with information about the program after the Times had said that the story was "going to become public anyway," the editorial also mentioned that the Journal reporter had been "working the terror finance beat for some time, including asking questions about the operations of Swift ." Thus, the editorial also seemed to be suggesting that the Journal had been pursuing a story on the financial surveillance program before the administration approached the paper.
~snip~
http://mediamatters.org/items/200607100004
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