I’ve just gotten Scott McClellan’s book, What Happened, and my most powerful impression is, McClellan is a good man. Humility, honesty and simple moral understanding radiate from every page. The defining moment for a reader is the episode in the late 80s at the University of Texas when young McClellan resigns the presidency of his fraternity Sigma Phi Epsilon, of which his two older brothers were members, because of the hazing culture. It wasn’t a one-stepper. McClellan tried to uproot hazing. He took responsibility for a fraternity brother’s partial blinding in an incident under his watch. He tried to eliminate “hell week.” He challenged his alumni board to back him up. They said they were behind him, but they weren’t all the way. The hazing went on. Faced with a “social evil,” McClellan resigned. That’s all you need to know about him. That foreshadows his nobility in the Iraq war aftermath.
I don’t think I’ve ever read such a clear and simple analysis of the major players. George W. Bush is a smart guy but an instinctual leader, not a deep thinker. Cheney and Bush were very close, but Bush was the decider. Yet Bush was captive to other men’s ideas. We will never know Cheney’s whole agenda. Cheney may well have seen the war as an “opportunity to give America more influence over Iraq’s oil reserves.” It was Condi Rice’s job to protect Bush from the forcefulness of his “advisers.” She failed. Rice will do anything to maintain access, compromise any principle, never stand up for anything.
Advisers is the key word in McClellan’s book. The advisers who wanted to remake the Middle East as a democratic utopia got to Bush. McClellan describes the philosophy of “coercive democracy” that the neoconservatives in Wolfowitz’s train brought to the White House. He describes the refusal of the advisers to deal with the Israel/Palestine issue–in favor of knocking off Saddam. He uses the word “neoconservative” once or twice, but mostly the advisers are nameless. It is the great flaw of the book, and it exists for a simple reason: McClellan wasn’t privy to those advisers’ discussions. He doesn’t know just “what happened” there, who the players were. Scooter Libby pops up here and there, but he remains true to character: a cipher, in all the scary richness of that word.
Another achievement of McClellan’s book is his description of the compliant press. They should have been asking the tough and “liberal” questions of the Iraq war plans. They failed their job. I will quote specific passages later; though I think those comments have already been in the press. McClellan is pitiless and calm and clear. And he’s a man on the street. We’d all walk by him with no sense of his goodness. It’s amazing what a humble and unassuming package this man’s mental and moral gifts are wrapped in. He’s a Frank Capra character. When the time came to choose between his loyalty to a boss (let alone all the Texas connections) and his loyalty to his country, it was a no-brainer for McClellan. How many others would do what he has done? About zero.
McClellan was aided in putting this book out by the best of New York: the team at Public Affairs Books, Susan Weinberg and Peter Osnos. Osnos has written one of the most incisive analyses of Barack Obama to appear anywhere (I’m biased: Weinberg stood by me throughout the production of a book on a coverup of a murder by the Peace Corps). Osnos knows how our politics are corrupted. I think the next book he and McClellan should work on is obvious. They should expose who those advisers were and how their ideas came into the Bush Administration, in the non-eggheaded manner that McClellan perfects here. McClellan says that when a controversy breaks out in Washington, “the hungry media beast” doesn’t stop feeding till all the facts are out. Well, this has not happened in the life of the neoconservatives, notwithstanding McClellan’s book, or Jacob Heilbrunn’s, or Walt and Mearsheimer’s. Where is the investigative reporting? Where is the outrage? Where is the angry feast?
Again I raise the question that I raised the other day. In the 3 years before George Bush took office, casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, the third-richest man in America, gave the Republican National State Elections Committee $300,000, the last tranche of it, $100,000, the very day after Al Gore conceded and George Bush declared victory in December 2000. At that same time, the untransparent Doug Feith tells us, feelers went out to him, a true nobody, to become Under Secretary of Defense. Well, as Connie Bruck reported, Adelson was behind the group One Jerusalem, which was founded in the runup to Camp David in 2000–to make sure that Jerusalem stays under Israeli rule. Wikipedia says that Feith was one of the founders of One Jerusalem. The next thing you know he’s got a big job in the Bush Administration, and his feverish ideas become George Bush’s. What is going on here? Scott McClellan is the guy who can root this out and speak about this honestly.
all true about the NeoCons, but it pays to remember they'd be nowhere without a compliant bully like Bush/Cheney to force the issue and put an inhuman but familiar face on the project. so many are profiting by this venture in the Middle East, from Carlyle/Bush/Baker/Saudi to GE to Exxon to Northrop to the new privatized military. the whole apparatus stinks. the world must be wondering how we'll deal w this monster.
Its important to recollect that Cheney's, and "big oil's" goals on Iraq and Iran were very different in the 1990's from neoconservative plans for Iraq and Iran.
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_3360.shtml
link to query.nytimes.com
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The neoconservative plan to use Iraqi oil to weaken the Saudis and Opec was quite different from what oil companies had intended
whatever the intent of the parties the outcome has been wildly profitable for all concerned. Iraq has been turned into a giant Strategic Petroleum Reserve, its oil taken off the market for now to be accessed later — after the population has been removed or destroyed — by US survivalists like Cheney. Oil has gone from $30 at onset of Bush to $150 today, next stop > $200 when we trigger step 2 in that process, the attack on Iran. both countries' ability to feed themselves or grow families thru the use of everyday staples like electricity, clean water and sewer, reliable public safety will be undermined by our military and our fomenting of civil war.
"whatever the intent of the parties the outcome has been wildly profitable for all concerned."
Actually, the profitability for some parties is unproven thus far and sharply criticized.
link to cnbc.com
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The losses to the U.S. economy as a whole do not need to be reiterated here.
Regardless of any of these questions of profitability, oil companies were fighting against the neoconservative plans for Iraq. Cheney's goals were incongruous with the neoconservatives as well up until 2002. These facts occur independently of any question of profit.
Richard, people talk about the farm lobby all the time. I don't pay that much attention to the issue, but people in favor of small organic and/or local farms are always complaining about the big agribusinesses and their power. People who think ethanol is a boondoggle complain about the hold of the ethanol lobby.
And coming closer to home, it's well known that the rightwing Cubans in Miami have had a bad effect on our Latin American policies because politicians worry about winning Florida.
So it's not exactly shocking to think that the Israel lobby might have a bad influence on policy for similar reasons.
Phil, how long do you think it will take for this issue to edge into mainstream reporting….bbc doing a report on wtc 7 miraculous collapse starting today on bbc 2…..at least the bbc is doing a little reporting on the event that crystallized the support for the crimes against the constitution of the united states….
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/conspiracy_files/default.stm
Jewish Zionist Adelson “gives” the GOP 300k, and in exchange, his underling, Jewish Zionist Feith (an author of the 1996 “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm” which was hawked by right-wing Zionists to Netanyahu and advocated the removal of Saddam Hussein) is installed in the upper echelons of the Bush administration. Quid pro quo. Feith and other Jewish Zionists in the Office of Special Plans then propagate the false intelligence used to implicate Saddam on WMD.
I always thought Cheney brought in most of these Jewish Zionists of his own volition, recognizing their venal nature as parallel with his own, and useful to his agenda. But it appears there was also some payola used to grease the skids.
A lousy 300k to hire the US military as a mercenary force to remove a primary Israeli enemy. The GOP’s soul is going cheap these days. Let’s see: $300,000 divided by 4,114 dead US soldiers equals around 73 bucks a head. What a steal for Adelson. They probably all laugh about it when he gets together with his Jewish Zionist buddies at the AIPAC convention.
Phil -
It was a "coverup by the Peace Corps of a murder" not a "coverup of a murder by the Peace Corps" as you state.
There is a difference.
Best regards,
Hugh Pickens
"Auto-association is pleasurable and is not illegal.
Where is the discussion of the FARM LOBBY?"
Do you think the Farm Lobby has been involved in pushing for war against Iraq?
Considering the fact, that a whole series were planned, shouldn't people concentrate on the forces that are visibly pushing for another war?
Why should anybody balance the closer inspection of pro-war forces with other other powers completely irrelevant to the issue? I don't understand your logic, sometimes.
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what I find much more irritating is the amount of Adelson money that, according to Phil's logic, brought all we witnessed about. Is it that cheap to force a leviathan like the US into a war? Or is this pay for getting the right people in?
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I still remember the times when I read these reports with suspicion, but why should an over achieving young journalist harm his career? (dedicated to someone in search of Palestinian achievements)
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43056
His account on Jim Lobe's blog:
http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/?p=163
The post above attributed to me was posted by someone else in my name.
Its very irritating.
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Oil for Israel, not the USA, was a major part of the neocon plan for the war against Iraq. Ed Vuillamy spilled the beans in April 2003 which started all kinds of disinfo afterwards — Netanyahu in London June 2003 — and Israeli Oil Minister Paritzky got dumped six months later for letting the cat out of the bag. In other articles at the time (late March 2003, early April), Paritzky ACTUALLY SAID that the war in Iraq was to secure Israel's oil supply. I have copies of these but they've been swept from the web.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/apr/20/israelandthepalestinians.oil
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"Its very irritating."
Sorry Richard, I thought the spoof would have been obvious. (If not the VV for W.) Far be it from me to intentionally mislead.
(BTW, do you really think there are people here who take any of your posts seriously?)
"The post above attributed to me was posted by someone else in my name."
Thanks Richard, but interesting that I can be tricked so easily. Hmmm? True, you rarely write such a short note.
Asshole who is posting under others names.
Stop it.
I'm sorry that person dit that to you, Richard, you every right to sound like a zionist apologist retard on your own!
Scott McClellan Questioned about Neocon Push for Iraq War
http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot.com/2008/06/scott-mcclellan-questioned-about-neocon.html
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http://NEOCONZIONISTTHREAT.BLOGSPOT.COM
I'm currently reading McClellan's book; about halfway through. What I'm struck by is how McClellan is still, to a large extent, "drinking the koolaid" of the Bush ideology (if we can call it such.) He gives Bush far too much benefit of the doubt. No doubt this is due to his residual loyalty to Bush. But it's sad that he doesn't go all the way.
mr smith goes to washington…classic example of what america needs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1d19wV1GZQ
Coercive Democracy and Jewish Political Thinking
I discuss the predilection among many Central and Eastern European Jews, whether socialists, communists, or religious conservatives, for coercive governments in Struggle for America and the World. In the footnotes, I note that
I also follow Osnos on the publishing industry, for the roots of Jewish influence in the media lie in Jewish religious book publishing.* I cite Osnos in NY Times Panders Jewish Prejudice.
Note
* The non-Jewish publisher Daniel Bomberg for all intents and purposes founded the modern Jewish publishing industry when he developed a particularly effective page layout for the Talmud in 1520.
'The advisers who wanted to remake the Middle East as a democratic utopia got to Bush.'
We keep hearing about this claim for a strategic ambition on the part of the Neocons to bring democracy to the Middle East. Out and out rubbish. Democracy (in the US as well as the Middle East) is incompatible with Neocon ambitions.
Why is this claim still reproduced?
ej: it's the neocon cover story. The story they fed Bush to puff his ego and get him to go along with their covert Israel-first agenda.
I slightly agree with ej here. The tale of the weak president controlled by evil forces, seems to be just another good vs evil tale on a smaller scale.
Hmmm? the first argument below seems to be a valid but recurring argument (?Feith?), the second, is the usual machiavellian stuff. … Strictly McClellan did not witness the run up to war, Ari Fleisher did, he only witnessed "advisers", and that not even too closely.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_McClellan#Response_to_criticisms
"Fleischer and Matalin have claimed that McClellan had not shared similar doubts during his tenure in White House, and that if he had held such doubts then he ought not to have replaced Fleischer as Press Secretary. Both also claimed that McClellan was asked to leave the White House as he was not contributing to policy discussions."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ari_Fleischer#White_House_Press_Secretary
Asked to leave by whom? Does he say something about the circumstances?
I agree that Bush is likely very gullible, but I disagree that the emphasis that "caused" his decision to invade Iraq was the "Israel Lobby" and "for Israel".