• June 9, 2004 | 1:17 PM ET

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St. Ronnie: Three ironies/points of historical evidence in a stormy sea of nonsense and deliberate disinformation.

1. Mikhail Gorbachev, together with Eduard Shevardnadze, deserves the lion’s share of the credit for ending the Cold War and the era of Soviet tyranny.  Ronald Reagan was among the last of Western leaders to embrace Gorbachev’s effort—long after Margaret Thatcher and Germany’s Hans Dietrich Genscher—who was roundly mocked by Reagan supporters—for knowing something they didn’t.  Reagan passed up a golden invitation to end the nuclear arms race when Gorbachev offered it to him on a silver platter in exchange for giving up his nutty dream of a star wars system.  Reagan refused and today we are nearly eighty billion dollars poorer for it.  Had it not been for Nancy Reagan’s worrying about her husband’s historical legacy, it’s quite possible that the Reagan hard-liners would have continued to reinforce the Soviet hard-liners and history would have been much less kind to both sides.  From Sound and Fury:
   
   
   In March, 1985, Eduard Shevardnadze, Mikhail Gorbachev's closest friend and adviser, turned to his new boss, the General Secretary of the Communist Party, and blurted out the fact that had eluded virtually the entire Soviet leadership since Stalin's time.  "Everything's rotten," observed Shevardnadze, "it has to be changed."  Through their willingness to accept this awful truth into their collective political psyche, the two men converted themselves from hedgehogs into foxes.  Gorbachev was not exaggerating in the slightest when he explained that things were so bad that, "everything pertaining to the economy, culture, democracy, foreign policy--all spheres--had to be reappraised.” Thus began the series of events that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall.
   
   
2. One person who has reason to regret Reagan’s passing is Saddam Hussein, whom Reagan supported at the very moment he was known to be using poison gas inside his own borders.  Right up until the day he invaded Kuwait, Mr. Hussein had been considered a valued commercial customer and regional balancing force by at least three American presidents.  Both before and during his invasion of Iran, Hussein had enjoyed private screenings of U.S. satellite intelligence data.  When the war with Iran ended and he turned his poison-gas pellets on his own Kurdish population, Hussein continued to receive sophisticated American technology and taxpayer-subsidized grain.  From The Book on Bush:  
   
   
   Moreover, many of the same people who promoted Bush’s war, including Cheney, Perle, Wolfowitz and others, served in the Reagan/Bush Defense Department while this ad-hoc alliance was underway.  Donald Rumsfeld, like former Republican presidential nominee, Robert Dole, personally visited Hussein in Baghdad during the period of gassing as a special emissary of President Ronald Reagan, in December, 1983, and managed to avoid the distasteful topic.  (Talking points and minutes of the meeting demonstrate that that Rumsfeld’s primary interest was in keeping Hussein informed about America’s changing Middle East policy.  He also wished to discuss a proposal by the Bechtel Corporation to build an oil pipeline from Iraq to Aqaba, in Jordan, as well as to make sure that Iraq not attack Iran’s oil facilities.)
   
   
3. As I mentioned above, Reagan’s primary foreign policy achievement, embracing Mikhail Gorbachev’s prophetic quest to end the Cold War, was bitterly opposed by many of those claiming to revere his name.  In May 2, 1982, Norman Podhoretz wrote of “The Neoconservative Anguish over Reagan's Foreign Policy” in The New York Times Magazine arguing that Reagan had "in practice been following a strategy of helping the Soviet Union stabilize its empire, rather than a strategy aimed at encouraging the breakup of that empire from within."  According to Paul Nitze, during the early days of the START talks, "Pentagon civilian officials - particularly Richard Perle [then Secretary of defense for International Security Policy] and Caspar Weinberger – were deliberately excluded from the discussion.  Otherwise the howls and leaks from Weinberger and Perle and their supporters would have made the project impossible." 
   
   For Podhoretz (among others), see John Ehrman’s The Rise of Neconservatism; intellectuals and foreign affairs, 1945-1994, New Haven : Yale University Press, c1995 and for Nitze, Paul H. Nitze with Ann M. Smith and Steven L. Rearden. From Hiroshima to Glastnost: At the Center of Decision”, New York : Grove Weidenfeld, c1989.

Meanwhile, Ronald Reagan hasn’t been buried yet and some of you might think satire inappropriate until after his funeral.  But the real jokes are coming from his idolaters.  Actual quotes from two of Reagan’s biggest boosters inspired this satire.  The Hill reports that Sen. Mitch McConnell is reportedly about to introduce a bill to replace Hamilton with Reagan on the $10 bill.  Would The Federalist Society really let that happen? 

You can’t make this stuff up… well, sometimes you can.

Oh yeah, the wars, remember: The Bush administration: Torture is us (and so are cover-ups).

Annals of the SCLM:  Right-wing propagandist Dinesh D'Souza is now a “CNN Analyst."  Everybody all at once: What liberal media?

Wonkette has more on the dastardly and deliberately confusing SCLM here. 

Speaking of conservative propagandists, the talented Mr. Yglesiais: 

“During the question-and-answer period, a disheveled Christopher Hitchens rose to suggest that Abu Zarqawi was all the "connection" one needed to make the case.  Hitchens' "evidence" is that Zarqawi leads a terrorist group that is in communication with, though not a member of, al-Qaeda and has collaborated to some extent with ex-Baathists after the fall of Hussein.  (Similar logic would suggest that Hitchens' former editors at The Nation are, in fact, in league with his newfound neoconservative friends, but never mind.)”

More here.

Paper criticism:  A few weeks ago, The New York Observer ran a strange article celebrating the demise of the Times’ Arts and Ideas section.  As with so much of the Observer’s reporting, it was filled, Page Six-style, with people’s personal vendettas and petty jealousies masquerading as analysis, together with some legitimate criticism.  Of course it is impossible for the reader to discern which was which, and hence, the article left the impression of a bunch of smart people actually celebrating the reduction of coverage of the world of ideas in America’s most important newspaper. This is nonsense and it would be weird—that a newspaper would celebrate the demise of an important cultural innovation in the nation’s most important newspaper- had it appeared anywhere else but the Observer. 

I have a dog in this fight, I’ve contributed a few times to the section—at greatly reduced pay rates I might add—and the editor Patti Cohen, is my friend, but you needn’t take my word for it.  How is it that supposedly smart people could ask for less of this type of coverage in the news?:

1. The author of a book on war games explores the phenomenon in far greater depth and with considerable more background than could any reporter assigned to the topic, here.
   
   
2. Extensive coverage of what looks to be Henry Kissinger’s attempt to squash criticism of his horrific Chilean policies at the Council on Foreign Relations, here.
   
   
3. Anti-environmentalism or genuinely saving the world: An inquiry
   
   
4. Iraq, as seen through the prism of the Iliad, by the thoughtful neocon, Edward Rothstein, here.

Now I ask you, what daily American newspaper is offering cultural coverage, friendly to, but not aimed at intellectuals and academics, of this caliber?  The answer, obviously, is none.  So what was really going on here?

Correspondence corner:

The Reagan stuff has inspired more mail to me than anything that’s ever appeared on the site, easily into four figures.  I’ve at least glanced at all of it and here is a genuinely representative sample, save the stuff that I can’t print because it smacks too much of self-congratulation or contains too much obscenity and or sexual imagery inappropriate for a family-oriented website. Sorry to those of you to whom I could not respond.

Name: Roscoe S. Barnwood
Hometown: Delilah, Mississipi
You are a communist menace and an enemy of God and America! Good  Americans know what a liar you are and that your real agenda is to get Hillary in the White House in '08. We'll die before that godless scum takes our country from us once again! Go and cry with your homosexual friends, you lost the fight, the sun has risen on America to stay.

Name: Max Davis
Hometown: Sarasota, FL
Hi Eric:
Go f**k yourself.  Alot of us are really getting bored with the nasty, left wing, Godless, do-whatever-you-want-to-do mantra from people like you.  Call me and I will persoanlly buy you a first class ticket to whatever country you want to go live in.  You are irreverant, inappropriate and foolish. 

Name: JOHN H STEVENSON (Return my email if you are man enough)
Hometown: SOUTH FLORIDA
You are seriously twisted. Your mind has turned to a blob of black gelatin. At a time of national mourning you decide to take pen in hand and spew poisonous verse about a dead man who isnt even cold yet. Ever hear of a thing called tact? You think Reagan was worse than a man who got blowjobs in the oval office on our dime while talking to foreign leaders on the phone? Would you rather we were in a spending war with the Soviets or a nuclear war? The man was a leader when we desperately needed one. You think a Russian president will go ga-ga when the almighty Clintons die? You sir, are a low down miserable scum bag oppotunist who is exploiting this man's death as a chance to say what you are too cowardly to say to a living mans face. You are a pathetic, weak little man who will never fill his own shoes, and could never fill Ronnies. I think this is deplorable and you sir, like it or lump it, owe a great deal to that man being honored as we speak. I only hope when you die someone will be as vile with your epitaph.

Name: Dash Lane
Hometown: Folly Beach, SC
You are a sad little man, Eric Alterman-grasping at straws and your poll data for justifications to hate.  Cry, run in place and wet your pants- it does not change the fact that Ronald Reagan is a great American.  I say that in the present tense because his body died but his spirit will live forever.
Regards,
D.P. "Dash" Lane

P.S. You are a loser.

Name: Paul Mellon
Hometown: Chalfont, PA
Alterman,
Thank you. At last a true liberal lunatic has the guts to spew the real venow the Left has for the Great Man. Your sick and pathetic idealogy has the blood of millions on their hands for your decades long desire to keep the Soviet Union in power. In your twisted mind the state is always superior to the individual be it communist or liberal. Reagan was and remains your ultimate nightmare as he had the foresight and brilliace to demolish not only the Evil Empire but the Left Wing Democratic choke hold on the US Govt. So complete is the victory that Kerry refuses to even accept the term "liberal". Now you freaks of nature are "progressive". Whatever, Ronbo will always be remembered as the hero he was and our nation exalts in him and our supremacy in the world due to his victorious triumphs. So please, continue to ramble on as the bitter, pathetic idiot your are so that Americans can thank God for giving us a leader like Ronald Reagan.

Name: Gary Roddy
Hometown: Livonia MI
I see that you still have your communist party membership!  You faggot!  Crawl back under KKKlinton's desk where you belong!!!!!

Name: Cory Kline
Hometown: Pennsylvania
You're a moron and a terrible American. For you to suggest that the media is not liberal is the dumbest thing someone can say.  Since the war in Iraq to remove a tyrant started, you and your peers have not reported the many good things that have happened over there. And the only reason Clinton was so popular, despite his disgusting acts and lying under oath, is because idiots like you in the media painted a glorious picture of him with your coverage! Do us all a favor and shut up.

Name: Carl Peterson
Hometown: Beaumont, TX
Nice try Commie-boy! Can't stand to hear the re-visiting of greatness that the man who brought pride back to America and faced down the Soviet Union and the left-controled Congress, can you? Reagan is the reason I left the Democratic Party over twenty years ago. Pus-bucket socialists like you that infest the present Democratic Party constantly reinforce that I made the Right decision.

Name: Dave
Hometown: Harleysville Pa
Are you sure you are not in Mass or on the seventh district court in California? It's people like you that are killing this country. I agree with the other person - GO TO FRANCE actually go anywhere else other than here

Name: Guillaume E
Hometown: Paris
Dear Eric,
In case you eventually decide to follow Mr Harrington's advice, and move to France, please know you will be welcome. Most of us Frenchmen (some of us devoted readers of Altercation) still cherish the idea of America you daily stand for, and that Messrs Bush and Co (and their moronic supporters) are busily destroying.

Name: Gordon Moore
Hometown: Truckee CA
I was 21, a former Marine, and in college when Reagan was governor.  He set a mean tone in California politics, in a very political time.  He single-handedly stomped all over the 1st Amendment and in his spare time, invented "homelessness."  He increased state income tax.  I didn't like him then and I don't like him now.  I've never understood why this nation idolizes him.  I hate to say that Americans are gullible or don't pay attention, but that is the way it seems.  At least during the current administration, due to the egregious behavior of the presidential selectee Bush and his mob of sissy-hawks, people are starting to wake up to the lies, arrogance, and contempt in which our intelligence as citizens is held by them.  "God wanted me to be president" is an insult, for Christ's sake.  But I digress.  Reagan's passing is a blessing.  Maybe after his burial we can quit hearing how great he was.  Thank goodness some of the print and Web writers are reminding us of his true record.  Just in passing, let me say that the Marines who were killed in Beirut were of the 8th Marine Regiment.  So was I during my service.  Reagan, who had them there by mistake in the first place, should have avenged them rather than withdrawing which showed terrible weakness to the Arabs.  I'd have flattened the joint.  Anyway, the coward cut and ran, and we are still paying for it.  Loved your book on the SCLM, but I think the Wrong (I can't use the term "Right") see it as a lefty cover-up.  They're the experts on cover-ups, after all.  Thanks for letting this Moderate/Progressive rant.

Name: Mike Campbell
Hometown: Eudora, Kansas
Reagan's death, coming so soon after Memorial Day and D-Day, reminds me of a little discussed facet of Reagan's Presidency:  his betrayal of American military pilots during the Iran-Contra scandal.  This betrayal was pointed out to me by a retired Navy pilot who deeply hated Reagan because of Reagan's sale of missiles to the Iranians.  At the time of Iran-Contra, the defenses on American military planes were designed to counter Soviet weapons, but were vulnerable to American weapons.  Why defend against ourselves?  By selling our missiles to Iran, Reagan gave our enemies the perfect weapons with which to attack and kill our own pilots.

Name: Frank Lynch
Hometown: Really Not Worth Archiving 
Eric, I don't want this to be interpreted as "why is this news? we've known about this..." -- but while the Administration's legal memo on torture is important, it's certainly not the first time this point was made.  The memo happened in March, 2003, but back in 2002 the Administration was talking about skirting the Geneva Convention back in January, 2002 (perhaps earlier); this CNN article dates from January 2002.  So this was already on their minds.  A later warning could have been seen in the June 2003 argument between the U.S. and Belgium over a Belgian law which claimed jurisdiction to try war criminals from any country, no matter where the crimes were supposed to have happened.

I am glad that the WSJ got access to these memos, and that the issue is at the forefront again. The Geneva Convention is there to protect us all. The world did not change so much on September 11 that treaties which were written and agreed to by cooler heads have become obsolete.  It is astonishingly arrogant of the Administration to think that it, and these times, are so special that treaties can be set aside willy-nilly.

• June 8, 2004 | 11:45 AM ET

The ‘Liberal Media’ strikes again.  What you’re seeing this week is the product of a forty year right-wing campaign to brand the media as unpatriotic.  In truth, Ronald Reagan was never as popular as he is being presented to be with Americans.  As president, was never even as popular as Bill Clinton during the period of Clinton’s impeachment.  Don’t believe it?  Look here.

Nor was he considered to be as “great” a president after leaving office, at least compared to Clinton whose post-presidency rating is also higher.  Those figures are here, not that you will hear any network or cable news reporter mention them this week.

As a matter of historical record, Reagan campaigned on government discipline but vastly expanded its size and scope, along with the deficits it created; he provided weapons to terrorists and misled the country about it; he helped engender genocide in Central America—according to the terms employed, for instance, by Guatemala’s own truth commission, and misled the country about that too-- and showed no compassion to those who were stricken with AIDS, owing to a personal prejudice or (more likely) political calculations that homosexuals were not worthy of presidential attention. 

I’m not surprised that Reagan’s supporters do not want to hear about any of this.  Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt after all.  Nor am I surprised that the media wish to ignore it and blow Reagan up into a kind of fuzzy-wuzzy doll who just smiled a lot and made everybody feel good about themselves, while slaying communism with his bare hands.  My AOL pop-up screen reads “His words brought down walls.”

Nor, I suppose, should I surprised that the myth of the “liberal media” will survive the SCLM deification of this strange, strange man.  But it has ever been this way.  Return for a moment, with me, to the dramatic highlight of the Iran-Contra hearings.  The following is from When Presidents Lie and deals with the Congressional committee's unwillingness to take on Ollie North, who proudly admitted to lying to them whenever it suited his (and Reagan’s) purposes:

“The irony of this situation is that the reported reaction of the country to North’s testimony was actually at odds with most Americans’ profound disapproval of both his methods and his aims.  The committee’s unwillingness to prosecute North proved less a reaction to the genuine beliefs of the American people than to a phony ‘Potemkin’ pretense of a public reaction created by administration supporters and other conservative movement figures.  Most of the media fell for it as well.  Time, for instance, reported that “The Boy Scout and patriot had the nation rooting for him,” while Newsweek subtitled its cover story “The ‘Fall Guy’ Becomes a Folk Hero.”  Its attendant coverage argued that North “somehow embodied Jimmy Stewart, Gary Cooper and John Wayne in one bemedaled uniform.”  The coverage in both newsweeklies was directly contradicted by published polls at the time, including their own.  Time’s own poll showed that 61 percent believed that the term “national hero” did not describe North.  According to Newsweek’s polls, 45 percent of respondents believed North was a patriot and a hero, while 48 percent did not.  On July 9, 1987 “The CBS Evening News with Dan Rather” reported, without evidence, that “ninety-six percent of you back North up, saying you approve of his actions.”  The broadcast went on to compare North to Rambo and Dirty Harry.  Overall, in four separate polls taken in June and July of 1987, between 68 and 81 percent of Americans questioned disagreed with the appellation “hero” when applied to Oliver North.  The labels “villain,” “victim,” “dangerous,”  “fanatic,” and “can be bought” proved considerably more popular.” 

The North example is something to keep in mind now that we’ve learned that this administration actually planned to torture people.  Given how weak the media have been in looking into their various nefarious activities, it is likely that the cover-up of the torture scandal will succeed and the higher-ups who approved it and set it into motion will never be disciplined, but in the meantime, take a good look at Josh Marshall's post and ask yourself if torturers telling prosecutors “we were only following orders” while the people giving their orders argue that they are shielded by unwritten law that gives them unchallenged power sounds like America to you.

Meanwhile, now that the White House has announced Cheney is speaking at a Reagan memorial this week, David Sirota wonders whether Cheney will reiterate his own harsh criticism of Reagan's defense policies.

Alter-reviews:  Let us now praise famous men:  OK, so it was only two songs, but I was seated in the front row of the balcony of the Apollo Theater in Harlem last night I saw the most wondrous thing: The Wynton Marsalis septet playing “It Takes a Train to Laugh…” and “Don’t think Twice, It’s All Right,” with a feller named Dylan singing and playing the harmonica.  (An acoustic guitar stood next to him untouched.)  The idea was weird but the execution was wonderful; a profound contrast to the under-rehearsed Dylan performances I’ve been seeing for the past few decades.  Dylan clearly loved doing the jazzy, bluesy version of these songs with these inventive, talented musicians and he smiled more than I think I’ve seen him do so in his entire career.  Before he came on, James Taylor did a lovely “Don’t Let Me be Lonely Tonight” and Branford and Wynton had a kind of gun-fight via their respective axes and goodness, what a night, I only wish it could have been longer and Cedric the Entertainer would not have talked quite so much.  Other people sang too, including a young girl who looked to be about 14. The J@LC 2004-2005 schedule can be found here.  I strongly recommend the Jazz for young people series if you’ve got a kid and live nearby.

Correspondence Corner:

Name: Jack Barnes
Hometown: Bunkie, LA
May God strike you down, sir.  Hell hath no fury like thy scorn.  You desecrate the dead on a level comparable to Al Queda.  Pray for forgiveness.

Name: j harrington
Hometown: coconut creek fl
it does my heart good to watch you twist in the wind and puke all over yourself and your liberal faggot (jr, Seau) friends as americans honor pres. regan. hillary the dike,  gore the manic, and bill the diddler, love to use saps like you to spew the hate. you should move to france  and be happy, as you are not as an a american.

Name: Jim Day
Hometown: Peoria, AZ
What the hell is wrong with you?  Let the dead at least be buried before you pile on.  Jesus you are a raging left wing lib/communist Eric.  Your irresponsible idealism is the exact thing the country doesn't need now or ever.  You and others

Name: Vicki Bryson
Hometown: Gruver, TX
After what Carter and Clinton did to this country and literally stealing and vadalizing the White House, I would like to read what you say about them.  How dare you.  If you wrote this 4 years ago, why do we have to read it again.  You people made an anniversary out of Watergate.  Why don't you have an anniversary for Monika?  Journalists like you are what is truly wrong with this country.

Name: Richard Pachter
Hometown: South Florida
Eric,
For Jeff Mark and anyone else confused by the highly confusing broadcast chronology of SCTV, I highly recommend this site, which also has info and links for the new DVD set.

• June 7, 2004 | 11:11 AM ET
Reading Reagan:  I was not a fan of Ronald Reagan.  And his death at the ripe old age of 93 does not change that.  Perhaps he was a nice man, perhaps not.  His children had some harsh words for him as a father and his former associates, like Michael Deaver, were often shocked at how little personal connection he seemed to feel to them once their professional relationships ended.  I never met the man and as citizen of the nation he helped transform and a historian of those events, it doesn’t really matter to me whether he was a nice guy, a good father, a good friend or anything else, save how those qualities affected his public achievements and accomplishments.  These, of course, were myriad.  Reagan was unarguably a public figure of enormous import, no question about it.  As Todd Gitlin observes here, Reagan was a “great man,” but that is not same thing as saying that he was a good man.

I wrote this four years ago, and while if I had written it in the aftermath of the man’s death, I would have been a bit gentler about him personally—and so I don’t recommend you’re reading it if you find yourself in a state of raw emotion over Reagan’s demise— nothing about it is any less true today than it was four years ago.

To me the most astounding thing about Reagan was his ability to convince the many members of the media and much of the country that his fantasies mattered more than reality did.  In this regard, I think we can point to his presidency as the moment the country went off the rails in terms of a willingness to address its real problems, rather than the ones we wish we had.  The news is more nonsense than normatively significant national problems, and while there has always been some of this, I think with Reagan we hit a tipping point.  Listening to Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts wax nostalgically about how wonderful it was that Reagan made stuff up and a bunch of silly journalists had the temerity to (briefly) call him to account, brought back an almost physical wave of nausea as I involuntarily experienced the beginning of the period when facts and truth ceased to matter to their alleged guardians.  The following is from "When Presidents Lie":

Reagan’s own penchant for self-delusion has been widely documented.  He frequently convinced himself of historical truths on the basis of old movies he half-recalled.  He pretended to one White House visitor to have participated in the liberation of German concentration camps at the end of World War II though he hand never even gone overseas as a soldier.  He entertained a strange fascination with the End of Days and was even known to speculate that they might take place during his presidency.  He invented what he called “a verbal message” from the Pope in support of his Central American policies, which was news to everyone at the Vatican.  He announced one day in 1985 that South Africa--though still ruled by the vicious apartheid regime of P.W. Botha--had somehow “eliminated the segregation that we once had in our own country.”  Such strange pronouncements by the president of the United States eventually grew to be considered so routine that rarely did anyone in the White House ever bother to correct them.  The president simply had a penchant, one former senior adviser admitted, to “build these little worlds and live in them.”  One of his children added, “He makes things up and believes them.”  What is more astounding is the fact that he convinced other people to believe them too.

The next few weeks will be ones of cheap sentiment and overweening pathos at the expense of the historical record, much as took place following the death of Richard Nixon.   I am not going on any self-appointed crusades to try and offset this, but for those who want a fuller picture of Reagan’s life and times, I’d recommend Lou Cannon’s fair-minded biography,  President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime, a book that can be admired by honest fans of Reagan as well as honest opponents.  The most interesting meditation on Reagan’s character and presidency can be found, in my view, in Garry Wills’ Reagan's America: Innocents at Home.  An extremely useful perspective on Reagan’s role in the end of the Cold War can be found in Frances Fitzgerald’s Way out There in the Blue.

Thanks to George W. Bush’s refusal to enact the law passed by Congress opening up the records of the Reagan presidency, the historical record remains woefully incomplete.  But the best overview of Reagan’s horrific Central American policies can be found in Will Leogrande's history of the period, and for an overview of the Iran Contra scandal, I’d consult Theodore Draper along with this documentary history from the National Security Archive.  Lawrence Walsh's memoir, called “Firewall” is also a valuable record. (I also deal with Iran Contra extensively in When Presidents Lie, but I do wish I could have done so with open archives.  Meanwhile check out how confused BN.com is about just what the hell book this is.) 

A useful corrective to the self-congratulatory story of Reagan’s “victory” in the Cold War that dominates public discourse can be found in the historian Matthew Evangelista’s Unarmed Forces.  And as I mentioned recently, I learned interesting facts about Reagan’s role in Hollywood, and the double-dealing against his fellow union members during his dishonesty of a SAG presidency—including his secret role as an FBI informant- in Connie Bruck’s biography of Lew Wasserman and there’s more on this in the Wasserman bio by Kathleen Sharp.  (And by the way, when this one’s all over, tell me that story about the “liberal media” one more time.)

I don’t like June 6 to pass without noting two tragic anniversaries:  The beginning of the Six Day War, that may have been necessary to save Israel, but nevertheless marks its beginning as occupying, rather than liberating power.  Defeat for Israel would have been a tragedy, but so, alas was victory. (Israel also chose this date to invade Lebanon in 1982, demonstrating just how misperceived this victory has become through the triumphalist narratives of its unthinking “supporters.")

June 6 also marks the anniversary of the murder of Robert Kennedy by Palestinian terrorist Sirhan Sirhan; perhaps the last moment when it was possible to believe in the naïve idealistic dreams of the sixties.

Quote of the Day: “He is a self-admitted atheist, he was a Jew who figured out a way to survive the Holocaust...”
--Tony Blankley on George Soros

I’m a little confused here.  Is Blankley really saying that Soros should have taken Hitler’s medicine like a good Jew or is he saying all smart Jews could have avoided the ovens if only they were as tricky as that now-he’s-an-atheist-now-he’s-a-Jew Soros?  And what’s atheism got to do with it?  Is Blankley taking a position on the Jew as religion vs. Jew as peoplehood question?  Read the rest of the rant.  It’s almost textbook traditional anti-Semitism against the stateless, “robber baron … pirate capitalist” cosmopolitan.  It almost echoes the tenor of Nazi propaganda.  And Hannity agrees.  I can’t remember the last time I read something quite so brazenly anti-Semitic in the mainstream media.  And Blankley has the temerity to accuse Soros of fostering anti-Semitism.  Where’s the accountability?  Where’s the “liberal media?”

Reels the mind.

Correspondents’ Corner

Name: Laura Turner
Hometown: Vancouver
Eric (if I can call you that),
In response to your Nation article on John Kerry and the War, I think there's a major distinction you fail to make in your advice to our nominee.  You ask for two things from Kerry: (1) to admit his mistake in voting for the Bush-Gephardt Iraq War Resolution and later approving the March invasion, and (2) to promise to withdraw force from Iraq, as you put it "at the earliest possible moment."

As a long-time war critic who was horrified two years ago watching my party shelve the debate and cave in to the media-fuelled Neocon rush-to-War, the former piece of advice is extremely welcome to me.  Every time Kerry insists that his vote on H.J. Res. 114 was "the right one," my blood boils.  It was not the right vote.  Kerry, along with the majority of the Democratic leadership, failed his base on October 11, 2002.  He continued to let us down in the months leading up to the March strike as developments in Iraq and the UN continued to make the case for unilateral invasion came to look ever more tenuous and worthy of debate.

But the second gambit you propose -- that Kerry now promise voters an immediate move toward withdrawal -- would, I think, be irresponsible and political in the extreme.  For one thing, it opens the can of worms as to what is "the earliest possible moment."  Interpretations will differ wildly.  Things are changing rapidly on the ground in Iraq and the U.S. must do what it can to prevent civil war in the region we have so foolishly destabilized.  As much as I hate the War, I would see Kerry's promises to pull out come hell or high water as the worst kind of irresponsible pandering to people like me.  I wouldn't trust him to do it, and I'd be angered by the grossest of all flip-flops: having supported a war only to turn against it when things don't pan out as you'd planned.

In a nutshell, Kerry's recent rhetoric on the campaign trail about our involvement in and commitment in Iraq has struck me as eloquent, responsible and correct.  From the New York Times:

''Mr. Kerry said it was impossible to predict what the situation in Iraq would be when -- if elected -- he took office. But he said neither the United States nor its allies could afford a failure in Iraq, and repeated his call for Mr. Bush to engage more countries in the transition... "I promise you this," he said, "I am going to get the troops home as fast as possible, with honor and the job accomplished in the way it needs to be, and we will bring other people into the process."''

I only wish Kerry would combine that common sense realism with the humility of admitting that many primary voters -- who questioned and opposed the lead-up to War in real time but were still wise and forgiving enough to choose Kerry as our standard-bearer -- knew better than he did when it mattered.  That combination of toughness and humility is one I'd be truly enthusiastic to vote for.

Name: Steve Snyder
Hometown: Lancaster, TX
Stupid's right about China.  And I've mentioned it before in columns.  Of course, I'm just the editor of an itty-bitty weekly suburban Dallas paper, so I don't get much airplay.

Name: Jeff Mark
Hometown: Berkeley CA
Hi there...
A minor correction about the release of SCTV by Shout Factory.  Not "really" the first season, this collection is the first season of "SCTV Network 90", which is the expanded version that NBC showed upon (as I recall) the demise of "Midnight Special".  Possibly correcting the blurb on the web page, I also seem to recall one season called "SCTV Satellite" or something similar that was 60 minutes.  I await the half-hour- and 60-minute-episode releases, as they introduced us to most of their edgier characters (like Guy Caballero, Joe Flaherty's "crippled" station manager).  The 90 minute shows had their own special edge; I remember the New Year's 1984 episode in which the station suddenly changed, once it was officially 1984... This release does make up for the horrible editing of the syndicated reruns of SCTV, which broke some of the 90-minute episodes into unintelligible parts...

Name: Rich Jenkins
Hometown: Atlanta, GA
Dear Eric,
Victor Reuther died and none of the usual left of center blogs have noted it.  He and his brother Walter profoundly changed the lives of American workers.  An ironic contrast with the also deceased St. Ronnie.

Name: Barry Ritholtz
Hometown: The Big Picture
Hey Doc,
By now, everyone knows that the President has retained private counsel. But did you know that Cheney retained private counsel too?

This little tidbit is among the many fascinating issues discussed in John Dean's latest article, dissecting why the President & Veep each need their own private, outside counsel.

It turns out, in what amounts to the mother of all karmic ironies, that it's (heh heh) Ken Starr's fault:

"Why is Bush going to an outside counsel, when numerous government attorneys are available to him - for instance, in the White House Counsel's Office?  The answer is that the President has likely been told it would be risky to talk to his White House lawyers, particularly if he knows more than he claims publicly.

Ironically, it was the fair-haired Republican stalwart Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr who decimated the attorney-client privilege for government lawyers and their clients - which, to paraphrase the authority Wigmore, applies when legal advice of any kind is sought by a client from a professional legal adviser, where the advice is sought in confidence.

The reason the privilege was created was to insure open and candid discussion between a lawyer and his or her client.  It traditionally applied in both civil and criminal situations for government lawyers, just as it did for non-government lawyers.  It applied to written records of communications, such as attorney's notes, as well as to the communications themselves. 

But Starr tried to thwart that tradition in two different cases, before two federal appeals courts. There, he contended that there should be no such privilege in criminal cases involving government lawyers.

So now Bush and Cheney EACH have their own outside counsel . . . And they have Ken Starr to thank.

Funny, they seemed so anti-trial lawyer when they first came to town.  (mirror)

• June 4, 2004 | 11:58 AM ET

Is Bush more loyal to spies for ‘Axis of Evil’ Iran than to our own?  Let’s see: The alleged Iranian spy sits in the president’s box during the State of the Union and the American spy has her career destroyed because her husband told the truth about administration deceptions designed to take us into war—on behalf of the alleged Axis of Evil agent.

And let’s see, Tenet is forced to walk the plank immediately after Chalabi accuses him of fingering him and a group of neocons storm into Condi’s office demanding that everybody stand by their man, spy or no spy.  Could anyone imagine the explosion in the media if Clinton had done anything remotely this egregious?  Even if the guy were guilty of everything of which Newt and $8 Million Dollar Bill Bennett accused him, it would be chump change in comparison.

Meanwhile, I’ve got a Nation column here, with some advice to the putative Democratic nominee.  And Eric B. thinks Howell Raines is a bit of a dope, here.  

And this otherwise excellent piece by friend Michael Massing on the weakness of Iraq coverage suffers from his ignoring the Wall Street Journal, which as I keep saying, is beating both the Times and the Post in many ways.  I have other differences with the piece, thoughtful and well-researched as it may be, but this glaring omission is hard to explain.

Slacker Friday:

Name: Charles Pierce
Hometown: Newton, MA
Hey Doc --
Some days, it just pays to go back to my main man, wee Jemmy Madison, especially in the middle of what is going to be a political season about as foul as any that we've ever had. This time, from Federalist 43:

"...but as new-fangled and artificial treasons have been the great engines by which violent factions...have usually wreaked their alternate malignity on each other, the convention have with great judgment opposed a barrier to this particular danger by inserting a constitutional definition of the crime...and restraining the Congress, even in punishing it, from extending the consequences of guilt beyond the person of its author."

In other words, Crazy Annie and Crazy David, and St. Peggy Of Seaworld, you can all go jam it.

I have given a great deal of thought to of which member of the extended GE-TV media family I have become the most sick.  Lately, though, I've come to decide that the extended Russert clan of Buffalo, N.Y. takes the prize.

In case you've missed it, Little Russ is out there shilling for a book about the lessons he learned from his father.  The book is as gruesome a sea of treacle as one might imagine; it is an extended version of the old saw about how much smarter your Dad gets as you get older.  In this, it shares a kind of cheesy Weltschmerz with Brokaw's endless maundering about The Greatest Generation -- namely, that our Daddies are dying and we don't measure up.

May I just say for the record that I revere my father.  Son of an Irish cop, he was a combat Naval veteran of World War II who spent the next 30 years teaching in the public schools.  He died, too soon, of Alzheimer's Disease, and I wrote a book about that.  However, my father's politics were almost comically reactionary.  I read None Dare Call It Treason, one of the seminal volumes of modern Rightist nutballery, on the back porch of my house, at his suggestion, when I was 12.  (I have to admit, though, that I developed a sweet-tooth for that craziness that persists to this day.  I was down with the Illuminati long before Dan Brown started turning big bling on it.)  Back a few years ago, when we were cleaning out my parents' house, we found in their attic an autographed photo of Father Charles Coughlin, the famous lunatic radio priest and raving anti-Semite.  (Watch for it on eBay, y'all.)  I bless my Dad's memory without reservation.  There isn't enough peyote in Mexico to make me appreciate his politics, not even today, not even with kids of my own.

Not Little Russ, though.  There is a completely amazing passage in the book about his college days during what are usually called "the turbulent '60's."  You know, when we all went bad, and got laid a lot, and let down The Greatest Generation.  Little Russ was at John Carroll University in Cleveland when the Ohio National Guard opened the shooting gallery at Kent State.  He has a shouting match with Big Russ about it.  Then, after some students at JCU lower the flag in tribute to the four Kent students who were murdered, and some ROTC students raise it back up again -- thereby saying that the four dead students were not worthy of the tribute, by the
way, an implication that Russert studiously avoids -- with "Big Russ's words echoing in my head," our hero says,

"Why are we arguing about this flag?  It belongs to all of us.  Four students lost their lives, and I'm sure the guardsmen who shot them feel awful.  They're kids, too.  Why are we fighting about this when we should be in the chapel praying for the dead students, the guardsmen, and for our country."

Wow.  What a centrist thing to do.  "Please, Lord, I pray for the repose of the soul of Sandy Scheuer, who got shot to death on her way to class.  Also, Lord, please bring peace to the guys who shot her, 'cause they're, like, really bumming about it."

Remember this story the next time that Little Russ starts hammering a politician about moral equivalency.  Remember it if there develops widespread public dissent over the war in Iraq, especially at the conventions next summer.  Remember that Big Russ taught Little Russ that shooting unarmed students down in cold blood and feeling "awful" about it later should draw pretty much the same amount of moral sympathy from the rest of us.  A couple of pages later, Little Russ expands on that difficult time in the life of Big Russ:

"What he couldn't tolerate were television images of protestors spitting on Vietnam veterans, carrying the Viet Cong flag, or chanting, 'Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh. The NLF is going to win!"

I'll give him the last two images, because I saw them myself and considered them both distasteful and politically idiotic, but I defy Tim Russert to find a contemporary television image of a protestor spitting on a Vietnam veteran.  However, if he'll go into the NBC archives, he'll see the Miami police in 1972 beating the hell out of Vietnam veterans who'd come to protest the renomination of Richard Nixon.  Maybe we should pray for the cops, too.

So it was no surprise to me that Little Russ hawked up a McCarthyite loogie at Nancy Pelosi last week, who was too much of a lady to slap his face.  BTW, little Russ, wee Jemmy Madison says you can jam it as well.

Name: Stupid
Hometown: Chicago
Hey Eric, it's Stupid to remind people of Ed Rollins (unpleasant as that may be).  In particular, of the time he boasted about getting Christie Todd Whitman elected New Jersey governor by bribing African-American clergy to suppress the black vote.  The clergy vehemently denied it and I tend to believe them (and Rollins, who later claimed he let his ego run away with him, though it still shows an evil mindset).  But the incident provides some valuable lessons. 

First, while it's vital for the Dems to excite their base, they have a rare opportunity to "de-excite" the GOP base.  Pundits and polls alike are reporting growing disenchantment with Dubya among conservatives.  And why not - he's a radical supply-sider who shies away from political fights at home on social issues as much as he embraces the war abroad.  Towards that end, remember that MoveOn T.V.-commercial depicting American child labor paying off Dubya's budget deficit?  Where did it disappear to?  At least I've never seen it on T.V. - I hope that, at a minimum, they are running it on local cabal T.V. in swing state upper-class suburbs.  The Dems should make a radio version and run it on Rush -- a pinprick of doubt can puncture a hot air balloon. 

Second, while the Dems should never stoop to Rollins' level, they need to toughen-up.  Many others have said this before but here's an example of what I mean.  A few weeks ago the NY Times editorial page had this factoid: "Over the last few years an unprecedented 80% of the deficit has been financed by foreign governments, institutions, and individuals, mainly in the Far East."  This is huge -- China is enough of an evil (if napping) empire, without letting them buy-up the USA.  But Dems have shied away from raising the issue -- even Paul Krugman (where I first learned of this) only mentions it in passing.  I think it's a fear that the debate will devolve into "yellow peril" demagoguery, but the GOP had no such reservations when it came to Chinese campaign activities. 

• June 3, 2004 | 12:01 PM ET

One down, five to go.  Last week, Al Gore, whom allegedly reputable conservative commentators feel free to term "insane" (John Podhoretz) “off his lithium again" (Charles Krauthammer) and “really nuts" (Sean Hannity) called for the resignations of Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglass Feith, Steven Cambone and George Tenet.  It’s nice to know that at least one member of the administration is listening.  The question regarding Tenet is, which fall is he taking? Is it the

a)  “I screwed up on 9/11” fall?

b)  "I made up that stuff about WMD” fall?

c)  “I also made up that stuff about Iraq and Al-Qaida” fall?

d)  “And yeah, that stuff about the nukes, I made that up, too” fall?

e)  “I shoulda taken a look at that “State of the Union” thingy” fall?

f)  “Ahmad Chalabi is a bery, bery, good friend of mine” fall?

g)  “And so is Robert Novak” fall?

h)  “And what ever did happen to that bin Laden fellow?” fall?

i)  “Um, we could probably get some better info out of those prisoners if we roughed ‘em up a bit” fall?

j)  And don’t forget, the "We’re wasting billions on a useless star wars program while ignoring homeland security for our nuclear and chemical plants” fall.

We have only time constraints to keep us from going through the entire alphabet.

Is Bush an Al Qaida Plant?  I’m not one to jump to conclusions but the circumstantial evidence is hard to ignore. Take a look:

1. He’s destroying the military, by overstretching its resources  and cannabalizing its trainers.
   
   
2. He’s consorting with spies for the Axis of Evil.
   
   
3. He may be revealing the identities of CIA agents (or at least tacitly encouraging those who do).
   
   
4. He’s coddling “terrorists” in Iraq.
   
   
5. He’s pursuing a policy deliberately designed to stir up hatred in the Arab world.
   
   
6. He’s helping bin Laden recruit more terrorists and Al Qaida to fully reconstitute itself.
   
   
7. He’s setting captured terrorists free.
   
   
8. He seems to think up a new reason to fight someone else almost every two weeks. (complete thesis)
   
   
9. He’s sucking up to France.
   
   
10. Oh, and he’s trying to undermine all those silly western freedoms that the Al-Qaida folks find so annoying.

Ten is a nice number, so I’ll stop there, but again, we all know I could go on indefinitely.

Meanwhile, Mickey Kaus is promoting this tasteless, disrespectful site [note: contains foul language] about the president of the United States on his Microsoft-supported Web site.  I object.

A lot of people have asked for my response to the new Pew Center survey of journalists. You can find it in today's Think Again column.  Remember the column's excellent archives are here and the Center's home page is here.

It was twenty years ago today...  (Ah well, you can't start a fire without a spark.)

Correspondents’ Corner:

Name: Sam
Hometown: Rockville, MD
I'd like to disagree with your comments on Judith Miller.  First, I should note, I strongly opposed the war.

Judith Miller, of course, wasn't alone in reporting this.  As in any publication, there was an editor who oversaw and approved the article, a proof-reader or fact-checker, and there was the implicit, perhaps unconscious, understanding that these stories represent the New York Times opinion.  If you're going to criticize Miller, then, you should also take the time to know who else contributed to the articles and if these articles represented the opinion of the editorial staff on invasion.

Also, because the Times hasn't publicly stated what editorial changes there are going to be doesn't imply that none have been made.  An absence of a fact doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

The Times' apology also should be regarded within the context of all of the media and their reporting prior to the invasion.  The University of Maryland report, as I'm sure you know, has empirically described what war opponents knew:  strong, chronic, and uniform bias among almost all media.  So, because there were many who were reporting similar to Miller, it's reasonable to conclude that to blame Miller only is simple-minded.  She was only one data point in a media that was terribly biased.

The questions that should be asked about the apology and Miller, I believe, is why more of the media isn't scrutinized as Miller is?  Why is the Times the only one to apologize?   

Name: Barry Ritholtz
Hometown: The Big Picture
Hey Doc,
A pair of interesting stories were in the WSJ yesterday. The 1st was "Grass-Roots Groups Don't Want Nader to Be Raider This Time."  It discusses the 7 States where Nader is on the ballot and the legal obstacles to getting on the remaining 43.  A number of groups have been applying pressure to his supporters -- including legal fights to make sure his petitions meet the precise and exact legal requirements to get on each ballot. There's a great map of the U.S. at the link above. The money quote:

"Nader foes agree on one thing:  Vice President Gore handled the Nader challenge poorly in 2000, when he and the Democratic Party largely ignored Mr. Nader and the issues he raised.  "Everyone looks back and says if we had done a campaign [to woo Naderites], there's a very good chance George Bush would not be president," says Toby Moffett, a former Connecticut congressman."

The second piece, "Midwest Express: A Campaign Rooted In the Heartland," is focusing on the 5 battleground Midwest swing states where the economy, and not the Iraq war, seems to be having the most resonance with voters.  The national employment rolls are at 5.6% (this is a misleading data point -- but that's a discussion for another time) -- with Michigan and Ohio above the national average, and Missouri, Wisconsin and Iowa unemployment below average.
Here's the WSJ's take:

"In Michigan and Ohio, the unemployment rate surpasses the national average; a recent business survey in Michigan showed some employers preparing to drop health coverage for their employees, which would further strain the state's health system. The region's populations tend to be older, putting further strains on state programs and making Medicare and Medicaid, traditional Democratic issues, especially important. For all those reasons, "the economy is more important than war in the Midwest," Mr. Sarpolus says. That raises Democratic hopes.

On the Bush side of the ledger, though, unemployment has ticked downward last month in the region, notably in Michigan and Minnesota. The patriotic themes of the war on terrorism tend to play well in these heartland states. Both Ohio and Wisconsin have large bands of cultural conservatives who lean Republican rather than Democratic on values issues. Michigan has a big gun-owners' contingent that figures to trust Mr. Bush more than Mr. Kerry.

It all mixes up into a volatile brew.  Predictions at this point are hazardous -- as illustrated by the fact that Mr. Zogby, surveying for WSJ.com last month, found Mr. Kerry up by 4.6% percentage points in Ohio, while a new survey by the Cleveland Plain Dealer in the same state shows Mr. Bush up by six percentage points."

(NOTE: The WSJ should know better than to compare different data series, varying polling methodologies, or matching a pollster versus a newspaper).

"Expect more turbulent weather, and a race as likely to be decided in Ohio as anywhere."

Fascinating stuff . . .

Name: Jeff Lichtman
Hometown: El Cerrito, CA
Enron had a lot to do not only with the rise of George W. Bush, but also the fall of Gray Davis. The sequence of events leading up to the recall has always seemed suspicious to me:

1. Executives from Enron meet with Dick Cheney to help him form his energy policy.
   
   
2. Enron manipulates the markets to steal money from Californians.
   
   
3. Gray Davis begs the Bush administration for price caps, but Bush refuses.
   
   
4. The California state government has a budget crisis, partly as a result of Enron's manipulations.
   
5. Davis is blamed for the budget crisis and is recalled, making the governorship the only statewide elected office to be held by a Republican.

Both Enron and the Republican party got big benefits from the California energy crisis.  This doesn't prove there was an agreement between Enron and the Bush administration, but things did work out pretty well for them, didn't they?  Remember, it wasn't the California power crisis that brought about the downfall of Enron - the company crashed because they cheated their stockholders, not because they cheated California.

Name:  S. Hamm
Hometown:  San Francisco, CA
As long as you're tidying up the Tashlin filmography, it should be noted that, although he did direct a couple of late Doris Day vehicles ("Caprice" and "The Glass Bottom Boat"), Tashlin never worked with Rock Hudson.  Rock and Doris only made three pictures together: "Pillow Talk," "Lover Come Back," and "Send Me No Flowers."

Name:  Edward Furey
Hometown:  New York
Of the Cary Grant -- Randolph Scott affair rumors discussed in the TCM Grant bio, a friend of mine once observed: "Too bad they couldn't have children."

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