The Mirror Has Two Faces

[Donutboy 0]

The Mirror Has Two Faces

By MAUREEN DOWD

Published: February 1, 2004

WASHINGTON

Why is the foreign policy nanny acting like a foreign policy ninny?

Hitting the morning shows to do damage control after David Kay's scalding admission that we flew to war on a false premise, Condi Rice made a tyro error. She mirrored.

Saddam, she told Matt Lauer, had secretively refused to account for missing stockpiles of botulinum toxin and anthrax, even though he knew he would face serious consequences: "I don't know how you could have come to any other conclusion but that he had weapons of mass destruction."

A conservative, ice-skating Brahms aficionada from Birmingham had assumed that a homicidal, grenade-fishing Sinatra aficionado from Tikrit reasoned just like her.

Bush officials, awash in the vice president's Hobbesian gloom, deduced that Saddam would not hide if he had nothing to hide. Even after all their talk about a Bernard Lewis clash of civilizations and a battle of good versus evil, they still projected a Western mind-set on Saddam.

Ms. Rice argued that the U.S. was right to conclude that Saddam had W.M.D. and attack him because the dictator was not behaving rationally. But why did she think someone President Bush deemed "a madman" would behave rationally?

Cheney & Company were so consumed with puffing the intelligence to try to connect Saddam with 9/11, Al Qaeda and nuclear material, they failed to challenge basic assumptions.

The closer the inspectors got to the truth that Iraq didn't have weapons, the more the Bush hawks asserted that only war would uncover weapons. Their threats to Saddam made him bluff that he had the weapons that they said he had.

"Most intelligence failures are about missing something happening," said a former Bush official. "What's so bizarre about this is, they thought something was happening that wasn't. This is right up there with Pearl Harbor and Bay of Pigs."

Even Paul Wolfowitz observed last May that it was important not to assume that foes like Saddam "will be rational according to our definition of what is rational." Interviewed by Sam Tanenhaus for Vanity Fair, Mr. Wolfowitz said bad intelligence came from mirror imaging — assuming people would behave like us: "The kind of mistake that, in a sense, I think we made implicitly in assuming that anyone who was intelligent enough to fly an airplane wouldn't commit suicide with it."

Saddam's old lieutenants have said that the dictator did not admit his paucity of weapons because he wanted his Arab neighbors to see him as a great leader and he hoped to deter America from war.

Jerrold Post, a former C.I.A. psychological profiler who calls Saddam messianic but not irrational, speculates that he may have built a Potemkin arsenal after his conventional arsenal was decimated in the first Persian Gulf war. "If he came across as an impotent leader capitulating to the West," Dr. Post said, "he might have been pushed out of power or killed."

Besides, according to Dr. Kay, Saddam was both finagling and finagled. "Did he really think he had the stuff because scientists were scared to tell him he didn't?" wondered a G.O.P. foreign policy expert.

Saddam was isolated. And the Bush hawks wanted to isolate themselves from less-paranoid allies. They had come into office itching to replay the '91 war and try out their democracy domino theory in the Middle East — mirror imaging writ large. They grabbed 9/11 as an opening, yanked power away from Colin Powell and persuaded the popular diplomat to compromise his integrity by touting sketchy evidence at the U.N., with the puppet Tenet as his wingman.

The moral of Vietnam was supposed to be that we would never again go to war without understanding the culture of our antagonists, or exaggerate their threat to us.

Some of those involved in running the '91 Iraq war think the U.S. should cut its losses, forget about Iowa-style caucuses (mirroring again), get the U.N. in there and let Kofi Annan and the Iraqi Governing Council negotiate with Ayatollah Sistani, who won't talk to the U.S. anyway.

The White House will have a lot of explaining to do if Iraq exchanges one form of dictatorship for another, or if it takes on a fundamentalist Islamic cast that sets Iraqi women's rights back 40 years.

"These guys created the exact can of worms we tried to avoid," said a Bush 41 official. "Guess what? Baghdad is ours."

[Tigermike 3,711]

The Immutable Laws of Maureen Dowd A guide to reading the New York Times columnist.

by Josh Chafetz

10/14/2002, Volume 008, Issue 05

 

MAUREEN DOWD'S New York Times columns used to be fun. Whether you agreed with her or not, they were witty and incisive. Sometimes they were even insightful. But recently, many readers are asking the same question as a letter writer to the Denver Post: "What has happened to Maureen Dowd lately? . . . she is no longer informative, clever or entertaining, just childish and vindictive." The truth is, Maureen Dowd hasn't changed; the times have. She's always been a formulaic writer, but the formula has never been less appropriate (and therefore more conspicuous) than it has since September 11, 2001. The formula consists of five basic principles that underlie almost all of her writing.

THE FIRST IMMUTABLE LAW OF DOWD: The first and most important rule is what might be termed the People magazine principle: All political phenomena can be reduced to caricatures of the personalities involved. Any reference to policy concerns or even to old-fashioned politicking is, like, so passé. And, of course, with every caricature goes a nickname.

The First Law is the reason that Dowd used to be so much fun to read--it's the reason she won the 1999 Pulitzer for her columns on the Lewinsky scandal. The Lewinsky scandal was all about personality; more than that, it was about personalities that lent themselves to caricature. So when Dowd wrote about President Clinton ("the Grand Canyon of need") and Monica Lewinsky (the "relentless" woman "clinging to some juvenile belief that the President loved her") and Linda Tripp (who "rides on a broomstick") and Ken Starr (a "sex addict"), it just seemed apt.

The problem is, the nation now has matters of life and death to attend to. But Dowd is still drawing caricatures. For instance, her September 25, 2002, column compares Bush administration officials to middle school "alpha girls" for snubbing Gerhard Schröder's German government after it ran for reelection on an anti-American platform. Says Dowd, "now we have the spectacle of the 70-year-old Rummy acting like a 16-year-old Heather, vixen-slapping those lower in the global hierarchy, trying to dominate and silence the beta countries with less money and fewer designer weapons."

Or consider her August 21 column about a meeting of top officials at Bush's ranch. Her analysis here consists of breaking the world into two opposing camps: the "Whack-Iraq tribe" and the "Pesky Questions tribe." The former includes "Rummy, . . . W., Cheney, Condi, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle." The latter includes "Mr. Powell, Brent Scowcroft and Wesley Clark." How subtle--only the ones she doesn't like get nicknames. The reason that the "Whack-Iraq'ers" are so "gung-ho" is that "the Cheney-Rummy-Condi Axis of Anti-Evil believes in unilateralism so fervently." It's just a character trait, see? They must have a multilateral fiber deficiency.

In any case, it can't be because they think that Iraq poses a serious and immediate threat. We know that, because in her column on the opposing camps in the Iraq debate, Dowd doesn't see fit actually to discuss Iraq at all. What bearing could that have on the debate? Likewise, in the "alpha girls" column, Dowd never considers that there could be sound reasons of state for snubbing Germany--for instance, a "forgive and forget" policy might encourage politicians in other countries to pander to crude anti-Americanism, a pandering that would have the effect of reinforcing and strengthening the sentiment among the general population. But let no such considerations emerge from Dowd's pen: The First Law forbids them.

THE SECOND IMMUTABLE LAW OF DOWD: It's easier to whine than to take a stand or offer solutions. Consider this: In her many columns to date lobbing stinkbombs at the "Whack-Iraq'ers," she has yet to come out and say that she opposes war in Iraq. The reason, presumably, is that she would then have to actually confront and argue against the administration's reasons for attacking Iraq. Instead, she offers this commentary on Bush's U.N. address (from her September 15 column): "But there was no compelling new evidence. Mr. Bush offered only an unusually comprehensive version of the usual laundry list. Saddam is violating the sanctions, he tried to assassinate Poppy, he's late on his mortgage payments, he tips 10 percent, he has an unjustifiable fondness for 'My Way,' he gassed his own people, he doesn't turn down the front brim of his hat."

When confronted with a passage like that, it's hard to know where to begin, but we must be brave. First, notice how she trivializes not only Saddam's violation of U.N. sanctions but even the massacre at Halabja, by including them on "the usual laundry list" along with a joke about being a stingy tipper. Second, notice how she leaves out a few of the more important "laundry list" items--like the fact that Saddam continues to stockpile and build weapons of mass destruction and the fact that he funds terrorism. Finally, observe that she tells us there is "no compelling new evidence" without telling us why the old evidence--"the usual laundry list"--is insufficient. To do that would require considering policy arguments and offering alternative ways to combat Saddam's litany of abuses. Into such territory, Dowd is loath to stray.

And she did almost exactly the same thing during the Afghanistan campaign. On October 28, 2001, she asked "Are we quagmiring ourselves again?" Of course, she didn't offer an answer or any suggestions as to how to get out of a quagmire, if, indeed, we were in one. A week later, on the strength of a single misstep (the murder of CIA-friendly Abdul Haq), she wrote, "We're sophisticated; they're crude. We're millennial; they're medieval. We ride B-52's; they ride horses. And yet they're outmaneuvering us." No doubt spurred into action by Dowd's prod, American-backed forces captured Mazar-i-Sharif five days later, and Kabul fell four days after that. Just over a month after Dowd informed us that we were being outmaneuvered, the Taliban's last stronghold, Kandahar, fell.

THE THIRD IMMUTABLE LAW OF DOWD: It is better to be cute than coherent. Along these lines, Dowd's favorite rhetorical device is parallelism. For example, from her June 12 column: "The Islamic enemy strums on our nerves to hurt our economy and get power. The American president strums on our nerves to help his popularity and retain power." And from August 18: "[bush Sr.]'s proudest legacy, after all, was painstakingly stitching together a global coalition to stand up for the principle that one country cannot simply invade another without provocation. Now the son may blow off the coalition so he can invade another country without provocation." Her phrasing is so cute that the outrageous moral equivalence she's drawing almost slips by unnoticed: She just compared the president of the United States to the September 11 terrorists and to Saddam Hussein.

Of course, the parallels are total nonsense. The administration's terror warnings to the public (the subject of the first quote) may not have been handled perfectly, but their goal is hardly to terrorize the American public. Officials have to walk a fine line between scaring people too much and too often and not telling them enough (Dowd has repeatedly criticized the administration for withholding information). And Bush's desire to attack Iraq is hardly "without provocation": Baghdad is in violation of U.N. sanctions; Iraq takes regular shots at U.S. and British planes patrolling the no-fly zones; and there was the little matter of attempting to assassinate a former U.S. president. And that's not to mention the justifications on preemptive and humanitarian grounds.

But the worst example of Dowd's favoring cuteness over coherence comes from her August 21 column (yes, the same one featured under the First Law--it was quite a column). "We used to worry about a military coup against civilian authority," she wrote. "Now we worry about a civilian coup against military authority." Now, of course, Dowd is just being cute. Presumably she knows that civilian control over the military is one of the necessary conditions for democratic government, a condition that makes the very concept of a civilian coup against military authority incoherent. But she's using this bit of cuteness to make a point every bit as nonsensical as a literal reading of it. She's trying to argue that because several current and former military officers are distinctly less hawkish than some of the civilian leadership . . . well, it's not quite clear what, since she doesn't tell us where she stands on the issue (see the Second Law, above). But she thinks it ought to give us pause. She writes that Bush "signaled his civilian coup" by telling an AP reporter that he was reading Eliot Cohen's "Supreme Command." She gives a one-line summary of the book (it "attacks the Powell Doctrine and argues that civilian leaders should not defer to 'the fundamental caution' of whiny generals on grand strategy or use of force"), and then drops the matter. Actually addressing Cohen's point, it seems, would require too many words--words that wouldn't be nearly as cute as "Whack-Iraq'ers."

THE FOURTH IMMUTABLE LAW OF DOWD: The particulars of my consumer-driven, self-involved life are of universal interest and reveal universal truths. Nowhere was this law more clearly illustrated than in Dowd's reaction to last fall's anthrax attacks. On October 17, 2001, for example, she opened her column with the line, "I am typing this wearing long black leather gloves." Dowd went on to explain that she had been wearing latex gloves, but she "felt the need for a more stylish sort of sterility" (a Dowd-like commentator might note ungenerously that this line describes her writing almost perfectly).

But for Dowd, fashion isn't just a barrier against germs--it's also her little way of fighting al Qaeda. So, she tells us on October 10, 2001: "I decide to defy the foul men who hate women. I wear high heels to church." The truth is, though, that what really scares her about the anthrax attacks is that the terrorists had the temerity to attack journalists! Again, from the October 17, 2001, column: "Has the creep from Al Qaeda been living in the eighth century so long he hasn't heard about not killing the messenger?" Terrorism is bad enough, but now it's personal.

Finally, on October 21, 2001, she broke down and confessed: "I'm a spoiled yuppie who desperately wants to go back to a time before we'd heard of microns and milling, aerosolization and clumps in the alveoli." And, of course, her wants, her fears, and her sense of style are just what we read the Times op-ed page to learn about.

THE FIFTH IMMUTABLE LAW OF DOWD: Europeans are always right. Whenever Dowd quotes a Continental, she allows the quote to stand on its own, as if it were, by virtue of the very Europeanness of its speaker, self-evidently true. Thus, on May 26, 2002, in the midst of President Bush's tour through Europe, she reported that "some Europeans sneered that 'Bully Bush' had turned into something even more irritating: a missionary." Three days later, she reported that "Parisians were indifferent to the president's arrival, and a few gave his motorcade the intercontinental finger of disapproval, as had some Berliners." Of course, the only European she seems actually to have spoken with is a French journalist at the Bush-Chirac press conference, who told her "with a grimace" that "Bush is so . . . Texan."

Fortunately, Dowd doesn't actually need to speak to people, because, as we learn in the same column, she can read the little cartoon thought bubbles that appear over their heads. While Bush is speaking, Chirac's thought bubble apparently reads, "Quel hick."

More recently, in a September 18, 2002, column that also exhibited classic Third Law behavior, Dowd wrote of the European desire to "contain the wild man, the leader with the messianic and relentless glint who is scaring the world"--President Bush, of course. Europeans "now act more nervous about the cowboy in the Oval Office who likes to brag on America as 'the greatest nation on the face of the Earth' than the thug in the Baghdad bunker." Not a word on how patently absurd it is to compare the democratically elected president of the United States to a mass-murdering, terrorist-sponsoring, anti-Semitic, expansionist despot. If the Europeans think that Bush is a missionary, a cowboy, a menace, and a hick, then he must be. And if the Europeans don't think Saddam poses a threat--then what are we so worried about?

OCCASIONALLY Dowd still turns out a good piece. Her June 5, 2002, column on squabbling between the CIA and the FBI worked well, because it was a petty, personality-based issue, thus lending itself to a petty, personality-based treatment. But the Clinton administration is ancient history; most issues can no longer appropriately be viewed through this prism. Any yet Maureen Dowd keeps plugging away with the same old formula. The Immutable Laws prove . . . well, immutable.

If you don't believe me, hang on to this article. And the next time you read a Dowd column, read it by the numbers.

Josh Chafetz is a graduate student in politics at Merton College, Oxford, and the co-editor of oxblog.blogspot.com, where the Immutable Laws of Dowd were developed with some help from readers (especially Stephen Green and Sean Roche).

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Publ...01/741snfel.asp

[Donutboy 0]

Ahhh, the old ignore the message and shoot the messenger trick. Aren't you the same one who printed some George Will Propoganda and started your message about how much we all admire and respect George Will. Guess what!! Some of us admire and respect George Will as much as you admire and respect Maureen Dowd. Any thoughts on the article itself? Do you think the trillions of dollars of debt this administration is running up are just going to mysteriously disappear on their own? Your thoughts on that?

[Tigermike 3,711]

Aren't you the same one who printed some George Will Propoganda and started your message about how much we all admire and respect George Will.

I took a line from Al he said "Al Franken, you got to love him".

Some of us admire and respect George Will as much as you admire and respect Maureen Dowd.

I'm sure those could be counted on one hand.

[Donutboy 0]

Aren't you the same one who printed some George Will Propoganda and started your message about how much we all admire and respect George Will.

I took a line from Al he said "Al Franken, you got to love him".

Some of us admire and respect George Will as much as you admire and respect Maureen Dowd.

I'm sure those could be counted on one hand.

Probably so in the group that you run with. The group I run with are a bit more liberal than your group. Please don't think that George Will is universally admired and respected. He's better than Rush Limbaugh or Sean hannity but he's NOT an impartial commentator.

[Tigermike 3,711]

The group I run with are a bit more liberal than your group.

There has never been any doubt of the group you run with.

But you can be assured of one thing I don't limit my associations only to people I agree with. Obviously you can't say the same.

Donut - fair and balanced. I think not.

[Donutboy 0]

The group I run with are a bit more liberal than your group.

There has never been any doubt of the group you run with.

But you can be assured of one thing I don't limit my associations only to people I agree with. Obviously you can't say the same.

Donut - fair and balanced. I think not.

So, it comes down to DonutBoy's group BAD. TigerMike's group GOOD. I also don't limit my associations by political persuasion. Some of my own family are as misguided about politics as you are and espouse the same tired Republican pablum spooned out by Rush Limbaugh and his ditto heads. Unlike the Fox News Service, I never made the bogus claim to be fair and balanced. My political views are right and is being proven by your party's leadership daily!!

[Tigermike 3,711]

So, it comes down to DonutBoy's group BAD. TigerMike's group GOOD.

Nope that's not it at all.

[Tiger Al 0]

Mike, I'll give you a chance for a trifecta since you only want to engage in ad hominem attacks today. Were the issues in the Dowd article so insurmountable for you that the only response left for you was SOMEONE ELSES opinion of her?

[Donutboy 0]

So, it comes down to DonutBoy's group BAD. TigerMike's group GOOD.

Nope that's not it at all.

I guess I just assumed..... OOPS! I guess everyone can do that from time to time, huh?