"My Analysis Neglects ..."

No, of course the only person who said that was me, Mr. Bones. The original marched to a different tune altogether:

My analysis of this NYT piece is that Bush and the Republicans are betting that they can portray as irresponsible and unpatriotic the Democrats in Congress who decline to give Bush all the war funding he wants. The Democrats are betting that the public desperately wants them to stop the Iraq War, which is hemorrhaging money and costing American lives, all for goals that are unclear. If I were a betting man, I'd put a big bet on the Democrats in this regard, and even without a bet I predict that the Republicans are going to suffer an earthquake-like reversal next November.

'Tis true, Mr. Cole, that I here cite the World's Greatest Area Student. But before your pulse goes wild, sir, recall that central North America is not included in the authorised WGAS Pundit Zone. When it comes to the holy Homeland, one need not be too surprised if some mere New York Times prognosticates more accurately than all the Nostradamuses of Ann Arbour. Ne sutor ultra crepidam!

Our Aunt Nitsy is not, by and large, a bettin’ gal, although she can be a terrible scold when she starts editorializing with "this page" deployed as the pronoun of the First Person Opinionated. However,it is not even a nitsytorial that Don Juan picked up to clobber his Little Brother with, it is only a short unlabelled performance by one David Stout. Since the New York Times is generally regarded as a newspaper, I suppose the thingamajig might as well be classified as a "news story," even though it begins by denying that anything new is going on:

House Democrats and the White House continued their public relations battle over money for the Iraq war today, as two leading lawmakers accused the administration of trying to scare people for political gain.

Well, maybe there are faint traces of nitsytorializing after all, now that I look at that topic sentence in splendid isolation: the man Stout is probably going a bit farther out on a limb than strict Martian or RupertMurdochian objectivity would approve of. Tweedledee (D-US) and Tweedledumb (R-TX) could conceivably be having only "a money battle over money," could they not? Who says it's all about P.R.?

The Honourable Obey of Wisconsin says so, that's who. And the militarist Murtha of PA seconds his fellow jackass's motion:

“We’ve already provided all the money the administration will need to get them through to March and to avoid the horror stories that they’re peddling,” said Representative David R. Obey of Wisconsin, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. And money for beyond March will be available if only President Bush will accept “modest and reasonable conditions,” Mr. Obey said. Representative John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania, head of the defense appropriations subcommittee and a harsh critic of the war, said, “There’s a difference between supporting our military and their families and supporting the war in Iraq.” “This administration supports this war,” Mr. Murtha said. “This Congress supports our troops and their families, as we proved over and over and over again.”

Come along, Mr. Bones, by the time Congressman Subhead starts worrying about what "support" means and what it is that the holy Homeland "supports" exactly, either we are doing dialectics with postmediaeval religionizers or we're visiting Madison Avenue on a virtual day trip, with the odds heavily weighted towards the latter hypothesis. Nitsy's man Stout had every justification for speaking of "their public relations battle over money for the Iraq war today," and the standard literary license covers his introducing the justification subsequent to the claim justified.

Myself, I should have liked to hear some of those "horror stories" that the legislative lemmin’s of Boy and Party are said to be peddlin’. I don't doubt the fact, for such behavior is thoroughly lemmin’like and by now thoroughly traditional with the Aggression Fan Club, yet those of us who come in late to this particular bout of the Tweedledee-Tweedledumb conclobberation could do with a sight of The Rattle, just to make sure the Great Crow or somebody has not secretly made off with it and thus rendered all these proceedings nugatory in advance.

Here again, Mr. Stout puts the evidence in well after what it is supposed to buttress, and in this case it seems to be an inferior grade of evidence as well as a tardy one:

If the war bill remains stalled, it will soon have harmful effects on normal military operations and could cause many thousands of civilian employees of the Defense Department to be laid off, Mr. [sic] Perino said. A Pentagon spokesman, Bryan Whitman, buttressed the White House complaint, telling reporters that people who think the Defense Department has lots of money to transfer between accounts are “simply misinformed,” according to The Associated Press. “We’ve entered into a very serious period here,” Mr. Whitman said.

Big Party neocomrade[ss] D. Perino is "President Bush’s chief spokeswoman." I really should have remembered the gentlecritter's name, Mr. Bones, yet perhaps I am not alone, here in the abendliche Dämmerung of Château Kennebunkport and Castle Cheney and Rancho Crawford, in having lost track of exactly who is dubyapologizin’ for ’em now? Be that as it may, the substantive dubyapology is mildly interesting for a couple of reasons.

(1) Neocomrade D. Perino distinguishes between "normal military operations" on the one hand, and the Ever-Victorious Surge of ’07™ (I presume it must be) on the other. She expects, or pretends to expect, that even odious Demoncrat defeatists regard "normal military operations" as sacrosanct. Unfortunately she is probably quite justified. I am tempted to digress into editorializing about this national misfortune, but shall content myself with a mere brief "news analysis" instead: although only militant extremist GOP gland-basers can be counted upon always to wish to wish to act like Godzilla, America's Party is full of folks who think it very important that Uncle Sam always be able so to act, though we restrain ourselves to comparative decency in fact. Their attitude can be dignified as Aristotelian and Shakespearean -- "Those that have power to hurt but will do none," etc. -- but more practically, it could also be codified as "normal military operations," and that appears to be what the female flack for Crawfordite invasionism had in mind.

(2) The neocomrade was rather reinforcin’ her first P. R. assault than launchin’ a different one when she spoke darkly of "many thousands of civilian employees of the Defense Department to be laid off." It may well be that she supposes this to be her Little Brother's ace of trumps vis-à-vis the wretched Murthas and Obeys. How shall America's Party resist an appeal to keep civilian unemployment down? Why, that would be to side with Dr. Hoover and against FDR, almost!

Although interesting, Mlle. Perino's agitprop is tame stuff as "horror stories" go. More exactly, only incumbent Congresscreatures like Obey and Murtha and a small circle of immediate associates are likely to perceive the full horror of lay-offs at DOD or interference with "normal military operations" as conceived by Wingnut City tank-thinkers. So-called "real people" do not in general pass through life dreading non-re-election as among the fates almost as bad as D**th, after all.

By those standards, however, perhaps Mr. Stout is not entitled to speak of "public relations" after all. A horror story that can properly horrify only pro pols would appear to qualify as "public" only indirectly and in a very qualified sense. Nostradamus spoke of Big Management settin’ out to "portray as irresponsible and unpatriotic the Democrats in Congress who decline to give Bush all the war funding he wants," but what are we to say about that analysis after we wonder if the WGAS had his reading glasses on? Neocomrade Perino is not quoted as sayin’ a word about "war funding," except insofar as she may have meant to imply that it is quite inseparable from unwar funding.

The neocomradess was certainly not tryin’ to blackmail and blackguard the defeatist donkeys as "unpatriotic" in the straightforward sense of preferring that the Big Management Party's supralegal aggression into the former Iraq should fail ignominiously, an aggression that "works" being more detestable than one that does not, as well as much more likely to be used as a basis for further crimes in future. Those of us who actually take that rigorist view cannot avoid noticing that not many holy Homelanders agree with it, certainly far too few to be of significance in discussions of public opinion or manipulatory Public Relations. The WGAS does not agree with us himself, or at any rate he never worries that saving their bacon for the Harvard Victory School MBA’s might set a very undesirable precedent.[2]


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Plus in a narrowly political sense, Dr. Cole manages to be exotic-parochial: he grossly overestimates how well "the public desperately wants them to stop the Iraq War, which is hemorrhaging money and costing American lives, all for goals that are unclear" actually plays at Peoria and South Succotash and Rio Limbaugh. Doubtless Televisionland and the electorate ought to take some such view of the Kiddie Krusaders, but nobody paying much attention to the holy Homeland is likely to claim that they -- that "we" -- really do attach that much importance to what the Lesser Breeds Without are up to in the world, or what the LBW think Uncle Sam is up to either.

But God knows best.


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[1] Quoth the Torygraph ,

The Taliban has a permanent presence in most of Afghanistan and the country is in serious danger of falling into the group's hands, according to a report from an international think tank. The Senlis Council claimed that the insurgents controlled "vast swathes of unchallenged territory" and were gaining "more and more political legitimacy in the minds of the Afghan people". It said that the NATO force in the country needed to be doubled to 80,000 front-line soldiers who should be allowed to pursue militants into Pakistan.

Do Televisionland and the electorate pay any attention to all that splendid innovation by our Big Party Managers, however? There is not much sign of it. Outer Khurasán is simply too far away, I fear, and too unimportant economically and jewishstatistically for the Big Party perps to work up a plausible scare without some really serious input from the direction of M. Bin Ládin and Dr. Zawáhirí. I have no idea whether D. Perino's "normal military operations" include or exclude the normalcy of Áfghánistán. But then it does not matter, does it, Mr. Bones? Even Obeys and Murthas are not going to become hobgoblinized about civilian unemployment levels at Kábúl and Qandahár.


[2] Ann Arbour Faculty Club attitudes are defensible, it seems to me, only insofar as they concentrate on the Greater Levant exclusively and ignore the fact that Rancho Crawford and Castle Cheney so much as exist. In that case, minimizing damage to the patients can be legitimately exalted to the status of unum necessarium. However in the real world, that outcome is very difficult to separate from enhancing the reputation of the militant extremist GOP quacks and encouraging them onwards to their next excellent adventure.

The World's Greatest Area Student does not attempt to unravel this knot at all, and the reason for his failure seems to be a certain muddleheadedness peculiar to himself. The WGAS viscerally detests Little Brother and "Richard Bruce Cheney," as he likes to call Tonto. You and I, Mr. Bones, can match only a small part of the Colean scorn and revulsion. We can, however, perceive from afar that scorn and revulsion are sentimental or emotional and do not qualify as arguments in themselves. "Half the known world hates George Walker Bush" might do as the basis for an adult political appeal. "I, J.R.I. Cole, hate George Walker Bush" is in a different category altogether, despite the formal similarity.

The upshot is that the WGAS takes for granted that nobody sane will ever use the invasionistical doin’s of RBC and GWB as a precedent for themeselves. After all, who would appeal to Chancellor Hitler's precedents except sarcastically and backhandedly? That sort of pitch defiles very aggressively indeed. Unfortunately (?) Little Brother and Tonto do not quite fall in the same pigeon-hole as the Greater German statesperson, and such a classification depends on intersubjective or "objective" criteria that are qualitative in nature, meaning that no mere quantity or intensity of distaste at Ann Arbour or elsewhere can be dispositive.

The WGAS himself does not, I believe, maintain that there was nothing wrong with the aggression of March 2003 apart from its being conducted by a crew of Boy-'n'-Party stumblebums -- or, if you like, by a dread Neo-Con Cabal -- who failed to make their aggression "work." Millions of other people do believe that sort of proposition, though, many more than enough to make it a legitimate question of public opinion and target of opportunity for Public Relations. The reputation of aggression in the path of Preëmptive Retaliation is therefore a cause that might be revived, and indeed is being revived at the moment, largely by the Baní Kagan and other factional boosters of the Ever-Victorious Surge of ’07™, yet also by less culpable and more reflective perps. The WGAS has been responding to this unwelcome stimulus mainly by disputing the facts, and the facts are undoubtedly disputable, especially the facts about the future. That level of response is OK, as I have conceded already, so long as the WGAS is content with being an area student exclusively. Should he essay to be a philospher or critic in addition, however, some grappling with the alarming possibility that supralegal aggression really does WORK on occasion would seem to be demanded of him.