Author: terencef

Lose-Lose

LOSE-LOSE

There was no way that President Obama could win with his speech last night on Afghanistan.

His compromise drawdown–10,000 U.S. troops by the end of the year, 23,000 more by the end of next summer– was bound to disappoint the McCain School, the military men who want to keep as many boots on the ground as possible, and the Biden School, which wants to sharply reduce the U.S. footprint in favor of targeted, counter-terrorist strikes. The first group wanted a nominal, 3,000-5,000 troop withdrawal over time, the second a major, swift, pullout.

Obama himself may even have been disappointed, since he knows that the 10-year-old Afghanistan war is now inescapably his war.

“Tonight, “ the President said from the East Room, “we take comfort in knowing that the tide of war is receding.” His lack of conviction as he delivered that statement was revealing. He must know that under the long goodbye he articulated last night, it will be a very long war indeed.

The President may also privately believe, as so many do, that our Afghanistan adventure is a fool’s errand. He surely recognizes that the outcome will be a disappointment to all sides, most especially the Afghan people. And yet, after a serious, thoughtful, three-month policy review last year, he concluded that he had no choice but to soldier on. Hence, the surge.

He also realizes that even after the withdrawals announced last night, the U.S. will have 70,000 troops in Afghanistan and nearly 100,000 contractors (soldiers-for-hire) in country and involved in an on-going struggle between Afghan factions with no end in sight. No surprise that the President’s demeanor was subdued and serious.

He also knows that the cost, estimated at $10 billion a month, is ruinous. Gamely, he spoke of increasing investment in America’s crumbling infrastructure and creating green energy projects that could lift the economy. But even as he spoke, it was painfully obvious that the country cannot afford guns and butter, not in this economy, not with this debt. Even the Tea Party School has reached that conclusion.

The irony is that this President is the same person who as Candidate Obama, campaigned against the unnecessary, unjustified war in Iraq and was elected on a promise to bring those troops home. He is fulfilling that promise, but replacing one quagmire with another.

TWO GOOD COLUMNS

Two of the best columnists writing in America today have written excellent pieces in recent days that caught my eye. The first was by Tom Friedman in the NYT in the wake of Bibi Netanyahu’s visit to Washington, the second is Eugene Robinson’s piece in today’s Washington Post on the futility of the war in Afghanistan.

Friedman’s point was that the Israeli-Palestinian “peace process” is moribund because the respective leaders, Netanyahu and Abbas,  are stuck in the past. Each is recycling tired old demands and preconditions that effectively stall any progress towards a solution. Totally true.  Neither has had an original idea in years and both are playing to their respective constituencies. CYA politics, Mideast-version.

No wonder George Mitchell resigned as Obama’s envoy.  He had the patience to hammer at the Northern Ireland problem for six years until both sides agreed to the Good Friday Accord. But two years of beating his head against the Israeli-Palestinian intransigence was enough.  No surprise.

Eugene Robinson’s column today, “Declare Victory — and Go,” is an eloquent appeal to common sense.  “What on earth are we doing?” in Afghanistan, he asks.  “We have more than 100,000 troops in Afghanistan risking life and limb, at a cost of $10 billion a month, to pursue ill-defined goals whose achievement” can only barely be imagined.

“We wanted to depose the Taliban regime, and we did,” he writes. “We wanted to install a new government that answers to its constituents at the polls, and we did.  We wanted to smash al-Qaeda’s infrastructure of training camps and havens, and we did. We wanted to kill or capture Osama bin Laden, and we did.”

“The threat from Afghanistan is gone,” he concludes, “bring the troops home.”

That is so clearly the right course of action that it is strange that the Obama Administration does not adopt it immediately.

THE ANSWER IS NO

On Meet The Press this morning, host David Gregory hammered away at the same question over and over to all his guests.

“Is it in America’s vital national interest that Gaddafi go? he demanded repeatedly of guests as diverse as White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley and the demagogic Tea Party Queen, Rep. Michelle Bachmann. He put the same query to commentators David Brooks and Eugene Robinson.

Interestingly, none of them, not even Michelle Bachmann, took the bait.

Eugene Robinson came the closest to saying yes by conceding rhetorically that you could make that argument, but would then have to answer the more difficult question: what do we do about it?

The answer, David, is no, not on your life. An alternative answer is “Hell,no.”

Gaddafi’s Libya is an important oil producer, but not so important that a cutoff of Libyan oil would trigger an oil shortage by itself. Libya’s military might is a factor, but does not affect the larger balance of power in the region, much less the world. Under pressure, Gaddafi has dismantled his weapons of mass destruction, so he is not going to serve as a conduit to Al Qaida or other rogue groups.

The removal of Gaddifi and his murderous regime, no matter how desirable, does not rise to the status of a “vital national interest” of the United States.

Remember, please, that President George W. Bush used that argument in late 2002 and early 2003 to justify the invasion of Iraq. His specific formulation was that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq threatened the national security of the United States. It didn’t, of course. But Congress, and the media, essentially accepted that proposition and allowed that needless war to proceed.

Perhaps that is why none of David Gregory’s guests answered yes to his question. Michelle Bachmann must have been tempted, because it offered another opportunity to criticize President Obama, but even she held back. Perhaps even she can recognize the madness of getting the United States involved in another military adventure against an Arab nation.

Bill Daley gave the right answer. He said it was in the national interest of the Libyan people to get rid of Gaddafi. It is first and foremost a Libyan problem, he implied. Let’s not lose sight of that. David Brooks made a valid point that President Obama, having called for Gaddafi to step down, having applied sanctions in an effort to undercut him, now needs to stress the U.S. commitment to democracy and peaceful change. Fair enough, but that is a far cry from sending in the Marines.

Whatever the United States does to hasten Gaddafi’s much-to-be-desired departure, it should do so multi-laterally, with United Nations endorsement and NATO cooperation and carefully. The Libyan revolt is one act in a larger drama, one that is taking place across the entire Arab world.

It is a “vital national interest” that we not blunder into another misadventure in the desert.

No Cheering in the Press Box, Please

Here we go again.

These days, the mainstream media are openly cheerleading for the rebel forces in Libya. Before that, they were in love with the demonstrators who occupied Pearl Square in Bahrain. And before that, the protesters who brought down the regime of Hosni Mubarak. And even before that, the crowds who sent Tunisia’s Zine el-Abedine Ben Ali packing.

Forgive me, but I’m gagging at all the gushing.

Without defending any of the Middle East’s more despotic rulers, is it too much to ask for a little straight reporting? Journalists tend to fall in love with a good story, and the revolution sweeping the Arab world is a great story. But openly taking sides, which is what has happened repeatedly in recent weeks, diminishes the reporting and the reporters.

It’s a familiar phenomenon, a kind of journalistic puppy love with arresting images and appealing characters. They have been in abundance in the Arab revolt, from the vendor who set off the Tunisian tumult to the pro-democracy demonstrators in Tahrir Square in Cairo, to the 70-something American woman defending her apartment with her rolling pin and big knife.

NBC’s normally professional Brian Williams and the estimable Richard Engel were positively giddy as they larked through Tahrir Square among the protesters. It was a party, a picnic, a love-in. Most of all, it was Great TV.

When it was learned that CBS’s Lara Logan had been stripped and sexually assaulted in Tahrir Square, the pro-democracy forces didn’t seem quite so admirable. But by then, Mubarak was gone and the camera’s eye had shifted to Bahrain’s Pearl Square. Then it was on to Yemen, briefly back to Tunisia, and then, suddenly, to a new story: Libya! Tobruk had been liberated, now Benghazi! Tripoli must be next! Gaddafi can’t last long.

But now Gaddafi is fighting back and what seemed at first to be an irresistible popular revolt is turning into a grinding civil war. It is going to take a while before this story plays out. And even longer to see what develops in Egypt.

Extraordinary winds of change are blowing through the Arab world. Sclerotic regimes are collapsing. It is huge news, so let’s treat it with the professionalism and independence a truly monumental event deserves.

No cheering in the press box, please.

OBAMA IN THE CROSSHAIRS

OBAMA IN THE CROSSHAIRS

Barack Obama is getting hell from the left and the right for his handling of the people’s revolution in Egypt.

Critics on the left, like Niall Ferguson, in a new column in Newsweek today, argue that the President should have pulled the rug from beneath Hosni Mubarak and openly aligned the U.S. with the protesters in Tahrir Square from the outset.

Critics on the right, like Glen Beck and others, chastise Obama for failing to publicly support our “ally” Mubarak .

Since Obama did neither, Obama’s performance is being dubbed a “foreign policy debacle” and a “colossal failure.”

Wrong, on both counts.

This was a case, not uncommon in diplomacy, where ambiguity was the highest and best use of the bully pulpit. If the President had come down decisively in favor of the protesters, it would have pushed Mubarak out all the more quickly. But it would also have given the revolution a “Made in America” label and stripped it of its legitimacy.

Instead, the President spoke repeatedly of the need for an orderly transition that would accommodate the legitimate desires of the protesters and all Egyptians. Going forward, he should do exactly the same thing. Rather than endorse this candidate over that, or even this general over that general, the Administration should stick to the principles of democracy and openness and equality.

If the U.S. adopts and stays with that posture there is a chance — just a chance — that this extraordinary, grass-roots revolution will result in elections and a democratic government later this year. It is crucial that the outcome be seen as the choice of the Egyptian people, not that of Washington-based foreign policy commentators from the left or the right.

EGYPT AT THE CROSSROADS

EGYPTIAN PATIENCE WEARS THIN

“We are a river country,” an Egyptian friend once told me when I marveled at his country’s patience with corrupt, incompetent and repressive regimes. “We go on and on.”

Perhaps. But that legendary patience with the bumbling but stubborn, 82-year-old President Mubarak seems to be wearing out.  Change is coming to Egypt, either very soon or shortly thereafter. And what happens in Egypt matters, to Egyptians, of course, but also to the U.S., Israel and the entire Arab world.

Diminished as it may be today, Egypt remains the centerpiece of the Arab world. With its population of 80 million, it is not only the largest Arab country. It is historically, culturally and intellectually the heart of the Arab crescent from Morocco to Lebanon. An old saying in the region is that there can be no peace between Israel and her Arab neighbors without Syria, and no war without Egypt. It is still true today. No surprise that President Obama chose Cairo for his first major speech on relations between the U.S. and the Arab and Muslim world.

But now Obama confronts the ticklish task of encouraging change in Egypt without seeming to abandon the Mubarak government .  Egypt has served as a crucial counterweight to Syria and Iran. It has received tens of billions of dollars worth of U.S. aid over the years and carved out a cold but diplomatically important peace with Israel. As Egypt goes, so go Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The stakes are enormous.

FROM BAD TO WORSE….

FROM BAD TO WORSE…..

The thoroughly botched firing of Juan Williams as an analyst for NPR has claimed another victim, exposed management weaknesses within the organization and launched a much-needed review of NPR’s muddled non-policy for what its reporters and analysts can and cannot say on other media outlets.

The latest victim is Ellen Weiss, the respected senior vice president for news, who was forced to resign and take the fall. Weiss was the executive who fired Williams last October with a late-night phone call after he played into Bill O’Reilly’s hands by saying on Fox News that he became “nervous” whenever he boarded a plane with passengers dressed in “muslim garb.”  That gratuitous personal observation — feeding  O’Reilly’s ongoing tirade about Muslims — violated even NPR’s vague guidelines against its people expressing their opinions on controversial topics on other media outlets.  It was also the kind of racial and religious profiling that Williams rightly has long campaigned against when applied to African-Americans.  An independent review of the firing by an outside law firm concluded the obvious: i.e., that NPR was within its legal rights to dismiss Williams — and that the firing was “mishandled.”

No kidding. The controversy provoked an avalanche of protests from listeners and led to the latest Congressional move to cut funding for public broadcasting.  It also provided an opening to Roger Ailes, the Republican political operative who runs Fox News. He seized the moment to reward Williams with a new, $2 million contract as a full-timer at Fox.

The only good news in this whole mess, other than the boost to Williams’ bank balance, is that NPR has launched a serious review and revision of its ethics guidelines. That will presumably result in an overdue clarification of just what its people should and should not say when appearing on other outlets.

The answer is obvious: reporting, analysis and commentary are three distinctly different functions, whether in print or on the air.  The first states the news, the second analyzes its meaning  and the third expresses an opinion.  The first two are fine on NPR or any other outlet. The third is also fine, but must be clearly labeled as commentary by a commentator. NPR broadcasts commentary every day. I have contributed some such myself.  In this as in so many fields, sunshine is the best disinfectant.

Juan Williams, incidentally, was an NPR analyst, not a commentator. I am sure he understood the distinction, but he chose to blur the line during his Fox appearances.

It is now up to NPR to redraw the line as part of its ethics review — and enforce it.

CHANGE THE MESSAGE…

The announcement today that Robert Gibbs will be replaced as White House spokesman is evidence that President Obama has realized – finally – that he has to upgrade his message machine. The first step in changing the message is changing the messenger. But Obama himself will have to put more effort into communicating what he is doing and why he is doing it. In his post-election press conference, he acknowledged that that task had been neglected in his first two years and that he had paid a price for it. Hence, the famous “shellacking.”
One of the great mysteries of the first half of the Obama term is how one of the best communicators in politics failed to get his message across. We’ll see if that changes now.

A DYING BREED

FAREWELL, JACK

There was a memorial today for Jack Nelson, the great civil rights reporter who served as Washington Bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times for 21 years and was a familiar face and voice on Washington Week in Review on PBS. It was an extraordinary gathering that will be replayed on C-Span at 8 p.m. EST tonight.

There have been too many memorials of late among reporters and their friends in Washington: Jody Powell, Bill Safire, John Mashek, just in the last few weeks.

But today’s event in the auditorium of the National Geographic Society in Washington was remarkable as a reminder of that special breed of reporter, most of them born in the south, who grew up personally and professionally covering the civil rights revolution. It was the seminal story of their time and they brought it home to the nation at large.

Several outstanding examples of the breed were in the audience today: Eugene Patterson, Gene Roberts and Howell Raines among them, along with some of those who fought the fight, including Rep. John Lewis and Julian Bond.

Gene Patterson recalled that Jack Nelson came to his job with a “high school education and a low boiling point” about the injustices he saw inflicted on African Americans in the south. He quickly proved to be, Patterson said, “the scourge of crooked sheriffs and thieving statehouse politicians” all over the region. Gene Roberts recalled that Jack took on the Klansmen he encountered, “pointing his finger at them like a pistol” as he questioned them.

Jack’s story and those of other reporters like him are recounted in “The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle and Awakening of a Nation,” which Gene Roberts wrote with Hank Klibanoff in 2006. It is worth a read, or a re-read, as a way to understand the careers and commitment of this dying breed.

WALTER AND DON

WALTER AND DON

First, Walter Cronkite, dead last month at 92. Now Don Hewitt, gone today at 86. It is being described as the end of an era at CBS News.

Of course, the Cronkite-Hewitt era at CBS ended years ago.

In their day, CBS News was truly a world-wide news-gathering organization, with correspondents in bureaus around the globe. The news division was a prestigious loss-leader that fulfilled the network’s public affairs commitment and kept the FCC at bay. Founder William Paley was happy to pay the division’s bills because it gave him license to run the advertising-rich entertainment shows that brought in the dough.

Don Hewitt ruined all that. By doing news in an entertaining fashion, he established 60 Minutes as a run-away ratings winner and cash cow. The conglomerates who took over CBS after Paley — Westinghouse, Loewes and Viacom — realized that news broadcasts didn’t have to lose money. So, they 1.) cut costs; and 2.) converted each news broadcast into a profit center. The shows that made money survived. Those that didn’t disappeared.

“It’s all my fault,” Don Hewitt told me in an interview I did with him five years ago for The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. “60 Minutes was such a success that management decided that all news broadcasts could and should make money.”

To that end, the bean counters closed foreign and national bureaus, dismissed staff and let go half the correspondent corps. The news division that survives still has outstanding producers and correspondents, it still does good work, but more and more it is a news-packaging, rather than news-gathering, organization.

No one relished television news more than Don Hewitt. His enthusiasm was boundless and infectious. He was one of those producers who had 35 ideas a day, 34 of which were impractical, silly or outlandish. But one good idea a day is an enviable record.

He built a terrific repertory company of correspondents and made them into stars and millionaires. A few from the Hewitt era continue — Mike Wallace, Morley Safer and Andy Rooney — but the era, the Cronkite-Hewitt era, if you like, is long gone.