Moyers relaunches "Journal"; Colbert, Tom Wolfe and Captain Hook?

I should probably be commenting on Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel or Illinois Sen. Barack Obama—two parts of last night’s democratic presidential candidates’ first debate, but instead, here are key phrases and comments from April 25’s Bill Moyers’ Journal, now back on the air at PBS after 26 years of hibernation. “Buying the War,” about the mainstream American media’s failure to properly handle information about the run-up to the Iraq War, reflects main talking points from the “Media, War, and Conflict” conference held here at Marquette last Thursday and Friday. I wrote about the conference’s keynote speech by David Zurawik, Baltimore Sun TV critic, in Tuesday’s Marquette Tribune. Note: these quotes are not in direct sequence, but all are in the order in which they appeared on the show.

And then there was Fox News: Whose chief executive — the veteran Republican operative and media strategist Roger Ailes — had privately urged the white house to use the harshest measures possible after 9/11...

BILL MOYERS: What I was wrestling with that night listening to you is; once we let our emotions out as journalists on the air, once we say, we'll line up with the President, can we ever really say to the country the President's out of line.

DAN RATHER: By the way Bill, this is not an excuse. I don't think there is any excuse for, you know, my performance and the performance of the press in general in the roll up to the war. There were exceptions. There were some people, who, I think, did a better job than others. But overall and in the main there's no question that we didn't do a good job.

WALTER ISAACSON: And there was even almost a patriotism police which, you know, they'd be up there on the internet sort of picking anything a Christiane Amanpour, or somebody else would say as if it were disloyal.

BILL MOYERS: Dan Rather is talking about prominent Washington figures in and outside of government…known as neoconservatives. They had long wanted to transform the Middle East, beginning with the removal of Saddam Hussein. The terrorist attacks gave them the chance they wanted. And the media gave them a platform.

BILL MOYERS: Among their leading spokesmen were Richard Perle and James Woolsey. Both sat on the Defense Policy Board advising Donald Rumsfeld. And they used their inside status to assure the press that overthrowing Hussein would be easy.

There’s much, much more of this from the program— you can read it or watch the video for the rest. And next week’s guest is Jon Stewart, talking through the questions, “Why do so many get their news and analysis from his fake news show?” and, “What’s so funny about the media’s cozy relationship with Washington?”

By the by, Tom Wolfe on The Colbert Report Thursday = banter about pirates, ie. Cpt. Hook, as well as Colbert claiming he invented New New Journalism, a form that has plenty of room for imagination and, as Colbert stated it, making stuff up to make the story more entertaining.

Democrats really are the majority now

"The Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 12-9 today to approve a non-binding resolution opposing President Bush’s plan to send additional forces Iraq."

I think this sounds most logical--maybe it doesn't work politically, or militarily--

Senator Christopher Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, proposed a binding resolution that would cap the number of troops in Iraq to the number already there unless Congress approved sending more.

On the other side of the anti-Bush proposal debate, there's John Warner's proposal. I'm waiting it out to see what this new Congress decides. Either way, it's a couple straight steps in a different direction. And no one seems to be digging in their heels.

A Toast to Republicans (that's not scorn or sarcasm...keep reading)

I'm letting out a sigh of relief, thankful for my restraint in choosing sides politically on this blog over the past months. Doing so is hard, especially in these times in which people tend toward polarizing around the opposite left and right camps; at least there seems to be more people among the non-apathetic that either classify themselves as "very liberal" or "very conservative." This may be data I can produce from my own experience, at a midwestern university where I fraternize mostly with men and women aged 18-22 or so. But I think it applies to the whole country. Nothing scientific or sociological or revealed in survey or census results there. Just my personal perception of our personal politics.

What I'm getting at here is this article, "Key Republican Senator Offers Bipartisan Call to Reject Bush Plan for More Troops in Iraq" in Monday's NY Times. That guy there on the far right, yep, he's my senator: Norm Coleman, a republican whose speech is accentuated like a true New Yorker even though he now is considered a Minnesotan. Along with Senator John W. Warner (R-VA), he's proposing an alternative to President George W. Bush's recent plan for Iraq--which involves sending a "surge" of 2,500 troops or so to Iraq and spending a billion dollars on improving that country's economy.

The Times' article contains scarce traces of the Warner proposal: well, actually nothing. But the bipartisanship to me isn't disconcerting, and it's close to hopeful. The article states

Both are nonbinding but declare that United States involvement in Iraq cannot be sustained without strong public support and that the main military mission in Iraq should be ensuring the nation’s territorial integrity.

Hey, what d'ya know? Democracy in action! "Strong public support" is a phrase I wish had been used consistently over the past 4 years, but it is of extremely positive import right now, as President Bush's approval rating, according to a CNN report I saw last on TV last night, is at 36%. Even lower is the public's approval of his handling of Iraq, coming in at 29%.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), another Republican I'm starting to like (which almost hurts to say, but it's not without legitimate cause) doesn't like the idea of the "surge" because similar attempts to bolster our levels of troops in Iraq haven't worked.

We’ve had four other surges since we first went into Iraq,” Ms. Collins said. “None of them produced a long-lasting change in the situation on the ground. So I am very skeptical that this surge would produce the desired outcome.

I heard somewhere--I know, I know, that doesn't sound professional, but it's not like I'm getting paid to do this--that the amount of total US troops in Iraq as a result of Pres. Bush's "surge" would approximately equal (give or take a few) the total we had over there exactly one year ago. I like the way Ms. Collins puts it.

Please, Democrats like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), take this for what it is: it's not just a concession to Democrats' wishes now that the Republicans aren't in power. That is an interpretation, and one that indeed sounds ok. But what it also is means more, that Republicans on the White House's side don't even agree with the war strategy anymore. That they are willing to work with Democrats, instead of both parties pulling hair and biting each other's arms. That maybe bipartisanship isn't a ghost from the past or from some political fantasy.

Well, here's a toast (I have a champagne flute, it looks clean enough, of pulpy orange juice I poured from a carton I left out overnight by accident)to Republicans. To many more attempts, whether for political or ideological or morally-considered motives, to listen to what Democrats in the minority were trying to say for the last 4 years. And to not rubbing it in anyone's face or acting pompous or smug or saying, "we told you so." Here's to sincerity.

And to the guy I've never voted for and although I've always seen eye to eye with him on energy policy (he cares about stuff) I never really agreed with until now...my senator, Norm Coleman.