I’ve been pretty rough on Joe Klein over the years, so I want to pause to praise him for his latest article, which concludes with this heartfelt apology:
As for myself, I deeply regret that once, on television in the days before the [Iraq] war, I foolishly — spontaneously — said that going ahead with the invasion might be the right thing to do. I was far more skeptical in print. I never wrote in favor of the war and repeatedly raised the problems that would accompany it, but mere skepticism was an insufficient reaction too. The issue then was as clear as it is now. It demanded a clarity that I failed to summon. The essential principle is immutable: we should never go to war unless we have been attacked or are under direct, immediate threat of attack. Never. And never again.
There are dozens of other pundits who we’re still waiting to hear apologize, but now we can strike Joe Klein off that list.
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A reader from the UAE linked to this fp story by BooMan – Alan Greenspan is Geopolitically Challenged . A comment was added by shergald with reference to the Pentagon war plans …
May I ask: “WHY.” Why is Joe Klein coming forward with this mea culpa?
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."I don’t know, but it seems sincere to me. In the past he’s denied ever boosting for the war, so this is progress.
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Gee, I don’t think I’ll employ Joe Klein to write my political playbook!
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."He’s actually right in that diagnosis, not because the best ideas come from the center, but because all legislation must be built around the center. This is one of the things the Obama administration understands and his base, largely, does not.
There is no alternative universe where Ben Nelson and Olympia Snowe don’t get to decide what will and won’t become law. Not so long as we operate with a 60-vote requirement.
I know part of my own frustration comes from not having expected the unprecedented unity of the Senate Republican caucus around the use of the filibuster. I was hoping we’d be compromising with the center as the 50th-54th members of the Democratic caucus. Oh well, live and learn.
As for Joe Klein, I agree: a terrific column. It was refreshing in part because it’s so rare for pundits to say, simply, “I was wrong. I’m sorry.”
So, that begs the question: what is this “center”? Who determines it?
Sometimes, I get the suspicion that this mythical “center” is just another muddy-the-waters ploy to make what should be a clear, solid principle into a muddled, toothless backdoor paean to “not doing too much cuz that skurrrrrs people,” i.e., the status quo.
Grrr.
The center can be defined as the 60th vote. Nothing passes without it. But the truth is that the center is a bit broader. It includes several Democrats who are shy about voting for bills that only have one or two Republican supporters and it includes three or four Republicans who are willing to buck their leadership and provide their support for the president’s agenda (in whatever watered-down form).
So, the center changes depending on the make-up and mood of the Senate and the parties, but it basically is a small set of senators who make or break legislation. If you don’t respect them and keep them on board and think about their needs, you can’t appoint an undersecretary of the Interior, let alone sweeping reforms.
Hang on! You mean the “center” is where a few rogue, extremely wealthy senators hang their hats? The same senators who enjoy Obama’s unwavering support at the same time he and his apologists complain about “obstructionism”? So, what I can surmise is that Obama feeds this “center” by protecting and legitimizing it at all costs. I know that this is a fallacy, but is it suddenly the “center” when Obama endorses it? Sounds like some people can have their cake and eat it too, so long as that cake’s taste is in the “center.” Can’t have cake that’s too sweet, it will scare too many white people!
Well, you can poll the people on a wide spectrum of issues and define where the center is in public opinion, but that’s going to be way to the left of whatever the representation is in Congress. The Center in the Senate is where the intersection occurs around 60 votes (plus and minus three or four) and in the House wherever the two parties begin to overlap, which is around 250. It’s not a value judgment, it’s a description of what constitutes the mid-point where things can be described as bipartisan, and from which any significant deviation dooms legislation.
I saw a copy of such a plan just after 9/11, dated WELL before the attacks, passed around via email, apparently originally by some Christic Institute/NPI folks. I am sure I am not the only one who read this document at the time. It went so far as to describe the cowboy/unstable persona the President should effect – make himself appear an aberration, that his rule was indeed exceptional, that ‘the world had changed.’
Lo, and behold we’ve seen the plan progress into total disaster. The only real success is that the wildman/cowboy President was a truly effective ruse.
In my many posts and comments at the time (and my old ‘Allies of Evil’ website), I tried to share this, but at the time no one seemed capable of apprehending both the enormity of 9/11 and the enormity of the implications of our own preparedness for it (which implies foreknowledge and that there was something to the more than tenuous connections between our ‘enemy’ and ourselves). For some reason, we are still able to collectively ignore that flow of money from US to Pakistan to the Taliban. Or from the US to aQ directly. Or to AQ indirectly via the KLA in Kosova. Or or or.
Let’s not allow the fact that we are knowingly financing our own enemies prevent us from ignoring that we are financing our own enemies,
Did these plans to take over the less stable and resource rich parts of the Islamic world require a galvanizing event to enact? 100% absolutely. The New American Century types in and around the Bush admin knew this and were even stupid enough to write it down and sign it. Probably so they could personally take credit upon our ‘inevitable success’.
I wonder how both the pre-existing war plans and the written desire for a galvanizing event, as expressed in writing by the same people is so easily ignored/accepted by both the American people (actually this is no surprise), and the current Administration (unless…).
We can all draw the right conclusion here: Bush wanted global, endless war, was planning on it, including all the cowboy BS and got the pizza he ordered delivered directly to the 95th floor of the WTC.
Or the pre-existence of these plans and the timing of 9/11 was all some giant unhappy coincidence and Bush was really super smart and just a signature away from pre-empting 9/11 through a global war with no casus belli.
Imagine if we had attacked 7 countries with no 9/11. Would the glory of our New American Century really have been possible in any other circumstance?