That's Why They Call Them Useful Something Somethings

From a Democratic staffer on the Hill:

Just about every Republican in the Iraq debate on the House floor today has cited and read from the O'Hanlon/Pollack op-ed to argue that we are making significant progress in iraq. Many Republicans have called them "left-wing scholars", as in "even lefties O'Hanlon and Pollack say we are winning."

Just sayin'......that is the political effect of that op-ed......which makes it even more infuriating given that both O'Hanlon and Pollack have walked it back since it was published.

Speaking of walking it back, here's O'Hanlon talking to Mark Mazzetti:

In an interview on Wednesday, Mr. O’Hanlon said the article was intended to point out that the security situation was currently far better than it was in 2006. What the American military cannot solve, he said, are problems caused by the inability of Iraqis to forge political solutions. “Ultimately, politics trumps all else,” Mr. O’Hanlon said. “If the political stalemate goes on, even if the military progress continued, I don’t see how I could write another Op-Ed saying the same thing.”

To reiterate something that may have gotten lost, O'Hanlon's not just a guy who writes op-eds, he's a job seeker regarded as having a good chance of securing a major post in the next Democratic administration.

Comments

I thought "Joe Lieberman" was a politician. Now I find out it's a dangerous, communicable viral contagion.

Posted by steve duncan | August 2, 2007 1:27 PM

what does hillary have to say about ken pollack? he was one of her advisors who urged her to support the iraq war resolution and filled her head with visions of wmd. i'm betting it's he who is more likely to be rewarded with a whitehouse appointment.

Posted by jello | August 2, 2007 1:49 PM

So according to O'Hanlon we're doing better militarily but that can't help us politically.

But at this point all that we really care about is solving the political problems. So we're doing a little better on something that doesn't matter and no better on what matters. The obvious solution? More of what doesn't matter -- costs (multiple and high) be damned!

It doesn't take a Ph.D. to see that this analysis is worthless. Even a dirty hippie blogger type can see that. But can the elites?

Posted by Junius Brutus | August 2, 2007 1:51 PM

I'm curious. If someone cuts and runs on Wednesday from a OpEd they wrote on Monday, then
will they stand up to the terrorists?

Posted by Don Williams | August 2, 2007 1:53 PM

"...walked it back..."

Huh? What are you talking about?
Is that some kind of Beltway language that means they lied and now they're telling the truth?

Help me out here.

Posted by Garuda | August 2, 2007 1:54 PM

The most useful of idiots, aren't they. O'Hanlon and Pollack make Dolores Umbridge look like an amateur.

Posted by pinson | August 2, 2007 2:04 PM

Your LA Times op-ed was a good kick in the ass for the DC bi-partisan lose-the-war-some-more crowd.

Since blogger-ethics panels have failed entirely because the progressive bloggers have clearly better ethics - if truth-telling counts as ethics, making them unnecessary - but the DC think-tank/op-ed eliteists need some ethics medicine for sure.

So, I suggest this remedy: Every 'superior, bi-partisan' speaker in DC must pay 10% (the truth tithe) of their income for every time their prescriptions are 180 degrees wrong before they are allowed to publish again.

Posted by JimPortlandOR | August 2, 2007 2:06 PM

I need some guidance. Are we meant to believe that O'Hanlon wrote an Op/Ed, was embarassed by how it was 'misread' by Republicans and put to propaganda purposes, and then qualified his remarks in order to provide a strong 'on the other hand?'

Because I have a really, really hard time believing this all happened with sincerity. First of all, the Op/Ed itself had no qualification and no discussion of political stagnation--it simply said things were going well militarily. Second, he would have had to be blind not to see how this was going to be used by Republicans. Third, his congressional testimony has not been covered nearly to the extent the Op/Ed has, surely as intended.

It all seems a little too planned out to me, and O'Hanlon seems very, very slippery. I can't actually believe this wasn't a staged scene, with domestic politics as the ONLY relevant consideration.

Posted by Marshall | August 2, 2007 2:09 PM

steve duncan, i was going to say something along the lines you wrote, but you said it so much better.

Posted by howard | August 2, 2007 2:19 PM

Matt,

I saw O'Hanlon discoursing convivially last night with Glenn Beck ... Glenn Beck! Beck also used the line that the op-ed was so important because O'Hanlon and Pollack were such "fierce critics of this President and this war." O'Hanlon didn't correct him.

I have become so jaded by over the past few years that I didn't think I still retained the capacity to be shocked. But I truly am shocked by the gross meretriciousness and utter dishonesty and corruption on display during this affair.

Pollack wrote the book making the case for war. Not just a book - the book.

O'Hanlon wrote an article in January 2003 called "The Dangers of Delaying an Attack on Iraq", whose bottom line was that unless Saddam "comes clean", we should go to war, and the body of which was an extended argument for not waiting. If that tiny escape hatch qualifies one as being a "skeptic" about the Iraq War, then I suppose we can count George Bush as an Afghanistan War skeptic since he only said that unless the Taliban turned over Bin Laden we should go to war in Afghanistan.

I do not accept that this media fog and fuss is all a case of cognitive dissonance, reportorial laziness, or imperfect recall; nor do I think O'Hanlon and Pollack are motivated only by careerism. These are just straightforward, bald-faced, willful misrepresentations of reality. In my view, this op-ed and the subsequent O'Hanlon and Pollack dog and pony show, and the media hyping and bandwagoning, are part of an organized propaganda campaign, of which the New Bipartisanship campaign you critique in the LA Times piece is a part. It's too blatant, too widespread and too coordinated to be just some spontaneous summertime outbreak of mass foolishness. Perhaps some enterprising reporter could find out who's behind it.

The problem is that few Democratic office-holders are firing back vigorously against the misrepresentations, because they know that O'Hanlon and Pollack might very well be working for the next administration.

Posted by Dan Kervick | August 2, 2007 2:25 PM

@ Garuda

I believe the phrase “walk back” is a truncated version of “walk back the cat,” which is a verbally playful inversion of the idiom “to let the cat out of the bag.” It seems to be used most often in the context of intelligence work, its two senses both conveying the quixotic difficulty of the task: The first has to do with working back from a known event to its unknown antecedents. The second, related sense, used by the staffer is of trying to actually return things to the status quo ante.

More here: http://www.wordspy.com/words/walkthecatback.asp

Posted by the blackbird is involved | August 2, 2007 2:35 PM

Calling O'Pollackahan "fierce critics of the war" is like calling the minions of the Raving Racist "serious and responsible."

Speaking of serious and responsible, Matt you have only provided four links to Marty's Minions at The New Racists. Only four. Now i know it's still mid-afternoon, but how do you expect us to keep up with all the comings and goings of the deeply serious and responsible conservatives at The New Racists with only four links from your blog?

Don't let us down, Matt, another two or three links to TNR today and we'll be happier.

Posted by mrs. ibrahim al-jafaari | August 2, 2007 2:38 PM

In addition to O'Hanlon's appearance on Glenn Beck last night.....

Steve Clemons writes today (at his blog, the Washington Note, http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/002253.php):

"I also just learned that Fox News Sunday will feature Brookings Scholars Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack this weekend to further explore their rosy report on the state of America's current "military successes" in Iraq."

Serious people indeed.

Posted by Emes | August 2, 2007 3:13 PM

RE "The problem is that few Democratic office-holders are firing back vigorously against the misrepresentations, because they know that O'Hanlon and Pollack might very well be working for the next administration "
------------
Ha ha ha ha.

That's not it. The officeholders KNOW and FEAR that Pollack is working with Israeli billionaire Haim Saban. Haim is who funded the think tank that EMPLOYS Pollack.

The officeholders know that If someone can give out campaign donations of $14 Million in 2000-2002 -- and raise $1 Million for Hillary this year -- then he can certainly kick the living shit out of any Congressman running for reelection next year who crosses him. Any NUMBER of Congressmen , come to think of it. Just look at what happened to Cynthia McKinney. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynthia_Mckinney#2002_Primary_defeat

Most players limit their ambitions because they are deeply vulnerable to RETALIATION. That's why defense contractors give to BOTH parties and why they ask nicely for the $Billions from the US Treasury.

But billionaries like Haim Saban and S Daniel Abraham are so DANGEROUS because they already have their money in the bank. You can't threaten them by hinting that you might regulate their corporation out existence, for example.

A Congressional campaign is usually in play --i.e., you have two candidates locked in a struggle like two SUMO wrestlers. Haim Saban is the little dwarf fucker who can come along and hit one of the Sumo wrestlers right on the kneecap with a hammer. Understand?

Posted by Don Williams | August 2, 2007 3:18 PM

Needless to say, they leave this part out of the civics lessons in high school.

Posted by Don Williams | August 2, 2007 3:23 PM

Matt,

The job-seeker smear is pretty lame. It's hard to see how O'Hanlon increased his employability in a Dem administration with that op-ed; if anything, he has more 'progressives' like you characterizing him as an albatross for any Dem candidate. Why not just be happy that you and the rest of the lefty blogosphere successfully bullied O'Hanlon into a partial recantation and leave it at that?

Posted by Juan | August 2, 2007 4:42 PM

Matt:

Is Jack Kelly talking about the same Congressional hearing you attended in his essay, The Dems Get Surprised on Iraq? Kelly quotes you there, by the way.

Also, Kelly says that Dem Congressmen Keith Ellison and Jerry McNerny have also cited progress they saw recently in Iraq. I hadn't known about this. Perhaps they can be talked into walking back any insufficiently negative comments as well.

Posted by Fred | August 2, 2007 5:55 PM

"War Made Easy" by Norman Solomon is a good treatise on "how presidents and pundits keep spinning us to death"--and reading Don Williams it seems like they're taking it to a whole new level.

Cynthia McKinney--good case in point. Also see:
"The Screwing of Cynthia McKinney", by Greg Palast

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0619-12.htm

Posted by Don Bacon | August 2, 2007 8:28 PM

When is the genocide gonna get started already. I'm getting tired of waiting. The sooner we get out of there the faster they can get to their Hutu and Tutsi-ing.

Posted by bjk | August 2, 2007 9:51 PM

Juan, the idea (highly justified, if you note the candidates) is that some blogers and other dirty filthy hippies are mad at these guys; however, the Serious People Who Know Better are happy with them. They've shown that they know what propaganda line to spout, and are biddable little wh*res.

Posted by Barry | August 3, 2007 9:56 AM

Dan Kervick:

"I have become so jaded by over the past few years that I didn't think I still retained the capacity to be shocked. But I truly am shocked by the gross meretriciousness and utter dishonesty and corruption on display during this affair.

Pollack wrote the book making the case for war. Not just a book - the book."

There's a simple idea that I've been promoting for a while:

Those who lied us into this war, and who've lied to us about this war, will continue to lie to us about this war. Period.

Posted by Barry | August 3, 2007 10:00 AM