George Will puts his column where his mouth is.

[globalvillage]

Will wonders never cease?

The Triumph of Unrealism
snip
The London plot against civil aviation confirmed a theme of an illuminating new book, Lawrence Wright's "The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11." The theme is that better law enforcement, which probably could have prevented Sept. 11, is central to combating terrorism. F-16s are not useful tools against terrorism that issues from places such as Hamburg (where Mohamed Atta lived before dying in the North Tower of the World Trade Center) and High Wycombe, England.

Cooperation between Pakistani and British law enforcement (the British draw upon useful experience combating IRA terrorism) has validated John Kerry's belief (as paraphrased by the New York Times Magazine of Oct. 10, 2004) that "many of the interdiction tactics that cripple drug lords, including governments working jointly to share intelligence, patrol borders and force banks to identify suspicious customers, can also be some of the most useful tools in the war on terror." In a candidates' debate in South Carolina (Jan. 29, 2004), Kerry said that although the war on terror will be "occasionally military," it is "primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation that requires cooperation around the world."

more...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/14/AR2006081401163.html

[karynnj]

1. Nice column - I bet Will never would have guessed he'd

ever so clearly back a Kerry position. Obviously to him the war on terror is, as it is to Kerry, above politics. (Too bad he doesn't mention that Kerry's 1997 book was already suggesting what the book he recommends concludes after 911. To possibly prevent it, you had to be there before it happened - as Kerry was.)

The last few paragraphs are great - Will pulls apart the Bush co strawman (that the jihadists would be nice other than for our policies is the equivilent of Kerry's approach). Kerry attacked this repeatedly in 2004 - stating in strong language how bad the terrorists are, but now has had even less a platform since he lost. None of the other Democrats seemed to have coupled the condemnation and the Kerry solution. (This nonsense really must have annoyed Kerry - it is just cynical obnoxious politics, when the security of the nation was at stake. Kerry was speaking sincerely and in good faith - they weren't.)

From the column:

""The idea that the jihadists would all be peaceful, warm, lovable, God-fearing people if it weren't for U.S. policies strikes me as not a valid idea. do not have the understanding or the commitment to take on these forces. It's like John Kerry. The law enforcement approach doesn't work."

This farrago of caricature and non sequitur makes the administration seem eager to repel all but the delusional. But perhaps such rhetoric reflects the intellectual contortions required to sustain the illusion that the war in Iraq is central to the war on terrorism, and that the war, unlike "the law enforcement approach," does "work."

The official is correct that it is wrong "to think that somehow we are responsible -- that the actions of the jihadists are justified by U.S. policies." But few outside the fog of paranoia that is the blogosphere think like that. It is more dismaying that someone at the center of government considers it clever to talk like that. It is the language of foreign policy -- and domestic politics -- unrealism.

Foreign policy "realists" considered Middle East stability the goal. The realists' critics, who regard realism as reprehensibly unambitious, considered stability the problem. That problem has been solved.

[paulk]

15. I'm sure Will knew at the time that Kerry was right

but Will, and other old line conservatives, still thought they'd be listened to - that they could still exercise some control over the neocons.

They are beginning to understand their error, and, I think, are frightened by the consequences.

also worth reading - an interview with Wm F Buckley.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/07/22/eveningnews/main1826838.shtml

[wisteria]

2. I'm stunned! A conservative who is more concerned about the

overall situation in the Middle East than about playing politics as usual,and is willing to give credit where credit is due. I can't let this go without a thank you to George Will and a suggestion that he read Kerry's book, the "The New War".(Thanks for reminding me of that book,karynnj).

[karynnj]

3. I had just finished reading it - on the airplane a week and a half ago

It was a very interesting book and filled with details. The idea that these criminal networks buy off countries is very scary. I really wonder why this book didn't get more attention. Kerry balances being very serious, and documenting claims abundantly while exposing some very chilling realities. It's now clear why Kerry didn't have his views changed by 911, his were more realistic before 911.

That he had the intelligence and articulateness to make some sense of these webs is impressive. That he had the courage to expose it in a book is amazing. (Even the danger that he could again be called a conspiracy nut would stop almost every other top tier politician. He did this pre 911 - when no one was publicly speaking of things like this.) All I can say, is that reading it made me more impressed than I was before - though I would have said that was impossible.

[ProSense]

4. Senator Kerry was/is right. The end of that article sums up

the price of their ignorance:

Foreign policy "realists" considered Middle East stability the goal. The realists' critics, who regard realism as reprehensibly unambitious, considered stability the problem. That problem has been solved.

[Blaukraut]

5. Kudos to George Will

For giving credit where credit is due. It can't have been easy for him to admit that John Kerry was correct back in October 2004.

[whometense]

6. George Will: Administration arguments 'repel all but the delusional'

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8208.html

Glenn Greenwald covers it too. http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/08/bombing-away-terrorism.html

If George Will can come out and say that John Kerry was right about how best to approach terrorism and the Bush approach does nothing but increases it, then perhaps we can soon reach the point where national journalists will understand that there is nothing "strong" about wanting more and more wars, and nothing "weak" about opposing warmongering and advocating more substantive, rational and responsible methods for combating terrorism.

And a John Kerry was Right post on Democrats.com: http://www.democrats.com/kerry-was-right

Hey George: why don't you atone for your sins by telling Bush and Cheney to resign and appoint Al Gore and John Kerry to replace them?

[karynnj]

7. Greenwald's comment is wonderful

Kerry's comment about war being a failure of diplomacy would be a start.

[whometense]

8. I know it's just one news story,

but I'm really heartened to see this outbreak of common sense. I only hope that it will virally spread through all the news media so that no more republican talking point lies will ever be accepted at face value.

Not holding my breath, though.

[TayTay]

9. ME neither.

But, as you say, it is a start.

[MH1]

10. Another GD post

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=1913430&mesg_id=1913430

[beachmom]

11. Ha -- Sully just put up a picture of Kerry with the Will column

http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/2006/08/kerry_was_right.html

Ah, the bizarro world of Andrew Sullivan's brain:

Military force is still essential, although it can sometimes be more powerful withheld as a deterrent than unleashed in an asymmetrical war. Few also doubt that democratic reform would help the Middle East in the long-term. In the short-term, however, it might be terribly dangerous, as the increasingly popular Hamas and Hezbollah regimes in the West Bank and Lebanon are proving. But what has struck me in the last year or so, as someone who has always supported democratization as one tool to defang Islamism, is whence many of these religious fanatics are coming. Many of the most lethal Islamist agents of terror have been coming from democratic societies, like Britain. Many are middle-class or even aristocrats, like bin Laden. If the real root causes are in the fundamentalist psyche, then police-work and internal religious reformation are indeed our most effective weapons. I regret my decision to ditch Bush in '04, despite my extreme distaste for John Kerry, with less and less regret.

That's Andrew in a nutshell -- constantly apologizing for voting for Kerry while saying it was the right thing to do over and over again. What's with his "distaste" or "loathing" or "despising" Kerry anyway? What's the scoop? And I really think this includes Joe Klein, too. I REALLY want to get inside the heads of these pundits, and find out why they dislike Kerry. If we can unlock that mystery then maybe he can "make up" with them -- you know we can rail against the DC pundits all we want, but the truth is we NEED at least some of them to succeed. So instead of getting mad at them for loving McCain, maybe we can find out why they love McCain while they hate Kerry (does it have to do with little things and courtesies that can be rectified or is it big stuff like BCCI or Iran/Contra?). We need a DC gossipy partier spy to figure this out. It really does come down to cliques, doesn't it? Childish, childish, and meanwhile the world burns as a result of it . . . .

(And, yes, it is obvious that Andrew is in complete agreement with Kerry in regards to the larger war on terror -- why won't he admit it, damnit?)

[Blaukraut]

12. Huh? Sully makes no sense here.

"I regret my decision to ditch Bush in '04, despite my extreme distaste for John Kerry, with less and less regret."
How, precisely, does one regret something with less and less regret??
:crazy:

[beachmom]

14. I know!! Exactly!

It's like this is middle school, and Andrew is in a certain clique but decided to support somebody outside of the clique once, and for the rest of his life feels he needs to apologize for it. WTF does he hate Kerry? I want to know, because this is utter bullshit that we have to put up with lousy presidents because of a bunch of babies in Washington who have decided they like this person but not that person INSTEAD of DOING THEIR JOBS, finding out policies and ideas, and looking at leaders' past performance.

It leaves one completely frustrated!

[wisteria]

17. I don't know, but this statement sounds very pompous to me. n/t

[karynnj]

18. My head can not parse this either -

I can't even figure out if it is negative or positive. He ditched Bush, then apparently regretted it , but now the regret is shrinking? But there is still some regret - as regret gets less and less does it asymptotically approach zero regret or can it turn to negative regret (or pride in having voted for Kerry)?

I agree with Beachmom - why do these guys hate Kerry. Some college friend of Kerry suggested that some were jealous of him - and that actually makes some sense - he is well connected, brilliant, eloquent without even trying (People here had signatures from little asides made in a Q & A), he's extraordinarily athletic, flies planes, was a war hero and a moral articulate spokesman for his generation before he turned 30. Add the ability that most of us would love of being able to focus more sharply and stay calm when absolutely furious - which gives him an amazing advantage arguing with anyone and there's a case for jealousy. (That doesn't even mention height, looks, charisma and Teresa - I doubt any of the pundits could have gotten a second look from either of Kerry's talented lovely wives. Not to mention he dated Jackie's stepsister and went on JFK's yacht.)

It may be that they prefer feeling that at least in some way, they are better. With Clinton - they were more honest or less sleazy. With Gore, more hip, back when he was boring. With Bush, smarter. For most pundits - Kerry is smarter and he doesn't pretend otherwise. He is also a very good person and they likely know it. And as Tay Tay said he doesn't pander to them.

[TayTay]

19. Yeah, what she said

And he has wicked good taste in ties. And he had the good sense to come back and live in Massachusetts, and run as a Senator from that fair state. (Well, I think it's a good talking point. I could be a bit biased here though.)

In your face, ya friggin bunch of no-good bastids. Bite me!

Thanks Karynnj.

[whometense]

20. excellent comment!!

I think there's more jealousy involved here than any of those DC snarksters will ever admit.

[TayTay]

21. Well, yeah. Especially the 101st Fighting Keyboardists

They fantasize at night about what it would be like to be Kerry. Earning all those medals. Saving people's lives. Protesting an immoral war. (Okay, maybe not that last one, although, I secretly suspect that is one of the things they envy.)

Gawd, it's so obvious. It's spurned love. If Kerry was, ahm, (hard to say this), ahm, not a Dem (OMG, perish the thought) they would be killing themselves to deify him. Bastids. Ahm, not nice people, I mean.

[ProSense]

22. I love that:

The 101st Fighting Keyboardists!

[beachmom]

24. But Andrew is GAY -- the only way that works for him is if

he was, well, rebuffed. He doesn't want Teresa, know what I'm sayin'?

Somebody said further down that they're all just mad he isn't a Republican. Why can't he be OURS! I think it goes further -- they just look at him, seeing a true liberal, and think -- no WAY is he a war hero, no WAY does he have the guts to go against all of Washington and tackle BCCI. No, no -- only explanation is that he is a calculated phony all the way. I think it's the only way they can figure out JK -- it MUST just be an act, because NOBODY can be that good.

[Democrafty]

13. How do you regret something with less regret?

Sorry, that doesn't answer your question, but it really was just inelegant. :)

The "extreme distate" thing is a real problem - maybe because it's not a real (as in actual) problem. If you disagree with somebody on policy, fine, but constantly saying "I just hate that guy for NO REASON" is terrible for the level of debate we need in this country.

[blm]

25. They CAN'T talk up Kerry without exposing the corpmedia's NEGLECTFUL role

in BCCI and CIA drugrunning stories. WHY does Kerry have a strong foundation and base from which he draws his analysis? Because he studied terrorism and investigated its roots and its financial networks for years - something that most media IGNORED, either willfully or lazily.

You think anyone in the media is going to admit their complicity in all the wrong that has been done by BushInc?

[beachmom]

26. You know what -- why not? Why can't they turn a new leaf?

People have such amnesia, and they could also just say it was a "bipartisan" lack of imagination, and then say but in light of how the Brits have foiled a plot, looks like Kerry may be the one to lead this fight against global terrorism. They did write favorable things about Kerry and BCCI in 2004 (I only read MSM back then, and yet I knew that BCCI was a bad bank with terrorists and drug dealers using it, and JK shut it down without much help from other politicians).

I just think everything is falling apart, and I think we ARE having an effect (see WEL's fascist thread -- Chuck Roberts of CNN apologized to Lamont due to the anger coming from the Left). Keep engaging, keep engaging. George Will is a good start, I say.

[blm]

27. To turn a new leaf would require some cooperation from those who sign

their paychecks. I hope that happens but will continue to pressure and expose their complicity till they do.

[WildEyedLiberal]

38. Roberts DID apologize??

OMG, that's great! Do you have a link for that?

Little by little we chip away at these goons...every little thing matters.

[karynnj]

28. BCCI also may have ignored it because it is

so complicated and hard to follow. I am surprised that sometime - in the Clinton years when Reaganomics was seen as the fraud it was that no newsmagazine tackled the CIA drugrunning story. It might, even then have been that they knew they ignored it. I know the extent of it shocked me. I'm not sure what % of the population would even believe it.

[blm]

29. The internet and the post 9-11 interest in terrorism, though, SHOULD HAVE

ushered in a newfound clarity about BCCI and what was really involved in the task Kerry undertook then and its import to the matters at hand today.

Sheesh - - even a quarter of DU understands about BCCI, though less than a handful here work in journalism.

[beachmom]

31. Fear and war took over very quickly though

Now we are entering another "moment" where there can be rational discussion about the nuts and bolts of terrorism and how to stop it which doesn't involve endless war using our military, which is just not that effective (ask Israel). Bush is a bloody joke so the ideas are going to come from elsewhere and I really think Kerry is the one to point the way, and he should delve into his own vast knowledge about it, and talk about it the way NO OTHER politician can. Say stuff like "back when we were investigating BCCI . . . we learned this".

[karynnj]

32. I agree - I had no idea how many years he worked on it

The NEW WAR is also incredible in that he makes some of criminal networks comprehensible. I had read in the MSM of the Russian Mafia in Russia and Brooklyn but I had no idea how important and powerful they were. Or how completely corrupted Columbia has become. The danger of the narcotics bought Latin American countries is real. I hate it when people on DU flame Kerry because he has a measured stand on Chavez - if Kerry says he has some drug connections - I believe him. I think it is suffient that he is anti- fomenting coups.

[ProSense]

33. Here's why the media cannot be trusted:

Greenfield: For GOP, terrorism issue no longer a sure thing
Is Iraq a distraction from or part of the fight against terror?

Snip...

As far as the current GOP approach goes, it's about as subtle as a police siren. And it was proclaimed in June by top Republican strategist Karl Rove, when he said of the increasingly anti-war Democrats: "They may be with you for the first shots, but they're not going to be with you for the tough battles."

And he directly linked a withdrawal from Iraq to increased danger at home when he argued that failure in Iraq "would provide a launching pad for the terrorists to strike the United States and the West" -- a new variation on the more familiar attempt to conflate Iraq and the broader terror danger that went: "We have to stop them there so we don't have to fight them here."

Snip...

"The choice in this election," he said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press," "is not between 'stay the course' and 'cut and run,' it's between 'win by adapting' and 'cut and run.' "

Back in 2002, when 9/11 memories were fresh, Republicans were able to win control of the Senate by unseating two Democrats -- Georgia's Max Cleland and Missouri's Jean Carnahan -- who they claimed had not backed the president. In 2004, with the Iraq war losing support, they effectively painted John Kerry as inconsistent and uncertain.

But the GOP faces a different challenge this year. A number of Republicans have openly broken with the administration on the war. Not just Nebraska's Sen. Chuck Hagel -- always a skeptic -- but a congressman such as Minnesota's Gil Gutknecht who returned from a July trip to Iraq to say that the situation in Baghdad was more dangerous than he'd been led to believe. Or North Carolina conservative Walter Jones, who advocates withdrawal, or former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who has been sharply critical of the war's conduct. The party also will face an electorate that -- if the polls are right -- is more likely to see Iraq as a distraction from, not an essential part of, the war on terror.

more...

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/08/15/greenfield.terror/index.html?section=cnn_latest

Always BS analyses loaded with every RW talking point and never a fact. "The party also will face an electorate that -- if the polls are right..."?

Forget facts, the Repubs polling is the focus!

[beachmom]

34. Unfortunately, they're all we've got

The only way we go around is the lefty blogosphere, but THEY have their issues, too. Look, I agree with you that there is a problem with the media, but we need to continue to engage and try to fix it. The Right did it, and now the MSM eats out of their hands. I don't want it to go that far actually; I just want journalists to realize that they've absorbed a lot of RW talking points and they need to cleanse themselves of it. George Will just said "Kerry was right" about the war on terror. Perhaps others will follow . . . .

[TayTay]

35. BCCI will, in a way, be revisited

The connection is, again, Pakistan and the AQ Khan mess and so much more.

Ask yourself, who is moving all that drug money from Afghanistan? ($7 billion a year, their best source of cash bar none.) Where is that money going? If the Taliban is indeed ascendant in that country, then there is a connection to Usama bin Laden. The James Risen book that came out in Jan that revealed the NSA wiretapping situation had the scariest chapter on the heroin trade in Afghanistan. The Americans are powerless to stop it. In fact, Risen claimed that their is a tacit agreement among the commanders in Afghanistan to ignore it because disrupting the network in any significant way would cut off about the only money into the country and make the US actions there impossible.

The US might just be enabling Usama bin Laden to get his hands on the cash he needs to fund more terrorist actions against the US. We need to go after this stuff. This is exactly the type of thing that Sen. Kerry has been working against. It just started with Iran-Contra. And Kerry caught holy-hell for doing this, as many power players in DC on both sides of the aisle had connections to the Bank of Crooks and Criminals.

As an aside, this is further proof that the worst things that ever came out on Kerry was that he once had money troubles and slept on friend's couches. If there was ever a person who could have reaped big rewards for keeping his mouth shut or derailing an investigation, it would have been Kerry with BCCI. Instead, when Congress shut him down, he took the investigation to the AG of NY and got a prosecution. I honestly think that part of the Rethug anger at Kerry is because he wouldn't play ball on this. They view him as a purist or idealist who just doesn't understand the privileges of power.

I have written this before, but knowing what John Kerry knows about the 'bodies that are buried' so to speak in the government files, I wonder what case file he would ask for first, if he was Pres. I wonder which vault he would ask to be opened so that he could finally actually see some doc that was hidden from him during the investigation years. (If they even continue to exist after Bush, the corrupt, father and son, have left office.)

I think the Repubs hate Kerry because they think he is a 'class traitor.' By their reckoning, he should be with them and worried about his money and how to keep from sharing it with the hoi polloi. The fact that he is a Democrat and a progressive one at that who actually believes that the government should serve all the people just gauls them no end. The fact that he makes moral arguments against government actions also gives them fits. What's with this morality stuff anyway, how naive can you be, to expect the government to live up to it's ideals and to tell the truth to it's people and to be honest and accountable. I think those are very foreign concepts to the group that has been in power for awhile now.

[WildEyedLiberal]

36. I'm sorry but Andrew Sullivan is worthless

He's one of the most vacillating mealy-mouthed pundits in existence. I have read all the various things you have posted from him and can never tell exactly what he actually thinks about any issue. It's just a nonsense string of snarky rationalizations, excuses, and waffles. I find his commentary to be wholly without merit. I have to admit I respect George Will more, and this predates his recent praise of Kerry. Will has an actual ideology and worldview that he is willing to articulate and defend in a calm, rational manner, and I can respect that even if I disagree with him 95% of the time. At least I know what he thinks, unlike Sully, and at least he doesn't imply that liberals are traitors, like 90% of the rest of the conservative press corps.

[beachmom]

37. Yeah, you have a point, but Andrew has a good go to blog just

for the plethera of links alone. I'll continue to read his blog (it's free after all), and the guy did post one of my Kerry quotes once (and wrote back to me on e-mail), so that's why I continue my mostly thankless job of engaging with him. Maybe it's his torturous Catholic guilt or anguish over Iraq, but there's something about him that makes me keep reading him. He puts a lot of himself out there, but leaves other things (like his irrational dislike of JK) a mystery. This is sort of a one person "crusade" for me, and I don't expect any of you to like him, but sometimes help me once in a while if I'm e-mailing him and want to put together a good argument. Does that work for everyone?

[WildEyedLiberal]

39. Oh no, you should read whoever you want

If you have the patience to engage Sullivan, by all means -

I just find him to be tiresome and redundant. If you can tolerate him better, though, maybe you can chip away at his schizophrenic worldview. I'm not holding my breath that he's going to start suddenly making sense, though.

[karynnj]

40. I think it does

You are reading him and others, who are not likely to agree with us and you are sending him valid information that he has at least sometimes read. He obviously won't be turned each time he gets what seems sufficient information to us, but that he EVER is is important. I admire that you have the will power and the persistance to do it.

At minimum, your efforts could eliminate the worst anti-Kerry comments. At best, if someone like Allen becomes the Republican nominee and Kerry the Democrat - he might be more likely to either stay neutral or prefer Kerry. (Another possibility is that Sullivan simply never really challanged the decades of RW Kerry characterizations that he absorbed from the time he first followed politics - he's English and born in 1963. )

That the RW characterizations have been contradictory never mattered - Kerry was consistently a leftist, but changed positions with the wind; he was a do nothing Senator, who was always working against the Republican goals; etc. None of these gibe with the serious statesman seen in the debates and in the Senate. What you are doing is forcing him to at least question on specific issues these RW characterizations that were accepted without independent analysis - because they were simply CW in the conservative circle he runs in.

[ginnyinWI]

16. coming up next on Franken--

Discussion of what George Will said, with Lawrence O'Donnell.

[ginnyinWI]

23. O'Donnell said

that George Will is the smartest conservative pundit that he knows, so it means something that GW came out and said it plainly. I know a lot of them had to have been thinking it. (Will still drives me nuts most of the time, though! I remember him touting all sorts of demographic voting info about the '04 election using the exit polls. Then why the hell didn't they believe what the exit polls said about who won??)

[karynnj]

30. The funny thing is that he is using exit polls that were

constrained to make the overall numbers add up correctly. This makes sense when you have more faith in the totals and the factors ( (the number you want)/(the number you have) ) are small. When they are as large as they had to be in 2004 - I don't trust the resultant numbers.

Even if you accept the "shy" little Bush voters theory, I doubt they were equally shy over all categories.

[whometense]

41. Firedoglake piles on too

http://www.firedoglake.com/2006/08/16/iraq-and-the-republican-collapse/#more-4011

When you go back and look at the video on Scarborough Country yesterday, Is Bush an idiot?, then think about all that’s happened, you have to wonder what might have been, especially since John Kerry turned out to be right, which even George Will had to admit it recently. Kerry slammed Joe Lieberman’s "scare tactics" over Iraq just yesterday on The Young Turks.