War Games

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 9, 2008 8:57 AM

Was there anything that happened at the Petraeus hearings that wasn't entirely predictable?

The general said progress had been made in Iraq, but not enough, and refused to estimate when more troops might be able to be withdrawn.

Democrats were generally skeptical.

Republicans were generally supportive.

Everyone praised the troops.

Some protesters were removed from the room.

Retired generals hit the airwaves.

Joe Biden talked for a long time.

CNN and Fox cut away, but went back to the hearings when Hillary Clinton and, later, Barack Obama got to ask questions.

The ball does not seem to have moved.

Unlike the drama surrounding Gen. David Petraeus's testimony last September, I had the sense that the players were largely going through the motions. Everyone knows there will be no change in Iraq policy until one of the three senators in attendance--Obama, Clinton or John McCain--becomes president.

No matter how Democrats phrased the question--what would it take to begin thinking about the possibility of withdrawing more troops?--Petraeus would not be budged. He had his marching orders. Any change in strategy would require a presidential decision. But Petraeus has become the face of the war, and especially the surge, so he was the one deflecting questions under the lights.

"Mr. McCain and Mrs. Clinton struck somber, respectful stances with General Petraeus in his appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee alongside Ryan C. Crocker, the American ambassador to Baghdad," says the New York Times. "Both candidates repeated their main arguments -- Mr. McCain said there was significant progress in Iraq, Mrs. Clinton said there was not -- but neither used the occasion to grandstand. Their modulated performances seemed to reflect the political risks in appearing too hard or soft on General Petraeus . . .

"Despite some tough political talk from Mrs. Clinton on the morning news programs (she told MSNBC that General Petraeus didn't have a "convincing argument" and said on ABC that "clearly the surge hasn't worked"), she greeted him like an old friend. For several minutes, while photographers swarmed, Mrs. Clinton smiled and talked animatedly with General Petraeus, looked straight into his eyes and lightly touched his arm."

Chicago Tribune: "Long-awaited congressional hearings unfolded Tuesday on the future of U.S. involvement in Iraq with a palpable sense that the debate has moved beyond President Bush . . .

"What emerged Tuesday was a complex, often indirect discussion between Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and the three forceful senators who are vying to become his next boss. Bush's name rarely came up, and his presence was not often felt--except in the attempts of all three to distance themselves from his policies."

L.A. Times: "The antiwar rhetoric from congressional Democrats remained as sharp as ever Tuesday as Army Gen. David H. Petraeus came to Capitol Hill to testify about progress in Iraq.

"But underscoring the partisan deadlock over the war, even some staunch critics acknowledged that the drive for legislation to withdraw U.S. troops was in effect over.

"Democrats who have struggled since becoming the majority last year to force a pullout now point to the fall election as the only hope for changing U.S. policy in Iraq."

One of the administration's staunchest allies is the Wall Street Journal editorial page:

"As General David Petraeus briefs Congress this week on Iraq, it's clear his surge has achieved remarkable results. The most crucial is that the U.S. can no longer be defeated militarily in Iraq, which could not be said a year ago. The question now is whether Washington will squander these gains by withdrawing so quickly that we could still lose politically."

For journalists, Mark Penn is the gift who keeps on giving (can you think of anyone who's had something positive to say about the guy in recent months?). Now we're into the what-were-they-thinking pieces, like this one from the New Republic's Michelle Cottle:

"By the end, it was hard to count all the reasons the members of Team Hillary wanted to see Mark Penn laid low. The rumpled, portly pollster's apparently unpardonable sin was his March 31 meeting with the Colombian ambassador to discuss the efforts of Penn's PR firm, Burson-Marsteller, to procure a trade pact specifically opposed by Senator Clinton. But Penn had been a focus of animus within the Hillary campaign from day one. Famous for his inability to play well with others, Penn is near universally regarded as rough, arrogant, antisocial, controlling, manipulative, brutally ambitious, and occasionally downright abusive--a hurler of cell phones, pagers, and Chinese food."

What, he attacked people with spareribs ?

"Even before his ill-fated sit-down with the Colombians, Penn's work at Burson (which services such controversial clientele as defense contractors, drug companies, Big Oil, and Big Tobacco) frequently served as a lightning rod for bad press and attacks from the Democratic base. And as Hillary's primary fortunes faltered, Penn's storied message savvy also came under fire, with the baying for his head growing ever louder inside the campaign and from outside donors . . .

"And so, ironically felled by his own PR blunder, Penn finds himself exiting center stage to a chorus of catcalls. This is not to suggest that he won't still hold sway with the Clinton. (The smart money says he will.) But whatever influence he wields will be from a less exalted and decidedly less public perch. Perhaps out of the spotlight and proscribed from mucking around in the rest of the campaign team's business, Penn will be able to once again work some magic for his most valuable and enduring benefactors. If not, much of Hillary's failure will likely be laid at his feet."

But can so much blame really be dumped on one hired gun? Dick Polman doesn't think so:

"I am less interested in Penn than what Penn's rise and fall tells us about Hillary Clinton herself, and about the boneheaded fundamentals of her campaign. Penn has not been the source of her woes, only a symptom. Ever since her campaign was launched, she and Bill have condoned and tolerated Penn's dubious dual role. They appeared not to understand their own problem, that it might be difficult to sell Hillary as the candidate of 'change' when their own chief strategist was so enmeshed in the special-interest world of Washington."

Politico quotes the head of the Phoenix NAACP as saying that McCain "has pretty well zero relationship with the African-American community that I know of."

The Condoleezza Rice chatter won't die down, despite State Department denials, but Weekly Standard blogger Richelieu dismisses it:

"This Condi for Veep hype is political madness. Whatever Condi's impressive attributes, picking her for VP would be a lunatic move:

"1) It is the perfect way to make the general election an endless re-hash of the Bush Teams many mistakes in Iraq. By picking her McCain would endorse those epic fumbles.

"2) She would pull exactly 14 black votes away from Barack Obama.

"3) She has no special state where she could change the Electoral College math; she is a political non-entity in her home state of California.

"4) Condi is a policy person, not a candidate type professional pol. Beware first timers playing in the World Series."

Blogging is hard work, I say from experience, because you're never really off deadline. (Used to be, if you were a newspaper hack, you'd go home at night, the presses would roll, and you'd be done until the next day.) But I never thought of it as particularly hazardous, except for the bloodshot eyes.

Along comes the NYT with this sobering tale: "A growing work force of home-office laborers and entrepreneurs, armed with computers and smartphones and wired to the hilt, are toiling under great physical and emotional stress created by the around-the-clock Internet economy that demands a constant stream of news and comment . . .

"At the same time, some are starting to wonder if something has gone very wrong. In the last few months, two among their ranks have died suddenly."

But blogger Larry Dignan of ZDNet has an interesting back story about being interviewed by the Times's Matt Richtel:

"When I talked to Matt the theme of the story was clear, but I had doubts about the premise. I played devil's advocate and outlined my day, which didn't exactly dovetail with the primary example of the guy who is in his Brooklyn studio blogging until he passes out at his computer. If that person weren't blogging my guess is he'd pass out playing Xbox or something else.

"And that brings me to my point with Matt. Yes, blogging is stressful. Yes, it can be insane. But is it any worse than being a corporate lawyer? How many of those folks dropped in the last six months? How about mortgage brokers? Hedge fund traders? FBI agents? Any job where you gnash your teeth together? We write for a living, yap all day and don't have to wear suits. You could do worse than blogging."

Plus, Dignan explained that he works out every morning before blogging. "Clearly, this answer wasn't going to work for Matt's story." Dignan didn't make the cut.

Slate's Tim Noah also oozes skepticism:

"The symptoms of toxic blogging, Richtel informs the concerned reader, include 'sleep disorders,' 'exhaustion,' and--heads I win, tails you lose--'weight loss or gain.' The number affected is 'unclear,' but 'surely several thousand and maybe even tens of thousands." Richtel, a salaried employee at the Times, is particularly flummoxed that bloggers are often paid based on how much they write and whether anyone reads them. . . A less lurid but more accurate comparison would be to freelance writing, an occupation I've held from time to time. It is not, I promise you, a hazardous occupation, unless you report from a war zone . . .

Richtel strongly implies that bloggers drop dead because they work in their apartments or houses all day and never get out. Never mind that Russell Shaw, a 60-year-old tech blogger who provides 50 percent of Richtel's evidence that blogging kills, died while reporting on-scene at a conference 3,000 miles from his home and that "it's not clear what role stress played in his death."

I don't know how many of you are watching the excellent HBO series "John Adams," but I found an example of fictionalizing in the latest episode. It's 1796, and Adams has just learned that he won enough electoral votes to become the nation's second president. After addressing his fellow members of Congress, he passes George Washington, who says: "I am fairly out and you are fairly in. See which of us will be the happiest!"

I'd heard that line before, and assumed it was accurate. But a check of Wikipedia reveals that Adams wrote to his wife Abigail: "A solemn scene it was indeed . . . Methought I heard him think, 'Ay! I am fairly out and you are fairly in! See which of us will be the happiest!' "

So it was history as rendered by John Adams's imagination.