By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 18, 2006; 8:26 AM
Whether or not this is "World War III," in Newt Gingrich's phrase, the violence in the Middle East is straining the abilities of the media machine--and maybe our ability to absorb bad news.
The constant escalation of the battles between Israel and both Hamas and Hezbollah, which is beginning to devastate Lebanon and now has missiles landing in Haifa, is putting the cable news channels on a war footing. Brian Williams and Charlie Gibson have gone to the Mideast, joining the likes of Anderson Cooper. But there's still a split-screen mentality on the morning shows, with segments on new Marilyn Monroe photos ("Good Morning America") and diets ("Today") competing with war coverage.
Overshadowed, for the moment, is the carnage in Iraq (Suicide Blast Kills 26 gets a short AP wire on Page A-12 of yesterday's Post); the nuclear showdown with North Korea; the nuclear showdown with Iran, and the bombing of trains in India. It does seem, to the untrained eye, that the world is falling apart as fast as the ceiling panels in Boston's Big Dig tunnel.
But as the debate rages over why the terrorists in Gaza and Lebanon precipitated this crisis by attacking Israeli soldiers, and whether Israel's military response could lead to a full-blown regional war, there is one question starting to bubble up in partisan circles in America, and one that you'll have no trouble recognizing:
Is it all Bush's fault?
Could the president have done something to prevent this? And why isn't he doing much now, other than using the S-word with Tony Blair in front of an open mike? (More on that in a moment.)
Our polarized political system simply doesn't allow for the idea that ancient enemies could be at war halfway around the world without the U.S. either bearing some responsibility or having the ability to shut it down. The White House must have miscalculated, not been engaged enough, screwed things up by invading Iraq.
Here is what some liberals are saying. Josh Marshall : "What stands out to me right now is the seeming irrelevance and marginality of the United States.
"Where is America? Whoever you believe is right or wrong in this mess, I doubt very much that the powers directly involved have the will and ability to de-escalate the situation. Some want to. Others don't . . .
"Some might say that the Bush administration's silence is acquiescence or approval of the Israeli raids into Lebanon and Gaza. But I think it's more than that. This is silence born of over-extension and policy exhaustion. Thinking back through the 1960s, 70s, 80s, and 90s -- with key crises in each decade -- I don't think there's any example where an American administration has so thoroughly marginalized itself or shown such impotence and irrelevance."
Arianna Huffington : "Given the tragic feel of recent events, his tone couldn't have been more false.
"It's a very sinking feeling, watching this all-hat, no-cattle puppet who was put in power by the GOP elite back in a very different time, when all it thought we needed was a CEO to help manage the good times, suddenly finding himself presiding over a series of cataclysmic events.
Watching Bush meander around the world stage is like watching an amateurish production of Shakespeare. We need Olivier and all we've got is this community theater ham."
Frank Rich : "So what's the latest White House strategy to distract from the escalating mayhem? Yet another P.R. scheme, in this case drawn from the playbook of fall 2003, when the president countered news of the growing Iraq insurgency by going around the media 'filter' to speak to the people through softball interviews with regional media outlets. Thus the past two weeks have brought the spectacle of Mr. Bush yukking it up at Graceland, flattering immigrant workers at a Dunkin' Donuts, patronizing a children's lemonade stand in Raleigh, N.C., and meeting the press in such comfy settings as an outside-the-filter press conference (in Chicago) and 'Larry King Live.' The people, surely, are feeling better already about all that nasty business abroad."
The newsmagazine columnists also weigh in. Time's Joe Klein :
"Last week's Middle East confrontation had Bush-folly written all over it--and not just because the Iranian government's cowboy faction might be strutting its stuff. Bush's failure to patiently broker a real Middle East settlement--mostly because he refused to speak to Yasser Arafat or demand concessions from the Israelis--helped lead to Israel's unilateral withdrawal policy in Gaza. Peace isn't made unilaterally."
Newsweek's Michael Hirsh :
"It is the calls Bush didn't--or couldn't--make that might mean the difference in containing this new Mideast conflict. As part of his policy of isolating terror-supporting groups and nations, the Bush administration has no relationship with any of the other parties at war or the states behind them. That apparently means no dialogue, even through back channels, with Iran, Syria, Hizbullah and Hamas. Senior U.S. officials also said Bush and Rice had no intention of appointing a special envoy at this time . . . As a result, the president must watch and hope while his whole Mideast legacy--his goal of transforming a region that is the primary source for Islamist terrorism--stands at risk."
The right, as you would expect, is not pleased. Power Line's Paul Mirengoff rips the Dems:
"In an obscene attempt to obtain political mileage, the Democrats are claiming that President Bush is responsible for the outbreak of war in the Middle East. Howard Dean claims that the war would not have occurred if the Democrats had been in power because the Dems would have worked the past six years to prevent it. And Sen. Dodd has made basically the same assertion. Meanwhile, Rep. Jane Harmon contends that the Bush administration is to blame for our poor to non-existent relations with Syria and Iran which, she says, prevent us from using diplomacy to end the crisis.
"Once again, the Democrats are taking partisan politics to a previously unknown low. No past opposition party has attempted to blame the outbreak of an Arab-Israeli war on the party in power. Unless I'm mistaken, the Republicans didn't blame President Johnson for the war in 1967; the Dems didn't blame President Nixon for the war in 1973; nor did they blame President Reagan for the hostilities in Lebanon that occurred on his watch. Moreover, it is especially reprehensible for the Dems to be taking such a low road now, when unlike before, the U.S. is in the middle of essentially the same war as Israel -- the war on terrorism."
Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol seems to favor a wider war:
"While Syria and Iran are enemies of Israel, they are also enemies of the United States. We have done a poor job of standing up to them and weakening them. They are now testing us more boldly than one would have thought possible a few years ago. Weakness is provocative. We have been too weak, and have allowed ourselves to be perceived as weak.
"The right response is renewed strength--in supporting the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan, in standing with Israel, and in pursuing regime change in Syria and Iran. For that matter, we might consider countering this act of Iranian aggression with a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. Why wait? Does anyone think a nuclear Iran can be contained? That the current regime will negotiate in good faith? It would be easier to act sooner rather than later. Yes, there would be repercussions--and they would be healthy ones, showing a strong America that has rejected further appeasement.
"But such a military strike would take a while to organize. In the meantime, perhaps President Bush can fly from the silly G8 summit in St. Petersburg--a summit that will most likely convey a message of moral confusion and political indecision--to Jerusalem, the capital of a nation that stands with us, and is willing to fight with us, against our common enemies. This is our war, too."
I await the liberal response: "From the neocons who brought you Iraq . . . "
Slate's Fred Kaplan sounds nostalgic for Henry Kissinger:
"Where's the shuttle diplomacy? In any other administration, at least since Nixon's, the secretary of state would have flown to the Middle East days ago, would already have touched down in Tel Aviv, Beirut, and Damascus--maybe more than once--to hammer out a cease-fire, a settlement, or at least some sort of compromise to keep the conflict from expanding."
Marc Lynch , a political scientist at Williams College, doesn't trust Bush on the world stage:
"American public diplomacy has been virtually invisible on all this, at a time when it is more urgently needed than ever. I can understand this -- you have to have a policy if you want to try to explain or defend it, and right now the Bush administration doesn't seem to have any policy at all beyond supporting Israel and issuing calls for 'restraint' which Israel promptly and publicly rejects. And what administration official wants to subject him or herself to tough Arab questioning on live TV right now? The idea that Palestinian-Israeli relations could be cordoned off from wider Middle East questions was always misguided. It's now become actively destructive to all of our interests in the region.
"The only reason I'm not calling more loudly for Bush to get involved and take a leadership role in the conflict is the expectation that he would probably do the wrong thing. But at this point, doing nothing is, in fact, doing something. The Bush administration right now looks weak, confused, and vaguely pathetic."
Americablog's John Aravosis also brings the debate back to W.:
"If Hezbollah missiles are killing Israelis, and Hezbollah's actions are supported by Lebanon's Shia population, doesn't Israel have the right to retaliate against the Shia in Lebanon? At the very least against their utilities and their roads? Putting aside the wisdom geo-politically of such action, morally isn't it any country's right to strike back?
"Or, if you think that the Shia in Lebanon don't share responsibility, then do you also believe that Americans who supported Bush, and who voted for him twice, and who supported the war in Iraq don't share any of the blame for the mayhem Bush has unleashed over the past six years?"
All right, how did the morning papers deal with the president's open-mike curse?
The LAT uses the S-word: "President Bush thinks some of his fellow leaders on the world stage talk too much -- way too much. In a recording of luncheon chatter captured by Russian television, the president also is ready with some very undiplomatic language when talking about the Middle East."
So does the WP : "President Bush should know that in Russia, someone is always listening. In this case, it was the rest of the world."
The New York Post puts the word in the lead .
The NYT calls it a "vulgarity": "For anyone who has ever wondered what President Bush sounds like when the microphones are off, the answer, at least at lunchtime on Monday, was blunt to the point of profane, laced with a wise-guy edge and, like anyone forced to make small talk, willing to fall back on safe topics like air travel."
USA Today goes only with an "unvarnished assessment": "President Bush got bit again Monday by the open-microphone bug."
CNN carried the word without bleeping; the other networks did not.
Says ABC's Jake Tapper: "If the president is going to curse on camera is it too much to ask that he not appoint Federal Communications Commissioners who will fine us for broadcasting it?"
Israel knows something about the new media: Blogger Roger Simon gets a podcast interview with Israeli Ambassador Daniel Ayalon at Pajamas Media.
The following helps explain why Hillary Clinton hired a Salon columnist as her ambassador to the blogs. First there was this NYT lead:
"Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, returning to her red-state ties, chastised Democrats Saturday for taking on issues that arouse conservatives and turn out Republican voters rather than finding consensus on mainstream subjects."
Atrios , among other liberal bloggers, said the Times had misinterpreted the senator's remarks, and included part of the transcript:
"But with the Republican majority, that's not their priority. So we do other things, we do things that are controversial, we do things that try to inflame their base so that they can turn people out and vote for their candidates. I think we are wasting time, we are wasting lives, we need to get back to making America work again, in a bipartisan, nonpartisan way."
Blogger Susie Madrak was soon contacted by the newest member of Hillaryland:
"Peter Daou. who's Clinton's blog advisor, writes to tell me the Times story was uniquely misinterpreted by Anne Kornbluth, that this is Hillary's standard stump speech and that if you go back and read it again in context, she's speaking in the 'we' part as what the Republicans do, not the Democrats. Which does make a lot more sense."