By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 20, 2006; 10:38 AM
John McCain is getting roughed up by the conservative punditocracy.
Never mind that he is a former POW who is arguing with a president of his own party because he feels deeply about the issue of torture. In some circles, he is being denigrated, and his presidential chances are being downgraded, for taking this stand.
Leaving aside whether the Arizona senator is right or wrong, he is not stupid. He surely knows that taking on President Bush on this sensitive national security issue, at a time when he's trying to position himself as Bush's natural heir for 2008, is a risky maneuver. Perhaps, then, it is for McCain a matter of conscience, not politics.
It's understandable, of course, why many on the right are suspicious of McCain. From tax cuts to campaign finance to criticizing the Christian right, he has often thrived in the maverick's role and basked in the resulting MSM attention. But on foreign policy, and especially Iraq, McCain has been one of Bush's most stalwart supporters.
Still, his conservative critics seem to take special glee in slamming him. The Manchester Union Leader opposed McCain in the 2000 GOP primary, which he won, and knocked him on the torture issue when he visited the Granite State over the weekend.
Are there lots of rank-and-file conservatives, out beyond the chattering classes, who admire McCain for standing on principle even if they disagree with him? I don't know, although it's noteworthy that Colin Powell, Lindsey Graham, John Warner and other Republicans are standing with McCain in this fight. I have little doubt that both sides will find a way to finesse their differences before long.
National Review Editor Rich Lowry pulls no punches:
"For people supposedly occupying the moral high ground, John McCain and his band of Republican rebels defying President Bush on the issue of interrogation have a strange attachment to confused argumentation.
"They maintain that the United States can't define more precisely its obligations for the treatment of unlawful combatants under the vague language of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions to allow the tough interrogations of terrorists, as Bush proposes, lest our troops in turn be tortured upon capture. McCain warns that such a definitional exercise risks 'the lives of those Americans who risk everything to defend our country.' What pleasant, alternate reality does the Arizona Republican inhabit?"
After detailing the horrors inflicted on American soldiers, Lowry says: "This is savagery immune to a domestic legal debate in the U.S. Maybe McCain and Co. think that the U.S. debate at least will influence our more reasonable adversaries. But since when have we fought a regime -- Saddam's Iraq, Milosevic's Serbia, North Vietnam, North Korea, Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany -- that is not barbarously committed to repression and murder?"
The editorialists at the Wall Street Journal are in the sweeping-pronouncement mode:
"If Senators John McCain, John Warner, Lindsey Graham and Susan Collins get their way, aggressive interrogation as an antiterror intelligence tool will effectively end.
"Thanks to last year's McCain Amendment, the Defense Department is already required to give detainees in its custody better treatment than American police must give common criminals. The new Army Field Manual doesn't even allow for good cop/bad cop routines against Iraqi and Afghan insurgents if threats of any kind are conveyed or implied. This restraint is not required by the Geneva Conventions, which clearly distinguish between lawful and unlawful combatants--the latter being deemed to have fewer rights because they have violated the rules of war by fighting out of uniform or targeting civilians.
"Now the four GOP senators and most Democrats are working to put CIA interrogators under similarly restrictive rules. If they get their way, they will make it impossible for any government agency to squeeze the next al Qaeda terrorist who may have information about a ticking bomb in an American city."
Bill Kristol , the Weekly Standard editor who is a longtime McCain ally, aims his fire at the Dems but doesn't sugarcoat the impact on his pal:
"There is now a clear and live contrast between Bush and the Democrats on an important issue in the war on terror.
"Wait a minute, you say--it's not just Democrats who oppose Bush. Four Republicans joined the Democratic senators--John McCain, John Warner, Lindsey Graham, and Susan Collins. Colin Powell is with them. So the Democrats have cover.
"No, they don't. The fact that McCain has badly damaged his 2008 presidential chances doesn't mean the Democrats can't be hurt in 2006. True, there could be a dozen GOP votes for the Democratic alternative on the floor of the Senate next week. There were a dozen Democratic votes for Bush's tax cuts in 2001. It didn't prevent Republicans from distinguishing themselves from Democrats on taxes. A few defections won't prevent Republicans from saying--truthfully--that there is a real difference between the two parties on the war on terror, and that they stand with Bush and against Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi.
"Democratic candidates will respond that McCain also stands with them. It won't help. The American people don't agree with McCain on this."
But that doesn't mean the administration wants to keep this fight going. "The White House yesterday scrambled to reach a compromise with Republican senators on how the nation should treat its most dangerous terrorism suspects, amid an intraparty rebellion that has turned into a growing political distraction," reports the Boston Globe .
"Through a frenzied series of phone calls and meetings between Bush administration officials and key Senate Republicans, the contours of a possible compromise began to emerge, according to several senators and aides."
On another thorny issue, the Chicago Tribune says: "The top U.S. military leader in the Mideast painted a bleak picture of progress in Iraq on Tuesday, saying that earlier plans to withdraw American troops have been put on hold and that the current level of more than 140,000 troops in Iraq would likely be sustained until next spring." Oops. Wasn't he supposed to say that after the election?
A debate question to Virginia's George Allen about whether his mother was Jewish, asked by a reporter for the CBS affiliate here, has sparked plenty of media reaction.
The pro-Democratic blog Raising Kaine slams the senator's response:
"Why is George Felix Allen so ANGRY about this subject (and so many other subjects)? Because that's the real issue here; not the reporter's question, which was at worst a bit out of place, but George Allen's angry, almost violent reaction TO the question. . . . Note how he completely misses the point of the question and goes into a rant on religious freedom. Uh, George, that has NOTHING to do with what Peggy Fox asked you. Duh."
Naturally enough, the senator's blog, AllenHQ , focuses on the question:
"A panelist accuses Senator Allen's mother of being a racist. Senator Allen says he hopes his mother will not be brought into and insulted to score political points. In fact, to the contrary, his mother taught him the value of tolerance.
"And now she's baiting him with questions about his [family's] religion. Unbelievable. Senator Allen responds that his religion, Webb's religion . . . it doesn't matter and it's none of her business. He's clearly upset at the religious McCarthyism."
Hotline blogger Jonathan Martin says that Allen's problem is his demeanor:
"Asked a bizarre question about whether his mother was (basically), racist, and then whether he had Jewish roots on his mother's side of the family, Allen (and the crowd) reacted with disdain bordering on outrage. And while he composed himself to bat down the query, he was still simmering about it when, in his closing statement, he thanked the reporters for their questions, but added a 'most of them, at least' caveat."
Is the press playing politics with gasoline? Betsy's Page is suspicious:
"Now that prices are coming down, the media is noticing the drop. USA Today has a story on how the average price is now below $2.50 a gallon and some gas stations are even starting price wars to lower their prices. However, they also show a Gallup poll result to show that conspiracy crazies have not given up blaming everything on those evil Republicans.
" A hefty 42% of Americans polled over the weekend said they think fuel prices are being manipulated by the Bush administration to help Republicans in an election year . . .
"USA Today is quick to report that this is just malarkey.
"Petroleum analysts say the reasons are less Machiavellian: Supplies are above average, partly because summer's high prices attracted record imports. Hurricanes haven't knocked out Gulf of Mexico production. U.S. regulations permit a cheaper-to-make fuel blend in fall and winter . . .
"Of course, if the media and irresponsible politicians hadn't spread the word in the first place that there was some evil cabal behind the price increase in the first place, perhaps people wouldn't be so ready to believe the Republicans were behind every fluctuation."
I'm not clear on how the media spread the "evil cabal" theory. Examples?
The NYT must have plenty of money to throw around, if this Editor & Publisher piece is any indication:
"From the newspaper that brought you the first-ever perfume critic comes what appears to be another first -- 'futurist-in-residence.' The New York Times, apparently seeking to boost its image as a forward-looking paper, announced Tuesday the appointment of Michael Rogers, a former Washington Post Company executive and Newsweek.com general manager to the newly-created title."
Disgraced ex-governor Jim McGreevey is flogging his book--the obligatory Oprah appearance was yesterday--and not everyone in the gay community is cheering. Take Hilary Rosen :
"Oh Jim, why'd ya have to go and be such a guy? Lots of people struggle with their sexual orientation but they don't go and put their unqualified dream date on the public payroll. And they don't use their internalized homophobia as an excuse for all of their failings as a public servant.
"I was born and raised in New Jersey. I worked for a wonderful former Governor of the state. And this whole episode with Jim McGreevey just makes me sad. And as a 'gay American' I am sympathetic with those who are criticizing the Governor this week for using the gay issue. For a guy I thought was really concerned about poverty and education, the way he is selling his memoir just makes me want to take a shower."
Guess who's also objecting?
"Oprah Winfrey is wrong to promote former New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey's book on her show today, says his former homeland security adviser Golan Cipel," reports the New York Daily News .
"McGreevey claims in his book, 'The Confession,' that Cipel was his lover, but the 37-year-old says he is the victim of McGreevey's sexual assaults and that Winfrey should empathize with that. 'I'm very sorry Oprah gave McGreevey a chance to speak,' Cipel told us from Israel. 'I wasn't his lover. The only things that happened were sexual harassments. And unwanted sexual advances and assaults.
" 'She herself is a victim of sexual assault. She should have been more sensitive and given me a chance to speak. I e-mailed her producers twice, and they never replied.'
"Oprah's people disagree. 'Producers of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" reached out to Mr. Cipel, via his attorney, on numerous occasions in an effort to include him as part of the show airing [Tuesday],' a spokeswoman for the talk queen said. 'Unfortunately, Mr. Cipel's attorneys did not respond to any of our requests.' "
Jeff Jarvis doesn't like being edited. So he gives us the unexpurgated version at Buzz Machine:
"The Project for Excellence in Journalism created a roundtable--via-email about online and the future of news . . . My answers were cut short, which is fine, except what was excised was my complaint about the questions; I argued that they were bringing the old-media worldview to the new-media world. So they linked to my full answers and so will I. A few examples from the cutting-room floor:
"Question: Blog readership seems to have stalled in 2005. Content analysis also shows there is little of what we most would think of as original reporting in blogs. Yet they often write about events outside the purview of the mainstream press. How ultimately do you think blogs and other citizen media will affect news reporting in America? Will we ever see them as a more significant, or even equally important part of the mainstream American news diet as traditional journalism?
"Reply: Your questions are fairly dripping with agenda. You seem to be trying to push a worldview that says that blogs and online video are on the decline -- so pay no mind to them -- and that what journalism needs is more staff. Sorry, but that attitude is what is putting American journalism in peril. Head, meet sand . . ..
"You -- like so many journalism conferences these days -- make the mistake of trying to turn this discussion into a cable news shoutfest: blogs vs. mainstream media! Enough! The right question to ask is how blogs and mainstream media can work together to improve journalism and an informed society."
And in keeping with my responsibility to inform you about everything, including sex and golf, here is a breathless story from London's Daily Mail :
"Tiger Woods has reacted with fury after a Dublin magazine printed topless photos of a woman which it wrongly claimed it was the superstar golfer's wife.
"Woods and the United States team are said to be 'appalled' by the article in the latest issue of the Dubliner, which portrays the players' wives and girlfriends as cheap on the eve of the Ryder Cup.
"The photograph purporting to be of Woods's wife Elin Nordegren appears in the September issue of the listings magazine. Under the headline 'Ryder Cup filth for Ireland' is a picture of a topless woman.
"The article continues: 'Most American golfers are married to women who cannot keep their clothes on in public. Is it too much to ask that they leave them at home for the Ryder Cup?'
" 'Consider the evidence -- Tiger Woods's wife Elin Nordegren - pictured left -- can be found in a variety of sweaty poses on porn sites across the web . . . '
"But the photo is not of the 26-year-old Swedish model. Sources close to the American team said Woods was dismayed at the publication and other members of the U.S. side were very unhappy."
I guess they were so distracted they didn't look very carefully at her face.