Vitter Speaks--But Only Briefly

"The charitable view is that he's lost his mind. The less charitable view is that he's now officially surpassed Dick Cheney as the most intellectually dishonest member of the neocon establishment (the highest of all high bars). The truth-shattering piece appeared yesterday on the front page of the Washington Post Outlook section . . .

"I had a preview of this deluded triumphalist drivel a couple of days earlier -- on Thursday afternoon specifically. Even more specifically, I was on the 4:00 pm Amtrak Acela from New York to Washington.

"Kristol was sitting a row behind me, talking on his cell phone with someone who apparently shared his optimism. 'Precipitous withdrawal really worked,' I overheard him say, clearly referring to the president's use of the term in that morning's press conference. 'How many times did he use it? Three? Four?' he asked his interlocutor, and the conversation continued with a round of metaphorical back-slapping for the clever phrase they had 'come up with.'

"I, of course, have no idea who was on the other end. Tony Snow, perhaps?"

At American Prospect, Dana Goldstein does some fact-checking as well:

" Kristol: If the United States hadn't gone into Iraq, Saddam's ties to Al-Qaeda would today 'be intact or revived and even strengthened.'

" Reality: The September 11 Commission found no evidence of a 'collaborative relationship' between Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's Iraq. But today, four years after the American invasion, one of the fiercest insurgent groups in Iraq, Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, models itself after the organization that attacked New York and Washington in 2001, yet is a whole cloth product of the war.

"Kristol spouts all this nonsense about success in Iraq in order to come to the conclusion that the United States should begin drawing down troops in 2008 (though no sooner). I agree with Brad Plumer: Saying this ill-conceived war is 'Won and Done' is more than inaccurate -- it's an invitation to make more catastrophically deadly foreign policy mistakes in the future. Iraq is Un-Won and No-Fun for anybody -- time to get out."

John McCain's communications staff quit yesterday, but Roger Simon (while landing an interview) gives the man his due:

"Although he was accused early on of pandering, in fact McCain's campaign has been much closer to political suicide than to political opportunism. He could have moved to more muted, nuanced positions on both Iraq and immigration. Other presidential candidates have managed that act. But McCain would not do it. It was, to him, a matter of principle."

I opined yesterday about Mirthala Salinas, who remains on paid suspension from Telemundo over her previously secret affair with L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. LAT columnist Gregory Rodriguez is irked by the coverage:

"Last week, I got a phone call from a television news producer who asked me what Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's extramarital affair revealed about the nature of Latino political leadership. I told her I'd agree to be interviewed on air only if we could explore what Bill Clinton's dalliances said about white people or Jesse Jackson's fling with an aide told us about black activists. Dumbfounded, she asked if I could refer her to someone else . . .

"The media gratuitously injected ethnicity into the scandal. Maybe, it would have been different if she worked for CBS, but I don't think so. Reporters from a variety of newspapers, including The Times, the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle and the LA Weekly made lame comparisons between the mayor's affair and telenovelas, Spanish-language soap operas. Do you think they didn't write 'soap opera' because the English-language versions lack sufficient sex and intrigue? Or maybe it was a cute way to ascribe this behavior, as opposed to planting trees, to his ethnicity. After hearing that Salinas had dated two other Mexican American politicians, Fabian Núñez and Alex Padilla, Times columnist Steve Lopez joked that the three men were playing a game of '¿Quién Es Más Macho?,' a phrase comedian Bill Murray came up with on 'Saturday Night Live' in a 1979 takeoff on Latino stereotypes. Because -- heh, heh -- you know what they say about those Latin men.

"I'm surprised no newspaper ran a cartoon of the mayor sporting a pencil mustache, a Zorro mask and a rose clenched between his teeth."

The same column dealt with the firing of Chicago TV reporter Amy Jacobson, and the Chicago Tribune's Tim McNulty makes what at first sounds like a startling confession:

"I must first admit to wearing a swimsuit and taking my young children to a source/subject's home swimming pool, not unlike former WMAQ-Ch. 5 reporter Amy Jacobson, who was fired last week for that breach of ethics, 'lapse in judgment' and whatever else it has been called.

"The home I visited did not belong to the estranged husband of a missing woman, however. It was the summer home of then-president George H.W. Bush, who had invited the traveling White House press corps to Maine for a swim party in Kennebunkport. Nothing happened. Context is everything."