McCain’s Gerald Ford Moment

Looking back on 1976, many historians and casual observers alike will tell you that if President Gerald Ford ever had a chance against challenger Jimmy Carter, that chance disappeared when, during a debate, the president forcefully declared, “There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.”

Ford was given a chance to correct his assertion in a follow-up, but he stuck to his guns, even underscoring the point by saying that Yugoslavia, Romania, and Poland were “independent” and “autonomous.”

Here’s what Time magazine had to say about what they called “The Blooper Heard Round the World” back in October of 1976:

Thus, in his second debate with Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford made what could well be the most damaging statement of his career. For any politician, calling Eastern Europe free would be an amazing gaffe. For a President, especially one who is running partly on a campaign theme of experience in foreign policy, the mistake reawakened many voters' suspicions that Ford is a bumbier [sic].

Fast-forward 32 years, and a candidate who is, yes, “running partly on a campaign theme of experience in foreign policy” makes a mistake that is possibly a bigger fo-pol faux pas than Ford’s.




You heard that right, John McCain called the Pakistan of the late 1990s a “failed state.” To quote Max Bergmann, that is simply “not true.”

McCain just badly misstated the history of Pakistan. For someone claiming extensive foreign policy knowledge, this is simply not acceptable.

[emphasis added]

Darn, if that don’t sound familiar. Here (again, courtesy of Bergmann) is what really happened:

Musharraf took power in a military coup in 1999 when he deposed Nawaz Sharif - who recently participated in the latest election. The coup followed the 1999 war in Kashmir with India and was due to a power struggle with Sharif, not due to Pakistan being a "failed state." The United States did not welcome the Musharraf coup. Instead the government of the United States imposed sanctions against this action.

Remember Pakistan had nuclear weapons in 1999. Did McCain believe that there was a failed state that possessed nuclear weapons? If he did he showed no concern at the time.

And I do think that McCain’s blunder is bigger than Ford’s. While Gerald Ford made the mistake of garbling his talking points on whether the Soviets had gotten the better of a 1975 trade pact—and then, rather than correcting his error, tried instead to look more sure and presidential—John McCain seemed to believe his contention that Pakistan was a failed state prior to the military coup that elevated General Pervez Musharraf.

Either that, or McCain was just vamping—which, given the import of the office he seeks and the delicate nature of US-Pakistani relations, is probably worse.

One might say that such behavior is erratic or unstable. To paraphrase Time: it might even have reawakened many voters’ suspicions that McCain is dangerous.

Will such a dangerous gaffe hurt McCain the way Ford’s big-league bumble derailed his campaign? Claiming that Poland was not under Soviet control is thought to have swung votes in crucial northern states with large Polish-American populations. Whether Pakistani-Americans in this cycle’s swing states will take similar offense at McCain’s slight (or whether voters of any stripe will be more basically appalled) remains to be seen.


(h/t Rachel Maddow)


(cross-posted on guy2k, The Seminal, and Daily Kos)

Meanwhile, back here at home. . .

While it is all well and good that a “very ruly crowd” of some 500 lawyers gathered yesterday outside the county courthouse in lower Manhattan for a brief rally to show solidarity with lawyers and judges jailed and persecuted since General Perves Musharraf declared martial law in Pakistan, I can’t help but wonder why a crisis abroad has them so hot and bothered.

After all, for more than six years now, the law has been under assault here at home. Where were the lawyers when the ironically named “USA Patriot Act” papered over or watered down about half of the Bill of Rights? Where were the lawyers when it was revealed that the Bush Administration had ignored the Fourth Amendment and the Foreign Intelligence Security Act and illegally spied on their fellow citizens? Where were they when the administration, and then the Republican Congress, eliminated Habeas rights for, well, for practically anyone that The Decider decides is an enemy? Where were they during the politicization of the entire federal justice system, from the US Attorneys, through the Courts of Appeals, all the way up to the Supreme Court? Where were they during the confirmation of Attorney General Ashcroft? Attorney General Gonzales? Attorney General Mukasey?

For that matter, where were they after Justices Scalia and Thomas refused to recuse themselves (because of blatant conflict of interest) in Bush v. Gore?

While some members of the bar in this country fight, and fight hard, every day for an end to torture, to rendition, and unlawful detention, while some fight, and fight hard, for a restoration of Habeas Corpus and FISA, and in defense of the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Amendments, far too many of those with direct experience and a detailed understanding of the laws of the land have chosen to go about their business as if nothing much has changed here in the United States. And while American jurists are far from the only citizens who have come up light on the outrage scale, I am hard-pressed to think of a group that is better positioned—in terms of education, employment, status, and first-hand knowledge—to make a less than joyful noise about what has happened to this country’s legal principles and protections.

The jurists of Pakistan have been out in the streets everyday, protesting in the face of beatings and mass arrests, so, by all means, stand in solidarity with them--they deserve your support. But beyond shouting “No more Musharraf,” beyond simply supporting the Pakistani lawyers, it might be good to learn from them, too. How about regular gatherings of American jurists to stand in solidarity with our Constitution? How about shouts against the myriad ways that our less than legitimately elected President has abused the law and its practitioners right here at home?

. . .

I heard the head of the New York Bar on the radio speaking in support of Pakistani lawyers because, he said, the Musharraf government had tortured some of them. Well, the American government is torturing people, probably every day, probably for some six years now—do they have to torture lawyers to get you to stage protests of your own government’s behavior?


(cross-posted on Daily Kos and The Seminal)

That Old Black Magic

In a Kafkaesque, rambling press conference Thursday, President Bush invoked the name of al Qaeda so many times (over 30) it made even the semi-attached heads of the White House press corps spin. Initially doing that thing that, of course, he has never done (just ask Tony Snow)—linking Iraq to the 9/11 attacks—even the assembled reporters had to groan (audibly, apparently).

“The same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq,” [Bush] said, “were the ones who attacked us in America on September the 11th, and that’s why what happens in Iraq matters to the security here at home.”

In a move that I don’t think you would have seen even a few weeks ago, reporters challenged this assertion, explaining to the president that there was a difference between the “al Qaeda” and what has come to be known as “al Qaeda in Mesopotamia” (sometimes called “al Qaeda in Iraq” or AQY—don’t ask me why Y), and even going so far as to point out that AQY didn’t even exist before the 2003 US invasion. Or, to quote a front-page article from today’s New York Times:

[Bush’s] references to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, and his assertions that it is the same group that attacked the United States in 2001, have greatly oversimplified the nature of the insurgency in Iraq and its relationship with the Qaeda leadership.

. . . .

Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia did not exist before the Sept. 11 attacks. The Sunni group thrived as a magnet for recruiting and a force for violence largely because of the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, which brought an American occupying force of more than 100,000 troops to the heart of the Middle East, and led to a Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad.

Which is what many in the blogosphere have been saying for god knows how long now. . . but never mind. . . onward and upward!

Bush’s response to this challenge was to claim that, well, um, y’know, al Qaeda in Iraq had “sworn allegiance to Osama bin Laden.” (Oh yeah, him. . . .)

Well, that settles it, right?

Wrong on so many counts.

First, as the Times points out:

But while American intelligence agencies have pointed to links between leaders of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and the top leadership of the broader Qaeda group, the militant group is in many respects an Iraqi phenomenon. They believe the membership of the group is overwhelmingly Iraqi. Its financing is derived largely indigenously from kidnappings and other criminal activities. And many of its most ardent foes are close at home, namely the Shiite militias and the Iranians who are deemed to support them.

“The president wants to play on Al Qaeda because he thinks Americans understand the threat Al Qaeda poses,” said Bruce Riedel, an expert at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy and a former C.I.A. official. “But I don’t think he demonstrates that fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq precludes Al Qaeda from attacking America here tomorrow. Al Qaeda, both in Iraq and globally, thrives on the American occupation.”

Which brings us to the second problem: on the same day that Bush was waving the bloody 9/11 flag and trumpeting his never-ending war on terror, his own administration released (leaked?) an intelligence assessment which posited that OBL’s group—from hereon in known as Famous Original al Qaeda™—had pretty much reconstituted and was again up to pre-9/11 strength. I don’t have the time to pick apart the way the administration tried to spin that news—it was truly through the looking glass, people—but, suffice it to say, while Bush and Cheney continue to waste blood and treasure in Iraq, something completely separate is going on in the hills of northwest Pakistan.

Which points to a third problem: if this troublesome, nefarious, expanding, and seemingly intractable group in Iraq is somehow motivated by or connected to Famous Original al Qaeda™, why not go after Famous Original al Qaeda™? Hell, if we are to believe the intelligence report, we probably have a better idea of where Osama bin Laden’s group is than how to snuff out the shadowy (and, to my mind, far less cohesive) Iraqi tribute band.

I mean, you’d think the millions we’ve funneled to military dictator and nuclear proliferator Pervez Musharraf would buy something—if not his own forces going into Waziristan, at least permission to send ours.

Not that I am advocating another Bush/Cheney-led military action—god, I shudder to think what these cock-ups would do with the chance—I’m just saying, if this is the threat, the threat that would “follow us home,” as the Bush boys like to claim, then what are we doing spending money, time, lives, and limbs chasing our tails around select Iraqi provinces?

Do they—Bush, Cheney, Gates, et al.—really like going ‘round and ‘round like that?

Maybe cold hard facts just aren’t as much fun as the magical thinking. Really, given the facts, why would they be? So, instead, we’re all left to just be lovin’ that spin. . . lovin’ that spin we’re in.

‘Round and ‘round we go. . . down and down we go.

(cross-posted to Daily Kos)