Obama's First Week

Here is what we know after seven days of Change:

(1) The new president is aggressively attacking the economic downturn and, though perhaps too eager to make tax-cut concessions to roll up a bipartisan score, is realizing that nothing will appease Republican know-nothings and, as a result, showing some signs of toughening up in getting a stimulus bill passed without delay.

(2) Though there is much that can be done by executive fiat, it will take longer and be more complicated to make good on campaign promises to close Guantanamo (without freeing Al Qaeda terrorists) and get troops out of Iraq without endangering stability.

(3) His ambition and self-confidence are huge. In making his first phone call to Palestinian President Abbas and giving his first exclusive interview to an Arab TV network, Obama is signaling a change not only in Middle East policy but US attitude toward engaging the rest of the world, insisting that “the Americans are not your enemy.”

He is telling them, "I cannot respect terrorist organizations that would kill innocent civilians and we will hunt them down. But to the broader Muslim world what we are going to be offering is a hand of friendship.”

All this is leaving him open to attacks for being naïve, reckless or worse but, in the first week of America After Bush, government is beginning to look like it might possibly be (pace Ronald Reagan) more like the answer than the problem.

So far, so good with 207 weeks to go in Barack Obama's first term.

Dates Certain for Iraq Withdrawal

Deadlines for American troops to leave were set today with a near-unanimous Iraqi Cabinet vote that requires coalition forces to withdraw from cities and towns by the summer of 2009 and from the country by the end of 2011 with no ifs, ands or buts.

As late as Friday, Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr was calling for armed resistance against a continued US presence in Iraq, and there will undoubtedly be sectarian jockeying before the full parliament approves today's decision, but it lays out timetables that an Obama Administration will have as a framework for its own decisions about starting to draw down the 150,000 troops still there.

Meanwhile, the American death toll in George W. Bush's war has passed 4200 and will continue well after he leaves the White House, but at least the end is in sight.

McCain, Secretary of Defense?

If the new president is serious about Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State as he follows Lincoln's "team of rivals" approach, Barack Obama should consider John McCain as Secretary of Defense.

When the two meet on Monday, at Obama's suggestion it turns out, "sitting down in a serious way" to "find common ground," the discussion might include a role for McCain in the new administration.

McCain's maverick history makes it unlikely that Senate Republicans will look to him for leadership. (One of them, Jim DeMint of South Carolina, is already accusing him of betraying Republican principles.)

Despite campaign differences over the past in Iraq, Obama and McCain, if they teamed up, would be faced with implementing an exit strategy being firmed up in the last days of the Bush Administration and shifting military attention to Afghanistan and Pakistan. The political aspect is not in much dispute

As Gen. David Petraeus' most vocal admirer, McCain is in a position to bring together the new Commander-in-Chief and the armed forces, and his abrasiveness, unlike that of the armchair warrior Donald Rumsfeld, could be effective in a Pentagon that needs strong leadership.

On the campaign trail, McCain persuaded a substantial number of voters that he was qualified to lead the nation on national security. As an Obama Administration focuses on saving the economy, he could provide leadership and reassurance in the war on terror.

If Obama is as generous and inclusive as he appears to be, bringing both of his chief rivals for the presidency on board would be a strong signal that national unity is possible.

Burying Iraq as an Issue

At the Republican Convention, the public desire that dominated the elections two years ago--to get out of Iraq--will be low on the agenda, buried under John McCain's rhetoric about "victory" with "honor."

But as a New York Times editorial points out, McCain is alone in trying to sell that grotesque claim:

"Iraq’s leaders are pushing a timetable that would have American troops out in 2011.

"Even President Bush--who had long scorned the notion of a withdrawal deadline as defeatist--looks set to go along...

"That leaves Mr. McCain as the stubborn man out.

"While the war is no longer front-page news, thousands of Americans are still fighting and dying there. The war is costing American taxpayers $10 billion a month--that is $10 billion that cannot be spent on health care, education and many other urgent priorities.

"Mr. McCain told veterans on Aug. 11 that he would end the war, but intended to 'win it first' and assured them that 'victory in Iraq is finally in sight.'

"He needs to explain what he means by victory. A free and democratic Iraq, as Mr. Bush originally promised? That would take generations. Even after spending nearly $700 billion, the United States will be lucky to leave behind a marginally functioning central government in a very fragile country."

McCain on Iraq recalls the loony character in the World War II movie "Arsenic and Old Lace" who thinks he's Teddy Roosevelt and keeps rushing up the stairs blowing a bugle and yelling "Charge!" Meanwhile, real bodies are buried in the cellar.

That character's Panama Canal was the product of a disordered mind, but Iraq is real and American voters should get an explanation from McCain or take away his bugle.

Petraeus' Reality Check

By the end of last week, John McCain was agreeing with Barack Obama that 16 months would be "a pretty good timetable" for withdrawing American troops from Iraq, but now Gen. David Petraeus says no.

The situation in Iraq, he tells an interviewer, is too volatile to "project out, and to then try to plant a flag on, a particular date."

Unlike the candidates, who have condensed their positions to bumper stickers of withdrawal or victory, Petraeus is wary of what Colin Powell called the Pottery Barn rule about Iraq, "You break it, you own it."

It should be sobering to hear from our man on the ground that McCain's claims of victory and belaboring of Obama for defeatism are, to put it kindly, premature.

"We know where we are trying to go," Petraeus says. "We know how we think we need to try to get there with our Iraqi partners and increasingly with them in the lead and shouldering more of the burden as they are.

"But there are a lot of storm clouds out there, there are lots of these possible lightning bolts. You just don't know what it could be. You try to anticipate them and you try to react very quickly...It's all there, but it's not something you want to lay out publicly."

Translation: We just don't know when the US can stop pouring blood and dollars into the fantasy of a free, democratic Iraq because the outcome is not in our hands.

If anything, Petraeus' doubts should reinforce Obama's determination to decide what we can do, give up the pipedream and start allocating our forces to fight terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

McCain Mantra: "As Conditions Permit"

There is a Karl Rovian rote to the attempted undermining of a growing Barack Obama-Nouri al-Maliki entente on getting American troops out of Iraq in the next two years.

Any withdrawal of troops "must be based on conditions on the ground," John McCain insisted yesterday as he stood next to George W. Bush's father, a living reminder that getting the US into an Iraq quagmire was not the only post-9/11 option.

McCain campaign surrogates are parroting the line that their candidate also wants to get us out, but not on a timetable or time line or time horizon, but only "as conditions permit," thereby branding any scheduled withdrawal as rash and dangerous.

On the PBS News Hour, adviser Max Boot contends "that any reductions in combat forces have to be based on conditions on the ground, not on rigid timetables imposed in advance" and that McCain and Maliki "agree that we can only have these major withdrawals of American troops if conditions on the ground permit. But that's something that Senator Barack Obama does not agree with. He wants to reduce U.S. troops, no matter what conditions on the ground are. And nobody can predict what Iraq will look like two years from now."

But exactly what does that mean? Are "conditions" to be taken as an end to all the murderous actions of bitter-ender al Qaeda insurgents or out-of-control fringe Moqtada al-Sadr militias?

Do "conditions" mean the suppression of all squabbling among sectarian factions in the Iraqi parliament and a binding agreement on hot-button issues such as sharing oil revenues?

Or are "conditions" a generic cover for the McCain campaign to make Obama look irresponsible for proposing any orderly exit from Iraq?

In all fairness, the Republican candidate is no longer pushing for an American presence in Iraq for a hundred years. Apparently, his time line is keeping the option open to scare American voters until after the November balloting is over.

Doing Afghanistan

So endeth Day One. Barack Obama did Afghanistan yesterday, where more Americans are now dying than in Iraq--a photo op with President Hamid Karzai, bacon and eggs with the troops (hold the grits) and shooting hoops with them.

His comments were low-carb, too. "To see young people like this, who are doing such excellent work with so much dedication and pride, it makes you feel good about the country," he said. "You want to make sure that everybody back home understands how much pride people take in their work here and how much sacrifice people are making. It's outstanding."

If and when he visits the Middle East again as president, the atmosphere won't be as relaxed. If Obama keeps his campaigning word, the emphasis of the war on terror will shift to Afghanistan from Iraq, where Nouri al-Maliki is now waffling on endorsing Obama's withdrawal plan.

Nine US soldiers were killed last week fighting Taliban militants in eastern Afghanistan during the deadliest attack on American troops in Afghanistan in three years.

Obama won't be visiting Pakistan on this trip, but that's where the problem lies, getting the post-Musharraf government to stop tiptoeing around the tribes shielding al Qaeda there. If he can do something about that, Obama would lessen the "sacrifice people are making" of the troops he visited today.

Here's Your Helmet, What's Your Hurry?

John McCain is beginning to look like the last guest at the party who doesn't notice that the host is dropping hints that it's time to go. As al-Maliki talks about how late it is and what a busy day tomorrow will be, the Republican candidate is still trying to keep the Iraq festivities going, at least until after November.

"I am convinced," the reluctant guest now says, "as I have said before, we can withdraw and withdraw with honor, not according to a set timetable. And I’m confident that is what Prime Minister Maliki is talking about since he has told me that for the many meetings we have had.”

The Iraqi party pooper is obviously not aware that President-to-Be McCain has promised Americans that "by the end of my first term we will have succeeded in Iraq...This is what I want to achieve."

Doesn't Maliki realize "It would be an unconscionable act of betrayal, a stain on our character as a great nation, if we were to walk away from the Iraqi people and consign them to the horrendous violence, ethnic cleansing and possibly genocide that would follow a reckless, irresponsible and premature withdrawal?"

An unfortunate phrase, that last, with connotations of who has been doing what to whom for the past five years, but McCain is not ready to leave the bash even as his host is yawning and starting to turn out the lights.

Bush's Iraq Sacrifice

Before his five-day Middle East tour of lame-duck quacking on Israel's 60th birthday and to hold hands with Saudi Arabia's gas-price gougers, President Bush revealed his personal sacrifice for the war in Iraq: He stopped playing golf.

In his first on-line interview, he told Politico and Yahoo News, "I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf. I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal.”

But Bush insisted that his own hardship was worth it to avert a doomsday scenario that, in the event of a premature US withdrawal, "extremists throughout the Middle East would be emboldened, which would eventually lead to another attack on the United States."

"The United States pulling out of Iraq or pulling out of the Middle East or not maintaining a forward presence would send all kinds of signals throughout the Middle East," he said. "And it would shake everybody's nerves, and it would embolden the very same people that we're trying to defeat."

Asked if he was "misled" into starting the war, the President refused to pass the buck: “Do I think somebody lied to me? No, I don't. I think it was just, you know, they analyzed the situation and came up with the wrong conclusion.”

Oh.

Pyrrhic Victory, Anyone?

Amid two tiny wins yesterday--in the Wyoming caucuses and the taking of Dennis Hastert's House seat by an Obama admirer--his supporters and Hillary Clinton's were hard at work to snatch defeat from the jaws of expected Democratic victory in November.

After the candidate's claim this week that only she and John McCain had crossed "the commander-in chief threshold," Clinton's campaign generalissimos were e-mailing journalists a memo headed "Obama's Iraq Plan: Just Words":

"Once again, it looks like Senator Obama is telling voters one thing while his campaign says those words should not to be mistaken for serious action...

"Senator Obama has made hard end dates about Iraq a centerpiece of his campaign and has repeatedly attacked Senator Clinton for not being clear about her intentions with regard to troop withdrawal.

"It turns out those attacks and speeches were just words. And if you can't trust Senator Obama's words, what's left?"

His campaign fired back: "The Clinton campaign has publicly admitted that the only way they can still win this election is by tearing Barack Obama down. They have called their attacks the 'kitchen sink strategy'...The result has been a constant barrage of attacks about Senator Obama's record that they know full well aren't true. And yet they repeat them, over and over again, day after day, in an attempt to deceive the American people..."

Well said, word warriors. Those people taking notes are from the Republican swiftboat squad, who will be happy to immortalize them, no matter which Democrat wins the nomination.

Rash Judgments of 2007

If journalists are historians in a hurry, bloggers are first responders, dashing to each disaster in search of finding some sense, but there are times when smoke gets in our eyes.

For your entertainment and my mental health, herewith a few of the year's least prescient posts, out of more than a thousand, where this witness arrived at the scene and got it wrong:

In January, there was hope the proposed Surge would isolate Bush in his madness, followed by a fantasy that voters might look for authenticity in the next President, perhaps in a series of substantive debates.

Last spring, with all respect to the man's honor and integrity, there were qualms about John McCain's losing it. (Now in Iowa, he is being called the "Comeback Codger.")

Gen. Petraeus was compared to Eisenhower and seen as "the man who could end the war," but he ended up doing more than anyone else to prolong it and gave Congressional Republicans enough cover to keep backing Bush without fear of losing their jobs in next year's elections.

When Karl Rove resigned, the MSM and blogosphere were urged to stop paying attention to the "biggest bottom feeder of our time and look ahead to putting back some semblance of decency into American politics." (He's a columnist for Newsweek now.)

In September, it seemed that Fred Thompson's playing it cool could be a winning strategy, but he turned out to be playing it comatose.

As late as mid-November, Rudy Giuliani looked as bulletproof to scandal as Bill Clinton was in 1992. A few weeks later his poll numbers were diving in a mudslide of revelations.

Blogging is an attempt to share thoughts and feelings, to connect with others, but sometimes the medium delivers a defective message. Sorry, mea culpa and a resolution to try to do better. Happy New Year!

Beyond Bush, No Exit From Iraq?

"Americans," a New York Times editorial says today, "need to ask themselves the questions Mr. Bush is refusing to answer: Is this country signing on to keep the peace in Iraq indefinitely? If so, how many American and Iraqi deaths a month are an acceptable price? If not, what’s the plan for getting out?"

The President gave a partial answer this week by joining Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in a declaration setting out principles for an agreement to be negotiated in the next year to guarantee a U.S. troop presence in Iraq for years.

Behind the "non-bonding" words, the plan is clear: permanent US bases established by a pact that the Decider can sign before he leaves office. "As far as Bush is concerned," Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson notes today, "he doesn't have to seek congressional ratification for such an enduring commitment of American force, treasure and lives."

Gen. Douglas Lute, White House deputy national security adviser, confirms this speculation: "We don't anticipate now that these negotiations will lead to the status of a formal treaty which would then bring us to formal negotiations or formal inputs from the Congress."

With a 30 percent approval rating from Americans who want to get out of Iraq, George Bush, a majority of one, has decided unilaterally to keeps us there even after he leaves office to hold down what the Times describes as "the lid on a pressure cooker. Iraq’s rival militias, the insurgents, the bitter sectarian resentments and the meddling neighbors haven’t gone anywhere.

"Consider this all too familiar horror: yesterday, police said they pulled six bodies from the Tigris River about 25 miles south of Baghdad. They were handcuffed and showed signs of having been tortured. And five, including a child, had been beheaded."

In Venezuela, Hugo Chavez is angling to become president for life. Back here, on the subject of Iraq, George Bush has figured out how to manage that without any formalities.

Too Much News: Deprivation by Surfeit

A book I once wrote argued we were being stuffed with information but starved for understanding. David Petraeus and Ryan Crocker have just spent two days making the point with a ribbon on it.

After all the graphs, statistics, anecdotes and guarded generalizations, they did not, could not answer the only questions that matter: When will this war end, and is it making us any safer from terrorism?

Two of our best and brightest public servants responded with the classic waiter’s shrug, “That’s not my table.”

In the last century, social critic Lewis Mumford pointed out that, although science and technology assume constantly increasing consumption of goods and knowledge is desirable, it can lead to “deprivation by surfeit.”

With concentration on speed and productivity, Mumford wrote, “we have ignored the need for evaluation, correction, selection and social assimilation.”

Today’s journalism and politics validate his theory as clearly as do the clogging of our highways and the overwhelming of air-traffic control. We are in a hurry to get somewhere without being sure of the destination and how to get there without falling over one another.

Sorting it all out used to be called leadership, but that is the only product in short supply.

Oozing Out of Iraq

So this is how the war starts to end, not with a bang but a whimper, as the Hollow Men in Washington quibble, equivocate and compromise over how we edge out of a country we broke and own until we can find the right bipartisan words to cover our retreat.

“Democrats Newly Willing to Compromise on Iraq,” says today’s New York Times while the Christian Science Monitor finds “On Iraq war, bipartisan tack afoot” and Madeleine Albright OpEds in the Washington Post about “How to Change Iraq.”

The real contest is over crafting ways to, in Secretary Albright’s phrase, “enable President Bush to continue denying that his invasion has evolved into disaster” while we “prevent Iraq from becoming a haven for al-Qaeda, a client state of Iran or a spark that inflames regionwide war.”

And, she might have added, get enough Congressional defectors to start backing away from the war without being vulnerable to rabid voters on both sides of the issue next fall.

This week and next, the air will be filled with unbearable blather as Democrats and Republicans jockey for ways to accomplish that statesmanlike mission. There will be enough “reports” on progress in Iraq or lack of it to back any proposal that can get 60 votes in the Senate.

The process will not be uplifting, whimpers seldom are. But it’s past time for Congress to start to stop the killing any way they can.

The Senate's Silver Idiot

If there is a total antithesis of the clichéd Silver Fox, Sen. John Warner took permanent possession of the title today with the most asinine, craven play in the Iraq end game to date.

In his usual portentous manner, Warner came back from the war zone and made the daring suggestion that George Bush bring home 5,000 troops for Christmas.

On the PBS News Hour, the Senate’s Oliver Twist noted that it was up to the President, of course, but after long study, he was emboldened to ask, “Can we have some, sir, please.”

At 80, Warner is positioning himself to run for a sixth term next year by being on both sides of ending the war, but a proposal to withdraw a handful of 160,000 troops is an insult to the intelligence of his Senate colleagues as well as his constituents.

Journalists of my generation will always remember Warner as a well-tailored empty suit who, in the words of his fellow Virginian Chuck Robb, LBJ’s son-in-law who became a governor and senator, “outmarried myself.”

Warner did it twice, first with a billionaire’s granddaughter, Catherine Mellon, and then movie star Elizabeth Taylor. Even so, he lost his first Republican primary but got the nomination when the winner died in a plane crash and then barely beat his Democratic opponent.

Throughout the Iraq war, Warner has been a stony-faced Bush supporter but is now attempting to play elder statesman with today’s stupid suggestion. Senatorial courtesy will elicit oohs and ahs, but Carl Levin et al must know the score.

John Kerry, Stand-Up

He’s at it again. The 2004 Democratic nominee who took himself out of a possible ’08 re-run with a badly told joke is back going for the funny again. The reviews suggest he shouldn’t give up his day job.

At a Democratic fundraiser last week, Kerry had a limerick about his Senate colleague who got into trouble by being on the D.C. Madam’s phone list:

“There once was a man named Vitter/Who vowed that he wasn’t a quitter/But with stories of women/And all of his sinnin’/He knows his career’s in the — oh, never mind.”

Jon Stewart and Bill Maher are safe, but John Kerry shouldn’t despair. It won’t get any laughs but he is doing good work by joining Hillary Clinton in introducing a bill
requiring the Pentagon to brief Congress on contingency plans for withdrawing from Iraq.

There’s more than one way of being a stand-up guy.