Friday, Sep 5, 2008
National Review pundits do battle over Bush's Iraq speech; Podhoretz says soldiers like Sivits and England deserve their own torture. Plus: Hitchens tags Michael Moore the ultimate ugly American.
May 26, 2004 | After two months of turmoil in Iraq, conservatives' assessment of the Bush White House appears to be in a state of decided disarray. Many on the right have turned sharply critical of the president, while others have toed Bush's do-no-wrong hawkish line without blinking an eye. The infighting seems to mirror the administration's Iraq policy itself, which has often been murky and shot through with contradiction -- from the flip-flopping over de-Baathification in Fallujah, to the bafflingly post hoc decision to raze Saddam's notorious Abu Ghraib prison after its use as a clearinghouse for hardcore U.S. interrogation of Iraqi detainees.
The response from the right to Bush's anticipated Monday night speech on Iraq continued the trend. Blogging on National Review Online's "Corner" forum, various pundits at the right-wing flagship couldn't agree on even a basic theme among themselves.
"Always a help to speak in front of a military audience. Guaranteed cheers," declared NRO editor Kathryn Lopez as the speech got underway at the Army War College at 8pm Eastern. But the upbeat Lopez appeared to have jumped the gun. Several applause-baiting pauses engineered into Bush's speech met with thick silence. By the end, Lopez was a bit less sanguine, even acknowledging the dissent among the not-so-faithful ranks.
"I think he gave a great big-picture outline But as far as chilling the panic: I don't know. From my informal scan of panicked conservatives today, some of them promised me they weren't going to watch. If they watched, I can't imagine they were too satisfied by the end."
NRO contributor Clifford May was a bit less charitable about the speech from the get-go. "It's a start," he managed, "but only a start. Too often in the past, this administration hasn't understood the importance of repeating a message, elaborating on a message, working a message until it burns its way into the public's mind and imagination."
He probably wasn't thinking of the administration's linking 9/11 to Saddam, a central yet still questionable Bush talking point repeated again prominently on Monday night. But May did find comfort in what he saw as a sort of thorough five-point plan for Iraq.
"Yes, it was reassuring to see the President appearing confident, articulating a plan, going into detail about who, what, when and where. But now he -- and those who claim they work for him -- need to drive the ideas he only sketched out tonight."
But that's not how NRO contributor Jed Babbin saw things. He found troubling contradictions in Bush's speech.
"The president's 'five point' plan to turn Iraq over to free Iraqis is riddled with holes. The first is that the president insisted that the 'turnover' of Iraqi sovereignty would be complete. But how can that be when, as he said, 138,000 American troops will remain there as long as necessary, under American command? If they are not subjected to the law and authority of the new Iraq provisional government, how can they be anything other than an occupation force? Though the 'Coalition Provisional Authority' will cease to exist on June 30, changing the sign over the door but leaving American troops there under American command (the only way they could possibly stay) continues the occupation."
But later, speculating that CPA leader Paul Bremer may soon get booted by the White House, Babbin seemed to contradict his own skepticism about a continued U.S. presence in Iraq.
"By defaulting to U.N. representative Lakhdar Brahimi months ago, Bush admitted that Bremer wasn't up to the task ... An administration source told me that plans for removing Bremer before the June 30 sovereignty handover are finally in the works. If that happens, the way will be cleared for our newly appointed ambassador, John Negroponte, to play a lesser yet more important role. With Bremer gone, the appointment of the new Iraqi provisional government by Brahimi will actually be more susceptible of American influence. It is vital to maintain that influence to prevent the surrogates of Iran and Syria from pushing Iraq toward the kind of totalitarian theocracy they'd like to see."
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