Bush's July Surprise
 

The following is from the Washington Post on 7/9/2004

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2004Jul9.html

I thought that it sounded like a long shot, too. Who can take unnamed sources very seriously? Than I read this:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapc...ure/index.html

What a coincidence! What are the odds that they would released the news the same day that Kerry is going to accept the nomination? What wacky timing.

I won't make too much out of this. No crime has been committed, but I do think that this raises more questions about the character of the Bush election machine. Apparently, not much is sacred.

presto macho as gil scott-heron once said:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3938133.stm

just in case you thought the article was mucking about on the timing matter.

Wonder what kind of aid against India we had to bribe Pakistan with for this coincidence.

I really doubt that even OBL's capture would derail the Democrat love-fest that is the media's coverage of the DNC. I can hear the commercials now -- "Presidential candidate John Kerry's garderner's cousin's ex-wife speaks of his character. OsamaBinLadencaptureddetailsateleven." :)

hmm... captured on sunday and the press release is thursday... when kerry accepts nomination... seems like more than a coincedence to me... a bit of a dirty tactic maybe?

Sweetie, I love you to death, but you do know none of the major networks even covered the Democrat's convention?

Bush getting out of bed and taking a shower would be construed as a dirty tactic by some of the members here. It doesn't matter what he does or when it happens, there is always some conspiracy theory to make of it.

I don't go for conspiracy theories and I thought nothing of the story when I read it earlier this month. My feelings changed when the freakin' Pakistanis delivered the HVT that the Administration was allegedly clamoring for (and in the proper time frame, too). Does this prove anything? No, but it does seem awful suspicious, don't you think?

The opposite is also true. Bush being caught red-handed in a three way with saddam and obl would somehow be rationalized in the minds of some of the members here.

Back to the topic:The possibility of underhandedness is there and you'd be a fool to pretend that the bush administration isn't capable of such a thing.

I expect that part of the task of managing a country in times of peace and especially in times of war war involves management of the news as possible. I also expect that the top officer in charge of leadership during wartime - in our case, the Commander in Chief - would see it as a strategic imperative to be reelected.

That's how I look at things. As you know, I trust the US Government - no matter what party is in power, because it has earned that trust in countless many more ways than it has betrayed it. You may also know that, as a mere citizen who has a job description that does not include security clearances or running the country, I do not expect that my government tell me things. In fact, I expect it not to. I also expect it to attempt to manage the news in what it considers the best interests of the nation.

I understand this rubs many of you the wrong way. Many citizens believe the government should be vulnerably transparent and that citizens have the right to know its most important information. Many people also believe that it is acceptable to live in a world where every piece of information is managed by some individual or organization (as it is now) - except the government.

Personally, I prefer to have the government compete at least equally in managing the news.

unfortunatly, i'm not a conspircy theory nut. when bush does something good, i'll happily give credit to him. but most of these threads are about what he does that's (in my opinion) negitive. this seems to be a little too convienient to just be coincendental, especially after the memo's mentioned above. is it illegal? nope. is it wrong? i'm not sure... i think if all of this is true then it's in an ethical and moral gray area... the fact that it could be used to manipulate voters makes me think it's not-so-kosher. but i wouldn't quite say it's "wrong" yet either.

We aren't talking about the government protecting secret material here...this is a naked attempt to manipulate public sentiment for a purely political gain....there is no "it's for your own good" spin here. This is naked, willful distortion to win an election. Couldn't they have applied pressure to capture a HVT as quickly as possible? It's the greedy demand that it happen during the Dem convention that makes it most outrageous. And they fucking did it even though there were rumblings of it in the media. Amazing.

Please don't make the mistake of thinking that this was for your or my protection. This is the kind of selfish, reckless politics that produced Watergate.

Yes, our electoral process is constructed to provide for the removal of a Commander in Chief even during the prosecution of a war.

This is from my previous post. Sorry to have to repeat it:

"I also expect that the top officer in charge of leadership during wartime - in our case, the Commander in Chief - would see it as a strategic imperative to be reelected."

Are there any limits to this "strategic imperative?" Or we to accept the murder of political enemies as standard operating procedure? Forgive me if I'm misinterpreting you.

I'm sorry but I expect more from my leaders than this.

I don't answer every question that could be related in some remote way to a thread topic. I give my perspective on the topic from what I consider to be a realistic perspective.

Legal and constitutional limits apply to what the government does.

My first post made it clear - I understand others have different expectations of their leaders.

In brief, in a world of managed information I expect my government to be at least equal to the task of managing information as its opponents.

I know that you don't debate Art, and I understand your reasons for doing so. I still have to say that this situation is more then simple spin. Information management is one thing, complete deception another. Lying may not be illegal, but it definitely erodes trust.

I think the issue here is that your perspective, when applied generally, leaves the door open for a great deal of completely unethical behavior. I think people take issue with the idea that a sitting president should be openly allowed to manipulate the media, in effect lie to the american people for political gain. The idea that the ends justify the means is generally not acceptable in a country who claims to be the paragon of equality and freedom.

Perhaps it does in some threoretical way, if not for the actual fact that we're lucky to be living in a nation with sufficient Constitutional checks and balances - including the world's most powerful and freest press - to make dire consequences nearly impossible. I have a firm grasp on what is real and what is not. I prefer to keep my discussions pinioned to the real world.

I understand there are other ways of looking at this.

Art,

I wish I could share your optimism about the likelihood of "dire consequences." To me, an unjust war and the eroding of our civil liberties already qualifies as a dire situation. Although the checks and balances are always present, they do not usually protect against short term abuses. Much damage can be wrought before a case makes it's way to the Supreme Court, for instance.

But I don't mean to draw you into a debate that you have no interest in joining. After all, this is only my opinion.

Understood, cthulu. I'm interested in representing opposing positions in as comprehensible a way as possible. This is simply in order to indicate that they exist and they are held by reasonable individuals with different underlying assumptions. Typically, underlying assumptions are not amenable to debate.

art: two questions for the moment:
i do not understand is how exactly the manipulation of information falls within the constitutional system, specifically within the system of institutional "checks and balances" because it is a political and not an institutional matter.

i assume that the bush administration trying to force pakistan to arrest some al qeada person to upstage the democratic convention is not illegal---would your position be different if it were?

but assuming that it is not illegal: do i understand this correctly that if there is no case law specifically addressing the limits of this sort of action, then any such action is ok? and that it would only stop being ok if there was specific legal limits/prohibitions imposed by a court? and that otherwise any position on the matter is a question of prior assumptions that you would remove from the space of argument....


so i lied. there are three questions. ok four--but two of them are almost the same.

Generally, roachboy, these questions were covered in my initial posts - positing strategic necessities as a reason misinforming the public is acceptable to me.

You may disagree that the reelection of a Commander in Chief during time of war may be considered a strategic imperative.

Art, I see a bit of a contradiction when you say that you expect the Commander in Chief to consider re-election as a strategic advantage when executing a war, while also managing the news in the "best interests of the nation." The problem lies in the divide between the best interests of the nation and the best interests of the president.

Anyway, for an article to come out at the beginning of the month saying that the Pakistani's are being pressured to produce something preferably by the end of the month but most definitely before election day, and then have something produced A) Nearing the end the of month and B) Reported (what... the... fuck, don't wait, why wait?) on the day that Kerry makes his speech at the DNC... I know you guys like to be cautious about being confident in what you say about this, but yeah, it's a political move. I don't see anything stopping the administration from pressuring in June, I only see them gaining brownie points with the America people in July.

To use the war on terror as a re-election campaign division is wrong.

Right. These would be the differences of opinion that illuminate this matter.
Thanks.

Art,

Does that apply to any leader during any war? Isn't willful deception harmful to the democratic process?

cthulu, yes. Large organizations are not in the habit of telling all of their members the truth about everything. This is how large organizations function in the real world.

As for your second question, again, I'm afraid we are into a philosophical discussion here regarding ideals and the way the real world works. I try very hard not to make statements that refer to ideal conditions, as they do not exist.

With all the money/political contributions etc etc going on you are not concerned with accountability? We have arived at a time where all information should be fully disclosed if it is the basis for decisions like GOING TO WAR. Have you ever felt the hands of injustice? Is your life that perfect? In the case of the current administration there is TOO much business being conducted (most imporatantly business tied to politicians) so I cannot be firm in any belief that these people are working for US.

what bothers me about this is I do not want them playing politics with national security

Imagine that. The President wants favorable news about the war on terror for his campaign; just as Kerry wants bad news (about it) for his. Those bastards. What, do they think this is a competition or something? Ummm, wait a second, it is. This is simply a case of politics as usual. Nothing wrong with it. Kerry would do the same in Bush's place.

Art, have you read Michel's Iron Law of Oligarchy? You might find his analysis of organizations interesting. It may also clarify why some of us are so concerned with transparency--since that seems to be an antidote to power congealing at the top of a bureaucracy.

-- http://faculty.babson.edu/krollag/or...oligarchy.html

This link is very detailed, but also long: http://www.geocities.com/integral_tr...n/michels.html

Yes, this is human nature and the socio-political nature of human groups. It has always been so. That's why we have the most elaborate system of Constitutional checks and balances and the world's freest press. In my opinion, the electoral process is the citizen's essential safeguard against such abuses. We are well-protected against governmental misdeeds. At some point, pursuing these safeguards ad infinitum simply renders the government powerless and unable to govern.

And I would be equally outraged if Kerry stooped to using such dirty, Nixon-esque tactics. This is only "politics as usual" in the worst sense of the phrase.

I'm not surprised that Bush apologists spin this as a pure conspiracy theory. I am surprised that reasonable people are seemingly willing to forgive egregious breaches of the public trust simply because worse has been done before. How low does the bar have to be set before we begin to demand more from our leaders? Is this nation to be crucified on a cross of "political realism" while the our leaders are slowly transformed into scoundrels and con men?

Occam's Razor suggests that, in the event of a confounding situation, we make as few assumptions as possible. In this case, I think the simplest possible answer is that the Bush administration recieved word of the terrorist's capture on Sunday, and the political advisors suggesting waiting until Thursday for the best impact. I don't see this as conspiracy, dirty politics, or even an underhanded attack. Bush just released the information when I hoped it would do the most damage to the opposing party.

I think people are taking this "by November" command a bit too seriously. Both Bush and the military know that you can't force operations of this level to a simple timetable; putting the pressure on Pakistan is merely indicative of how desperate the administration is for results.

I'm noticing that some of us in this thread are getting a little disrespectful towards each other. I'd like to keep at least one Bush/Kerry thread civil. Can we try and make it this one? :)

DelayedReaction,

I don't think that we've sunk too far into the mire in this thread, but that's just my opinion. Hell, you might be talking about me.

Occam's Razor states that the simplest solution is usually the correct one. Which scenario is the simpler one: that the rumors in the media were true, as evidenced by the Pakistani's production of an HVT at exactly the right moment, or that this is all a giant coincidence, some sort of cosmic joke on the Bush administration?

*nod* i hear all this stuff about "human nature" and "how the real world works" attempting to justify wrongful actions all the time. I'm sure you all do too. But if we can't overcome this "evil" human nature and work toward the "ideal" then what is the point of claiming to be civilized, or even to live?

As for the original topic. It's the president's job to serve US, the people. Not himself. He is a public SERVANT, not a public MASTER.

Yes, it's fine to be motivated by idealism. I'm not. I respect those who are. The world isn't run by a single person. Progress occurs as a result of mutual effort and collaboration by individuals with various admixtures of idealism and realism - or as might be rhetorically proposed as a response to the above quote - by both "reasonable" and "unreasonable" people.

What do you think Kerry has done throughout his political career? This type of stuff is SOP in politics. There's no way around it and it is completely irrelevant in terms of impact. All politicians want to get elected. To do so they play up good things (and try to bring about as many good things as possible, especially around elections) and play down bad things. That's the system. Those who make a big deal of this either:

1. Don't understand that this is the reality of all politicians.

or

2. Understand this reality and are trying to make an issue of it to hinder their opponent.

edit: I guess the third is that they expect to somehow remove this reality from the process but IMO that is unrealistic at best and impossible at worst.

cthulhu23,

We haven't sunk too far, but I'd still like to maintain a higher standard of decency. One of the things I like most about TFP is how much emphasis we place on respect. That we can have a conversation such as this is indicative that it's working.

It's easier to believe (for me) that Pakistan captured the HVT when they could, and the Bush administration chose the most politically effective time to release the news.

delayed--well yes---the guy was "captured" (retaining the bbc quotation marks, which i like for some reason) sunday and the infotainment was released yesterday.

on the discussion more broadly:
there is something about the collapsing of policy into personal political ambitions that i object to fundamentally.

analytically, it seems a pathway straight to institutional narcissism, which is the fastest way to insure that an institution cuts itself off from feedback loops and becomes irrational--this following the market logic outlined by hayek no less.

a descriptive statement that traces a logic by means of which this collapse can be understood does nothing to allay that. it simply indicates that from a particular viewpoint, a rationality can be specified.

while for you, art, ancillary committments makes this not a problem, it surely is one from viewpoints that are not shaped by those same committments.

if you could apply the above critique to any institution, things get even worse when you are considering a state apparatus.
that it would actively manipulate information flows to conform to the political objectives of the incumbent seems but a further index of the extent to which this administration would prefer to cut itself off from any feedback, any dissent, if they can manage it.

so at the symbolic level, this kind of activity is unsettling at the least.

politically, it seems even worse. systematic distortion of information seems one way in which the right has tried to counter the unseemly effects of this "democratic" process--for example, if environmental groups issue reports that condemn corporate actions for particular effects, a rightwing thinktank can be counted on to hire pet scientists to prove the contrary.
the reports circulate as points of reference that are not generally seen for arguments aimed at right listeners on am radio and repeated in tv outlets on the order of fox.
there is no easy way to construct counter arguments. you have to either actively engaged in researching all issues, or you go passive, not trusting any information, hiding in your living room, watching tv.
if the state is also actively involved in the same process, then it works toward making rational decisions by the electorate as difficult as possible--which opens wider the sapce for the politics of slogan and image, which seems the kind of bankrupt territory most comfortable for the karlroves of the world.

i dont see anything good about this.

There are different gradations of acceptability in politics. All politicians may indulge in "politicking" (obviously), but that doesn't mean that some actions don't stretch the bounds of political acceptability. It's not as simple as "they all do that." Not everyone is willing to break into the offices of a political opponent, for instance.

Furthermore, I don't accept your categorizations of my thinking. According to your statements, I am either:

1. naive
2. partisan
3. hopelessly unrealistic

Isn't there room for one to both acknowledge the failings of our leaders/system yet still strive for a higher standard?

First and foremost we are not talking about anything illegal in trying to push people to accomplish tasks prior to the election.

Second, it goes well beyond a case of "they all do that" as it's a case of "they all do that and it doesn't hurt the process". If the increased pressure works, is that not good for the country? If it doesn't, was it somehow wrong? No, I don't think so.

Every political campaign times the launch of every press release for maximum bang. Is this a failing of our system? How do you propose that this be controlled? Should we put a silence period into effect around each party's convention and hold the news till afterwards? Shall we set time limits on how quickly news can be released around conventions(or nearer the election)?

There is already a mechanism to control this behavior and that's our votes. You see a politician (or his campaign) doing something you disagree with and you don't vote for him.

As I stated in the opening post, no crime has been committed. Thanks for reiterating that.

Simply releasing a press briefing is a little different then sculpting foreign policy for maximum effect. There is illegal wrong and there is dirty trick wrong. Just because something does not fall into the former category doesn't disqualify it for inclusion in the latter.

How do I propose that we control this? With the very mechanism that you described: our votes. This is exact reason that I'm bringing this to everyone's attention.

To be frank, I'm less concerned with the actual events that were referenced in this post then by the lackadaisical attitude towards deception that I've been encountering. How far does a leader have to go before they cross the line?

Here's another theory, the Kerry media got a unconfirmed report that a high level Al Queada operative got captured in Pakistan. Knowing that this news might break during the Democratic Convention and steal some of Kerry's thunder they {the liberal media} make up a story about the Bush administration putting pressure on Pakistan so it appears that the Bush administration is playing politics with the news when or if in fact the report is confirmed.

Yup it's out there, just as the other theories being expressed are.

The truth is actually probably more to the middle, Pakistan has been under pressure from Washington for a long, long time. This is probably why they have had their military up in the mountains conducting raids for months. It was probably a tremendous stroke of luck that they caught this fellow when they did. The Pakastanis probably don't give a rat's ass it was during the Democratic Convention, their just glad it's one less thing Washington has to bitch about.

That ignores all the unnamed sources and the breaking of the original story, so your "liberal media" theory actually makes more sense, believe it or not. Now, you could more credibly argue that Pakistan had planted the story for some reason, but that still doesn't make much sense.

So comparing it to burglary has what to do with the discussion?

I didn't compare it to burglary...I simply used burglary as an example of a political extreme that doesn't fall into your category of "they all do it."

To restate the question in my earlier post, how much is too much? Where do you draw the line?

If this is just about the Bush administration stepping up pressure before an election, then, I don't see a problem here. After all, he wants to get elected, and whether or not he is I'd like to see OBL and Co. caught. The problem would arise if the administration had been dragging its feet earlier and NOT catching guys so they could scoop them up in the next couple of months. Notice that not even unnamed sources are claiming this is the case.

Absolutely. This whole thing is a non-issue. No criminality. Not even anything unethical IMO. Oh well, to each his own.

Well the assumption is that if the Pakistani's can deliver on a schedule we give them, they could have delivered on earlier scheduling. And if we give them a schedule by way of political agenda, then any attacks that this particular HVT was involved in the planning or executing of prior to capture (not much in America, but jesus shit look at Iraq) were enriched by his involvement and, therefor, casualty lists were higher than they could have been on account of his freedom, or the administrations political agenda as it were.

Ehhhh yeah, it's worth another post.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.j...toryID=5852866

So basically we also got high terror alerts on the tail end of the DNC because of this bust, and our best intelligence couldn't figure out that this is older than 9/11 before they have Tom Ridge put out terror warnings.

On the upshot, they were right about the "financial targets."

How long before the 9/11 attacks do you think recon reports were generated? The fact that information is "old" has no relevance. They are "unsure if the group's surveillance continues" which is a far cry from knowing that it doesn't. Despite the ridiculous assertions that these terror alerts are Bush's way of campaigning, they can't NOT do something based on this information.

As far as your claims that the increased pressure to deliver somehow equates to previous feet dragging, that's a mighty big leap to a conclusion. Do you think, maybe just maybe, it's possible that we are getting closer to capturing people after all our efforts and an increased push is warranted? Even if you don't believe that's true at this point do you at least admit that it's a possibility?

I consider the "World Trade Center" to have been a financial target, and for the administration to take al Qaeda's pre-9/11 recon and come out and say "We've got specific info that financial center's are being targeted," I think it's absurd. The age of that info, then, does have relevance.

Yeah, it's possible that this is a big effort for them. But I prefer to lend at least some credibility to the article at the head of this thread and come to the conclusion that hand picked dates that have political advantage might not be picked for strategic reasons (except in the case of Art's notion that a single Com-in-Chief throughout 8 years is strategic, which is true).

So since they already targeted a financial institution that must be it then? They couldn't possibly target another? OBL and others have stated that financial centers are a primary foundation for American globalization and the support of Israel.

As stated previously, it takes a long time to plan such things and being three years old means little when you consider the fact that the intelligence used to accomplish the 9/11 attacks had elements at least this old.

No matter how you slice it, they can not stand idly by while a possible attack is imminent.