The Cherry Orchard

Here’s an amazing fact: according to every USA television news show I watched yesterday, including ABC World News Tonight with Charles Gibson, Nightline, The O’Reilly Factor on Fox News and yes, even my favorite, Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC, there is nothing much going on in the Gaza Strip at all. No story. No coverage.

I caught a few moments of video footage from Gaza, finally, on Fox’s Hannity and Colmes, where they used the video as an opportunity to deliver some dumb cliches about Hamas as an irrational “death cult” that supports the use of pregnant women as suicide bombers. I guess the “right to life” angle is what got the story some TV time on Fox, which is more than it’s getting anywhere else.

I don’t even have a theory as to why this big story is being ignored on TV (thankfully, my local newspaper the New York Times is doing a better job). I don’t see that this disinterest serves any political agenda. Maybe the only explanation is an existential one. When real news happens — events that are shocking and upsetting, like a military takeover by a fundamentalist political organization in a massively overpopulated and depressed region of a horribly war-town part of the world — our journalistic community is stunned into silence. I’m guessing they’ll start reporting this news by Wednesday of next week or so, at which point they can begin using the safe past tense instead of the scary present tense.

I don’t praise the Bush/Cheney administration often in these pages, but I am glad to hear of a meeting that signals a positive new change in USA foreign policy. For the first time in decades, there has been a high-level meeting of US ambassadors and Iranian ambassadors over the future of Iraq.

Some may question why I want my country to begin an open dialogue with a hostile nation that is escalating the world’s nuclear arms race as well as spreading deeply offensive lies about the history of Germany’s genocidal campaign against Jews during World War II. Well, no matter how offensive another nation, organization or person is, I believe the best policy is to keep an open dialogue with that nation, organization or person. Talking doesn’t hurt. And even if the lies flow on all sides, some truths might sneak out as well.

I watched coverage of today’s talks on both CNN (which welcomed the development) and Fox News (which presented one commentator saying that we should not honor Iran with a high-level meeting since they are clearly working to destabilize Iraq). Another commentator correctly pointed out that it is the USA-led coalition in Iraq that Iran is trying to destabilize, not “Iraq” itself — their goal in Iraq is clearly to support a Shiite-dominated government that offers fewer concessions to the Sunni majority than the coalition government offers. It’s a fact that they are arming our enemies. But we should not make the mistake of believing Iran is motivated by a love of “chaos” or violence. Iran’s policy is entirely pragmatic and, for their interests, sensible. Iran is a Shiite nation, and they back Iraq’s Shiite majority for obvious reasons.

Let the talks begin. I hope there is a follow-up session soon, and I’ll be sure to cover it here when there is.

Probably the most dramatic moment during last night’s Fox News Republican debate: Rudy Giuliani criticizing outlier candidate Ron Paul for suggesting that the 1991 invasion of Iraq was a primary cause for the September 11 attacks. Here’s Fox’s record of the moment:

“That’s really an extraordinary statement,” Giuliani said, interrupting FOX News panelist Wendell Goler. “That’s really an extraordinary statement, as someone who lived through the attack of Sept. 11, that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq. I don’t think I have ever heard that before and I have heard some pretty absurd explanations for Sept. 11. I would ask the congressman withdraw that comment and tell us that he didn’t really mean that.”

All the other candidates then clamored for a chance to echo Giuliani’s strong condemnation of Ron Paul. Here’s the only problem: what Paul said is a simple historical fact. It’s not even a contested fact. Every serious history of the events leading up to the September 11 attacks agrees that Saudi rich kid Osama Bin Laden formed Al Qaeda as a direct response to the arrival of USA troops in Saudi Arabia to reverse Saddam Hussein’s occupation of Kuwait in 1991. This isn’t something only lefties and Democrats say — it’s something every credible historian is in agreement on. It’s also one of the main points of Lawrence Wright’s bestselling book The Looming Tower, widely considered the most authoritative (and non-partisan) history of Al Qaeda.

So, if Giuliani is standing there with a straight face saying “I don’t think I have ever heard that before and I have heard some pretty absurd explanations for Sept. 11″ we must conclude that he has not read Lawrence Wright’s book or any other history of Al Qaeda. And yet he believes he has the ability to lead our country’s absolutely critical battle against this enemy — from a position of ignorance about the history of this enemy, one can only assume.

Fighting an enemy from a position of ignorance about that enemy: I thought that was George Bush and Dick Cheney’s unique style, and I thought our country had at least learned the lesson that we need to understand our enemies better before we engage them in battle.

I guess not. The fact that John McCain and other candidates praised Giuliani’s dramatic criticism of truth-teller Ron Paul is pretty disturbing. My respect for a few of these candidates has just dropped a couple of notches. America cannot afford any more military leadership by politicians too haughty or proud to know the basic facts of their enemy’s history.

So the Scooter Libby verdict is in. Like many Americans, I am happy to hear that Dick Cheney’s former Chief of Staff has been found guilty (and I’m happy to rub this in Fox News’ face by displaying their write-up of this news). But, of course, the wrong guy is going to jail.

Scooter Libby lied under oath about the justification for the Iraq War, and he’s now facing up to 25 years in jail. Libby’s boss also lied repeatedly to the American people about the justification for the Iraq War, but since he did not lie “under oath” he doesn’t face criminal charges for perjury.

It sure seems to me that anytime a United States Vice President speaks to the American people about a decision to go to war, his words are “under oath”. What oath? Gee, I don’t know … the oath of office, maybe? It’s sad to see a hapless bureaucrat like Scooter Libby face jail time for his boss’s crime, based on the technicality that he lied under oath whereas his boss simply lied.

Enough about that. I still hope — naively, perhaps — to see both Dick Cheney and George W. Bush eventually cooling their heels in minimum security prison for their dishonest and harmful leadership of our country’s foreign policy. But maybe I need to let go of my anger and think about where this country will head next. This is a subject I touched on in a brief piece I just wrote for the PBS blog, Remotely Connected.

The subject of this article is an engaging documentary about an earnest but underfinanced young politician named Jeff Smith trying to beat the odds and get nominated by his Missouri district’s Democratic party to run for U. S. Congress. Does money really count for everything in modern electoral politics? If not, why do we hear so much about certain candidates “locking up” their nominations by fund-raising? If not, why did Tom Vilsack give up? If not, why does the press coverage speak of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama as the only two viable Democratic Party presidential candidates?

I don’t want the race for the 2008 Democratic Party presidential nomination to be “locked up” in fundraising bonanzas. I want at least ten candidates in this race. I want to hear debates — big, loud, angry, intellectually substantial debates. I want John Edwards to keep throwing curve balls. I want to get Al Gore back in the game (and if I could choose any favorite among them all at this point, Al’s my man). I even want to get Yellin’ Howard Dean and John “Investigate and Indict” Murtha into the mix.

It’s only March 2007, and our two front-runners for the Democratic nomination are already too bland, too careful, too poll-conscious for my tastes. Voters, let’s reject the idea of an early victor and demand a better race.

Of course, bringing this whole thing back to my earliest point of the article, I have to say that I don’t think the next American president will be a Democrat. I’m guessing the next President will be a Republican — John McCain, perhaps, or Tom Ridge, or Condoleeza Rice. That’s because I’m still guessing (and hoping) that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney will be out of Washington D. C. and safely ensconced with Scooter Libby and a bunch of other felons in a minimum security prison sometime before the next Presidential election takes place. I’m still guessing Cheney will resign and go to jail first, and whoever Bush picks to replace Cheney will be our next President, because I think Bush will resign and go to jail soon after.

So our next President will be a Republican. But the winner of the 2008 Presidential election will be a Democrat. You heard it here first.

You may have seen or heard about the controversial Bill Clinton interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News in which the former President scolded the conservative journalist for suggesting that Clinton did not do enough to combat Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda during his eight-year presidency.

The video is 10:01 minutes long but worth it (it gets real good around 5:47). Once you’ve watched this video, check out Keith Olbermann’s brave words about this altercation. Well said, Keith.

I’d like to add another perspective to the discussion of Bill Clinton’s legacy against terrorism. I haven’t heard others mention this recently, but it’s a fact that Clinton’s record as a peacemaker in the Middle East was second only to Jimmy Carter’s.

When Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin shook the hand of Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat in 1993, that was the inspired work of Bill Clinton and his team, including Secretary of State Warren Christopher and U. S. Envoy to the Middle East Dennis Ross, whose thick history book The Missing Peace provides an enlightening look at the hard, hard work it takes to end wars.

Do you remember the 1993 Rabin/Arafat handshake? All Americans felt proud at that moment, because our country had helped to bring about a change towards greater global understanding and justice. How far we’ve come since then!

Peace had been a growing trend (though a rocky road) in the Middle East during the years leading up to September 11 2001. The attacks on that day were a strike against the momentum towards peace. Those who loved war found eager partners in the George W. Bush/Dick Cheney administration, and the rest is history.