[lbo-talk] a Bob Herbert bot

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Mon May 8 00:53:33 PDT 2006


On Fri, 5 May 2006, Doug Henwood wrote:


> The most amazing thing about this is that someone took the trouble to read
> all those Bob Herbert columns. God, is he dull.

It's true. But always when I'm about to put him on permanent skip (instead of skim) he does something to make me like him again simply for having his heart in the right place. Like today, when he became the most prominent media figure to mention Jonathan Tasini, and probably gave him more publicity than the rest of his campaign put together.

Michael

========

The New York Times

May 8, 2006

Op-Ed Columnist

Clarity vs. Celebrity

By BOB HERBERT

Few people have ever heard of Jonathan Tasini. He's a low-key labor

organizer and writer from Upper Manhattan who is trying to piece

together a primary challenge to the re-election bid of Senator Hillary

Rodham Clinton, primarily because of her stance on the Iraq war.

Mr. Tasini is against the war and wants American troops pulled out of

Iraq forthwith.

Senator Clinton's position is well, that's a problem. It's not at all

clear what Senator Clinton's position is. And for a Democratic Party

that has suffered a succession of brutal defeats with excessively

cautious candidates, Mrs. Clinton's indecisiveness on the war may be a

hint of yet another disaster in the making.

Mr. Tasini is not so deluded that he thinks he can hijack the

Democratic Senate nomination from Mrs. Clinton. He said, "People often

ask me, 'Don't you think this race is impossible?' My answer is, 'Of

course! You're dealing with someone who has enormous name recognition

and celebrity.' "

But celebrity, he said, is no substitute for an honest and vigorous

debate on a matter as fundamentally important as war.

Mr. Tasini favors a withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq as quickly

as possible, within several months at most. What is more important

than whether his timetable is feasible is his insistence that the

Democratic Party needs to come to grips with this war. "What makes us

different from Republicans?" he asked. "Where is the soul of the

Democratic Party if we do not stand against immoral, illegal wars?

Pre-emptive wars."

After more than three years of fighting and more than 2,400 American

deaths, you still need a magnifying glass to locate the differences

between Mrs. Clinton and the Bush administration on the war. It's

true, as the senator argues, that she has been a frequent and

sometimes harsh critic of the way the war has been conducted. In a

letter to constituents last fall she wrote, "I have continually raised

doubts about the president's claims, lack of planning and execution of

the war, while standing firmly in support of our troops."

But in terms of overall policy, she seems to be right there with Bush,

Cheney, Condi et al. She does not regret her vote to authorize the

invasion, and still believes the war can be won. Her view of the

ultimate goal in Iraq, as her staffers reiterated last week, is the

establishment of a viable government capable of handling its own

security, thus enabling the U.S. to reduce its military presence and

eventually leave.

That sounds pretty much the same as President Bush's mantra: "Our

strategy in Iraq is that as the Iraqis stand up, we'll stand down."

What that means is that there is no end to the war in sight.

Other prominent Democrats have belatedly changed their tune on Iraq.

Senator John Kerry has called for a complete withdrawal of American

combat troops by the end of the year. His running mate in the 2004

presidential election, former Senator John Edwards, declared last fall

that "it was a mistake to vote for this war in 2002."

But as yet there is no full-throated public debate, much less anything

approaching a consensus, within the party on Iraq. Democrats are still

paranoid about being perceived as soft on national security.

With superhawk Republicans like John McCain and Rudy Giuliani making

their way toward the starting gate for the 2008 White House run, the

terminally timid Democrats continue to obsess about what they ought to

be saying, neurotically analyzing every syllable they hesitantly

utter, as opposed to simply saying what they really believe.

Aides who are close to Mrs. Clinton suggested last week that she might

be holding her fire, waiting until a new Iraqi government is

established before speaking more openly and candidly about the war.

That remains to be seen. Meanwhile, the dying continues. As I was

wrapping up the last of the interviews for this column on Friday, word

came in that three more American soldiers had been killed in Iraq.

As a member of the Armed Services Committee and the early front-runner

for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, Mrs. Clinton has a

special obligation to Democratic voters. They deserve much better

leadership than they've been getting from their party on President

Bush's mindless trillion-dollar tragedy in Iraq.



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