John Podhoretz is the son of Norman Podhoretz, editor of Commentry and, way back in the middle 1970s, one of  the "intellectual" fathers of the Neoconservative movement.  

Anyway, here's a column by Poddy the Younger, a clear pre-emptive strike against the not-yet-released report of the Iraq Study Group.

Some excerpts :

WITLESS 'WISDOM'
BAKER'S WORTHLESS IRAQ ADVICE

Baker: His answer is always to appease Arab dictators.

December 1, 2006 -- YES, it's been quite a week for the 10 members of the Iraq Study Group, the committee formed last spring to offer recommendations on a path forward in Iraq.

They had a wonderfully invigorating leak session the other day with The New York Times... Co-chairmen James "Is There An Arab Dictator Nearby Whose Butt I Can Kiss" Baker and Lee "Yes, I'm Still Alive" Hamilton didn't even bother to pretend to brief the president or key lawmakers first.

The president could wait his turn... Even the mighty Times was probably kept waiting for its leak, since the only person who could not be kept waiting was Annie Leibovitz, celebrity photographer...

[Witless personal attack].

...

The value of Annie Leibovitz's pictorial scoop might have been reduced somewhat when the president scornfully consigned the Iraq Study Group to the ash-heap of history yesterday with a single dismissive sentence during his press conference in Jordan: "This business about 'graceful exit' just simply has no realism to it whatsoever."

[Well, if POTUS Bush is capable of  any degree of introspection, anything which "...has no realism to it whatsoever" is a topic about which he can wax poetic, and eloquent, and at painful length].

Baker, Hamilton and their crew of old Washington hands (and I mean old, like Metheuselah-level old) are recommending a "gradual pullback" of American troops but without a timetable. That basically translates into a nice, long, slow defeat - the "graceful exit" of which the president spoke so harshly.

[BTW, does Poddy the Younger realize that both Baker and Hamilton are younger than his aged and uber-egregious dad?]

As one of the study group's members told the Times yesterday, "We had to move the national debate from 'whether to stay the course' to 'how do we start down the path out'."

This is the consensus view of the Iraq Study Group, which is very proud that it reached consensus.

Its members also reached a consensus view that Depends is a really fine brand of adult diaper, and that they love reruns of "Murder, She Wrote."

[Is Poddy the younger so insecure about the worth of his argument that this is all he can resort to?]

You perhaps note that I am writing with extreme disrespect toward the Iraq Study Group. That's because its report is a scandal and an embarrassment; it's flatly immoral to seek to make or guide policy in this fashion.

[And because a spectre is haunting AIPAC-land?  The thought that the ISG might be in mind to grease the skuds for Israel?  Naw, of course not - but read on].

Look, if its members believe the war is lost, they should say so. They should bite the bullet and advocate a pullout of American forces sooner rather than later.

[Which you will of course no doubt find fault with as well?]

If its members could not actually achieve consensus on that point - if, in other words, some of its members still believe the war can be won while others believe there's no way to achieve victory - then it was simple vanity on the part of the Gang of 10 that led to the creation of a "consensus" document that split the difference.

There's no way to split the difference, unless you're hurrying off to have your mug immortalized by Annie Leibovitz and want to bang down the gavel so you can get plenty of time to get hair and makeup done.

America and its allies are either going to win this war or we're going to lose. We will either conclude our military actions in Iraq with terrorists and insurgents dead or fled and an imposition of civil order in the country by its elected government, or we will turn tail and leave the place in chaos and ruins.

[Allies?  What alies?  We don't have no stinkin' allies on this one.  Unless, of course, you're thinking of The Ally Whose Name Dare Never Be Mentioned In Connection With Iraq?]

What's even more appalling, if true, is the group's other key recommendation - which is that America should try to find answers to its problems through an international conference that would include Syria and Iran.

[well, I've got to conceed this one - not very likely to get much constructively from those two malefactors].

What do Syria and Iran want more than anything else in the world? To see an American defeat in Iraq. To see an America so crippled that they can work their will in the Middle East without fear of retribution. Syria could swallow up Lebanon whole once again. Iran could do whatever it chooses inside and outside its borders (develop and peddle nuclear weaponry, sponsor terrorism against Israeli and Western targets) with impunity.

[I thought it was the detruction of Israel that they pined for above all else.  Get you disinformation straight please].

They're going to be a great help. But then, that's Baker for you. Give him a problem and he'll tell you your best hope of solving it can be found in sucking up to an Arab dictator.

[As opposed to kowtowing to AIPAC?  And getting slapped in the face  for all your trouble?  And being expected to like and and to come back for more?  Repeatedly?]

But why would his potentate pals agree to help us with our graceful exit? Well, because we'll force Israel to give away, well, Israel to the Palestinians, of course.

[At last.  Poddy the Younger has finally played his hole card.  But we knew what it was all along.]

Oops. Another problem: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert this week said yet again that if the Palestinians would only stop shooting missiles and kidnapping soldiers and such, Israel would destroy settlements and pull back from occupied lands and recognize a Palestinian state - and give the Palestinians money and kiss their cheeks and fall on their knees and have a big hootenanny.

[Poor Ehud.  If anyone can be described as looking like "the deer in the headlights" it's this poor sap.   Of course, Israelis often speak with forked tongue, so forgive the Pallys and the Arabs if they're not overcome with gratitude and this last-ditch emergency effort to perserve some of Israel's ill-gotten booty].

So there's not much that even James Baker can demand of Israel that Israel's not already willing to give. Except maybe Jerusalem. Yeah: Israel can give up Jerusalem, and in exchange, Iran and Syria will leave Iraq alone.

[Oh, so Israel isn't discomforted and in any way inconvenienced, the US should continue to waste lives and resources for the indefinite future in Iraq in pursuit of some ill-defined,  open-ended political chimera?   No prob, Poddy.  Glad to sacrifice for you.  Just as long as it's clear on whose ultimate behalf these sacrifices are being demaned.  And made].

Please stop laughing at the doddering old fools now. It's disrespectfu

This is an extremely dire situation. Half-measures will be disastrous, whatever form they take - and that's not true only of the Baker-Hamilton "graceful exit" disaster. Continuing as we're going would also constitute a half-measure with disastrous results as well.

The president treated the Baker half-measures with the contempt they deserved. But he will deserve precisely the same level of contempt if he doesn't champion a plan for victory immediately.



Dedicated with happiness at the Return of the Prodigal Poster [DocGonzo].


http://www.nypost.com/seven/12012006/postopinion/opedcolumnists/witless_wisdom_opedcolumnists_john_podhoretz.htm?page=0


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-- Modified on 12/3/2006 11:19:26 AM

-- Modified on 12/3/2006 11:26:50 AM