Plameing Out

(Ed-duh-tor's note: This is the best writing I have seen on the recent developments in the Valerie Plame story. It's written by Christopher Hitchens and posted on Slate.com. For those who like insider politics stuff -- especially those who assume that everyone in the Administration is lockstep behind the president -- this is worth the read.)


I had a feeling that I might slightly regret the title ("Case Closed") of my July 25 column on the Niger uranium story. I have now presented thousands of words of evidence and argument to the effect that, yes, the Saddam Hussein regime did send an important Iraqi nuclear diplomat to Niger in early 1999. And I have not so far received any rebuttal from any source on this crucial point of contention. But there was always another layer to the Joseph Wilson fantasy. Easy enough as it was to prove that he had completely missed the West African evidence that was staring him in the face, there remained the charge that his nonreport on a real threat had led to a government-sponsored vendetta against him and his wife, Valerie Plame.

In his July 12 column in the Washington Post, Robert Novak had already partly exposed this paranoid myth by stating plainly that nobody had leaked anything, or outed anyone, to him. On the contrary, it was he who approached sources within the administration and the CIA and not the other way around. But now we have the final word on who did disclose the name and occupation of Valerie Plame, and it turns out to be someone whose opposition to the Bush policy in Iraq has—like Robert Novak's—long been a byword in Washington. It is particularly satisfying that this admission comes from two of the journalists—Michael Isikoff and David Corn—who did the most to get the story wrong in the first place and the most to keep it going long beyond the span of its natural life.

As most of us have long suspected, the man who told Novak about Valerie Plame was Richard Armitage, Colin Powell's deputy at the State Department and, with his boss, an assiduous underminer of the president's war policy. (His and Powell's—and George Tenet's—fingerprints are all over Bob Woodward's "insider" accounts of post-9/11 policy planning, which helps clear up another nonmystery: Woodward's revelation several months ago that he had known all along about the Wilson-Plame connection and considered it to be no big deal.) The Isikoff-Corn book, which is amusingly titled Hubris, solves this impossible problem of its authors' original "theory" by restating it in a passive voice:

The disclosures about Armitage, gleaned from interviews with colleagues, friends and lawyers directly involved in the case, underscore one of the ironies of the Plame investigation: that the initial leak, seized on by administration critics as evidence of how far the White House was willing to go to smear an opponent, came from a man who had no apparent intention of harming anyone.

In the stylistic world where disclosures are gleaned and ironies underscored, the nullity of the prose obscures the fact that any irony here is only at the authors' expense. It was Corn in particular who asserted—in a July 16, 2003, blog post credited with starting the entire distraction—that:

The Wilson smear was a thuggish act. Bush and his crew abused and misused intelligence to make their case for war. Now there is evidence Bushies used classified information and put the nation's counter-proliferation efforts at risk merely to settle a score. It is a sign that with this gang politics trumps national security.

After you have noted that the Niger uranium connection was in fact based on intelligence that has turned out to be sound, you may also note that this heated moral tone ("thuggish," "gang") is now quite absent from the story. It turns out that the person who put Valerie Plame's identity into circulation was a staunch foe of regime change in Iraq. Oh, that's all right, then. But you have to laugh at the way Corn now so neutrally describes his own initial delusion as one that was "seized on by administration critics."

What does emerge from Hubris is further confirmation of what we knew all along: the extraordinary venom of the interdepartmental rivalry that has characterized this administration. In particular, the bureaucracy at the State Department and the CIA appear to have used the indiscretion of Armitage to revenge themselves on the "neoconservatives" who had been advocating the removal of Saddam Hussein. Armitage identified himself to Colin Powell as Novak's source before the Fitzgerald inquiry had even been set on foot. The whole thing could—and should—have ended right there.

But now read this and rub your eyes: William Howard Taft, the State Department's lawyer who had been told about Armitage (and who had passed on the name to the Justice Department) also felt obligated to inform White House counsel Alberto Gonzales. But Powell and his aides feared the White House would then leak that Armitage had been Novak's source—possibly to embarrass State Department officials who had been unenthusiastic about Bush's Iraq policy. So Taft told Gonzales the bare minimum: that the State Department had passed some information about the case to Justice. He didn't mention Armitage. Taft asked if Gonzales wanted to know the details. The president's lawyer, playing the case by the book, said no, and Taft told him nothing more.

"[P]laying the case by the book" is, to phrase it mildly, not the way in which Isikoff and Corn customarily describe the conduct of the White House. In this instance, however, the evidence allows them no other choice. But there is more than one way in which a case can be played by the book. Under the terms of the appalling and unconstitutional Intelligence Identities Protection Act (see "A Nutty Little Law," my Slate column of July 26, 2005), the CIA can, in theory, "refer" any mention of itself to the Justice Department to see if the statute—denounced by The Nation and the New York Times when it was passed—has been broken. The bar here is quite high. Perhaps for that reason, Justice sat on the referral for two months after Novak's original column. But then, rather late in the day, at the end of September 2003, then-CIA Director George Tenet himself sent a letter demanding to know whether the law had been broken.

The answer to that question, as Patrick Fitzgerald has since determined, is "no." But there were plenty of senior people who had known that all along. And can one imagine anybody with a stronger motive to change the subject from CIA incompetence and to present a widely discredited agency as, instead, a victim, than Tenet himself? The man who kept the knowledge of the Minnesota flight schools to himself and who was facing every kind of investigation and obloquy finally saw a chance to change the subject. If there is any "irony" in the absurd and expensive and pointless brouhaha that followed, it is that he was abetted in this by so many who consider themselves "radical."

Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair. His most recent book is Thomas Jefferson: Author of America.

Reality TV Gets Gonged

A while back when the cast of Cheers decided to hold NBC hostage for what was at the time the highest per episode pay scale, studio executives – ever quick to pick up on a trend – realized they were in trouble. I wasn’t there, so I don’t know for sure, but there was likely an emergency meeting called among all the 13-year-old network executives to come up with a plan to spend less money on television programming, taste be damned.

One can assume ideas were tossed around such as using live ammunition in crime dramas, people really dying in hospital dramas, or perhaps very funny mass executions in sitcoms. As with all good art, the lawyers more than likely got in the way, citing some arcane law about killing off the actors. In the midst of their confusion, there must have been a single voice in the darkness who said, “What if there were no actors?” There were probably a lot of harummphs and tut-tutting, but soon nobody could find a flaw in the plan. Well, maybe it would be nice to assume there was at least one objection on artistic and entertainment grounds but, hey, this is Hollywood and there would be no Hollywood ending for what television programming would become.

Using the theory that average people will do anything to be on television – eat worms, dress like the opposite sex, move in with a house of strangers and do a lot of crying, etc. – reality television was born, and the slow death of quality entertainment hastened.

This isn’t to say there aren’t some shows worth watching, and I’ll leave it up to others to debate the merits of each of these shows, but the bottom line is that networks are making billions off of the millions of Americans without shame. But there is good news. Just last week concluded a new show, America Has Talent, which answered two questions: America doesn’t have talent and the pool of new show ideas is drying up.

Never fear as I have a number of new shows rattling around my head (which, I admit, doesn’t leave room for much else). At least one of these new and improved ideas will be coming to a network near you soon as the executives, the lost boys of a lost generation, comb the Internet looking for inspiration to steal.

So here are a few:

In keeping with America Has Talent, how about one that more people can qualify and identify with, such as America Has a Penis? Haven’t worked out how to prove the contestants’ eligibility yet but, hey, I am Creative, that’s Legal’s problem.

I was watching The Girls Next door the other day. It offers a lot to Humanity by showcasing an 80-year-old Hugh Hefner with a half dozen girl friends ranging in age from 18 to 22. It’s amazing how much Hef sees these girls for the true inner value beneath the silicon. Now, would it be such a stretch if there was a sequel to this with the same name, but starring James Mark Karr. Let that one roll around in your head a while, oh lurking network exec.

Athletes are changing the way we view them, why not view them on television in a way that rewards body-building enhancements and cheating? How about a show that puts a number of steroid-using football players in a dorm setting equipped with state of the art weight room facility and, just to make it interesting, provide a $1 million prize to the athlete who is the strongest, fastest, best built and scariest one of the bunch. Each week the number of contestants would be reduced through a vote of television viewers or through natural causes such as heart attacks, fatal beatings and drug overdose. Let’s call the show “Roid Rage”.

ESPN could carry a show that mixes popular sports such as baseball, football or basketball where the rule book is tossed out. In basketball, a player would be given unlimited fouls and could use whatever means necessary to stop an opponent. Very quickly Ron Artest would be a top player and Charles Oakley would get signed by Isaiah Thomas to a contract that would exceed the budget of not just the New York Knicks, but the City of New York (and then Thomas would hide in the basement of the Garden because he knows Oak would have to kill him on general principles).

I could suggest similar shows in baseball or football, but there may be no obvious difference between what they are now and what they would look like without rules. Certainly once you get to 100 home runs in a baseball season or a linebacker kills his seventh quarterback, there will no longer be any sport left in the sport.

One has to give MTV appropriate credit for its role in furthering reality TV. After all, the mind-numbed geniuses at this goofball network gave us “The Real World.” Seriously, how real can the world be when everyone on the show is selected on the basis or race, sexual orientation and willingness to drink, cry, complain, throw about slurs on command and generally be a failure at life? And then several cameras are thrown in and the people are asked to “act natural.” I propose a show that really is real. Stick cameras in the homes of unwitting families and let’s watch them fight, write out checks for the car insurance, write their blog (everyone has one by now) and sit in front of the television watching reality TV. This show may be as close to reality as it gets.

My kids will probably say that I am just old-fashioned and still too caught up with shows that can only be seen on Nick At Night. But my generation was there at the start of the sitcom and it grew from the silly (and often funny) shows such as The Beverly Hillbillies, Gilligan’s Island, and Green Acres, to the creative and witty shows like Mary Tyler Moore, Bob Newhart, All In The Family, Mash, St. Elsewhere, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, Taxi and eventually Cheers.

We had our bombs, to be sure, and the new generation of shows should have taken its cue from the first “talent” reality show and called it a day. As with the talentless Gong Show, these new network executives wouldn’t have lasted thirty seconds before the lovely Jaye P. Morgan grabbed the gong hammer and sent them all home early.

Rough Water Ahead

Ed-duh-tor's note: My buds were not in the La Jolla Rough Water but at a near equally crazy event in which they swam 1000 meters and then ran a 5K. They survived and lived to tell about it. See Sladed Blog for details and pictures of the surprisingly in shape old men: http://sladed.blogspot.com/2006/08/aquathlon.html

Sunday between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. my soon to be former best friends will become shark bait. Oh the horror of it all. They will swim in the La Jolla Rough Water Swim, a one-mile race at the Cove in La Jolla. De Woppo and Mr. Sladed will make this bold athletic try for the first time in decades. We all did it as studly young males, but I only tried it once (if I hadn't worn goggles and seen "shadowy things" lurking beneath me, I may have done it again).

In all truth, I wish I was there to join them. Alas, they are in shape and I am not. I am working on it, but they have each other to push themselves and I just have a hyper doctor and old lawyer to swim with up here. Just finishing will be good enough, but it will be interesting to see their times. Guys, please post them on here when you're done. Good luck and don't wear goggles or keep live bait in your Speedo.

No Vote Of Confidence

There were mixed reviews from my readership on the relevancy of political posts. Perhaps the following bit of political flexibility will be refreshing to those who don’t agree with my political punditry, and eye-opening to those who like political posts and also likely agree with most of my views.

This is difficult for me, but here is what I want to say: the republicans don’t deserve to run our government past this November.

This isn’t to suggest the democrats will do any better. But republicans have simply done nothing to warrant a mandate to lead any longer, and a few years on the back bench may be about the only thing that will wake them up. And even on this I am not sure, as their inability to lead in even minimal ways is impossible to notice.

While it can be said that Congressional (or at least House) republicans stopped the president (and democrats) on a hopeless immigration policy, they were neither forceful nor consistent in doing so. I can’t even be sure they would have stopped the immigration lunacy if the public and talk radio hadn’t made so much noise that it eventually drowned out the terribly misguided marches for what essentially was illegal immigration. And the worse part of it was, they had to override the president – the top of their own party – just to give us what we already have: one very lousy immigration policy.

On the issue of rising fuel costs, the republicans are AWOL too. How many people would have given the president and republicans a pat on the back if only they had suggested a Manhattan-Project-like program to find alternative sources for energy? We built a city in Tennessee and then an atomic bomb in 23 months, why on earth haven’t we been able to find something other then dead dinosaur innards to put in our gas tanks? There has been absolutely no leadership from republicans on alternative energy and instead, it looks to the average person like republicans are only protecting their Big Oil friends.

When President Bush took office, he inherited a budget surplus and an economy that was creating jobs. Sure, the dot com bubble had just burst to be shortly replaced by the mortgage-based economy and subsequent burst, but false economies aside, the federal purse was overflowing in early 2001. Five budgets later and we’re back in the hole to the tune of trillions of dollars as the republican-led Congress and our compassionate conservative president have spent like drunken sailors. Yes the war on terror has cost money and yes our economy took a hit following 9/11, but there is no excuse for the kinds of excess spending that has occurred on the republican’s watch.

Perhaps the most disheartening turn in the party has been in its truly whacko foreign policy. From Iraq to Lebanon to Latin America, it’s like watching the Seinfeld episode when Elaine is in the Bizarro World. The push has been for democratization but instead of getting freely elected, friendly governments, we’ve legitimized terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, radical groups in Iraq and Iran, and propped up fraudulent governments in Ukraine, Republic of Georgia, Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan. At the same time we have continued to get into bed with heartless dictators because of the tired policy that states, “an enemy of my enemy is a friend of mine.”

The republicans think the wolf is at the door in the Middle East but they don’t seem to notice that the wolf has opened the back door and moved in to the spare bedroom in Latin America. Hugo Chavez has turned Latin America into his own political experiment and we do nothing as one country after another falls into his leftist camp. Well, we seem to have one response to our neighbors to the south. We tell them if they don’t like it down there, we’ll always have room for more up here.

Perhaps the final foreign policy blunder is the monumentally stupid U.N. resolution introducing an international peacekeeping force into Southern Lebanon. This will go down in history as a treaty of appeasement unseen since Munich in 1938. The cast will have changed with Bush playing the role of Neville Chamberlain and the rest of the world as French President Daladier, but the result will be the same: the world will have given in to a weaker power for the sake of pretending we have peace in our time.

You have to know you have a bad deal when you are in the midst of self-congratulation with the French while people in Iran, Syria, Palestine, and southern Lebanon are declaring victory. You think you would notice this if you were the president and his Secretary of State, who continues her live version of the Peter Principle with each passing day. Secretary Rice even had the gal to say the worthless U.N. resolution does not envision the disarming of Hezbollah, which is nothing more than a proxy militia of Syria and Iran. And she said this without a hint of laughter. Of course the ink was barely dry on U.N. Resolution 1559 – proclaiming Hezbollah must be disarmed – before it was washed from the memory of the diplomatic dilettantes in the world.

The state of leadership in the world stinks right now and I’m afraid that President Bush and his fellow republicans are the stinkees. I have no faith in the democrats to do a better job, but they at least seem eager (perhaps the word is “drooling”) to lead again. So let them. Let’s see them put their plans into action. I often wonder what the world would look like today had 250 voters had a sudden change of heart in Florida back in 2000. With Gore as president, what would he have done after 9/11? Would our women be wearing burkas by now or would Gore simply have put the terrorists to sleep with a series of harsh rhetorical speeches? Who knows, but it is an honor to be given a mandate by the voters to lead and not to be taken for granted. The republicans seem to take us for granted and deserve to be taken into the political woodshed for a spell to learn a hard and painful lesson.

Happy Birthday To Me

Yeah, well I know I am going to hear it from the “What About Your Post on the Round Numbers?” crowd, but today marks the one year birthday for Lazlo’s Lament. Without giving this moment any extra due, I thought it would be useful to offer up some facts and statistics about this Blog and what has become (dare I admit) something of a joy for me to write.

Most people may not be aware of why this Blog was started, or why it’s called Lazlo’s Lament. On my first post, I credited the idea to the husband of a long-time friend who suggested the Blogosphere would become the modern-day equivalent of the old town square and be a place to air new ideas and challenges. That reason is only partially true. I began the Blog while in New Zealand and was moved to begin writing by a young Blogger named Anna who we worked with while the Boy and I were there. I think she was only 19 at the time, but had a few years of posts. I was impressed at not only how she was able to express herself, but how many people cared enough to visit her site and post comments. Sadly, she no longer has her Blog as the whims and callousness of politics forced her to discontinue her insightful Blog.

As for why it’s called Lazlo’s Lament, you will have to go back to my August ’05 original post to find out. And, yes, it is a trick to get the reader to look at some of the older posts.

I went back to my archives to be able to provide you with these completely useless stats: I have written 107 entries this past year and there have been 417 comments to my various posts. Of course if you take out the comments by Mr. Sladed and my returned remarks, the number of comments may drop to just a trickle (note: One good thing about this Blog is it started Mr. Sladed on his Blogging experience and I think he has far outdone me in number of posts, comments and better content). Even with the heavily weighted Mr. Sladed comments, many of you have responded to my posts and your thoughts have been at times humorous and other times thoughtful and moving. It’s been such a fun ride that I wish I could do this as a fulltime occupation. And I can. If all of you pay me $500 for each comment you leave, this would be a pretty good paying gig. It would even be better if you commented more. Please think about it. It will keep me off the street.

More useless stats: The month with the most posts was 81 this past April. Don’t ask me why, because I have no idea. Perhaps I begged more for comments that month. Speaking of shameless begging, the most comments for a single post was the famous free IPOD giveaway scam that drew 21 comments from people looking for a free handout. Well, I suppose it was shameless on all sides, what with me begging to be recognized and all. The fewest number of posts was this past July when I wrote only three as I was in a surly mood and didn’t feel like writing. The most posts was the month before with 13 when I suppose I was feeling less surly.

The way I look at it, Lazlo’s Lament has been something of a fragile agreement between my ego and my vulnerable side. I will write something I think is noteworthy only to have no comments, and then write something silly and get comments from far and wide. I fall into long bouts of melancholy when there are no responses and scratch my head when I get 21 comments to unabashed pandering on the fake IPOD post. The fact is, I hear from many of you about a particular post so I know you’re reading, but, have a heart, leave a comment – it doesn’t cost $500 yet. Is that more shameless pandering?

So, I have one request of my dear readers and, OK, I have buried the lead a bit. If it is not too much trouble, please comment on what your favorite posts have been. I have always been curious at not only what you want to read about, but what posts have made any difference at all in your life. If I don’t get any answers then I will know the difference is, well, zero. And this will mean I will have to back off on the $500-per-comment plan. Plus my delicate ego will take a mighty bruising.

A Pet Peeve

I have been in a lot of airport men’s rooms lately. OK, resist the temptation to make the jokes about that. Anyway, the business traveler can be the most annoying person on the planet, especially the ones who have the weird-looking cell phone ear piece sticking out of their heads. Forgive me, but I don’t consider creating a tool that makes it appear as if you’re talking to yourself to be a technological breakthrough.

I don’t know if it’s the same in the lady’s room, but I am getting pretty tired of people talking on their cell phone while in the bathroom. Can they not give it a rest while they – and the people around them – take their call from Nature instead of the accounting office? It’s an invasion of my privacy and I highly doubt the bathroom noises are very interesting to the caller on the other end. Frankly – and I hope I don’t sound like a curmudgeonly old man here – I think it shows absolutely no class or taste to carry on a conversation in the bathroom. Hell, even the acoustics are bad.

I’m all for personal rights, but I’m more for maintaining my personal space. Give it a rest in the restroom!

Out Of Africa

My fan requested more photos of Accra and I don’t want to disappoint. The first one is the beach alongside the city just before a toe dip.

The second is a photo just before my team went to visit the President of Ghana at a building called “The Castle.” It got its name because it was once a Dutch slave castle and has now been converted to something like a White House. Appologies for the poor quality of the photo, but there was a severe penalty for taking photographs of the building -- a point my partner views as only a suggestion. Please note the sharp new jacket and slacks I'm wearing.

The final photo is a shot of the only white guys for miles attempting to bargain with the pros. We’re essentially in a shanty town that sells all kinds of trinkets and clothing and we drew a crowd of sellers hoping to engineer a transfer of relative wealth. I left owing money to one of my fellow travelers that I had to make up with Euros after we landed in Amsterdam.

There were a total of three of us on the trip and I think we were all moved in some way. My partner Greg, who was born with wanderlust, has been in some of the world’s worst shitholes and thoroughly enjoyed the discomfort our Texas partner was having being touched and grabbed at the shanty village. Of course he also took great pleasure in teasing me about my lost luggage so he may be more of a Sadist than originally thought. Tables were later turned on him when the hotel ran out of Diet Coke and he suffered aspartame withdrawal. He was later found sucking on empty packets of Sweet N' Low.

There were two memorable moments for me. One occurred just before we were departing Accra and I was walking around the airport looking for a responsible KLM representative because KLM – not surprisingly – was checking my bags only as far as Amsterdam despite the fact my ticket said Sacramento (fyi – the bag was the first off the luggage belt at Minneapolis and I was first out of customs so I could wait five hours for my connecting flight). As my now best friend airport employee took me from a worthless VIP lounge to the main part of the airport, we meandered through a throng of Ghanaians waiting for friends and relatives to arrive from their travel. While passing one family, a young girl, maybe six years old, reached her hand out and grabbed my forearm and held it for a moment. I stopped, partly out of surprise and partly because I think she was truly curious what a white man felt like and I didn’t want to ruin her science experiment by abruptly pulling back. Her parents scolded her but she didn’t let go for a while. A few seconds later, a young boy did the same thing, also with a curious look in his eye.

I have never been such a curiosity before and it was both humbling and revealing about the differences that exist because of skin color. There were no prejudice or racist motivations involved; just wonder and an honest view of diversity. I was very moved by the moment.

The second memory is the opposite of innocence. My partner and I were intended victims of a live version of the Nigerian e-mail scams. We actually got calls in our hotel rooms from a man telling us, quite convincingly, that we were highly recommended by a reputable person (unnamed, of course) to help him move millions of dollars safely to the U.S. I was fairly curt with him and didn’t let the call go too far, but my partner played along a little and got the guy to agree to come to the hotel and meet with him. Then he waited in the lobby restaurant to see if he showed up. But because the Diet Coke had run out, he soon lost interest. We later found out that someone in the hotel was telling people on the outside where the foreigners were staying and they would just ring our rooms. We asked the hotel to hold our calls.

It looks like I will get to travel to Ghana often and I want to visit a major game reserve to photograph lions, elephants, zebras, hippos, and other assorted African beasts that come in a box of Animal Crackers. I also want to get some traditional West African business attire because I want to go to work in silk pajamas. Hopefully this is something that will catch on in the States and I’m willing to do my part to bring it about.