Gephardt Rescues Bush

Gephardt to the Rescue

George W. Bush got lucky last week. Despite the numerous screwups by him and his administration?and I'd put his messy primetime speech on June 6 about the creation of a Dept. of Homeland Security cabinet post front and center?the President hit the jackpot when Dick Gephardt announced his support for an invasion of Iraq. The House's Minority Leader has rarely struck many as a shrewd political operator. He's failed to take back his chamber in three successive elections; Tom Daschle and the opportunistic 2004 Democratic presidential contenders (say howdy to Sen. John Edwards) have trumped him in headlines; and he's been dumped as a largely irrelevant relic by the Beltway media.

But that changed with a 45-minute speech on June 4, in which Gephardt said, "I share the President's resolve to confront this menace head-on. We should use diplomatic tools where we can, but military means when we must to eliminate the threat [Saddam Hussein] poses to the region and our own security." Gephardt, who disgracefully voted against former President Bush's action against Iraq in the Gulf War in 1991, is clearly burnishing his hawk credentials for a presidential campaign, but personal ambition notwithstanding, his remarks effectively signaled that Congress won't interfere with the President's expected move against Iraq later this year. And, for good measure, Gephardt dismissed Yasir Arafat and said the United States should "remain steadfast in our support of Israel, in words and deeds."

As the New York Post's John Podhoretz wrote on June 7, Bush's rushed address on homeland security was a "rhetorical egg." Yes, he succeeded in taking back the momentum from Congress on the issue, crowding out that same day's testimony by lame-duck FBI chief Robert Mueller and every liberal's heroine Coleen Rowley, but that's inside politics. Americans, most of whom probably didn't even see Bush's worst speech in memory, don't want to hear about bureaucratic reshuffling and partisan turf wars. They don't particularly care if Tom Ridge wins the new cabinet post?my bet is no?and have no interest in organizational flow charts or whom the Coast Guard's chief will now report to.

It's a mystery why Bush buried his brilliant commencement address at West Point on June 1, in which he effectively batted down DC Cassandras who loudly complained that he was going to give Hussein a pass. Last Thursday, he could've devoted 45 minutes to his current strategy on the war against terrorism, reiterating what he told the graduating cadets, and then tacking on a brief summary of his governmental changes.

Bush said that Saturday: "The attacks of September the 11th required a few hundred thousand dollars in the hands of a few dozen evil and deluded men. All of the chaos and suffering they caused came at much less than the cost of a single tank... The gravest danger to freedom lies at the perilous crossroads of radicalism and technology. When the spread of chemical and biological and nuclear weapons, along with ballistic missile technology, when that occurs even weak states and small groups could attain a catastrophic power to strike great nations.

"Our enemies have declared this very intention and have been caught seeking these terrible weapons. They want the capability to blackmail us or to harm us or to harm our friends. And we will oppose them with all our power. For much of the last century Americans' defense relied on the Cold War doctrines of deterrence and containment. In some cases those strategies still apply. But new threats also require new thinking.

"Deterrence, the promise of massive retaliation against nations, means nothing against shadowy terrorist networks with no nation or citizens to defend. Containment is not possible when unbalanced dictators with weapons of mass destruction can deliver those weapons on missiles or secretly provide them to terrorist allies. We cannot defend America and our friends by hoping for the best. We cannot put our faith in the word of tyrants who solemnly sign nonproliferation treaties and then systematically break them. If we wait for threats to fully materialize we will have waited too long."

That's the stuff of a primetime national address.

Bush also has to fire several people in short order. He can't clean house until after the midterm elections?when loose-lipped Andy Card, Christie Whitman, Paul O'Neill, Bono (oops, not a cabinet member) and Spencer Abraham will probably walk the plank?but getting rid of the CIA's George Tenet, Mueller and Norman Mineta, who refuses to profile airline passengers, is essential. As in: today.

[Drudge Strikes Back]

You may have read in recent days the latest terrorism threat disclosed by "federal sources," according to the New York Post, in which Al Qaeda fanatics are planning to poison the subway systems of New York, Philadelphia and Washington, DC, with nerve gas this summer. The goal is to "bring America to its knees on Independence Day," and even if the odds of success are 100-1, that's frightening enough for me. No doubt complacent citizens will complain about the boy crying wolf, but this is no time for fairytales.

As I've written repeatedly, the security at train stations in New York City alone is so lax that, while President Bush, Congress and the media fixate on faulty intelligence leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks (what, are the midterm elections coming up?), who could possibly be surprised if such a disaster occurs?

It was in this eerie context last weekend that I was thinking: Who needs another intramural journalistic feud? There was a time in my career that such jousting was not only invigorating but also fun in a sporting kind of way. Back in Baltimore, when I ran City Paper, the petty but stimulating skirmishes were so frequent that a buddy once said, "You want a list of Russ Smith's enemies? Just pick up the phone book." There were battles with Baltimore Sun columnists, whose fifth-rate Jimmy Breslin imitators defined the mediocrity of that daily; dimwit politicians like Kathleen Kennedy Townsend; restaurant owners; and disgruntled employees. And since 1988, when New York Press started up in Manhattan, it's been more of the same, most often with the Village Voice, but also reaching into the dreamworld of cartoonists, diehard liberals and deli proprietors.

I'm still up for a grudge match, but when your kid plays Little League games on a patch of grass off the West Side Hwy., with the buzz of reconstruction drowning out applause for a clean single or caught popup, and the empty skyline half a block away, the thrill of going 15 rounds with another journalist is like drinking nonalcoholic beer.

Internet readers of this weekly may have noticed that New York Press, "MUGGER" and Taki's column have all been delinked from the Drudge Report. Two weeks ago, in our May 29 issue, Michelangelo Signorile, the left-wing writer whose angry opinions mesh well, I think, with the catholic roster of columnists at New York Press, knocked the stuffing out of Matt Drudge for his postings on the pathetic David Brock. Signorile wrote: "Cybergossip Matt Drudge may say that he is not gay, but one thing is clear, no matter his sexual orientation: he's a nasty faggot."

And Signorile says Matt is "nasty."

I rarely agree with our hyperbolic columnist: he's another foot-soldier you'd swear was on Terry McAuliffe's payroll, with the standard litany of Bush "stealing" the 2000 election and John Ashcroft shredding the Constitution. Not to mention his ongoing campaign against Andrew Sullivan, the gay conservative pundit/blogger whose personal foibles were a one-week controversy in the narcissistic world of the Boston-DC media last year. Signorile's columns could easily appear in The Nation (if that weekly's editors had the guts to print him), and that's exactly why we're pleased to publish his work. The gay activist may indulge in what I consider unadulterated propaganda, but he's smart and provocative.

Anyway, despite several years of my own friendship with Matt, and dozens of positive mentions in New York Press?deservedly so, for as both John Strausbaugh and I have written, Drudge, far from being a "cybergossip" (which Signorile lazily calls him, mimicking the mainstream press), is the Internet pioneer, still enormously influential while now-bankrupt multimillion-dollar websites are mere footnotes?the Miami-based titan went ballistic. Kind of like a restaurateur who receives a glowing review, but complains bitterly when the critic quibbles about overcooked asparagus.

This is a feud with no winners. Just as I've lost a friend at The Wall Street Journal because of Alex Cockburn's asinine column about the murder of WSJ reporter Daniel Pearl (or as CNN's wimpy Aaron Brown would say, "Danny Pearl"), now Drudge has retaliated. Which sucks. Still, it's always been this paper's editorial philosophy to have as wide a range of opinions as possible?as opposed to most publications, which are monolithic in their partisanship?and that's to the reader's benefit. I hope, as time passes, New York Press will be reinstated at the Drudge Report, but