CNN Still Asking, Iraq: Civil War?

While some still debate whether the daily massacres taking place in Iraq can or should be referred to as a "civil war," Michael Ware, based in Iraq, laid it out for Wolf Blitzer (via CrooksandLiars.com):

Ware: If this is not a civil war, Wolf, I don’t want to see one when it comes.

Sheepishly, CNN is still using the non-declaratory question mark on its on-air images, CNN: Iraq: Civil War? Hell yes! Just listen to your own correspondent in Iraq.

Iraq in “Civil War”

This sums it up:

After nearly four years of letting the Bush Administration set the terms of the national debate over Iraq, some major news organizations are finally calling the conflict there what it is: a civil war. The White House is howling in protest.

The Bush administration’s "howling protest" is in response to this, from the same article:

Here’s what Matt Lauer announced on NBC’s Today Show this morning: "As you know, for months now the White House has rejected claims that the situation in Iraq has deteriorated into civil war. And for the most part, news organizations, like NBC, have hesitated to characterize it as such. But, after careful consideration, NBC News has decided the change in terminology is warranted — that the situation in Iraq, with armed militarized factions fighting for their own political agendas, can now be characterized as civil war." Here’s some video of Lauer discussing the decision with retired general Barry McCaffrey.

Predictably, the "howling protest" from the Bush administration disputed the notion that Iraq is in civil war:

"The White House is objecting this morning to descriptions of the Iraq conflict as a civil war. National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said, ‘The violence is primarily centered around Baghdad and Baghdad security and the increased training of Iraqi Security Forces is at the top of the agenda when [Bush and Maliki] meet later this week.’"

UPDATE: Some in the so-called liberal media are still debating on whether Iraq is in "civil war" or not (via ThinkProgress.com):

Fox News:

WARD: In response to today’s attacks and snowballing sectarian violence, a curfew has been imposed in Baghdad and the international airport closed to all commercial flights. [11/23/06]

Washington Post:

But fear ran high that the fighting would not end, as clashes in Ghazaliya and elsewhere illustrated the inability of Iraqi security forces to rein in the violence that has propelled the country closer to full-blown civil war. [11/27/06]

USA Today:

Abizaid didn’t have much to offer besides faith, hope and the familiar but elusive objectives of stabilizing the country, reining in sectarian violence and preparing Iraq to manage on its own. [USA Today, 11/16/06]

Boston Globe:

It was one of the largest mass abductions since the US-led invasion in 2003, startling even by the standards of a nation reeling from sectarian strife, daily bombings, and death squads. [11/15/06]

San Francisco Chronicle:

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki faces intense pressure from the United States to eliminate the militias and their death squads, which are deeply involved in the country’s sectarian slaughter and are believed to have thoroughly infiltrated the police and security forces. [11/15/06]

Chicago Tribune:

As the prospect of civil war in Iraq festers, the U.S. military has identified three options – add more troops, start a graduated retreat or embrace a speedy one – according to a Washington Post account that quoted sources familiar with the written Pentagon options. [11/26/06]

New York Times:

The two [Bush and Maliki] are expected to talk about the widening sectarian war in Iraq and to try to reach agreement on ways to stop it. [11/27/06]

CNN:

FRANKEN: But President Bush is focused on what can be done in Iraq without leaving behind a country consumed by sectarian war. [11/27/06]

Democratic Party Win: “Beyond Historic”

Right after the Democratic party regained control of the House and Senate after twelve years of abysmal Republican domination, many mainstream media types pushed the idea that conservatives had won the election for Democrats. However, as noted here, that is just one more myth about the 2006 elections.

Additionally, even though the mainstream media and establishment insiders in DC refuse to acknowledge that, in fact, the Democratic party, with a generally liberal agenda, won the election; it is encouraging to read that one of the old DC insiders, the Dean, as some call him, is coming around to the reality that what we saw this past November 7th, 2006, was nothing more than a Democratic tsunami. The Dean, David Broder, writes:

Buried in the news of the national Democratic midterm election victory was an even more dramatic power shift in the state that has become famous as the site of the first presidential primary in each cycle.

In the words of veteran New Hampshire Republican leader Tom Rath, it was "beyond historic" when the Democrats took complete control of the handsome state capitol in Concord for the first time since 1874.

[...]

New Hampshire was not alone. Iowa, whose presidential caucuses come even earlier than the New Hampshire primary, also elected a Democrat as governor and saw both houses of its legislature flip to the Democrats.

Democrats now control both houses in 24 states; Republicans do so in 16; and nine states have split control. (Nebraska has a nonpartisan unicameral legislature.)

These numbers become more important as we approach 2010 and another census, which will provide the raw material for the next round of line-drawing for congressional and legislative districts. If Democrats can maintain their legislative advantage along with their new 28-22 lead in governorships, they will be in the driver’s seat on that redistricting.

[...]

The force of the movement spared no one. Peter Spaulding, a longtime member of the Executive Council and a leader in John McCain’s victorious 2000 New Hampshire primary campaign, lost his seat to a 71-year-old opponent who barely made any effort and who was vacationing in Belgium when the election returns came in. Dozens of longtime citizen-legislators, serving part time for $200 a term and rarely having to bother to campaign, found themselves voted out of office.

"The only successful Republicans were the ones who were not on the ballot in 2006," such as Sens. Judd Gregg and John Sununu, Rath said.

Liberal Media on the Attack

Our so-called liberal media can never tear itself away from conventional wisdom, nor from sucking conservative-talking-points ass. This so-called liberal-main-stream-media is all too content with simply parroting the conservative attack lines against Democrats. Here’s one example from Newsweek’s CW feature:

Old CW: First woman Speaker will be Rayburn redux.
New CW: Botox bumbler blows first play.

Digby has more on the "Botox" attack line being directed against Democratic women representatives:

This particular Mean Girlz theme didn’t spring from nowhere. It’s coming directly from Frank Luntz:

LUNTZ: I always use the line for Nancy Pelosi, "You get one shot at a facelift. If it doesn’t work the first time, let it go."

This must have focused grouped well among their target wingnut pigs because, as I previously noted, Queenbee Dowd generously shared this one with the whole world today (before she went off on a sexist rant of her own):

Ted Olson, the former solicitor general and eloquent Republican lawyer who argued the Bush v. Gore case before the Supreme Court, was warming up the rabidly conservative Federalist Society crowd for John McCain with a few sexist cracks about Botox.

The new Congress could amuse itself, he said, by “searching for any sign of movement in Speaker Pelosi’s forehead.” The Senate, he added, would be entertained by “the expressionless, Pelosi-like forehead of Senator Clinton.”

Thank god for commentators like Arinna Huffington, who chimes in on the sexist conservative attack lines being parroted by our so-called liberal media:

The only thing surprising about the current mainstream media narrative regarding Nancy Pelosi is its relentless predictability. Practically since the day the Iraq war started to go bad, Democrats have been derided in the press for not having a plan, and choosing pragmatism over principle.

Cut to ’06. Hot on the heels of an electoral triumph, Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi endorses as Majority Leader the member of the House most identified with speaking out against the war — the man whose courage in doing so fueled the nationalized campaign that gave Democrats the majority in the first place. I’m speaking, of course, about Jack Murtha.

Murtha then loses the Leadership race to Steny Hoyer. As Pelosi no doubt knew, it was an uphill battle from the beginning — Hoyer had been tirelessly campaigning for the job among Democratic caucus members for months. But Pelosi gave her support to Murtha because, as she put it in title of her blog this week on HuffPost: "Bringing the War to an End is my Highest Priority as Speaker."

It doesn’t get much clearer or more principled than that.

So what’s been the reaction in the media?

According to the Los Angeles Times, Pelosi is off to a "rocky start," while the New York Times says she’s "tempting disaster."

Disaster? If wanting to give a high-profile platform to the man most responsible for his party finally locating its spine regarding Iraq (and who, for his troubles, received the full brunt of the Bush/Rove/Mehlman slime machine) is a "disaster," what word do you use to describe the war itself? Disast-orrfic? Catastro-bacle-aster? Disaster-to-the-10th-power?

Maureen Dowd joined the bash-Pelosi-bash with a column entitled "Squeaker of the House," writing:

"Nancy Pelosi’s first move, after the Democratic triumph, was to throw like a girl. Women get criticized in the office for acting on relationships and past slights rather than strategy, so Madame Speaker wasted no time making her first move based on relationships and past slights rather than strategy… Ms. Pelosi offered an argument along the lines of: John Murtha’s my friend. He’s been nice to me. I don’t like Steny. He did something a long time ago that was really, really bad that I’m never, ever going to tell you. And I’m the boss of you. So vote for John."

Really? I don’t recall Pelosi ever saying — or even implying — anything of the kind. Again, how much clearer could Pelosi be than "Bringing the War to an End is my Highest Priority as Speaker"? If ending this disastrous war (and I’m using the term in its true sense and not its New-York-Times-editorial sense) doesn’t qualify as "strategy" then what does?

In their editorials this week, both the LA Times and the New York Times chided Pelosi for even considering not installing California Congresswoman Jane Harman as the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, a point also raised by Dowd:

"Everyone in Washington was perplexed at Ms. Pelosi’s ham-handed effort to sabotage not only Mr. Hoyer but her former friend and fellow Californian, Jane Harman."

Wait, so first Pelosi is criticized for "making her first move based on relationships," and then she’s criticized for not giving a chairmanship to a "former friend and fellow Californian?"

So damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

As for the wisdom of "everyone in Washington," well, a walk around Baghdad should suffice as rebuttal.

I’m surprised that seniority as the be-all qualification for leadership still has so many ardent backers in Washington. Pelosi has made it clear that the highest priorities of the new Congress will be changing course in Iraq and the restoration of oversight. It is by these two yardsticks that she needs to decide who the Chair of the Intelligence Committee should be. And by nothing else.

Wouldn’t it be refreshing to have a Democratic leader who would rather listen to the American people than to "everyone in Washington"?

Liberal Media Bias

More examples of the "Liberal Media Bias" we hear so much about… here are two TIME magazine covers, one depicting the 2006 Democratic Party takeover of Congress, and a second cover illustrating the 1994 Republican Party takeover of Congress…

TIME Cover for the 2006 Democratic Congressional Takeover

TIME Cover for the 1994 Republican Congressional Takeover

For more analysis of the TIME magazine cover check out BagNewsNotes.com.