Coup De Crawford (Dowd alert)

They waited to huddle in Crawford until the flower child Colin Powell had gone up to the Hamptons, ensconced with the white-wine-swilling toffs scorned by the president.

With the diffident general brunching with the Dean & DeLuca set, Cheney, Rummy, Condi and W. can get down to bidness on the ranch, scheming to smoke Saddam.

We used to worry about a military coup against civilian authority. Now we worry about a civilian coup against military authority.

It's the reverse of the classic movie "Seven Days in May," about gung-ho generals trying to wrest power from an "appeasing" president. In "Thirty-One Days in August," gung-ho presidential advisers try to wrest power away from "appeasing" generals.

In the 1964 movie, the generals' code for their military coup was a bet on the Preakness. In the 2002 version, W. signaled his civilian coup by telling an A.P. reporter his vacation reading was "Supreme Command," a new book by Eliot A. Cohen, a conservative who favors ousting Saddam. In his book, Mr. Cohen attacks the Powell Doctrine and argues that civilian leaders should not defer to "the fundamental caution" of whiny generals on grand strategy or use of force.

Tired of the inhibitions of the retired generals — Mr. Powell, Brent Scowcroft and Wesley Clark — and unretired generals in the Joint Chiefs; tired of the whisper campaigns in the hallways of the Pentagon and State Department that a rush to war in Iraq will weaken America's war on terror; tired of Republican resistance on the Hill — the hawks flew to Texas to strut their hawkishness.

The White House denied that the president was gathering his war council to talk about war, to figure out when and how to employ all the hardware that's been pre-positioned in Saddam's neighborhood.

After all, they pointed out, Gen. Tommy Franks isn't coming. And General Powell isn't coming. A spokesman for Mr. Powell said he wasn't going because it was a meeting about the military budget.

Ari Fleischer said the meeting was about military "transformation." Yeah. They're going to transform Baghdad into "Hey, dad, that dude is history."

There were a few token uniforms at the coup kaffeeklatsch. But except for Rummy, the Whack-Iraq tribe — including W., Cheney, Condi, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle — have scant backgrounds in the military, as their military critics mutter.

The military types in the Pesky Questions tribe fret that it would be smarter to go after the low-hanging fruit in the war on terror first — Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, the Philippines, Indonesia, Colombia. They worry that the Whack-Iraq'ers are too sanguine that our new weapons or a Special Forces option will prevent Saddam from lobbing his chemical weapons at our men and women in uniform. They fear that Rummy's belief that America can go in light, fast and easy is futuristic nonsense.

But the Cheney-Rummy-Condi Axis of Anti-Evil believes in unilateralism so fervently that it is prepared to proceed unilaterally without its own military. If the Pentagon is not prepared to get with the program, they can always parachute Wolfowitz into Baghdad with a license to kill.

Cheney & Co. are clearly regrouping to catch the patriotic wave of the 9/11 anniversary, drawing fresh momentum for pre-empting terror in the Middle East.

But they're not being smart by being secret. They have the conspiratorial air of embattled sectarians, of a besieged cult, treating skeptics as appeasers and legitimate questions as failures of patriotism. They are in exclusive possession of the truth and the whole world is against them.

They have forgotten that planning a war is not justifying a war. The plans must be covert but the justifications must be overt.

The hawks offer a potpourri of reasons for war, but they don't have the time or the patience to persuade the American public that it really matters.

If the Iraqi danger is as large and clear as they say it is, their explanations should also be large and clear.

The problem with the Bush administration is that its bully pulpit is all bully and no pulpit.

They have forgotten that planning a war is not justifying a war.

What a bunch of innane bs. What they have "forgotten" is to seek the approval of an egotistical idiot who knows squat about planning foreign policy. Maureen's war-planning experience consists of lining up ad hominem whenever she strolls across a subject she is ignorant of.

The plans must be covert but the justifications must be overt.

Says who? In case she hasn't noticed, we're not looking to free Kuwait or protect Saudi Oil or prevent atrocities in Bosnia. We aren't asking Americans permission to send their sons & daughters into harms way for some touchy-feel-good humanitarian mission.

We are defending Western Civilization from Islamic Jihad. More specificly, we are defending ourselves from terrorists who cry "Death to America" and go on to slaughter helpless women and children.

There is no exit strategy. There is no focus group. There is no need to ask permission. There is no polling data required. The president's JOB as CIC is to prevent America from being destroyed.

Protect us first - justify at your leisure.

The hawks offer a potpourri of reasons for war, but they don't have the time or the patience to persuade the American public that it really matters.

This woman is an idiot. Has it ever occured to her that the "reasons for war" might possibly be linked to the targets of war? Would it be wise to telegraph our action plan prior to launch?

Maureen, go back to writing fluff pieces on pot-pouri. Better yet, grab a weapon and stroll out to the FEBA. Since the public has a right to know, we'll announce your mission objectives on Oprah while you're enroute.

Dowd grasps an opportunity to bash Bush. No more, no less. And with no concern to any consequence of her foolish, sophomoric, and shallow understanding of the art of war.

Josh Chafetz @ OxBlog analyses Dowd's latest using the Immutable Laws of Dowd:

MODOS IN PARADISE. Okay, so I had discontinued my Dowd-watch for the summer because, frankly, they take a long time to write, and I had decided that I was going to cut way back on bloggage for the summer. But yesterday's column ... well, in the words of my girlfriend, "something has to be done" about it. And since the NYT persists in its refusal to fire Dowd and replace her with someone who can think and write at the same time, I've decided to bring the Immutable Laws out of mothballs a bit early.

Even Dowd couldn't come up with a way to vilify Ashcroft in a column about hawkishness on Iraq, so the First Law gets to continue in its vacation. But never fear -- the heavy workout the other laws are taking will more than make up for the laxity of the First.

The Second Law: "Offering constructive solutions to problems, instead of whining endlessly about them, is a sign of weakness." Ah, but does Ms. Dowd even point out a problem? Not as far as I can tell. She does whine endlessly, but it's not exactly clear about what. Does she oppose an attack on Iraq? Does she favor one but just think that the administration needs to offer "large and clear" (large?) justifications for it? (And, if so, what exactly did Condi Rice's remarks on the BBC last week constitute, if not a clear (I'm still confused about the "large" part) reason for going after Hussein? What about Tom DeLay's speech yesterday? And it seems to me that this report in yesterday's WaPo that al Qaeda operatives, including "some names you'd recognize," are hiding in Iraq constitutes a clear reason for attacking. Ah, but is it a "large" reason? We'll have to leave that question to Ms. Dowd). In any case, it's not quite clear what Dowd is complaining about -- but it's quite clear she's complaining about something. And she's certainly not offering any solutions -- score one for the mighty Second Law!

The Third Law: "The People Magazine principle: all political phenomena can be explained with reference solely to caricatures of the personalities involved ("Dubya" is stupid; "Poppy" is an aristocrat; Cheney is macho-man; etc.). Any reference to the common good or even to old-fashioned politicking is, like, so passe." Oh, the Third Law is all over this column! We have "the plotters meeting down at the Ponderosa," we have "flower child Colin Powell," we have "Cheney, Rummy, Condi and W. ... get[ting] down to bidness on the ranch, scheming to smoke Saddam," we have the "Whack-Iraq tribe" set off against the "Pesky Questions tribe," and of course "the Cheney-Rummy-Condi Axis of Anti-Evil." Now, I was told in elementary school that name-calling isn't a valid form of argumentation, but it seems to be good enough to land you on the NYT op-ed page. Not one of these names makes a substantive point. Yes, Maureen, we know that there's a split in the administration. Yes, Maureen, we know that some of the generals are gun-shy. But, um, Maureen? Shouldn't your column do something more than just point out over and over and over and over and over again the facts that (a) there's a split in the administration, (b) some of the generals oppose an attack on Iraq, and (c) the hawks are -- get ready for a shocker! -- in favor of an attack on Iraq? I know that actually making a point would require sacrifices on your part. It would require thinking, and sometimes that can hurt your brain. And it would take up valuable column-inches -- you might have to let go of that second reference to the "Whack-Iraq'ers" (I know, I know, it was a good line, and you wanted to make sure no one missed it). And it's so much easier just to repeat stale one-line characterizations of administration figures' personalities, rather than actually thinking about policy. But still ... make an effort, Maureen. Please. For your adoring fans.

On to the Fourth Law: "It is much better to be cute than coherent." Ding ding ding! Another winner! This is actually the money-Law for this week's beaut. Oh, yes. I've been waiting for the last four paragraphs to get to this one. The showcase line in the column was "We used to worry about a military coup against civilian authority. Now we worry about a civilian coup against military authority." Maureen was very proud of this line. The NYT online even used it as the tag line for her column. But, um, what the hell does it mean? First, I hate to bring up a pesky little thing like the Constitution -- especially when dealing with a legal eagle like Dowd -- but Article II, section 2 does say, "The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States." In other words, the military is meant to be under civilian control. The idea of a civilian coup against military authority is completely incoherent in a democratic state. The only conceivable meaning for those words would be in applying them to a place like Iraq where there is military rule, and where we would welcome a civilian uprising against it. Indeed, Dowd writes, "W. signaled his civilian coup by telling an A.P. reporter his vacation reading was 'Supreme Command,' a new book by Eliot A. Cohen, a conservative who favors ousting Saddam. In his book, Mr. Cohen attacks the Powell Doctrine and argues that civilian leaders should not defer to 'the fundamental caution' of whiny generals on grand strategy or use of force." (Cohen made a condensed version of the argument in this WSJ op-ed.) Now, notice that Dowd doesn't actually take issue with Cohen's point. She spends the rest of the column mocking the "whack-Iraq'ers" (see the Third Law, above) for taking Cohen's advice, but she doesn't confront it head-on. And it's really easy to see why: Cohen is obviously right. Of course civilian leaders shouldn't defer to military ones. That's exactly what it means to have a civilian government! Military leaders ought to be respected for their military expertise, but we also have to recognize that (a) military officers are not democratically elected, and (b) their military expertise can be a blinder as well as an enabler (Vietnam syndrome, anyone?) Can you imagine Dowd's outrage if anyone else had suggested that, in times of war, we leave all military/national security decisions solely in the hands of the generals? Yet, this is precisely her implication. Of course, she avoids making it explicit by simply calling Bush administration officials names (see the Third Law, above), rather than addressing Cohen's arguments, but there is no other way to read her column than that any political leader who disagrees with military leaders about military issues must be not only wrong, but way out of line. Her phrasing was cute, but her arguments do not even approach coherence. Score one for the Fourth Law!

The Fifth Law: "Maureen knows best. Her long years as a columnist (doing basically what your great-aunt Tillie does in the nursing home bull sessions, but getting paid for it) have given her deep insight into foreign relations, politics, welfare, the Constitution, and all other topics. To disagree with Maureen in any way is not only a sign of being wrong, it's a hallmark of pure evil...or at least membership in the NRA, which is pretty much the same thing." Ah, of course Maureen knows best! Exactly what she knows best about isn't quite clear, as she never tells us where she stands on Iraq (see the Second Law, above), but she clearly knows best. After all, no one could be so smug without being profoundly knowledgable. She knows so much about foreign relations that she doesn't even have to tell us who's right about Iraq. She knows so much about politics and the Constitution that she sees that, deep down inside, our polity is all about military supremacy over civilian government. In fact, she has such profound insight into political theory that she understands that military supremacy -- Iraqi style -- is actually a superior form of governance! She knows so much about mass communications that she realizes that the administration hasn't offered "large and clear" justifications for an attack on Iraq, despite the fact that a clear majority of Americans say that they "have a clear idea why the United States is considering new military action against Iraq," according to this Gallup poll (somehow, the poll neglected to ask if Americans have a large idea why the United States is considering new military action against Iraq). And those who disagree with her? Well, we're just "not being smart." And who better to know what's smart and what's not than Maureen Dowd? Score one for the Fifth Law!

On to the Sixth Law: "It is usually possible and always desirable to name-drop and name-call in the same sentence." Let's go back to the Cohen sentence: "W. signaled his civilian coup by telling an A.P. reporter his vacation reading was "Supreme Command," a new book by Eliot A. Cohen, a conservative who favors ousting Saddam." Yes! A winner! We get name-dropping (look at me! I know who Eliot A. Cohen is! And I can even pretend to have read his book! [Coincindentally, on the media bias watch note, would a liberal who happened to be a professor of strategic studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, possibly the most prestigious graduate school of international relations in the country, be referred to simply as "a liberal"?]), and we get name-calling (look at me! I'm so superior to our stupid president than I can call him by the diminutive "W"). The Sixth Law is a winner! But that's not the only instantiation of the Sixth Law this week! No, here's another: "Tired of the inhibitions of the retired generals -- Mr. Powell, Brent Scowcroft and Wesley Clark -- and unretired generals in the Joint Chiefs; tired of the whisper campaigns in the hallways of the Pentagon and State Department that a rush to war in Iraq will weaken America's war on terror; tired of Republican resistance on the Hill -- the hawks flew to Texas to strut their hawkishness." Powell, Scowcroft, and Clark are all true statesmen -- they clearly deserve deference. Why, they don't even get nicknames! But the hawks! Now, they're different. They're not to be taken seriously. In this column, they're never without their nicknames (see the Third Law, above). They don't seriously weigh policy options; no, no, no -- they "strut their hawkishness." I see. That's two points for the Sixth Law, for those of you keeping score at home.

Tragically, the Seventh Law doesn't really come into play this week. Dowd's personal life is unusually absent from her writing. But five out of seven ain't bad. And Maureen was clearly giving the Third and Fourth Laws quite a workout this week -- and she only has so many column-inches to play with, you know. When you spend that much time name-calling and being cute, there just isn't any room left for either gratuitous potshots at Ashcroft or gratuitous details about your personal life. But that's okay -- it's why she gets to write three times a week. And really, who among us can honesly say that he isn't looking forward to Sunday's NYT?

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