A Post-Powell Problem

A lot of liberals blame Colin Powell for persuading them to support the notion of getting into the Iraq war, but is Colin Powell also to blame for the Bush administration’s inability to get the United States out of the Iraq war? In a roundabout way, yes, suggests Andrew J. Bacevich, a professor of history and international relations at Boston University, in The Boston Globe’s “Ideas” section.

In a long essay arguing for the abolishment of the position of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Bacevich says Powell is indirectly to blame for the nation’s poor military leadership since he stepped down as chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Bacevich writes:

Having learned from Powell’s tenure that a talented, high-powered JCS chairman can produce big-time political headaches, the administrations of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush have opted for officers who could be counted on not to make waves. They have done so by selecting anti-Powells to serve as JCS chairmen — officers who, whatever their other admirable qualities, have possessed few of the attributes that made Powell so formidable. Since 1993, the position of JCS chairman has been filled by a succession of colorless, compliant generals — honorable and good soldiers to the man, but none demonstrating anything approaching Powell’s smarts, flair, and shrewdness. Mediocrity can be a cruel word, but as a description of those who have succeeded Colin Powell as the nation’s top military officer, it is apt.

One of those mediocrities, Bacevich says, is the soon-to-depart General Peter Pace. He writes:

History will render this judgment of Pace, who succeeded General Richard B Myers as chairman in September 2005: As U. S. forces became mired ever more deeply in an unwinnable war, Pace remained a passive bystander, a witness to a catastrophe that he was slow to comprehend and did little to forestall. If the position of JCS chair had simply remained vacant for the past two years, it is difficult to see how the American military would be in worse shape today.

Almost without exception, Bacevich writes, Gen. Pace “has loyally accommodated himself to whatever the boss has wanted, even to calamitous policies that have done immeasurable harm not only to the country but to the armed services to which he has devoted his life.”

Perhaps Gen. Pace comforts himself, however, by telling himself that it’s all Colin Powell’s fault.

Chris Suellentrop

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Anti-Socialist Film Critics Gone Wild

Michael Moore’s new takedown of America’s health care system, “Sicko,” doesn’t officially open until June 29, but it has been leaked in its entirety onto the Internet, something Moore says he doesn’t “have a problem with.”

But Rob Port, writing at Say Anything (yes, that’s “North Dakota’s Most Popular Political Blog”) doesn’t believe the filmmaker’s relaxed stance: “Moore doesn’t care about copyright laws. Which isn’t surprising, since most socialists don’t care about private property. That’s why the left is always so eager to seize the wealth of citizens through taxes and redistribute it according to their whims.”

Showing a distinct lack of faith in Moore’s statements, Port has posted the film himself. ”Now I fully expect that I’ll probably get a letter or an email at some point from Moore’s people asking me to take this down,” he predicts. “Which I will, because unlike Moore and most liberals I actually do respect things like copyright laws and property rights. But until they ask, I’m going to take Moore at his word. And if I am asked to take it down, I will be calling Moore a total hypocrite.” Well, that seems to be putting the cart before the horse right now, but Say Anything will certainly keep us informed.

The prosecutor in the Duke lacrosse case, Mike Nifong, has been disbarred. K.C. Johnson, a professor of history at Brooklyn College, spent the weekend considering Friday’s North Carolina Bar Association hearing, and worries that things very nearly turned out differently. At his blog about the case, Durham-in-Wonderland, he writes:

Though the case ended as it should—with the AG’s declaration of actual innocence and Nifong’s disbarment—this was a very close call. First, the defense demanded and then closely examined [lab director Brian] Meehan’s underlying DNA data not as a matter of course but only because the DNA was the only evidence even remotely implicating Brad Bannon’s client, Dave Evans. Had [the complainant] picked a lacrosse player other than Evans, the DNA conspiracy might have passed unnoticed. Second, the State Bar’s grievance committee voted to charge Mike Nifong with ethics violations by a mere one vote, with grievance committee chairman Jim Fox casting the tie-breaking vote.

Tobin Harshaw