Government by Op-Ed washingtonpost.com
In which Michael Kinsley reveals that, despite the abundant local evidence, Colin Powell has managed to outfox Cheney, Rumsfeld, Perle, and Wolfowitz in the "leak to the bloviating pundits" game.
It must be hell to disagree with Colin Powell. Powell and Vice President Cheney apparently disagree about Iraq. Cheney thinks that Saddam Hussein must be toppled and any further diddling is pointless. Powell thinks . . . well, something else. Cheney made his opinion known by articulating and defending it in a speech. Powell's view, if you read the papers literally, has spread by a mysterious process akin to osmosis. The secretary of state is "known to believe" or is pigeonholed by unnamed "associates" or (my favorite) has made his opinion known "quietly."
And yet somehow, without an audible peep, Powell has managed to dominate the public debate about whether to make war against Iraq. How does he do it? Maybe, like dogs, State Department reporters can hear frequencies beyond the range available to the normal human ear. Or maybe, just maybe, Powell has made his case using the same basic method as Cheney -- that is, by opening his yap and letting words come out -- only doing so with small audiences of reliably discreet journalists rather than at a convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
And so on. What a joke. Poor Kinsley's neocons have allegedly been outplayed at their own game of leakage. As if there aren't enough devoted neocons in the op-ed ranks to drown out any conceivable counteroffensive on that front. The war marketers better get on this case quick. |
