corrente

Lack of shame; an inability to feel shame, or be shamed by any aspect of your own behavior. Pause for a moment, dear reader, and try and remember when keeping track of that lamentable characteristic, as it manifested itself in the political life of the nation, was a major concern of the SCLM.

Yes, the Clinton years, because who has ever been as shameless as either and both Clintons. As far back as the first Clinton inauguration in Jan of '93, the mere presence of the Clintons in Washington, in the White House, attending a presidential inaugural, struck Sally Quinn, our Balzac-manque (tres manque), as somehow shameless; the fact that Bill Clinton had won a presidential election just didn't cut it, not for our gal, Sal.

Even out of office, the Clintons have continued to provide our SCLM with telling examples of shamelessness, none more shameless than the sheer fact that either and both Clintons continue to play any sort of role in the public life of the nation.

Quite naturally, with a new, downright, upright, right right Republican administration came fewer discussions of shamelessness. Recently, Howard Fineman did manage to find a non-Clinton example during a discussion on Hardball of the shift in the Bush Iraq policy toward internationalization:

MATTHEWS: Well, what about avoiding what happened in Somalia, Howard? If we put a big U.N. force of Pakistanis and Turks and Indians in there, and a bunch of our guys get pinned down in some small town and they’re not there to help them, what happens then?

FINEMAN: Well, that’s why the Pentagon and, I think, the president want to keep military matters under the control of the United States command and the control of the coalition forces. That’s the problem that they’ve got. We want complete military control, and indeed all the Iraqis are going to continue to look to us for security while we try to turn over nonmilitary matters, civilian matters and such and reconstruction projects to the U.N.

It’s a very difficult sell. George Bush gave a great speech to the U.N. last year. He didn’t count on the fact that the U.N. can’t be shamed into doing anything, and he’s going to have to go back and give another great speech. But, I’m afraid it’s not going to shame them into helping this time either.

MATTHEWS: You know what? I think like in every other enterprise there needs to be a boss. It’s either the U.N. or us, and I think- Howard, am I right?

FINEMAN: Right.

Here at "corrente," we found this use of "can't be shamed," too confusing to be persuasive; for instance, "the UN" meaning what? The member countries, the staff, the building, Kofi Annan? And how does Fineman know the President wasn't actually counting on UN shamelessness to insure his ability to act unilaterally, especially in view of the aggressively insulting tone he took in his speech last year?

To fill what we perceive to be this "Shamelessness Recognition Gap," the "corrente" Quartet propose, in a feature that may, and then again, may not become a regular one, to identify the most shameless moment of the previous week. E-mailed future nominations from readers are welcomed.

Picking just one such moment from last week has been no easy task. Not surprisingly, for the first week of September which brings with it this President's now traditional return to the Capital from his August vacation in Texas, and with him, annoucements of changes in policy as not changes, and restatements of unchanged policies as evidence of the bold pro-active engagement of the President in an on-going problem that ain't getting better.

Last year, the major not-really-a-change policy shift was vis a vis the UN's role in the Bush Iraq policy, and this year, it was also vis a vis the UN's role in the Bush Iraq policy; this year, as last year, the same old same old policy presented as a bold, pro-active engagement of the administration with a worsening national problem was the economic "Wecovery," (thank-you Lambert), both areas rich in shameless possibilities, and the Bush administration did not disappoint.

The President had several outstanding such moments. Careful to lay blame on the Clinton recession, and claim credit for its shallowness, the President proclaimed the economy was improving, and lauded his adminstrations strenuous concern for each and every American, especially those looking for a job.

"Had we not taken action, this economy would have been in a deeper recession," Mr. Bush said. "It would have been longer, and as many as 1.5 million Americans who went to work this morning would have been out of a job."

To back up Mr. Bush's assertion, White House officials cited a Treasury Department analysis but provided no details.

In the face of the loss of 2.6 million manufacturing jobs under the Bush watch, the Presidents's "bold" assertions were impressively shameless.

We are happy to report a noticeable lack of shameless pandering in the press coverage of the White House's " the President does too care about jobs" PR campaign, and offer this example.

And speaking of the SCLM, George Will did have a strong early entry with his harangue, prompted by the car bombing in Najif, on the August 31st edition of ABC's This Week with young George S.

‘Iraq Is Not a Real Nation’

ABCNEWS' George Will called the bombing proof that, "Iraq is not a real nation, shouldn't be a nation. Yugoslavia wasn't a nation, and we found that out as soon as the tyranny that held it together was loosened. The Soviet Union wasn't a nation, [and] we found that out as soon as it flew apart, given a chance. Iraq is in the process of flying apart.

"Ask yourselves this," Will added, " 'Is there a majority in Iraq that the rest of Iraq would consent to be governed by?' "

(edit)

George Will said retreat is not an option: "What we learned is that the vacuum of what we now call the failed state is something that nature abhors, and into [which] flows al Qaeda and the rest. We are not going to leave. … but we have to understand that all of our vocabulary of democracy simply does not fit this when there is no majority that a minority will consent to be governed by."

It's all the fault of Iraqis, you see, who just aren't ready for nationhood. Or democracy. Now he tells us. Since it was too early to know who the perpetrators were, why is Mr. Will so anxious to assume it's a sign of tribalism, except to exempt himself and the Bush administration from accusations of a policy failure. And what event was it that turned Iraqi into a failed state? Pretty damn shameless.

When we ran across this CNN interview with Paul Wolfowitz from last Friday, we thought, "this is it, it just don't get more shameless than this.

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said Thursday the Bush administration has been pushing for months for a new U.N. resolution to internationalize the force in Iraq, but it took the bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad to change the "atmosphere in New York."

(edit)

Seeking a new U.N. resolution, he said, "didn't sort of emerge out of nowhere a few days ago."

"It's been on our agenda ever since the fall of Baghdad," Wolfowitz said.

He described last month's deadly bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad as a "breakthrough -- a sad one" -- in bringing the international community aboard.

(edit)

"Things change. You exploit opportunities, you deal with surprises."

I'll say. And thereby explain away policy failures, too.

Awed though we were, we should have realized that with the Secretary of Defense on tour in Iraq, checking out his own handiwork, we had a situation rife with shameless possiibilities, and indeed, our award for the most shameless moment of the week was grabbed, at the very last moment, by none other than Donald Rumsfeld. And no, it wasn't the moment when our Secretary of Defense "lashed out" at Iraqi critics of our inability as occupiers to provide minimal security and order.

"Instead of pointing fingers at the security forces of the coalition, ... it's important for the Iraqi people to step up and provide information," Rumsfeld said at a news conference.

Here is the moment that surpassed any other last week:

Earlier, Rumsfeld visited a mass grave site and a Saddam Hussein execution chamber, paying grim homage to atrocities of the deposed Iraqi president's rule.

Rumsfeld stood atop a mound of powdery dirt overlooking the graves of about 900 people summarily executed during a Shiite Muslim uprising after the 1991 Persian Gulf War. They were the unidentified among more than 3,000 massacre victims unearthed in Al Hillah, a 1,000-year-old city near the site of ancient Babylon, shortly after American forces moved through last spring on the way to Baghdad.

Dr. Rafid al-Hussuni, a physician who lost two uncles and two close friends in the massacre, stood beside a somber Rumsfeld and explained his efforts to safeguard mass graves around the country.

Al-Hussuni was involved in the Al Hillah exhumations and started a volunteer group to counsel patience among Iraqis desperate to open the mass graves to find the remains of loved ones. Hasty and haphazard searches could destroy evidence in possible criminal prosecution of those responsible.

"If you can arrest all those people and put them on trial, the hearts of the Iraqi people will be satisfied," said al-Hussuni, who still has not found the remains of his uncles or his friends.

It was a good thing for Mr. Rumsfeld to go to such a site, and to a notorious Baathist prison, even if it was only a pro forma gesture. What made it shameful was the appalling pretense, echoed in the statements, gestures and actions of everyone in this administration, that America had no role in making it possible for Saddam to put down the Shiite rebellion with massacres such as this one, and no role in keeping the light of public awareness from shinning on the grotesque depredations of human rights which made his rule possible. Nor was our passivity at the end of the Gulf War, with an army and a navy right on the scene, prompted by our promise to our allies not to go to Baghdad. We didn't have to go to Baghdad to stop Saddam's massacres. We had only to do what we later did in the North, to stop his transfer of Kurd's from their homes into the mountains. We didn't because of fears that Iraq would break apart.

That Saddam Hussein was once "our SOB," does not mean that we could never have challenged him in good conscience. Nor does it mean that we wish Saddam Hussein was still in power in Iraq. But the recklessness of the particular challenge chosen by this administration and the chaos it has brought to Iraq was also a function of its shamelessness.

Please notice, too, the pro-active role of this Iraqi physician, almost as if he was ready for both nationhood and democracy.

You can check out Human Rights Watch to read more on the issue of mass graves, the coalition response to the issue of securing them, and what kind of tribunal could give Iraqis the kind of justice that would be accepted by the rest of the world here, and here, and here.