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Are all women's mags agents of Satan? Discuss your love/hatred of stories about orgasms and weight loss in the Media area of Table Talk

R E C E N T L Y

A clean Slate at the Microsoft trial
By Susan Lehman
Octogenarian dismal-science practitioner Herb Stein replaces rapier wit Michael Lewis -- hard seats blamed
(11/12/98)

The amazing disappearing Newt
By Steve Erickson
After the Republicans have picked over the carnage of the former speaker's career, Newt will vanish into historical thin air
(11/11/98)

Weep and read it
By James Poniewozik
Books are alive, well and as sentimentalized as ever
(11/10/98)

I wrote about Michiko Kakutani and lived to tell the tale
By Susan Lehman
(11/05/98)

Freshen up your election, hon?
By James Poniewozik
Politicians and pollsters, run! It's the attack of -- 60-foot Waitress Mom!
(11/03/98)

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PUNDITS TO SADDAM: YOUR EVIL DERRIèRE IS OURS! | PAGE 1, 2
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The networks shifted gears midmorning from 1991 nostalgia to analysis of how the United States could possibly have been snookered into having its demands accepted. The overarching theme: If Iraq had accepted inspections unconditionally, this would be Saddam's greatest stroke of evil genius yet. Within an hour of the Iraqi letter's release, defense analysts and former weapons inspectors were on air speculating on how the Clinton administration could "find an out" -- an "out," that is, from having won exactly the concessions it asked for.

It briefly appeared that Iraq's two-page annex of requests to the United Nations would be that out, but it was not enough. The consternation among the press came to a head at National Security Advisor Samuel Berger's press conference Saturday night. Leading the pack was Sam Donaldson, who practically accused Berger and the joint chiefs of being light in the loafers: "It's not clear why, if (Iraq's) letter is unacceptable," he barked, "you would not have gone ahead and (attacked)? Why wouldn't you 'proceed on your own timetable,' as you put it?" One half expected him to offer to push the button himself, if the administration was too chickenshit to do it. Gen. Donaldson returned to the theme with gusto Sunday morning on ABC's "This Week," implying together with George Will that someone in the administration, or maybe the Frenchies, had tipped off Saddam to the cruise-missile attack, enabling his last-minute cave-in. Capitulation or no, he declared, "Once those planes were launched, they should have been allowed to strike!" Surprisingly, Donaldson made it all the way to the commercial break without having to wrestle his hand down to the armrest.

The most striking difference between the coverage of this crisis and 1991's was the even greater dearth of dissent. Generally what passed for criticism was the opinion that the administration hadn't come up with a good enough plan to illegally whack a head of state. Analysts blithely strategized tracking and hitting Iraqi leaders, with hardly a nod to the standing executive order against assassination. ("Targeting command and control" was shaping up to be the "collateral damage" of 1998, the defining euphemism of Gulf War II.) A curiously timed New York Times report Saturday landed like a bloody horse head on Saddam's pillow, suddenly and gamely confirming that, earlier denials notwithstanding, the August air raid against Afghanistan was in fact intended to kill Osama bin Laden. But not to worry! Crack White House lawyers -- our experts on "what 'is' is" -- had determined the assassination ban didn't apply to terrorist "infrastructure," which apparently now includes those persons the U.S. government finds inconvenient. In other words, there's no need to officially overturn the executive order, because it's not an assassination if we really, really want the guy dead.

It may confound reason to say this in the age of the 24-hour op-ed, but this week we may have witnessed a news event on which there weren't enough opinions spouted; almost no one on the air argued against an assault entirely, except for Arab-American spokesman Hussein Ibish and Bob Novak (channeling the spirit of conservative isolationist Robert Taft on CNN's "Capital Gang"). Commentators from Bill Kristol to Margaret Carlson were now of the opinion that it was time to bring the pain immediately -- whether Saddam was willing to let inspectors back in or not -- in spite of the fact that those same, apparently useless inspectors were likewise in Iraq two weeks ago when the commentariat was seemingly unaware that Saddam Hussein still existed.

The lack of dissent may have been in part due to the speed of developments: Inside a week, the news cycle went from Dick Armey agonistes to a near-instant war footing. Thus, unlike last winter's buildup, culminating in the P.R. debacle of the Columbus town meeting, when the citizenry asked impolite questions about U.S. plans to attack Iraq, Americans had this intervention presented to them as a fait accompli without time to reconsider. Certainly the Rumble in Columbus seemed to be the unspoken subtext behind the cranky urgency of the talking heads.

However legitimate the arguments against trusting Saddam's diplomacy, there was something creepy and vaguely antidemocratic about this impatience, the constant harping that we were this close to launching on Saturday until the administration let a golden chance slip through its fingers -- push the button now, you morons, before somebody starts paying attention! Is it so paranoid to think that we had tried public discourse and found we didn't like it? That we witnessed a government preparing a blitzkrieg to gain the element of surprise not on its enemy but on the people and the press?

If so, it appears not to have worked yet. But buck up. If the worst happens and we see a cycle of buildup and backdown -- if Desert Thunder is forestalled and replaced by Desert Hail, Desert Snow and Desert Haze with Really Uncomfortably High Humidity -- it will at least prove a fecund news cycle to replace the sputtering impeachment story. If we know Saddam Hussein, the networks will again get the opportunity to shill for air strikes and cheer on administration hawks in their battle against the peacemongering Kofi Annans of the world. Pity the poor folk of Iraq, who will continue to have to rely on the compromised and monolithic broadcasts of the state-controlled media.
SALON | Nov. 17, 1998