Hewitt Blog

I have just concluded a long and wide ranging interview with John Burns, the New York Times' lead correspondent in Baghdad. It will play in its entirety over two hours on Monday's show.

My first interview with Burns was in February. (Transcript here and audio here.) In this conversation, I ask Burns about the surge, the credibility of General Petraeus in his eyes, the dangers al Qaeda would pose in the aftermath of a withdrawal, and the prospects for Iraq should America walk away.

Burns is widely regarded as among the very greatest journalists of our time, and his candor and comprehensive responses should not be missed. 

From The Cafeteria Is Closed:

Father Georg Gaenswein (a monsignor) is Pope Benedict's personal assistant. He gave an interview to the German (Munich) newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung. I have translated it. The interviewer was Peter Seewald, who was a lapsed Catholic, spent a couple of weeks with Pope Benedict (then cardinal) and returned to the Church. I spent all night writing this exclusive English translation - reading, translating and typing at the same time. Still took hours. It is one of the most interesting insider interviews you'll come across.

The opening of the translation:

Peter Seewald (PS): Herr Praelat, how is the Pope ?

Msgr. Gaenswein (MG): He's well, feels very good, works a lot and is in "high gear".

PS: Does he use the exercise bike that his physician, Dr. Buzzonetti, told him to

MG: The bike is in our Appartamento Privato.

PS: What does that mean ?

MG: It's being a good bike, ready to be used.

Another reason to love the Pope. Here's some of the substance:

PS: The Pope writes all important texts himself, including the speech in Regensburg with the controversial quote from a historical book on a dispute with Muslims. Why did nobody edit the text?

MG: I find the Regensburg speech, as it was given, to be prophetic.

PS: Was the shock great when the angry attacks from the Islamic world became known ?

MG: We only heard of the crude reactions after we'd gotten back to Rome from Bavaria. It was a big surprise, to the Pope as well. The mighty trouble had started due to newspaper reports which had taken one quote out of context and presented it as the Pope's personal opinion.

PS: In Islam, where it is in charge of state and society, human rights are being constantly violated. ("kicked with feet") The persecution of Christians has increased drastically. The President of Iran announced again that the countdown to the destruction of Israel had begun. Is the condept of a real dialog with Islam not a bit too naive?

MG: The attempts at Islamization of the West cannot be put aside. The danger for the identity of Europe that is connected to it must not be ignored for reasons of a wrongly understood respect. The Catholic sides sees it very clearly and talks about it. Especially the Regensburg speech should counter a certain naivete ("blue-eyedness"). One thing has to be pointed out - there is no Islam as such, no voice that ties all Muslims together and leads them. There are many different currents, often at war with each other, up to extremists that claim the Koran for their actions and go to work with guns. On an institutional level, he Holy See tries to make contacts and lead dialogs via the Papal Council for Interreligious Dialog.

Read the whole thing, and thanks to CIC for the hard work of translation. Novelists looking for an idea, focus on this:

PS: Was there some kind of introductory training, like a school for Papal etiquette ?

MG: Not at all. The only thing there was was a private conversation with my predecessor, Monsignore Stanislaus Dziwisz, the current Cardinal-Archbishop of Krakow. That was about two weeks after the Conclave and the move into the Appartamento. He handed me an envelope containing some papers and a key for a safe. An ancient safe, German precision work. He only said, "You now have a very important, very beautiful but also a very, very difficult task. The only thing I can tell you is that the Pope must not be "suffocated" by nothing and no one. How to go about that, you have to find out for yourself." Period, the end. More he didn't say. That was the entire school for Papal etiquette.

PS: And what was in the envelope?

MG: That I won't tell you. They are things that are given from Papal Secretary to Papal Secretary.

 

From blogger Timothy at Zeal and Activity. The opening:

Dear Mr. Foer:

Your publication of Army private Scott Thomas Beauchamp’s “Diary” piece has caused some controversy. Apparently, only one detail of his story - beyond the fact of his existence - has been corroborated. Pvt. Beauchamp appears to have strong political views. He’s not a particularly good writer. It doesn’t help that you knew he is married to one of your staffers.

I suggest that The New Republic run a companion piece in its next issue. It has some similarities with the Beauchamp piece, and some key advantages over it. I am confident that it will meet The New Republic’s standards for freelance writers. Running this piece will provide your readers with a valuable, interesting, and informative contrast with Pvt. Beauchamp’s experience.

Like the Beauchamp piece, it deals with a mass grave - a real one. Again, the grave contained children’s bodies. The atrocity here is far more newsworthy than some cretinous horseplay: the children had been decapitated.

Corroboration will not be a problem. The grave’s excavation was witnessed by at least five American Soldiers from C Company, 1-12 Cavalry, who are identified by name, together with Iraqi soldiers from the 3-25 (5th Division). It was captured on video and in numerous still photographs, and its GPS coordinates are available.

Read the whole thing.

 

I am not making that up.

What next? Lee Greenwood giving $2,300 to Dennis Kucinich?

The background:

Recently, MSNBC's Tucker Carlson asked Paul about Manilow's support. "We saw these FEC reports, including those from your campaign, and were amazed to learn that Barry Manilow has given to your campaign

Do you know Barry Manilow?"

Paul responded: "No, I do not. I was very pleased to find that out."

Asked if he was a fan of Manilow's music, Paul said: "I really like it now, I will tell you that."

 

CNN is asking for YouTube questions for the Republican edition of its YouTube debate. Please submit to YouTube the sort of question (with appropriate staging --snowmen, guns, backdrops on Temple Square or in front of Giuliani Partners) that you think CNN will receive and chose for the GOP YouTube debate. Send me the link. We'll pick the best ambush questions in advance of the debate and as a sort of debate prep. (I see Rudy's bailing and I hope Mitt does as well.)

Here's an example of a question which while non-moonbatty in backdrop, is about the sort of level I expect will flood into CNN.

And this one.

UPDATE: SaveTheDebate, brought by you by the folks opposed to serious presidential debates.

This controversy about "defining 'debate' down" reminded me of the late and greatly missed Senator Moynihan. Not many people refer to missing Moynihan as some often do with regards to Scoop Jackson, but it would have been a great benefit to the U.S. had he lived to participate in the public debates of the past four years.

UPDATE 2: From the Washington Post:

[O]nly Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) and Rep. Ron Paul (Tex.) have agreed to participate in the debate, co-hosted by the Republican Party of Florida in St. Petersburg.

Now if it just stays those two, Anderson Cooper and the snowmen brigade, it would be very interesting indeed. 

Who says bloggers don’t break news?

Yesterday, the Ace of Spades reported that Scott Thomas Beauchamp is married to a New Republic staffer. In spite of Allah’s fears that TNR had set up an elaborate sting operation that Ace had stumbled right into (Ace is prone to stumbling, so Allah’s fears weren’t unrealistic), Franklin Foer confirmed to Howard Kurtz that Scott Thomas Beauchamp is indeed the spouse of a New Republic staffer. According to Foer, that is “part of the reason why we found him to be a credible writer.”

Foer’s logic here is characteristically fanciful. If anything, Beauchamp’s marriage to a TNR staffer combined with his leftist politics and his previously expressed dreams of becoming an artiste should have called his objectivity into doubt. Besides, why on earth would the fact that he married someone who drew a paycheck from TNR make him “credible”?

Personally, I am devastated by this revelation. Andrew Sullivan had assured me yesterday that “The New Republic will be honorable and honest in following up” on the allegations regarding the Beauchamp affair. Since Foer concedes to Kurtz that The New Republic knew of Beauchamp’s marital affiliations since they started publishing his stuff, I find TNR’s week-and-a-half long embargo of this critical detail to be less than “honorable and honest.” After all, Foer began his dogged investigation 10 days ago. Only when a lowly blogger published this juicy detail did Foer release it to the public.

And think about how odd it is that out of 160,000 soldiers serving in Iraq, TNR found the individual most qualified to be their man in Baghdad right inside its own extended family. Remarkable. As to why TNR decided Scott Thomas Beauchamp was the guy to tell the inside story of the Iraq War, right now we can only speculate. Personally, I’ll go for the Occam’s Razor answer: Laziness. In Beauchamp, they knew they had an ideological ally who would see things in Baghdad through the “proper” ideological prism. At least when The Nation smeared the troops with an extended spread documenting military malfeasance, it put a little elbow grease into the task.

The spousal connection also answers why Foer and Co. were so willing to publish stuff that should have arched eyebrows without doing a serious fact-check on it. Scratch that. The New Republic’s style handbook apparently defines a “serious fact-check” as taking the following steps:

"We showed the stories to people who'd been embedded in Iraq to make sure that it all smelled good. We talked to one of the members of his unit to confirm the woman, a female contractor. We talked to a medic who'd served in Iraq to make sure that a woman could be in an FOB. We spent a lot of time with him on the phone asking hard questions."

Of course, the Diarist himself was agnostic as to whether the woman was a contractor or part of the military. But I’m not suggesting anything, because the most reputable of sources has assured me that The New Republic will be “honest and honorable” in investigating this matter.

However implausibly, Frank Foer is still taking the victim role in this drama. According to the today’s Howard Kurtz column,

Foer said the magazine is attempting to confirm every detail. "We are trying to be as deliberate and meticulous as we possibly can," he said. "We're not going to be rushed into making any sort of snap judgment."

That’s a part I really don’t understand. Why do they need to confirm every detail? After all, the Diarist is married to a TNR staffer and they showed the story to some reporters in Iraq who said it smelled good. What do these conservative bloggers want? A pound of flesh?

AT HOTAIR AND ACE’S PLACE, there’s a little debate going on over whether this story is getting too much play. Everyone says yes, except Michelle who insists no. I’m with Michelle.

At the Corner, my friend John Podhoretz says the only thing that matters right now is whether the Diarists’ details pan out. I must disagree. While waiting to see if The New Republic gets egg on its face (again) has its amusements, that issue is a freak side show.

In running the Thomas Diarists, be they true or false or somewhere in between, The New Republic attempted to smear the soldiers who are serving honorably in Iraq. That’s the real story here. The New Republic offered up one eye-witness account from a soldier in Baghdad in its last issue; that soldier told stories of horrifying sociopathic behavior. There are tons of other soldiers’ stories from Iraq that more accurately describe what’s going on over there; none of them interested The New Republic. The real story here is the editorial decision making process that led The New Republic to have its own private embed in Iraq, a uniform wearing mole who went to Iraq with the apparent specific purpose of maligning the war effort.

This is a serious story, a story whose gravity is minimized by the Gotcha Game that TNR is now stuck in. The real story here is agenda-driven journalists taking a hard turn left, attacking the military as their illustrious predecessors did back in the Glory Days of Vietnam.

Compliments? Complaints? Contact me at Soxblog@aol.com.

Image from "Suitably Flip"

 

Howard Kurtz interviewed The New Republic's Franklin Foer (though he didn't ask Foer about TNR's firing of a staffer who leaked a fact about Scott Thomas Beauchamp's marriage to a TNR staffer), and the portrait that emerges of Foer is not flattering. Playing the victim card a couple of times, Foer also admits the magazine is still trying to fact check Beauchamp's allegations, and then whines:

"It is really unfortunate that someone like Scott, who was really only trying to tell his particular story, has become a pawn in the debate over the war and the Weekly Standard's efforts to press an ideological agenda."

As Beauchamp's "particular story" involved attributing cruelty and possible crimes and indifference to cruelty and possible crimes to American soldiers, it isn't an event with no consequences for others, as the Army's very serious investigation suggests. Foer's pre-publication editorial judgment may have been impaired because of nepotism, but there's no excuse for his denial of the very obvious problems with the column and the legitimacy of the criticisms that have followed. Most of his critics like The New Republic, and respect the work of many of its members, but Foer is set on a course that is deeply damaging to the brand. He's gone Mapes, and a new malady in the journalism world gets a name: The Foer-Mapes Syndrome: a stone-walling refusal to recognize even the most obvious breaches of journalistic practice and ethics. 

Dan Riehl weighs in on the debate on the YouTube debate.

CNN should scrap the circus and invite a panel of John Burns, Bill Gerson, Thomas Ricks, Rowan Scarborough, Mark Steyn and Michael Yon to ask the questions. There's a debate worth watching --for hours.

UPDATE: See also Paul Edwards conversation on this topic with Andrew Keen, the author of The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing Our Culture. 

My new Townhall.com column is up. 

Patrick really want the GOP candidates to do a YouTube debate. Why not have them go in barrels over Niagara Falls --that would get a lot of interest as well?

What Patrick fails to see is that it isn't about talking to people or being willing to connect with voters through new media. Both Giuliani and Romney --less so Thompson-- have been very, very available to all sorts of people at stop after stop, and both do all sorts of media without preconditions. They answer all the questions.

What they are wise to avoid is a set-up ambush using gimmicks that separate the ambush from the planner. See my post below, but the YouTube formay allows nameless, faceless MSM lefties to hit below the belt and then shrug their shoulders and say "It wasn't my question."

The CNN YouTube debate was orchestrated by MSMers with no names and no accountability for the buffoonery that ensured. The GOP candidates skipping such a circus is not the same as the Democrats passing on a Fox News Channel debate moderated by Brit Hume and Chris Wallace, and I'd blast the GOPers if they skipped an MSNBC debate. In fact I'm all for letting Keith Olbermann moderate a debate of the GOPers because poor old Keith wouldn't know what hit him. It isn't about being willing to go anywhere and answer anything, it is about refusing to walk into a media box canyon where the anonymous MSMers will have had a few days to pick the best thirty body slams from tens of thousand of moonbat-generated videos. Would Patrick recommend the GOP candidates attend a YearlyKos sponsored and nutter-moderated debate? That's what the YouTube Debate, GOP edition will be.

Running for president is supposed to show us that candidates are prudent, and the wise choice here is to say yes to every MSM debate, and no to gimmicks, no matter how appealing they are to the slackers and snowmen demographic.

If you are feeling ambitious this weekend, develop a YouTube hit question of the sort I am writing about here and send the link to me at hugh@hughhewitt.com. Perhaps a few examples will spell it out for Patrick.

UPDATE: Josh Marshall is fulminating: "But if they can't face Youtube how can they defeat the terrorists?" Yeah, yeah, that's the ticket. Being stupid about media is a qualification to fight the war on terror. And tackling snowman videos measures leadership. Sheesh.