Romney: "President Obama’s astonishing failure to secure an orderly transition in Iraq..."

"... has unnecessarily put at risk the victories that were won through the blood and sacrifice of thousands of American men and women."

Obama campaign answers: "Mitt Romney didn't lay out a plan to end the war in Iraq in his foreign policy agenda - he barely even mentioned Iraq - but he is apparently willing to leave American troops there without identifying a new mission."

ADDED: Spencer Ackerman: "But the fact is America’s military efforts in Iraq aren’t coming to an end. They are instead entering a new phase. On January 1, 2012, the State Department will command a hired army of about 5,500 security contractors, all to protect the largest U.S. diplomatic presence anywhere overseas."

"Scott Lemieux's Spencer Ackerman moment."

Actually, I think this is unfair, but I'm not going say why or distinguish Scott Lemieux from Spencer Ackerman, because I swore off linking to Lawyers, Guns and Money when they deleted all Meade's comments. I'm not going to interact with people who have deliberately and finally cut of my channels of interaction with them.

Restore everything and apologize and I will.

"The fifth rule of the ethics of means and ends is that concern with ethics increases with the number of means available and vice versa."

Wrote Saul Alinsky in "Rules for Radicals." I went searching for that rule when I read the way Kevin Drum and Mark Schmitt pushed back against Spencer Ackerman. But Alinsky was at least contemplating the role of ethics as he subordinated means to ends:

Reviewing and selecting available means is done on a straight utilitarian basis — will it work? Moral questions may enter when one chooses among equally effective alternate means. But if one lacks the luxury of a choice and is possessed of only one means, then the ethical question will never arise; automatically the lone means becomes endowed with moral spirit.

(Page 32.)

We don't have the full text of what Drum and Schmitt wrote. But in The Daily Caller quotes, they only ask what will work best. They don't even throw in as a makeweight argument that it would be more ethical to refrain from calling their opponents racists.

***

Another distinction is that Alinsky was talking about rules for political activists, not journalists. Even as means are subordinated to ends, journalism is subordinated to political activism.

How far were Journolisters willing to go to help Obama win the election?

Jonathan Strong, at the Daily Caller, quotes from that email list known as the Journolist:

Employees of news organizations including Time, Politico, the Huffington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Guardian, Salon and the New Republic participated in outpourings of anger over how Obama had been treated in the media, and in some cases plotted to fix the damage.

In one instance, Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent urged his colleagues to deflect attention from Obama’s relationship with Wright by changing the subject. Pick one of Obama’s conservative critics, Ackerman wrote, “Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists.”

Michael Tomasky, a writer for the Guardian, also tried to rally his fellow members of Journolist: “Listen folks–in my opinion, we all have to do what we can to kill ABC..."

Kill ABC because in an ABC News debate, Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos had pressed Obama with questions about Wright.

"...and this idiocy in whatever venues we have. This isn’t about defending Obama. This is about how the [mainstream media] kills any chance of discourse that actually serves the people.”

Interesting double use of the word "kill." We need to kill ABC before ABC kills the discourse.

“We need to throw chairs now, try as hard as we can to get the call next time. Otherwise the questions in October will be exactly like this. This is just a disease.”

Throw chairs now. Kill. Rather violent ideation there. Imagine if a tea partier had used such language. Look at what Spencer Ackerman wrote:

"I do not endorse a Popular Front, nor do I think you need to. It’s not necessary to jump to Wright-qua-Wright’s defense. What is necessary is to raise the cost on the right of going after the left. In other words, find a rightwinger’s [sic] and smash it through a plate-glass window. Take a snapshot of the bleeding mess and send it out in a Christmas card to let the right know that it needs to live in a state of constant fear. Obviously I mean this rhetorically.

"And I think this threads the needle. If the right forces us all to either defend Wright or tear him down, no matter what we choose, we lose the game they’ve put upon us. Instead, take one of them — Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists. Ask: why do they have such a deep-seated problem with a black politician who unites the country? What lurks behind those problems? This makes *them* sputter with rage, which in turn leads to overreaction and self-destruction."

Smash... through a plate-glass window... snapshot of the bleeding mess... live in a state of constant fear...

Ackerman got some pushback, but only, it seems, because his strategy appeared ineffective. Mark Schmitt thought it would be bad to make the campaign "all about character" (as opposed to substance), and Kevin Drum said that it would be counterproductive because "the Obama brand" was about being above it all.

The Daily Caller may be picking the juiciest bits from the prize archive it has acquired. I would like access to the whole set of documents so that I can see for myself. The liberal/lefty journalists were eager to help their side, and perhaps conservative journalists do the same for their side. Is Strong smashing Ackerman's head through a plate glass window — rhetorically! — or is this an admirable study of ethics in journalism?

"Iraq was yesterday's war, Afghanistan is today's war. If we don't act preemptively, Yemen will be tomorrow's war."

Said Joe Lieberman.

ADDED: Spencer Ackerman said:

Is it a mistake to respond to this with more than ridicule? Maybe, but if not: it’s a ludicrously blithe and cost-free assertion to say that we need to take preemptive action in Yemen. What the fuck does Joe Lieberman know about Yemen? What does anyone in the Washington policy community know about Yemen? .... Lieberman just gets to go on Fox and monger away, unchallenged. Such is life....

Kind of hard to backpedal from that, but the NYT has this:

In the midst of two unfinished major wars, the United States has quietly opened a third, largely covert front against Al Qaeda in Yemen.

A year ago, the Central Intelligence Agency sent many field operatives with counterterrorism experience to the country, according a former top agency official. At the same time, some the most secretive Special Operations commandos have begun training Yemeni security forces in counterterrorism tactics, senior military officers said.

The Pentagon is spending more than $70 million over the next 18 months, and using teams of Special Forces, to train and equip Yemeni military, Interior Ministry and coast guard forces, more than doubling previous military aid levels....

AND: Instapundit notes:

What’s interesting is the raft of commenters accusing Lieberman of being a stooge for Israel because of this statement, when he’s quoting an administration official.

I'm seeing, at the original report that I began with: "an administration official told him that..." So I didn't think I was quoting a quote. It's a paraphrase, I think. But Lieberman didn't make it up, and the NYT article makes it pretty clear that the attacks on Lieberman are embarrassing and should be withdrawn quickly.