Brew City Brawler

Charlie Sykes, 50something going on 12

The Brawler is always deeply amused to see Charlie Sykes, who called Barack Obama a "sniveling, snot-nosed community organizer"* recoil at the "hate" shown by the "left" (which includes everybody from anarchists to Byron Dorgan). The latest case has been some comments by DPW Chairman Mike Tate, whom Sykes refers to -- sarcastically (always his sniveling metier) -- as a "genius." As opposed to the election, majority-losing genius of Reince Priebus or Rick Graber.

Here's what Tate had to say:

MADISON – Scott Walker joined right-wing extremists in Milwaukee on Saturday to participate in a hateful, fear-based rally aimed at preventing progress for Wisconsin families. Walker was joined by right-wing commentator Michelle Malkin and known tax cheat Joe “The Plumber” Wurzelbacher at the rally, which was sponsored by corporate-backed Americans for Prosperity.

“Scott Walker’s open association with radical, right-wing extremists further demonstrates the divisiveness of his politics,” said Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Mike Tate. “While Democrats in Wisconsin and across the country have debated important issues in a civil manner, Walker and others on the right have attempted to turn the debate into a shouting match.”

Although organizers claimed the protest was peaceful, one man was injured and taken to the hospital.* Other protestors used scare tactics, name-calling and false claims of socialism to get their point across.

“Wisconsin has a history of open and honest debate,” said Tate. “The fact that Scott Walker would endorse this behavior should be a clear sign to voters across Wisconsin that Walker is too extreme to represent them.”

Now, even as a hate blogger the Brawler wouldn't necessarily use all the above language -- dig, I even had some decent exchanges with some baggers who didn't realize I was a cultural spy and agree with Dad29 on early crowd estimates!

But Let's take the wayback machine to see what elected politician Mark Green had to say about anti-war protesters back in April 13, 2003 (from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel):

The crowd cheered U.S. Rep. Mark A. Green (R-Wisconsin) when he said that "for too long I think too many of us have allowed other voices who claim to speak for us to go unchallenged. We've heard from the Hollywood half-wits who confuse their fame with intelligence or, worse yet, relevance. We've seen the peaceniks marching back and forth at our campuses carrying signs that say anything and everything, everything except for things like 'Saddam must disarm' or 'Freedom for Iraq' or 'We support our troops.'

"My friends, the folks who are here today, we don't have agendas," Green continued. "We have mortgages. We don't chain ourselves to trees. We drive our kids to school. We don't burn our flags or block the traffic. We pay our taxes, and we try to make payroll. We are the silent majority. Today, we are speaking up."

Every single bolded statement was an insult to the people who protested going to war with Iraq --and who proved to be, to borrow a phrase from Judith Miller, fucking right to do so. As opposed to Mark Green, who thought we would have been out of Iraq a couple years ago.

Did I mention Charlie Sykes was at the aforementioned rally?

* Sykes additionally likes to refer to Jimmy Carter as the worst president of the last 100 years although American fared better economically under the Carter years than they did under George W. bush, who, truly qualifies for the worst in the past 100 years if not EVAR. (Civil War was going to happen, don't Blame Buchanan!). Sykes also likes to call Carter a wimp, though Carter has the distinction, over Sykes, of having served in the military.

When will Patrick McIlheran learn to stop declaring victory in Iraq?

For nearly three years now Milwaukee Journal Sentinel right-wing guy Patrick McIlheran has enthusiastically declared we're winning in Iraq (as has Charlie Sykes) only to find that reality hasn't caught up with his assertions. McIlheran, whose understanding of Iraq seems to be shaped largely by upbeat  stories from neocon Fouad Ajami, never learns from his mistakes. Instead, he just reasserts them after a decent interval when he thinks everyone's forgotten.

So on March 19, McIlheran again declares victory with a post title "What Victory Looks Like" (critics of Bush's War are denounced as people "who wanted to see this country take a loss," classy stuff). 

Only less than two weeks later, however, "victory" -- maybe defined as relative peace -- again proves to be a chimera as utterly predictable tensions between the Shiite-led government and the well-armed Sunni Sons of Iraq are turning violent. But, to Patrick McIlheran, it all smells like victory.

Sykes: We've won in Iraq!

On Friday, Charlie Sykes -- in the midst of talking to a liberal caller (before hanging up on him after he made a gaffe Charlie led him into) -- declared that we've won in Iraq.

This is a remarkable statement, one that nobody with a passing familiarity with the situation would say. Certainly Gen. Petraeus wouldn't  say it. No one who lives there would say it -- though if you discount the occasional running gun battle or sniper attack or bombing, it's not that bad! And with gun-toting members of the Sunni Awakening increasingly unhappy over their treatment under the Shia-dominated government, things could go south there real quick.

Why would Sykes say we've won -- which takes the claim the surge worked and stretches it like a heavy metal T-shirt from Rummage O Rama?

In the short term, sure, it  provides cover for McCain. He supported the surge, so McCain won the Iraq war. Got it.

But really the hyping of the "victory" in Iraq actually is a perfect set-up to attack the future President Obama. Casualties go up (which they would regardless of who becomes president)? Obama lost the war because the Islamofascists want to test him. Pulling out (with the support of the Iraqi government and people) with the situation still in flux? Obama's cutting and running and he's failed the test.

Obama, according to the future Charlie Sykes narrative (no doubt already scripted) will be the President who lost Iraq. The fact it will be a bogus argument won't stop Sykes and his ilk from repeating it.

It should be noted that Sykes nor any of his colleagues on the right ever defined what victory in Iraq looks like. That's because it's fluid. Whatever a Republican president does=win. Whatever a Democratic president does=Fail. It's that simple.

Surge of violence coming in Iraq?

The upcoming National Intelligence Estimate suggests that may be the case, reports McClatchy. Which is not surprising to anyone who's watched what's going on beyond looking at the Bush Administration's rhetoric (the fight for Kirkuk, the dismantling of the Sons of Iraq).

From the report:

The NIE findings parallel a Defense Department assessment last month that warned that despite "promising developments, security gains in Iraq remain fragile. A number of issues have the potential to upset progress."

Trouble spots include whether the former Sunni insurgents, also known as the Sons of Iraq, find permanent employment; provincial elections scheduled for January; Kirkuk's status; the fate of internally displaced people and returning refugees; and "malign Iranian influence," the unclassified Pentagon report said.

The intelligence agencies' estimate also raises worries about what would happen if Sadr, the anti-U.S. cleric, attempts to reassert himself, according to senior intelligence officials familiar with its contents.

If Sadr abandons his cease-fire, it is unclear whether his former followers would rejoin his cause or whether his movement is permanently fractured, and thus harder to control.

The embattled Sons of Iraq program may prove to be the ultimate challenge to sustained stability in Iraq. The U.S. program to pay mostly Sunni former insurgents to protect their neighborhoods or in some cases to stop shooting at Americans is now moving into the hands of the Shiite-led government.

Many of the roughly 100,000 men of the mostly Sunni paramilitary groups have fled to Syria, while others remain in Iraq, worried that the Shiite government will disband and detain the men. The U.S. military has promised not to abandon the men, of whom about 54,000 were transferred to Iraqi government control this month.

Shark and Shepherd's Rick Esenberg is teh funny

Recently, Rick Esenberg had this to say:

My second post ("Being serious ...) was prompted by commenters who repeated the slander that "Bush lied and people died." If you believe that, I do think that you are either misinformed or hopelessly partisan; even not serious.

He had this to say of Charlie Sykes:

 I do listen regularly to Sykes and I think your description of him is just wrong. He needs to be entertaining so he gets polemical but, for a general audience talk show, I think the discussion on his show takes place on a remarkably high level.

So let's see..."Bush Lied, People Died" -- a slogan based on the absolutely correct premise that the Bush administration deliberately misrepresented and overhyped the intelligence on Iraq to justify the invasion -- is slander. While Sykes -- who has cast Jim Doyle as a segregationist, a criminal or just calls him "despicable;" who insinuates that the people who voted for Michael McGee were thugs themselves; who routinely calls liberals unpatriotic or worse; who routinely twists facts to make his "point" -- somehow represents a "high level" of discussion.

Got it.

Also on the topic of Sykes, Esenberg seems wildly overgenerous in his interpretation of how Sykes discusses issues in the "central city"(i.e. black people).

But so is every conservative I know - even the dread Charlie Sykes who I have yet to hear, as Mike claims, give a lecture about "racism being understandable and black people getting what they deserve." To the contrary, what underlies his concern - and mine - about street violence is a strong conviction that black people - who are overwhelmingly its victims - don't "deserve it."

I don't know ... but when I listen to Charlie Sykes I hear him:

• call people lined up at the Coggs Center for free food vouchers moochers and suggest they're all chiselers
• say Milwaukee voters (i.e. blacks) will vote to require private employers offer sick days because they're shiftless
• read a story of some teens robbing a Wauwatosa family and conclude by asking if people seriously believes a summer jobs program would have stopped them (this was some years ago)
• categorically reject any argument that economics have played a role in the central city's meltdown and instead blame it on the "culture" or people just not taking responsibility for their lives
• use the tragic drowning of a child at a family pool party at a downtown hotel to riff on the sickness of the "culture" yet ignore the story of a Waterford girl who nearly drowned at a house party

And so on.

The Brawler allows that Charlie Sykes has some compassion for inner city crime victims. But the Brawler also suggests that he's more concerned with trundling out right wing talking points (Charles Murray, your office is calling) or stoking the flames of self-righteous indignation among his listeners in Oconomowoc. You know: entertainment.

UPDATE: The Brawler realizes he has been whinging on about Esenberg for some time now ... All the Brawler can say that the whole myth of  "Bush acted in good faith/everyone else got it wrong" is so well-established now that it's going to enter into the rightwing canon of big lies along with "the media lost Vietnam," "The New Deal dragged out the Depression" and "Wisconsin's generous welfare benefits attracted shiftless African Americans up from Chicago."

This despite the facts that, as the Brawler has been whinging, the Bush Administration made claims about Iraqi and WMDs that went far beyond what the intelligence showed; that the Bush Administration was packed with proven prevaricators; and that people in the intelligence community at the time -- including a Marine general -- believed the Administration was cherry-picking intelligence.

The Shark is by all reports a mensch (the Brawler wouldn't use the world "soulless" to describe him), but his embrace of arguments that are only going to be more threadbare with the passing of time is disappointing.