GOP Strategy 101: Identify the obstacle, smear the obstacle

September 6, 2007

The new report from the Government Accountability Office is obviously a thorn in the side of the Bush administration and supporters of its Iraq policy. They have a lot of non-existent progress to point to, and the GAO has produced a detailed, objective, and well-researched document highlighting the failures of the president’s “surge.”

So, naturally, Republicans and their allies have decided to weigh the seriousness of the GAO’s conclusions and reevaluate their policy. No, I’m just kidding. Republicans and their allies have actually decided that it’s time to smear the GAO.

Brookings analyst Michael O’Hanlon, however, attacked the GAO, choosing instead to laud the Pentagon’s distortions. In an analysis only he could offer, O’Hanlon rips the GAO report for being both “overly rigorous” and “flat-out sloppy”:

During his recent tour through Iraq, [O’Hanlon] adds, every local briefing he received from the US military said that attacks in that particular sector were down. In addition, for the GAO to decline to judge whether attacks are sectarian or not is to take an overly rigorous approach to the numbers, says the Brookings expert.

“I just think they were flat-out sloppy,” he says of GAO.

I suppose this shouldn’t come as too big a surprise. Going after the GAO’s credibility is far easier, and more in-character for war supporters, than responding to the agency’s report with credible and verifiable information that supports their conclusions.

Why argue with facts when you can blame the messenger who’s providing the facts? “The GAO isn’t telling us what we want to hear? Well, then there must be something wrong with the GAO!”

Of course, it’s not just O’Hanlon.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), a ranking member of the House International Relations Committee, targeted the GAO during a hearing yesterday afternoon.

[Ros-Lehtinen] attempted to claim that the GAO was unqualified to even render a judgment on the situation in Iraq. Describing the process of accountability as “unsettling,” Ros-Lehtinen complained, “I just feel uncomfortable listening to a report by the Government Accountability Office about a war effort.”

GAO Comptroller General David Walker responded by defending the agency’s experience in such matters. He explained the work the GAO does is based on “looking at hard data, interviewing qualified individuals, and appropriate parties have an opportunity to review and comment on our work.” Walker added that military experience is not a necessary requirement to offer a qualified opinion:

“The President and the Vice President have no military or foreign policy experience. Does that mean I don’t respect their opinion? I do. They’ve got a lot of people who work for them that do. So I think it’s a false claim to say you know we’re not qualified to do this work. We’re eminently qualified to do this work.”

Note to war supporters: the GAO isn’t the problem; the failed policy is the problem. Lashing out at the agency providing the data, instead of the misguided strategy that’s producing the data, only makes you look worse.

O’Hanlon and the others who seek to viciously attack messengers bearing bad tidings about Iraq are simply seeking to salvage whatever reputations they may have had before Iraq.

Remember, as Ron Paul said about withdrawal, “The people who say there will be a bloodbath are the ones who said it would be a cakewalk, it would be a slam dunk, and that it would be paid for by oil. Why believe them?”

  • Republicans and their allies have actually decided that it’s time to smear the GAO.
    **********

    Of course. Who didn’t see that coming? What is this?,…a part of the government that’s independent and will call a spade a spade, that will hold agencies and branches accountable? The nerve, the insolence, the arrogance! You will bow down and do our bidding, promote our agenda, lend credence to whatever we do and say, or you will be discredited, discounted, and vilified. Don’t say we didn’t warn you! Now, peel me a grap

  • Perhaps we now have another bumper-sticker slogan for the Repugs. How about “Republicans, the party of fear, sneer, and smear”?

  • O’Hanlon was told by people in uniforms that attacks were down and that was good enough for him. Wow.

    With that kind of intellectual curiosity he would be perfectly suited for a career in either the food service or waste collection industries.

  • I just don’t feel comfortable listening to a woman named Ileana Ros-Lehtinen about a military occupation.

  • Re #1: I wish the Democrats would use the same argument Ron Paul used more often. It cuts the legs from under any wingnut quickly and effectively.

    Simply get some quotes from whoever you’re debating, and read them back to them before running them over. Ignore anything that they say.

    Ignore their bullshit like you would ignore the lunatic ravings of people who think the earth doesn’t rotate. Unfortunately there are people who are that stupid…

    …the chairman of the [Texas] House Appropriations Committee, the most powerful committee in the House, distributed to legislators a memo pitching crazed wingers who believe the earth stands still — doesn’t spin on its axis or revolve around the Sun — that Copernicus was part of a Jewish conspiracy to undermine the Old Testament…

    http://www.burntorangereport.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=2916

  • As a former GAO analyst, I can say that GAO’s fact-checking process is beyond thorough. Literally every single word of a report is checked by at least one other independent analyst and extensive documentation is provided for every assertion. Multiple stakeholders, general counsel, and in the case of highly sensitive reports, such as this one, David Walker himself would be involved in the review and quality assurance.

    GAO takes its responsibility to be Accurate, Independent, and Reliable to nearly ridiculous levels. One of the big complaints among GAO analysts is that they often feel that GAO’s stringent rules about appropriate evidence keep them from stating things as clearly and as strongly as they would like. They know something is true, but without the hard evidence GAO requires, they can’t publish it.

    So if this report says benchmarks aren’t being met, they’re not being met.

    If only other branches of government were so thorough….

    Oh, and by the way, GAO has been sending analysts over to Iraq for several years now.

  • I’m surprised this hasn’t happened before. Every GAO report I’ve read since BushCo got into office can be summarized as follows:

    “We wouldn’t trust these clowns to wipe their own arses, much less handle large amounts of money.”

  • The problem for the hawks is that is isn’t *just* GAO that’s spitting into their rose-coloured glasses; there had been 2 other reports within the past couple of days and those, also, don’t see anything worth praising. There used to be a saying back in my wild Polish days: “if one person tells you you’re drunk, you can laugh it off. If two people tell you so, you can ignore them both. But if three people tell you you’re drunk, it’s time to go home and sleep it off”.

    It’s time for the malAdmin and its entourage of honking elephants to go home, take a couple of aspirin and sleep the binge off…

  • No matter the reports or the evidence or who says what, Bush will never leave Iraq until he is forced to. He will continue to “force” our soldiers to fight and die policing a civil war calling them heroes rather than sacrifices to his war profiteers. ways out 1)impeach or 2) stop funding the occupation. Get Reid to stop playing the victim…stop him from saying “the Democrats in the senate cannot get the votes needed to withdraw our forces from Iraq…we need 60 votes…waah”

    Instead let it be seen that the Republicans in the senate cannot get enough votes to continue funding the occupation…they need a hundred votes Harry. Reid has what Bush wants…Not the other way around.

    Pelosi claims the most important issue is ending the “war” in Iraq and impeachment would distract from accomplishing that. She needs to see that impeachment will end the “war” in Iraq.
    Reid says ending the “war” in Iraq is the most important issue. He needs to see that he can stop the “war” in Iraq by refusing to fund the occupation…funding only immediate troop withdrawal…not some stupid timeline that could last years.

    So both Pelosi and Reid have it within their power to take the steps to end the “war”, occupation, in Iraq and prevent an attack on Iran. But instead they play the victims that can’t get Bush and the republicans to “see the light” and join with them…they just can’t get 60 votes so they have to give in.

    So really…they are not willing to do what is necessary to stop this Iraq occupation. So it’s not as important as even the minimum wage bill.
    So tell us again Reid, Pelosi what you “can’t” do instead of what you “can” do.

  • Pingback: bastard.logic

  • You should see what the rank-and-file morons are doing now that NewsMax has come out with the “proof” that the investigator’s videos were “doctored” in the Haditha investigation. it’s as sad as this sliming of the GAO report.

    Watching these people run around trying to patch holes in their hot air balloon is truly pathetic.

    All this does is prove what pathetic losers they are.

    • Comments are closed.