Yankees Win -- Casey Strikes Out

I had tickets to yesterday afternoon's Yankees game against the Minnesota Twins (the result of sitting through a couple of hours of rain on Old Timer's Day before the game was called before the Yankees came to bat). Tori Hunter hit a monster homer run on an early mistake by Rasner, the Yankees' rookie pitcher, called up from the Clippers to provide an extra arm needed due to the doubleheader on Wednesday. But other than the second inning pitch to Hunter, Rasner had a solid outing, going 6, giving up but four hits, one run, and no walks. On the otehr side of the ball, A-Rod blasted two homeruns, Abreu had three doubles, and the (previously) vaunted Minnesota bullpen could not withstand the Yankee offensive power, giving up 8 of the home teams ten runs before (yet another) sell out crowd at The Stadium on a gorgeous, 70-ish, mostly-sunny afternoon in the Home Office of Baseball.

Meanwhile, in Washington, Bob Casey and Rick Santorum had their first face off of the campaign, sitting across the desk from the cherubic, over-rated, lawyer cum political operative cum softball interviewer Tim Russert. Because of the travel-time to The Stadium, our party was on the road well before the airing of MTP. I have purposefully avoided looking at the commentary and blogs on the debate until I had chance to cue up the online replay of the event this morning.

I've done so and have to say that I am disappointed in Casey's performance. (Perhaps the "Casey Strikes Out" heading was too harsh -- but it fit in with the baseball themed opening. Casey more like bunted.) I had been hoping that his staff had adequately prepared him to be something more than just Bobby Casey for this much-anticipated initial encounter with the dark side of the political universe.

Alas, I was hoping for too much. Before looking at some specifics, I found Casey came off as (all-too-typically) short on substance, shorter on ideas, and even shorter still on specifics. He didn't lay a glove on Santorum (although Russert did), while Santorum effectively countered most of Casey's mumbled talking points and followed those up with a few sharp jabs and body blows.

On substance, Santorum was way off base and disconnected from reality. In delivery and demeanor, Santorum mostly looked strong, in control, confident, and self-assured, Casey none of those things. Santorum wore a dark suit, white shirt, deep red tie. Casey (who showed up for the first primary debate looking like he had just stepped off a private country club golf course), wore a dark suit, white shirt and, appropriately, a pale blue tie (he also wore an American Flag lapel pin -- I guess so that we all understood that he was an American).

Iraq -- Santorum: 'Stay THE Course' vs. Casey: 'Stay OF Course'

From the start, Casey demonstrated his weakness -- Russert began by recounting Casey's statements in support of the Iraq war. As recently as the Democratic primary debates, Bob Casey said that he was in favor of staying the course in Iraq -- he was opposed to a timetable, opposed to pulling the troops out of Iraq, and in favor of staying until the mission was accomplished. During the primary debates, he declined the opportunity to say that the vote authorizing the Iraq war was a mistake. Russert gave him another opportunity to join those Democratic Senators who have said that their vote on Iraq was a mistake. He didn't answer the question and Russert let him slide.

MR. RUSSERT: Let’s go right to it: the war in Iraq. Mr. Casey, you’re the challenger, you told The Philadelphia Inquirer August 2005 the following:

“Casey said he would have voted for the war considering the evidence at the time, and supported the spending bills that funded the effort.” Knowing what you know today, would you still have voted for the war?

MR. CASEY: (After condolences to Pittsburgh Mayor Bob O'Connor's family) Tim, on the war in Iraq, if, if, if a lot of Americans knew now—if they knew then what they know now, they would, they would have thought that this war was the war that shouldn’t have been fought based upon the misleading of this administration. . . .

MR. RUSSERT: So you would not vote for it today.

MR. CASEY: Based upon the information that we have now, I think that, that a lot of Americans would have serious doubts. I’m not sure there would have even been a vote on Iraq that early in the...

MR. RUSSERT: But in ‘05 you said you’d vote for it. Would you today in ‘06 vote for it?

MR. CASEY: Based upon the evidence that was presented then, yes, which I think has been—was misleading, and I think it was faulty. The intelligence was faulty.

MR. RUSSERT: But today, today is no. Today you would vote no.

MR. CASEY: Today—if we knew then what we know now, sure. I think there wouldn’t have been a vote and I think people would have changed.

Russert only pretended to press him for a direct response to a direct question -- "If he knew then what we know now, would he have voted to authorize the Iraq war?"

Casey ducked it. He talked about how the "American people" wouldn't support the war, how "if a lot of Americans knew now—if they knew then what they know now, they would, they would have thought that this war was the war that shouldn’t have been fought". What Russert should have said was, 'Mr. Casey we all know how the American people feel about the war, what the people of Pennsylvania deserve to know is how Bob Casey feels about it. So I'd like to ask you again, yes or no Mr. Casey, if you knew then what you know now, would you have voted in favor of the Iraq war?'

This is a top issue on the minds of every voter in America and we in Pennsylvania deserve an answer from Casey. Casey lacks the courage to state clearly his position and that came through at the very start of the joint appearance on MTP. It was not a good start. It got a little worse right away.

After saying that he would not vote to cut off funding because "I’m not ready to abandon this mission", Casey made sounds like he was about -- for the first time I can recall -- to give some specifics on what he would do in Iraq. But, I forgot that this was merely a politician, not a leader, and, after saying that there were "a couple of things" we need, then saying that he would list "four or five", he listed three, or maybe four, but only one specific, I think:

One of them is a question of accountability. . . . Accountability, I think, means replacing Donald Rumsfeld . . . . The second thing we need, I think, in Iraq, in terms of a new direction is to make sure that we have clear and measurable benchmarks. And thirdly, I think what’s happening in Iraq should tell us that we need to transform the mission on the ground. . . . The Iraqis need to take over and take on some of these street patrols, patrols in Baghdad and so many other places. And I think also, Tim, I’ll conclude with this: We need to rebuild the American military. We need to have more Special Forces. I’ve called for a doubling in the number of Special Forces.

You see, I was hoping to hear something like, "Well, Tim, what I would do is put together a three-pronged approach to the problem. First, we need to recognize the mistakes we made in how we went into the war. We need to go back to the world community and say we have a problem in the mid-east and that problem is not just a US problem -- if unresolved it could affect world politics and stability for generations. We need a new approach, a world-approach. I would invite the world to propose solutions. We need to understand how our go-it-alone strategy has alienated so many of our natural allies and we need to work on bringing them back into the picture. Second, Tim, we need to recognize how the credibility of the United States has been hurt -- even among our friends in the Arab world. We need to invite the Arab league into the negotiations and into Iraq. Sure, American troops need to stay and provide support and border security. But the face of the occupied Iraq needs to be more multi-national, needs to be Arabic, if we are to convince the Iraqis and the rest of the Arab world that our mission there is not to secure a US presence and dominance over a significant source of energy in the middle east. And third, we need a real Marshall Plan to rebuild the infrastructure of Iraq. Not by awarding no-bid contracts to Haliburton, but by engaging the community of nations and pledging hundreds of billions of dollars to getting the electricity and running water back on -- Tim, are you aware that 90% of Iraq does not have daily electricity and water yet? That is outrageous and it is our fault."

What came after "Well, Tim" hardly mattered -- I wanted to hear some higher-level thinking on the problem and a proposal of concrete solutions.

Instead, we got an answer which disappointingly sounds very much like 'stay the course' (oh, and "double the special forces"). Huh?

Was there any game plan going into this?

Didn't Casey understand that Russert would start with Iraq?

Didn't they think about a way to deliver an early, strong, Senatorial message -- offer a stark contrast with Santorum's strong support of the Bush war on Iraq?

Couldn't they come up with a bold declaration of the failures of the Bush/Santorum policies and the bankruptcy of ideas coming from Washington?

Couldn't they have come up with a way to use Iraq to put Rick Santorum on the defensive right at the start?

Here was there big plan (I guess it was planned), right after Casey gets done with his no-specifics, non-statement on Iraq, he challenges Santorum to disavow Rumsfeld (and lsater, he would ask him to disavow Cheney). Gee, I just hope that no one on the Casey side thought that Santorum would be surprised by this and wouldn't have a strong response at the ready. If they did think that, then I hate to see how they are going to handle the real debates.

Instead of putting Santorum on the defensive, Casey handed him an opportunity to turn the discussion into his Islamic Facists nonsense. It may be nonsense to thinking people, but it has been resonating with the electorate, mainly because of the false linking of the administration's failures in Iraq with the nuclear threat posed by Iran:

MR. CASEY: . . . .And I would just ask Senator Santorum: Donald Rumsfeld, I’ve called for him to be replaced, Rick. Where do you stand on that?

SEN. SANTORUM: I’ll be happy to start there. I think Secretary Rumsfeld has done a fine job as the defense secretary, and the problems that we are confronting are problems of an enemy that’s a very potent enemy—much more potent than I think anybody ever anticipated. You know, we have a great game plan. We go it just like a football team. You go in there, you do your best, but the enemy has a vote, the enemy can react and change its tactics, and they have, and they’ve been very, very effective. We need to go out there and continue to fight this war on Islamic fascism. Not just, as my opponent likes to focus on, just the war in Iraq. That’s a front of a multi-front war in which we’re fighting against an enemy that’s a very dangerous enemy. . . . So we have a very difficult enemy. We have an enemy that now is trying to get nuclear weapons in, in, in the form of Iran, and one that—you know, we can ask all these questions about process and procedure, most of which I would argue have been answered already. The real tough questions is how do you win this war? How do you go out and, and, and prosecute a war that—successfully? And I’ve laid out a very clear vision on that, and my opponent has not.

That last phrase hung in the air (and was an effectively-repeated theme). Casey never responded to it.

Russert was more prepared than Casey. He immediately cited the report (released late Friday before a holiday weekend), which labeled sectarian fighting as a larger problem in Iraq than terrorists -- in other words, 'No, Rick, even your own Pentagon says we are not fighting them over there, we are reaping the fruit of our own incompetence.'

MR. RUSSERT: Let me talk about a Pentagon report on Friday. Our ambassador to Iraq has said the principal problem is not foreign terrorists, it’s sectarian violence, Sunni vs. Shiite. The Pentagon report on Friday said this: “Sectarian violence is spreading in Iraq and the security problems have become more complex than at any time since the U.S. invasion in 2003, a Pentagon report said. ... ‘Death squads and terrorists are locked in mutually reinforcing cycles of sectarian strife.’ ... ‘The last quarter, as you know has been rough,’ [Asst. Secretary of Defense Peter] Rodman said. ‘The levels of violence are up and the sectarian quality of the violence is particularly acute and disturbing.’”

This is Shiite vs. Sunni, Iraqi vs. Iraqi. . . . What do you do about that, stay the course?

Santorum tried to move the question back to his Islamofacist argument, but Russert stopped him with a point that Casey was unable to make -- that the Bush policy created the opportunity for Iran to leverage the influence it has been developing in Iraq for over twenty years:

SEN. SANTORUM: . . . . And Iran, which is, which is the principal stoker of this, this Shia/Sunni sectarian violence, would love nothing more to see than the Iraqi democracy fail because of that. This is a tactic of Iran to disrupt the—our, our efforts in Iraq by, in fact, trying to defeat the Sunnis. So there’s, there’s no question, this is a very complex war.

. . . .But understand, at the, at the heart of this war is Iran. Iran is the, is, is the problem here. Iran is the one that’s causing most of the problems in, in Iraq. It is causing most of the problems, obviously, with Israel today. It is, it is the one funding these organizations. And is the, is the country that we need to focus on in this war against Islamic fascism.

MR. RUSSERT: So Iran now has more influence in Iraq than they did before Saddam Hussein?

SEN. SANTORUM: Just understand.

MR. RUSSERT: Is that true?

SEN. SANTORUM: I would say that they have influence in, in, in a free country where you have an opportunity to express yourself, if you will. Yes.

(Santorum looked bad here.) Soon after this exchange, Santorum looked just silly trying to defend his claim that the weapons we went to war over were found in Iraq.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Santorum, leading up to the war. In October of 2002, this is what Rick Santorum said, “Saddam Hussein’s regime, is a serious and grave danger to the safety of the American people.” “Given the threat posed to he world by his weapons of mass destruction programs...” Would you now acknowledge that that was not correct?

SEN. SANTORUM: What I would say is that we have found weapons of mass destruction, they were older weapons, but we have found chemical weapons. The report was just released not too long ago that, that said that there were over 500 chemical weapons found in Iraq.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator, the president has accepted the report of his two task force and said, “That the chief weapons inspector has issued his report. Iraq did not have the weapons our intelligence believed were there.”

SEN. SANTORUM: Well, there were all sorts of weapons that our intelligence believed were there. They thought that they were new weapons. So far we, we did not—we have not found any new weapons. But we have found old weapons, weapons from the Iran/Iraq conflict, and we found over 500 and the report says that there were more.

Santorum continued with the (thoroughly debunked) argument that Bin Laden and Saddam were working together prior to 9/11, saying that "we have certainly lots of information about the fact that they were working with other terrorist organizations, including al-Qaeda". This a major weakness of Santorum's support for Iraq which Casey should be hitting all over the park -- that Santorum is making ridiculous claims which even the President has rejected, that Santorum is way out there, that he is even further divorced from the reality of Iraq than this misguided adminstration.

Instead, when Casey interrupts and asks for a chance to make a point, he walks right into Russert's prep, seemingly like no one had prepared Casey to deal with it:

MR. CASEY: ...let me respond to that. Can I have a few minutes to respond?

MR. RUSSERT: Please.

MR. CASEY: Couple of things. First of all, what you just heard was Senator Santorum’s long answer, which basically says, “Stay the course in Iraq.” It’s a completely different point of view. I think we’ve go got to change the course and, and have new leadership. Part of that is that, that accountability I’ve talked about.

MR. RUSSERT: But stop there—stop there Mr. Casey.

MR. CASEY: OK.

MR. RUSSERT: I think there’s an evolution in your thinking. Let me go back to April of ‘05, the Philadelphia Daily News said, “The key thing now is to finish the job.” That’s Bob Casey, quote/unquote. October, “Some people think that pulling out is a good idea and a timeline is a good idea - I don’t agree with that. We’ve got more work to do to make sure that we get it right.” Then in June of ‘06, Bob Casey said, “He doesn’t believe U.S. troops should be removed from Iraq immediately but should be by the end of the year. He said the country has a new government and that it’s time for the Iraqis to take a greater role in defending themselves.” Should we finished the job? Or should we remove the troops by the end of the year?

MR. CASEY: Tim, I’ve never favored a deadline in, in, in this whole campaign. Because we have to do everything we can to, to hold the administration accountable. And when you’re—when it’s not going well, you, you see the, the Pentagon report this past—just in the last couple of days, this thing is headed toward civil war. We don’t know if it’s there yet. We hope it’s not. But when you have it heading in the wrong direction, you’ve got to have a new course. And, and...

MR. RUSSERT: So, so when John Kerry, the Democratic nominee in 2004, introduced legislation which says, “All troops out by July of 2007,” Bob Casey votes no.

MR. CASEY: Absolutely.

So, instead of being able to call Santorum out on his faulty rationale for going into and staying in Iraq, Casey gets called out on his own inspecific, shifting positions and refusing to set a goal of getting us out of Iraq in 2007. Instead, what Casey seems to offer us is "stay a little different course".

Iraq took up a significant part of the MTP hour. But at no point did Casey lay a glove on Santorum. He let Santorum spew indefensible arguments for what we did and what we are continuing to do. Even when he started to make what sounding like a decent, somewhat original point about using special forces to ferret out nuclear weapons technology on the black market, Russert stopped him in his tracks with yet another obvious question which Casey seemed unprepared to answer.

MR. CASEY: Tim, you’re hearing, you’re hearing a long speech here about, about other speeches he’s given. What we need and what the president needs to tell us about, and what this senator won’t hold the president accountable for is a plan. One of the things that we could be doing, not just when it comes to Iraq, but when it comes to the, the global war on terror, is to have more Special Forces out there. Doubling the number of Special Forces, having counterproliferation units run by the Special Forces that intercept nuclear, biological, chemical, potential weapons around the world—finding them before the terrorists get them. That’s the kind of on-the-ground thing. We don’t need more speeches.

And I think what you’ve unearthed here, Tim...

MR. RUSSERT: Do we need more troops?

MR. CASEY: We need—what we need in Iraq right now is some accountability for this administration. And part of that is making sure that, as we, as we have our troops on the ground, that they can pull back at what the Pentagon calls “level two” readiness, they can still be there, but the Iraqis can take the lead and get the Americans out of the front line already. Keep the American...(unintelligible).

MR. RUSSERT: And what if you, what if you left behind a haven for terrorists? Then what do you do?

MR. CASEY: Well, I don’t—that’s not the, that’s not the, the objective here. The objective here is to make sure we’re doing everything possible to give the American people the information they need and to protect our troops. And I think it’s an abomination, Tim, when you have people like Rick Santorum, who have rubber-stamped this administration 98 percent of the time, did not call for or insist upon the best body armor when those troops needed it.

Weak. It should not have been that hard to prepare for this appearance and for the Iraq issue. He should have anticipated every question from Russert and every issue and had solid responses -- Santorum certainly did. And, even if Santorum's responses were not defendable, they were clearly prepared in advance and Casey failed to effectively counter them. Combined with a failure to effectively lay out a clear alternative on Iraq, the Iraq portion of the discussion went, inexplicably, to Santorum.

On Illegal Wiretapping -- Casey Agrees with Santorum

Santorum maneuvered the discussion to the illegal wiretapping programs that the Bush Adminstration secretly undertook. In response, Casey declined the opportunity to talk about a nation of laws, about respecting and incorporating the freedoms that Iraqis didn't have under Sadaam in every aspect of our government. Nope, instead, Casey lined right up with the Republicans in supporting the administration's surveillance programs and didn't even challenge Santorum's baseless assertion that the illegal programs were the foundation for the British interception of the terrorist plots to blow up airplanes over the Atlantic:

MR. CASEY: . . . .Let me, let me just have a moment on, on Iran. Rick, you just talked about, and you’ve heard him a lot talking about Iran. You’ve heard him a lot talking about the terminology of, of the war on terror. He calls it Islamic fascism and, and he, and he talks about the terminology and changing the terms. What we need, Rick, is not a change in the terminology, we need to change the tactics. And we’ve got to make sure that even as you’re debating whether or not we call Osama bin Laden a terrorist or a fascist, I don’t think that really matters. We need a plan. You’re in the Senate, you have votes, you should be leading that effort. And I, I think after it’s over, after you get the terminology right, maybe you can have a seminar in Washington about whether bin Laden, whom we should be finding and killing, whether he’s a dead terrorist or a dead fascist. And I think you should worry more about finding him and killing him.

SEN. SANTORUM: My, my opponent has, my opponent has, my opponent has no plan. The idea—all he’s suggested is his plan is Special...

MR. CASEY: I just gave a plan. Where’s yours?

SEN. SANTORUM: All you, all you suggested with your plan is more Special Forces.

MR. CASEY: No, it’s not. That’s not, that’s not all it is.

SEN. SANTORUM: Do you, do you support, do you support more intelligence gathering because your party has been out there...

MR. CASEY: Absolutely.

SEN. SANTORUM: ...trying to, trying to undermine our surveillance programs. You’re the one who’s gone out and said that you have serious questions about our intelligence surveillance programs. What do you think has kept our people safe? What do you think stopped the British, the British attack? You folks have been the party, as you have been the party, of making sure that we don’t have the intelligence gathering capabilities that we need, and, and, and have, have joined in making sure...

MR. CASEY: Rick, Rick, you’re not debating the party, you’re debating me right here.

SEN. SANTORUM: I’m debating you.

MR. CASEY: Yeah.

SEN. SANTORUM: And I—and I’ve looked at your comments saying that you have serious concerns about our, our, our surveillance programs. I don’t. I think they’re surveillance programs that would...

MR. CASEY: No, we should, we should, we should keep the programs and keep the wiretaps...

Not the kind of response that we look for from a Democratic challenger -- agreeing with Santorum and the Republican right.

Military Option on Iran -- Santorum Favors Sanctions, Casey Favors Sanctions

In response to Russert's direct question, Santorum gave a direct response -- he does not favor a military option in Iran. Well, sort of. He wants us to foment rebellion in Iran and foment military pressure from other "pro-democracy forces outside [Iran]". Well, there's something which the United States has a lot of credibility in -- encouraging nationals to rise up against their oppressive regimes (sarcasm alert). But instead of challenging Santorum's "plan" for Iran as making no sense (and almost no one believes that it does), Casey jumped on the Sanctions bandwagon and supported Santorum's Iran bill.

Casey himself has a little problem here -- during the Democratic primary debates he stated his support for using nuclear weapons on Iran in order to stop their nuclear development program. Russert's crack staff apparently failed to turn that one up and Russert never mentioned it. But Casey could have come off strong here by attacking Santorum's assumptions about fomenting democratic revolutions in the region (it worked soooo well in Iraq, twice) (irony alert).

Conclusion

Half the MTP appearance focused on Iraq -- it should have been softball after softball issue for Bob Casey. But Casey never made solid contact with the ball. Part of the reason was that he was poorly prepped by his staff, part of it was that he has an aversion to taking definable positions, and part of it is that he doesn't appear to have a very solid understanding of the issues. The remainder of the program was similar -- on balancing the budget and social security, for example, Russert was very frustrated by Casey's continued refusal inability to provide specifics.

At the end of the day, MTP was a warm-up. Casey didn't lose, Santyorum didn't win. Santorum did better than he should have because Casey didn't do nearly as well as a strong Democratic challenger could have (Casey did better than he did in the Democratic primary debates, in which both of his opponents ran circles around him on policy and debate points.) But, not many "real" people tuned in early Sunday morning on a holiday weekend to see this showdown.

Recall that Howard Dean's first appearance on the program was a disaster which was quickly forgotten as he improved as a national-scene candidate. He hit homerun after homerun on his next appearance. One can hope that Casey can do likewise -- he's got plenty of time before the real debates in October. In the meantime, he needs to focus on distinguishing himself from Santorum and less time on finding common ground with one of the lowest-rated Senators. I am hopeful that someone in the Casey campaign will send him a memo on why Santorum has got such a high disapproval rating in Pennsylvania.