Your humble blogger joins the "experts" with a question to Hillary

Hillary Rodham Clinton, our (presumably) next Secretary of State, is facing the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today. The New York Times op-ed page has put together a list of questions to Ms. Clinton from ten “experts,” including Foud Ajami, Walter Russell Meade, some guy named Mikhail Saakashvili, and yours truly.

My question:

Imagine we see broad demands for truly democratic presidential and parliamentary elections in Russia. Should the United States join in these calls for new elections, despite their destabilizing potential? What should the American reaction be if the opposite scenario takes place, with Vladimir Putin returning as president in a new “election” and further tightening the authoritarian screws? How would we maintain a functional relationship with Moscow without condoning the further strangulation of democracy in Russia?

The wages of populism: Joe the Journalist

If you think I’m making too big a deal out of anti-intellectualism on the right… then check out the latest from the Pajamas Media “citizen journalist,” Joe “more-than-15-minutes-of-fame” The Plumber:

I’ll be honest with you. I don’t think journalists should be anywhere allowed war (sic). I mean, you guys report where our troops are at. You report what’s happening day to day. You make a big deal out of it. I think it’s asinine. You know, I liked back in World War I and World War II when you’d go to the theater and you’d see your troops on, you know, the screen and everyone would be real excited and happy for them. Now everyone’s got an opinion and wants to downer–and down soldiers. You know, American soldiers or Israeli soldiers.

I think media should be abolished from, uh, you know, reporting. You know, war is hell. And if you’re gonna sit there and say, “Well look at this atrocity,” well you don’t know the whole story behind it half the time, so I think the media should have no business in it.

To quote the line I’ve paraphrased before from the Russian comedian Mikhail Zhvanetsky: “Words fail. At least, printable ones.”

A very appropriate quote, actually, considering that Mr. Wurzelbacher’s musings strongly remind me of Russian Putinistas who justify censorship of unpleasant news because, heck, you don’t want to “downer” the public.

I know that media reporting on wars often leaves a lot to be desired. But … well, Bill Roggio on the Weekly Standard blog pretty much says it all:

[W]hile embedded as an independent reporter in Iraq and Afghanistan several times, I have seen journalists do some appalling things. I could probably write a book about it, but honestly I’m far more interested in the war itself. Despite what I have seen, I believe the media should have access during conflicts. Shutting the media out would entirely concede the information to al Qaeda, the Taliban, Hamas, etc. who are increasingly developing sophisticated information strategies. Yes, there is bad and slanted reporting coming out of the combat zones, but there also are good reporters out there who can get the story right. The public needs to hear these stories to understand the nature of the war.

…

The real irony here is that PJTV, a 21st Century, Internet-based news organization is sending a reporter–who doesn’t want reporters to report on war–to report on a war. And apparently Joe would love to return to the days when the news was influenced by the government and seen at the theater.

Precisely.

Could this be the beginning of the end of American conservatism’s fatal-attraction love affair with populism? Or am I being too optimistic again?