Mark A. Kilmer's Political Annotation

Andrea Mitchell on Meet the Press

Mitchell was the sub for Tim Russert on Meet the Press this morning, and this is the first draft of what I've written for the RSN.

As promised, I'll got into greater detail on the Cheney clip in this space later:

On MTP, guest host Andrea Mitchell spoke with Senators John Warner (R-Virginia) and Joe Lieberman (D-Connecticut), but the segment was about her. One thesis she proffered was that the war in Iraq distracted from the general war on terror. Lieberman noted: "The battleground in Iraq is the main battleground in the war on terror."

"But the American people disagree!" proclaimed Mitchell. She cited an old NBC/Wall Street Journal poll.

Mitchell criticized Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi for suggesting amnesty for some Iraq insurgents if they lay down their arms, and Chairman Warner protested: "Give them a chance!" He was speaking of the nascent Iraqi government, of course, and Mitchell quickly flipped the subject to NATO and "legitimacy." Warner said: "NATO is rapidly becoming a hollow force." He cited things NATO members had hedged about doing.

Former Clinton National Security Advisor Sandy Berger talked about how it is now a race between stabilizing Iraq and losing the patience of the American people. And he took a swipe at the Bush Administration by demeaning the interim government of Iraq: "We have a new Iraqi government, a more or less legitimate Iraqi government…"

Berger went on about how important it was "to get some others [to help] in this." Who and how, he did not specify. Nor should he, because he cannot.

Mitchell still went on about how a "majority of Americans," 51-percent, think it was a mistake to invade Iraq. The "majority" could well be a minority with the margin of error of last month's poll, which is surprising given that the question was phrased in such a way as: "Was it worth it after all the terrible, awful things occurred and everyone died?" It was not a poll on which to base a line of questioning.

Mitchell played a tape of Vice President Dick Cheney suggesting to an audience that the Bush Administration had assumed office when our defenses against terrorism had been allowed to weaken. Mitchell demanded to know if it were fair to blame everything on Clinton -- which is not what Cheney did -- and Berger compliantly told her that the country was stronger after Clinton than it is now. (On the blog this afternoon, I'll post the portion of the New York Times review of Clinton's novel which makes the same points as did Cheney and attributes them to "terrorism experts.")

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