| Morning Jolt
. . . with Jim Geraghty November 25, 2014 The Protesters in Ferguson, Living Down to Your Worst Expectations Awful, predictable, and awfully predictable: Shortly after 1:30 a.m., St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar spoke with reporters at a press conference after a night of looting and burned-out businesses after the grand jury announcement. He said he was grateful nobody was killed but disappointed at the amount of damage in the Ferguson area. “What I've seen tonight is probably much worse than the worst night we ever had in August, and that's truly unfortunate,” he said. He said that there was basically “nothing left” along West Florissant between Solway Avenue and Chambers Road. “Frankly, I'm heartbroken about that," he said. Missouri Highway Patrol Captain Ron Johnson said, “We talked about peaceful protest, and that did not happen tonight. We definitely have done something here that's going to impact our community for a long time . . . that's not how we create change.” Belmar said that officers did deploy tear gas near West Florissant and Chambers roads and a highway patrol lieutenant was hit by a glass bottle. He said as far as he knew police did not fire shots but there was plenty of gunfire in the area. He said he personally heard at least 150 shots. Crazy thought here; next time you have a controversial announcement to make, do it at 7 a.m.; the hooligans are still sleeping. For all of the people who see the events in Ferguson, Missouri as deeply symbolic, an example of giant, pressing national problems and deep-rooted injustices and discrimination against the African-American community, particularly in poorer communities . . . I cannot help but suspect that millions of Americans don’t find it symbolic of much of anything at all. Correction: If it symbolizes anything, it reflects the media’s appetite for a preconceived storyline involving a “gentle giant” and a villlainous cop: Teachers described Brown as a “gentle giant,” a student who loomed large and didn’t cause trouble. Friends describe him as a quiet person with a wicked sense of humor, one who loved music and had begun to rap. He fought an uphill battle to graduate. 
Above: The “gentle giant” assaulting a convenience-store worker.
Liberals struggle with this as well; Daily Kos commenters turned on each other in discussing whether the video revealed something meaningful about Brown. At issue is the inability to simultaneously rectify the notion that Brown wasn’t a “gentle giant” and was in fact a bully and a thief and the notion that whatever Brown did, it’s an awful tragedy for an 18-year-old to get shot and killed. Maybe the shooting was justified, but that doesn’t mean it was a good thing. Ace: Greg Gutfeld mentioned a New York Times reporter who seemed to object to reporting that the coroner's report that Michael Brown had marijuana in his system at the time of death, by asking, "Why does it matter that he had marijuana in his system?" Gutfeld answered: It matters because it's a fact. He further noted that the media seemed very interested in a "clean narrative" — not accurate reporting, but a clean, Aesop's Fable-like tight little narrative that proved a particular point in an ongoing Morality Play called "the news." He's right: The "narrative-makers" of the media are interested in writing Aesop's Fables with a political agenda item, and not so interested in reporting the facts of incidents and events, which are often messy, complicated, contradictory, amenable to multiple interpretations, and hard to fix into a specific Morality Play "lesson" -- Because life itself is messy, complicated, contradictory, amenable to multiple interpretations, and hard to fix into a specific Morality Play "lesson." Life is complicated — New York Times reports on progressive agenda items, less so. Reporting used to be about real life. But it's not about real life anymore. It's about simplified, sharp-corners-sanded-down fables -- like Children's Stories. The media is writing their reports like Children's Stories because they conceive of their audience as essentially children, whom you must protect from jarring facts which might teach "the wrong lessons." People were willing to set strangers’ cars on fire because they were absolutely certain what happened, in a sequence of events they did not personally witness. A Hagel With a Smear What do we learn from the seemingly sudden firing of Defense secretary Chuck Hagel? As I mentioned yesterday, the fact that President Obama determined Chuck Hagel wasn’t up to the job wasn’t, in and of itself, surprising. What is surprising is that at some point in the past month or two, Hagel became too bad to stay in an administration infamous for long leashes for failed cabinet secretaries (Sebelius, Shinseki). Eugene Robinson — a liberal columnist reliably plugged in to the White House’s thinking — suggests that Hagel’s real problem was that despite his reputation, he grew too hawkish in the job: Was he equally skeptical about Barack Obama's war in Iraq and Syria? Not if you judge by his public statements. Before Obama had even decided on his air-war strategy – which has already morphed into air-war-plus – Hagel said the Islamic State was "beyond anything that we've seen" and an "imminent threat to every interest we have." The White House was not thrilled at the hyperbole. If that was really Hagel's view, however, at the Pentagon he did little to act on it. Unlike other recent wartime defense secretaries – Donald Rumsfeld leaps to mind – Hagel showed little interest in trying to micromanage strategy and tactics. He left that to the professionals – led by Joint Chiefs Chairman Martin Dempsey – and the White House, which is no stranger to micromanagement. That may indeed be a factor. But it’s hard to ignore the fact that the average news junkie could go weeks at a time before remembering Hagel had the job. He was increasingly irrelevant at a time when giant national-security crises erupted and worsened, month after month: the Islamic State, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Iranian nuclear deal, Israel and its enemies, Russia and Ukraine and NATO, tensions on the Korean peninsula, tensions in the South China Sea . . . Fred Kaplan lays out how the system started working around Hagel: But as a political matter, Hagel needed much more to muster support from the senior officer corps, and he never solidified that. Nor did he insinuate himself with the White House staff, where power is concentrated in this administration. That was due, in part, to the staff’s much-noted insularity; but it was also due to Hagel’s own failure to bring much to the table. When Robert Gates took a stand, it was clear that he had (or could rally) the Pentagon’s full support — and that, in any case, he had the acumen to push his views. No such glow surrounded Hagel. A large measure of Hagel’s isolation and lack of authority is that Obama has come to rely on Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as both an adviser and the Pentagon’s main spokesman on strategies to deal with the crises of our day — ISIS, Ebola, Iran, even the pivot to the Pacific. By statute, the JCS chairman does serve as the president’s top military adviser; but the secretary of defense should be that adviser on military policy. Hagel did not fill that role. Our Michael Auslin: It has long been a staple of Washington news reporting (read, gossip) that Hagel simply wasn’t up to the job, either intellectually or physically. Seeing him at various events in person, he looked perpetually exhausted and distant, while damning rumors of his lack of attention to the job could be heard in numerous corners. One high-level source with direct knowledge once told me that Hagel was disengaged in his morning briefings, and when thick briefing papers were presented to him, he would thumb through them and push them aside, reportedly saying things like, “I can’t read this, just tell me what it says.” Our Bing West -- who predicted Hagel’s departure on the NR cruise -- summarizes a lot in a few words: Mr. Hagel was out of his depth from the start. He will not be missed. The next SecDef -- Ms. Flournoy seems the favorite -- will portray more toughness. But the White House will keep hold of all major decisions. Rice should go; now, it looks less likely. The Islamic State issue will come to a boil over three questions: 1) Will advisers go into combat? (Yes.) 2) Will our aid flow directly to the Sunni and Kurdish tribes instead of
through the corrupt government in Baghdad? (This will end in a frustrating compromise.) 3) Will we insist upon a status-of-forces agreement so that we stay for the long term? (No, we will fight and then leave, with Baghdad in the orbit of Iran.) The war against the Islamic State will rage for many years. When it is over, Iraq will be divided into three parts -- Sunni, Kurd, and Shiite. The next SecDef will have much better working relationships with the military, but the White House policies will remain a mess. Finally, Jonah is right; to sneer “This is why you don’t send a sergeant to do a secretary’s job” is an obnoxious way to send Hagel off. And all of the criticism of Hagel reflects a great deal on the president who insisted to the skeptics that Hagel was the best man for the job. Americans Increasingly Wary of Letting Illegal Immigrants Stay Nothing destroys the credibility of an idea quite like the endorsement of a failing, lame-duck president: American voters are divided on whether President Barack Obama should take action to address the immigration issue if Congress fails to act, as 45 percent say the president should issue an executive order while 48 percent say he should not, according to a Quinnipiac University National poll released today. At the same time, support for immigrants is at its lowest level ever measured by the independent Quinnipiac University Poll. Offered three choices on what to do about illegal immigrants: - 48 percent of American voters say they should be allowed to stay, with a path to citizenship, down from 57 percent November 13, 2013, and the lowest this number ever has been;
- 11 percent say immigrants should be allowed to stay, but not be allowed to apply for citizenship, consistent with previous surveys;
- 35 percent say illegal immigrants should be required to leave the U.S., up from 26 percent 12 months ago and higher than this number ever has been.
There is a wide gender gap on Obama’s action, as women support it 50 -- 39 percent, while men oppose it 57 — 39 percent. Support is 59 -- 33 percent among voters 18 to 29 years old, but drops among older voters, with voters over 65 years old opposed 53 — 36 percent. Democrats support Obama’s immigration move 74 — 18 percent, with opposition at 75 — 20 percent among Republicans and 51 — 40 percent among independent voters. ADDENDA: Erik Soderstrom summarizes CNN for much of Monday: “BREAKING: Breaking News will be breaking in imminently in an forthcoming breaking news update.”
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