If It's Bears You Want ...

--God Offering Rope to Aging Adam,
R. Hanssen (Sweden)

If back stairs you like,
If love affairs you like
With young bears you like,
Why nobody will oppose!
--Anything Goes, Cole Porter

In shallow shoals English soles do it
Goldfish in the privacy of bowls do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love
--Let's Do It, Ella Fitzgerald

Pay my respects to grace and virtue
Send my condolences to good
Hear my regards to soul and romance
They always did the best they could
--Human, The Killers
_______________

I'm pretty nonplussed about the reaction surrounding the pull-out of Brett McGurk from his nomination to the Ambassadorship to Iraq.

Slate's Fred Kaplan wrote an apologia today for what seems the correct step-down of an entirely mediocre candidate for the position (Our Man in Baghdad). If the United States is trafficking in its moral rectitude, it can do a whole lot better than McGurk.

If the U.S. stands for dignity of all and morality, if we shun the degradation of women and frown on Afghan's dancing boys, then we must offer something better. Bigamy and adultery, and just generally bragging about your manly bits to women not your wife are behaviors we still frown upon. Such behavior just brought down Army Colonel Johnson, and Representative Anthony Weiner fell from grace last year this month for similar shenanigans.

But here's Kaplan whitewashing those two wild-and-crazy kids -- McGurk and Chon -- not addressing the real threats and offenses involved in the debacle, attempting to make the whistleblowers seem like some backwards malcontents. So what are we: A nation committed to human dignity, or are we dancing bears?

The lesson is, keep your Johnson in your BVD's, unless you are with your wifey. If that is becoming too provincial for us, then we should admit we're going French. However, that is something I have yet to hear any of society's machers proclaim. Not "trending", as they might say today.

My on-site reply to Kaplan's article follows:

"Does Mr. Kaplan honestly believe Mr. McGurk is the best the U.S. can front for Iraqi Ambassadorship?

"An ambassador should demonstrate impeccable personal judgement, being as he will be the face of our nation abroad. Kaplan offers a Frank Capra-esque tale, Chon's and McGurk's emails, "show(ing) a diplomat and a reporter exchanging flirtatious banter and, in the end, falling ga-ga for each other."

"'Ga-ga'? Puh-leeze spare us your Hollywood overlay. The exchanges were bumptious, sordid and sufficient to force a reporter to be released from her WSJ posting for violating company policy.

"Why are we not congratulating the sources for revealing what would have been yet another in a long line of mistakes in that hapless nation. Who is re-configuring the lines of what makes for suitable journalism? What would a Kaplan have said of a 1970's Woodward and Bernstein?"

McGurk the Jerk

Why does it have to be wrong or right?
Why does it have to be one way or the other?
Won't somebody please, please tell me
--Why Does it Have to Be (Wrong or Right)?
Restless Heart
________________

The flagrantly smarmy Brett McGurk withdrew his name yesterday from consideration as U.S. Ambassador to Iraq. Fellow blogger and whistleblower Peter Van Buren did yeoman's duty exposing McGurk's unfitness for the position @ his site, WeMeantWell.

Van Buren has covered the situation with aplomb, and my intent is not to add anything further to the story, but to note the pass the media has given McGurk by stating it was merely a matter of "some racy emails", making one think the hapless McGurk fell prey to being skewered for some foolish indiscretion revealed and magnified by some overactive prude (Obama pick for Iraq ambassador withdraws after racy emails.)

In fact, it was not a too-daring epistolary faux pas that knocked him out of the running. McGurk (like our recent hero (not), Colonel Johnson) was having an affair with Wall Street Journal writer Gina Chon while in Iraq. The WaPo reports that he "later married" Chon, making him seem like a do-right guy making an honest woman of Chon, but they fail to mention that he was already married at the time to the erstwhile Mrs. McGurk -- a moral and legal lapse.

Chon was trading information from upcoming WSJ stories with McGurk, while he slipped her things she requested -- much beyond the helpless flirtation suggested by the headline. As an employee of the National Security Counsel at the time, the emails suggest he provided Chon insider information in exchange for her favors. McGurk, 39, was a weak candidate with nothing to recommend him, so it is hard to understand why the Obama administration stood by their man (until he withdrew his nomination.)

If you're scanning the daily heads, we commend you; that's more than most. But if you want to get the rest of the story today, it's a mosaic affair.

Meanwhile, Bradley Manning -- another leaker of information to the press -- languishes in some prison cell, with nary a hope of appointment to any post, no matter how menial.