This was the week where the nearly unthinkable took place: David Brooks not only wrote a column about something very important, he said exactly the right thing. That is not to single out Brooks as generally a purveyor of the evil nonsense that poses for journalism or commentary on the issues of the day; he is, in fact, a fairly harmless, quite confused and conflicted representative of a profession that appears to be dying, not simply because technology is making it hard to make money publishing newspapers, but because money has transformed political discourse into championship wrestling: as bogus and absurd as that is.

But, despite its headline, from lyrics which make the point, this post is not really about popular music lyrics, the decline in newspapers or even how repulsive cable tv has become. It is about our national security, which is in serious jeopardy because so many people refuse to do what is required in favor of what is easiest or will make the most money. To explain what this is all about, though, requires another introduction to the very wise, if very young, musician whose words have resonated at almost every turn in the year gone by. To avoid dwelling on the acceleration of our national decline, 2009 became, for me, the year of Regina Spektor. Her gorgeous record, Far, and her contributions to a reasonably well received movie in mid year, caused an even closer review of real wisdom her lyrics have presented.

The one that seems to have defined the year, and particularly the last week of the year, is, however,as sad as it is so:

Power to the people
We don't want it
We want pleasure
And the TVs try to rape us
And I guess that they're succeeding
And we're going to these meetings
But we're not doing any meeting
And we're trying to be faithful, but we're
Cheating, cheating, cheating

When our nation was attacked again on Christmas Day, thoughts of 9/11 naturally returned and the most relevant of them was this: the government of the United States seems to have largely gone from its announced purpose, to one based almost completely on a perpetual campaign for re-election. Governing, legislating---meaning, doing what is best for the nation---has taken a back seat (assuming it is still anywhere) to public relations and posturing, what was described in the few hours of fear after watching the Trade Center fall, as "baby kissing and pandering."

That is why President Bush was reading to school children while some of us were driving by to a son or daughter's high school to make sure it was under control while people were blowing up the Trade Center. (It was, of course, much later that we learned just how badly we were served by a president who ignored warnings of the impending attack and told his briefer that he had sufficiently covered his ass by presenting the information to him.)

It was why, as Afghanistan disintegrated into feudal despotism in the 1990s, and a different President kept trying to warn us of the dangers posed by the lawlessness there which allowed some guy named bin Laden to plot and attack the United States, the Republican Party decided that it was more important to first shut the government down to show that they were in charge, and then to impeach the President and try to have him removed.

Whatever their public utterances were, Republicans and their stenographers masquerading as news reporters could not help against spreading the view that United States retaliation against what it correctly believed to be a bin Laden attack on United States interests in August 1998 was nothing more than a feeble attempt to distract public attention from ts obsession over Monica Lewinsky's grand jury testimony:

Following a bombing raid in Afghanistan in the wake of attacks on two United States embassies in North Africa, the Times reported:

Anticipating accusations of political manipulation, the national security team took pains to avoid any appearance of political meddling. Mr. Berger, who headed meetings to plan the mission, kept the operation a secret until the middle of this week from all but two of the President's top political advisers, Erskine B. Bowles, the chief of staff, and his deputy, John Podesta.

White House advisers scoffed at suggestions that politics played a role in the assault. Several said the recommendation for the attack was based on very strong intelligence and was unanimous. They said Pentagon and intelligence officials with no record of partisanship joined strongly in the recommendation.

Good politics.

Somehow, the government survived this inanity. Somehow, the people paid to protect us were able to ignore the noise around them and to do what we need them to do. Hence,

The New York Times, December 12, 1999:

State Dept. Warns Of Holiday Terrorism

WASHINGTON, Dec. 11-- The State Department announced today that it had received ''credible information'' about plans for terrorist attacks against American citizens from now until the beginning of next year.

The department released what it called a ''worldwide terrorism warning,'' advising Americans to stay away from ''large gatherings and celebrations'' throughout the world. The statement was not specific about which groups were planning the attacks or where attacks might take place. But it specified the period ''up to and through the beginning of the New Year and Ramadan events and celebrations from now until January 2000.''

A department spokesman, James Foley, said he could not give specifics. He said the department had issued a similar ''worldwide'' warning last month after the administration imposed sanctions on the Taliban, which rules most of Afghanistan.

For the last year or more, the State Department has issued many such warnings, often around holidays. This one is notable in part because it urges Americans to avoid large crowds, and yet people all over the world are likely to gather to celebrate the beginning of the year 2000.

A State Department official said he believed that today's warning had been issued because the department had received information that Osama bin Laden, who the administration says was behind the bombing of two American Embassies in Africa in August 1998, was planning attacks against Americans and that some ''targeting'' information may have been received.

Jake Tapper, an unquestionably excellent reporter, working among the grossly incompetent stenographers who claim to cover the issues before our nation, sent this little (as all are) tweet on Wednesday:

signs a natl security commentator is intellectually dishonest/ill-informed: he blames this near-attack a) all on Bush b) all on Obama

One reader of these things replied:

but jake: you, too, are reporting this as if it is a political issue. All of you are enabling something which is very wrong.

When challenged by Tapper, the annoying crank pointed as a for instance, toa question posed to White House press secretary Robert Gibbs last Sunday on This Week without David Brinkley:

Are you confident that the Obama administration is doing everything it needs to do and did so in this instance to keep the American people safe?

But it is not "the Obama Administration" that is responsible for keeping us safe. It is the United States government. The distinction is not petty or not picking. It is crucial to the way we view our government.

That government is made up of many men and women, some directly appointed by the President (usually with the advise and consent of the Senate, however), and others whose service to the country is completely unrelated to who is in charge of the executive branch. Political accountability requires, as President Truman famously said, that the buck stops with the President, and he (or she) needs to have sufficient flexibility to determine who will head the various departments and agencies which do the work, but if we are dependent on the President and his immediate advisors to follow every lead, connect every dot, check every passenger or at least determine how others should perform those tasks we are in big trouble.

The expression that runs this way "President Clinton's Attorney General, Janet Reno" is useful shorthand to tell us when a particular individual served in a specific office, but it is otherwise inaccurate. The Attorney General, and the Secretary of State, and, indeed, all of the cabinet, serve not the President of the United States, but the country at large. They are not, as supposed, subject to the President's right to terminate them at will, though certainly most would resign if asked to by the President. Their obligations are to us, the public. When they are permitted or required to forget that, as in the Nixon and Bush II administrations, particularly, we get in real trouble. (Except, of course, in the Nixon period, Attorney General Richardson and Deputy Attorney General Ruckelshaus remembered their obligations to the nation on one of the scariest Saturday nights any of us can remember).

One of the reasons this is important is that when something bad happens, and there is fault to be laid, the President's job is not to defend "his administration" of the executive branch, it is to define the problem in the executive branch, and fix it. Compare "heck of a job, Brownie" with

We've achieved much since 9/11 in terms of collecting information that relates to terrorists and potential terrorist attacks. But it's becoming clear that the system that has been in place for years now is not sufficiently up to date to take full advantage of the information we collect and the knowledge we have.

Had this critical information been shared it could have been compiled with other intelligence and a fuller, clearer picture of the suspect would have emerged. The warning signs would have triggered red flags and the suspect would have never been allowed to board that plane for America.
...

When our government has information on a known extremist and that information is not shared and acted upon as it should have been, so that this extremist boards a plane with dangerous explosives that could cost nearly 300 lives, a systemic failure has occurred. And I consider that totally unacceptable.

A slight aside is necessary to prevent unwarranted flaming. I wish Secretary Napolitano had used other words, but aside from excessive jollying, what she actually said, as opposed to what Republicans and their stenographers keep claiming she said, was

once this incident occurred, everything happened that should have. The passengers reacted correctly, the crew reacted correctly, within an hour to 90 minutes, all 128 flights in the air had been notified. And those flights already had taken mitigation measures on the off-chance that there was somebody else also flying with some sort of destructive intent.

So the system has worked really very, very smoothly over the course of the past several days.

She went on to discuss issues that arose from how this guy got on an airplane and sugar coated nothing. If someone wants to find something to turn into political hay, they almost always can. It does not mean that there is any substance to it.

For instance, the other complaint, eagerly lapped up by news hounds looking for something insignificant but mean spirited to report, was that the critical thing was that the president "speak to the American people."

Here's Congressman Peter King (R-Designated Hatchet Man)

I'm disappointed it's taken the president 72 hours to even address this issue. Basically nobody, the president, the vice president, the attorney general, nobody except [Homeland Security] Secretary [Janet] Napolitano has come out. And she said yesterday everything worked well.

The point is that engaging the bureaucracy, getting answers to the questions we all have, demanding accountability does not count as "address[ing] the issue." Going on television, perhaps gritting one's teeth and announcing nonsense: "we won't stand for this" or better yet, something ending with "dead or alive" that's action.

As in

I can hear you and the the people around the world can hear you and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon

or

Major combat operations have ended ... and the United States and its allies have prevailed.

followed by universal gushing and marriage proposals from the assembled news media.

When your faithful blogger was young and went to work in a fairly high profile government agency, the idea that every bureau got a stack of newspapers in the morning seemed odd if, to a devourer of newspapers, awfully convenient. It also seemed to send a message, though, that whether what you do is important or not, what is said about it in the press and on broadcasts is just as, if not more, important.

It was easy to learn over the years that if an agency's press person has access to the elected person, or the appointed agency head, which is greater than the people who actually do the work the agency is supposed to do, there was something wrong.

Or maybe right. Remember the flap about Sen Kerry's explanation that he was for spending money on the Iraq war before he was against it? There was nothing incorrect about it. Things changed. Assurances that were made turned out to be false. What of it? Facts are unimportant. Public relations are.

So the idea that it is the Obama Administration that failed, rather than the United States Government is a critically important distinction. Everything is not connected to politics. Our government does not exist to further the career or political goals of the people responsible for its work. It exists to, among other things, provide for our collective security. (That presents it, as discussed here, with broader responsibilities than simply arming us to the teeth, but making sure we are not attacked by foreign forces is definitely something the government is charged with doing.)

The United States government was not dismantled at noon on January 20, 2009 to be replaced by a new one. When the Government appears in court, it is the United States, not the Obama Administration, and the positions it takes must be to further the interests of that government, and not its nominal custodians. This is not semantics. It is critical.

Because that is what protects us. That is what fights our wars and keeps us safe. That is what administers social security and medicare, and when the President explains how "he" will pay for whatever assistance we can get to insure our health, he means how the United States will pay for it, not Barack of Hawaii.

It was the United States which was attacked on 9/11 and, again, on Christmas Day. It is the United States which should respond in unison in our common defense. Those who find these attacks to be political fodder should be unmasked and shown to be the rats they are.

Yes, there were people who wanted to blame the President for Pearl Harbor but most Americans decided that Japan was the enemy:

Yesterday, December 7, 1941--a date which will live in infamy--the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

The United States was at peace with that nation, and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the American island of Oahu, the Japanese ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to our secretary of state a formal reply to a recent American message. While this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or armed attack.

It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time the Japanese government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.

and listen to President Kennedy announce the "quarantine" of Cuba:

This Government, as promised, has maintained the closest surveillance of the Soviet military buildup on the island of Cuba. Within the past week, unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation on that imprisoned island. The purpose of these bases can be none other than to provide a nuclear strike capability against the Western Hemisphere....

For many years, both the Soviet Union and the United States, recognizing this fact, have deployed strategic nuclear weapons with great care, never upsetting the precarious status quo which insured that these weapons would not be used in the absence of some vital challenge. Our own strategic missiles have never been transferred to the territory of any other nation under a cloak of secrecy and deception; and our history -- unlike that of the Soviets since the end of World War II -- demonstrates that we have no desire to dominate or conquer any other nation or impose our system upon its people. Nevertheless, American citizens have become adjusted to living daily on the bull's-eye of Soviet missiles located inside the U.S.S.R. or in submarines....

My fellow citizens, let no one doubt that this is a difficult and dangerous effort on which we have set out. No one can foresee precisely what course it will take or what costs or casualties will be incurred. Many months of sacrifice and self-discipline lie ahead -- months in which both our patience and our will will be tested, months in which many threats and denunciations will keep us aware of our dangers. But the greatest danger of all would be to do nothing.

The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are; but it is the one most consistent with our character and courage as a nation and our commitments around the world. The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender or submission.

Our goal is not the victory of might, but the vindication of right; not peace at the expense of freedom, but both peace and freedom, here in this hemisphere, and, we hope, around the world. God willing, that goal will be achieved.

We faced nuclear annihilation as a nation; it was not the Kennedy Administration on trial and during most the "for many years" the President spoke about, someone else was president. The issue was not whether Presidenst Truman, Eisenhower or Kennedy made a mistake. It was the United States that did what it did, and was now threatened.

After 9/11, any criticism of the President was considered to be out of bounds, at the very least, if not disloyal. This time, the press (including people who know better such as Maureen Dowd) just reports these daily attacks on the President as if he was the fool who gave this guy a visa, failed to do what should have been done with the information showing he was a threat to our country, or allowed him to border the plane itself. If he didn't do it himself, he suggested that any Muslims should be allowed on any plane on which they wanted to fly because to deny them such access would not be politically correct.

No support for any of this garbage is demanded. It just gets reported. The only broadcaster continually reporting how absurd and repulsive this all is, is, of course, Rachel Maddow (since Jon Stewart is on hiatus).

This is why fewer and fewer people read newspapers or trust them. Conflict, no matter how ridiculous or manufactured it is, sells. Or so they think. The idea that political discourse is best when two people yell at each other is as absurd as is championship wrestling and it is simply tiresome. The people who want to watch wrestling will watch wrestling: not Speaker Gingrich pretending that it was careful thought that led him to blame President Obama for the fact that people employed by the Untied States made a nearly tragic mistake.

This is dangerous stuff we are dealing with, not always capable of resolution. There are no easy answers to any of these questions. That Sarah Palin thinks there are does not make her a worthy commentator; it means she is a fool. For our political debate to be based on the "ideas" of such people is literally a recipe for disaster.

Yes, yes, I know: MSNBC is there to make money; as is CNN and the broadcast networks as well as, impossible as it may be, our newspapers. (I leave FOX out of this since they are in a different business altogether.) But the First Amendment was not intended to protect their right to make money; it was the protect the marketplace of ideas and thought. The time to consider that requirement is now and today. To fail to do so endangers us all as much as any disaffected young Muslim.

A post script:  direct from the belly of the beast, CBS News legal analyst Andrew Cohen.