The Belgravia Dispatch: Senor Smug: Vacationing in Iraq

March 26, 2006

Senor Smug: Vacationing in Iraq

Reading Josh Marshall a few days back, I saw he had a rather uncharitable take on one Dan Senor, former Iraq CPA spokesman and aide to Paul Bremer. This jogged my memory some, and I remembered a bit of fluffery on Senor's part that I had briefly blogged a few moons back here from an appearance on O'Reilly's show. And then, by coincidence, my television was on Comedy Central, and I happened upon an interview of him on the Colbert Report. You should take a second, and check it out (the link is here).

I was immediately struck by Senor's smugness and his total lack of remorse for some of the woeful missteps taken by this Administration in Iraq. At least 30,000 Iraqis, and likely many more, have died not least because we were never able to establish real order in the country. But Senor begins the interview by assuring us all is "great" and "right on target", "right on plan" in Iraq. Later, talk gets a tad more serious. Senor tells the audience he is not "totally delusional" and that he gets that "there are real problems in Iraq", that things have not gone "exactly to plan" (his emphasis, listen to the audio). He trots out the administration lines about tens of thousands agitating for freedom in Egypt and Lebanon (the situation in each of these countries hugely more complex than this glossy narrative, of course). That 14 of 18 provinces are a-OK (Iranian influence in southern Iraq, and the growth of radical militias there, of course, not mentioned--ditto the often brutish reverse Arabization taking place under peshmerga auspices in the North). He then says that, in the other four provinces, the situation is "a little ehheehh", which he accompanies by a hand gesture indicating 'comme ci, comme ca'. You have to go to the video clip to see the sound I am trying to replicate by the "ehheehh". It kind of evokes, I guess, a feeling that it ain't all swell, but you know, it's kinda OK..." (there's about 1:27 left in the tape if you want to go hear it).

Given the horrific sectarian murders underway in many parts of Iraq, I found this glibness rather astounding and nausea-inducing. It is cheap in its gross insouciance, and disingenuous in its breezy optimism. And, of course, it's simply inaccurate (read Zeyad's recent account of the situation in Baghdad, for instance, to feel the fear and pain and anguish thinking Iraqis are grappling with at this so perilous juncture). Later, Senor breathlessly tells Colbert that he has "actually vacationed" in northern Iraq, and recounts how Suleimaniya is a swell town and that the "kids will love it" (even Colbert can't keep the game face up for this one, and snickers a bit at the absurdity. After all, this is a bit like, during the Balkan wars, exclaiming that the islands of Brac and Hvar off the Dalmatian Coast are a great place for a dreamy Adriatic honeymoon, but shit, things in Zenica, Tuzla, Bihac, Srebrenica, Zepa, Gorazde and Sarajevo aren't quite as grand).

Yes, it was a cheap spectacle, all told. Senor will fit in well at Fox News, doubtless. But I don't mean to personalize this too much to Senor. He is, in many ways, just a sign of the times. He plays a certain kind of Washington game well, and he will likely have other opportunities to play a role in the national security field going forward, revolving out from the Fox gig at a convenient juncture, one surmises. It is a pity that such personages fit a certain Washington zeitgeist, of sorts, these days. But, and not to sound too hoity-toity, I can certainly say, for my part, that it's not a milieu I'd like to be associated with. Not now, and not later. Not if these are the rules of the game if you wanna play ball so as to move up the ranks....

UPDATE: Much more from one of the most honest bloggers in the biz here.

Posted by Gregory at March 26, 2006 11:12 PM | TrackBack (0)

Comments

First, I am no supporter of Senor, and think he bears real culpability for much of the fiasco. That said, I think it's slightly unfair to go after him for being glib on Colbert. It's not a 'serious' program, but if he plays it straight, he ends up being a straight man for Colbert's parody. The same kind of behavior would be absolutely intolerable on a 'real' news program, IMO.

Posted by: Pooh at March 27, 2006 02:11 AM | Permalink to this comment

Right, Pooh. This is a schtick, and both of the performers know it's a schtick. It's an interesting situation, because obviously what Senor is saying is frighteningly at variance with what's actually happening in Iraq, and the subject matter does not at first glance seem ripe for insouciant, ironic banter. The tone was that of a marquee name genre actor promo'ing his latest film, one he suspects is not terribly good, but which he will nonetheless go to the mat for, while the host ribs him with knowing digs about his image and false enthusiasm for a blockbuster he slyly implies is actually a bomb - say, "The Rock" on Conan O'Brien. What's interesting on the Colbert show is that the rapport between him and Senor appears to be, at some level, genuine; both are pros. The handshake at the end is a real one. Senor accomplishes something I've never seen a guest do to Colbert: by taking him at his word, by pretending to accept Colbert's faux-O'Reilly act as the genuine article, he defangs the satire and leave Colbert little room to maneuver. The viewer loses track of when Senor is making fun of his own stance ("everything's going perfect, right on target") and when he is serious ("14 of the 18 provinces are fine, the other 4...eh-eh..."). It certainly showed that while the CPA may have hired a lot of incompetent goofballs, they did a good job of hiring their flack-in-chief.

Posted by: brooksfoe at March 27, 2006 07:28 AM | Permalink to this comment

Uh. This guy would have been subject to parody from Colbert. So instead he does self-parody.

Why did he agree to go on that show?

What's going on here, anyway? Why would he agree to such a thing?

It kind of reminds me of an old story about a CPA who went to jail for falsifying records. He wondered how he could ever get another job as a CPA after that. And somebody gave him expert advice -- advertise himself as a CPA who'd gone to jail for falsifying records. He did, and immediately got 5 job offers at high pay....

Posted by: J Thomas at March 27, 2006 11:27 AM | Permalink to this comment

Then again, maybe everything IS going "right on plan" . . . which might make one wonder just what the plan actually is. ;-)

Posted by: wj at March 29, 2006 04:27 PM | Permalink to this comment

At this stage of the Colbert Report, no one can say they weren't warned. Senor went on to have fun, and he did, abstractions about 30,000 dead notwithstanding.

The morality of his appearance? An Alice in Wonderland question.

Posted by: Gene Touchet at March 29, 2006 05:02 PM | Permalink to this comment

"brutish reverse Arabization taking place under peshmerga auspices in the North"

Hmm? The arabs in kirkuk were settled there at about the same time as Jews were settled in Gaza and the West Bank, with similar motivations. Yet removal opponents of removal of siad Jews are are brutish bigots, while Kurds who remove settlers in Kirkuk are brutish.

hmmmm.

Posted by: liberalhawk at March 29, 2006 05:35 PM | Permalink to this comment

I saw Senor Smuggo on Colbert, and I wondered how he would assess the situaton in the United States on, say, September 11, 2001. After all, in 47 states, things were pretty much great -- you know, business as usual. It was only in the lower part of one borough of one city in New York, one building in Washington D.C., and one field in Pennsylvania that things were "a little ehheeh." Everything was just fine, going according to plan.

I guess the question is: Who's plan?

Posted by: groatclusters at March 29, 2006 06:35 PM | Permalink to this comment

Pooh, it's true that he was treated the subject lightly because he was on a comedy show. But that begs the question, why was he there? Why did he decide that his work in Iraq was appropriate grist for the Colbert Report?

Put it another way: what if he'd decided to go there to discuss 9/11, some time in 2001 or 2002, and said that the murder of 3000 American civilians was "eeeeh..." ('comme ci, comme ca') at Ground Zero, but things were really great at Disneyland?

Would we say "Hey, come on. He was on a comedy show" or would we be outraged that he thought it a fit topic for comedic treatment?

Posted by: Jon Marcus at March 29, 2006 07:52 PM | Permalink to this comment

Jon M.,

I'm not defending him that strongly. For a takedown, see Fareed Zakaria on TDS last night. I'm just saying that holding someone's feet to the fire for something said on Colbert is slightly unfair. He's either in on the joke or he is the joke. Now, your point as to whether he should go Colbert at all if all he's going to do is make jokes about Iraq is a fair one. Of course, my tolerance for failed attempts at humor is pretty high, YMMV.

Posted by: Pooj at March 30, 2006 01:49 AM | Permalink to this comment

I was going to point out that it is a comedy show as well, but that has already been covered in the above responses. Now that the argument has morphed into "why would he do a comedy show anyway when the subject is so serious" all I can ask is did you have the same question about appropriateness when Rudy Giuliani went on Saturday Night Live after 9/11? Or when Sen John McCain hosted it a year later? Or Al Sharpton a year after that?

Posted by: Gaius Obvious at March 30, 2006 03:13 AM | Permalink to this comment

Gaius, by satirising himself he satirises the war effort. He provides ammunition for the people who realise that the war is quickly being lost. He helps them persuade those who don't see it yet.

I can see that it might be a good career move for him. But it publicly shows that he's given up on the war. There's nothing wrong with that except for people who haven't given up on the war, or people who think he shouldn't publicly reveal that he has.

Posted by: J Thomas at March 30, 2006 04:20 PM | Permalink to this comment