The other day, my friend Myles Berkowitz was talking about the Fox News attempt to ambush Bill Moyers. Actually, that's not accurate. Myles never talks, he rants. And this time, like always, he was ranting from a fascinating angle no one else was.
"What kind of idiot," he ranted, "would go into a pack of reporters for an ambush and not be prepared when they came after you???!! If it was ME... " (This is when his rants become operatic. Insightful. Brilliant even. Unfortunately for Myles, it also makes responding far too easy: "Myles, few people on earth are like you." Debate over.)
Afterwards, I was able to take a breath and synthesize his thoughts. And I realized something -- while he touched on an excellent point, he hadn't followed it through to its full conclusion: the foolish, failed, attempt to ambush Bill Moyers by Fox News was a microcosm of the Iraq War.
The ending is easy to extrapolate: there is Bill O'Reilly's put-upon operative, Porter Barry trying to get away, unable to avoid unrelenting attacks. He simply can't find a way out. Watch the video: he has no exit strategy.
But it's much more than that. It's the misguided foolishness of the attack itself, doomed to failure.
Consider: here is the volunteer sent by his commander into the fray for no valid news reason, just a hope to bully someone for his boss's self-aggrandizement. And with no understanding of where the attack is to be made -- not grasping that at the National Conference of Media Reform, any rational person should realize there will be a swarming mass of...media. One would therefore normally think twice about whether this is the best place to safely stage a sneak attack.
This was mighty Fox News. This was mighty Bill O'Reilly. This was mighty easy. Send in just one man, that's enough. He'll be greeted warmly, with flowers and candy. He'll Shock-and-Awe his target.
But...well, consider the target: Bill Moyers. One of America's most revered newsmen. Former-press secretary for President Lyndon Johnson during perhaps the most divisive period in American history, the Vietnam War. He was also Johnson's Chief of Staff. During Vietnam. Moyers fed on people like Porter Barry for lunch. Daily. For four years. And Porter Barry thought he was going to trip up Bill Moyers. He should have been given enough body armor for protection.
So, Porter Barry went in to enemy territory. Ambushed his target. And no doubt felt that he'd succeeded and gotten his challenge on tape. Mission Accomplished!!
The problem is that his opponent had ammunition and fought back.
What Moyers does on the video is masterful. A virtuoso using his bow to bring out every tone from the violin. For nearly five minutes, Porter Barry stays the course, unmoving as Moyers eviscerates him with a nurturing, controlling hand on his shoulder. Slyly sucking in Barry as one of the fraternity. Agreeing to do precisely what Barry is asking -- with the one, damning condition that Mr. O'Reilly must follow-through with his own prior invitation. Inviting Barry himself, raising Rupert Murdoch as the hidden, larger issue.
And through all this, Porter Barry is unable to extricate himself after dropping his bomb, getting blasted in return and drawn deeper into the confrontation.
Then finally, when he tries to disengage himself from the battle, he realizes his fatal flaw: that he never planned for how to depart. He tries to exit, but opposing reporters dog him, surround him, blast him with his very own tactics. He cries out, "We're done" -- but the other side is not done, they've been doing this much longer than poor Porter Barry can even dream of, and they continue to challenge him all the way as he desperately searches for some way, any way out of there. Looking down the long hallway for a corner to turn.
And in the end, he's in so much worse shape than when he went in.
Happily for Porter Barry, his hell was over in about eight minutes, with little money spent and his life intact.
In fact, maybe this isn't just a microcosm of the Iraq War -- maybe it explains the Iraq War, period. Maybe it's something hard-wired into neo-cons to act this way. Maybe when you ignore the reality-based world and think you can make up your own fake universe, this is the exactly what will happen every single time in every possible scenario. And to think that anything different will happen is madness.
I don't know if the explanation is that simple. But I don't know that it isn't. The arrogance and venality of ignoring reality, ignoring the Constitution, ignoring the will of the people, ignoring the Magna Carta, ignoring human decency may always put you in a situation where you arrogantly think you can do anything without having to plan for it, think everyone will always love you and appreciate whatever you do, think no one will fight back if you punch them first, think you therefore don't need resources to protect yourself, and think you are the center of the universe and therefore don't need a way to leave.
At least in politics, there is a built-in exit strategy, with not any help or planning needed. It's called elections.