Mea Culpability Without Consequences
A while into my long, ongoing bitchfest about the Sensible Liberals’ enabling of the Iraq War, the lack of punishment that the progressive movement has meted to such people, and what that means for the future, I solicited the opinion of someone I deeply respect, who told me that he thought Matthew Yglesias’s apology was one of the best he’d seen. I’ve finally found that apology, which was long lost in the ether of the internets. It is impressive:
Stuck In The Middle With Me
David Brooks offers the first of what I think will be many retrospective I was wrong but I was right anyway articles. The implication here is that though Bush may botch everything in Iraq, Brooks was nevertheless correct to have supported the war because he, after all, was not in favor of botching things.
One anticipates that other people — Thomas F., or shall we call him T. Friedman — will be offering similar theories soon. The trouble, however, is this. When George W. Bush is president and is advocating a war and you, too, are advocating for war, then the fact of the matter is that you are advocating that the war be conducted by George W. Bush. That Bush would botch things was a perfectly predictable consequence of said support, based on — among other things — the fact that he’d botched everything else he’d ever done.
The striking thing is that many people — Friedman works here, too — saw this very clearly, and yet didn’t see it. Kenneth Pollack is the crucial case. Well before the war began, he released The Gathering Storm. Since that was a book and not a newspaper op-ed, it did not advocate “invading Iraq” but rather advocated an entire Iraq policy, complete with loads of details. It was obvious by the time war broke out, that while Bush was invading Iraq, and while the Pollack policy involved an invasion of Iraq, that Bush was not implementing the Pollack policy. I know this is true because, among other things, Pollack said so at the time. Pollack nevertheless did not jump off the bandwagon and join the anti-war team. This is, shall we say with some understatement, a political strategy that is open to criticism.
In the interests of full candor, let it be said that I did something very similar. The difference here being that, as I will now admit, I was wrong. Neither the policies being advocated by Bush nor the policies being advocated by the anti-war movement (even at its most mainstream) were the correct ones. What I wanted to see happen wasn’t going to happen. I had to throw in with one side or another. I threw in with the wrong side. The bad consequences of the bad policy I got behind are significantly worse than the consequences of the bad policy advocated by the other side would have been. I blame, frankly, vanity. “Bush is right to say we should invade Iraq, but he’s going about it the wrong way, here is my nuanced wonderfullness” sounds much more intelligent than some kind of chant at an anti-war rally. In fact, however, it was less intelligent. I got off the bandwagon right before the shooting started, but by then it was far too late — this was more a case of CYA than a case of efficacious political dissent.
Now I am not an important person, and at the time I was even less important. Nevertheless, the block of opinion of which I was a part included some very influential people. In the aggregate, we were never a very large block of public opinion. We were, however, the all-important swing group. Some of us (represented in the blogosphere by me, Kevin, Josh, etc.) swung too late. Some of us never swung at all. If we had swung earlier (not just the bloggers and the journalists and hawkish Clinton administration veterans, but also the regular folks who had similar opinions) there probably would have been no war. We should have swung earlier.
(My emphasis.)
What I’ve highlighted is exactly right and what I’ve been saying for a while now: they are more responsible for the war than most of even the bitterest people on my side believe. Yglesias, for one, knows it and admits it.
Two things:
1. Admitting one is wrong and responsible for a disaster is a good thing. It hints that one may be contrite and soul-searching enough to reconsider the biases that caused one to do the wrong thing. But have “liberal hawks” really done that soul-searching? Have they really shitcanned their instinct to go right — because of a belief in American Exceptionalism — in times of crises? In Yglesias’s case, apparently not. The imperialism of Ivo Daalder and John Ikenberry is prettier than Bill Kristol’s, say, but it’s still imperialism, still a foundation from which stupid wars will be inevitably declared by America, and it is what Matthew Yglesias currently believes in. That’s some rethinking, huh?
2. The liberal press — internet and dead tree versions — aren’t the gravy trains that the wingnut press is. Contrary to wingnut beliefs, George Soros isn’t handing out much ‘moonbat-welfare’. There’s already one guaranteed outlet for writers who’ll always be Liberal Hawks: it’s called The New Republic, and a worthless pile of shit it is, for that and other reasons. Why on earth do other progressive press organs, though, seem to desire to reward writers with such pseudo-progressive instincts? Does this reflect the sentiments of the movement? Are you, lefty blog reader, a liberal hawk? Jonathan Chait admitted that Liberal Hawks are massively over-represented in the Liberal press. Why do progressive people continue to put up with this shit, then? Why is it okay that Washington Monthly hired Liberal Hawk Kevin Drum to be its regular blogger? Why is it okay that TAP rewarded Ezra Klein and Yglesias with paying jobs for their Liberal Hawkery? Don’t tell me that it’s because they can’t find anyone who writes better: Jim Cappozolla (R.I.P.), Roy Edroso, and our own Gavin M. — all of whom got Iraq right — are master stylists. Digby and the late Steve Gilliard does (and did) better analysis. Billmon was a fucking prophet. There are a bazillion others who got the war right, have good instincts, and can humorously and substantively destroy wingnut arguments. Clearly, better choices are out there and no, I’m not wanting a job (though Mr. Soros, if you’re reading, the paypal button is on the right). I’m just saying, beware the so-called Liberal institutions that don’t really seem to care about hiring writers who share the ideology and instincts of the base. Less tolerance for our Sensible Liberal overlords, please. Or not. I don’t care. Just remember that I told you so the next time America fights a stupid war and the “Liberal press” cheers it. Atrios bemoans the fact that Dirty Fucking Hippies aren’t allowed on the Sunday tv shows. I agree with him. But first things first: it’d be nice if Dirty Fucking Hippies had more of a presence in (non-TNR) Liberal magazines and websites, which is, you know, where they are supposed to be.
(Sorry if this is more than usually incoherent. Full disclosure: I’m intoxicated again. Surprise, surprise, huh?)
“It was a bad call, Ripley, it was a bad call…”
Hey! We were attacked! We had to do something!
The ONLY alternative to a disastrous, destructive, counter-productive Iraqi War was to convert to Islam and invite the Taliban to our shores for mandatory homosexuality and forced abortions, like the Democrats wanted.
Liberals. Hmf.
Your “more than unusually incoherent” still trumps what I coulda said stone sober.
Although you’ve just set my “feelin’ better about myself” program behind just a tad, thanks anyway for sayin’ what needs sayin’.
The “liberal hawks” (lets say, Hitchens) were immune to any truly moral inquiries into their arguments, because…
…no matter what actually occurred in the real world as a result of the policies they so vehemently advocated, and in favor of which they destroyed the real political discourse they claimed to value by insulting and smearing all those who disagreed with them as Saddam’s boot lickers…
…they fantasized that things would turn out better.
Q.E.D.
Since they fully fantasized that things would go much better in Iraq, they were absolved for any responsibility for things which turned out not to be like their fantasies.
Furthermore, precisely because they fantasized a noble and wonderful liberation of the Iraqi people, they still consider themselves more moral than any war opponent.
How so?
Because in fantasizing a better life for Iraqis, they believed that that act of fantasizing in and of itself shows that they cared more about liberating Iraqis than the war opponents did.
And in fantasizing a noble war and a noble occupation and a noble new life for the Iraqis, and by basely smearing all who didn’t similarly agree to deny reality for fantasy, their mission was accomplished.
The fact that the real world disappointed their fantasies was neither their fault nor their responsibility, in their opinion.
Here’s my question, youngster. You really wanna stick with this? You want ownership of THIS?
It hints that one may be contrite…
Man. That’s not fair. That’s just way too harsh.
I was PISSED when they tarred John Kerry, an honorable man, with that whole “flip-flop” thing. Then he lost and fucking george bush won and george bush kept continuing the same fucking policies after they’d failed miserably because he wasn’t a “flip-flopper”!
Of all the stupid. It’s called learning, it’s called changing conditions, stupid blind commitment to the same policy forever isn’t a more desireable political position. Where did this idiocy come from? It’s mindless, and it denies everything we’ve ever learned about the way the world works.
Writers write. If they get it wrong, ah well. Policy makers make policy. If they get it wrong, real consequences happen to large populations of real people, and they have to be accountable. I understand disagreeing with a writer, I don’t understand or accept some kind of crazy jihad against them.
And sorry pal, I’m every bit as fucked up as you are, with two extra hours to work with!!
mikey
“Billmon was a fucking prophet. ”
Amen to that. How come he’s not blogging any more?
Amen to that. How come he’s not blogging any more?
50% day job, 50% despair.
Does anyone else get the impression that this apology completely leaves out this man’s culpability for blindly believing the lies and crap that the pro-war side were spewing?
I could tell long before the war started that all their “reasons” for war were patent bullshit. i.e. fabrications and lies. I think the people who failed to see through Colin Powell’s presentation at the UN, all that Niger stuff, the claims of al Qaeda etc., owe a further apology to the human race. Fuck, they took our money as columnists and opinion writers and “experts” to fail to see what was as plain as the nose on my face. They need to either apologise for being blatant fucking idiots, or they need to admit that when a liberal intervention suits them, they are happy to use lies and slander to start the bombs falling.
Either way they’re fools. But it would help us to see whether or not they are honest fools, or just scumbags.
Hey flashheart! Lemme get this straight. You have an opinion. You wrote it down. I’m going to assume, although you can correct me if I’m wrong, if a magazine offered you some money to write a political opinion column for them, you would.
If I disagreed with your position, should that make you a “scumbag”? Or just a writer with whom I disagree? Why is a political opinion writer with whom you disagree a criminal, a thug, a liar? And the people who you agree with are what, saints and deities?
This is silly. Writers write. You write. All of us WRITE! For fucks sake, what do you WANT??
Ah hell…..
mikey
It’s the same reason TIME is now saying Democrats are finally getting the religion thing right by pushing religion: in 21st century America it’s wrong to be antiwar, wrong to be areligious, wrong to be pro-union, wrong to be feminist, wrong to be prochoice, wrong to be pro-civil-liberties, wrong to bw pro-gun-control, wrong to be pro-universal-healthcare, and on and on. The media reflects “America”. Gavin and Billmon reflect sensible opposition to “America” as presented by the media. C’mon, is anybody in the media crying for the removal of Bush and Cheney? Even as article after article reveals the depth and breadth of their incompetence, venality and vindictiveness, no media outlet has stepped up and said they should resign, or be impeached, or run out of town on a rail. Anyone who knew W, or paid the least attention to his career (e.g., Molly Ivins) knew he would not only fuck up, he would fuck in a way the “America” would support until the day after, when sick and headachey “America” still couldn’t admit the truth: “America” loves the warmongering, predatory capitalism, and sublimely ignorant posturing of it’s Republican fuhrers.
I can’t help wondering how much of liberal hawkishness among journalists and bloggers comes from nearly 30 years of steady rightward drift — of Republicans not only controlling the topics and form of the debate, but also the format and who gets to use which lectern. I wouldn’t be surprised if at least some of the liberal hawks simply bought the idea that in order to be taken seriously, they had to jump on the “Yes, Saddam is a serious threat and Something Should Be Done” bandwagon.
I suppose I’m thinking of a Lakoffian “framing” thing. The Republicans have had so long to convert their beliefs into axioms that anybody who doesn’t accept them automatically is shrill, treasonous, suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome, what-have-you, but in any event, not worth listening to. And if there is one thing a pundit cannot stand, it’s being ignored.
well Mikey, maybe I’m not being clear… but if everyone else in the left could see that Colin Powell was talking out of his arse, and these nice chaps in the liberal interventionist left couldn’t, they’re either extremely stupid or (what I think is more likely) they knew he was lying, but it suited them to pretend his points had to be taken seriously in order that they could drum up support for their pet war project, while dismissing anti-war protestors as “crazy”, etc. I mean you have to be crazy to oppose a war to remove WMDs, right?
So if the former – they believed Bush cos. lies – then they’re incredibly stupid. If the latter – they knew it was obviously a crock of rubbish but it suited them to pretend to believe it – then they are evil evil evil people. i.e. scumbags.
But yeah, in general people who disagree with me are scumbags. I’d have thought that was self-evident. Do you disagree?
Emphasis on ‘bitchfest’. While I’m sad that your bajingo hurts, Gavin (or whatever you are calling yourself today), keep it to yourself, huh? You should be very proud that the ‘progressive’ movement HASN’T stopped progress over there. Since when did ‘progress’ mean a return to the 800 AD style way of living?
Frankly, you guys are embarrassing to the USA. Killing our babies and embracing the misogyny that is Islam is NOT liberalism. Admittedly, being against the death of kids isn’t the typical liberal position. But misogyny? Come on. Even the hippiest of hippies has to be opposed to THAT, right? Can’t we agree to stomp this crap out? And no, I don’t mean to stomp it out with ‘hugs’.
I don’t drink much anymore (hurts the gut), so this is a stoner riff. I’m a fucking nurse, but I read a lot and I try to stay up on events. I knew the reasons for attacking Iraq were bogus, so why didn’t these pundits, who get paid to know this shit, know this shit? And I’m sorry, but my panties get all in a wad when Yglesias says the policies Bush was advocating were wrong, but so were the policies that the anti-war movement was advocating. Would that include a policy like, don’t start a war? Yeah, sometimes pundits get it wrong, but it’d be nice to see the people who got it right get recognition for that in the MSM, instead of still being treated like dirty fucking hippies. I already lived through that in the sixties.
Here’s my problem with that “apology”:
Neither the policies being advocated by Bush nor the policies being advocated by the anti-war movement (even at its most mainstream) were the correct ones.
Huh?
Huh?!?
HUH?!?!?!?!?
The anti-war people who said we shouldn’t send our whole army against a country that had not attacked us, with almost no help, with no exit strategy, thus taking the heat off those who HAD attacked us, were not correct? How stupid is THAT.
I’m trying to wrap my brain around what he’s getting at and I just can’t. Is he saying “we just had to do something about the dark blobs in those grainy photographs Colin Powell showed the UN!” or “war isn’t such a big deal!” or what?
mikey, it boils down to the fact there had to have been a reason they were wrong. As ignobility says above, there was no need to be a beltway pundit, or member of Congress, to see quite clearly what Bush was doing.
If they can’t hit the curveball, they shouldn’t be in the bigs. No one’s saying take the bat out of their hands, but the team shouldn’t suffer for their learning curve. Digby’s hitting 350 with power annually in Triple A, and cause she doesn’t “look” like a ballplayer no one’s giving her a gig.
Just as an aside, Colin Powell really, really fucking hurt. For some reason, I had built him up in my mind into an honorable guy who would be interested in doing the right thing. Then he came along and knocked my on my too-trusting ass.
ma return to the 800 AD style way of living?
My most blissful summers were spent circa 797-802.
“I’m a f*cking nurse, but I read a lot and I try to stay up on events.”
Grr. I spent two WEEKS in a hospital back in ’97 in Dallas and could not find a single ‘ f*cking nurse’. They were all just the regular kind. Where were you, ignoble? We could have made sweet music together.
“I knew the reasons for attacking Iraq were bogus, so why didn’t these pundits, who get paid to know this sh*t, know this sh*t?”
Hey, watch your mouth young lady… but who says the reasons we attacked Iraq (or, hopefully in the future, Iran and Syria) were bogus? Did you buy into that ‘Bush lied, some thing or someone died’ mantra? Head’s up to the hippies: Saddam was not a good guy.
A few more fyi’s: Achmadinejihad (yeah, thats the correct spelling) and Assad… also not good guys. Hippies, don’t unite behind these guy’s banners. When we have to kill them to keep you safe, feel free to weep for whatever it is you ladies weep about, but take a second to thank us crazy conservatives, huh?
Hey, you guys think ‘shorter so and so’ is a funny thing, right? Here’s one!
Shorter notorious Patricia: The US Army sucks!
Screw you, but in a bad way, patty.
Semper Fi, my crazy hippie friends.
No more needs to be said.
Darn right, Kevin! We need to unite behind the banners of guys like Marcos, Pinochet, Batista, Musharraf, Karzai, the Shah, etc., etc, all the good guys that give conservatives such a raging collective boner.
And keep up the hippie references. It’s nice to see the kids today are learning their clever political rhetoric at the feet of great political thinkers like Rush Limbaugh and Eric Cartman and Ed Anger and Mallard Fillmore.
ladies weep about
I admit, I was sobbing uncontrollably and trying to unite behind Assad’s banner rather than attend to Kevin.
Well, for starters, we could assume that any argument for war based on secret evidence which politicians promised they had was an argument quite unworthy of the original Constitutional view of citizenship.
Hey, I’m drunk *and* stoned and very possibly high on crack as far you know, so take this with a pint of salt, but where exactly is the line that can separate Kosovo as a humanitarian mission from Iraq as an imperialistic mission? I don’t disagree that Iraq was clearly and obviously wrong for just about every conceivable reason, but I do think our mission in Kosovo saved a lot of lives, at very little real expense to the U.S., and was therefore easily worth doing. Maybe you disagree, and if so I’d love to read you reasons why (not for snarky reasons but for intellectual curiosity), but SOMEWHERE there had got to be a line separating moral/pragmatic missions from immoral/unprogmatic ones. I think it helps to discuss where that line should be.
Like wow, man.
All those typos in my last comment… you can probably figure out the reason. *BURP*
Kevin found comment conversation that was NOT ABOUT HIM!
Clearly, this affront to all the is Americana must be thwarted!
Keep trying, kid. I’m sure you’ll win your parents’ approval someday.
Okay, I promise, no more greifer-feeding from me.
And on that, there are games to be played and youtube to be watched. Ta.
laserda,
All you need do is ask “cui bono?” If we are not the primary beneficiaries of military action taken on without sufficient provocation, that seems to me a good indicator that our action is more likely to be moral.
YMMV
Indeed, crazy typical Republican! In the eyes of the left, those are all people who the conservatives support! Do you think we could include Stalin or Lenin in that list? Hitler would be a stretch, but maybe Mussolini? Good Lord.
Way to not understand your adversary, Typical Republican. Perhaps you could re-moniker yourself as ‘standard ignorant democrat’? It would be much more accurate…
adb: Digby is hitting a hell of a lot better than 350. When has she ever been wrong?
also, did anyone notice that the lawn is getting dangerously long? Who will save us from this deep deep grass?!?!?
Hey, you guyzhhh!
I’m agreat Ame *hic* Americeran, nlike otherer great Amercenans, I’m a drunkened driver.
So I’m great jes like the prezninent and the vicet prezinenent.
Anyboddy wannoo hear whud I goddta say abowot wud Al Sharpton sayed three months ago?
Way to not understand your adversary
Well, what did you expect. I am a typical Republican.
Hope you made the right choice m’lady! No more tears, huh?
The spanish Cid said: “Well, for starters, we could assume that any argument for war based on secret evidence which politicians promised they had was an argument quite unworthy of the original Constitutional view of citizenship.”
We could indeed! Or (and how about this) we could utterly destroy countries that treat their people (especially their women) like garbage. We could even toss out all of this ‘secret evidence’ of which you speak. Even a liberal such as yourself knows which countries suffer from scumbaggery. I’m for blotting them out. Aren’t you with me? I’ll even support allowing you to kill your babies to seal the deal! Come on hippies, meet me halfway!
Geez, I am offering to let you kill your children with wild abandon, and all I’m asking in return is for you to allow us to continue killing bad guys. And you continue to give me the cold shoulder. What gives?
I guess I coulda called myself “Typical Ignorant Republican,” but I thought “ignorant” was implied by “Republican.”
Typical Republican said,
July 15, 2007 at 7:50
Way to not understand your adversary
Well, what did you expect. I am a typical Republican.
Typical Something at least. We’ll let the audience decide. Don’t worry though, they’re not the brightest bunch in the field, so you’ll probably come out looking like an intelligent person! Actual intelligent people will disagree, but that’s not your concern.
Holy cow, can I slap down pseudo-intellectuals or what!?!
“I guess I coulda called myself “Typical Ignorant Republican,” but I thought “ignorant” was implied by “Republican.””
Only ‘Democrat’ implies ‘ignorant’ my friend.
Darn right, Kevin! We need to unite behind the banners of guys like Marcos, Pinochet, Batista, Musharraf, Karzai, the Shah, etc., etc, all the good guys that give conservatives such a raging collective boner.
Indeed, crazy typical Republican! In the eyes of the left, those are all people who the conservatives support! Do you think we could include Stalin or Lenin in that list? Hitler would be a stretch, but maybe Mussolini? Good Lord.
Indeed, Kevin-tard, you seem to misunderstand: those are all the people that conservatives have supported. Ask Kissinger about Allende and Pinochet, for example. Ask about the coup that replaced Mossadegh (democratically elected) with the Shah (not elected, and father of the most feared security service known to man, ths SAVAK). Do some research for fuck’s sake.
And my history of the second world war is a tad hazy, but I believe that many Americans did support Mussolini. I suspect that, had it not been for the Japanese attack, America might have sat out the war altogether.
I know you have a knee-jerk response to anything said by anyone who doesn’t agree with you, but in situations like these it makes you look like a total pillock. Just telling you for your own good, you know.
Now go mow that lawn, like a good little soldier.
Hey, Kev, do you need some help with the HTML?
What do you call a Republican with half the facts?
An expert.
And, no, that’s not a joke. It’s an observation.
Sure, mikey, let’s just forgive Tommy Fucking Friedman when he apologizes and it looks sincere, too. He’s just a writer, like me and you. His stage and the influence it gives him, is completely beside the point. In fact, all pundits and writers are just that — pundits and writers. We shouldn’t give a shit why it is that some of them get to spew a certain POV to a large audience. No one listens to them anyway. And they are people! Human beings worthy of infinite tolerance and respect! Who gives a shit about their ability to sell wars and other stupidity which gets people killed when they might get their feelings hurt when we demand some fucking accountability. That’s basically why Media Matters and Atrios and all these media watchdogs are doing useless work! You know, why the fuck should we make fun of Dennis Prager or Bill O’Reilly or Bill Kristol? They don’t make policy! They’re just writers — their fuck-ups have absolutely no fucking consequences! Unlike everyone else in the world who is paid to do a job, when pundits fuck up massively they should get to keep their jobs! Hell, they should be promoted! Especially when non-fuck-ups are right there who would do a better job.
Christ fucking almighty.
Anyone who heard Bush quack “…fuzzy math!” in answers to various questions during the 2000 campaign, and didn’t see him for the frat boy shithead he was and is, either isn’t very smart (which everyone here is, w/ certain exceptions) or was viewing the world through faith-based bifocals.
I never heard one argument for the invasion of Iraq that rang true. When I watched Colin Powell’s son et lumiere at the UN I think I literally yelled at the tv, “That’s it? That’s your big case?”
I think El Cid hits the mark above with the liberal hawks’ feelings of moral legitimacy derived from their fantasies. When Hitchens, whom I’ve admired for years, started saying that this war was good because, among other things, now “our troops will be battle-hardened” for future similar endeavors, I thought: he’s intoxicated on more than scotch. He’s getting off on war porn, on his own (appropriate) detestation of the irrationality of religion.
I think Yglesia’s point about “vanity” is an admirable acknowledgment. I just wish I knew what he meant when he says that both the pro-war and the anti-war arguments were equally wrong. Then what was right?
And don’t tell us you’re drunk, HTML. Not with perfect spelling like that.
Writers write. If they get it wrong, ah well. Policy makers make policy. If they get it wrong, real consequences happen to large populations of real people, and they have to be accountable. I understand disagreeing with a writer, I don’t understand or accept some kind of crazy jihad against them.
And sorry pal, I’m every bit as fucked up as you are, with two extra hours to work with!!
mikey
And I have had two vodka martinis (shaken, no stirred, thank you very much) following an afternoon of sangria-imbibing (don’t ask) and I am in the twilight of my coherence, but that is so fucking right. Whatever anyone had to say about anything, the fact remains that the fuckers who stole THE FUCKING ELECTION in 2000 were invested with the powers to do fuck-all as they pleased, and they fucking did, and nothing anyone had to say would have changed their minds an iota of a percent in the opposite direction. The republican fuckfest that has destroyed our fucking COUNTRY would not have done a damn thing differently had Ezra Igelsias or Kevin Friedman or Andrew Hitchens said anything to the contrary. They were hell bent on an agenda that was set in stone when Bill Clinton was still thinking about how cool it might be to be president and get blow jobs in the oval office from someone not-Hillary.
We must, somehow, do something to those motherfuckers. Something that will make future generations think twice before they attempt the same kind of demagoguery. Kill them, bury them, radiate the earth their bones are interred in so that nothing grows for thousands of generations, I don’t know what, but the neocons and paleocons and concons must not be allowed near the levers of power ever. Not ever. Again.
I’m not drunk. I pulled my back out terrible the other day when the claw feet off my tub fell off and it collapsed and I had to lift the fucking thing back up to put them back on. I ate a pain pill this evening. I’m high as a kite cos they really affect me.
I don’t particularly want sackcloth and ashes.
I do, however, want the people who made the bad call on Iraq to sit out the next one. I want the whole gamut from lunatics like Kristol and Adelman through to wannabe pundit princes like Yglesias to be told, rather loudly, to shut the fuck up whenever they speak of Iran.
“Pillock.”
Hee hee hee hee.
As in, “Kevin is a pillock.”
Or, “Romney is such a pillock.”
Much better than “hippie.”
Thanks, Qetesh.
Ouch, did I get a double “indeed” from qetesh-tard? Duh, my friend. Conservatives supported those people exactly as much and in the same vein as the democrats supported Stalin. I misunderstood nothing. I’m not privvy to Kissinger’s ear, and am also not willing to do research simply for the sake of f*ck (are liberals even willing to make such a compromise?), but if you want to mislabel our non-stop full-court press on countries that don’t support freedom as some kind of hippie drum circle love fest thing, well, have at it. Know that we aren’t buying it though.
In the future, please don’t add ‘tard’ to my name so I won’t have to add it to yours in response. While very typical of the left, it’s pointless. Thanks in advance!
Nobody hits 400 anymore sanitas, I’m just saying Digby is basically Pujoles.
N I think HTML was trying to ask, mikey, why you feel what he’s arguing for is a purity jihad. And… how to put this, can you help us understand where you’re coming from on this? It seems like maybe specific experience informs your concerns here.
“Kevintard is a pillock.”
Now, that’s funny.
Hey, whatever happened to mikey? Now I want some pie!
Hoosier, if ‘Kevin is a pillock’ truly makes you laugh, you need to get out more. Even just to see a movie or something. Love you like a brother, but get out there and get some experience in the real world. K? It’s not scary. It’s wonderful.
Sure, mikey, let’s just forgive Tommy Fucking Friedman when he apologizes and it looks sincere, too. He’s just a writer, like me and you. His stage and the influence it gives him, is completely beside the point. In fact, all pundits and writers are just that — pundits and writers. We shouldn’t give a shit why it is that some of them get to spew a certain POV to a large audience. No one listens to them anyway. And they are people! Human beings worthy of infinite tolerance and respect! Who gives a shit about their ability to sell wars and other stupidity which gets people killed when they might get their feelings hurt when we demand some fucking accountability. That’s basically why Media Matters and Atrios and all these media watchdogs are doing useless work! You know, why the fuck should we make fun of Dennis Prager or Bill O’Reilly or Bill Kristol? They don’t make policy! They’re just writers — their fuck-ups have absolutely no fucking consequences! Unlike everyone else in the world who is paid to do a job, when pundits fuck up massively they should get to keep their jobs! Hell, they should be promoted! Especially when non-fuck-ups are right there who would do a better job.
Rich people own the media. Rich people are going to hire writers like Tom Friedman regardless of how often he’s wrong, because Tom Friedman is never going to critique the underlying basis for their wealth and power and he will, in fact, do everything in his power to justify thier wealth and power to his readers. Once he goes against them, he will cease to be an inflluential columnist, and instead will be just another dirty fucking hipie blogger. Maybe this will change someday, Probably not. Right now I just want to kill somebody, but if I do, it won’t be Tom Friedman. It will be the fuckers that pay his salary and enable his hackery. I’m just sayin’.
Does “pillock” mean someone who pulls his history out of butt?
Cause I’m reading Kev’s “interpretation” of history and I’m thinking it smells funny.
Like hippies!
Ha ha. Us Republicans are so funny.
Even just to see a movie or something. Love you like a brother, but get out there and get some experience in the real world. K? It’s not scary. It’s wonderful.
Wow, Kev, you really are a total pillock.
Oh, Kevin’s not a pillock: he’s just a daft ha’porth.
“Spartacus said,
July 15, 2007 at 8:39
“Kevintard is a pillock.”
Now, that’s funny.”
No doubt! Name calling is the left’s thing! She totally got me. I almost don’t know what to do with the logic I’ve been spouting.
Name calling is the left’s thing!
Yes! You hit it right on the head! The Left should be more gentlemanly and kind, like that nice Mr. Cheney and that nice Mr. Limbaugh and that nice Mr. O’Reilly and that nice Mr., er, Ms., er whatever, Miss Coulter.
(I’d like to say you’re embarrassing us righties, Kev, but you’re actually far too typical.)
What do you call a Republican with half the facts?
An expert.
Hey! Knowing half the facts is hard!
Liberals. Hmf.
You are confusing a liberal with a Republican, but it’s still funny! Indeed, the left SHOULD be more gentlemanly and kind, like Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh and the great Ms. Ann Coulter! I’m not as optimistic as you about Bill O’Reilly, but if a typical Democrat will support him, who am I to disagree?
Heh. I love a duel of wits, ‘typical republican’ (aka ‘hardcore liberal democrat’), but I’ve got to go to bed. Can I rank on you more in the AM? I don’t mean to disparage you or your position (though I plan to in the morning!), but your comments have given me as much happiness as a hippie saying CO2 is killing us!
I’m like a pig in… what’s that thing pigs like to be in? Hehe,seriously though, keep spouting what you believe to be conservative positions. I’ll tackle them tomorrow.
Didn’t Christ come to bear witness to the trut?. Isn’t Satan called the father of Lies? Kevin’s hero Bush is a Satanist and so is Kevin.
Rove is an atheist. The neocon cult was founded by an antichrist called Strauss who said-there is no need to crawl to the cross. Kevin worships the antichrists.
The neocons have set up the idol of the noble lie in their hearts. Kevin is an idolator and an apostate.
Kevin sacrifces children to his gods Molloch, Mammon and Dagon and he has the nerve to castigate others about killing children.
Kevin has cast his lot with the Devil. He has sold out his purported saviour for thirty pieces of silver like Judas.
Kevin performs fellatio on people who loath and revile his purported religion and who spit upon and mock the sacrifice of his God.
Kevin sucks the cock of antichrist.
How about them Mets?
Kevin is an harridan and whore for the Pharisees.
HTML, rather than whine about half-hearted apologies, I think we need to up the ante. There was a third view of the facts that was entirely ignored by the anti-war people, and which was therefore never brought forward at all, and that is the true nature of our “eternal enema — Al Qaeda.”
Take a look at this from Chossudovsky:
The Central Role of Al Qaeda in Bush’s National Security Doctrine
There is more to be found in the BBC documentary which has never been shown in the US. The Power of Nightmares was heavily smeared after the initial showing and it is still being censored today, to wit, the removal of the video excerpts from YouTube.
As Chossudovsky points out, if we remove Bush’s prop, then we might have a chance to change the exceptionalism doctrines in the US forever. However, to do that, we have to knock the bottom out of Clinton’s desecration of Kosovo as well. So mote it be.
Kevin is a great whore of Babylon shamelessly peddling his wares for all to see.
Link for The Power of Nightmares
Plain text:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/video1037.htm
Kevin is a scarlet cum-gobbling whore, the mother of lies and filth.
Kevin takes it up the ass from the scarlet beast.
Kevin, the diseased whore, says that we should blot out the Arabs for their treatment of women, but we shouldn’t blot out ourselves for killing all the fetuses.
Kevin is the whore who services Legion and the High Priestess of the Mysteries of Iniquity.
Digby and analysis…
i cannot believe that the Democrats voted for this en masses on the merits. It had to be a deal of some sort, or some kind of assurance from the powers that be or something that I’m just not getting. I’m usually pretty good at figuring out the kabuki of these inexplicable legislative actions but in this case, I’m stumped.
It makes no sense at all for the Democrats to empower this administration in any way, shape or form to do anything with respect to Iran. Nada. It certainly doesn’t make political sense — nobody in the country wants war with Iran and nobody will suffer at the polls for failing to sign off on the president and Lieberman’s crazy schemes. The idea that Democrats need to be scared of seeming soft on Iran is ludicrous. And even if it did, all they had to do was scuttle the amendment anyway —they didn’t have to call for a vote. I just can’t find any political benefit to this at all, and tons of serious, substantive risk.
Just read this over there. If you are seriously puzzled why an AIPAC sponsered bill produced a totalitarian, politburo-like consensus in DC, you are in over your head analysiswise and you are never going to figure it out.
Does this have something to do with what I said?
Or was it simply a strange urge to post non-sensical, yet cutely excited, statements connected with some name or words he saw previously?
The English Keh-Vinn said ‘We could indeed!’
We could indeed eat strawberry jam on fresh bread!!! We could turn garbage bags into freedom! I’m for taking them out! I’ll even support letting you bark into the darkness to save the welcome mat! C’mon, visit the halfway house!
Kevin, the High Whore, conducts the Black Mass for the neocons intoning:
Cum onto me, all ye antichrists.
El Cid, non-sensical? what could make more sense than glassing countries because they mistreat their people? Let’s call it The Perfect Solution.
investigator: So, Kevin, why did you kill the family next door and burn down their house?
kevin: I couldn’t just stand by and allow him to keep beating her!
investigator: Are you sure it wasn’t seething psychopathic rage that caused you to utterly destroy them?
kevin: nope, it’s because I care so much.
I guess you’re write. Women’s lives always improve when their societies collapse into warlord chaos hell.
Goodness knows that when somewhat Carter but mainly Reagan turned Afghanistan from a vaguely Soviet-allied secular government into the battleground of raging terrorist Islamic fundamentalist drug dealing warlord thugs (who subsequently begat those who attacked us on 9/11, thanks Reagan!), the lives and freedom of Afghan question zoomed thru da roof!
Man, women were so freaking free under Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. And then when the Afghan people unhappily welcomed the Taliban takeover just because it was better than the warlord chaos hell they had before, man, their women folk had it even better.
It was like how we liberated the Cambodian women by carpet bombing them from 1965 to 1973. By the time our hawks had destroyed all their agricultural infrastructure and had loosed starvation among the land, and had handed power to the formerly marginal Khmer Rouge, man, those Cambodian women were celebrating in their graves at how much they had been liberated.
And the same thing happened in Guatemala. After Reagan met with all the Guatemalan genocidalists and declared himself impressed with their Christianitude, they went back to help liberate the Mayan women of the hill communities, mainly by shooting them and beheading them and bashing their babies’ heads against rocks, until such point as it was later officially classed as a genocide for which the US was “materially” responsible. Believe it or not, up until then, none of the Mayan women had recognized such clear prospects for freedom!!!
The record of liberating the wimmin-folk by destroying all the remnants of non-warlord society has an awesome, wonderful, brave, fantastic cool record. Do it more!!!
Hoosier X: glad to help. It’s one of my favourite insult words: the English have some real treasures.
Duh, my friend.
Kevin, you are not, and never will be, my friend. Sorry to disappoint, but I can’t be friends with anyone who’s both stupid and ignorant.
Conservatives supported those people exactly as much and in the same vein as the democrats supported Stalin.
Actually, the difference between Republican and Democrat is the thinness of a gnat’s whisker: from the perspective of The Rest Of The World, the US has spent at least the last 50-odd years supporting brutal regimes over democratic ones.
but if you want to mislabel our non-stop full-court press on countries that don’t support freedom as some kind of hippie drum circle love fest thing, well, have at it.
Ahem. “Non-stop full-court press”, eh? You have a weird idea of a full-court press. For instance:
Greece, late 40s and 60s;
The Philippines, late 18th century then again 40s and 50s;
Iran, 1953;
Guatemala, early 50s then early 60s then 70s and 80s;
Syria, late 50s (I think);
Indonesia, 50s and 60s;
Vietnam and Cambodia and Laos, 50s to 70s;
Haiti, every few years it seems like;
Ecuador and Brazil, early 60s;
Uruguay, Chile, Bolivia, Guatemala, 70s;
Nicaragua, 80s;
Panama and El Salvador, 80s.
That’s a sample of what the US has been involved in via the CIA or military. Oh, and Australia, mid-70s in particular. And you might want to google “Nugan Hand Bank”. You might also want to google “School of the Americas”, but of course that would be something you’re already informed about, wouldn’t it? You being so well-read and all.
Non-stop full-court fucking press, my arse. Doesn’t it even bother you that they’re spending your tax money destroying other people’s lives? They could be using it to enrich your lives, you know, instead of overthrowing democratic governments and funding and training torturers.
Ignorant fucking yokel.
right, not write.
Even in the Dhimmi-monde of the demonic underworld, Kevin is known notoriusly depraved whore.
Bush’s nickname for Kevin is The Scarlet Harlot.
Sometimes, the long discussions here about whether the “Liberal Hawks” really believed what they said, and about whether or not they have apologized enough, seem a bit beside the point to me. They seem beside the point because we can’t really do that much to reward, or punish, M. Yglesias, T. Freidman, or any other ‘Liberal Hawk’.
Matthew Yglesias will continue with his own special combination of gullibility and/or dishonesty. Tom Freidman will continue his pathetic shtick of always calling for just another 6 months, or 3 months, and the people who always believed Freidman will continue to belive him. If they piss you off, and I could certainly understand why they might, you can attempt to throw flack their way. You can write letters to the editor about how they are just wrong. You can make a blog post about how they are ignoring certain salient facts.
Our energies are better focussed on shifting public opinion, or throwing effective flack at Liberal Hawks in the media, than in trying to decide what their real state of mind was or is, or trying to decide whether they are really on our side or not (they are not, they will betray us again and again).
[…] Mencken is annoyed at the liberal hawks getting all the good gigs: The liberal press — internet and dead tree versions — aren’t the gravy trains that the […]
Several urgent matters:
1. Arguing with a troll is like fighting the Tar Baby or, worse, like fighting with my ex-wife. Nuff said.
2. Mencken, condolences on your back. Please stop writing and drink liberally until it settles down. No driving, no heavy machinery, and none of those Wii shenanigans you young people are “into.”
3. commie atheist is dead right, above, and Qetesh’s list is the one I fully intended to write until I noticed I wasn’t smart enough. Anyone who takes the neo-con sales pitch about “defending liberty” and “bringing God’s gift of freedom” to others is either a child or an idiot. I know nothing about history, and even I know the historical record–of even the past seven years–is a full and complete refutation of that loathsome fairy tale.
4. I now pause for some troll to do what my ex-wife used to do, which is to reply to an argument with an immediate reductio ad absurdum. “Oh, so then liberals all think ‘honor killings’ are basically peachy?” Have at it, jerks.
Whenever I discuss the topic, it is mainly to prevent those who corrupted the public debate in the leadup to Iraq War II and Iraq Occupation I from attempting to use the same fouling of the public discussion for the next hawkish foreign policy initiative which they likely will eagerly support.
By the way, the L.A. Times report suggesting that almost half of foreign insurgents are from Saudi Arabia no doubt will convince the liberal hawks that we must attack Iran, and soon.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-saudi15jul15,0,3132262.story?coll=la-home-center
Jesus, did someone spike the punch?
Did Kevin take some benadryl and chase it with Mountain Dew? Someone call his mom to drive him home.
And who the fuck did he pick up at the bar? Get that asshole outa here?
I think HTML was trying to ask, mikey, why you feel what he’s arguing for is a purity jihad
Because the people who are responsible for the atrocity in iraq, the destruction of the constitution, the criminal legislation, the illegal wiretaps, the torture, gitmo and abu ghraib are NOT writers. Why waste your time screaming that writers are responsible for policy. Disagree with them. Tell them they’re wrong. Hell, tell them you think they’re stupid for writing opinions you disagree with, as long as you’re then willing to accept their telling you the same thing.
The people responsible are bush, cheney, rumsfeld, feith, wolfowitz, libby et al. They did it. Writers didn’t do it. Policy makers did it. Scream for their heads. Do something about THEM. But to rail against writers of opinion by writing your opinion is crazy, and kind of hypocritical. And then, when one of them changes their mind, you want to trash them further? What’s that about? Seems to me they can keep their opinion the same or adjust it as they come to believe they were wrong. That’s the only two things they can do. And you say they’re wrong if they do either. That’s just not fair, and I’m gonna disagree with it.
I think they were wrong too. I thought so at the time, although I’m not a big one for beating my chest about it. But for fucks sake, writers write. It’s what they do. It’s what YOU do. It’s what I do! I just don’t get it.
Now, please, I understand you wholeheartedly disagree with them. While I think your vitriol is misguided, you are certainly allowed to pillory them if you wish. You can boycott their advertisers, you can write their editors demanding they be fired, you can never forgive, you can burn copies of their work if you want. But they didn’t do it. And you won’t solve anything by attacking the wrong people. You know?
mikey
But to rail against writers of opinion by writing your opinion is crazy, and kind of hypocritical.
It isn’t. Propaganda serves a purpose in war and in the lead-up to it, and holding people to account for it is reasonable. Obviously the bunch who ginned up the cheerleading in the first place were in the White House, so it’s not quite the same as William Randolph Hearst making a war, but there is plenty of responsibility to go around.
Imagining all opinion writers as performing some equivalent chore is sort of missing the boat regarding Townhall vs. Sadly, No! don’t you think?
Some of us write comments on blogs that get seen by a few dozen people. Others of us write for publications that get read by millions. Not all writers or writings are equal. Some of those people get taken seriously for reasons that have nothing to do with the truth/depth/skill of their writing, but because of who they are and the megaphone they have access to. It seems that once you attain a certain level of “sucess”, a certain visibility, you’re in for life, and nothing you write, no matter how staggeringly dumb, vile or just plain wrong will ever have your membership in that club revoked. A self-reinforcing bullshit equation.
When Judy Miller decides to “just write” articles in the NYT that are nothing more than press releases straight from Cheney’s office, it matters. It affects people who might not listen if Ol’ Snarly himself came out into daylight saying the same stuff. When the Mustache of Understanding, whose books routinely top the bestseller list, uses his perch in the NYT to “just write” in a way that just happens to stoke war fever, it matters. People pay attention to him for unfathomable reasons.
People like “bush, cheney, rumsfeld, feith, wolfowitz, libby et al” don’t just work their propagandistic magic in a vacuum. They have help from people from Miller and Friedman all the way down to Drum and Klein, priming everyone to accept this view of the world, making it seem like this is the consensus. When jingoistic war fever is humming along in the background of everyone’s daily life like their refrigerator, it matters. It makes ideas that might seem insane otherwise seem like the most natural thing ever.
In the same way that Noam Chomsky concentrates his criticism on the actions of the U.S. government because it’s at least theoretically within his power to influence, unlike say, Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan, a lefty blogger like HTML has at least a theoretical chance of influencing other left-of-Mussolini bloggers and their readers. Given that an attack on Iran looks more and more likely all the time, it matters what people write, what they contribute to the overall discussion. Maybe Matt and Ezra aren’t personally banging the war drums this time around, but it can’t hurt to remind everyone what kinds of stupid decisions can be made (a mere five years ago, hardly ancient history) by otherwise intelligent people in an attempt to prevent more of the same this time around. “bush, cheney, rumsfeld, feith, wolfowitz, libby et al” aren’t listening to him and don’t care what he thinks, so what’s the point of screaming into that particular void?
Words, and even images, matter. Why does this even need to be explained?
But it’s not so. Pundits were for and against intervention in Somalia. It happened. The ones against didn’t seem to accomplish anything. People wrote for and against intervention in the Balkans, Rwanda, Darfur. Some happened, some didn’t. Why? Because pundits do NOT make policy. Policy makers make policy. Pundits have called loudly for attacking Iran. Hasn’t happened yet. When it does, will those pundits be responsible? What if it doesn’t?
And why does it matter in this issue, but no others. People wrote in support of torture as american policy. Where are the pieces blaming them for abu ghraib? Pundits wrote in favor of the bankruptcy bill. That piece of low thuggery passed. Why are the pundits not responsible? Could it be because the legislators pass laws, not pundits? I think it might.
Do you think this issue is somehow different because people die? What about rwanda? Pundits called for intervention, but it didn’t happen. Later Clinton regretted that decision. Why? Because it was his decision, not, theirs.
Once again, I’m not saying they were right. I’m just saying that blaming writers for policy decisions you don’t agree with is silly.
People like “bush, cheney, rumsfeld, feith, wolfowitz, libby et al” don’t just work their propagandistic magic in a vacuum.
This is exactly my point. Bush, cheney, et al didn’t work “propagandistic magic”. They agressively invaded and occupied a country with whom we were at peace. That’s a war crime, according to the Americans in Nuremburg. They didn’t write about it. They did it. It can’t be any clearer than that…
mikey
I need to say two more things. First, if the determinate factor is the size of the audience, that’s obscene. That’s just the kind of selective enforcement of the rules that many of us hate. If the rules exist, they apply. You can’t select a subgroup and say they have to live by a different set of rules. It smacks of “marriage is an institution between one man and one woman”. Just an arbitrary rule that makes a subset of people live by a different set of rules than the rest of us. I’m never gonna support that, no matter how many of you tell me it’s somehow different in this case.
Second, I never thought I’d need to defend writers, even writers with unpopular opinions on a blog, of all places. The way you counter speech you don’t agree with is with more speech. Say you disagree. Say why. But they are writers, and their opinions are every bit as valid as yours or mine, and they have every right to write them, and they are no more thugs or criminals than you or I. They are writers, and we need them all…
mikey
Once again, I’m not saying they were right. I’m just saying that blaming writers for policy decisions you don’t agree with is silly.
Once again though, propaganda serves a purpose in war and in the lead-up to it, and holding people to account for it is reasonable. Seriously, propaganda is part and parcel of policy decisions, especially in war. Propagandists don’t write the law or make the policies but if you don’t think there’s influence there why do you read anything about politics?
The way you counter speech you don’t agree with is with more speech. Say you disagree. Say why.
Jesus H. Where did anyone call for Sensible Liberals to have their pens and keyboards taken away and sent to reeducation camps? What are you going on about? Isn’t that exactly what people like HTML are doing?
Where are the pieces blaming them for abu ghraib?
Maybe at Orcinus, where “eliminationist rhetoric” and its real-world consequences are the specialty dish? The point being, policymakers do what they can given the nature of public opinion, be it jingoistic or indifferent to the point of comatose. Writers and pundits play a huge role in determining that national mood, and are you really going to try to argue that? Policymakers aren’t going to sign on to something that they know their constituents ferociously oppose. Why didn’t Bush just invade Iraq at the start of his term, then, rather than spend more than half of a year “selling” the necessity of it to the public, if actions are all that matter?
And how is it you shrug and sigh at the effect national pundits have on the discourse but get your hair up over a post on a blog?
Yeah, propaganda doesn’t make a hill of beans of difference.
That’s why the administration worked didn’t even attempt to create a false rationale for this war. If propaganda were important, instead of Bush Jr. having said “F*** it, I just wanna invade Iraq”, they would have done sh*t like said Saddam Hussein had super poison robot missiles and that he had maybe been working with Al Qa’ida to cause 9/11.
And also if propaganda had mattered they would have done stuff like invite media figures to private briefings and told them fake information designed to gain support for the war.
Or you also would have seen right wing foundations pumping money into pro-war advocacy think tanks and funding right wing hack writers to flood all discussions with allegations that anyone not in favor of the war hated America.
Clearly, the notion that Presidents and the promoters of wars would waste their time attempting to portray the nation as properly united behind their cause is ridiculous.
Almost a century ago the New Republic took it on as its special task to convince the American public to support a US entry into World War I, and we know that they were absolutely, 100% irrelevant because it was the President who ordered that entry, and Congress never even once approached the New Republic to ask for a vote.
It almost makes me think that if message control were so important, instead of product and services producers just telling us plainly and simply what their products and services consisted of and offered, they’d pay, I dunno, maybe millions, or maybe even billions of dollars on “advertisementizing” or something, maybe even hiring “popular relations” companies.
Jeez, I woulda thought this is simple. As a writer I have a problem with blaming writers for the actions of politicians.
But hey, if you’re comfortable with that, fine. I’m surprised that y’all would be, but there it is. And it makes me sad that you put these writers in the position where anything they do now is wrong, and evil. They can’t continue to support the administration’s policies, and they can’t come out, say they were wrong, and criticize those policies. I don’t understand how a writer, even a part time writer, would be comfortable with that.
I guess I’d hope that you’ll accept the same responsibility for things you might believe in and write about if they turn out to be wrong in the future. If that works for you, ok….
mikey
Jesus H. Where did anyone call for Sensible Liberals to have their pens and keyboards taken away and sent to reeducation camps? What are you going on about? Isn’t that exactly what people like HTML are doing?
The first line of HTML’s piece (this very one):
The emphasis is mine. And yeah, I’m uncomfortable with that.
mikey
Jeez, I woulda thought this is simple. As a writer I have a problem with blaming writers for the actions of politicians.
In the case of the Iraq war (and others) there is no dichotomy between certain writers and politicians: it’s a continuum. Writers were obviously part and parcel of the policy effort. Whatever division you think there was between them would have been nice.
This is not to say that all writers who wound up on the dumb side of the equation are equally culpable, but I imagine the moral sense of a reasonable person being satisfied by the thought – however unjust in a practical sense – of Bill Kristol in prison.
Nobody is “blaming writers for the actions of politicians.” We’re saying that pretending that writers have no effect whatsoever on policy and public attitudes towards policy is weird as hell and flat-out wrong.
And I think HTML’s point is that most of these people haven’t seriously changed their thinking. They see Iraq as a tactical blunder, not an immoral obscenity, one that could have been made acceptable to them through more efficient management, and many of them might be persuaded to accept a similar attack on Iran if done by a President Obama or Clinton. Plus, he’s complaining about the fact that this is the kind of viewpoint that rises to the top where it has a chance to influence others.
Question: The basis for considering pundits some sort of accessories to this war is that their articles and opinions helped drum up the public support necessary to get it going. Given that we now know that Bush, Cheney and the rest don’t really give a rat’s ass about what the public wants, does that in any way mitigate those pundits’ culpability?
And yes, I know that BushCo no longer has to worry about winning re-election, and that gives them additional freedom to disregard public opinion. But given that on taking office in 2001, well before 9/11, Bush immediately set about violating his own campaign promises, you have to wonder how much he cared about public opinion even then.
the lack punishment that the progressive movement has meted to such people
Again, I’m pretty sure he’s talking about them not being rewarded with high-profile, lucrative gigs writing for magazines like TNR and the Atlantic, when people who are much better writers and thinkers are left on Blogspot.
Given that we now know that Bush, Cheney and the rest don’t really give a rat’s ass about what the public wants, does that in any way mitigate those pundits’ culpability?
Nope. If they’d just gone to it without a long period of
consultationpersuasion they’d have had a shitstorm instead of a free pass.If the punditocracy has enough power and influence to be responsible for the invasion of iraq, why, with all the calls for withdrawal now coming from every corner, do we have an escalation? Seems like these powerful writers have lost a little of their power when their opinions run counter to what the administration WANTS to do. I wonder if that might mean they don’t really have that kind of influence over the administration in the first place?
They don’t have influence over the administration. The administration had influence over THEM, and the punditocracy has influence over others, including the thicker varieties of Democrats.
mikey, we’re not blaming writers for the actions of politicians, we’re blaming writers for their own actions. We’re not talking about scifi pulp writers here, were talking about world famous journalists who large numbers of people trust as impartial purveyors of truth.
In a gang rape the guy who doesn’t join in but sits at the side cheering them is a still a criminal, if not quite as evil as the rapists themselves.
Mistakes lead to consequences. Those who supported the war made a terrible mistake, and we’re arguing they should face consequences for that. Like loss of employment. If they can’t do their job well, why should they have it?
It’s not just expression of opinion, mikey. It’s supposed to be expression of well-informed, wise opinion.
I still don’t understand where you’re coming from here, mikey. It’s very simple, these folks failed at their jobs and no longer deserve them. They don’t exist simply to express their opinions. They have their gigs because their opinions are supposed to be informed and insightful, not because they can form complete sentences and have views on stuff. When insight fails them and they clearly aren’t well informed, shouldn’t they lose their gigs?
It’s not that they were wrong about the war, it’s why they were wrong, and that down the line none of them have learned a damn thing from it.
It’s not influence over the admin, it’s influence over the people.
In a gang rape the guy who doesn’t join in but sits at the side cheering them is a still a criminal, if not quite as evil as the rapists themselves.
Ahh, dude. If this is how you want to classify writers, you and I can’t even HAVE this discussion. This is my point.
People who write political opinions, right down to you and I, are doing so because we believe in our right in a democracy to do so, and we believe in everybody’s right to do so. Pastor swank isn’t responsible for the death of Matthew Sheppard. You’re gang rape analogy is offensive to anybody who believes in the power of the written word.
It’s not influence over the admin, it’s influence over the people.
And what, the people ordered the invasion of Iraq? Nope. The bush administration did. And would have without popular support. Just as they won’t withdraw IN SPITE of popular demand. They are the ones responsible. Writers write.
Anything you say about Yglesias or Friedman you have to say about you and me, because we write political opinions, and we are sometimes wrong. And I don’t accept what you say about them applies to me. So I don’t accept it at all…
mikey
But mikey, you aren’t paid to provide your opinions for dissemination to thousands of readers or millions of viewers. You aren’t seeking to be taken for an expert whose opinion should influence if not form the views of many others. You don’t puff up your words with name-dropping, you don’t have “access” which makes your opinion theoretically more informed than us outsiders in the unconnected world. You are NOT equivalent to them. I’m not saying they can’t have opinions or express them, I’m saying they’ve shown they don’t deserve a pulpit. There’s a difference between a blog and a column in an internationally distributed newspaper or magazine.
And mikey, you surely have to know it’s easier to start a war than end one. If the press had done its job at the very least it wouldn’t have taken 3 years for the public to wise up. And, hell, maybe congress would have been less likely to authorize the war if the press hadn’t made sure public opinion was behind it.
And besides, why were they wrong? Were they fucking idiots who were so easily scared their reason fled them for years? Or were they careerists who didn’t want to risk an unpopular opinion? Or did they just want war and death?
I’m not saying they don’t deserve to have opinions, that’d be ludicrous. I’m saying they don’t deserve to spread their misinformed views among a poorly educated and easily mislead public. They failed in their jobs, spectacularly. They showed they are unqualified to serve as pundits. They pretend to be liberals while making excuses for blood soaked hands. Even when they admit they were wrong, they act like it was better to be wrong than a dirty hippie. They just don’t deserve to be where they are, and are counterproductive to the kind of change we both want.
I really don’t care about the individuals, I care that bad arguments, bad types of arguments, and injuries to public discourse (say, by repeatedly alleging that those arguing against attacking & occupying Iraq hated Iraqis and wanted them to suffer and die at Saddam Hussein’s hands) be admitted, exposed, and gotten rid of.
It just happens to be a function of something we might loosely call a system of media influence that individuals who regularly spout bad arguments, bad types of arguments, and injure the public discourse are funded, hired, and publicized exactly when those bad arguments, bad types of arguments, and public discourse injuries benefit the interests of power.
To believe that this is somehow an amazingly reproduced yet completely inexplicable set of coincidences over at least a century’s time span is not just naive, it’s downright obtuse.
Hokay. I could say I agree with you. I could say the press did fail in their job by not asking the hard questions and insisting on answers. I could point out that opinion writers are not “the press”. You notice the difference between the Wall Street Journal and it’s opinion pages? I bet you do. I could point out that their employment status is between them and their employer, just like yours and mine.
I could remind you once again I’m not saying they weren’t wrong, I’m saying it’s not reasonable to BLAME them for a war that was started by the bush administration for their own reasons. I could say thank goodness we don’t get to decide who deserves to write their views and who doesn’t.
But I think I’ll just suggest we’ve beaten this thing bloody, and nobody’s changing their opinions. Shall we agree to disagree?
mikey
Time to start talking about ME again!
Please, please, please, talk about ME!!!!
I can agree to that. Just to make clear, tho, I’m not trying to blame them for the war. But they bear a measure of responsibility, and that undermines their credibility, which is all a reporter really has.
And I’m not writing letters to publishers, demanding people be fired. I’m saying that they showed they should be fired, particularly those folk who are supposed to be voices representative of the left, yet never agreed with us and think our hair length disqualifies our opinions.
Blog, you sound very much like a religious zealot… or someone in need of medication. I thought the hippie left hated (non-muslim) religions! Was I mislead? I wish you wouldn’t confuse me with a Christian though. Jesus seems like a nice guy, but so did Ronald Reagan. It’s no reason to worship them. Ok, in all honesty, I DO kind of worship Reagan, but that’s a story for another time.
Quint said:“Kevin, you are not, and never will be, my friend. Sorry to disappoint, but I can’t be friends with anyone who’s both stupid and ignorant.”
I’m more liberal than you then, Quint! Because I won’t hold either you being stupid or your ignorance against you and will still call you ‘friend’! I hope you can come around and reciprocate the friendship, but I understand if you are incapable.
That’s why you are so in love with the fetuses, right? You are a Satanist zelalot who loves lies and are of Satan who is the Father of Lies. I never thought you were a Christian. You worship Mammon.
Wouldn’t all Kevin’s right wing evangelical friends love to know that Kevin is a antichrist who is playing them for rubes?
Fine, whatever, forgive or ignore the media to your heart’s content, mikey. But this was the original point:
Why on earth do other progressive press organs, though, seem to desire to reward writers with such pseudo-progressive instincts? Does this reflect the sentiments of the movement? Are you, lefty blog reader, a liberal hawk? Jonathan Chait admitted that Liberal Hawks are massively over-represented in the Liberal press. Why do progressive people continue to put up with this shit, then? Why is it okay that Washington Monthly hired Liberal Hawk Kevin Drum to be its regular blogger? Why is it okay that TAP rewarded Ezra Klein and Yglesias with paying jobs for their Liberal Hawkery? Don’t tell me that it’s because they can’t find anyone who writes better: Jim Cappozolla (R.I.P.), Roy Edroso, and our own Gavin M. — all of whom got Iraq right — are master stylists. Digby and the late Steve Gilliard does (and did) better analysis. Billmon was a fucking prophet. There are a bazillion others who got the war right, have good instincts, and can humorously and substantively destroy wingnut arguments.
Why did those who got it wrong fail upwards? Why aren’t Ezra and Matt and Kevin plugging away on Blogspot while Digby and Billmon have paying jobs writing for influential magazines?
We’re the side that’s supposed to oppose this kind of military adventurism, and yet our best writers don’t get rewarded for their intelligence and writing skills on the most important issue of the last several years. HTML (and I and others like us) are worried that this indicates that the same shit is going to happen again and again, because those with the power to make those sorts of changes don’t want to do it. Liberal hawkery still rules the Democrats. Peter Beinart might be a joke in 2007, but another liberal hawk idiot like him is going to take his place when the war machine starts firing up again, because no one seems to have come to terms with it. When Bush (or Hillary or Obama) starts dropping bombs on Iran, people like us are going to be scorned again for being unserious and unwilling to deal with the threat Iran represents. Rinse and repeat.
a different brad said,
July 15, 2007 at 22:01
mikey, we’re not blaming writers for the actions of politicians, we’re blaming writers for their own actions. We’re not talking about scifi pulp writers here, were talking about world famous journalists who large numbers of people trust as impartial purveyors of truth.
Both of you guys make good points but I have to incline towards mikey on this, for what it’s worth. Yes, Friedman is a world-famous journalist, more’s the pity … but Kevin Drum isn’t; ask anybody who doesn’t read blogs regularly who he is and get a blank stare. Same goes for Yglesias, actually. Quite a lot of people were wrong, but only a few had any real influence; if your objection is that their influence made things worse, take it out on them, not on others who may have agreed with them.
And mikey is dead right about the double-bind here — if they don’t admit they were wrong, they’re jerks, and if they ,b>do admit they were wrong, well, then they were wrong and we shouldn’t ever pay attention to anyone who was ever wrong, because (after all ) we, the right guys, were always right, unlike all other human beings who ever lived. Fuck that.
Re-read the part of the Yglesias post I emphasized He admits his responsibility; he even disagrees with you, mikey.
Kevin, the retard Dhimmi-wit, doesn’t even know how to read.
Fine, whatever, forgive or ignore the media to your heart’s content, mikey.
I don’t ignore. I read a great deal. But forgive?? Huh? Because somebody wrote something they have transgressed against me and I have to decide whether to forgive them? Where did that rule come from. Who else do I have to forgive or not? Judges who make decisions I don’t like? People who paint buildings horrific colors?
Come on. Writing is a constitutionally guaranteed form of speech. We should be encouraging writing, not taking this weird totalitarian position that some people, by dint of the very things they wrote, have somehow disqualified themselves from exercising that right? Gawd, why is this so hard. All I’m saying (again) is that writers are not responsible for the invasion of Iraq. And if you are aiming your anger and vitriol at writers instead of the real murdering thugs, you are wasting your anger. Kind of like, oh, if the US was attacked by terrorists and you responded by invading a country that had nothing to do with it. Y’know?
Yeah, I saw that HTML. If Yglesias thinks he has the power to cause the US to deploy forces against a nation with whom the US is at peace, well, bless his little heart, but I’m gonna suggest that just maybe his success to date has perhaps gone to his head a bit. Come on. He could no more have stopped the invasion of Iraq then he could have stopped Katrina. So if by agreeing with you you mean he’s a bit delusional, well, ok, I think maybe he is.
If someday at a tribunal in The Hague Paul Wolfowitz testifies that the REAL responsibility for the invasion falls on Yglesias, Klein and Freidman, then ok, lets round ’em up and take ’em in. Until then, they’re just writers, and they have every right in the world to make their living writing things. And if they can make that living even with you not buying their publications, well, that’s the way it goes, y’know?
mikey
Don’t be silly mikey. Yes, there’s a distinction between action and moral support for that action. But don’t pretend moral support for that action, and the public opinion the moral support rallies in defense of that action, means nothing.
Wars cannot be started without political support. It takes political support to change any status quo policy in this country. Yglesias, et al, lent Bush political support for Iraq. Yes, Bush always wanted to invade Iraq. Well, then why didn’t he do it in 2001 right after being sworn in? Ahh.
On the “writers are blameless” argument, let’s switch examples. Jeane Kirkpatrick was an academic pundit nobody. Then she wrote a paper clearly articulating an argument stating how and why the U.S. could support rightwing dictators but not left-wing ones. Reagan read it; it fit his biases so well that he made her U.N. Ambassador. And the policy she articulated, previously done by the U.S. in an ad hoc and weak way, became something done in a deliberate, de jure fashion. It was strengthened and made official.
Ivo Daalder, to whose neocon-lite philosophy Yglesias ascribes, is a contributor to various Sensible Liberal publications. He’s also a political consultant. I think he working for Obama this time around. But yeah, the shit he writes, it’s just writing. Don’t mean nothin’. Jesus.
Writing matters, sure. But writers are NOT responsible for policy. And by protecting writers we disagree with, we protect ourselves. This is simple. If we are not going to shut down writers who hate, who call for genocide, who promulgate the position that gay people are somehow less a citizen than you and me, if we are going to defend the right of people who’s opinions are anathema to everything we believe and then somehow say that on this one issue these guys stepped over the line, then I’ve gotta get off the boat.
I don’t know how else to say it. In a time when all of our cherished civil liberties are under attack, we need to embrace our beliefs, not start eating our young. Fer crissakes, we’ve got a long way to go to get to the cheerleaders when the quarterback and coach of the thugs team are still calling plays…
mikey
Blog said:“Kevin, the retard Dhimmi-wit, doesn’t even know how to read.”
Ouch! You’ve brilliantly deduced my most hidden secret that I don’t know how to read, but why rub it in? Can’t we let that particular deficiency of mine go unspoken? There’s nothing dhimmi about me though, mr. blog. Your barking at the wrong person on that issue.
As for your other comments, I can only hope you are making them for shock value (in which case it’s pretty funny stuff!) and don’t actually believe what you are saying. If not, are you going to be a one-trick pony with this Satan crap like Mikey is with his pie infatuation?
Hey Kevie, why don’t you make like a turkey and gobble, gobble gobble the cum of your Satanist Masters.
Protecting them from what??? Is everyone entitled to a job at Liberal Publications? Christ, mikey, by your reasoning, anybody, Bill Kristol, Adam Yoshida, whoever, should be allowed to write for Liberal Publications — because after all, no matter what anyone wrote and agitated for, they deserve to have or keep their job.
It’s really shitty to try to say I’m censoring. I’m not. Yglesias is simply a TNR type writer. So is Klein. Chait says that type — his own type — is every where, is over-represented.
I’m not fucking saying that Yglesias should be allowed to write for Christ’s sake. It’s just that his POV is not suited to where it’s found anymore than mine is suited for the Weekly Standard.
The publications Klein, Yglesias, et al write for claim to be progressive. I’m not a fuckign asshole, then — and I resent the implication that I am — for asking why in the hell they keep hiring people who have demonstrated a steady instinct for non-progressive policies. God fucking dammit, I’m not blaming Yglesias for apologising, I’m blaming him for apologising but *obviously* not changing the things about him that made him so fucking wrong in the first place. I’m blaming him for his apology being worthless. Grrrr.
Kevin, the Great WhoreCreep, shocks and awes himself.
Kevin pretends to be the friends of the evangelists so that he can screw them over while blowing his masters for fiflthy lucre.
“There’s nothing dhimmi about me though, mr. blog. Your barking at the wrong person on that issue.”
Whine like the stinkin crybaby you are, dhimmiwit.
Hey Kevie, why don’t you make like a turkey and gobble, gobble gobble the cum of your Satanist Masters.
He likes it!
Good Lord blog, you’ve got a dirty mouth. Hail Satan!
Your lord and master, we all know. The truth is a bitter to pill to swallow, isn’t it?
Kevie advocates blotting people out and gencocide but faints and calls for the smelling salts when confronting with harsh language. What an effete wuss.
Had an attack of the vapors there, eh miss primadonna?
Vis a vis this rather acrimonious discussion, I suspect that the course of the discourse has skewed away from the original theme.
By that rather pretentious sentence, I mean that both sides are getting angry even while it feels like they don’t disagree that much. I’ll try to make it clearer.
Mikey’s saying that free speech should be defended, and that speech should be countered with speech. HTML seems to be saying that it’s a pain in the arse that the lefty journals keep hiring hawks as their opinion writers. Both agree that propaganda can facilitate war-mongering.
In other words, I think mikey is talking general principles, while HTML is talking ‘what the fuck is wrong with the Democrats and the left?’ The two views are not opposed.
And I think both sides, each in their own ways, are saying a similar thing, in essence: why the shiny, glass-covered fuck is there no accountability? How can respectable journals claiming to put forward a left point of view continue to support war? How can the Bush junta continue to get away with crimes against humanity? Differences of degree, certainly: differences of kind, not so much.
Basically, kids, we’re the powerless. Even the groups that purport to represent us are often only doing it for votes or money. So what do we do? Well, we have to represent ourselves. It’s hard, but that’s all there is to it: the establishment (whichever one you choose) isn’t going to do fact-checking for journalists or evidence-reviewing for Colin Powell, they’re just going to maintain the status quo as long as they can. They’re going to try to convince us that we want what they want for as long as they can, or at least to convince us that everyone else wants what they want, so we feel disenfranchised.
Despite the glib statements, I don’t have any good answers. I think it will take something like samizdat, and something like a revolution, before we can turn a monolithic social structure that sees war as easier than peace, into something responsive to the people.
Forgive me, I haven’t had breakfast yet.
OMG I was just going to say the same thing! That WAS a pretentious sentence! good call, my friend.
Is Kevie, Miss primadonna, having a hissy fit?
Qetesh and I are like two peas in a pod, huh?
Quick fan the little lady, or else we’ll have a prostrate little kevie, lying on the couch and acting melodramatic.
Nope, just worshipping Satan, blog. Or having sex with him… it’s hard to tell exactly what you are accusing me of. You are meandering too much.
So you admit to performing sex acts with Satan?
He really does like it!
What are you going to admit to next, Kevie, bestiality?
Kevie does it for free!
I think you answered your own question.
Why is it okay that TAP rewarded Ezra Klein and Yglesias with paying jobs for their Liberal Hawkery? Don’t tell me that it’s because they can’t find anyone who writes better … [snip snip] … The liberal press — internet and dead tree versions — aren’t the gravy trains that the wingnut press is
Can’t wait ’til they figure out how to profit off of peace.
“So you admit to performing sex acts with Satan?”
Yeah, whatever.
“He really does like it!”
Not as much as Mikey though!
“Quick fan the little lady, or else we’ll have a prostrate little kevie, lying on the couch and acting melodramatic.”
What is it about libtards that makes them add ‘ie’ to people’s names, or describe them as ‘little’? I get that ‘blog’ is just an idiot, but it’s not the first time it’s happened, so I have to ask. As you may be aware, I’m no fan of name-calling (‘cept hippie. I call you guys that alll the time.)
We can all agree that calling me ‘little kevvy’ (or my favorite: widdle kevy! HA!) doesn’t advance the discussion, right?
“What are you going to admit to next, Kevie, bestiality?”
K. Admitted.
So it’s monstrous depravity, pampered, delicate, genocidal kevie.
Kevie is having multiple hissy fits. Get the smelling salts!
exactly, bloggie.
Heh.
Oh, Kevie knows how to include HTLM tags, who would have thought a retard dhimmiwit could figure it out.
Hey Kevie now that you have acknowledged your problems, can you come with better than a one word answer?
Never said they were problems. I’ll worship Satan as you command. I’ll have sex with the guy or have sex with animals but only if it will shut you up. Deal?
I’ll be honest: I was hoping to use your foolishness as an example of why liberalism/progressivism is so silly, but you’ve successfully robbed me of that plan. You’re so crazy that even the crazy liberals who infest this blog would call you crazy. And that’s pretty crazy.
It makes me SO sad that I can’t exemplify you as a typical liberal. You’ve no idea.
Poor, misunderstood, genocidal Kevie. He doesn’t understand why he is a piece of shit.
Oh no, get the smelling salts, Kevie is going to have another fainting spell.
Apparently, we didn’t have a deal.
Bush is the Decider. Kevie is the genocider.
Let’s make another joke, blog! But don’t call me Kevin. Call me Kevy! Or Kevie! Or even better, ‘kevvie’! What deep humor (the lack of a cap is the key!)! The whole idea is tearing me up on the inside! Have you applied for a position on John[sic] Stewart’s writing team?
You’re easily as humorous as John[sic] Stewart. Is that a compliment? That’s for you to decide.
I though you were already torn up on the inside, Kevie. He likes it!
Cool beans! I’m the ‘genocider’?!? Woohoo! Wow, I’m unsure how to handle such powe… SNUFF SYRIA! CRUSH IRAN in a way that minimizes the loss of female lives, but not at the expense of killing the men. All of them. OBLITERATE followers of islam in Lebanon and Palestine. Again, all of them.
Take this idea with a grain of salt of course, since ‘blog’ says I worship Satan. But I do thank him for empowering me with the moniker ‘genocider’. that’s pretty damn cool.
Kevie likes it in diapers like Vitter, or with boys like Foley or incestous like that other Republican skank.
So says Kevie, a little hitler in diapers.
Yup, you caught me bloggie. What’s the tally now? I worship Satan, I sleep with Satan, I enjoy the occasional animal sexually, and now you are saying I like sex with kids and with people I’m related to? What a tall sexual order! It’s just too much. Sheesh.
K. For you, I’ll do it. But not in diapers. Enough must be enough (and no means no!). Good Lord, is this guy one of your sadlyno compatriots? I fully ‘spect the answer to be ‘yes’ but hope and pray the answer is ‘no’.
It takes one republican to know one doesn’t it Kevie? Springtime for Kevie in diaperland. Huggies and Pampers and prostitutes. Kevie goosestepping in soiled diapers.
“It takes one republican to know one doesn’t it Kevie? ”
No, it doesn’t bloggie.
Starting to be a one–trick pony there, Kevie. Oh, I forgot tricks are your trade.
See one be one my friend.
I’m off to bed again :(.
Blowing authority is what you are expert at Kevie. You aere very skilled at your trade. An high courtesan tart.
Don’t forget your diapers. We all know what bedwetters the islamofascist screechers are.
I miss Billmon 🙁
“…line’em up and shoot the lot.”
That would make me happy…but then I’m a mean SOB.
I’m begining to think Mal was right…fuckit.
I suppose I should take my told-ya dances in small bits, but this doesn’t read any more correct now than it did back when VIP Matt wrote it:
It’s still CYA he’s about here.
Because I was part of the “anti-war movement,” I actually remember what the “mainstream” of our position was. Simple. We have troops massing on your borders. Let the inspectors do their jobs. And it was working!
That was the “mainstream” antiwar position, and not some other strawman that Big Matt wants us to believe. It was working and if we had stayed with it, we would NEVER have launched this foolish, amoral war.
So, you can credit Important Matt all you want, but as for me, I’ll take a pass on clapping him heartily on the back.
Feels like a win that you’re calling it ‘amoral’ instead of ‘immoral’. You might even get some converts from the right side of things!
[…] third and fourth rebuttals — his era too had its Sensible Liberals, its Drums, Yglesiases, Kleins, its Beinarts, Chaits, and Hitchenes; while he was the DFH. But most of all, it had its […]