A Liberal McCarthyism?

Over this Memorial Day break, allow me to direct you to one down-and-dirty purse-swinging, albeit, grossly uneven, online duel bloodying up the front page of The Huffington Post.

In one corner, Max Blumenthal, a featherweight tyro and designated puncher for enraged but impotent Democrats. In the other, heavyweight contrarian pummeler Christopher Hitchens known for his newly developed right hook.

(There’s some necessary historical context to this match before we go ahead. Max is the son of Clinton administration operative Sid Blumenthal who at one time was good friends with Hitchens. That was until Monica-gate burgeoned and Hitchens signed an affidavit alleging that Blumenthal pere was covertly spoon-feeding reporters the bogus line that Big Bill was a hapless victim of a Stalker Monica.)

Back to the present. The current match erupted last week when Blumenthal fil took an out-of-the-blue jab at Hitchens, directly hinting that Hitch is soft on Nazis. That’s a hoary libel that Hitchens' critics have lamely and rather stupidly tried to argue in the past.

In this iteration of the same smear, Blumenthal links Hitchens to an American Nazi sympathizer because Hitchens is touring England with conservative David Hororwitz and Horowitz, you see, protested the Nazi’s dismissal from a university post. You follow?

Hitchens shook off the attack with a tart reply , noting that he still harbored  “an affectionate interest” in the young Blumenthal at whose Bar-Mitzvah he remembered dancing at in the pre-Monica days. Hitch also noted that while he is ready to sue those who slander him, he found Baby Blumenthal’s “cowardly” attack to be “too lax” to really bother with.

Now, Blumenthal is back with a wildly-swinging,  clumsily-written second serving; a lengthy post in which, again, and this time much more explicitly, suggesting that Hitchens is some sort of serial Holocaust denier.

Cowardly isn’t nearly strong enough to characterize this blast of raw sewage from young Blumenthal. He doesn’t have the cojones to just come out and declare Hitch is pro-Nazi. He merely tosses around as much innuendo as his two little hands can scoop.

Roll over, Senator Joe. This is McCarthyism stood right on its head. Baby Blumenthal has all the right to be ticked off at a guy who ratted on his dad. But this stuff is really beyond the pale and does little except to discredit Blumenthal as anyone who should be taken the least bit seriously.

And Blumenthal's white-hoy antagomism stems from other, more political grievances beyond avenging his father.

Max Blumenthal is Exhibit A of a new political species that has emerged in the last decade: something you might call a Leninist Liberal. No. I don't mean this in any sense that conjures up red-baiting.  Quite on the contrary. Allow me to explain. Hard-line Leninists, grouped into disparate and tiny sects, have a long inglorious history of obsessing over their nearest rivals. Unable to overthrow the capitalist state, they figure the second-best thing is to smash all other competing (and therefore impure and heretical) revolutionary groups to smithereens. This sectarian behavior was rarely, if ever, found among more moderate liberals who tended to be rather milquetoast let’s-all-get-along types.

With the rise and fall of Clintonism, however, many of these libs have morphed into quite bitter and resentful street fighters who have adopted their own form of red-baiting (if we understand red to mean, for example, red-staters). These Leninist Liberals are ready to purge anyone who steps out of line either to their right or left. Satanize Ralph Nader because he took away all those votes from Al Gore. Hang (or smear) Christopher Hitchens, the once-left apostate who now supports Bush and his war.  Leninists certainly not in any ideological way--but rather in assimilating that old-time leftist sectarianism (on second thought maybe this is wholly appropriate for a failing Democratic Party that seems headed to becoming only a sect).

I’m all for disagreement and heated, no-holds-barred debate and polemics. Take on anyone you damn well please. But do it with some solid arguments and some sound reasoning. Not with slander and innuendo.

I’m told that Hitchens is currently overseas and will soon be responding to Blumenthal’s second smear. In this match-up, my bet is third round win for Hitchens by KO. It wasn't really a fair fight from the outset.

Comments

[reg]

Some observations on this teapot tempest that are fact-based would be nice...

Sounds like an ad hominem, grab-bag rant by someone who's enraged and impotent.

[Dustin Ridgeway]

I don't know. If some of the things Mr. Blumenthal brought up are correct, they seem pretty damning of Hitchens. I had no idea he traveled in such unseemly circles and entertained such despicable guests. Reading Oliver Kamm's work on Chomsky and Faurisson, led me to conclude that Chomsky had much more affection for Faurisson's work than he let on. If Mr. Blumenthal's information is correct, there's even more room to hang Hitchens here than Chomsky.

I'll try my best to suspend judgement until Hitchens can address these charges, but I'm skeptical that any answer he will provide can be satisfactory.

I hope Mr. Blumenthal has an evisceration like this in mind for that bloviating jackass David Horowitz.

[reg]

There are two more recent posts than the Blumenthal brouhaha up today over at Arianna's blog that are actually worth one's time and aren't trivial family feuds...

Tom Hayden makes the case for reaching across the political spectrum to push for the "near-term withdrawal" of American forces from Iraq that most Iraqis supported in the recent elections. He doesn't answer all of the questions, but he raises some good ones and doesn't make his argument from a provincial leftist perspective. If you're an aficianado of relevant critiques of bad cases of "Democratic impotence", this fits the bill. And Josh Silver notes the insane right-wing belching over Bill Moyers' important speech on the current attempt to intimidate anyone at PBS - and elsewhere - whose idea of tough, honest journalism isn't regurgitating Beltway soundbites. There are links to the speech, if you haven't heard or read it yet. (I'd especially recommend it to Woody...it won't likely change his mind about the "liberal press", but it might open it just a bit...he owes it to himself to absorb Moyers' account of his own experiences and values as a journalist.)

[reg]

Dustin...I don't think you understand, although it's quite simple. Little Max B is no match for Hitchens. Baby Blumenthal is an unprincipled polemcist who's steeped himself in that Leninist rhetorical streetfighting and McCarthyite smear-mongering endemic to the dying Democrats. But he's no match for Hitchens.

Hitchens is a reasonable sort who saw clearly through the bogus assertion that a poor, victimized girl like Monica L could have calculated in her head or heart to seduce the President and he offered to name names - or at least one old friend's name - to stop dead that ugly procession of partisan smears and dubious accusations against an aggrieved innocent. He quite sensibly supported Ralph Nader over the corrupt Clintonistas - a cabal who had dragged his adopted country down into the dirt - before rather courageously and of necessity switching his allegiance to George Bush so as to protect this great land from an onslaught of ruthless faith-based fascism. It's also well-known that he has been banished quite shamelessly by his former comrades on the Left. Or at least van den Huevel and Navasky didn't beg and plead quite enough to satisfy him when he unilaterally decided to end his column for The Nation.

Further, Hitchens has genially entertained dinner guests across the entire spectrum of moonbats and wingnuts because he's simply a gregarious, companionable sort who enjoys contrarian perspectives. He's well known for this even-handed, if far-flung, discourse because he wants to give everybody, even Holocaust deniers, a fair shake.

But when he gets back from Europe he's going to rip that little weasel Blumenthal's head off with the same cool dispatch he nailed his dad.

[George Thomas Clark]

I don't know why Max Blumenthal offered a link to Christopher Hitchens' article about David Irving to try to prove Hitchens is a a Holocaust Denier. In the article Hitchens demonstrates the opposite. Blumenthal should instead monitor groups like RePorter Notebook, a website bristling with pieces from correspondents around the world. When they bombarded me, I responded in my regular online column:

Letter to Holocaust Deniers
February 6, 2005

A few days ago I received several e-mails from a group that says it didn’t happen.

To the RePorter NoteBook:

Your insinuations and assertions that the Holocaust never happened are preposterous and insulting, and your general explanation of how the ruse was pulled off is pitiful: Americans in the conquered West and Russians in the occupied East lied about the hell they found. Did they also fabricate the mountains of bones and corpses? Did they magically create countless eyewitnesses, some of whom still live to help us remember? You have an astonishingly convenient explanation about that, don't you? Yes, you say, the trove of writing done by and about the victims is usually ghostwritten, the work of novelists and other fabulists. That's a deception Joseph Goebbels could have crafted. Are you gazing at a portrait of his twisted face now?

Loosen your jackboots and explain your point in gloating that Dachau, Buchenwald, and Bergen-Belsen weren't death camps. Technically, they were concentration camps where inmates were held in squalid conditions that made death by starvation or disease almost inevitable. You’re almost panting as you state that typhus and criminal inmates were responsible for many of the deaths there. But don't you understand? Those were some of the fatal characteristics of concentration camps their creators desired. Also, you really must ask yourselves why Jews and others were in the first place imprisoned in concentration camps and death camps. There was no logical reason. The Holocaust was ignited by the explicit racial policies of the Hitler regime. Those policies, as perhaps even you know, had piece by piece stripped Jews of all rights.

The six death camps - Auschwitz, Belsec, Sobibor, Maidanek, Treblinka, and Chelmno - were indeed in Poland, not Germany. And, despite your howls that proof is lacking, they were demonstrably in the business of mass murder. Rudolf Hoess, the Commandant of Auschwitz, emphasized this at his trial, and in his autobiography. He details his drive around the facility with Adolf Eichmann, looking for good places to gas people. Then he describes how they decided Zyklon-B might be the best agent for human "rodent and pest control." They crammed seven hundred Russian prisoners into an underground room and gave it a try, and when everyone quit moving, the "Death Dealers" knew they were ready for the Jews. If you really are questioning documentation by the condemned commandant, then you're fools as well as racists. This information will perhaps help you with the former problem: Heinrich Himmler, the Reichsfuehrer SS, admitted the appalling scope of the crime in a 1943 speech to German political leaders, when he spoke of "eliminating those who wanted to exterminate us." No one was trying to exterminate the Germans; let's emphasize that German Jews had been very patriotic, and would have continued to be enormously helpful to their country.

Finally, of course, we must most of all stress that Adolf Hitler himself not merely admitted but boasted, in his last Testament, that mass murder had taken place. As always, he regurgitated a litany of lies to excuse his policies, this time using the hoary line about Germans being "treated as mere packages and shares by these international money and finance conspirators (who) would have to answer for it (and) suffer their due punishment, though in a more humane way." Another ghostwritten document? No, indeed. There the disintegrating Fuehrer was, in his bunker Hades, surrounded by adoring minions who watched and carefully noted as he ranted about phantom enemies and proclaimed himself swell and righteous and brave for the way he'd handled things.

Physical, written, and oral evidence of the Holocaust are beyond overwhelming. Those who ignore, distort, and deny the undeniable have a pathological urge to lie. Why?

I would hammer your flawed positions in greater detail but after spending twenty years researching and writing “Hitler Here”, my biographical novel, I'm exhausted thinking about fascists. I've always felt that contemporary fascist blowhards should be ignored since they're more ridiculous than dangerous. It’s the same here: the bile and bullshit you offer will never attract more than a handful of damaged souls, and you will all remain buried in the morass of the hateful and absurd.

Tom Clark

[reg]

So far as I can untangle this, Blumenthal Jr. doesn't accuse Hitchens of being a Holocaust Denier...just of denying that Irving is a Holocaust Denier. He seems to have the goods...but you know what ? I don't much care. Certainly no more than I care whether Mother Teresa is a conman or Blumenthal Sr. bore false witness to a Senate tribunal investigating Clinton's crotch. I consider Hitchens something of a disappointment and his opinions increasingly a sham, but not on the basis those sideshows.

[richard lo cicero]

Marc Cooper has every right to defend his friend although his reply sounds more like Bill O'Reilly than reasoned discourse. I will keep an open mind until I hear from Mr Hitchens. But after reading Mr Blumenthal's column all I can say to him is Chris, in the immortal words of Ricky Ricardo, you got a lot of 'splaining to do!

[Michael Turner]

"Reading Oliver Kamm's work on Chomsky and Faurisson, led me to conclude that Chomsky had much more affection for Faurisson's work than he let on."

As far as I know, Chomsky has never "let on" that he ever had ANY "affection" for Faurisson's work. Read Oliver Kamm's attempted takedown carefully.

http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2004/11/chomsky_and_hol.html

Kamm's whole case revolves around the proposition that Chomsky *knew* the extent of Faurisson's holocaust revisionism, because Chomsky admitted reading an article in Esprit that described Faurisson's beliefs *before* going on to write the offending essay. The problem is, at least as far Esprit that article is quoted by Kamm, it doesn't provide any ironclad evidence of Faurisson's beliefs. All it does is sweep Faurisson into a category of people who, according to the author of the article, ALL believe the same thing. Here are the words Oliver Kamm quotes:

"It is Faurisson who stands within revisionist truth [i.e. the real nature of the Holocaust denial movement] when he proffers his famous formula: “Never did Hitler either order or accept that anyone be killed for reason of race or religion” (Vérité, p. 91). The “revisionists”, in fact, all more or less share several extremely simple principles. [Six are then enumerated" [Six are then enumerated]

From Chomsky's point of view, the problem might have been that he didn't find the author of the Esprit article credible. After all, holocaust revisionists tend to be wingnuts, and wingnuts tend to exhibit what Freud called "the narcissism of small differences." How likely is it that ALL holocaust revisions "more or less agree", for example, on the "simple principle" that

"6. The genocide was an invention of Allied propaganda, which was largely Jewish, and specifically Zionist, and which may be easily explained by the Jewish propensity to give imaginary statistics, under the influence of the Talmud."

This is pretty ridiculous on the face of it. After all, it's pretty well documented that news media in Allied countries paid rather little attention to the Holocaust at first, then muted the news when it became ... er ... undeniable? And do ALL holocaust revisionists believe in a "Jewish propensity to give imaginary statics, under the influence of the Talmud"? (Oh, *that's* where that annoying habit comes from! Thanks. I'd never heard this attributed to a holocaust revisionist before.)

For that matter, is it absolutely incredible for someone to say that "Never did Hitler either order or accept that anyone be killed for reason of race or religion"? Hitler was one of the worst dictators of the 20th century, but he was still a politician, and politicans love plausible deniability. Why, I even saw an excellent movie a few years ago about the decision for the Final Solution, in which the leader of the discussion tells someone that Hitler did not know of their decision, and would never be told. Nobody picketed that movie for "defending Hitler", because the message of the movie was that Hitler was almost beside the point in that decision: European anti-semiticism inflamed by Nazism was quite enough by itself.

This Esprit article was printed with what Chomsky describes in his infamous essay as "an accompanying article by the editor that again merits no comment, at least among people who retain a commitment to elementary values of truth and honesty."

See that? "Again merits no comment". Chomsky couldn't be said to "know" Faurisson's beliefs because, by his own account, he had dismissed the source of that "knowledge" as not being credible. Chomsky found the Esprit article hard to believe, and seems to have found the editor's article even worse, reinforcing his suspicion that, whatever Faurisson's horrible views, he was probably under attack for views he didn't hold. Nobody really knows what Chomsky really "knew" at that point, and that includes Oliver Kamm. So why does Kamm claim he *does* know what Chomsky "knew"?

At the point in time when Chomsky wrote of Faurisson "As far as I can determine, he is a relatively apolitical liberal of some sort", he may have been saying only "I really don't know anything about the guy except that his academic freedom has been infringed for no other reason than because he's some kind of holocaust revisionist, and that people of dubious credibility are writing dubious things about him in an attempt to shut him up. I'm with Voltaire on this one. He's disgusting, but only disgusting; his attackers scare me more."

If (as it is only paraphrastically reported) Chomsky didn't take any particular umbrage after learning that his essay would be used as a preface to Faurisson's book ... well, that might have been the statement of an honest man. Chomsky released the essay to someone (not Faurisson) saying that it could be used however that person liked. Maybe it didn't get used as he himself would have liked, but he didn't complain, he didn't whine something like "I didn't mean like *that*." He held to his word.

And if Chomsky clearly guilty of anything in all this, it might only be in believing that any verbatim use of his words couldn't possibly be the cause of any greater damage to his reputation than what he had already repeatedly suffered by misuse of his words, misquotation of them, twisted paraphrases, quotations out of context, and the words that people just brazenly stuff in his mouth because he's an intellectual persona non grata on U.S. foreign policy issues, and therefore fair game. (One of the more engaging teardowns of the typical false charges against Chomsky can be found on David Horowitz's site, believe it or not, in a discussion between some of Chomsky's detractors and his defenders.)

If that's what Chomsky is finally guilty of, I think that's forgiveable. After all, Chomsky was probably pretty used to that kind of shit even at that point. Maybe he figured it couldn't get any worse. Clearly he was wrong about that, though. Here it is, 2005, and people are bringing this Faurisson issue up AGAIN. When does it end?

[green dem]

This whole debate strikes me as utter, pointless nonsense - a catfight among the chattering classes.

But let's consider something substantive for a moment, namely Mr. Hitchen's support of George W Bush in the last election, on the grounds that the so-called war on terror is the only thing that matters, and that Democrats are no better than Republicans anyhow on domestic issues.

Does anyone in their right mind believe that if John Kerry was president today the bankruptcy bill, which shredded one of the last remaining strands of the middle class safety net, would've become law? Clinton never signed it, and neither would've Kerry. Apparently Mr. Hitchens cares a great deal about democracy in the Arab world, but cares little about the plight of potentially millions of middle class families in this country. But what should we expect from a well paid celebrity journalist, right? Why should he give a shit?

And take the issue of energy. Kerry's proposal to end our dependence on mideast oil (which you'll note is the root cause of the mess we're in over there) was too modest in my estimation, but the Bush plan is little more than a boondoggle for a dying industry. A new report by ExxonMobil suggests that the company expects non-Opec nations to peak in their global production by the end of this decade, and the same firm that predicted Enron's demise is now saying that without a major new find (and of course there hasn't been one for almost thirty years, and the oil companies have all but given up looking) the large multinationals are all expected to hit their production peaks in succession beginning in 2008. Furthermore, the Bank of Montreal is stating on the record that they believe the Ghawar field in Saudi Arabia (the largest in the world) has already hit its production peak, or will do so in the near future. Does Mr. Hitchens and his good friend have any idea what the end of cheap oil means to a global economy (not to mention his beloved imperial crusades) dependent on it, and the effect his good friend Mr. Bush's craven irresponsibility on this not-incidental issue could well have on life as we know it?

I could go on, about the odious excuses for human beings that this president has nominated to various positions, about his assault on social security, about the prospect of a Bush Supreme Court and its implications for reproductive rights, free speech, civil liberties, the right to organize, and any number of other issues, but why bother? Why should the chattering classes care about the riff raff and their "issues"? And if this is the kind of bullshit the Huffington blog is going to serve up I think I'll stick to the real blogosphere.

[Dave K.]

Add my voice to the chorus of people who don't really care about this. More spitting across the board from the increasingly fragmented Left, and not even at a worthy target. Hitchens is kind of pathetic; he says at lot of cute things, but none of them have any depth. Why does anyone give a shit what he thinks?

[Dave K.]

Oh, and I fail to see how two guys sguabbling on someone's blog constitutes McCarthyism.

[Rob Grocholski]

Blumenthal v. Hitchens? Really, who cares? Ain't there something else this site (again, I think this site is still one of the better boards worthy of a daily visit)could tackle? How 'bout an update on the fiscal health of California? Or maybe the number of Americans with no health insurance. The housing bubble in California and Florida? What's the latest in the Darfur region of Sudan?
Carry on friends.

[Randy Paul]

I'm with green dem, but I will say this about Hitchens and allegations of McCarthyism: I have read few things more McCarthyite than this column of Hitchens (http://slate.com/id/2107193) last year in which he made the following comments:

"But I also know the difference when I see it, and I have known some of the liberal world quite well and for a long time, and there are quite obviously people close to the leadership of today's Democratic Party who do not at all hope that the battle goes well in Afghanistan and Iraq."

Christ, at least McCarthy named four people (never mind that it was just a baseless smear). Hitchens couldn't name anyone. So, while I certainly wouldn't make an uncharitable McCarthyite charge against Hitchens, (or anyone for that matter) perhaps someone should remind him not to do the same.

One would think that if there were "quite obviously people close to the leadership of today's Democratic Party who do not at all hope that the battle goes well in Afghanistan and Iraq" that Hitchens could have named one. To do that, however, he would have had to marshall facts, not mere invective to support his argument. I know he's your good friend, Marc, but color me less than sympathetic in this case.

[Jim Rockford]

Would Kerry have signed the bankruptcy bill?

In a heartbeat. He's never at any moment in his career put anything on the line for ordinary folk. His entire adult life has been an eerie mirror of GWB, right down to ingratiating people in the wealthy WASP heirarchy. He's as much a liberal in the classic FDR sense as his mentor Teddy Kennedy.

Would Kerry have done anything about "energy independence?" No. No more than Teddy Kennedy would have done. Unless we want to abandon the modern world and live in mud huts, we are stuck with oil (oil being a very easily traded resource). Expensive oil is a function of China and India's economic growth, not evil tinfoil hat conspiracies.

Dependency on mideast oil is NOT the root of all our problems (that's a profoundly ignorant statement regarding economics and terrorism, sorry Green Dem). Islamism and the failed societies within them is the root, along with a shrinking world due to modern technology. The problem is that the Saudis can marginally affect the world price of oil by turning the spigots off and on (their oil is the cheapest to extract). Plus of course angry jihadis who hate their own attraction to the values of the West have easy access to us on jetliners. So we have regimes it's costly to unseat (and who bribe EVERYONE in Washington) as a minor component and asymmetric threats as the major component of the current threat. If we recycled our own farts as a means of energy self-reliance (see: North Korea and Juche) we'd still have jihadis intent on destroying us as the leading nation of Western/Modern values. If we ceased to exist they'd go after China or Japan. Islam simply doesn't (and never has) co-existed peacefully with rival cultures.

Randy -- Hitchens didn't bother to name them since they are so numerous: Howard Dean ("fair trial for Osama; Saddam captured is no cause for celebration"); Michael Moore (bemoaning war in Afghanistan and Iraq, apologist for Saddam); George Soros (major funding for the Dems in the Open Society); Seymour Hersh (Afghanistan is a quagmire right before Kabul fell); Moveon.org (opposed both wars and shortly after 9/11 organized "Our grief is not a cry for blood" opposing any military action against the Taliban); Kucinich, Sharpton, Richard Gere, Al Franken, Jeanine Garofalo, Cynthia McKinney, Barbara Boxer (opposed both wars), and John Kerry (felt terrorism and 9/11 were "law enforcement issues" and a "nuisance"). The general tone of Dems is indicated by the Memorial Day and Fourth of July flag burning plans by Indy Media.

It's easier to name Dems who generally support the war on terror, Afghan and Iraq wars (at least as far as finding success and not defeat). Lieberman, Gephardt, Miller, both Clintons. In other words people way outside of the mainstream of the Democratic Party. Everyone else believes that 9/11 was a GWB plot (or one-time-only distraction) and that mass terror is not a serious matter for the country. In other words ACTIVE denial of reality.

[richard lo cicero]

Ah yes, all those dastardly Democrats cheering our enemies on! I can hardly wait until the victorious forces of militant Islam march down Pennsylvania Avenue! And Max Blumenthal is a McCarthyite for quoting Hitchens. You know maybe George Galloway was right after all when he told Christofer that he was a "Sodden old Trot" when he told off Coleman last week! God help us all!

[green dem]

"Would Kerry have signed the bankruptcy bill?"

He voted against it Jim - more than once.

"Dependency on mideast oil is NOT the root of all our problems (that's a profoundly ignorant statement regarding economics and terrorism, sorry Green Dem)."

Per usual, you have no idea what you're talking about Jim. 9/11 didn't happen in Iceland, or Brazil, or South Africa, nor will it. We've been running an imperial protection racket in the greater middle east for decades, and that's why the Bin Ladenists and the people more generally hate us. The Saudis and most of the other gulf regimes get our millitary cover, and we get energy security. We are what stands in the way of both what Bin Laden wants (theocracy) and what the people of the Arab world want (anything other than their corrupt repressive dictators) and quite frankly if the oil wasn't there we wouldn't give a shit about the plight of the region (anymore than we care about much of Africa, or Burma, or any number of other totalitarian or otherwise fucked up countries).

The war in Iraq is projected to cost more than a trillion dollars by the end of the decade, and as it stands now we are borrowing billions every day for our current domestic and foreign policy commitments. Add to this the fact that in 2008 close to 80 million boomers will begin collecting entitlements, with a shortfall running into the tens of trillions (for medicare mostly), and the fact that a new (post-oil) energy and transportation infrastructure is likely to run into the trillions as well, not to mention the fact that we are now nursing what is likely the worst residential real estate bubble in US history, consumers are maxed out way beyond their limits, the economy is increasingly hollowed out of good, middle class jobs, and we may well have no one to turn to lend us the trillions we need when the time comes.

You can't have it both ways Jim. John Kerry can't be the most liberal Democrat in the senate and at the same time an incorrigible elitist who has never done a fucking thing for working people or the middle class. With Kerry we at least had a shot at averting the apocalypse. With Bush we have none.

[Woody]

If you will forgive a comment, unsupported by little more than my opinion and a few quickly applied links....

reg, thanks for the reference to Moyers' remarks. When I listened to it, I came away with a different conclusion than you, but I will look at it again to try to see if I can view it in a different light. http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0516-34.htm

While I listened to his talk a few days ago, I honestly jumped up in disgust and cut it off when he said, "When I see (American) flags sprouting on official lapels, I think of the time in China when I saw Mao's little red book on every official's desk, omnipresent and unread." I don't think that my outrage needs any explanation. Here's a link that I just found from one of your favorite people in an article of May 25th. http://www.anncoulter.org/

Somewhat in line with what Marc has presented in the Blumenthal-Hitchens dispute, Moyers attacked the current head of PBS by saying, "I simply never imagined that any CPB chairman, Democrat or Republican, would cross the line from resisting White House pressure to carrying it out for the White House. But that’s what Kenneth Tomlinson has done. ...I would like to give Mr. Tomlinson the benefit of the doubt, but I can’t." Naturally, I missed these later remarks, but Moyers is clearly out of line in his criticism. http://www.mrc.org/press/2005/press20050517.asp

What Marc mentions in his entry is nothing different than what I have seen for decades by journalists. The only difference is that in the past they attacked everyone conservative and now they have turned to eating their own. The media is imploding and losing more and more credibility--at least to me and many who think like me.

[Jim Rockford]

Green you are not facing the facts with bin Laden. Bin Laden has been quite clear as to what he wants. The world-wide Caliphate and destruction of the West. He actually believes he can do it, thinking (and saying) he personally defeated and destroyed the stronger superpower (the Soviets). As long as we exist, he will attack us. The cultural threat we present to his vision of back to the Seventh Century is profound and far more important than anything else to him.

It is correct that we provide military security and have to the Saudis since WWII. However, that has changed post-Iraq with the withdrawal of our forces. I find it ironic and telling that you echo bin Laden's arguments that the US keeps Arab and Muslim peoples in poverty. We still provide cover against threats to the Saudi regime, but any rational player would simply offer to provide a better deal to the US if they simply wished to supplant the KSA regime and suck up the wealth. That bin Laden instead chose to murder over 3,000 of our citizens in a brutal attack says a lot about what he intends.

Reality is that native culture in each country determines most of economic success. Korea STILL has US troops in the south, yet it has become prosperous without much of any natural resources and is with Japan the most wired nation in the world (most South Koreans have broadband). KSA is outside the princelings experiencing poverty, as are most Arab regimes despite their oil wealth or generous bailouts by the US.

I would not argue that the War, particularly the financial aspects (it should have been pay as you go with wealthy Americans paying up as in WWII) have been miserably managed. If anything Bush has done EVERYTHING on the cheap (particularly military force structure) in favor of tax breaks and pork for rich backers. I don't think some massive government program to build personal flying cars or whatnot will be anything but disaster, though I do think rational industrial policy to support key technologies and diversity of US suppliers is essential. Which does indeed cost money.

I DO think I can have it both ways. John Kerry is "Liberal" in the new (not FDR) sense of the world, ala Teddy. Pushing social issues that appeal to upper class urbanites and not much else. Among them a religious identification with the UN, NATO, EU, negotiation instead of use of force and the view that the US cannot defeat anyone over the size of Grenada (because it's always Vietnam). However when it comes to the real economic interests of working people (like, increasing wages by limiting supply of new low-wage workers i.e. illegal immigrants) John Kerry has been AWOL, certainly not reporting for duty. His relentless pursuit of money, class, status paint a telling picture. At a time when "Liberals" consist of Soros, Buffett, and Gates, Kerry fits right in. In other words not standing up for economic interests (particularly wage growth) is what's wrong with Kansas.

I don't have a problem with Moyers, however there's no denying he's as partisan as George Stephanopolous, James Carville, Chris Matthews (buffon), Rush Limbaugh (buffon), or Ann Coulter (buffoon). It's a mistake to think that Moyers is neutral politically, he's as political as Jimmy Carter. When Carville talks I get real insight that I can't get anywhere else, but I know he's a partisan Dem. That's OK. Moyers probably knows better than anyone the workings of the Johnson White House, but I don't expect "neutral" stuff from him like an Edward R. Murrow. You can be partisan without being a buffoon (on the left or right).

[green dem]

"Green you are not facing the facts with bin Laden."

No Jim: you're not facing the facts. Bin Laden has no army, navy, air force, or marines...just a band of wingnuts willing to blow themselves up.

How many times does someone need to scream into your ear that we don't have the money to pay for our present expenditures, let alone the 50+ trillion dollar shortfall for boomer entitlements, or the trillions more it will take to build a new (post-oil) energy and transportation infrastructure, or the multi-trillion dollar cost of the so-called war on terror? The government has maxed out its credit cards. The American consumer has maxed out his and her credit cards. This is not the eve of the second world war, when we were still a creditor nation.

You see: it doesn't matter that Bin Laden or Saddam Hussein or anyone in those parts is a bad person, or if the Iraq war is a good or bad thing. *We* *can't* *afford* *it*, anymore than the British could when they abandoned it in the first half of the last century. When the shit finally hits the fan in the next five to ten years America will have lost its credit-worthiness, and we will have to pay for all these things out of our own nearly-empty pockets. Everyone under the age of 45 (which includes me) will be paying for the sins and irresponsibility of our elders for the rest of our lives, and quite frankly everyone over the age of 45 who voted for Bush or otherwise supports the war in Iraq should be required to forego their social security and medicare benefits for good and have to pay taxes (including federal income and payroll taxes) for the rest of their lives.

marc, this hitch-sid melodrama is boring. hwo about showing us your support for the troops by condeming those anarcho-ANSWER leftists for spitting on the Iraq veterans? why i saw one getting stabbed yetsterday by a flowergirl hippie...just awful stuff ya know, and on the day before memorial day, can you imagine? the marine was driven to tears!

[Michael Turner]

Jim Rockford writes:

"Green you are not facing the facts with bin Laden."

Maybe, but at least he actually knows some facts.

"Bin Laden has been quite clear as to what he wants."

No, bin Laden has clearly *said* some things. They may not be quite the same things believes. Like any politician with a constituency, he says whatever works best for getting that constituency to do what he wants -- AND whatever works best to provoke his enemies into doing what he wants.

Not that bin Laden hasn't had to refine his message over the years. His second-in-command, al Zawahiri, was instrumental in getting him to ditch the twelve page manifestos and go for the good sound bites. It was ingenious, for example, for him to simply proclaim that the U.S. would respond timidly to the 9/11 attacks. But that was really al Zawahiri's line. That helped ensure the invasion of Afghanistan, and the resultant proliferation of new Jihad battlegrounds. In the meantime, it was also a great rallying line with his troops.

"The world-wide Caliphate and destruction of the West."

Whatever bin Laden actually believes, I've gone looking what he has said on this question, and never found it in any statement that portrays his ideal post-victory world in these terms. Not that he wouldn't, but .... direct quote, please? And don't go off with "everybody knows ...." All too often, what "everybody knows" on these issues turns out only to be what they think they read somewhere, and it is often enough someone else saying it.

"He actually believes he can do it, thinking (and saying) he personally defeated and destroyed the stronger superpower (the Soviets)."

Quote please? I'm sure he's claimed more credit for the Soviet retreat than he deserves, but victory always has many paternity claims. In any case, the only way you can be certain of what he actually believes is if you are telepathic. (Unfortunately, without being able to read YOUR mind, we will just have to take your word for it.)

"As long as we exist, he will attack us."

Not necessarily. If al Qaeda gains control of a country like Saudi Arabia with major oil reserves and pilgrimage sites, al Qaeda may see any further confrontation with the West as only endangering those colossal gains. (Well, I think al Qaeda sees Egypt as a prize as well. But at this point, mainly as a populist stepping stone to Saudi Arabia.)

"The cultural threat we present to his vision of back to the Seventh Century is profound and far more important than anything else to him."

You know, Jim, I envy you your telepathic powers, but you should really also acquaint yourself with facts one of these days. Seventh century Islam experienced two civil wars, considerable expansion of *secular* administration of Caliphate imperial possessions, and considerable backlash against this secularism.

As you read bin Laden's mind, dig into the details. After all, his thinking is informed by history, and a telepathically-acquired thought can still be misleading if you don't know the same history. There is one respect in which bin Laden may be behind an attempt to produce seventh century Islamic-world conditions: a new Shi'a/Sunni civil war within Islam could play directly into his agenda. The Zarqawi contingent in Iraq (with which al Qaeda appears now to be allied) has openly declared war on Shi'ism in Iraq. And any such war could work for al Qaeda.

Destabilization of the Middle East can only produce opportunities for al Qaeda, but for that goal, very large, blunt instruments are required -- al Qaeda itself doesn't have nearly enough manpower or enough firepower. So far, American troops have filled this role pretty well. (Lesson learned long ago in Afghanistan: bring in superpower support, even if that superpower is a "Great Satan.") The next stage may be far bloodier, and become a situation where Americans start scratching their heads and asking (as they did in the Vietnam era), "what are we doing in the middle of someone *else's* civil war?" Ah, for the halcyon days of the 80s, when we could buy oil and get a lot of that money right back again by selling arms into the market created by a shooting war between the producers. Maybe there's a way ....

Hey, Jim, you wanna know the really cool thing about acquainting yourself with facts when you're trying to make a case? It's this: You usually learn a bunch of OTHER facts in the process, and after a while, you actually *know* something about a subject. Of course, I'll admit the satisfactions might pale before those of being an ideological wackjob true-believer type. And it's not a step to be taken lightly. Once you've bitten into the apple, it's hard to go back. Worse, the apple usually doesn't taste very good.

[Michael Turner]

green dem writes:
"... the Bush plan is little more than a boondoggle for a dying industry."

Arguing that an industry is "dying" simply because what it sells is slowly drying up doesn't cut it. Will Big Oil be a healthy business for the forseeable future? I don't see why not. There is some elasticity of demand for oil (the SUV market in the U.S. seems to be cooling, finally), but that not much. When diminishing supply meets inelastic demand, prices (and profits) go up. With modern fuel economy standards, they've got a ways to go (maybe up to $100) before reaching oil shock levels for the U.S. economy. And Big Oil opposed the neo-con attempt to keep any future Iraq out of OPEC, because, suprise surprise, they *like* OPEC. OPEC's cartel pricing makes more money for them.

Yes, we're in the peak production years now, it can only go down from here. But there is still a lot of oil in the ground. A lot of it is in Iraq, no surprise.

What Big Oil does *not* like is dramatic depreciation of assets. This was vividly illustrated a few years back by a scandal at Shell over misstatement of Nigerian reserves, resulting in a hit to their stock price. However, the reason for the downgrading of those reserves is indicative of the real long-term threat to Big Oil. It's not that there is less oil in those fields than Shell claimed. It's that much of it can't be extracted without also releasing natural gas that couldn't be brought to market except at a loss so high as to make extracting the oil a bad business proposition at today's prices. Why doesn't Shell just burn off the released natural gas, as they've been doing? Because it's getting harder and harder (politically) to add CO2 to the atmosphere only to get rid of something that can only be gotten rid of cheaply by burning it. (I remember reading somewhere that the Nigerian burn-offs accounted for something like 15% of all global CO2 releases from burning fossil fuels, at their peak. I still can't believe that -- I must have gotten something wrong in reading it. Whatever: it was massive.)

In any case, the main problem for Big Oil at the moment is political threats to stability of supply. Some of these threats come from petro-state instability and (in the so-called Greater Middle East) insurgent Islam. But the real long-term threats is in the West: they come from the environmentalist side of politics. In the face of both of these threats, the industry has a friend in George W. Bush. I'm sure we can agree on that much.

[Brian Siano]

I posted comments over at the Blumenthal blog, but I'll summarize. His column was a silly and ugly smear, written with amazing cowardice in that he never actually accused Hitchens of anything concrete.

I've written about the Holocaust revisionists for _The Humanist_ and _Skeptic_, and I've come to one conclusion about them; their only apparent use is as a bludgeon, used by moral cretins like Blumenthal who have neither courage or insight.

[Randy Paul]

"Randy -- Hitchens didn't bother to name them since they are so numerous: Howard Dean ("fair trial for Osama; Saddam captured is no cause for celebration"); Michael Moore (bemoaning war in Afghanistan and Iraq, apologist for Saddam); George Soros (major funding for the Dems in the Open Society); Seymour Hersh (Afghanistan is a quagmire right before Kabul fell); Moveon.org (opposed both wars and shortly after 9/11 organized "Our grief is not a cry for blood" opposing any military action against the Taliban); Kucinich, Sharpton, Richard Gere, Al Franken, Jeanine Garofalo, Cynthia McKinney, Barbara Boxer (opposed both wars), and John Kerry (felt terrorism and 9/11 were "law enforcement issues" and a "nuisance"). The general tone of Dems is indicated by the Memorial Day and Fourth of July flag burning plans by Indy Media."

More smears and intellectual dishonesty from Jim Rockford. None of them have said that they wanted to see things go badly for the US in Iraq and Afghanistan. None of them.

Hitchens accused people of treason, but could not put a specific fact behind it. You haven't either. In Hitchens case it surprised me. In your case it's de rigeur. That's why they call you reactionaries.

[reg]

"Randy -- Hitchens didn't bother to name them since they are so numerous", followed by a "list of names" that includes Dean, Kerry, Boxer, Al Franken, Seymour Hersch...

I don't know whether Rockford's just plain stupid or an ideological basketcase, and I don't much care. Go fuck yourself, you miserable moonbat...I'll not read another word you write. I'd sooner dig through batshit.