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Yglesias

Double Standards

By Matthew Yglesias on Sep 5, 2006 at 1:57 pm

What can you say about a guy like the Bull Moose. “The question is why Democratic leaders continue to collude with the anti-Semitic appeasing left? This should be a time for introspection for a party that relies heavily on Jewish support.” Now, in this context, “collude” means that Democratic leaders work with people who run a website on which some other people have posted some allegedly anti-semitic material. Wittman, by contrast, used to work for lunatic anti-semite Pat Robertson. Before that, my understanding is that he was an actual practicing Communist, a dedicated member of a political party committed to the violent overthrow of the United States government and its replacement by a brutal, ruthless dictatorship.

Currently, though, he’s a friend to Jews everywhere, which is nice of him. This is the question, though. Does Wittman ever worry, do any liberal hawks ever worry, does anyone on the “decent left” ever worry, that their foreign policy preferences derive large amounts of their electoral support from racist hatred of Arabs and bigoted prejudice against Muslims? Or do they deny that that’s the case? Do they think the precious comment threads of warmongering blogs, the call lists at rightwing talk radio, are blissfully free of such sentiments? Call me crazy, but I believe it was David Brooks who published a column over the weekend arguing that the Iraq War failed, in essence, because Arabs are sub-humans incapable of living together peacefully. Or maybe he was trying to say Muslims are like that. And, of course, he didn’t say it in so many words but he’s David Brooks, conservative punditry’s friendly ambassador to the left. Just imagine what they’re saying in the fever swamps.

Does this bother anyone?

Politics

ABC Planning Massive Free Distribution of 9/11 Docudrama

By ThinkProgress on Sep 5, 2006 at 12:55 pm

Path to 9/11 graphicABC is planning a massive free distribution of its planned docudrama The Path to 9/11, including sending letters to 100,000 high school teachers encouraging them to have their students watch the series. Variety magazine reports:

[ABC is] allowing consumers to download the complete miniseries — for free — via Apple’s iTunes Music Store. Mini also will be streamed for free via ABC.com, and XM Radio has pacted with the network to make an audiocast of the film available to its subscribers. [...]

To spread the word about “Path to 9/11,” ABC is sending 100,000 high school educators a letter from 9/11 Commission co-chair Tom Keane informing them of the various platforms on which the mini is available. ABC and Scholastic have pacted to produce an online study guide.

ABC has also made deals to have the docudrama aired internationally, including in Britain on BBC and in India.

Most American high school students weren’t even teenagers when the 9/11 attacks occured. Now ABC is trying to present those students — and scores of people around the world — with its slanted and inaccurate version of history, which blames President Clinton for 9/11 while whitewashing the failures of the Bush administration. The events leading up to September 11, 2001 are too important to play politics with the facts.

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Yglesias

Zakaria on Iran

By Matthew Yglesias on Sep 5, 2006 at 10:31 am

Good stuff. He’s not really as shrill as he ought to be in terms of pointing out the evils of the hysteria-mongerers, but he does an excellent job in debunking their hysteria.

Yglesias

Dulce et Decorum Est

By Matthew Yglesias on Sep 5, 2006 at 10:14 am

Jon Chait had a funny column over the weekend comparing the ’06 midterms to World War One. At the very end, though, it offers up some fairly odd commentary on the war itself: “Woodrow Wilson didn’t make the world safe for democracy, but he did manage to keep a pretty noxious regime from dominating a continent.”

Wilhelmine Germany wasn’t especially noxious. It was quasi-democratic and evolving in the direction of greater democracy. Among its opponents was Tsarist Russia, the most noxious regime on the European continent at the time. And, of course, the allied victory didn’t exactly prevent noxious Germany from dominating Europe . . . the Germans came back, in much more noxious form, and tried again. Even though Nazism only lasted 1933-1945 it inflicted sufficient suffering that I think it’s extremely plausible that the world would have been better off with a German victory. The real twist, however, is what would have been the fate of the Bolshevism in case of a German win. It would depend, I suppose, on how and why the German victory was achieved.

On top of that, reliable sources have contended to me that American intervention in the war wasn’t especially decisive, though I’m not sure about that one way or the other.

Media

Richard Clarke Blasts Key Scene In ABC’s 9/11 Docudrama

By Judd Legum on Sep 5, 2006 at 10:10 am

Path to 9/11 graphicOn September 10 and 11, ABC is planning to air a “docudrama” called Path to 9/11, billed by writer Cyrus Nowrasteh as “an objective telling of the events of 9/11.”

The first night of Path to 9/11 has a dramatic scene where former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger refuses to give the order to the CIA to take out bin Laden — even though CIA agents, along with the Northern Alliance, have his house surrounded. Rush Limbaugh, who refers to Nowrasteh as “a friend of mine,” reviews the action:

So the CIA, the Northern Alliance, surrounding a house where bin Laden is in Afghanistan, they’re on the verge of capturing, but they need final approval from the Clinton administration in order to proceed.

So they phoned Washington. They phoned the White House. Clinton and his senior staff refused to give authorization for the capture of bin Laden because they’re afraid of political fallout if the mission should go wrong, and if civilians were harmed…Now, the CIA agent in this is portrayed as being astonished. “Are you kidding?” He asked Berger over and over, “Is this really what you guys want?”

Berger then doesn’t answer after giving his first admonition, “You guys go in on your own. If you go in we’re not sanctioning this, we’re not approving this,” and Berger just hangs up on the agent after not answering any of his questions.

ThinkProgress has obtained a response to this scene from Richard Clarke, former counterterrorism czar for Bush I, Clinton and Bush II, and now counterterrorism adviser to ABC:

1. Contrary to the movie, no US military or CIA personnel were on the ground in Afghanistan and saw bin Laden.

2. Contrary to the movie, the head of the Northern Alliance, Masood, was no where near the alleged bin Laden camp and did not see UBL.

3. Contrary to the movie, the CIA Director actually said that he could not recommend a strike on the camp because the information was single sourced and we would have no way to know if bin Laden was in the target area by the time a cruise missile hit it.

In short, this scene — which makes the incendiary claim that the Clinton administration passed on a surefire chance to kill or catch bin Laden — never happened. It was completely made up by Nowrasteh.

The actual history is quite different. According to the 9/11 Commission Report (pg. 199), then-CIA Director George Tenet had the authority from President Clinton to kill Bin Laden. Roger Cressy, former NSC director for counterterrorism, has written, “Mr. Clinton approved every request made of him by the CIA and the U.S. military involving using force against bin Laden and al-Qaeda.”

Tell ABC to tell the truth about 9/11.

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Politics

ThinkFast: September 5, 2006

By ThinkProgress on Sep 5, 2006 at 9:07 am

After a five-week summer break, Congress returns today for 19 days before ending its work for the legislative year. The only legislation being considered this week in the House “is a bill to toughen rules against horse slaughtering.”

The new White House line: Iraq war critics would have tolerated slavery. Referencing Iraq, Secretary Rice said: “I know there were people who said, ‘Why don’t we get out of this now, take a peace with the South, but leave the South with slaves?‘”

“Carbon dioxide levels are substantially higher now than at any time in the last 800,000 years, the latest study of ice drilled out of Antarctica confirms.”

“The Sudanese government has dramatically intensified the war in Darfur in a bid to finish off a tenacious, three-year-old rebellion before a U.N. peacekeeping force can deploy there,” the Washington Post reports.

54 percent. Number of Americans who believe things are going “badly.” Just nine percent see the economy as “very good,” compared to 22 percent who believe it is “very poor.” Read more

Culture

The Case for Kirk Hinrich

By Matthew Yglesias on Sep 5, 2006 at 9:07 am

Chris Sheridan writes about his prospects of making Team USA in future tournaments:

Supplanted Chris Paul as the starting point guard, but does anyone honestly believe he’s the best point guard in America? If Billups plays next summer, he could get squeezed off the active roster — especially if the team hierarchy believes it’ll pay more long-term dividends to keep Paul on the active roster.

This strikes me as the wrong mentality. It doesn’t especially matter whether or not Hinrich is “the best point guard in America?” Hinrich doesn’t need to be a superstar on Team USA — LeBron, Wade, and Anthony are there to do that job. Hinrich is certainly good enough in terms of his talent, doesn’t make a ton of errors, plays in the NBA on a squad with good team defense, and most everyone feels he’s an important part of that sound team defense. Chauncey Billups also fits that description, and he’s a better player, so it makes a ton of sense to add him to the team. Chris Paul, though he’s going to have a fantastic NBA career, doesn’t really suit Team USA’s needs. The team has relatively little need for additional levels of dynamic playmaking at the cost of experience and defense.

What’s more, in a less serious vein, every Team USA needs to have at least one white dude and I’d much rather have that guy be Hinrich than Brad Miller. The other thing I note from Sheridan’s article is that talk of recruiting Paul Pierce and/or Adam Morrison for the team really ought to consider that LBJ and ‘Melo playing the same position is already a bit of a problem and the last thing USA needs is more small forwards (though I’d be happy to see the underrated Pierce get some love).

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