Archives for 2009

Publius of Obsidian Wings has a piece on Peter Beinart that is absolutely spot on:

A childhood friend of mine had a brilliant strategy to avoid losing basketball games. Actually, he always lost them, so it was more like a brilliant strategy to convince himself that he didn’t lose. After we’d score the last points, he’d immediately grab the ball and say “if I hit this, I win.” Then he’d hit it and march off the court cheering loudly to avoid hearing us.

That’s pretty much Peter Beinart’s latest column in a nutshell.

[….]

Here’s what’s really going on underneath Beinart’s reasonable sounding column. Beinart has been – and remains – committed to the idea that the use of force to solve problems is a good manly thing that Democrats should embrace. The problem, of course, is that Exhibit A of his argument – Iraq – didn’t turn out so well. (To his credit, he openly admits this point).

He still, though, wants to salvage his larger argument that force is good. In that sense, his surge cheerleading is sort of like grabbing the ball after the game is over and saying, “See, I win. Force can be good.”

This is, of course, yet another example of Calvinball.

Sadly, the only thing American elites are good at anymore is changing the rules so that they win. The media were all for investigating Clinton because they wasted a lot of time bloviating about his personal life and bringing him down would be a win for them. They’re against investigating torture, the cooking of intelligence, the politicization of the DoJ, and such, because they ignored these issues and a prosecution of these misdeeds would be a loss for them. Our banks were all for deregulation and free markets when they thought they were making money off it; now that they’re near bankruptcy, they want an anti-free market hand-out from the government.

What’s fascinating is that so much of this come from the types that are always decrying “relativism”. Good God, what could be more relativistic than defining the rules according to your needs at the moment.

“Four legs good, two legs bad”…make that “four legs good, two legs better”.

This shit is going to be the death of us all.

Update: Here’s the money quote from Beinart (h/t Lesley):

Being proven right too many times is dangerous.

Guess that’s one thing Beinart doesn’t have to worry about.

My Peter Beinart problem — and oursPost + Comments (47)

The Washington Post has an article about the awful job market Bush appointees will face now that they’re out of work. Some observers suggest that having been a loyal Bushie will be a blackmark on their resume. Others dissent:

“I think the reports of their unmarketability are exaggerated,” Podesta said. “If you’re an economist at Treasury and you’re smart and skillful, I don’t think the fact that Bush was president and Democrats found him to be unpopular will kill anyone’s chances of finding a good job.”

“The cream always rises to the top,” added Nels Olson, of the executive recruiting firm Korn/Ferry International. “Those that are the first-rate individuals out of the administration and who have developed good bipartisan relationships and have solid policy experience will be able to make the transition.”

But it seems to me there isn’t so much “cream” among Bush appointees. Indeed, some might argue that the Bush administration’s failures were in no small measure brought about by the incompetence of Bush appointees. And that tiny fraction who were competent have likely been asked to stay on with Obama.

Of course, the article doesn’t make the obvious point, which is that the reason being a Bush appointee looks bad on a resume is not because people hate George W. Bush (though they do), it’s because they assume (correctly) that nearly everyone he hired was a hack.

Hacks need not applyPost + Comments (44)

Some of you have mentioned this in the comments, but I just got to reading it yesterday: Matt Taibbi has taken a shovel upside Tom Friedman’s head once again. In fact, one of the absurd sentences he takes issues with involves shovels:

“The first rule of holes is when you’re in one, stop digging.When you’re in three, bring a lot of shovels.”

First of all, how can any single person be in three holes at once? Secondly, what the fuck is he talking about? If you’re supposed to stop digging when you’re in one hole, why should you dig more in three? How does that even begin to make sense?

But the best part is the title of Tom Friedman’s play:

Even better was this gem from one of Friedman’s latest columns: “The fighting, death and destruction in Gaza is painful to watch. But it’s all too familiar. It’s the latest version of the longest-running play in the modern Middle East, which, if I were to give it a title, would be called: `Who owns this hotel? Can the Jews have a room? And shouldn’t we blow up the bar and replace it with a mosque?'” There are many serious questions one could ask about this passage, but the one that leaped out at me was this: In the “title” of that long-running play, is it supposed to be the same person asking all three of those questions? If so, does that person suffer from multiple personality disorder? Because in the first question, he is a neutral/ignorant observer of the Mideast drama; in the second he sympathizes with the Jews; in the third he’s a radical Muslim.Moreover, after you blow up the bar and replace it with a mosque, is the surrounding hotel still there? Why would anyone build a mosque in a half-blown-up hotel?

As brilliant as Taibbi’s take-down is, there’s one key point he misses here: isn’t “Who owns this hotel? Can the Jews have a room? And shouldn’t we blow up the bar and replace it with a mosque?” a strange title for a play? Have you ever heard of a play with such a long title?

What’s most remarkable about Friedman’s fucked up phraseology is that he seems so proud of it. The only thing I can compare this to is the Facts of Life episode where Blair Sue Ann gets high and writes a paper about Moby Dick (video link). Which makes me wonder: is it possible that Tom Friedman is on something?

More Friedman folliesPost + Comments (48)