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You are here: Home / Open Threads / This amuses me

This amuses me

by DougJ|  June 29, 201012:18 pm| 82 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

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I’ll get off the Goldberg beat soon, but this made me laugh: to show the world that he was right about Al Qaeda-Iraq connections, he had Eli Lake guestblog that Goldberg was right about Al Qaeda-Iraq connections. If you’re not familiar with Lake, he writes for the Washington Times and (formerly) New York Sun, does podcasts with Pam Geller, and pimped the hell out of the Mark Levin book that spawned ManziGate.

Turning to an openly ideological foreign policy reporter to prove to his “hard-leftist” critics that there really was a “potentially meaningful” between Al Qaeda and Iraq? Also too, it’s hard to miss the irony of relying on an openly ideological “reporter” to rescue one’s reputation after numerous spittle-flecked posts attacking “absolute partisans” like Ezra Klein.

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Reader Interactions

82Comments

  1. 1.

    MattF

    June 29, 2010 at 12:24 pm

    I’m an unenlightened partisan, but even so– what I see here is different groups of whores accusing each other of unprofessional behavior.

  2. 2.

    Michael Bersin

    June 29, 2010 at 12:24 pm

    Except, you forgot about the double secret old media inside the beltway cocktail weenie circuit guidebook rule, No. 7, which states, “It’s not okay when people I want to criticize do it. It’s okay when my friends in the club or I do it. And further, it illustrates my point, which I forgot. Look, there’s another shiny bauble! Did you know Al Gore is boring?”

  3. 3.

    kommrade reproductive vigor

    June 29, 2010 at 12:26 pm

    I won’t buy it until Goldberg presents a note from his mom saying he’s right.

    Oh that’s next week?

    Never mind.

  4. 4.

    Corner Stone

    June 29, 2010 at 12:27 pm

    I have a lot of respect for Goldberg as a reporter. I think his reporting on claims for an Iraq ~ Al Qaeda connection deserve a few more years of leeway until we can be sure one way or the other.

  5. 5.

    srv

    June 29, 2010 at 12:30 pm

    Missed Andrew Bacevich at the Washington Post. He did a Q&A session also.

  6. 6.

    Bokonon

    June 29, 2010 at 12:36 pm

    They should post that Goldberg event in the dictionary under the definition of “right wing circle jerk.”

    This is just classic echo-chamber stuff, where the right creates its own facts by first deciding what they want to believe, and then believe it because they believe it. The exchange goes something like this:

    Right winger #1: Did Saddam Hussein support Al Queda?

    Right winger #2: That sounds right to me!

    Right winger #1: See – it is undisputed that Saddam Hussein Al Queda.

    Right winger #2: You are so right! That just confirms that is the fact that Saddam Hussein supported Al Queda in the years leading up to Operation Iraqi Freedom. This vindicates the Bush administration and the decision to invade. By the way … can I footnote you in my upcoming book?

    Right winger #1: absolutely! And at this point, anyone who disputes that Saddam Hussein supported Al Queda is in denial of the facts, and is a left-wing moonbat. I question their motives – I mean, the facts are right up front of them!

    Righ winger #2: why is it that left-wing loons have such a problem dealing with reality? Is it because they hate their country?

  7. 7.

    Brachiator

    June 29, 2010 at 12:40 pm

    I fail to see the difference between “potentially meaningful” and “lies, fantasies, obfuscation and misrepresentation.”

  8. 8.

    Davis X. Machina

    June 29, 2010 at 12:45 pm

    @Brachiator: You would be able to see the difference if it were your job to see the difference.

    Which makes all the difference.

  9. 9.

    Bubblegum Tate

    June 29, 2010 at 12:45 pm

    I actually kinda-sorta e-knew Eli Lake via a website about record collecting; I didn’t realize he was he was a right-wing “reporter” for years. Funny how that works.

  10. 10.

    El Cid

    June 29, 2010 at 12:48 pm

    Yet another bullshit, lying warhawk asshole who gets treated as a serious journalist, analyst, and commentator despite being repeatedly shown as a liar and an intentional use of pathetically weak sources.

    It’s okay, though, because he just wanted us to bomb the shit out of Arabs and Muslims, so, no biggie.

  11. 11.

    NobodySpecial

    June 29, 2010 at 12:51 pm

    So Goldberg found some other sucker with a loose cranium to support his conclusions? Wondrous. Next he’ll be linking Alex Jones as support for Saddam totally being behind 9/11 or something.

    If you shake him, do you hear his brains rattle around?

  12. 12.

    Martin

    June 29, 2010 at 12:51 pm

    Sounds like TDS segment explaining how Fox News reporters rely on the Fox News pundits to give minimal validation to their bullshit. Maybe Goldberg is interviewing for a new gig.

  13. 13.

    celticdragonchick

    June 29, 2010 at 12:52 pm

    I just read the piece.

    hacktackular crap. I’m going on over to LGF. Charles will be interested in the Eli Lake/Shrieking Harpy Gellar podcast connection.

  14. 14.

    Dennis G.

    June 29, 2010 at 12:52 pm

    Very funny stuff. And I’m enjoying the silly third person references to himself as “Goldblog” as if there was some distance between Goldberg and the invisible hands who write for his site. I know he’s been doing this for years but lately it seems more goofy than usual.

    Of course, if I wrote some of the things that he has written I would want to put some distance between myself and my copy too.

  15. 15.

    Waynski

    June 29, 2010 at 12:55 pm

    @DougJ — FYI – The New York Sun went out of business a while ago.

  16. 16.

    Ash Can

    June 29, 2010 at 12:58 pm

    The people in charge of The Atlantic aren’t embarrassed easily, are they?

  17. 17.

    Ailuridae

    June 29, 2010 at 1:00 pm

    @Dennis G.:

    I can’t be sure that but I think that is a tacit admission on his part that he doesn’t write all the content on his site the same way there was some complaining that Sully had a staff writing some of his stuff.

  18. 18.

    Comrade Javamanphil

    June 29, 2010 at 1:03 pm

    @Corner Stone: Have we checked every square inch of desert because Saddam could have buried them. I think we’ll have to stay until then.

  19. 19.

    Keith G

    June 29, 2010 at 1:05 pm

    Ah, if only Goldberg was as independent as Logan.

  20. 20.

    kommrade reproductive vigor

    June 29, 2010 at 1:06 pm

    @Comrade Javamanphil: Or we could nuke the whole thing and take a victory fap!

  21. 21.

    slag

    June 29, 2010 at 1:08 pm

    I couldn’t read past the first paragraph. For the same reason I can’t watch that crazy guy on 34th Street pleasure himself.

    Ick.

  22. 22.

    DougJ

    June 29, 2010 at 1:08 pm

    @Waynski:

    Yeah, I knew that but phrased it badly. Thanks.

  23. 23.

    p.a.

    June 29, 2010 at 1:12 pm

    i believe the blogger at the slactivist made the point that when one continues to bear false witness in the face of massive contradictory evidence it’s no longer lying, it’s insanity.

  24. 24.

    Face

    June 29, 2010 at 1:21 pm

    I havent a clue what anything in this post means.

    Manzigate? Wha?

  25. 25.

    Jason Bylinowski

    June 29, 2010 at 1:27 pm

    @Face: Your Balloon Juice lore quotient leaves much to be desired, sir.

  26. 26.

    Violet

    June 29, 2010 at 1:28 pm

    Goldberg wrote an article on security theater, which I found interesting, informative and entertaining. Whatever his other faults, I appreciate his work on publicizing the ridiculousness of security theater.

  27. 27.

    Kryptik

    June 29, 2010 at 1:28 pm

    Christ, Cheney dropped this fucking thing when he realized the dog didn’t hunt. What’s this asshole still doing pimping something long debunked, just out of spite?

    And he dares act like everyone else is some naive waif without a braincell in their head?

  28. 28.

    Martin

    June 29, 2010 at 1:29 pm

    @p.a.: There was an interesting article at NYT about anosognosia a few days ago. Two excerpts:

    Dunning and Kruger argued in their paper, “When people are incompetent in the strategies they adopt to achieve success and satisfaction, they suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it. Instead, like Mr. Wheeler, they are left with the erroneous impression they are doing just fine.”
    It became known as the Dunning-Kruger Effect — our incompetence masks our ability to recognize our incompetence.

    For Levin, Wilson’s inability to perceive his own incapacity had truly devastating consequences for the nation and world he helped to lead.[51] Perhaps even more troublingly, the reaction to Wilson’s anosognosia on the part of his close associates raises the possibility of an even more problematic impairment — a social anosognosia. Can a group of people, perhaps even society at large, devolve into a state of destructive cluelessness?

    I think these two concepts have a place in our discussion of things here. The latter seems even more appropriate to specific subgroups of the conservative movement – particularly around topics such as evolution, climate change, and unconditional tax cuts.

  29. 29.

    rolen

    June 29, 2010 at 1:29 pm

    Of coutrse Syria was in on this too. Everyone knows that Saddam’s WMDs are buried there except for a few that are in the end zone of the Giants Stadium.

  30. 30.

    catclub

    June 29, 2010 at 1:37 pm

    OT: waiting for the open thread:
    Daily Kos rejects all of his Research 2000 polling as essentially fraudulent.

    Wow.

    The lesson to learn: get their raw numbers so you can check.

    There are also a variety of not very intuitive statistical checks that fiddled numbers will not pass. Of course, now the fraudulent pollsters will know to run their fiddled numbers through randomizers that will pass this generation of tests.

    Cat and mouse.

  31. 31.

    Rick Massimo

    June 29, 2010 at 1:38 pm

    Also too, it’s hard to miss the irony of relying on an openly ideological “reporter” to rescue one’s reputation after numerous spittle-flecked posts attacking “absolute partisans” like Ezra Klein.

    Aw, come on Doug. You know that war-mongering conservatism isn’t an ideology. It’s just-the-facts good sense. Among Real Americans, anyway. Why aren’t you one of those?

  32. 32.

    Martin

    June 29, 2010 at 1:47 pm

    @catclub: Yeah, I just read that. Slam dunk analysis of the results. I’ve quoted those polls a number of times in the past myself.

  33. 33.

    Villago Delenda Est

    June 29, 2010 at 1:48 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    Corner Stone, I have some prime beachfront property in North Dakota that I’m positive you’ll find attractive, especially at the bargain price!

  34. 34.

    cleek

    June 29, 2010 at 1:49 pm

    for ref, DKOS Polling stuff…

  35. 35.

    Ash Can

    June 29, 2010 at 1:51 pm

    @catclub: Ouch.

  36. 36.

    Allan

    June 29, 2010 at 1:53 pm

    It’s like the Marshall McLuhan scene from Annie Hall, only with Baghdad Bob.

  37. 37.

    geg6

    June 29, 2010 at 1:58 pm

    @Ash Can:

    And this is why I simply can’t lump Markos in the same dungheap as so many others in the emo-left:

    I can’t express enough my gratitude to Mark, Michael, and Jonathan for helping bring this to light. Sure, our friends on the Right will get to take some cheap shots, and they should take advantage of the opportunity. But ultimately, this episode validates the reason why we released the internal numbers from Research 2000 — and why every media outlet should do the same from their pollster; without full transparency of results, this fraud would not have been uncovered. As difficult as it has been to learn that we were victims of that fraud, our commitment to accuracy and the truth is far more important than shielding ourselves from cheap shots from the Right.

    The diaries over at GOS are the very definition of the suck, but Markos is the kind of guy I can admire even though I don’t always agree with him.

  38. 38.

    jc

    June 29, 2010 at 2:08 pm

    A few days ago, he posted a link to a site with a lot of content, that ‘proved’ that there were a lot of associations between Al Queda and Saddam.

    I didn’t have the heart, time, or patience, to go through the site, and the supposed proof. But, someone needs to, because otherwise, of course, people aren’t ‘looking at the evidence’. So hopefully someone will, if only to shut him up.

    On the other hand, there is a lot of overreaction to Goldberg here, as to lump him in with the Republican warhawks, isn’t actually, in reality, where he is coming from, although of course he finds common cause with that group.

    He is, first off, an Israel supporter. With good contacts in the Israel government. You won’t find him spouting anything that will criticize the Israeli government. Although he will tangentially say things like, ‘the blockade mess’.

    He is, secondly, fairly liberal. He will criticize the far right parties in Israel, the religious extremists, and recognizes, I believe, the commonality between all close minded religious extremists.

    The whole question of a believer in liberal universal human rights, and what someone who believes in that, ‘should’ criticize, is a pretty fascinating question.

    For example, despite how the Israeli Palestinians are treated like 2nd class citizens, with all the restrictions – as a comparison especially to the rest of the free Western democracies – are the Palestinians in the West Bank, more, or less, free than the citizens of other Islamic countries? Are the women more, or less, free? Where would the ranking be, say in comparison to the citizens of Egypt, the citizens of Libya, the citizens of Saudi Arabia?

    Both economically ‘safe and free’, and then also politically, right for ALL citizens to self-determination and the pursuit of happiness?

    If it can be argued that Palestinians in Israel have actually MORE freedom than other neighboring countries citizens – and I’m not saying this is true, but as a posit – then anyone who is outraged by depredations against human rights – why isn’t there more attention, print, outrage, directed against Egypt, Libya, China, etc?

    Again, in no way am I excusing Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, and I am a firm believer, that Palestinians deserver their own state.

    But, is Israel the lesser of evils, on a pure measurement of property rights, equality, economic and political determination, to other countries in the region?

  39. 39.

    Jared

    June 29, 2010 at 2:10 pm

    Sheesh. I hope Lake’s good friend Spencer Ackerman rides him hard for this.

  40. 40.

    SteveAR

    June 29, 2010 at 2:25 pm

    Goldberg:

    …I cautioned him [Lake] against it, because evidence-based reporting is not particularly interesting to the hard-leftists for whom disbelief in such a connection is a sacrament.

    Goldberg has the leftists right.

  41. 41.

    El Cid

    June 29, 2010 at 2:26 pm

    @jc: There are plenty of liberal interventionist warhawks. Always have been. There were plenty of those calling for us to keep blowing the shit out of Indochina in order to save them from the Commies, and they were a bit sad to have to help support killing several million of these people whose democratic aspirations they believed they were saving, but they felt it was worth it.

    Of course, they hated Republicans, but it was a relationship of warhawk convenience, for freedom, of course.

    Just like in the 1980s, plenty of liberal interventionist hawks were a bit disappointed in the roughness of Reagan’s death squad allies in Central America, but, it had to be done to save them and us from the Communist menace just south of us.

    I don’t give a shit what people believe their motivations are, and where they come from, when they support these murderous, disastrous interventionist policies.

    Which of their victims care if the warhawks were motivated by mere hatred of Arabs and Muslims and support of militarist Israeli policies, or if they were full on imperial Republicans?

  42. 42.

    Amanda in the South Bay

    June 29, 2010 at 2:32 pm

    That ratfuck Goldberg can kiss my ass.

    If he was so certain about the AQ-Saddam connection, and all that entailed (mushroom clouds! WW3!!!!!, save Western Civilization!!!)then he should’ve joined the Army or Marines back in 2002/2003. You know, sacrifice several years of his life for jack shit for pay and working conditions cause he was soooo idealistic about his little warwhore crusade.

    Of course I can say the same about any conservative or liberal pundit who initially supported the war, if only because that was partly a reason why I signed up (yeah, I fell hook line and sinker for all that shit back then too-plus there was that “The Army will make a man out of me and make me forget this gender dysphoria stuff”).

  43. 43.

    Ruckus

    June 29, 2010 at 2:32 pm

    @NobodySpecial:
    Not unless you listen very carefully.
    Submarine sonar listening careful.

  44. 44.

    Sarcastro

    June 29, 2010 at 2:35 pm

    Wow JC, you’ve effectively repackaged one of the Old South’s lamest arguments against desegregation.

    “They got it good compared to Africa.”

    Lovely.

  45. 45.

    paperbagmarlys

    June 29, 2010 at 2:35 pm

    Has anyone taken a close look at Goldberg’s work from 2001-2004, say, and highlighted the stuff that’s wrong? I just took a cursory glance at his NYer piece on Hezbollah in the Americas and even granting him all kinds of leeway I came up with lots of obvious problems. Bad sources, bad logic, stuff that contradicts the public court records, etc. Some of his work is okay but, of course, but a lot of it, even stuff in the NYer (where you would hope the fact checkers did their work) is plainly disingenuous, at best, and more so in hindsight. I’ve read lots of short critiques but nothing that really digs into both his narratives and his reporting at length.

    Also, is he on the record about his official relationship to Israeli intelligence and/or the IDF, etc? Yeah, of course, if he’s a spook (or a part time spook, or an asset, or a semi-spook, or whatever) he’s going to deny that he’s a spook. All the same, it seems like there are some questions that ought to be asked. Do you show your work to anyone other than your editors? (Not that editors can’t be spooks, of course.) Do you receive money for intelligence work and/or PR work from any Israeli group? Do you have a relationship of any kind with any Israeli government organization? What is the status of your military relationship with Israel? And so on. Who knows? It’s kinda odd that, at a glance, I can’t find any statements by Goldberg that cover these issues. (Presumably the stuff he wrote in Prisoners is out of date and even there his exact roles are a bit murky.)

  46. 46.

    Redshirt

    June 29, 2010 at 2:38 pm

    DougJ – I’m enjoying this Goldblog v. Sane World story a lot – don’t let the haters make you stop!

  47. 47.

    Amanda in the South Bay

    June 29, 2010 at 2:41 pm

    @srv:

    IMHO Bacevich is a national treasure. I’ll take him any day over any number of nominally liberal foreign policy pundits and scholars who seem to be GOP lite, and whose distaste for perpetual war seems to have fallen off the map after 1/09.

  48. 48.

    Norwegian Shooter

    June 29, 2010 at 2:54 pm

    Worse was Goldberg’s comment on Greg Sargent’s response (and the URL is randomly and deliciously suggestive: a_little_message_to_jeffrey_go.html)

    On the specific issue of Sargent, I don’t think anyone I spoke to inside the Post was thinking of him when they said the critical things they said. I certainly wasn’t thinking of him in this context. He’s a pretty killer reporter, as best as I can tell.

    Can you read Jeffrey Go? He wasn’t pre-emptively defending himself. That’s what you do. He was criticizing the anonymous sources for cowardly bad-mouthing Weigel and your reflexive ease in printing them. You avoided the issue in response to Greenwald as well. Jeffrey, Go f*ck yourself.

  49. 49.

    jetan

    June 29, 2010 at 2:54 pm

    I ain’t got nuthin’ for Goldbrick. The attempt to connect the dots vis-a-vis Al Qaeda and Saddam is pathetically lame and tardy to boot.

    @jc You raise some good points. Maybe The Atlantic should hire you. But the fact that Goldie isn’t the nuttiest of the tribalistic AIPAC types doesn’t cut much ice with me ( Yes, I do acknowledge that he will, from time to time, try to put a little distance between himself and the more virulent AIPAC fellers). But to say that the Palestinians are better off with Israel as playmates sounds uncomfortably like white guys in the sixties pointing out that blacks were better off in Harlem than they would be in the Congo. It might be true, but it sort of misses the point.

    Anyway, Israel claims a lot of moral high ground relative to Egypt, Libya et al. They need to be a little better than just the least oppressive guys on the block.

    By the way, thanks to everyone for the kind words about my dog, Blitz. I had to release her from this Earthly Coil at noon today. She was a good friend for thirteen years. I miss her.

  50. 50.

    Corner Stone

    June 29, 2010 at 3:02 pm

    @jc: I hope you’re raising a hell of a pumpkin crop for this Fall. Because otherwise I’m not sure what you’re going to do with all the strawmen you’ve built there.

  51. 51.

    sparky

    June 29, 2010 at 3:15 pm

    unfortunate to see people here with presumably good intentions try to sort this out. i find it rather simple:
    it is silly to expect reporters to have no ideology, but it is reasonable that they recuse themselves from writing on topics that they are invested/involved in, for when they write on such topics they are writing as flacks not as reporters. if a reporter is unwilling or unable to curtail his or her desire to write propaganda in one area, there is no reason for the reader to have to make the effort to discern which is which. it’s not too much to ask reporters to not write as reporters about items in which they are involved. if they are unwilling or unable to abide by that principle, then that’s their problem, not ours.

    in this case, Goldberg has, at least for me, thrown away any reason to take any of his other work as a reporter seriously, and he has no one to blame but himself, as it was his decision to flack rather than abstain.

  52. 52.

    Steve M.

    June 29, 2010 at 3:17 pm

    I used to call him Eli “Chalabi-on-Speed-Dial” Lake, back when he was writing such puff pieces as “Ahmad Chalabi Is on the Brink of a Comeback” and “Race For Premier Narrows to Two: Chalabi, Jafari.”

  53. 53.

    Corner Stone

    June 29, 2010 at 3:29 pm

    @Comrade Javamanphil:

    Have we checked every square inch of desert because Saddam could have buried them.

    Comb the desert!!

  54. 54.

    JC

    June 29, 2010 at 3:32 pm

    Guys, come on. To compare with either the 60’s, or slavery, missed the point.

    Number one, that was happening in OUR COUNTRY. Right?

    Now, it makes sense to say, “but we give Israel billions of dollars a year”, so in that sense we are complicit. And that’s accurate and fair.

    But then, we do the same for Egypt. By that same logic, we shouldn’t be giving Egypt billions.

    At any rate, the point is, it is an interesting dynamic, number one, how universal rights advocates, seem to, have interesting prejudices in their coverage and attention.

    by the way, this isn’t an argument for ‘INTERVENTION’ either. I’m talking about holding countries – any country – to the same measuring stick of economic safety, political and personal freedom.

    That’s all.

  55. 55.

    JC

    June 29, 2010 at 3:37 pm

    Sparky,

    that’s a good ideal, but it’s specious. Ezra Klein, Josh Marshall, etc, do very good work and reporting, evern though they clearly have liberal prejudices. They tend to ‘know the area’, of their prejudices, but hopefully, are reality-based, despite that.

    In the campaign season, is there any doubt they have a prejudice towards Obama, as say over McCain? But what, they shouldn’t write about Obama?

  56. 56.

    JC

    June 29, 2010 at 3:39 pm

    Jetan,

    Good points, and fair.

    I’m sorry for you loss of Blitz. Always hard to lose a well-loved pet, my condolences.

  57. 57.

    El Cid

    June 29, 2010 at 3:40 pm

    @JC: The logic of giving Egypt billions is to get it to comply with U.S. policies. And it does. It’s been a successful subsidy of a tyrant in order to carry out policies not supported by its population. It’s not a gift. Likewise ‘support’ for ‘Israel’, meaning funding of U.S. foreign policy establishment interests, particularly via the encouragement of the most militarist of Israeli policies.

  58. 58.

    Ash Can

    June 29, 2010 at 3:46 pm

    @geg6: Yep. While an awful lot of people on his site — including him — are guilty of running around with their hair on fire from time to time, he’s ultimately grounded in reality. And when shit sticks, he owns up to it, and cleans it off. Kudos to him.

    ETA: @jetan — condolences on your loss.

  59. 59.

    JC

    June 29, 2010 at 3:48 pm

    El Cid,

    Yeah, I see that. But then, if we go to the ‘realpolitick’ of the situation, then the moral component is take out.

    Then the question becomes, is it in the U.S. interest to support Israel? And the morality of what is done/not done to Palestinians doesn’t enter into it, unless it impacts our interests.

    There are lots of arguments that mitigate against this, from a purely amoral perspective.

    However, those tend to get balanced, in the fact that, if the United States were to NOT support Israel, then any other country would think that an alliance with the U.S. isn’t worth the paper it is printed on.

    Not to mention that, the example of a successful ‘democracy’ – that is vibrant, prosperous, is a goad to other nations, as their citizens see the ‘reality’ of success.

    In a way, again, this gets back to oil though. and my own pet peeve, having a HUGE PROJECT of moving as much off fossil fuels as possible.

  60. 60.

    Sloegin

    June 29, 2010 at 3:48 pm

    Sure, ya’ll laugh, but just wait till Frank Gaffney chimes in to back up Eli Lake’s claims.

  61. 61.

    DonkeyKong

    June 29, 2010 at 3:51 pm

    The next Goldberg post will be from one of his two ponies.

  62. 62.

    jetan

    June 29, 2010 at 3:54 pm

    Was I sleeping off a hangover the day someone here stood up for the Saudi human rights record or Chinese prison labor? It’s possible I was. But I don’t recall any mainstream American journalists or even bloggers saying any of those things, ever. I do, however, see a lot of “reputable” folks saying it is perfectly OK for Israel to practice espionage on us…..even to the point of arguing that we need to free the spy….that it is OK for them to attack a ship affiliated with a NATO ally and that we should scrap NATO rather than squawk about it, and that it was just an over-zealous error when they attacked a US ship. Killing Palestinian civilians doesn’t even merit “serious” comment, of course. ” Most regrettable”, as Peter Lorre might say.

    Sure, I’ll kick about the Egyptian and Chinese governments anytime you please. But to say we aren’t even handed respecting Israel seems really at odds with the political reality.

  63. 63.

    jc

    June 29, 2010 at 4:05 pm

    jetan,

    “I’ll kick about the Egyptian and Chinese governments anytime you please.”

    But that’s my point. You won’t. The ‘liberal blogosphere’ won’t.

    Sure, we all agree.

    But this is taken as a ‘fact of life’, while Israel ‘moral outrage’ gets the passion and the ‘fuck Israel!’, rants and blogs.

    It’s just fascinating to me, why this is so.

    Now, a good counterargument is, however fashionable it is to bash Israel in the blogosphere, politically, like Jim Henley said in a post a couple of weeks ago – Israel gets whatever it wants.

    But that doesn’t diminish the lack of outraged, passionate, full of intensity blogging about other countries who are worse.

    This is just a fact, right? We all see this.

  64. 64.

    Joel

    June 29, 2010 at 4:18 pm

    @JC: Here’s the thing; Israel enjoys exalted status (in its relationship with the United States) over those countries. Thats where the equivalency fails.

  65. 65.

    jetan

    June 29, 2010 at 4:20 pm

    jc – Actually, I do whine about China all the time. I lost out on a cute fellow student when she got recalled to the mainland following Tianeman Square, which made it personal for me. Whining is what it though , because we have very little leverage over China. But we do, or could, have a lot of leverage over Israel’s conduct.

    I agree that Israel is by no means as hideous as the other countries that you mention. That is one reason that I also believe that we must, on some level, serve as a guarantor of her security. But why should that fact dictate that we maintain a special relationship with them? They are armed to the frigging teeth already.

    More to the issue, why should we give Goldberg a free pass when he resorts to propaganda and outright fabrications in support of maintaining that relationship? A relationship which I would submit may not be in our geopolitical interest.

  66. 66.

    jc

    June 29, 2010 at 4:21 pm

    Having said all that, the effed up blockade of Gaza, is pretty much as bad as it gets. When farmers can’t export their crops, or get seeds to create crops, or fish, for God’s sake, then you are pretty much doing collective punishment, of millions of people. I can’t think of anywhere else right now, where millions of people aren’t allowed to pursue a livelihood to feed their families.

    This IS simply evil.

    Not North Korea evil, or Rwanda evil, but evil, nevertheless.

  67. 67.

    The Oracle

    June 29, 2010 at 4:22 pm

    Israel is getting ready to attack suspected nuclear sites in Iran, with the United States providing back-up, if not this upcoming July 4th weekend, then shortly thereafter.

    The second stage of the Bush/Cheney/AIPAC/neo-con “adventure” in the Middle East, in defense of Israel, will then be realized, with the first stage being the one that began with the attack on Iraq in March 2003. Iraq and then Iran were always a “package deal.”

    When one combines the first stage (Iraq) with the second stage (Iran), the result is (or so they hope) western control of the north shore of the Persian Gulf and vital oil shipping lanes, western control of even more Middle East oil resources, western pro-Israel removal of anyone or anything deemed to present a danger to Israel’s existence, presumably lessening the threat to Israel in the process.

    Of course, World War III (or is it IV?) might be triggered, leading to widespread death and destruction, but why quibble. And Jeffrey Goldberg is one of the “players” in this Armageddon global-wide drama (or is it tragedy?), pushing lies before the Iraq invasion in 2003 and pushing even more lies now, all in servitude to Israel and Israeli-defense interests, and to hell with the rest of the world, including the United States of America.

    To conservatives in general, all others end up being “collateral damage” in their grand schemes for self-preservation, in their defense of what is ultimately always indefensible, when they could have peace instead. But in this world, peace (or advocating for peace) is viewed as weakness, while pushing for war or committing war is viewed (definitely by conservatives of whatever ilk, race, nationality, religion) as strength. Somethings never change, so we are on the cusp of another conservative-spawned travesty.

  68. 68.

    Norwegian Shooter

    June 29, 2010 at 4:26 pm

    @jc: I accept the shallange! I searched “Qaeda” and “Qa’eda” in Volumes 2, 3, and 4, as suggested. al-Qaeda is barely mentioned in the original documents: Volumes 2 and 3 have no mention of al-Qaeda. Volume 4 has mentions on PDF pages 180, 193, and 198 (twice), but none regarding Iraqi support for al-Qaeda.

    The index at the beginning of each volume includes an item in Volume 5 which has “al-Qaeda” in its summary, so I looked at Volume 5 as well. This document includes communications from various Iraqi embassies and is produced on PDF pages 329 – 335. Again, nothing to see here. Although this caught my attention: 12,000 Algerian Diner were paid to “The Mauritanian Abdul-Qader Naji Mustafa who volunteered to be a human shield for Iraqis” Near bottom of page 334. Nice work if you can get it!

    So absolutely no links between Saddam and al-Qaeda in the original documents. But that doesn’t prevent the Abstract from mentioning al-Qaeda several times! How about this damning sentence:

    This created both the appearance of and, in some ways, a “de facto” link between the organizations.

    A slam dunk for sure! I’ll look into the narrative, Volume 1, and its footnotes next.

  69. 69.

    PeakVT

    June 29, 2010 at 4:27 pm

    @JC: However, those tend to get balanced, in the fact that, if the United States were to NOT support Israel, then any other country would think that an alliance with the U.S. isn’t worth the paper it is printed on.

    This is nonsense. American and Israel don’t have a formal defense treaty. No other US “ally” comes remotely close to causing as much problems for the US as Israel. There would be no reason for our formal allies to worry about their relations with the US if the US kicked Israel to the curb.

    OTOH, siding with Israel against Turkey – a country with which the US does have a formal defense treaty – should give a lot of our allies a pause.

  70. 70.

    slag

    June 29, 2010 at 4:32 pm

    @SteveAR: Oddly enough, it can be nigh impossible to get the “hard leftists” to believe the sun makes a “potentially meaningful” revolution around the earth. We are just so faith-based in our thinking!

  71. 71.

    jc

    June 29, 2010 at 4:34 pm

    Jetan,

    that may be true, in that we can affect the Israel relationship more than we can other relationships. So that could be the reason why there is more focus on Israel.

    I happen to think there is more focus, just because it’s the Holy Land, where three religions meet. Not for any rational or substantive, ‘affecting policy’ reason.

    There’s a fascination on that area, well out of proportion to the ‘importance’ of the area.

    I actually think we CAN affect other countries – like the aforementioned Egypt, like Saudi Arabia, etc, more than we are.

    Even China – as we could change our laws regarding having everything built there, until there is some form of political freedom.

    But lots of people say that would actually turn things backwards, and what do I know?

    Liberal bloggers, commentors simply should realize though, that the passionate intensity on Israel, with all the moral righteousness behind it, is a choice, not based on either the comparative moral hideousness with the rest of the world, or on what deserves the most attention. That’s all.

  72. 72.

    geg6

    June 29, 2010 at 4:35 pm

    @jc:

    Um, perhaps it is that Israel and its fluffers (like Goldberg) love to go on and on and on and on and on about Israel being a beacon of democracy, freedom, and looooooove just like the good ol’ USofA, but in the Middle East!

    Whereas neither Egypt or China nor their allies ever claimed any such thing.

  73. 73.

    jc

    June 29, 2010 at 4:38 pm

    Norwegian Shooter,

    Thanks! I am not surprised, even a little bit. I will email both the editor of the Atlantic, and Jeffrey Goldberg, and see if we can get a correction on this, from one or the other.

    He can be a passionate supporter of Israel, as I said that Josh Marshall and Ezra Klein are passionate liberal supporters. He isn’t entitled to make up his own facts though, without pushback.

  74. 74.

    El Cid

    June 29, 2010 at 4:38 pm

    @JC: I definitely think we should use the “moral”, or actually more realistic, policy focus, rather than the bullshit pseudo-realism of ‘realpolitik’ fetishism.

  75. 75.

    Brachiator

    June 29, 2010 at 5:20 pm

    @jc:

    Even China – as we could change our laws regarding having everything built there, until there is some form of political freedom.

    Here’s the funny thing. Post-Nixon, post Hong Kong turnover, China made some moves towards being less hostile towards the US, and conservatives went all “Whoopee! Now we can make some money” and liberals went, “Less Cold War, groovy,” with some fitful ever-weakening support for Tibet still giving them human rights street cred. But Chinese workers commit suicide while practically imprisoned in work dormitories and it barely raises a peep anywhere, including the blogosphere, because we want our laptops and cellphones, dammit.

    I don’t see much impetus in changing our laws regarding China because no one, without regard to ideology, wants to rock the boat. Now, there is much to be said for lessening the old Cold War, anti-communism sentiment. But you cannot really say that this has done much for the political rights of the Chinese people. You could, I suppose, ask the Tiananmen Square protesters what they think about the state of things in China since 1989. Wait, no you can’t.

    Unlike the Cultural Revolution, about which people can still easily find information through government-approved books, magazines, websites, et cetera, this topic is forbidden by the government and accordingly generally cannot be found in mainland Chinese media or websites. Media are warned not to mention the event; web posts and other individual actions on-line are rigorously removed by censors or moderators.

    Even during the Olympics, everyone was courteous and made sure not to make the Chinese feel bad by bringing up anything unpleasant.

    Ain’t “peace” a wonderful thing?

  76. 76.

    Gus

    June 29, 2010 at 7:07 pm

    I couldn’t be happier to say I have no idea what Manzi-gate is.

  77. 77.

    liberal

    June 29, 2010 at 10:08 pm

    @jc:

    …why isn’t there more attention, print, outrage, directed against Egypt, Libya, China, etc?

    Uh, well, for starters, we supply Israel with aid equivalent to a few percentage points of their GDP. And unlike the case of (say) Egypt there’s not even the excuse that it’s a poor country that “requires” “aid”.

    We have an entirely different relationship with Libya and China.

  78. 78.

    liberal

    June 29, 2010 at 10:19 pm

    @JC:

    But then, we do the same for Egypt. By that same logic, we shouldn’t be giving Egypt billions.

    True. But if you use a more reasonable measurement of aid, say dollars per capita, we give a lot more to Israel than to Egypt, despite Egypt being a lot poorer than Israel.

  79. 79.

    Brachiator

    June 29, 2010 at 11:38 pm

    @liberal:

    …why isn’t there more attention, print, outrage, directed against Egypt, Libya, China, etc?

    Uh, well, for starters, we supply Israel with aid equivalent to a few percentage points of their GDP. And unlike the case of (say) Egypt there’s not even the excuse that it’s a poor country that “requires” “aid”.

    I don’t think that this quite explains it. We have had a wrongheaded policy with respect to Pakistan since the Cold War, supplying that country with both dollars and military equipment. You could easily make a case that without US support, Pakistan might have sought less belligerent foreign policy with respect to Kashmir, India and Afghanistan.

    We supported Pakistan when East Pakistan sought to establish indepencence and become Bangladesh.

    Then there’s Haiti, the Dominican Republic (1965), Indonesia, various proxy wars in Africa.

    There are many reasons why some focus on Israel. Very little of it has to do with either absolute or relative amounts of foreign aid.

  80. 80.

    Steeplejack

    June 30, 2010 at 9:36 pm

    @jetan:

    By the way, thanks to everyone for the kind words about my dog, Blitz. I had to release her from this Earthly Coil at noon today. She was a good friend for thirteen years. I miss her.

    My condolences to you. It’s never easy to see them go.

    No love is ever lost. You will have that much more to give to the next one that comes along (when the time is right).

  81. 81.

    Norwegian Shooter

    July 1, 2010 at 11:13 am

    @jc: What’s going on with this? It is really an outright lie that this report contained any evidence of a Saddam-al-Qaeda link. BTW, McClatchy is really a good national news service, Exhaustive review finds no link between Saddam and al Qaida, March 10, 2008:

    An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein’s regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden’s al Qaida terrorist network. The Pentagon-sponsored study, scheduled for release later this week, did confirm that Saddam’s regime provided some support to other terrorist groups, particularly in the Middle East, U.S. officials told McClatchy. However, his security services were directed primarily against Iraqi exiles, Shiite Muslims, Kurds and others he considered enemies of his regime. The new study of the Iraqi regime’s archives found no documents indicating a “direct operational link” between Hussein’s Iraq and al Qaida before the invasion, according to a U.S. official familiar with the report.

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    June 29, 2010 at 3:59 pm

    […] Goldberg is evidently insisting — with the dubious aid of Eli Lake and evidence to the contrary — that Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda once had a “potentially […]

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