The invaluable Tom Maguire rightly heaps scorn on this idiotic post by Ed Kilgore (filling in for the Josh Marshall). From Mr. Kilgore:
Not having any particular
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thing to say about the happy contingency of the apparent collapse of the pro-Syrian government there, I didn’t worry about it much, until I got an email referring to this event as part of a “democracy domino.” And then I got it: those insistent correspondents were suggesting that I, as a Democrat, was indifferent to the latest triumph of Bush administration foreign policy.
Now I am aware the State Department made the appropriate noises, as its predecessors would have done, after the Hariri assassination, about Syrian dominance of Lebanon, and I also know the Bush administration has been generally hostile towards the Syrian government, as has been U.S. policy for as long as I can remember. But it literally never crossed my mind that Bush’s fans would credit him with for this positive event, as though his pro-democracy speeches exercise some sort of rhetorical enchantment.
This is the kind of thinking, of course, that has convinced God knows how many people that Ronald Reagan personally won the Cold War. It’s the old post hoc ergo propter hoc (after this, therefore because of this) logical fallacy. This is a president and an administration that chronically refuse to accept responsibility for the bad things that have happened on their watch–even things like the insurgency in Iraq that are directly attributable to its policies. Barring any specific evidence (provided, say, by Lebanese pro-democracy leaders)that Bush had anything in particular to do with Syria’s setbacks in Lebanon, I see no particular reason to high-five him for being in office when they happened.
The Bush Administration is helping to re-shape the entire Middle East, and Democrats are reduced to explaining why a dead man should get no credit for events that happened 20 years ago (and impressively, I might add, arguing on the wrong side of the issue). To be fair, the Washington Monthly is now on the ball and arguing that Bush doesn’t deserve any credit for anything.
At any rate, Mr. Maguire artfully defuses Mr. Kilgore’s post hoc fallacy non-fallacy, noting:
Hugh Hewitt rises to the defense of Reagan, which makes him a better man that I, since I tend to avoid arguing with others about articles of their religious faith. I also steer away from strawmen – whom might Mr. Kilgore be rebutting when he suggests that Reagan did not “personally” win the Cold War?
Go read the rest of Tom’s comments if you want a good laugh. Perhaps, of course, the joke is on us. This may all be part of Josh Marshall’s grand scheme- have someone more partisan and much dumber fill in for you, and by comparison, you seem genius.
Bob
Reagan was spokesman for the Crusade For Freedom and helped to bring boatloads of Nazis into the country after WWII.
George Saras
Bob…you have got to be one of the biggest assholes on the web. You trot out any and all manner of slanders, lies, and general bullshit, relying on the paranoid ravings of the basest sort as your source. Of all the vile crap you have posted, this perhaps takes the prize for the bottom of the sewer. And by the way, in the period in which you slander Reagan, he was a member in good standing with the liberal wing of the Democratic party.
Bob
It’s not slander and it’s not a lie if it’s the truth. Whether he was a Dem or a Republican by registration at the time, he was working with Nixon and the Dulleses to import Nazi-loving scum.
I’m tired of giving you books which you won’t read. You want to remain ignorant, George, so be it. You can never seem to actually write anything about what I say, so why not just ignore me?
For those of you who are curious about the Crusade For Freedom, you could read Christopher Simpson’s BLOWBACK. The CFF was, in essence, the Republican/corporatist party’s attempts to insert fascists into ethnic communities in order to combat the rising tide of the Jewish activists on the Left.
Look up Lazlo Pasztor, for ex.
You can find Ronnie Reagan’s part in the CFF in Loftus & Aarons’ THE SECRET WAR AGAINST THE JEWS. It’s a book about how American and British oil corporatists like the Dulleses worked through government intelligence units like the OSS, the CIA, etc., against the Jews in Holocaust-era Europe, and later, in Israel.
RW
Bob, if we want loony conspiracies about secretive attempts to incorporate fascism in the US we can all go to Dave Neiwart’s site.
George Saras
Bob!
It would be ridiculous to respond to the drivel that you put up here. Your sources have virtually no credibility whatsoever. If YOU would only expand your reading to include normal, truth-telling historians, rather than the demented sort that so obviously forms the core of your reading, YOU might have a more accurate and realistic view of the world.
As it is, Bob, your view of almost all matters appears to have been shaped by such far out lunatics and cranks as the aforementioned Loftus and Aaron in their totally discredited book that you cite as one of your “authoritative” sources. As a failed academic, you should by now realize that such concepts as truth, honor and integrity, all of which appear to be absent in your case, are important character traits that real historians must possess.
Bob
RW, no secrets. You read the books and you know. Curious, no? You read and you learn. They haven’t started burning books in your neighborhood yet, have they? And conspiracies? Hey, just Wall Street investors making money. But I like your phraseology about incorporating fascism. At least something sunk in.
George Saras, please stop being so pathetic. You always throw around the word “discredited” when you get nervous about something posted here you can’t handle. So show us who discredited Loftus (a Nazi hunter for the US Justice Department), how they did it, and whatever else you’ve got. Otherwise, you are a liar. Your clock is running, little man.
George Saras
Bob, you are a pitiful, pathetic little turd. It is transparently obvious that you haven’t had an original thought of your own in decades.
As one reviewer of your beloved “source book” put it, “[This book comprising a]..list of ‘betrayers’ is long and includes popes and presidents, kings and queens, statesmen, businessmen, military intelligence, and world movers and shakers of every ilk.” As he subsequently puts it, ‘[O]nly a complete paranoid fool could believe this claptrap…” Well, readers of Bob’s typical comments certainly prove that reviewer’s conclusion!!
Bob
Okay, George, you tell me that I don’t have any attributions for my quotes after I give a string of quotes with their author’s names.
Here your post is one long quote attributed to… “one reviewer.”!!! You are a pathetic little man.
Yes, the central thesis of this book is that U.S. and British (and to a lesser extent other European countries’) politics and politicians have been guided by their desire for oil and that there is an inherent anti-Semitism that permeates through the ruling classes. And guess what? You had members of the British Royal family in the 30s who supported the Nazis and you have little princes dressing up like Nazis today, for ex.
But let’s get back to your reviewer. Is this Joe from Hayden Lake, Idaho again, posting on Amazon? Who was your reviewer, little man? Another angry little man?
Look, I understand you get scared and angry when you find out that the idols you worship have clay feet. Ooo-wee-ooo. But you haven’t even found out. You refuse to read the book. You refuse to read a book written by a Nazi-hunter in the Justice Department who worked for years tracking them down. Ooo-wee-ooo. Imagine someone working in our government looking for war criminals and FINDING THEM and their allies in the Republican party. Surprise surprise.
Of course, you’ve never challenged any of the facts I’ve asserted. The best you can do is go back to your schoolyard cussing. Come on, little man.
George Saras
Poor crazy old Bob. You respond to him in any way whatsoever and he goes off on you, complaining that “you didn’t read the worthless shit that he recommended.” What a total and absolute fool.
I especially like the rubbish he put in this, his latest piece of paranoid ravings. As support for his contention in an earlier post, he notes here that you had “..members of the British Royal family in the 30s who supported the Nazis and you have little princes dressing up like Nazis today…” Tarring the entire British Royal family with the actions of the already dishonored Prince of Whales in the 1930s and by the immature actions of young Prince Harry in recent times is a perfect illustration of Dumb-As-Shit (DAS) Bob. This is a very typical action on the part of DAS Bob…extrapolate from the minute and inconsequential items that may support your paranoid/loony theories to the entire universe.
Paraphrasing John’s comments in a different thread, Bob, you are without any doubt the dumbest poster out there.