A few weeks ago I wrote that the Atlantic’s Jeff Goldberg was busy at work on a magnum opus for “The Atlantic” calling for a bombing attack by the United States on Iran.
The article will appear as a cover story in August.
The war party decided that Goldberg is to play the role on Iran that Ken Pollack played for Iraq. He will be the first out to define the terms of the debate and get the engines revved up for our 3rd simultaneous Middle East war.
Goldberg wrote some of the most ridiculous pre-Iraq war propaganda for the liberal New Yorker magazine. I’ve written about this before — here’s a good summary from Ken Silverstein at Harper’s.
There are those who say that my anti-Atlantic jihad is ill-considered but tell me again that Fallows, Sully, Coates, and the rest aren’t gutless circle jerkers for their continued praise of Goldberg?
Update. Good God, this douchebag is flogging the Journolist nonstory for all its worth, too.
Downpuppy
Don’t forget Clive Crook
Libel in service of Big Energy, sloppily done
Tom Hilton
Set aside Sully; have Fallows and Coates praised Goldberg’s writing on Iraq or Iran? Because if they haven’t, then I still think it makes no sense to lump them together with Goldberg.
Gus
So “some say” your anti-Atlantic jihad is ill considered? Who? Michael Kelly ruined a venerable magazine. The Atlantic has been shit for years, despite James Fallows.
cervantes
I’ve been getting e-mails from the psychopath Amitai Etzioni touting a campaign of bombing Iran. Apparently he got something published in Foreign Affairs that touts it as a wise and pacifist solution.
Of course, Israel already has nuclear weapons so we should probably bomb them first.
Jason Bylinowski
Hey, I hear you. Goldberg is atrocious; the third-person self-references got old a long time ago.
But you better not be frontin’ on James Fallows. That guy is seven kinds of awesome.
Peter
What the fuuuuuck. There’s no way they actually think that this will take. The US is already in TWO wars in the Middle East and the voting population doesn’t like either of them!
I know, I know, never underestimate the right-wing noise machine, but this isn’t 2003 anymore. Trying to go three for three seems like massive overreach to me.
EFroh
but tell me again that Fallows, Sully, Coates, and the rest aren’t gutless circle jerkers for their continued praise of Goldberg?
It’s mostly guilt by association at this point, I think, because they all blog for the Atlantic. I just haven’t seen Coates or Fallows applaud Goldberg (they may have, I just haven’t read the blog entries where they’ve done so). And Sullivan seems to consider him a personal friend, while disagreeing with him about everything else. I was not surprised that Yglesias decamped for less insane waters at CAP. And I’m still happy that I let my Atlantic subscription lapse.
wilfred
Buzz is for October, just before the mid-terms. Rally round the flag, etc.
Full-court press in the usual places, intelligence leaks, the revised NIE on Iran, written to satisfy the war pigs.
Morbo
Sully cut a blog entry in a pretty telling way today. His blockquote:
The very next paragraph which Andrew unsurprisingly leaves out:
LGRooney
The good news is that the country may be tired of war. The bad news is, the people in this country have not shown their best faculties over the past 2-3 decades and often disappoint.
Wonder if they’ll have some external stimulus to give more-than-rhetorical support to the new call for war, e.g., Israel bombs Iran and we must defend Israel, Iranian-flagged ships are mysteriously scuttled in the Persian Gulf and we see the getaways heading straight for Persia, we capture a load of WMDs trucking into Iraq from Iran (and, so, we must recall a couple tens of thousands to Iraq while the remaining are sent into Iran while we finally complete the process of giving up on Afghanistan but don’t want the billions lining the war profiteers’ pockets to stop flowing just because Iraq and Afghanistan proved stupid).
nepat
Because you always give a pass to Ambinder, who’s the worst of them all.
Downpuppy
As to Goldberg , yes he’s spreading it
Jeebus. With the Republicans, I always felt safe on Iran, since Republicans like insanely reactionary clerics & had been making deals with Iran since 1980.
DougJ
@nepat:
That’s not really an opinion blog. I hold it to a different standard.
IM
But will it work? Pollack was rightly or wrongly reagrded as an expert and a “liberal”.
Now Goldberg is dabbling in books, opinion, a bit of jounalism. Nobody really regards him as an expert on Iran oder nuclear weapons.
And even the liberal Goldberg will not work on this issue, there his monomanical position is well known.
He can still be used for tax cuts or so. No use wasting a good tool.
Gus
Fixed that for ya.
Gus
@wilfred: Meh, Sy Hersh was absolutely certain the Bush administration would bomb Iran on its way out. I’m not convinced.
Lev
I subscribed to the print version of the magazine some time ago because I felt guilty for reading so much of the blog content and archives without paying anything. I’ve been half-waiting for an excuse to cancel the magazine for some time now. I can’t freakin’ wait. I think I’ll include a nice nasty letter too.
burnspbesq
@Morbo:
Your complaint is dismissed, with leave to amend. The court is unable to figure out what it is you are bitching about.
Kirk Spencer
While most eyes are on Iran, you should probably be aware there’s a quiet but strong push for action against Venezuela.
Chavez sees Obama as weak and spineless, doncha know, so he’s ramping up both rhetoric and action. It’ll take someone with a willingness to do the hard thing to put him down. Until they do, he’s a destructive force in South America. (sarcasm, echoing the message.)
Lev
I can only hope that Michael O’Hanlon will get to reprise his role in Act III.
trollhattan
At what point does this crap become treasonous? Hell, under Coulter rules hippies being hippies is treason, so what about a thoroughly crafted campaign encouraged by foreign interests (lookin’ at you, Israel) and orchestrated by well connected and financed Americans?
We need more war, ergo war.
Grrrrr
Zandar
Hey while we’re at it, let’s shock and awe some mosques here too.
That will totally make Iran go “Oh well, the Americans are crazy. We should do what they want. Then we’ll have kebabs.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Sullivan’s getting triggy with Journolist too. The latest shocking development is, apparently, that self-ID’d liberals didn’t like Sarah Palin. I bet Steve Doocey declares this to be HYOOOOOGE!
Pancake
Agree 100 percent with the comment that Eric Alterman is a major douchebag, one almost without equal on the planet Earth.
Captain Haddock
Well you could consider a new draft as a stimulus of sorts — think of all the new jobs!
Face
That name, it has a certain ethnic flair to it, by which one may inclined to believe he may possess a certain irrational take and solution to this situation based on his last name.
Edit: how the fuck did my comment get nested inside someone elses?
trollhattan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Chait’s having none of it. And luckily, he’s a blogger who can match Sully’s output without being Glenzilla.
http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/76431/reply-andrew-sullivan
FormerSwingVoter
What. The. Fuck.
Another war. This is really what these guys want to do. This seems like a good idea to literally anybody in the entire world.
…at some point, I have to stop assuming that these guys are just wrong about things. This is pure insanity. It’s like there’s a part of the neocon mind that simply shrieks into their thought process at every moment of every day with “KILL KILL KILL DIE DIE DIE MUST KILL MUST KILL ALL THAT LIVES”. I mean, there’s no remotely possible justification for this sort of nonsense. None whatsoever. These people are irrational beyond anything I ever thought possible.
Corner Stone
@Peter:
Well to be fair we are in countries on each side. So…
“I’d start walking your way
You’d start walking mine
We’d meet in the middle
‘Neath that old Iranian pine
We’d gain a lot of ground
‘Cause we’d both give a little
And there ain’t no road too long
When we meet in the middle”
Michael
@Peter:
National bankruptcy and the impoverishment of the US populace in support of vicious Israeli warbots is no vice, not with Jesus coming soon.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Yeah, ‘cos, we’ve already got armed forces in the area. They can just … commute between theaters:
Afghanistan – Sunday – Tuesday;
Iran – Wednesday – Thursday; and
Iraq -Friday – Saturday.
The variety will be GREAT for morale!
wmsheppa
All of this is not even mentioning the fact that Goldberg holds up “Racing in the Street” as an example of a Springsteen song that proves he loves Nascar fans. When I hear:
But now there’s wrinkles around my baby’s eyes
And she cries herself to sleep at night
When I come home the house is dark
She sighs “Baby did you make it all right”
She sits on the porch of her daddy’s house
But all her pretty dreams are torn
She stares off alone into the night
With the eyes of one who hates for just being born
I think gee, this guy sure loves Nascar! Born to Run, maybe. Racing in the Street? Oh boy.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Arrrgh, Tunch is sharpening his claws on the blog again!
John PM
No, no, no, it looks like he will just be talking about bombing Iran, not invading it. After we drop a few thousand tons of bombs on the major cities of Iran, the Iranian people will over the clerics and Achmadinejad and set up a democracy. We will then be treated as defribulators or something similar …
brendancalling
I would like to throw jeffery Goldberg down a well.
not the kind you throw pennies into, but a deep water offshore oil well.
the guy is so slimy, he’d feel right at home.
NonyNony
@FormerSwingVoter:
They are simultaneously completely terrified of everything and supremely arrogant. It’s a dangerous combination. It makes them think that if they lob a nuke at the things they’re afraid of, they can make them go away. But since they’re so full of fear they’re afraid of everything and the only choice will be to nuke the world.
Napoleon
Thank God I cancelled the Atlantic a few weeks ago.
Michael
@John PM:
They’ll be throwing flowers and waving ‘Murkan flags while throwing cigarettes and panties at Our Triumphant Soldiers.
And can you imagine the joyful mass conversions to Christianity as they go to get baptized by Fundevangelical pastors in every body of water in Persia?
Youbetcha it’ll be awesome. Also, too.
danimal
Here’s my opening bid on deficit reduction:
1. Wind down in Iraq and Afghanistan.
2. Don’t start new wars, such as a conflict with Iran.
3. Significantly scale down defense budget.
Am I a radical yet?
Morbo
@burnspbesq: Long link trail short: Sully appears to be ignoring that Goldberg is the main person quoted in an article that calls him (also Walt, Greenwald, and Weiss) a “Jew-baiter.”
FormerSwingVoter
@danimal: Why do you hate America? Clearly, we need to keep increasing defense spending at Cold War rates, despite the lack of an obvious enemy. Apparently, enemies will just crop up as needed to justify this! Convenient!
Bender
Gosh, it’s almost as if people are shocked that elitist lefty journalists would conspire to falsely charge racism against their political opponents to shut them up! But, yeah — nothing to see here!
You can keep whining “non-story” all you want. As they say: Wishing don’t make it so (ask ACORN)! And, you know, it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
wilfred
But in Goldbergia-pretzelland an attack on Iran would not mean war against Iran, just an attack.
The onus for war would be on Iran, which could either see the rightness in the attack or take some other course. Of course, should they attack in turn that would be a declaration of all-out war against Homeland.
It’s their call really.
Napoleon
By the way, this is one of the reasons I want no tail presence in Afghanistan or Iraq. The next Republican admin will just use it as a jumping off point for an attack on Iran. Why do you think they were building those big bases in Iraq?
Tom Hilton
By the way, as bad as Goldberg is, carrying him isn’t the worst thing the Atlantic has done.
The worst thing they’ve done is ditching the Atlantic Puzzler (first from the print edition, then letting it go altogether). That I cannot forgive.
Tom Hilton
Fallows, however, is not:
Sorry, but I just think it’s sloppy and counter-productive to lump them all together, regardless of their individual abilities and insights.
Bill Rutherford, Princeton Admissions
@Tom Hilton:
BTW, Sully just found out TODAY that Carlson was denied membership in JournoList shortly before he leaked the Dave Weigel/Matt Drudge e-mail. What an expert on the subject.
El Tiburon
Good God, Goldberg is a gigantic WATB.
What a sniveling little douchetard.
He is the epitome of that little tit-twat on the playground that was just begging for someone to knock the shit out of him. The kind of kid that even the teachers would look the other way when he got shit-piled. The kind of kid that everyone ABSOLUTELY hated with a white-hot passion. Even Kenny, the kid who ate his boogers, hated Jeffrey Goldberg.
Shorter Goldberg: I’m a fucking tattle-tale!
Goldberg makes Doughy Pantload look like Thor.
Does Goldberg work for the Atlantic or is he auditioning for a spot on “The Hills”?
Fuck me running.
El Cid
I don’t see why we have to think about it so much. Just go out there and bomb Iran because there certainly are a lot of big names, some of them Israeli policymakers too, some of them Saudi, and so forth, who want us too.
What’s the big deal? We’re pretty used to bombing the shit out of other countries and blowing regional stability all to hell, and plus we keep hearing how we have these awesome new counter-insurgency strategies which fix all the problems we create, as long as we’re willing to stay there in one form or another in a massive occupation for a few generations.
Yeah, it might add another trillion or so to the debt, but you can make that shit up by taking Social Security away from the oldsters, cutting the fuck out of Medicare, selling off all our national parks and properties, all that shit.
Who the fuck are we to complain about what our betters want us to do?
trollhattan
@Bender:
The “elitist lefty journalists” all got laid off a decade ago. All we have now are stenographers and Newscorp employees.
Did’ja get the memo, Kenneth?
Jager
This all makes sense:
Iran seperates Iraq and Afganistan, attack Iran and it becomes one war.
Going after Chavez will bring Cuba into it and we’ll get done what 9 US Presidents have failed to do, wrench Cuba out of the hands of Castro.
I’m on board if we have a Universal Draft, men and women, no deferments, Eisenhower Era tax rates and Israel rebates the money we’ve handed them year after year.
Let’s roll!
Davis X. Machina
@Gus:My thinking as well. If it didn’t snow in January, it ain’t gonna snow in June.
Not even AIPAC is that powerful. (They maybe could get it to snow in May, if it was an election year)
Roger Moore
@Napoleon:
Get out of here! Next you’ll be suggesting that the Iranian nuclear program is primarily a defensive response to our nearby military bases and threats of attack, so that pulling out and moderating our rhetoric will reduce tension in the region. What kind of DFH are you?
El Tiburon
@El Cid:
Come on, you know that ain’t how it works.
First we got to come up with a really good reason to blow Iran up, like say they were really behind 9-11 or perhaps Ahjaminamaninajihad tried to kill Palin’s moose-knuckle.
Then we can tar-n-feather the Godless liberals who hate America for not supporting “Our God is better than Their God” war.
Then, and only then, can we send a shit-can more young Americans (fuck, I guess we are out of them, we’ll need to send some older Americans) to go off and die so Republicans can pop a boner and fuck some underage boy up the shiznit hole.
El Cid
@El Tiburon: I know, but they wouldn’t have to come up with all them fake good reasons if we made sure we let them know we didn’t give a shit. I think we should have a march saying “Bomb Iran Now! Or Not! Whatever You Guys Want!”
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
@wmsheppa: Don’t confuse them with facts. After all, I bet Goldberg was one of those idiots that thought Born in the U.S.A. was a patriotic anthem.
Svensker
@Zandar:
Win. Sadly, but win.
Sly
@Bender:
Keep chasing that whale, Ahab.
AhabTRuler
Sly@58: Hey, fuck you!
Oh, wait, sorry. I make that mistake all the time.
Comrade Dread
@NonyNony:
I think you’re missing the more simple explanation.
War is good for business (at least as long as it doesn’t actually touch our shores and destroy our infrastructure.)
Until then, there are thousands upon thousands of contractors and businesses whose industry is war. Who have every incentive to support more war and more Federal dollars flowing their way.
I think they have the ears of the powerful more so than the useful crowds who fear Muslims, or follow Dispensational end times theology.
I’m beginning to seriously question whether or not I should try and emigrate to Canada.
GregB
Col. Lang recently stated that an attack on Iran would “look a lot like a world war”.
Apparently Goldberg doesn’t consider Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories to be “Arab neighbors”.
This will be catastrophe.
timb
@Gus: Amen. used to be my favorite. I let my subscription expire when they let some douchebag write an advertisement for the F-22 and in the same issue had some moron write a patently dishonest piece re: healthcare reform.
Two days ago they asked me if I would come back if they gave me a year free (and then pay for another year). I was shocked….why would I pay to get right wing news? it’s everywhere. Hell, I live in Indiana. here, the local PBS station serves up smug status quo pablum and wingnut propaganda for free.
The Atlantic has been ruined so thoroughly that they cannot give it away
Mike in NC
Wasn’t a certain ex-POW roundly mocked a couple of years ago for talking about the “Iraq-Afghan border”? Whatever happened to that old fart?
timb
@Pancake: See, I like some of eric’s work, but he REALLY is “shrill.” I mean, seriously, he’s like the Gingrich of the left wing (except for the lying and adultery)
timb
@Bender: So go to Red State and read all about it. Just don’t expect smart people to care
Mnemosyne
@Roger Moore:
As I’ve always said, Iran looked at the disparity in how its fellow members in the “Axis of Evil” were treated by the US and rightly decided that it behooved them to get themselves a nuke right damn quick.
Pretty much the only way to convince the Iranians not to build a nuke is to get the fuck out of the Middle East.
Joel
I was going to let the subscription expire all on its own, but the moment that August issue lands in my mailbox, I’m issuing a call of cancellation.
Mark S.
@Mnemosyne:
That’s not what Serious People say.
wasabi gasp
Which listserv does one sign up to when conspiring to blow up Iran? I’m interested in chit chat that includes getting the final score before the ninth inning.
Pete
Count as me as someone who doesn’t give crap who Sully or Coates or Fallows praise or associate with, any more than I care who attended Megan McArdle’s wedding.
Their opinions stand on their own merit, and they each of them, to a man call out enough bullshit in a lot of other assholes that I can give them a pass for not antagonising someone they have to deal with in a professional capacity (notwithstanding that Sully does in any event.)
I guess as it comes down to it, I can barely give a crap about the opinions of Goldberg, and by that token, give even less of a crap about other people’s opinion of him.
mclaren
You’d hope Goldberg’s slavish pre-Iraq-war hackery and lies and chicken-little hysteria, plus his recent adoration of the murders committed by the Israeli soldiers on that Turkish Gaza relief freighter would deep-six the guy’s credibility once and for all.
You’d hope.
Accurately predicting the lies these assholes will tell seems to defang ’em. Also, too, when people point out how ourageously they lied back in 2002 about Iraq.
Someone should make a YouTube clip by looping Queens’ “Here I go again” and interspersing Goldberg’s 2002 Iraq lies and his new 2010 lies about Iran.
gerry
I sure hope Rahm doesn’t go to work for the Atlantic! Does not compute…
grumpy realist
Didn’t the US military game out a war against Iran several years ago and decide it would be a lost cause unless a whole bunch of coincidences magically fell in the US’s favor? And that was before the whole “Iran gets nukes!” complication.
Hell, consider that at the expense of a few paid agents (Curveball, Chalabi) AND NO MILITARY WHATSOEVER Iran managed to get the US to take out their main enemy in the Mideast with absolutely no blowback against them.
Here’s how I game it out:
US gets into position to attack Iran. (And no, we can’t attack instantaneously so yes, they will have warning.)
Iran mines and blows up a large ship or two in the Straits or Hormuz.
$200/bbl of oil price spike.
US: Ooops! (Attacks Venezuela to get oil. Much closer and easier to push over.)
Rest of world: WTF?! You idiots!
Israel: You didn’t attack Iran the way you said you were going to do! WAAHH!