Month: November 2009

Not On Goldblog

"I think you're right, the term "leg-work" definitely could imply something I wasn't meaning to imply. If that's the way fair-minded people are reading it, then it's my mistake," – Jeffrey Goldberg, disavowing his insinuation that Trita Parsi, the heroic and decent head of the National Iranian-American Council is somehow a defender of the Khamenei-Ahmadinejad coup regime.

For some reason, this statement has not yet appeared on Goldblog itself, the natural place for such an important correction. On Goldblog, Jeffrey writes:

I think it's fair to say that Parsi's organization, the National Iranian American Council, functions as a kind of AIPAC for Iran.

This is not a retraction for saying that Parsi "does a lot of leg-work for the Iranian regime." It is an avoidance of the critical issue (something Goldblog did not do when asked by Mother Jones).

There is an enormous amount of difference between representing a country and representing its regime and in the current case of Iran, that distinction is everything.

Parsi is, of course, one of the Iranian coup's most tenacious and dedicated opponents. The implication that he is somehow a tool of the regime is unfair, untrue and malicious. It is not, however, an accusation that he is actually funded and supported by Ahmadinejad and Khameini. That insane accusation is left to the Weekly Standard's Michael Goldfarb to seize and propagate.

If Goldfarb were a journalist or the Weekly Standard were an honest magazine, a correction and apology would be forthcoming. But we know that smearing anyone even slightly inimical to Israel's perceived interests is what the Weekly Standard exists, in part, to do.

Abdullah, Out But Not Silent

Michael Crowley tries to stay positive:

I just heard Abdullah on NPR and he was trashing Karzai, saying that the president bore the blame for the chaos of the past eight years. So, Obama may be forced to carry on with an illegitimate partner in Kabul. That is a fundamental taboo of counterinsurgency doctrine. But that illegitimacy doesn't have to be permanent. If Karzai can make some quick and visible shows of reform, the situation could be salvageable. It's also worth recalling that the Maliki government in Iraq wasn't particularly legitimate when the surge began, either. There may be hope yet.

Where to begin? The surge has failed in Iraq to create the national unity it was designed to achieve; and its security achievements are just not replicable in Afghanistan. Expecting Karzai to reform now when he is in a civil war and just defeated his opponent makes no sense at all. Enormous pressure on him for years made no discernible difference.

Going Into Tuesday I

Weigel is in NY-23:

I spent some time with volunteers for both campaigns yesterday and observed that — to put it simply — Owens is counting on a fairly standard Democratic ground game of unions and party operatives, while Hoffman, having been denied Republican organizing tools until now, is counting on conservative activists. The pro-life Susan B. Anthony List, for example, has eight organizers working full-time in the district. Today, they’re canvassing with members of Generation Joshua, a religious youth group, and handing out literature that lists Hoffman’s endorsements from former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, former Sen. Fred Thompson, and conservative blogger Michelle Malkin. They’ve prepared 90,000 sample ballots for Hoffman to be handed out by 200-odd volunteers at key precincts.

In A Decade’s Time?

POTDavidMcNew:Getty

Jacob Weisberg heralds the death of prohibitions:

Our forms of prohibition are more sins of omission than commission. Rather than trying to take away longstanding rights, they're instances of conservative laws failing to keep pace with a liberalizing society. But like Prohibition in the '20s, these restrictions have become indefensible as well as impractical, and as a result are fading fast. Within 10 years, it seems a reasonable guess that Americans will travel freely to Cuba, that all states will recognize gay unions, and that few will retain criminal penalties for marijuana use by individuals. Whether or not Democrats retain control of Congress, whether or not Obama is re-elected, and whether they happen sooner or later than expected, these reforms are inevitable—not because politics has changed but because society has.

The Nostalgia Of Old Dogs

Gene Weingarten recalls:

Not long before his death, Harry and I headed out for a walk that proved eventful. He was nearly 13, old for a big dog. Walks were no longer the slap-happy Iditarods of his youth, frenzies of purposeless pulling in which we would cast madly off in all directions, fighting for Dustycommand. Nor were they the exuberant archaeological expeditions of his middle years, when every other tree or hydrant or blade of grass held tantalizing secrets about his neighbors. In his old age, Harry had transformed his walk into a simple process of elimination—a dutiful, utilitarian, head-down trudge. When finished, he would shuffle home to his ratty old bed, which graced our living room because Harry could no longer ascend the stairs. 

On these walks, Harry seemed oblivious to his surroundings, absorbed in the arduous responsibility of placing foot before foot before foot before foot. But this time, on the edge of a small urban park, he stopped to watch something. A man was throwing a Frisbee to his dog. The dog, about Harry’s size, was tracking the flight expertly, as Harry had once done, anticipating hooks and slices by watching the pitch and roll and yaw of the disc, as Harry had done, then catching it with a joyful, punctuating leap, as Harry had once done, too. Harry sat. For 10 minutes, he watched the fling and catch, fling and catch, his face contented, his eyes alight, his tail a-twitch. Our walk home was almost … jaunty.

The rest here. My own tale of Dusty on her rock at the beach is here.