Month: July 2010

Serwer provides some:

For all the sound and fury, Breitbart's video was nothing more than an alibi, an attempt to collectively exonerate the right from a charge of racism by turning it back on the NAACP. This is the precise origin of the oppositional culture developed by some conservatives in the aftermath of the 2008 election. It is broadly premised on convincing conservatives they face a similar kind of institutional racism black people have faced throughout history, while maintaining that the sole obstacle to black advancement is the same culture of grievance they're so desperate to imitate. Glenn Beck saying today's America is "like the 1950s except the races are reversed," isn't an observation; it's a demand for absolution. This is the same selfish white guilt rightly mocked when possessed by liberals, curdled into a bitter stew of defensive anger and epic self-pity. Yet even Beck thinks Sherrod was wronged.

Politico's Roger Simon agrees with the Dish:

Considering her likely opposition — Romney, Gingrich, Tim Pawlenty, Bobby Jindal, Mike Huckabee or Haley Barbour — tell me she has no chance. Go ahead and tell me.

Read Josh Marshall on the press's coverage of the Breitbart smear.

Frum makes the necessary case:

First, as the patron of the region’s pre-eminent military power, the United States gains leverage and status. Arab states that cooperate with the United States (e.g. Egypt) get what they want from Israel. Arab states that do not cooperate (e.g. Syria) do not get. The US can deploy Israel’s power to rescue other US clients from enemies (as the Israelis rescued King Hussein of Jordan from the PLO in 1970) or to accomplish strategic missions that the US would rather not dirty its own hands with (the destruction of nuclear facilities in Iraq and Syria, the assassination of terrorist leaders).

Second, Israel is a huge source of information to the US – and the most valuable live-fire test laboratory for US military equipment and doctrine.

One of the decisive moments of the Cold War, for example, occurred during the skies over Lebanon in 1982. During the Yom Kippur war of 1973, only 9 years previous, Soviet ground-to-air missiles had wrought havoc upon Israeli aircraft. This time, Syria scrambled its air force to meet Israeli planes: 150 against 150, the largest air battle of the jet age. In just a few minutes, the Israelis downed 86 Syrian craft, suffering no casualties of their own. Microelectronics had triumphed in the test of battle. Soviet histories generally credit this event as the shock that jolted the Soviet elite into realizing that it must try some kind of “perestroika” of its ossifying economic system.

Third: the demonstration effect of the superiority of Western ways in interstate competition. Israel in 1950 had an income per capita not very much higher than that of neighboring Syria. Today, Israel has a GDP per capita comparable to that of most European countries, and higher than that of Saudi Arabia. It has sustained democracy under military onslaught. It is a science and technology leader. The Arab world may not like Israel, but its success sends a powerful “If you can’t beat them, join them” message. And of course part of “joining them” is emulating Israel’s close relationship with the United States.

Ken Richard Silverstein notes who helps fund a magazine that baselessly calls critics of Israel's policies "Jew-baiters." No big surprise. He makes a good point here on tarring bloggers with the views of some commenters:

Smith, of course, neglects the fact that the Talkbacks of the Israeli online news media are among the most vicious, disgusting, racist and genocidal I’ve ever come across. Does this mean that we should accuse Haaretz, Ynet and Maariv of favoring the views of their readers? If so, where does it end? Should we bring Amos Schocken, Amnon Denker and all the editors of these publications up on charges of racism and incitement?

This suggests there was some shred of argument in the piece. There wasn't. It was just low rent Wieseltierism.

Fallows and Crook say the "scandal" is silly. Clive:

The idea that 400 journalists, academics and assorted hangers-on could plot to do anything, even if they agreed they wanted to, is laughable.

Jim:

In the other listservs I know — about China, software, aviation, defense, cybersecurity, etc — some people's careers could be gravely damaged if their least judicious single sentences were used against them out of context years later. I really, really hate to see that done to young people now. "Have you no sense of decency?" is the right question for Andrew Breitbart. It's also the right question for the Daily Caller, whose editor (Tucker Carlson) asked for membership in the dreaded Journolist — and was turned down — just before it began seriatim publishing of damaging and out-of-context quotes against young writers.

I didn't know Tucker had tried to join, which makes this even more school-yardy. And I agree with Jim's disdain for leaking private airing of views. Where I remain discomfited is that this list-serv was not around a specific, specialized subject, like the ones Jim cites – but around an entire political philosophy which already dominates too much of the elite media. It is this tendency to groupthink and exclusivity that concerns me. Which is why I'm glad this thing has been killed off.

"You know, physically, he was just a pussy," – Mike Tyson on Che Guevara in Details magazine.

Here's the moment when freedom and equality became real for gay and lesbian Argentinians:

Sad, isn't it, when the rest of the world leads America on the advancement of human freedom and equality?

Scott Adams supplies them:

A conversation, like dancing, has some rules, although I've never seen them stated anywhere. The objective of conversation is to entertain or inform the other person while not using up all of the talking time. A big part of how you entertain another person is by listening and giving your attention. Ideally, your own enjoyment from conversation comes from the other person doing his or her job of being interesting. If you are entertaining yourself at the other person's expense, you're doing it wrong.

You might think that everyone on earth understands what a conversation is and how to engage in one. My observation is that no more than a quarter of the population has that understanding.

I think of it as a friendly tennis match. There is no attempt to score a point or win a match. There is merely the enjoyment of each other's company, an open-ended engagement that should and does lead nowhere, and an eagerness to play. This facet of behavior – playing – is in many ways, as I argue in Intimations Pursued, the highest expression of human freedom. It is also the highest expression of civility. We need more of it. And the blogosphere – at its best – achieves this.