The Dish

Rick Hertzberg would never be so crude as to get something so obviously wrong. But this piece is so revealing about the mindset of the Manhattan chattering class that it deserves re-reading in the aftermath of liberation. Beneath the polished prose, unvarnished partisan glee.

Anti-war writer, Gary Kamiya, does some admirable soul-searching in Salon:

I have a confession: I have at times, as the war has unfolded, secretly wished for things to go wrong. Wished for the Iraqis to be more nationalistic, to resist longer. Wished for the Arab world to rise up in rage. Wished for all the things we feared would happen. I’m not alone: A number of serious, intelligent, morally sensitive people who oppose the war have told me they have had identical feelings.
Some of this is merely the result of pettiness — ignoble resentment, partisan hackdom, the desire to be proved right and to prove the likes of Rumsfeld wrong, irritation with the sanitizing, myth-making American media. That part of it I feel guilty about, and disavow. But some of it is something trickier: It’s a kind of moral bet-hedging, based on a pessimism not easy to discount, in which one’s head and one’s heart are at odds.

Let me say I’m disturbed by some of what Kamiya confesses, but extremely heartened by his honesty. It seems to me that a real anti-war liberal, with a heart and a head, is bound to feel deeply conflicted by all this. Contrast Kamiya with the apparatchik Krugman this morning and you see the difference between someone trying to figure this all out and someone who thinks he figured everything out years ago. (And notice Krugman’s use of the term ‘conquest’ rather than liberation. Telling, don’t you think?)

You can see it now. Chaos. Looting. Disorder. Losing the peace. It’s not that there won’t be some truth to these stories; and real cause for concern. The pent-up fury, frustration and sheer anger of three decades is a powerful thing, probably impossible to stop immediately without too much force. And the last thing we want is fire-power directed toward the celebrating masses. The trouble is that they could become the narrative of the story, especially among the usual media suspects, and erode the impact and power of April 9. By Sunday, or sooner, you-know-who will probably have a front-page “news analysis” that will describe the joy of liberation being transformed into the nightmare of a Hobbesian quicksand of ever-looming cliches. Speaking of whom …

… BAKED APPLE: The only good thing about R. W. Apple still producing his “stories swollen to the point of corpulence with clichés, platitudes, and the most foolish sort of conventional wisdom,” is that Jack Shafer is around to write about them. If this piece doesn’t have you on the floor laughing, then I guess … it’s just me.

Now we’re seeing it. This piece from MEMRI makes for encouraging reading. It’s a piece of withering criticism of the Arab media by the editor-in-chief of the London-based Saudi daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, Abd Al-Rahman Al-Rashed. Maybe the Arab populations will realize that their media simply spews lies and begin demanding greater accuracy and accountability. Money quote:

I know that adopting an impartial stand in the [Arab] media world is akin to suicide, because there are many who push the media into extremes, and take ‘nationalistic’ positions, and maintain that whoever thinks differently is committing treason against the [national] cause. [They maintain] that lying for the sake of the cause is moral and honorable. The Arab media [of today], in these hard times, is slowly turning into the 1967 media; at that time, radio announcers, analysts, and journalists exaggerated acts of courage and covered up defeats, which – historically – became a mockery… The Arab media today, with its clear inclination towards exaggerations and false promises of victory, is feeding the public stories that have nothing to do with the real events in the field. Hence, it is replicating the old media, despite the fact that it is broadcasting in color and using electronic technologies …

And so the effort for a real change begins.

Here’s a blast from far-right Catholics, who seem to have more sympathy with the Taliban than with the evils of pluralist America. How fitting that they’re now in league with A.N.S.W.E.R.

RUMMY’S SEX ADVICE: Yes, this made me laugh.

“In Britain, we call this sort of thing criminal damage, and you can get three months in jail for it, as 37-year-old Paul Kelleher discovered recently when he beheaded a marble effigy of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher. Poor Mr Kelleher: wrong time, wrong place, wrong statue.” – Brian Whitaker, in the Guardian, comparing the toppling of Saddam’s statue with British vandalism.

RAINES WATCH: Guess which story the NYT submitted for a Pulitzer? Their brave, pioneering, completely unhinged coverage of the Augusta Golf Tournament “controversy”! I’m not sure if they submitted the columns they originally spiked.

A PLURALITY: More Massachusetts residents now support equal marriage rights than oppose them, according to a new poll. I point this out so that when the hard right claims that the courts are subverting popular opinion, you’ll know they’re projecting.

BEGALA AWARD NOMINEE: (for extreme liberal hyperbole) “No doubt Kristol, with his censorious, antidemocratic instincts, would have risen high in the apparat of the old Soviet Communist Party. But there may be a larger, more ominous parallel here: Once upon a time, the Kremlin also used force to try to remake the world in its own image. Conservatives claim to learn from history. Kristol’s outburst-one of many such dissent-is-unpatriotic statements issued by pro-White House cheerleaders in the media – is more evidence that the people who now control America’s national security policy are not really conservatives but extremists.” – Katrina vanden Heuvel, the Nation, equating current U.S. policy with that of the Soviet Union (which, paradoxically, she provided excuses for at the time).

Fox News reports on a labyrinth of tunnels and labs in Southern Iraq, where buildings are testing positive for radiation. This may not turn out to be a nuclear research facility. But it strikes me as a sign of what we might soon find.

Yes, we should celebrate, and I still am. After choking up much of yesterday afternoon, and being a little dazed watching the news last night, it’s hard to do anything but celebrate. This resembled the end of the Cold War because it was, in a different context, exactly the same thing. It’s the end of a vicious, oppressive dictatorship, that had clung on to power, with the help of the Soviet Union and France and China, well past its due date. As freedom has reached Eurasia, South America, and parts of the far east, since the end of Soviet communism, the Arab world remains cut off. We’ve just opened a supply line. It will be up to us and the Iraqis to make sure the freedom sticks, the line stays open, the tyranny doesn’t return – and that’s something that most of us, anti-war and pro-war, can surely agree on and do something to bring about. But, today, this morning, the war isn’t fully over; Tikrit hasn’t fallen; order hasn’t been restored; Saddamite remnants could still wreak havoc. None of this detracts from the victory. None of it. But it surely cautions us against hubris or over-confidence. We now have a country to restore and a long war still to wage.

“We will confront weapons of mass destruction, so that a new century is spared new horrors… The enemies of liberty and our country should make no mistake: America remains engaged in the world by history and by choice, shaping a balance of power that favors freedom. We will defend our allies and our interests. We will show purpose without arrogance. We will meet aggression and bad faith with resolve and strength. And to all nations, we will speak for the values that gave our nation birth… And an angel still rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm.” – the inaugural address of president George W. Bush, to whom above everyone else, the Iraqi people owe their new freedom.

RAINES WATCH: Almost every single newspaper in the country declares yesterday a turning point, an historic moment, the critical end of the Saddam regime. “U.S. Troops Sweep Aside Hussein Rule,” thunders the Washington Post. The Guardian hails: “An End to 30 Years of Brutal Rule.” “Saddam ‘Defeated Militarily,'” says USA Today, with the subhead, “Jubilant Crowds Tear Down Statue.” The L.A. Times: “U.S. Troops Free Iraq From Hussein’s Control.” What does Howell Raines come up with? “Iraqi Government Apparently Breaks Down But Fighting Persists in Parts of Capital.” At least that’s the headline in the online edition at around 1am. No, you couldn’t make this up. They just can’t stand the news at 43rd Street, can they?