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Go Home Mock on, Maureen Dowd: Why She’s Right About the Neo-cons

PLANK SEPTEMBER 17, 2012

Mock on, Maureen Dowd: Why She’s Right About the Neo-cons

BY JOHN B. JUDIS

In the twilight years of the New Left, revolutionaries would regularly parse their adversaries’ statements for indications of “objective racism.” Even the slightest irregularity—calling someone’s thoughts “dark”—could unleash a volley of accusations. I was reminded of this in reading the responses to Maureen Dowd’s recent column, “Neocons Slither Back,” about the neo-conservative influence on Mitt Romney’s foreign policy.

A host of people have accused Dowd of anti-Semitism for using a term “puppet master” to describe Romney’s advisor Dan Senor and for implying that Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan are “foreign policy neophytes” who have received their current ideas about the world from neo-conservative intellectuals who previously prodded “an insecure and uninformed president into invading Iraq.”

In singling out this single phrase, Dowd’s critics accuse her of using a metaphor dating from the Nazis and Mein Kampf. While the phrase’s nasty origin still sometimes resonates—when, for example, Glenn Beck calls George Soros a “puppet master” seeking world domination—it’s also widely used in the way Dowd did to simply suggest an individual or individuals controlling other individuals. What really seems to bothers many of Dowd’s critics is not the term, but the thesis of neo-conservative control that underlies it.

Let’s take the historical point first. Did neo-conservatives play a central role in prodding George W. Bush to invade Iraq? Dowd’s critics, including liberals as well as conservatives,  say no. Dowd’s charge, Jeffrey Goldberg, a liberal supporter of the Iraq war, writes, “relegated George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Stephen Hadley and the other Christians who actually set policy to the status of puppets.”

There is an immediate problem with this assertion. Dowd doesn’t identify neoconservatives with Jews and contrast them with Christians. And saying someone is a “Christian” does not imply that he or she is not neo-conservative. There have always been prominent non-Jewish neo-conservatives, beginning with Jeane Kirkpatrick. But I think Goldberg is himself using a columnists’ license—as Dowd does in her use of metaphor—to make a different point: that Cheney, Rice et al. were responsible for the Iraq war and were not neo-conservatives. This is an arguable point, but misses the central role that neo-conservatives played.

American history does not have tightly organized parties that set policy. Policies sometimes emerge out of informal networks. And key foreign policy decisions have often come about in exactly that manner. In the 1890s, a group of intellectuals that included Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, and Brooks Adams met on Lafayette Square to discuss, among other things, the need to abandon America’s insular foreign policy and to join the global struggle for empire. They urged the McKinley administration to invade Cuba and the Philippines to replace Spanish with American rule. They had connections to the important magazines and newspapers of the day. And when Roosevelt became McKinley’s Assistant Secretary of the Navy, they had a crucial voice within the administration. McKinley, like George W. Bush, was a foreign policy neophyte who was pushed, prodded and even (in the case of Roosevelt) manipulated into becoming a champion of American imperialism.

The neo-conservatives of the mid-1990s played  a very similar role in the events leading up to the invasion of Iraq. They were different from the first generation of neocons: they were more focused on foreign than domestic policy; they embraced a quasi-Trotskyist strategy of transforming the world in America’s image through hard as well as soft power; they saw Israel and to some extent Taiwan as irreproachable outposts of American power and idealism; and they were obsessed with overthrowing Saddam Hussein.

These neo-conservatives established a network of intellectuals, publications (led by William Kristol’s Weekly Standard) and policy groups (including the Project for the New American Century, which later spawned the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq). They promoted resolutions in Congress, and when Bush was elected, got people in key second-level positions in the Pentagon and Vice President’s office.  Bush himself ran as an anti-interventionist, but taken aback after September 11, became a convert to the neo-conservative view of the world.  He made the final decisions, but he made them within a strategic framework that the neo-conservatives had developed. If you want this story in detail —along with the analogy with the 1890s—I wrote about it in The Folly of Empire.

Now to the present. What about Romney? After the disaster in Iraq, many of the key neo-conservatives, including Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, left the administration, but neo-conservatives have remained at the center of Republican foreign policy. Randy Scheunemann (the former head of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq) was John McCain’s foreign policy aide in 2008, and after McCain’s defeat, Kristol and Robert Kagan, along with Senor and Eric Edelman, a former Pentagon official and aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, founded the Foreign Policy Initiative. Like the Project for the New American Century, it publishes open letters and holds forums and is better funded and organized than its predecessor. FPI’s very first forum in September 2009 featured a conversation between Senor and an aspiring presidential candidate, Mitt Romney. Senor, of course, became one of Romney’s key people, and now travels with Ryan, and Edelman is one of his foreign policy advisors.

Romney has other notable links to the neo-conservative network. Romney cites Kagan and Senor in the acknowledgments to his 2010 campaign book, No Apology: The Case for American Greatness. The position that Romney takes in that book echo those developed by the neo-conservative network around PNAC and the Foreign Policy Initiative. Neo-conservative Eliot Cohen, an original PNAC signatory, wrote the preface to White Paper and is now a top advisor to the presidential candidate. Romney, of course, has appointed advisors of different persuasions, including foreign policy transition head Robert Zoellick, but he has relied on the neo-conservatives for his ideology.

There are, of course, thoughtful, interesting neo-conservatives just as there are similarly thoughtful liberals. I’d single out Bob Kagan. But there are also hacks who appear to have learned nothing from the last decade. Senor didn’t impress during Romney’s tour of Israel. And Kristol, evidenced in his defense of Romney’s statements about Libya—remains more propagandist than theorist. But that’s not the point. The point is that their strategic framework has already been tried and found wanting—cataclysmically so. That’s exactly what Maureen Dowd was getting at and what her critics want us to ignore.

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61 comments

"The point is that their strategic framework has already been tried and found wanting—cataclysmically so." Yes. Except this most recent incarnation of neo-cons have learned nothing from the failures of the first set. Except perhaps to double down on the failed policies, as if they'll work THIS time. Such willful insistence on failed policies does not bode well for the future.

- AllanL5

September 17, 2012 at 8:56pm

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I don't care to take the time to re-read Dowd's column in order to confirm it, but I'm pretty sure she mentioned Dick Cheney by name as one of the "slithering" neo-cons to which she was referring.

- AaronW

September 17, 2012 at 11:05pm

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The neocons (both Jew and gentile), in their own minds, are far from done. They think they can intimidate Obama into committing to a war with Iran. That's why they've been jabbing him relentlessly on that issue. Seems to me that Bibi is their point man.

- scrubby

September 17, 2012 at 11:10pm

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Dowdy's column on neocons wasn't very interesting. Using neo con as a insult doesn't tell us anything about their mistaken policies. It just tells you that Dowdy doesn't like them. There are 99 reasons not to vote for Romney, but the fact that he is supported by neo-cons is pretty low on my list.

- arnon1

September 18, 2012 at 12:18am

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Of course, by removing Saddam they made Iran stronger, didn't they?

- stanmvp48

September 18, 2012 at 12:41am

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I think the attacks on Dowd are just part of the usual anti-Irish Catholic prejudice one finds in American journalism.

- ironyroad

September 18, 2012 at 1:27am

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LOL irony. She's not only Irish Catholic, but a WOMAN too! Doesn't this thing hang on the definition of a neo-con as "a Jew with whom one disagrees"?

- Robert Powell

September 18, 2012 at 5:06am

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Israel is openly manipulating US elections and its' prime minister is openly supporting Romney. That isn't anti-semitic, it is observable fact. So Mitt's open pandering to another country's government and Israel's return pandering, is anti-American. We do not interfere in Israel's elections and we are sick of this Israeli's government incitements in the Middle East in order to make OUR election about them, always about them. They would likely have been eliminated by one of the many enemies they make if we hadn't supported them repeatedly, and this is the thanks we get, violating our voting laws.

- smabry03

September 18, 2012 at 7:52am

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The haters are jumping all over the place. When the mendacious female spreads her hate, is followed by mendacious haters. The haters are ferocious, irrational , blind . And above all a bunch of cowards.

- JAIMECHUCH

September 18, 2012 at 9:33am

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smabry03 "Israel is openly manipulating US elections and its' prime minister is openly supporting Romney." What is wrong with Netanayhu speaking his mind about the election? This isn't the first time a foreign leader took sides in an American election. At least he is doing it openly. btw. Netanyahu isn't "Israel" he is just one Israeli. Many other Israelis support Obama as i do. "That isn't anti-semitic, it is observable fact." If you say so, but if your comment is not antisemitic why even mention it?

- arnon1

September 18, 2012 at 10:20am

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Is Dowdy Irish, Irony? She must be part of that huge Irish lobby which manipulate elections like the Jews.

- arnon1

September 18, 2012 at 10:23am

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"We do not interfere in Israel's elections " Really? "After 1992 Carville ... worked on a number of foreign campaigns, including those of Tony Blair - then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom - during the 2001 general election; Ehud Barak of Israel's Labor Party (at the suggestion of Clinton, who had grown frustrated with Benjamin Netanyahu's intransigence in the peace process) in the 1999 Knesset election; ..." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Carville UnAmerican of Clinton to interfere with Israeli election. Anyway, it is a false statement to say that "rime minister is openly supporting Romney." http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Israeli+leader+pressures+Obama+Iran+implicit+backing+Romney+foreign/7251495/story.html "Netanyahu said little, if anything, new on the Iranian nuclear program in two interviews aired on NBC and CNN Sunday morning television news programs in the United States. More of note was the timing of the Netanyahu remarks to an American audience in the final weeks of the U.S. presidential campaign. The message implicitly fit in with Romney's harsh rhetoric on Iran."

- noga1

September 18, 2012 at 11:00am

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UnAmerican of Obama: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/03/28/fall-of-obamas-favorite-israeli-livni/ "For the past three years, figures in America’s foreign policy establishment as well as media kibbitzers who knew little about Israel had a constant refrain: Tzipi Livni, the glamorous head of the Kadmia Party, should replace Benjamin Netanyahu as Israel’s prime minister. In the aftermath of Netanyahu’s election in February 2009, the Obama administration openly plotted to topple the new leader and replace him with Livni, whom they viewed as more pliable on the Palestinian issue. Once that ploy failed as President Obama’s attacks on Netanyahu only strengthened him at home,"

- noga1

September 18, 2012 at 11:04am

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How can anyone with a straight face claim that Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Stephen Hadley are not and were not neo-cons? Does the collective amnesia of the media really forget the "letter of intent" cosigned by several of these PNAC affiliated neo-cons arguing for a robust invasion of Iraq prior to Bush even getting the nomination? _______ The fact that Romney seems even more acquiescent to the winds of politics blowing him to and fro like golden flax in a field of wheat is cause for concern when the only unchanged 'value' Romney possesses is his perfectly coifed hair. The man would be a foreign policy disaster as he blunders through a world far more complex than he is capable of understanding and the fact that the ME landscape has drastically changed in the last 4 years from the former world of semi-stable strong-man fiefdoms that the neo-cons so desperately yearned to strong-arm.

- singlspeed

September 18, 2012 at 11:13am

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"The man would be a foreign policy disaster as he blunders through a world far more complex than he is capable" Obama is pretty a foreign policy disaster but none in the media except maybe Fox dare suggest it. Obama is untouchable. I have yet to read any journalist express genuine puzzlement over his strange habit of bowing deeply to kings and emperors. Is that "American"?

- noga1

September 18, 2012 at 11:32am

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Most foreign policy people I read think that Obama did do very well, they also don't think that Romney would be that much better and he could be worse. (There is still a strong belief in isolationism in the Republican party.) Of the two I'll sick with Obama since he is both a known quantity and because his domestic policies are more friendly to lower and middle class people. Romney has been on every side of every issue. Would he be tougher than Obama on Iran? I doubt it.

- arnon1

September 18, 2012 at 12:03pm

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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444450004578002010241044712.html?mod=rss_Global_View "President Obama came to office promising that he would start a new conversation with the Muslim world, one that lectured less and listened more. After nearly four years of listening, we can now hear more clearly where the U.S. stands in the estimation of that world: equally despised but considerably less feared. Just imagine what four more years of instinctive deference will do." God help us...

- noga1

September 18, 2012 at 12:16pm

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@arnon: Why do you call her "Dowdy"? Are you an Adonis? I doubt it. Sexist asshole.

- heppner52

September 18, 2012 at 12:41pm

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arnon: "Is Dowdy Irish, Irony? She must be part of that huge Irish lobby which manipulate elections like the Jews." We do it a lot better -- more practice! :)

- ironyroad

September 18, 2012 at 12:54pm

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Actually Maureen Dowd is a very good looking woman not only for her age but in more absolute terms. http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2009/5/19/1242757175780/Maureen-Dowd-001.jpg But I've noticed a tendency among commenters here to make disparaging remarks about other people's looks, people they don't like. I recall roi describing me as an ugly hideous hag of seventy (why? What's wrong with being seventy years old?) just because he really can't stand my opinions. His often schmoozers followed suit not long after. I don't suppose that would sit ill with heppner, though:)

- noga1

September 18, 2012 at 1:00pm

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Down manages to carry off being somewhat breathlessly girlish without looking as if she's in denial about her age. It's very attractive. I think that the general tendency in US foreign policy to both nurture authoritarian leaders who supported us and at the same time support groups and individuals working against those leaders for civil rights and freedoms can be found across a number of administrations. As Jon Stewart showed amusingly last night, the things that the right is relentlessly attacking Obama for now are exactly what they were praising Bush to the skies for in 2004-7. Taking a risk on democracy in the Arab world, in other words (except Obama hasn't invaded anyone yet). Egypt was a circle impossible to square for any administration, but supporting the war against Ghaddafi was the right thing to do. But outcomes are not subject to guarantee. One important fact that people really need to understand is that the US doesn't have a magic wand to wave, and American presidents can't invade countries every day -- honestly, people would talk! The Arab/Muslim world will have to work its way through its own history and no outsider can do it for them. Tough, but there it is.

- ironyroad

September 18, 2012 at 1:13pm

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Dowd, I mean.

- ironyroad

September 18, 2012 at 1:13pm

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heppner52 "@arnon: Why do you call her "Dowdy"? Are you an Adonis? I doubt it. Sexist asshole." Thanks, I am a non practicing Adonis. btw: All of us have assholes and sex members, except I suppose Heppner.

- arnon1

September 18, 2012 at 1:25pm

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"We do it a lot better -- more practice! :)" Hey from whom do you think we learned our trade.? I wish we were half as good at it, especially at not apologizing for being alive and practicing politics.

- arnon1

September 18, 2012 at 1:28pm

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"... supporting the war against Ghaddafi was the right thing to do." I was sceptical about it then, without advancing to endorsing that war, and I remain sceptical now. A colleague of mine who is an Ethiopian who as a young man went to work in Libya and found himself a tethered slave told me the story and explained he wouldn't have been able to become free if it weren't for Ghaddafi's reforms being enforced aggressively. So he had a completely different perception of the ancien regime that we, in the West, have. It made me realize again how easy it is to manipulate public opinion. Perhaps the intervention in Libya was the right thing to do. But then, why not in Syria? Why not in Iran? Does Obama offer a plausible explanation as to why? Seems to me that everything that Obama does automatically gets the seal of approval, never mind the facts and records. If Obama does it, it must be good, thoughtful, ethical, the only solution, blah blah blah. Whatever happened to the critical muscle in people's minds? Somehow it only works vigorously when it is Romney who is being scrutinized. Obama - angel. Romney - the anti Christ. That's exactly how I see it from my perch up north.

- noga1

September 18, 2012 at 2:54pm

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"Seems to me that everything that Obama does automatically gets the seal of approval, never mind the facts and records. If Obama does it, it must be good, thoughtful, ethical, the only solution, blah blah blah." That is not true, and that could have been observed by anyone who has even read the TNR discussions, let alone across a wider spectrum. There was for example a very passionate controversy on these thread around three years ago over whether Obama responded to the sudden appearance of the Green Movement in Iran appropriately or not, with several regular participants disliking/rejecting his response. In the case of Libya, I resisted this for some time and rather grudgingly came around to supporting a short and well-tailored intervention after the AU started acting less like a dictators' country club and more like a serious organization. Was toppling Ghaddafi the right thing to do? Yes, but I agree that had it not been for the direct threat to the Benghazi population many people might have continued to argue against, and some did. In terms of R2P it seemed a textbook case. In any case I think the structure of the mission was well done and a tribute to Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice, and Samantha Power more than the president -- but he had to green-light it, or not, and the US/NATO chain of command had to get it right. Syria is a much more difficult issue, as any honest observer will recognize.

- ironyroad

September 18, 2012 at 5:41pm

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Depends what your definition of "honest observer" is. Syria is as complex as Libya is. The rebels are a mish mash of all kinds of interests. So I have to wonder how it was possible to intervene so fast there and not here. I am not sure the Libya is a success story given the recent events and there is hardly any call for passing around accolades. There must be some reason why Obama went in there but not in Syria. Or why he contributed so vociferously to the fall of Mubarak but was so cautious around the Iranian regime. Your reaching back three years for an example to show that sometimes people do criticize Obama rather emphasizes my point, and does not contradict it. This kind of follow the leader is pretty scary. It seems to be deeply instinctual and stubborn. I would have imagined someone other than me or K2K might begin to feel uneasy about it, given the levels of education of the people who participate in this blog.

- noga1

September 18, 2012 at 6:40pm

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Noga, I'd agree that there's more disagreement over domestic policy in these parts than over foreign policy, but maybe that's not unlikely given that most people on and around TNR generally wanted Obama to win and broadly like what he's done in that area, and perhaps that is in its turn not unrelated to the fact that all polling suggests that Obama has the edge on national security, at least for the moment (something no Democrat has enjoyed for a generation). Even the geographical location of Syria (Middle East, borders with several countries including Iraq and Israel) as opposed to Libya (North Africa, long coastline and much empty space) would suggest the immense difficulty of repeating anything like the Libya operation, before one even considers political contexts and constraints. I simply do not believe a President McCain would be doing anything different now. I could accept more of your "herd thinking" criticism if it were obvious what alternatives exist or existed that in your opinion Obama should have embraced but didn't (military support for Mubarak? Letting Ghaddafi murder his way back to power? Immediate attack on Syria w/o UNSC mandate? Seriously?) If I say that, all in all and thinking carefully about the various options, I think this administration has responded as effectively as it could (more imaginatively in some cases, less in others, and there's a lot we don't see) in respect of the clearly major transformations that the Arab world is going through, why is that grounds for an accusation of mindless yes-we-are-all-individuals chorusing? Why can't you just disagree and lay out why rather than implying that you're the only thinking person around here?

- ironyroad

September 18, 2012 at 8:26pm

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To put it another way, I don't quite see how politics can work at all if one can't agree with an elected political leadership for carrying out the policies one approves of, and conversely argue against a competing alternative leadership that may act in a way that one wouldn't approve of.

- ironyroad

September 18, 2012 at 8:54pm

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" Why can't you just disagree and lay out why rather than implying that you're the only thinking person around here?" I think I do that. It's your problem if you can't read my comments criticizing Obama with even a semblance of equanimity. AS for herd thinking: I came to a thread a week ago that was already long. All commenters were like-minded and the atmosphere was that of boundless jeering and sarcasm. 40 or 50 comments and not one of them posing any dissent, any self-examination, any restraint. A mob, no less. I think I made a comment to that effect. In that respect yes, I am one of the few truly thinking people here. I can recognize a mob when I see it, which is more than can be said about you. It pains me to say that but there it is.

- noga1

September 18, 2012 at 9:17pm

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The idea of politics, ironyroad, is to hold your leader's feet to the fire all the time. This is how it is done in Israel, and this is why people in Israel (unlike roi's distorted perception) are the least deluded and probably the most critical and savvy populace on the face of this planet. Canada comes in a distant second. There is no such thing as celebrating or adulating an elected leader, like it is done here with regards to Obama. There is no such thing as making excuses or mitigating for them. This is the principle of democracy.

- noga1

September 18, 2012 at 9:24pm

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Noga, could it also be the idea of politics to get things done on a collective basis in society that can't be done individually? You yourself said yesterday that the vast majority of Israelis support Netanyahu on foreign policy -- are they just the herd too? Your distinctions between the superior quality of what you think and that of others' thinking appear to be entirely subjective. I offer a set of concrete reasons why I support Obama in the FP area: Positives -- successful/on-time withdrawal of forces from Iraq -- successful START Treaty with Russia -- successful drone campaign against Al-Qaeda -- sucessful introduction of harder sanctions against Iran -- successful Libya intervention -- regenerating Asian alliances to balance out growing Chinese power ambitions Negatives there are -- confused 2009 decision on Afghanistan/Pakistan and mission unwinding -- failure to get EU to stimulate European economy but imo outweighted by the positives. No adulation there, but credit where it's due. I completely accept challenges on these issues and how I evaluate them, but I don't accept challenges that open with a casual dismissal of my intellectual capabilities.

- ironyroad

September 18, 2012 at 10:01pm

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Especially as said capabilities are quite superior in their own quiet way.

- ironyroad

September 18, 2012 at 10:04pm

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"You yourself said yesterday that the vast majority of Israelis support Netanyahu on foreign policy -- are they just the herd too?" Funny that this is what you took away from my comment. It proves my point. You only read what feeds your bias (and of course you are biased). I said, and expected you to internalize, this: that most Israelis do not like Netanyahu because of his economic policies, his pandering to the ultra religious and the behavior of his wife. But they do have respect and support his foreign policies. Does that sound like herd-mentality? Or rather a far more nuanced and critical relationship to an elected leader?

- noga1

September 18, 2012 at 10:15pm

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"Your distinctions between the superior quality of what you think and that of others' thinking appear to be entirely subjective. " As is your list of positives and negatives. Entirely subjective.

- noga1

September 18, 2012 at 10:22pm

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And of course, there has been no criticism of Obama on the left. Nothing but adulation from this herd. No. Israelis are not deluded. They believe that, in the latter quarter of the 20th century into the 21st, they are going to be able to colonize another people, get away with it, and make peace on that basis too without ever suffering any repercussions. Very realistic. Very hard-headed. And all this comes from the manner in which the hold their leaders feet to the fire. None-the-less, having so held Netanyahu's feet to the fire, they respect his foreign policy which has succeeded at . . . what exactly? Making Israel safer? Decreasing its growing diplomatic isolation? Cementing its relationship with the United States? Relations with Turkey? Somehow, I just cannot think of what, even in the minds of Israelis, Netanyahu is to be admired for. Oh, I know. He has managed to dig the strategic hole that the settlements are even deeper. Admirable.

- roidubouloi

September 18, 2012 at 10:51pm

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noga says of herself: "I am one of the few truly thinking people here." This cannot be repeated often enough. Delicious, delightful, and delovelyl!

- roidubouloi

September 18, 2012 at 10:53pm

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I NEVER said you were 70, noga. I might possibly have mistaken you for 10 or 11, but never for 70. LOL.

- roidubouloi

September 18, 2012 at 10:57pm

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I've come to like Maureen over the years. I am usually repelled by snark and the tendency to analyze policy on the basis of the personal, but she manages to pull it off. Her take on GWB's frat boy Daddy envy was funny and accurate. I also like her pretentious literary allusions, just because I like literary allusions--pretentious or not. I also think it hilarious that anyone would think that GWB, Cheney and Rummy were used by neocons; rather they used the neocons. Condi and Colin were just powerful courtiers, that is, followers. Finally I thought neo cons were once something else, namely, liberal. Thus they were once enlightened and subsequently fell from grace--thus the neo, not con all along. The risk here is as Maureen points out, Mitt is a rube and very well could be manipulated. He's too vacuous on foreign policy to have bad ideas on his own, like Cheney. I'm not sure which is more dangerous.

- Vogelfam

September 18, 2012 at 11:39pm

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". . . that most Israelis do not like Netanyahu because of his economic policies, his pandering to the ultra religious and the behavior of his wife. But they do have respect and support his foreign policies. Does that sound like herd-mentality?" Of course not. That's what I meant. And likewise many Americans feel very uncertain about Obama's ability to see and certainly to enact a constructive way forward out of the economic doldrums, and many others clearly dislike some aspects of the health care law, but a majority trusts him on foreign affairs and national security (mostly for the reasons I listed above).

- ironyroad

September 19, 2012 at 12:38am

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And an open call to anyone out there, including anyone who agrees with Noga more than disagrees: Is the list of Obama foreign policy acts (including ones designated as negative) in my post of 10:01 EDT justifiably described as "entirely subjective"? For my part, I feel that if a list of actual enacted policies that took place or are taking place in the real world (some with results already, some pending) are legitimately described as "entirely subjective," then we have e.g. no arguments any more against the historical fudging of Stalinist terror, the Chomsky acolytes who claim that Srebrenica never happened, or the Holocaust denial industry.

- ironyroad

September 19, 2012 at 12:52am

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"I am one of the few truly thinking people here." Well, yeah, noga. But you are not devoid of bias as you seem to imply. When was the last time you found anything positive about Obama on any issue? Have you ever commented on any topic involving the president where you don't fault him for something? With you, he's always wrong, and always punishing Israel. Heck, you even believe that, on the Middle East, his mind is nothing but a copy and paste straight from Khalidi's mind. But, of course, Bibi's intellect is underestimated here in your view. So much for your fair mindedness. Maybe I missed your non-negative posts about the president. If so, excuse me.

- scrubby

September 19, 2012 at 1:05am

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"Well, yeah, noga. But you are not devoid of bias as you seem to imply." Of course not. This is one sign that I'm a better thinker than most here. I am fully aware. I know and have stated openly from what angle I look at things. I did say many times that I appreciate Obama as a father and husband, that I think the first family are a lovely family. Other than that there is not much I can admire about him. I did try to, at first. And I found some of his speeches during the first campaign quite stirring and full of substance. But his reckless actions and gaffs vis a vis Israel made me realize how incompetent he is to lead the free world. Scary, even, that thoughtful people give him so much credit after four years of these. No, I don't think Netanyahu's intellect is underestimated, not genuinely so. Roi's repeated insults to him as a clod to me sounds like too much insistence, as if he HAS to say it to convince himself and others that this is so. Anyway, I'm not in the habit of comparing the two leaders as it is done in American media. They are not equivalent, power-wise. Obama can openly insult N. openly, less openly, and behind doors (carefully making sure that those discreet insults would be leaked to the media). N. cannot reciprocate in kind. Obama leads the most powerful country in the world, a huge country that is perfectly safe between two oceans and two friendly neighbours. N -- well, you know what country HE leads. So Obama can afford to be boorish, and play mind games, N cannot. He has to be direct and explicit about the gravity of the stakes involved. The future of the Jewish people is on the balance, no less. With all due respect to American Jews, THEY are not going to going to trail the way of the Jewish people. Some people get it. Some people, like you or or your friends around here, simply do not.

- noga1

September 19, 2012 at 6:59am

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Roi: You disappoint me. I thought you would be pleased that I remember your insults, all of them.

- noga1

September 19, 2012 at 7:02am

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BTW, scrubby, I stand by my assessment of the origin of Obama's hostility towards Israel. And I mean "Israel" not just Netanyahu.

- noga1

September 19, 2012 at 7:39am

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Of course I am pleased, noga. But as ever, you have a habit of editing other people's words to alter their meaning -- even in the trivial cases. I understand that you cannot help yourself. N cannot afford to be boorish? Why, he manages it very nicely. Rest assured, I genuinely, absolutely think that Benjamin Netanyahu is both a clod and an embarrassment to the State of Israel. Keep up all the "truly thinking," noga. You are doing great! Is is fabulous to have a ringside side.

- roidubouloi

September 19, 2012 at 8:15am

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Ah roi, you never ever step outside your box. You are like the tide, without the moon.

- noga1

September 19, 2012 at 8:36am

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All the more reason to be thankful we have you, noga, "one of the few truly thinking people here," as you tell us. And what thoughts, what dazzling originality!

- roidubouloi

September 19, 2012 at 9:34am

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I'm still wondering whether, if a list of well-documented Obama foreign policy actions can be called "entirely subjective," there is any argument any more to use against the Chomsky followers who deny there was a massacre at Srebrenica and deny the validity of various pieces of factual evidence.

- ironyroad

September 19, 2012 at 1:42pm

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You take noga much too seriously. What political opinion is not subjective, hers? In context, her complaint is devoid of meaning. However, having calibrated with precision, I can state that Netanyahu is objectively a clod.

- roidubouloi

September 19, 2012 at 2:03pm

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" if a list of well-documented Obama foreign policy actions": My calling it "entirely subjective" referred to your listing all these actions as if they were indisputable achievements. I am not at all sure. However, a massacre in Srebrenica is a finite event with very little latitude for arguing whether it was positive or not, if at all. Did you mean to list these actions as things that happened? If you did, then of course I cannot deny that they did happen. But any item on that list has yet to yield positive results, such as more peace, more democracy, less war, less terror, more Russian equanimity and cooperation, etc etc. So, action? Yes. Achievement? That's an entirely subjective assessment on your part. BTW, in light of my earlier complaint about the mob mentality one encounters on these pages, wouldn't you say that calling on all your like-minded co-posters to support your list of Obama's 'achievements" is rather a case in point?

- noga1

September 19, 2012 at 2:12pm

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I agree that some of them are very much open to discussion (I also listed a couple that can definitely not be considered successes), but I'm glad to hear that you at least accept that they exist in some form in the real world. My only point thereby was that I wasn't engaging in some kind of star-crossed fantasy in my support for Obama's foreign policy but rather basing it on actions, some of which imo are achievements but like foreign policy in general they may take many years to work themselves out (hence there is much continuity in FP across administrations, despite pretenses to the contrary). Of course one can dispute the importance of such actions and/or their results -- but that's a ways away from denying the rational capability of your interlocutor. No, I wouldn't call it a mobbing case in point, because I specifically asked people e.g. like malahat who are close to your position on some issues to also take a look at our exchange to make sure I wasn't just blinded by predetermined assumptions. If anything, it was asking for critical mediation -- I started doing it a couple of years ago because sometimes I found your interpretations of my words to be so extreme and so skewed that I wondered if the real problem was my ability to express myself. That's a skill I'm normally proud of. So I wanted a third party perspective, even if it was going to fault me.

- ironyroad

September 19, 2012 at 2:48pm

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For example, I specifically asked for people closer to your side of the discussion to comment too, yet you ignore that and describe me as "calling on all [my] like-minded posters." That's the kind of thing that annoys me.

- ironyroad

September 19, 2012 at 2:52pm

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I apologize for annoying you. ironyroad is not to be annoyed, obviously. I must remember that. I don't know who you thought you were calling for, but I don't see here anybody at all (with the possible exception of K2K, who doesn't seem to need any assurances from anyone, being a truly independent thinker) who wouldn't agree with you against me. malahat's relative positions or opinion, (whatever they are), in this matter are just irrelevant, for me. "I started doing it a couple of years ago because sometimes I found your interpretations of my words to be so extreme and so skewed " I'm wondering too if there is a real disconnect between what you say you say and what you are actually saying. I notice, btw, not only what you choose to respond to, but also what you keep silent about. Sometimes that is even more revealing that the uttered words. Another thing, sometimes you seem to assume certain apriori positions which are not really put forth by me, and continue to discuss on that baseless basis. It's tiresome and I find it annoying to have to utter cliches in order to level the ground. I think you are very suspicious of me and it shows. If I reciprocate, well, there is human nature for you. Of course we can always just ignore one another if the exchange is so painful. Frankly I often wonder why you even bother. Isn't it so much more delightful and rewarding to be pandered to by your friends here? To talk to people who agree with you on each and every point?

- noga1

September 19, 2012 at 3:26pm

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Again, why the groundless and hostile jibes? I don't get pandered to, and I don't pander to others.

- ironyroad

September 19, 2012 at 5:08pm

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Not groundless, ironyroad, and I could say the same about your much more hostile name for me. But never mind. I'm fed up with this futile conversation. I promised myself never to have any conversation with you where Obama is featured but I somehow get sucked in.

- noga1

September 19, 2012 at 5:14pm

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I can be accused of a number of things, Noga, but pandering isn't one of them, in any shape or form. Incidentally, I regard myself as an independent thinker too, but I like to keep retail politics separate from broader and more complex issues -- so just because I think it's important to re-elect the president doesn't mean that I entertain no other ideas or considerations that are at least at an oblique angle to that aim.

- ironyroad

September 19, 2012 at 5:55pm

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I didn't say you pandered. Here is exactly what I wrote: "Isn't it so much more delightful and rewarding to be pandered to by your friends here? To talk to people who agree with you on each and every point?"

- noga1

September 19, 2012 at 6:05pm

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Well, whatever. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLjS3gzHetA Couldn't we talk about the symphony?

- ironyroad

September 19, 2012 at 6:42pm

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If you wish.

- noga1

September 19, 2012 at 10:20pm

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All started with dowdy big mouth, part of the NYT all the biased news and biased opinions fit to print. And followed by psycho-king-baloney admiration of the successful liberated territories. The psycho-king-baloney is a psychotic-king-baloney. Where is the 4th Geneva convention of legal liberated territories.

- JAIMECHUCH

September 20, 2012 at 7:12pm

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