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Go Home Stop Lying About My Record!

THE PLANK JANUARY 6, 2009

Stop Lying About My Record!

BY JONATHAN CHAIT

I think I need to work on my writing skills. Last week I wrote a blog post expressing some skepticism about Israel's incursion into Gaza. Matthew Yglesias then wrote a post painting me as a bloodthirsty warmonger ("Jon Chait had a post the other day explaining that the kind of bloodshed and suffering the Israelis are afflicting is okay") -- a characterization I disputed. Then yesterday I wrote another post expressing skepticism about sending ground forces into Gaza. ("Bottom line: A ground assault looks like it will bring marginally greater benefits but massively higher costs.") Now Yglesias follows up with a post again describing me as a supporter of the operation (I'm described as one of three "fans of this attack.")

I guess, despite my stated objections, I've been forcibly conscripted into support for the Gaza incursion. Maybe I should stop trying to fight this and just roll with the flow. But if I'm going to be attacked by liberals as an advocate of a military invasion that I think will probably backfire, I should at least be getting some countervailing benefits. Where's that all-powerful Israel lobby that has Washington trembling at its feet? My mortgage isn't going to pay itself, you know.

To be serious for a moment, it's true that I've devoted some space to arguing with Yglesias on the topic of whether Israel is the moral equivalent of Hamas. But there's an enormous gap between these two different arguments. You can question the wisdom of Israel's response to Hamas without going so far as to morally equate it with a terrorist organization.

--Jonathan Chait

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5 comments

Why don't you try being serious for more than a moment Jonathan. The scenes out of Gaza get uglier by the day with kids in schools now taking fire. Your attempt at humour is misplaced and makes you look like Jamie on Prozac.  

- The Ignorant Populist

January 6, 2009 at 2:32pm

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Jonathan, I think you misread Yglesias's post (or maybe I did?).  He identifies you, along with Peretz and Goldfarb, as people who he has been arguing with that he "believe[s], think even in retrospect that support for the invasion of Iraq is nothing worth regretting."  He later says "[r]elatedly, something I’ve heard from fans of this attack is...."  My reading is that the two groups, those he's been arguing with that don't think the invasion of Iraq is worth regretting and the "fans of this attack" are not the same groups.  

- Girlwonder

January 6, 2009 at 2:55pm

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Iggy!!

I can't believe it.

Any decent Irishman worth his salt can find something funny in tragic situations which have everyone else moaning in horror.

I mean, look at it this way:

-- Palestinians in Gaza elect Hamas because they want a new start and are fed up of Fatah's corruption

-- Hamas proves itself unable and unwilling to govern, and turns a potential Singapore into an expanded, missile-equipped version of one of those housing projects in Chicago that were pulled down years ago because they were too ugly, bleak, and corroded by human misery to keep up

-- Hamas issues a nuanced policy, "We'll give yez a 'new start' me buckos!  Begob we will!  A quassam up the arse, that'll cure these Israelites or whatever they call themselves"

-- Hamas is pemanently holding their right hand out for European largesse while giving the permanent finger to Europe with the left hand (Ye fuckin' European gobshites! Oh thanks and god bless!  Ye fuckin' European gobshites!  Oh thanks and god bless! and so on and so forth)

--  Israel decides to go in like a 250 pound gorilla with a baseball bat trying to hit a gopher in a crowded supermarket (Whack!  O sorry missis!  Whack! O sorry kids  Whack!  Jaysus wouldja ever stay still a fuckin' minute etc)

I mean, there's time for po-faced solemnity, and I hope it isn't now.

- ironyroad

January 6, 2009 at 5:23pm

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Well, you certainly have the venacular down Irony. You could be my next door neighbour for all I know.

- The Ignorant Populist

January 7, 2009 at 11:33am

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Who the hell cares what you and Yglesias argue about?

- CAMtwo

January 7, 2009 at 10:21pm

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