Saturday, June 19, 2004
I love it that the neo-cons and their MWs are trying to make "realism" a bad word
After all, we all could all use a little more fantasy in our lives, right? And Dave "I'm Writing as Bad As I Can" Brooks must certainly lead a dull, drab existence. Get a load of this:
Nice work, simultaneously seeming to report on what Kerry said and shrouding it in shudder quotes.
Nice work here, too: A little work with the shiv—we all know Inerrant Boy isn't "clever," but then "moral clarity," which Kerry so clearly lacks, doesn't require cleverness. OK, now that we've got that...
Welcome to Tomorrowland!
Which the wingers and Brooks were all vehemently opposed to when Clinton intervened to stop ethnic cleansing in Kosovo (incidentally protecting Muslims, a fact which, for some reason, the Bush administration has never made use of in its wartime propaganda, I suppose because they'd have to mention The Big Dog if they did).
With a winger, "Let's be clear" == "Bend over, this won't hurt a bit."
Uh, like Clinton's intervention in Kosovo?
(Payá, yawn, is the surrogate for winger Cuban votes in Florida 2004, which is the script Brooks is reading for his handlers today.)
No. That's not what realism means. As many children of six know, there's a difference between what we want to do, and what we can do[1]. Say that we want to bring democracy to Iraq. Can we? What would it take to do so? A realist would have insisted on real, not faith-based evidence, when making the case for war. A realist would have made sure that we had enough troops to hold Iraq, once having taken it, and would have made serious plans for the occupation. A realist would have seen that even an international figleaf is better than going naked. Above all, a realist would have seen that the Iraq adventure was a diversion from the campaign against fundamentalism that is truly in the national interest.
If this be realism, let us make the most of it!
Bush, unlike our child of six, only considered what he wanted to do. He didn't ask himself what we could do. Neither did Brooks, the other service providers in his brothel, the Republican party, and most of the media outside the liberal blogosphere. We not only took the realist perspective immediately, but were proved right to do so by events.
But let's go back to "Burbling" Brooks:
Oh my Golly. What a farrago. Carter: The Shah of Iran. Reagan: Pinochet. President Bush: Saddam himself. Inerrant Boy: Whichever dictator du jour in the pipeline rich 'stans. They all did it, and they're all going to do it.
Why? Alas, great powers sometimes do what they must—and that sometimes includes supporting dictators, as Reagan's good old Jean Kirkpatrick said. Should we minimize this? Sure. Especially if we want to keep our own democratic institutions strong.
What Bush needs to do, and doesn't, is walk the walk, not just talk the talk. He could start at home, if he wants to walk the walk and support democracy, and put a hold on electronic voting machines until they're auditable. He could walk the walk, and stop his brother from purging Democrats from voter rolls in Florida. But walking the walk is realistic.
And Bush could have walked the walk in Iraq. Besides planning the war and the postwar realistically, He could have held early local elections in Iraq. His failure to do so, since elections might not have created a compliant Iraqi government, may yet result in an Iraq run by theocrats. (See the essential Juan Cole here and in the linked original article). Of course, it's hard to claim that any genuine transfer of sovreignty has taken place, which is a prerequisite for democracy, if we won't even hand over Saddam for trial to the supposedly sovreign Iraqis.
A little more posturing from Brooks:
After Abu Ghraib, I can't see how Brooks can bring himself to write that sentence. Perhaps he has numbed himself to what he must do for his clients even more than I thought. Too bad. And to think I once thought he was a sane Republican columnist...
Whoever Dave's handler is over at the RNC should get him a new script. He needs one badly.
Notes
[1]. If Bush had gone to AA or AlAnon, he would have learned the Serenity Prayer: "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference." From this spritual perspective, Inerrant Boy's Iraqi adventure can be viewed as a massive failure of "wisdom to know the difference." A realist would take into account what can, and what cannot, be changed.
Over the past several months, Kerry and his advisers have signaled that they would like to take American foreign policy in a more "realist [Boo!]" direction.
(via the Pulitzer-light, heavy-moving, flaccidly reported, and sadly declining New York Times)
Nice work, simultaneously seeming to report on what Kerry said and shrouding it in shudder quotes.
You can see why Kerry thinks that's a clever shift...
Nice work here, too: A little work with the shiv—we all know Inerrant Boy isn't "clever," but then "moral clarity," which Kerry so clearly lacks, doesn't require cleverness. OK, now that we've got that...
after the arduous efforts to promote democracy in Iraq.
Welcome to Tomorrowland!
With realism, you avoid humanitarian interventions.
Which the wingers and Brooks were all vehemently opposed to when Clinton intervened to stop ethnic cleansing in Kosovo (incidentally protecting Muslims, a fact which, for some reason, the Bush administration has never made use of in its wartime propaganda, I suppose because they'd have to mention The Big Dog if they did).
But if we are going to turn realist, let's be clear ...
With a winger, "Let's be clear" == "Bend over, this won't hurt a bit."
...about what that means in practice. It means worrying less about the nature of regimes and dealing with whoever happens to be in power. It means alienating people who dream of living in freedom while we luxuriate in ours. It means doing little to confront crimes against humanity;
Uh, like Clinton's intervention in Kosovo?
realism gives a president a thousand excuses for inaction. It means betraying people like Oswaldo Payá — again and again and again.
(Payá, yawn, is the surrogate for winger Cuban votes in Florida 2004, which is the script Brooks is reading for his handlers today.)
No. That's not what realism means. As many children of six know, there's a difference between what we want to do, and what we can do[1]. Say that we want to bring democracy to Iraq. Can we? What would it take to do so? A realist would have insisted on real, not faith-based evidence, when making the case for war. A realist would have made sure that we had enough troops to hold Iraq, once having taken it, and would have made serious plans for the occupation. A realist would have seen that even an international figleaf is better than going naked. Above all, a realist would have seen that the Iraq adventure was a diversion from the campaign against fundamentalism that is truly in the national interest.
If this be realism, let us make the most of it!
Bush, unlike our child of six, only considered what he wanted to do. He didn't ask himself what we could do. Neither did Brooks, the other service providers in his brothel, the Republican party, and most of the media outside the liberal blogosphere. We not only took the realist perspective immediately, but were proved right to do so by events.
But let's go back to "Burbling" Brooks:
There's a reason Carter, Reagan and George W. Bush all turned, in different ways, against this approach. They understood that democracy advances security, kowtowing to dictators does not.
Oh my Golly. What a farrago. Carter: The Shah of Iran. Reagan: Pinochet. President Bush: Saddam himself. Inerrant Boy: Whichever dictator du jour in the pipeline rich 'stans. They all did it, and they're all going to do it.
Why? Alas, great powers sometimes do what they must—and that sometimes includes supporting dictators, as Reagan's good old Jean Kirkpatrick said. Should we minimize this? Sure. Especially if we want to keep our own democratic institutions strong.
What Bush needs to do, and doesn't, is walk the walk, not just talk the talk. He could start at home, if he wants to walk the walk and support democracy, and put a hold on electronic voting machines until they're auditable. He could walk the walk, and stop his brother from purging Democrats from voter rolls in Florida. But walking the walk is realistic.
And Bush could have walked the walk in Iraq. Besides planning the war and the postwar realistically, He could have held early local elections in Iraq. His failure to do so, since elections might not have created a compliant Iraqi government, may yet result in an Iraq run by theocrats. (See the essential Juan Cole here and in the linked original article). Of course, it's hard to claim that any genuine transfer of sovreignty has taken place, which is a prerequisite for democracy, if we won't even hand over Saddam for trial to the supposedly sovreign Iraqis.
A little more posturing from Brooks:
Most of all, they didn't want to conduct a foreign policy that would make them feel ashamed.
After Abu Ghraib, I can't see how Brooks can bring himself to write that sentence. Perhaps he has numbed himself to what he must do for his clients even more than I thought. Too bad. And to think I once thought he was a sane Republican columnist...
Whoever Dave's handler is over at the RNC should get him a new script. He needs one badly.
Notes
[1]. If Bush had gone to AA or AlAnon, he would have learned the Serenity Prayer: "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference." From this spritual perspective, Inerrant Boy's Iraqi adventure can be viewed as a massive failure of "wisdom to know the difference." A realist would take into account what can, and what cannot, be changed.
