The Imperial City And The World
Our old friend at Global Paradigms neatly lays out the trap Democrats set for themselves shifting war from Iraq to Afghanistan. One need only toss a cursory glance at the fate of the Soviet 40th Army and Gromov’s inglorious retreat across the Freedom Bridge (yes, yes we know, Milt, take another bow and send another memory fax to Langley).
Full circle back to Kipling.
I have now been called antisemitic and intellectually unstable and a whole bunch of other silly things by the folks over at the Commentary blog. They want Time Magazine to fire or silence me. This is happening because I said something that is palpably true, but unspoken in polite society: There is a small group of Jewish neoconservatives who unsuccessfully tried to get Benjamin Netanyahu to attack Saddam Hussein in the 1990s, and then successfully helped provide the intellectual rationale for George Bush to do it in 2003. Their motivations involve a confused conflation of what they think are Israel’s best interests with those of the United States. They are now leading the charge for war with Iran.
2008. August. “Palpably true, but unspoken in polite society?” Time Magazine’s Joe Klein, ladies and gentlemen.
Other blogs today are on the Boy King’s hubris and presumption. Old news to our merry little band here.
Klein’s item is a cut above (below?), just for the sheer lunacy and hilarity. He’s always been superficial and thin skinned, especially when the netroots exposed his vacuity. Klein’s obtuseness has those extra secret ingredients: astounding narcissism and self-absorption. To him, this secret [sic] about neocons can be revealed now because *he* is being attacked. Brilliant, absolutely brilliant.
We give Klein 4 Leos out of 5. If he had waited for Beijing, the Chinese judge might have made it an even 5.
What to say, what to say? How odd to see the NY Times write up McCain and the International Republican Institute (IRI). Not that McCain isn’t riding IRI as a presidential platform. When he arrived at IRI and began his purge many of us at the time believed that was the whole point. A signal about his ambitions.
Another strobe light flashing his leaning over car windows working the posh but more discrete street corners of Vice City. Great mental imagery. And on top Charlie Black et al.
The netroots focused a while ago on his use of IRI for ‘soft’ participation in the Imperial City money machine. A universe away from blatant influence peddling or coercive punishment ala the Hammer. But in politics, you know what they say, when you are explaining you are losing.
Still, festooning medals on the corporate dime? Informational discourse only in the most debased QVC-esque universe. Which is what D.C. is. *Our* kvetch is the NYT ignores or obscures the reality of our political economy. Lobbying and suborning virginal governance via influence are not so simple. Or always the same.
The Times’ justified reply? ‘Hey, Stiftung, it’s not our job to make every article a precis for political science 405.’ So let’s skip all that. And just drill down to the fun stuff.
“Once upon a time* . . . a frightened people created a new machine. They made this machine to feel safe. You see, just before, while they were sleeping, bad things came creeping in the night. One even bit many people and took them away.
The machine would protect the people. It would never sleep, never tire, never stop looking at the bad things. The peoples’ warriors with it on the walls and lawgivers would always keep the machine working.
So the people went back to sleep.
After a while their dreams turned scary. Some of them woke up. And they saw why. The machine had grown very big. It no longer stayed on the walls. Some trusted warriors and lawgivers in secret added many links to the machine’s leash. Some did this hoping the growing machine would not attack them. Others wanted to tame the machine for their own plans. And when the machine got hungry, they all closed their eyes. At night the machine would crawl inside. And eat some of the sleeping people.
Those people who woke up and saw all this cried out in fear. Many of their friends and neighbors still slept.
So the small group of people built and gathered around two campfires. To decide what to do. The machine frightened them. The betrayal by the warriors and lawgivers angered them. But some of them also remembered the bad things still outside.
They asked the warriors and lawgivers to sit in the lights. Why did they do this? Some told their story. Some were ashamed and lied. And some were happy with the new machine. They knew the machine got hungry. But they claimed the bad things outside were even bigger than before.
The people around the campfires saw that they were few. So many, many more of their friends still slept. And the machine still prowled around them in the darkness.
A debate lasted all night until the campfires burned out. The people still awake got strength from the new morning sun. They decided to make a new chain. This new chain would be shorter. The machine would stay. They could not unmake it now. But back on the walls. It would not eat sleeping people again. But just in case, because bad things were out there, too, the new chain could be made longer. But only if the lawgivers and warriors asked and got permission. Only then would they get the new chain’s extra links. The machine bowed its head, closed its eyes and let the people put on the new chain. It slowly returned to the wall.
Then the people went back to sleep. And soon came again the scary dreams.
Our friend Comment asks us about a recent item in Salon reporting on potential investigations of ‘abuse of executive power’ by Congress in 2009. Our reaction is threefold.
First, if once is tragedy, second is farce, the third is decadent. The fourth time is without doubt just an NBC prime time reality show.
___
* In the mythic sense
Un homme: Est-ce que nous sommes fou?
Autre homme: Oh, mais la philosophie de Condi est plus intéressante que la philosophie existentialiste Obama et les 300! Ils veulent défaite! Nous serons là pour mille ans! Maliki est comme une jeune vierge attendant d’être séduit . . . Tu es d’accord, n’est-ce pas?
Homme: Quel crétin! Retourne à tes jeux fantastique . . .
Autre Homme: Hey, you sound French !