Correction – meant to say his propanda was not aimed at Obama or the Muslim world (they would not be convinced by anything he says), but at the broad American middle.
One of things most demented about the Warlord’s reign is the huge percentage of propagnda focused on the American public, relative to the enemy abroad.
re Luttwak’s Coup – His ‘black propaganda’ is aimed at Obama, not the Muslim world. A devestating reply would grok and exploit this fact.
But Luttwak knows there is a market value for this particular hit.
His pseudo-erudition and clever use of selective Arabic and Muslim terms is an op-ed trick that Times readers, who often pose as more well read than they are using similar tricks, shoud understand.
Do you recall the sceen in Annie Hall when Woody (Alvy) was at the party at MOMA’s sculpture garden and he runs into Annie?
They were debating the Nazis marching and Alvy (Woody) talks about going with baseball bats to attack the Nazi marchers.
Then one of the group volunteers to Woody that there is a “devastating” op-ed in the NY Times against the Nazis. Someone else chimes in about satire being devestating way to reply. But Alvy insists baseball bats work better with Nazis.
Anyway – Yglesias “devestating” characterization of Hoyt’s reply to Luttwak reminded us of that – It’s a shame, because Matt Y is truly intelligent – one of the smartes liberal pundits around. But he still doesn’t know a knife fight when it stares at him from the page.
It would be fitting punishment for all these people for Jesse Ventural to be elected, again. Here Reason let’s the obvious fact be known – Ventura is disrespectable and a bit of nut. Well, ok. He’s actually probably mild mannered compared to some other former commando/pro wrestlers.
But what we find funny is Reason’s advertisers – offering degrees in “International Crisis Managemnet” (wtf is that imperial class study?)
Reason’s kind of libertarian bares little resemblence to the reality, such as it is. A Reason-respectable libertarian would be a multi-degree intellectual property lawyer or a code-writer with several screenplays under his belt – He would smoke some grass from time to time, but mostly joke about it. He would keep his antiwar views mostly quiet and theoretical cocktail party chatter – fit for Gallery parties and movie openings, but not for rants on Larry King. Ventura is the opposite. As crazy as he is – we like the idea of him ruining Franken’s dream and robbing Norm Coleman of his sense of entitlement. http://www.reason.com/news/show/126554.html
re ‘sexism’, it is a frightening prospect to have been there ‘at the creation’ of that reference. When one realizes what unpredictable directions an embryo could take, it does give one pause, especially if looking back in anger. It is a very long story that would require copious amounts of liquid refreshments to hash out in all its squalid splendor.
There are reasons for both the WaPo and NYT op-ed pages to affirmatively support the main focus of the Warlord’s regime. They are obvious to anyone. Recall Miller and the op-eds of that period.
Having said that, Luttwak is like many ancien regime ‘strategic thinkers’. They are trying to stay personally relevant. First this crowd scrambled to become ‘digital thinkers’ or China fearmongers, etc. in the 1990s. After 2001, the Warlord gave them a gift.
We’ve been in on ‘sessions’ where Islamic scholars from the region would sit for tape recorded sessions on the most basic fundamentals of Islam. The Luttwaks of the world then grab these comments like the Rosetta Stone and blurt them out, proving not that they are correct but that their personal brand has relevance. We remember one of them proclaiming as if bestowed with Divine Insight in 2002 that “it’s really a civil war within Islam !!” One really can’t make this stuff up.
As you note, Luttwak could care less what some public affairs editor says or some blogger at Atlantic.com writes. Again, as you note, if “All Things Considered” spent 4 days on this, all it would do is give him a smile. For the former ‘l’enfant terrible’ who wrote “Coup D’Etat” back in the day, all that matters is the byline.
Unfortunately, Matt Y is incorrect in that the op-ed reply from Hoyt is hardly devastating. We think it is great that some dubious assertions are qualified and/or corrected. But it’s hardly cutting. Clark Hoyt makes the mistake of thinking most readers care about the facts and they will read beyond the first paragraph. That’s a delusion save the NPR set. A devestating rebuttel would have Luttwak feeling wounded and aggrevied. We very much doubt he cares that Clark Hoyt found nuance scholars to dispute him.
Obama is helped far more by his , othewise troublesome, Trinty problems to counter the Muslim meme indirectly.
It seems The comically sinister (and bright) Edward Luttwak has a secret Muslim scholar to consult. IMO, Luttwak has every right to push any storyline he wants, but the toads at the NY times were wrong to let him contextualize his concerns as being on of concern, rather than malevolence, toward Obama. This is part of the creeping Hiatization of the Times http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/06/where_facts_are_madeup.php
re Sexism – We have not checked up on this, but we’ve been told by good analysts that the word “sexism” fails to work in the Luntzian sense. Perhaps there is some built in cognitive dissonance between the roots “sex” and “ism” being both positive in different ways and then supposedly adding up to a negative.
IMO – We have not seen the video yet – But we suspect that they are more annoyed at Tweety than Tucker, because the latter obvious uses a “sexism” as part of TV character that he is trying to establish. It’s too transparently phony to be insidious. Rather, he is a snob and bit of wus. But authentically sexist? Probably not. But Tweety can’t help himself. He too co-opts a persona not really his own, but the sexism comes naturally enough. It’s the urban grit that he fakes.
As an Obama supporter – we knew it was important that Ickies be aggrevied the day after. If he was satisfied, then something went wrong.
We have long felt that it was helpfull, not hurtful, for Obama to be seen as getting the best of the Clintons = All this pious clap trap about counting all votes, stems in part from the flaws of Dems believing all the Dem propaganda from 2000. While it was clear that Gore would have won Fl. if you counted disqualified ballots cast by ill educated voters, he would not have won if his selective re-count went forward. We are lonely in Dem circles in this belief – Also, we think the Florida Sp Ct decision was bad and that the US Sp. Ct 7-2 decision was correct. However, we do think the 5-4 ‘remedy’ decision was too partisan. But it doesn’t matter because the Fl. legislature was in its rights to ignore the vote altogether and vote for Bush even if he lost by a wide amount.
Bottom line – the rules are key and some ruthlessness in sticking to them was a good sign for team Obama. Not quite checkmate. Not yet.
At this point – it’s safe to say the demagraphic dynamic now really does work against Hillary waging a floor fight.
(Thought bubble for Obama): “Please no more meddlesom and annoying priests! Damm if Pfleger takes this away from me! Maybe we should tell people he is a Buchanan plant under deep, albeit ridiculous, cover”
Not that we are in the habit of citing the Women’s Media Center (about which, as Seinfeld would say, “there’s nothing wrong with that”) but there is this brutally true and funny montage of Tweety, Tucker et al. waxing eloquently about their fear of women.
Comment says
Correction – meant to say his propanda was not aimed at Obama or the Muslim world (they would not be convinced by anything he says), but at the broad American middle.
One of things most demented about the Warlord’s reign is the huge percentage of propagnda focused on the American public, relative to the enemy abroad.
Comment says
re Luttwak’s Coup – His ‘black propaganda’ is aimed at Obama, not the Muslim world. A devestating reply would grok and exploit this fact.
But Luttwak knows there is a market value for this particular hit.
His pseudo-erudition and clever use of selective Arabic and Muslim terms is an op-ed trick that Times readers, who often pose as more well read than they are using similar tricks, shoud understand.
But thet don’t – because they don’t want to.
Comment says
Do you recall the sceen in Annie Hall when Woody (Alvy) was at the party at MOMA’s sculpture garden and he runs into Annie?
They were debating the Nazis marching and Alvy (Woody) talks about going with baseball bats to attack the Nazi marchers.
Then one of the group volunteers to Woody that there is a “devastating” op-ed in the NY Times against the Nazis. Someone else chimes in about satire being devestating way to reply. But Alvy insists baseball bats work better with Nazis.
Anyway – Yglesias “devestating” characterization of Hoyt’s reply to Luttwak reminded us of that – It’s a shame, because Matt Y is truly intelligent – one of the smartes liberal pundits around. But he still doesn’t know a knife fight when it stares at him from the page.
Anon says
It would be fitting punishment for all these people for Jesse Ventural to be elected, again. Here Reason let’s the obvious fact be known – Ventura is disrespectable and a bit of nut. Well, ok. He’s actually probably mild mannered compared to some other former commando/pro wrestlers.
But what we find funny is Reason’s advertisers – offering degrees in “International Crisis Managemnet” (wtf is that imperial class study?)
Reason’s kind of libertarian bares little resemblence to the reality, such as it is. A Reason-respectable libertarian would be a multi-degree intellectual property lawyer or a code-writer with several screenplays under his belt – He would smoke some grass from time to time, but mostly joke about it. He would keep his antiwar views mostly quiet and theoretical cocktail party chatter – fit for Gallery parties and movie openings, but not for rants on Larry King. Ventura is the opposite. As crazy as he is – we like the idea of him ruining Franken’s dream and robbing Norm Coleman of his sense of entitlement.
http://www.reason.com/news/show/126554.html
DrLeoStrauss says
re ‘sexism’, it is a frightening prospect to have been there ‘at the creation’ of that reference. When one realizes what unpredictable directions an embryo could take, it does give one pause, especially if looking back in anger. It is a very long story that would require copious amounts of liquid refreshments to hash out in all its squalid splendor.
DrLeoStrauss says
There are reasons for both the WaPo and NYT op-ed pages to affirmatively support the main focus of the Warlord’s regime. They are obvious to anyone. Recall Miller and the op-eds of that period.
Having said that, Luttwak is like many ancien regime ‘strategic thinkers’. They are trying to stay personally relevant. First this crowd scrambled to become ‘digital thinkers’ or China fearmongers, etc. in the 1990s. After 2001, the Warlord gave them a gift.
We’ve been in on ‘sessions’ where Islamic scholars from the region would sit for tape recorded sessions on the most basic fundamentals of Islam. The Luttwaks of the world then grab these comments like the Rosetta Stone and blurt them out, proving not that they are correct but that their personal brand has relevance. We remember one of them proclaiming as if bestowed with Divine Insight in 2002 that “it’s really a civil war within Islam !!” One really can’t make this stuff up.
As you note, Luttwak could care less what some public affairs editor says or some blogger at Atlantic.com writes. Again, as you note, if “All Things Considered” spent 4 days on this, all it would do is give him a smile. For the former ‘l’enfant terrible’ who wrote “Coup D’Etat” back in the day, all that matters is the byline.
Anon says
Unfortunately, Matt Y is incorrect in that the op-ed reply from Hoyt is hardly devastating. We think it is great that some dubious assertions are qualified and/or corrected. But it’s hardly cutting. Clark Hoyt makes the mistake of thinking most readers care about the facts and they will read beyond the first paragraph. That’s a delusion save the NPR set. A devestating rebuttel would have Luttwak feeling wounded and aggrevied. We very much doubt he cares that Clark Hoyt found nuance scholars to dispute him.
Obama is helped far more by his , othewise troublesome, Trinty problems to counter the Muslim meme indirectly.
Anon says
It seems The comically sinister (and bright) Edward Luttwak has a secret Muslim scholar to consult. IMO, Luttwak has every right to push any storyline he wants, but the toads at the NY times were wrong to let him contextualize his concerns as being on of concern, rather than malevolence, toward Obama. This is part of the creeping Hiatization of the Times
http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/06/where_facts_are_madeup.php
Comment says
re Sexism – We have not checked up on this, but we’ve been told by good analysts that the word “sexism” fails to work in the Luntzian sense. Perhaps there is some built in cognitive dissonance between the roots “sex” and “ism” being both positive in different ways and then supposedly adding up to a negative.
IMO – We have not seen the video yet – But we suspect that they are more annoyed at Tweety than Tucker, because the latter obvious uses a “sexism” as part of TV character that he is trying to establish. It’s too transparently phony to be insidious. Rather, he is a snob and bit of wus. But authentically sexist? Probably not. But Tweety can’t help himself. He too co-opts a persona not really his own, but the sexism comes naturally enough. It’s the urban grit that he fakes.
Comment says
As an Obama supporter – we knew it was important that Ickies be aggrevied the day after. If he was satisfied, then something went wrong.
We have long felt that it was helpfull, not hurtful, for Obama to be seen as getting the best of the Clintons = All this pious clap trap about counting all votes, stems in part from the flaws of Dems believing all the Dem propaganda from 2000. While it was clear that Gore would have won Fl. if you counted disqualified ballots cast by ill educated voters, he would not have won if his selective re-count went forward. We are lonely in Dem circles in this belief – Also, we think the Florida Sp Ct decision was bad and that the US Sp. Ct 7-2 decision was correct. However, we do think the 5-4 ‘remedy’ decision was too partisan. But it doesn’t matter because the Fl. legislature was in its rights to ignore the vote altogether and vote for Bush even if he lost by a wide amount.
Bottom line – the rules are key and some ruthlessness in sticking to them was a good sign for team Obama. Not quite checkmate. Not yet.
At this point – it’s safe to say the demagraphic dynamic now really does work against Hillary waging a floor fight.
(Thought bubble for Obama): “Please no more meddlesom and annoying priests! Damm if Pfleger takes this away from me! Maybe we should tell people he is a Buchanan plant under deep, albeit ridiculous, cover”
DrLeoStrauss says
Not that we are in the habit of citing the Women’s Media Center (about which, as Seinfeld would say, “there’s nothing wrong with that”) but there is this brutally true and funny montage of Tweety, Tucker et al. waxing eloquently about their fear of women.
http://www.womensmediacenter.com/sexism_sells.html