Sunday, August 16, 2015

Both Siderism Uber Alles



In tonight's thrilling episode of Centrist Suspense Theater, Mr. David Brooks of the New York Times and Mr. David Corn of Mother Jones investigate certain elements of what historians now refer to as George W. Bush's Operation Endless Clusterfuck.

First, Mr. Corn sets the scene by accurately recounting the historical facts:
DAVID CORN: I mean, I have to laugh a little bit, because I think he was setting a record for chutzpah.

I mean, it wasn’t until after his brother’s invasion of Iraq that you had something called al-Qaida in Iraq. And that was the group that morphed into ISIS. So ISIS is a direct result of the war in Iraq right there. And so he’s wrong on the history.

But then he said what happened was that Obama and Hillary Clinton orchestrated this quick withdrawal after everything was secure. Nothing was really secure in 2009-2010. You can ask Tom Ricks about that. But it was George W. Bush in December 2008 who created the agreement with Prime Minister Maliki that said that U.S. troops had to be out by 2011.

And then Obama didn’t renegotiate that. And there is a lot of question as to whether he could even have, given the political situation in Baghdad itself. So Bush is totally — Jeb Bush is totally rewriting this. And my question is, why is he even talking about Iraq?
Then, as usual, Mr. Brooks has some novel theories on the subject (emphasis added):
DAVID BROOKS: Yes. He wants to have an anti-terror foreign policy.

I give him a little more credit, of course. I think the war did help create al-Qaida in Iraq. So, both parties have something to answer for. Ultimately, ISIS created ISIS. It wasn’t us, but allowing the environment — so the Bush administration, the failed war, that had a — some contributory factor.

I do think that we abandoned Iraq too quickly, left too quickly, left a void in the Sunni areas, which ISIS was completely happy to fill. But more important — and this is a bigger indictment of the Obama administration — we did nothing about the Syrian civil war. And that created the biggest void...
This would have been an ideal time for Mr. Corn to crack open a copy of The Weekly Standard and begin reading aloud from one of Mr. Brooks' infamous columns in which he pronounced the Iraq War over, George W. Bush a genius, and the Left -- you and me -- delusional idiots who are so depraved that we would probably never admit that Dubya won the Iraq War, but instead spend out declining years getting more and more angry, delusional and irrelevant.

But Mr. Corn did not do that.

Because that would be rude.

10 comments:

Unknown said...

Mr Corn also might have said, Bush, Cheney, et al (et al are now Jeb!'s foreign policy team) lied and mislead congress; Colin Powel went before the Security Council and lied and mislead* And they also did their best to conflate Iraq with 9/11. Spineless lazy Democrats, who were given limited access to the full situration report but failed to go and READ the DAMN thing, BELIEVED those lies and voted to allow an invasion. This is far from making both sides culpable, one side lied, the other made the mistake of believeing the lie.

Was Mr. Corn given the opportunity to respond to Mr. Brooks' lies?

I reacall a time when my representative, Congressman Combover (S Chabot, R OH-1) would either tell a brazen lie, or agree with Crazy Unkcel Liberty's comment or assertion that was either a brazen lie or such an idiotic proposal that it didn't bear thinging about. Unfortunately, while I had come to the "Town Hall" with a pointed question and a follow up, if allowed, I always found the afroremeioned lie to be a bit stunning, but still requiring a challenge, and so would waste my opportunity. On the one occasion when I jumped with my follow up refutation, the Congressman's local office manager jumped in to end the meeting rather than force him to respond. That unfortunately was the "high water mark" of my birddogging carrer.

(*I, then thinking him to be a man of some honor, believed him. I still did not think an invasion was wise or the answer, but I did believe him. Personally, I think the next time we shuld be will be willing to wait for George and Condi's mushroom cloud to apper, knowing that whichever nation employs it will soon be a field of glass. Freedom isn't free.)

dinthebeast said...

DAVID BROOKS: Yes. He wants to have an anti-terror foreign policy.

Terror would be his foreign policy, and his foreign policy would be a terror.

-Doug in Oakland

Dominic said...

That's the establishment for you, you can be a philandering, lying, hate monger who's been wrong about everything but if you're rude enough to point out these indelicate little facts then "respectable" people get the vapours, and you're never seen or heard from again. See Ornstein and Mann for details.

Unknown said...

I give him a little more credit, of course. I think the war did help create al-Qaida in Iraq. So, both parties have something to answer for. Ultimately, ISIS created ISIS.

The "both sides" insertion here makes no sense at all. I mean, it was Bush's war that created "al-Qaida in Iraq" so how the f*ck do "both sides" have something to answer for?

I guess it's some sort of subliminal mantra that's a substitute for thought when even DFB doesn't know how to make sh*t up. The same with "Ultimately, ISIS created ISIS." "Ultimately," ah yeah, sure, pay no attention to what came before.

Unknown said...

@Richard Luken

OMG! Congressman Combover is my rep, too, much to my dismay. Stupid West Siders.

When the GOP House voted to cut Veteran's benefits and SNAP, I called his office and, very politely asked the nice young man who answered how Congressman Chabot voted on those 2 measures. NYM hemmed and hawed, then said, well, he's a Conservative so he probably voted for them.

At which point I, still being polite, informed NYM that I thought Republicans were spiteful and mean spirited and thanked him for his time. When I told one of my neighbors who happens to be the cousin of Steve Driehaus (Democrat who was voted out after 1 term) what I had done, she was horrified. Maybe we citizens need to flood our so called reps with calls after they cast votes on some egregious measure. And we shouldn't be afraid to call them out for being spiteful.

Jimbo said...

I watched that NewsHour show. In fact, aside from local news (NBC in my area), that's the only TV News I watch (except for the odd al Jezierra and BBC tune in). I have been very disappointed with Mark Russell vs. David Brooks. Mark is a rusted old hulk no longer able to bring the counterpoint to Brooks' tendentious false arguments. Dionne is only slightly better. But Corn came prepared for a little more smackdown with facts. Given the limitations of the program, i thought he smacked the smarmy Brooks pretty well.

Neo Tuxedo said...

Actually, Jimbo, the Mark who's employed by NewsHour to be David Fucking Brooks' own personal Washington Generals is Mark Shields. To be fair, though, the last time I was interested in seeing Mark Russell, he was a rusted old hulk as well. This would've been during Zippergate, when he was catapulting Snoot's propaganda like he was getting paid for it.

Unknown said...

I don't watch the NewsHour much, so maybe this has changed, but in the typical Shields vs. Brooks segment, there was a remarkably constant, though subtle difference in the way they interacted with each other.

Shields would say, very often, much too often, "I agree with David here. [blahblahblah both sides blah blah]"

Brooks would just about never say "I agree with Mark about that." He'll allow that Shields said something worth responding to, and maybe, MAYBE say "Mark makes a good point about [x], BUT" there's never full-on agreement or acknowledgment of a weakness in his own position. It was always a quick hand-wave at Shields' comments and then a frantic effort to polish the GOP turd as much as possible in the time allotted.

This doesn't seem like a big deal in any one segment, but when it happens that way EVERY time, with the "liberal" reliably accepting the "conservative" position as legitimate, and even agreeing with much of it (while making no such headway the other direction), you end up with an infestation of "reasonable" liberals who, in their laudable but tragically misguided need to feel open-minded, think David f'n Brooks is a reasonable conservative saying reasonable things, rather than the insufferable, lying piece of faux-sanctimonious shit he actually is.

Which is why the world needs another few dozen Driftglasses and Charles Pierces documenting Bobo's nonstop firehouse of lies and atrocities.

AaroninTW said...

DAVID BROOKS: — so the Bush administration, the failed war, that had a — some contributory factor.

The gasoline and match I put on your carpet had a - some contributory factor. The clapping and giggling was inconsequential.

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