and Wayward Neocons, Mr. Sullivan has whipped himself into quite a twist over something something Peter Beinart something something Jeffrey Goldberg something something anti-Semitism! and something something sub-reference Allison Hoffmann, Thomas Friedman, Roger Cohen, Martin Peretz and Leon Wieseltier.
The whole thing then reaches a familiar, Sullivanesque, and-now-let-me-show-you-my-stigmata crescendo --
I've been through my share of personal vilification over the years - because of my stands on marriage, or HIV, or Iraq, or race, or Israel, or you-name-it. But this level of vicious personal obloquy from people who once advanced and supported [Peter Beinart]? It beggars belief.-- which is kinda hilarious coming from Mr. Fifth Column --
New Republic columnist (and former editor) Andrew Sullivan had a more ominous warning (London Sunday Times, 9/16/01): "The middle part of the country--the great red zone that voted for Bush--is clearly ready for war. The decadent left in its enclaves on the coasts is not dead--and may well mount a fifth column."Not that I don't have an interest in the subject at hand, or that Andrew Sullivan isn't right for calling out Jeffrey Goldberg as a smearmongering toad. But positioning Peter Beinart at the center of it all really only served to remind me of one of the many, vexing questions I will have for God Almighty should I ever manage to scam my way past the pearly gates.
First I will ask God to read this post from David Sirota from 2007 that nicely encapsulates my own opinion of Mr. Beinart:
Peter Beinart As Cautionary Tale In Journalism HistoryThen I might also prevail on the Almighty to skim over some of the late Steve Gilliard's posts on the subject of La Beinart:
...
What's really offensive about Beinart's behavior is as much his desperate propagandizing about the war he helped push America into as his disregard for any semblance of intellectual honesty. This is not some casual error here - this is a person who was quite literally embarrassed on national television just a few months ago and is now employing exactly the behavior he originally was embarrassed for - as if journalistic integrity and ethics are just nuisances to be ignored. Most normal people would react to getting factually crushed on television by sitting back and thinking about how to avoid such egregiously irresponsible behavior in the future. Not folks in D.C. like Beinart - it's full-speed ahead for them.
Equally appalling (though, frankly, not shocking) is the fact that the Washington Post continues to publish him, and that for all his dishonesty, he has been rewarded with a perch at the Council on Foreign Relations. Apparently in Washington, helping push America into the worst foreign relations disaster in contemporary history and then continuing to lie about that disaster is a resume builder, rather than a blemish. Yes, you actually get a bigger platform and get paid more and get a cushier job in D.C. the more inaccurate and deliberately off the mark you are willing to be.
The Peter Beinart story is not troubling because this one insignificant warmonger continues to live the good life in D.C. It is deeply disturbing for what it says about the sorry state of the media's role as a check and balance on power. The Peter Beinart story is, pound-for-pound, the saddest, sickest commentary of all on a Washington media culture whose insularity has totally divorced it from even the most basic tenets of journalism. And that's a tragedy for those of us outside of Washington, living in the reality-based community.
Fuck Peter Beinart
...
INCIVILITY ALERT
Peter,
You fucking gutless chairborne coward. Now, you think this monstrosity is a mistake? An ooops. A slight problem.
You clueless, asslicking simpleton, you made this happen. All you bright young cowards behind your desks cheering on Bush in his war to remake the savages and help Israel. Yeah, that worked. Ask Nasrallah how scared he is of the IDF after kicking their asses.
Peter, uncutous would be a kind word to describe what you are, so I will use another description, war pimp.
You sold this war like it was going to work, like it was the perfect solution to a boogeyman Bush created. Saddam.
We were going to liberate Iraq and make them just like us. And you yipped along like a little dog, cheering on this fiasco like someone would gain from this. And then, when you saw this little adventure was going the way of all colonial wars, into bitter secterianism and brutal failure, you kept cheering, as if we cheered hard enough, the brown people would finally listen to us.
When the Iraqis elected a bunch of crackpots and called it a parliment, here came the yips again. You waved the purple finger and saw happy days, while the war got worse, it always got worse, you never admitted you didn't know what the fuck you were babbling about. You and the cheetos brigade kept talking about this Iraq which only existed in your mind.
Not that you ever really believed in this war. You didn't believe in shit. Not enough to actually fight it. Sure, you liked the rhetoric of the war on terror, but not enough to risk anything more than carpel tunnel syndrome.
Men are judged by their deeds. And your deeds add up to a rank, vulgar cowardice, the kind which eminates from the body like days old stink.
You imagine yourself to be a serious man, a man of ideas. Well, in the real world, you're just another bullshitting coward, rejoicing in the deaths of men far better than you.
Then, having set the stage, I would ask:
Dear God, why in the fuck does Peter Beinart have any fucking job anywhere at all that does not involve wearing a paper hat and asking me if I'd like my order super-sized?
Why, when Fareed Zakaria or Charlie Rose or NPR or Tina Brown need a talking head to natter on about foreign affairs, Iraq, Islam, Patriotism or any-other-damn-thing do they still ring up this clueless twat?
I mean, isn't paying Beinart actual money to opine about anything relate to foreign policy or the Middle East about as assheaded as, say, Coke hiring Fatty Arbbuckle to advertise their new, transvaginal-probe shaped bottle? Sure he's famous, but for Christ's Sake (no offense), have you even bothered to check out what he is famous for?And after I am done carefully setting up and posing all of my silly questions, the Almighty will roll Her eyes at my charming naivete and tell me that, being omniscient, She has already read the posts in question and, as as side note, as much as She enjoyed Gilly's writing, did he really have to say "fuck" so often?
So Lord, I'm asking, why oh why is his voice still being heard in our media at all?
Then She will very gently point out that while Steven Gilliard may have gotten the Bush Regime right, Mr. Gilliard is dead and all-but-forgotten. And that while Mr. Beinart (from the safety of a cozy Neocon Cialis Tub 10,000 miles away from the bullets) might have gotten everything utterly, spectacularly wrong during the Age of Bush, Mr. Beinart belongs to a media club whose members all enjoy a form of pundit-diplomatic immunity that not only shields them from any of the consequence we would normally associate with someone who is utterly, spectacularly bad at their job, but, in fact, rewards them with all kinds of sweet gigs (running the World Bank, featherbedding it at Time magazine, a Newsweek cover or two, a job-for-life at the New York Times or sinecure at the Washington Post, etc.) and honoraria (an appointment to the Council on Foreign Relations never hurt the old CV.)
I will then ask the Almighty who it is that grants these fuckers their undeserved immunities and unearned rewards.
The Almighty will then wonder aloud (just as commenter Brazilian Rascal does over at Balloon Juice) that given Jeffrey Goldberg's calculated and brutal dishonesty, why in the Hell...
...[Andrew Sullivan] can’t stop licking Goldberg. Jeffrey could stab him in the kidney and with his last breath Sully would crawl over to an iPad to post of this strange animosity Goldberg seems to nourish against him and how this really won’t be good for any of them in the long run.The Almighty will then tell me that She is very close to getting Her novel published and own show on NBC about a hip, 20-something Deity whose wacky creations are always getting themselves into the craziest situations.
So She would really rather not risk screwing all that up by naming any names.
9 comments:
I don't mean to sound ageist, but a 28-year-old hired as the editor of a prestigious (scare quotes) national political journal. The fuck?
-AWS
To state the obvious would be sublime. This behavior (getting something horribly wrong/destroying something or someone and then getting rewarded for it) is rampant not just in journalism, but in education also. I know many an administrator within secondary education who have exhibited the above behavior and have either secured better jobs (within education) or at least comparable jobs. Not one of these cretins is unemployed or on food stamps (as I am) because it seems failure is the new norm.
I abhor what is happening to education in this country and I am equally ashamed by my cohorts for allowing this to happen. But, then again, those that are left truly our afraid of losing their jobs too. Teachers, like most people, will hide in the woodwork when the hammer comes looking for nails that stick out.
I met Peter Beinart at my university, and read his book, The Icarus Syndrome. In my reading, it's a thorough takedown of the strand of American idealism that wrecked the world several times (most recently in Iraq). I guess I was still a fledgling back when Peter Beinart was a "war pimp" and must have missed it, but good God, man, can't a guy admit publicly he was wrong and advocate against the bad ideas he admits he erroneously promoted?
In other words, is changing one's mind totally forbidden, even when the change is clearly for the better?
a media club whose members all enjoy a form of pundit-diplomatic immunity that not only shields them from any of the consequence we would normally associate with someone who is utterly, spectacularly bad at their job
You're making the assumption that the standard is making pronouncements that accurately explain an evidence-based reality, or predictions that have a passing acquaintance with future events.
These DC hacks are PR tools paid to lie and propagandize for things like the war in Iraq that, while disasters for the country and for most of us, are very profitable and advantageous to the wallets and careers of the powerful moral cowards these intellectual whores like Beinart answer to.
"In other words, is changing one's mind totally forbidden, even when the change is clearly for the better?"
Changing one's mind is okay.
The problem is, pundits like Beinart are paid good money to do nothing whatever but express informed opinions. Nice work if you can get it, and very, very few people are that lucky. The whole system is built on the assumption that someone in Beinart's position deserves to be there — that they're more likely to be right about what's going on and what'll happen next than your average blogger.
So when pundits get something wrong in a big way, and their careers go on as though nothing had happened, suddenly the whole system looks less like a meritocracy of knowledge and wisdom and more like an old boys' club of well-connected B.S. artists.
Thank goodness(?) someone else said it (see second Anon above).
Beinart was never wrong (just like Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith, Cheney, et al.). They said and did exactly what they were paid to do. (And achieved the expected results, so they were rewarded.)
And the fact that they were rewarded with more and better positions should be a big hint. (Although CFR is a big enough giveaway, I would think.)
It's hard for me morally to be in a world which saw Wolfowitz, Feith, etc., move into even more prestigious positions after the early rout and continued murderous assaults on innocents in Iraq and not draw some obvious conclusions.
If you're still expecting some god-like figure from above to appreciate integrity and/or excellence of work, you need to seek professional help.
Yes, we wish they would, but they are still occupying positions of power and are presently busy carrying out their orders to lay waste to the rest of the financial oversite mechanism and beginning to put into place methods for privatizing Medicare, Social Security, Disability, Food Stamps, WIC, AFDC, etc., etc.,
We are long past the day when we can expect someone in authority to start taking names of the liars and thieves and reinstituting observance of the Constitution.
Wish I could be more upbeat, but you read the same news I do and know it's all over if we don't get millions of people in the streets saying "STOP!" immediately.
Feel free not to publish this.
Love your writing!
Hi to Fran.
S
Arbuckle was innocent!
Excellent article. My one caveat is that Fatty Arbuckle was innocent, railroaded by the Very Serious People of the 1920s press.
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