Quit Swallowing Bullshit
Apr 5th, 2008 at 10:48 pm by Chris
When reading items that seem confirm a comfortable prejudice, it’s always worth considering the source. Take, for instance, the recent article in the NY Sun which seemed to imply that Obama intends to keep up 80,000 soldiers in Iraq for the foreseeable future. You may have read about it somewhere.
Now what do we know about the New York Sun? Well, off the top of my head I know that it was founded by Conrad Black, a close associate of Richard Perl and other neoconservatives, to provide a conservative counter to the New York Times. I seem to recall that the Sun ran an editorial arguing that Iraq War protesters should be tried for treason and that it frequently, and unapologetically, allows its editorial policy to seep into its news coverage.
Now, I wonder, why would a paper like that try to embarrass and weaken the Democratic front runner? No, wrong question.
I wonder if a paper like that would take an academic paper prepared by a minor campaign adviser to the Democratic front runner, which was a reflection of that adviser’s personal views and which was never distributed to the campaign or candidate, and then present it as proof positive that the candidate has been lying about his true intentions? Why, yes. Yes it would.
The only really interesting question is who gave him a copy of a paper clearly labeled “not for attribution” delivered at a private, and not very big, workshop.
Let’s just reflect on the absurdity of all of this. The Sam Power episode was bad enough, but she was a high profile member of Obama’s inner-circle and a prominent surrogate. Maybe a few dozen people even knew that Kahl had a role at all in the Obama campaign. This is “gotcha” reduced to absurdity. The paper in question was clearly an academic one, reflecting his own personal views. It wasn’t even circulated to the campaign, and has nothing to do with Obama’s “real” views on Iraq. I’m only even mentioning the thing because it’s getting ridiculous play, because Kahl was Brian Katulis’s sparring partner in the debate hosted by yours truly [and forthcoming quite soon in a leading Middle East policy journal], and because I happened to be hanging out with Kahl this afternoon […]
Like I said, the only really interesting question here is who in that small, closed workshop organized by Colin Kahl decided to screw his host by violating the non-attribution agreement and handing the paper over to Eli Lake? I was there, y’know. I know who was there. By my count, there’s about three suspects… and one of them convincingly protests his innocence. I’ve got an inkling about which of the other two it is. Care to fess up?
Yeah, good luck with that. Anyway, one of the more infuriating things about this primary has been watching intelligent partisans for both Clinton and Obama swallow right wing bullshit and misdirection when it suits a narrative that undermines the candidate they oppose. As Susie has pointed out on a number of occasions recently, these people are not our friends.
Agreed for the most part with the following caveats…Obama has taken great advantage of media more than eager to charge Clinton with controversial acts and Obama tends to suffer from the fact that is positions are not well defined and is subjected to greater mistrust over things like this because we simply don’t know. Let’s face it, he has surrounded himself with many people who aren’t very progressive.
Also the comments by Power gives added credence to this story, regardless of whence it came and the people you call advisors and what they think can be entirely relevant, whether or not it’s a position the candidate himself has staked or worse, if he has staked an opposition position.
I think unwittingly, you have stepped upon the weakness of Obama in the general election where Clinton is somewhat constrained from being too negative about things like this and it will be open season once the nominee is determined…and it will be ugly then.
The Sun’s circulation is almost nil. Sometimes they try to give it away. The entire raison d’etre of the Sun is to print crap that can then be cited by neocons as legitimate because it was printed somewhere. The Nation did a long article about it sometime in the last two years.