I suppose Dr. Limbaugh must have bellowed somethin' or another about it at the Party base-and-vile clans of the picture people tribe, and perhaps it would be fun to look it up, but that is a peripheral fun. Certainly few, if any, of those addicted to the Witch Doctor of Democracy can have noted the names of the op-edists, assuming names were mentioned at all. In the e-gutter, the usual practice on such occasions is to dumb a signed opinion piece down to "even the New York Times admits that" so-and-so. Pollack and O'Hanlon are not like to get their Warholian fifteen minutes out of it personally. Doubtless they despise mere mob celebrity, however, and only conscientiously intended to recommend to the attention of serious attenders all the advantages of continuing and perfecting the Big Party's aggression in the former Iraq.
As to those serious attenders, tedious people one might even call "elitists," Comrade Justin Raimondo has a word or two to say in a long passionate diatribe against Kristol Minor:
| Incredibly, Kristol tries to create a dichotomy between "the elites" – represented by the news media and the Democrats in Washington – who are antiwar, and the people, who are supposedly "moving in the right direction." Says Kristol: "The public remains more sensible than much of elite opinion – and more open to new facts." He then quotes charter members of the foreign policy elite – two Democrats, Ken Pollack and Michael O'Hanlon, who were instrumental in shepherding congressional Democrats into the pro-war camp, back when the war was popular – to buttress his point that a sea-change is in the air. That he doesn't even see the contradiction in his argument is an indication of just how disconnected from reality these people have become. |
There's perhaps a faint hint of "two of a trade will never agree" in that, for Mr. Raimondo has a tendency to play the politics of the populares far more than Neocomrade W. Kristol does. Indeed, Mr. Raimondo might have twitted the Great Frequent Standardizer about spending much of the dissected scribble tryin' to read the tea leaves of the pollsters. Ought not every self-respectin' "conservative" "intellectual" señorito be far exalted above carin' exactly what percentage of Televisionland thinks the Iraq war was "worth it."? And even above carin' whether or not public opinion is "moving in the right direction." or not? (Would Herr Prof. Dr. Leo Strauss have worried about such slight trifles? Certainly not! Tusk, tusk!) [1]
Kristol Minor playin' at demagogue and flatterin' Gen. Hamilton's beastly mob shamelessly as well as truthlessly -- "more sensible and more open to new facts"! -- is a delightfully mockable spectacle. One might add that the neocomrade doesn't have to watch the mob's procession very long to decide that it is headed his way. Should it be reported to be headed the other way, he'd probably want to wait a little longer, a few years or decades, maybe. Mr. Raimondo definitely missed an opportunity for sarcasm, although he did manage to get in a small twit about the absurdity of the neocomrade supposin' that those credentialled by Brookings and the CFR are likely to be bellwethers of mob opinion.
Is there really a "contradiction" in Kristol Minor's "argument"? I'm not sure either word really applies to the performance in question, which is more like a señorito-level harangue to the troops -- majors and above admitted only, O troops! -- than a demonstration in Euclid. Now that there is, or seems to be, a real and present danger that the Party aggression in the former Iraq might be abandoned, the minds of the GOP tank-think and agitprop geniuses have become some what more concentrated than usual, and naturally their glands are runnin' wild at the mere thought of such a set-back for the good, the true and the beautiful -- plus let's not forget The Hyperpowerful! The verbal textiles that they weave under such stress are not, in my judgment, to be dignified with the name of Argument. The invasionites simply shoot off all the propaganda ammo they can lay their hands on. Some parts of the barrage are logically incompatible with other parts of the barrage, but so what? it's a barrage, for Pete's sake, not an "argument"! Point X may indeed contradict Point Y, but suppose there are five thousand duped by X and a different five thousand duped by Y. Compared with that ten thousand, what does it matter that there may also be two or three strict reasoners who notice the discrepancy and think worse of the Party señoritos and their dogmas of Preëmptive Retaliation on that account?
Considered as propagandist rather than logician, Kristol Minor's contradictions do not much matter. Certainly there is no reason to say "Incredibly" about his performance, and Mr. Justin Raimondo really ought to understand as much. No competent propagandist in the holy Homeland ever uses "elite" and "elitist" in any but a pejorative sense. Mr. Raimondo would never make that mistake himself, I am sure. Since aggression and invasion and occupation and counterinsurgency constitute the cause that Kristol Minor sets out to defend, it follows at once, however paralogically or counterfactually, that these cannot possibly be the policies of an elite. For Mr. Raimondo, the opposite follows with equal rigor: The People want peace, and should The People happen to be only a small majority of the population, well, so much the worse for the others! [2]
To be sure, if we prescind from spin and agitprop and use "elite" neutrally -- a somewhat artificial and unidiomatic exercise, admittedly, yet not an impossible one for political grown-ups --, then obviously Neocomrades Pollack and O'Hanlon are elitists, and the whole Brookings-CFR-ISG complex, Uncle Sam's alleged "bipartisan foreign policy" consensus, is a model instance of elitism. So, too, is Kristol Minor an elitist, and all the tank-think neocomradely señoritos taken together -- AEIdeologues, Heritagitarians, Hoovervillains, even Catoholics, though not necessarily on the Kiddie Krusade -- a second model instance of elitism. Both gangs profess to have more expertise than Tom, Dick and Harriet, and often they really do, [3] even though they are not eager to admit as much about one another, or clear-headed enough to perceive that Dr. Expert can know a zillion pertinent facts and still bellow loudly for pretty much the most disastrous policy imaginable. [4]
==
At the end, Mr. Raimondo goes around the bend out of sight:
| Backed up against a wall, neoconservative dead-enders are desperate to shore up the ranks of their followers and Republican politicians, who show signs of faltering and even defecting to the other side. This is the real intended target of Kristol's piece: without the GOP and its congressional regiment to provide them cover, the neocons are all alone out there, isolated and increasingly targeted for public opprobrium on account of their leading role in pushing us into war. Perhaps more than a few of them – those formerly in government service, such as Douglas Feith – will face, as Scooter Libby did, the legal consequences of their actions, which involved much more than "outing" a CIA agent and committing perjury. What rises up out of Kristol's piece is the stink of fear – fear that the neocons are being abandoned by their erstwhile hosts, fear that anger over the war will boil over into their political and personal ruination, fear that their game has finally been exposed, and fear that Americans are bound and determined to take their country back. Their fears are our hopes. |
That's good fun for the Silly Season, but hardly to be taken very seriously.
Speaking of fear, I'm afraid Mr. Raimondo is going to become more apoplectic still as autumn and winter and spring unfold themselves. The numbers from Google News establish that Responsible Nonwithdrawal has not yet begun to dawn, yet it is on its way all the same, and that also means that Kristol Minor is makin' a tactical mistake with his pseudopopulism. The poor turkeys he lambastes as elitists will at least attempt to save Grant's Old Party's bacon for it, which is more than the pollsters' patients could manage even if they should decide that they want to. Whereas if Boy and Party can bully Congress with a deluge of credentialled experts from Brookings and CFR prepared to testify that to abandon the former Iraq to all its bushogenic distresses would be ruinous for "national security," the existin' stumblebums can probably manage to hang on in their semiconquered provinces through January 2009. After that the bullyin' will be much easier, trivially so if the Big Management Party can retain control of the executive, and easy enough even under "President Clinton."
"Who knows not that to save the people, one must often oppose them?"
Probably Mr. Justin Raimondo does not know it, and will not be at all pleased when the lesson is shoved down his throat. We'll see.
God knows best.
____
[1] The Leostraussianity of the invadin' classes and upper Party members has been grossly exaggerrated, but since Mr. Raimondo probably believes in the exaggerations, it seems fair for me to adduce them in the course of suggesting what he might have said better from his own point of view.
[2] Apart from his own "populist" shtik in general, Mr. Raimondo might remember that not so very long ago the Big Management Party really did have most of the population duped.
[3] This is not the case with Kristol Minor as regards the Middle East and the former Iraq, however, and even less so as regards the technicalities of the violence profession. He more or less realizes as much, though, as is shown by his occasional coscribbles with Rear-Col. Kagan of AEI and Rear-Col. R. Kagan of the Carnegie Endowment.
[4] Dolled up his pseudopopulist sheep's costume, Kristol Minor means somethin' like that when he praises the beastly mob for bein' "more sensible" than hidebound elitist Dr. Expert is. The latter must, I suppose, know so many old facts that there is no room left to store new facts in, a problem that does not afflict many of the pollsters' 37% or 46% or any other percentage of political significance. There's good news for the "History is bunk!" Party in that, I daresay, and not just about the former Iraq!
The topic at hand is sufficiently recherché that it becomes difficult to find really knowledgeable Drs. Expert who cheer for the Boy-'n'-Party aggression and occupation policies, but it's not impossible. At very least there exist Neocomrade Rear-Colonel G.M.R. Spook of AEI, and Neocomrade Prof. Dr. F. ‘Ajamí of Johns Hopkins University. They both know rather too much to go along with the stumblebums' pronouncements 100.0%, yet they loyally attempt not to disagree too loudly where hostile ears might overhear.
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