Entries Tagged 'talking past one another' ↓

Apparently, there’s been quite a reaction to the announcement that Bill Kristol will have one of the most coveted bully pulpits in America: a column in the New York Times. I first wrote about this a couple of days ago and then went out of town.

Now the Times has been confronted. Editorial page editor Andy Rosenthal finds it easy to defend his hire:

Rosenthal told Politico shortly after the official announcement Saturday that he fails to understand “this weird fear of opposing views.”

“The idea that The New York Times is giving voice to a guy who is a serious, respected conservative intellectual — and somehow that’s a bad thing,” Rosenthal added. “How intolerant is that?”

Kristol himself is one gleeful culture warrior:

“I was flattered watching blogosphere heads explode,” Kristol told Politico. “It was kind of amusing.”

She’s not in the blogosphere, but could Kristol have meant Katha Pollitt?

Just shoot me. First, it was Sam Tanenhaus, conservative editor of the New York Times Book Review being put in charge of the News of the Week in Review section. That means one conservative will determine how politics,culture and ideas are covered in TWO of the most important sections of the supposedly liberal newspaper of record. Now, says the Huffington Post, the Times is set to announce that Bill Kristol will be writing a weekly op-ed column. That’s Bill Kristol ,Fox commentator , editor of the the Murdochian agitprop factory Weekly Standard, George W. Bush’s propagandist in chief, co-founder of the Project for a New American Century, relentless promoter of the war in Iraq , ideological bully and thug.

Kristol responded directly to that attack (via Exurban League, where you can check out his Thug 4 Life pic too):

Give a holla to my neocons in the Bay,
I’m livin’ in DC still clutchin’ on my AK.
Tell ‘em,
“Thug for life,
High till’ i die”
When ‘em stupid Nation witches ask why!

Among other spicy events to look forward to, election 2008 is about to get a little more interesting (Kristol has a one-year contract).

Bottom line, says The Politico, this is a smart business decision for the New York Times:

Despised or not, Kristol is bound to create controversy (read: Web page views). It’s no surprise that during this overheated election season Newsweek and other such magazines are bringing in political lighting rods like Karl Rove and Markos Moulitsas.

In the new media world of the early 21st century, apparently it’s no longer enough to merely attract attention. You want (or need) to attract lightning to get noticed.

Shankar Vedantam, writing in the WaPo, has gone and taken all the fun out of the nasty partisanship out of in the blogosphere and beyond—by clarifying what exactly gives it that nasty edge. His piece is called “Disagree about Iraq? You’re Not Just Wrong — You’re Evil” [e.a.]

A wide body of psychological research shows that on any number of hot-button issues, people seem hard-wired to believe the worst about those who disagree with them. Most people can see the humor in such behavior when it doesn’t involve things they care about: If you don’t care about sports, for example, you roll your eyes when fans of one team question the principles and parentage of fans of a rival team.

I’ve gotta say that as amused as I am by the battling in the blogosphere, and as helpful I find it in working through my own passionate (and sometimes overheated) feelings about hot-button issues, I am sorta stunned by the meanness that goes on in every day life these days.

There is not a corner of my life that hasn’t been touched by the hysterical politics of the day

“We are really bad about putting ourselves in other people’s places and looking at the world the way they look at it,” said Glenn D. Reeder, a social psychologist at Illinois State University who recently conducted a study into how supporters and critics of the Iraq war have come to believe entirely different narratives about the war — and about each other. “We find it difficult to grant that other people come to their conclusions in good faith if they reach a conclusion that is different than ours,” he said.

That’s the creepy thing: that friends, family members, colleagues, business associates, and neighbors can turn one one another in an instant; that people can simply begin to think the worst of one another … over politics. There is no end to the troubles that begin when people use politics as a weapon against one another.

Can’t we all get along?

Gerard Baker thinks we should elect a Democrat in 2008 because it will cause us to get serious about the things that really matter (like the global jihad against Western modernity).*** Well, not if America’s finest progressives, Ivy League graduates, and political strategist wannabes have anything to say about it.

Right now, for example, at TAPPED they’re busy talking about the division of labor inside the family:

FEMINISM AND EX ANTE HOUSEWORK STANDARDS. Matt interprets data adduced by Jessica and finds more evidence for my assertion that the typical arrangement of housework in households occupied by heterosexual couples reflects unjust gender balances combined with actually different ex ante standards of cleanliness/tidiness (which are related to said inequalities, of course, but a feminist analysis doesn’t require any specific ex ante level of domestic work beyond what is necessary for sanitation, cooking, childrearing, etc.) With all due respect to the great Marcotte and Waring I continue to disagree with the implied solution of creating equality within domestic work norms that are an unholy marriage of 1) patriarchy, 2) the related assumption of one partner devoted full-time to domestic work, and 3) general cultural assumptions that unstructured leisure time is somehow immoral. Instead I think that it makes more sense to try to achieve equality within a more rational allocation of priorities that doesn’t take 50s-bourgeois standards of tedious domestic busywork as a given.

If you didn’t understand a word of that, you’re not alone. In my house, I yell at the various guilty parties to clean up after themselves, or if I get really annoyed, I do it myself and harangue the guilty parties afterward. And we live happily ever after.

But that’s not my point. My point is that in November 2002, after the Dems were destroyed in the midterms, Heather Hurlburt, a former speechwriter for Clinton (and now a participant at Democracy Arsenal), wrote a devastating essay (”War Torn: Why Democrats Can’t Think Straight about National Security”) about then-Democrat wonks’ lack of interest in anything having to do with foreign affairs and their surfeit of interest in the minutiae of domestic policy.

Nothing has changed, I see. Young progressives may talk and write about foreign policy these days, but they understand it (and, worse, care about it, to the extent they do) only as it relates to domestic politics (or else they wouldn’t write the jargon-and slogan-filled, naive, detached, callous, and unhelpful things they tend to write).

Have a nice weekend!

———

*** Yes, I know I wrote about this before.

John Edwards must be one of those warmongering neocons that Matthew Yglesias and his crew are foaming at the mouth about:***

“Iran is serious about its threats,” former US Senator John Edwards told the Herzliya Conference at the Interdisciplinary Center on Monday.

“The challenges in your own backyard — represent an unprecedented threat to the world and Israel,” said the candidate for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, referring mainly to the Iranian threat.

In his speech, Edwards criticized the United States’ previous indifference to the Iranian issue, saying they have not done enough to deal with the threat.

Hinting to possible military action, Edwards stressed that “in order to ensure Iran never gets nuclear weapons, all options must remain on table.”

Adding insult to injury, Edwards appears to be a Likudnik:

After opening his speech with great praise for former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon,

and a tool of the Israel Lobby:

Edwards continued to express great appreciation for the Israeli people and the special bond between the two countries, saying it was “a bond that will never be broken.”

Wait! It gets worse!—those New York money people must have offered him an extra bonus:

 Until Israel has a real partner, according to Edwards, Israel has the right, and indeed the obligation to defend itself, and should be strengthened militarily, politically, and economically.

In a further display of support for Israel, Edwards went so far as to suggest that Israel should even be made a member of NATO, saying it was only natural that the organization would seen to include Israel next.

I guess the Breck Girl didn’t get the memo.

—————

*** You can also add Anne Appelbaum and 100 courageous Iranian expat artists and intellectuals to Yglesias’s List of Warmongers Who Must Be Smeared.

Appelbaum’s sin was applauding the stance these Iranians took in condemning the totalitarian regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran for inciting Jew-hatred as yet another way to cover its monstrous persecution of the long-suffering Iranian people.

Here is their statement:

ON THE HOLOCAUST CONFERENCE SPONSORED BY THE GOVERNMENT OF IRAN

To the Editors:

We the undersigned Iranians,

Notwithstanding our diverse views on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict;

Considering that the Nazis’ coldly planned “Final Solution” and their ensuing campaign of genocide against Jews and other minorities during World War II constitute undeniable historical facts;

Deploring that the denial of these unspeakable crimes has become a propaganda tool that the Islamic Republic of Iran is using to further its own agendas;

Noting that the new brand of anti-Semitism prevalent in the Middle East today is rooted in European ideological doctrines of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and has no precedent in Iran’s history;

Emphasizing that this is not the first time that the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran has resorted to the denial and distortion of historical facts;

Recalling that this government has refused to acknowledge, among other things, its mass execution of its own citizens in 1988, when thousands of political prisoners, previously sentenced to prison terms, were secretly executed because of their beliefs;

Strongly condemn the Holocaust Conference sponsored by the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Tehran on December 11–12, 2006, and its attempt to falsify history;

Pay homage to the memory of the millions of Jewish and non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust, and express our empathy for the survivors of this immense tragedy as well as all other victims of crimes against humanity across the world.

Abadi, Delnaz (Filmmaker, USA)
Abghari, Shahla (Professor, Life University, USA)
Abghari, Siavash (Professor/Chair, Department of Business Administration, Morehouse College, USA)
Afary, Janet (Faculty Scholar/Associate Professor of History, Purdue University, USA)
Afkhami, Gholam Reza (Senior Scholar, Foundation for Iranian Studies, USA)
Afkhami, Mahnaz (Executive Director, Foundation for Iranian Studies/Women’s Rights Advocate, USA)
Afshar, Mahasti (Arts/Culture Executive, USA)
Afshari, Ali (Human Rights Advocate/Political Activist, USA)
Ahmadi, Ramin (Associate Professor, Yale School of Medicine/Founder, Griffin Center for Health and Human Rights, USA)
Akashe-Bohme, Farideh (Social Scientist/Writer, Germany)
Akbari, Hamid (Human Rights Advocate/Chair/Associate Professor, Department of Management and Marketing, Northeastern Illinois University, USA)
Akhavan, Payam (Jurist/Senior Fellow, Faculty of Law of McGill University, Canada)
Amin, Shadi (Journalist/Women’s Rights Activist, Germany)
Amini, Bahman (Publisher, France)
Amini, Mohammad (Writer/Political Activist, USA)
Amjadi, Kurosh (Human Rights Advocate)
Apick, Mary (Actress/Playwright/Producer/Human Rights Advocate, USA)
Ashouri, Daryoush (Writer/Translator, France)
Atri, Akbar (Student Rights and Political Activist, USA)
Bagher Zadeh, Hossein (Human Rights Advocate/Former Professor, Tehran University, Great Britain)
Bakhtiari, Abbas (Musician/Director, Pouya Iranian Cultural Center, France)
Baradaran, Monireh (Human Rights Advocate/Writer, Germany)
Behnoud, Massoud (Writer/Journalist, Great Britain)
Behroozi, Jaleh (Human Rights Advocate/Iranian Mothers’ Committee for Freedom, USA)
Beyzaie, Niloofar (Theater Director/Playwright, Germany)
Boroumand, Ali-Mohammad (Lawyer, France)
Boroumand, Ladan (Historian/Research Director, Boroumand Foundation, USA)
Boroumand, Roya (Historian/Human Rights Advocate, USA)
Chafiq, Chahla (Sociologist/Writer/ Women’s Rights Advocate, France)
Dadsetan, Javad (Filmmaker)
Daneshvar, Abbas (Chemist, Netherlands)
Daneshvar, Hassan (Mathematician, Netherlands)
Daneshvar, Reza (Writer, France)
Davari, Arta (Painter, Germany)
Djalili, Mohammad Reza (Professor, L’Institut Universitaire de Hautes Études Internationales, Switzerland)
Ebrahimi, Farah (USA)
Eskandani, Ahmad (Entrepreneur, France)
Fani Yazdi, Reza (Political Activist, USA)
Farahmand, Fariborz (Engineer, USA)
Farssai, Fahimeh (Writer, Germany)
Ghahari, Keivandokht (Historian/Journalist, Germany)
Ghassemi, Farhang (Professor in Strategic Management, France)
Hejazi, Ghodsi (Professor/Researcher, Frankfurt University, Germany)
Hekmat, Hormoz (Human Rights Advocate/Editor, Iran Nameh, USA)
Hojat, Ali (Entrepreneur/Human Rights Advocate, Great Britain)
Homayoun, Dariush (Writer, Switzerland)
Idjadi, Didier (Professor/Associate Mayor, France)
Jahangiri, Golroch (Women’s Rights Advocate, Germany)
Jahanshahi, Marjan (Professor, Institute of Neurology, University College London, Great Britain)
Karimi Hakkak (Director, Center for Persian Studies, University of Maryland, USA)
Kazemi, Monireh (Women’s Rights Advocate, Germany)
Khajeh Aldin, Minoo (Painter, Germany)
Khaksar, Nasim (Writer, Germany)
Khazenie, Nahid (Remote Sensing Scientist/Program Director, NASA, USA)
Khodaparast Santner, Zari (Landscape Architect, USA)
Khonsari, Mehrdad (Political Activist, Great Britain)
Khorsandi, Hadi (Poet/Writer, Great Britain)
Khounani, Azar (Educator/Human Rights Advocate, USA)
Mafan, Massoud (Publisher, Germany)
Malakooty, Sirus (Composer/Chairman, Artists Without Frontiers, Germany)
Manafzadeh, Alireza (Writer, France)
Mazahery, Ahmad (Engineer/Political Activist, USA)
Mazahery, Lily (Lawyer, President of the Legal Rights Institute/Human Rights Advocate, USA)
Memarsadeghi, Mariam (Freedom House, USA)
Mesdaghi, Iraj (Human Rights Advocate/Writer, Sweden)
Milani, Abbas (Director, Iranian Studies Program, Stanford University, USA)
Mohyeddin, Samira (Graduate Student, University of Toronto, Canada)
Moini, Mohammadreza (Journalist/ Human Rights Advocate, RSF, France)
Molavi, Afshin (Journalist, USA)
Monzavi, Faeze (Women’s Rights Advocate, Germany)
Moradi, Golmorad (Political Scientist/Translator, Germany)
Moradi, Homa (Women’s Rights Advocate, Germany)
Moshaver, Ziba (London Middle East Institute, SOAS, Research Fellow, Great Britain)
Moshkin-Ghalam, Shahrokh (Ballet Dancer/Actor, France)
Mourim, Khosro (Sociologist, France)
Mozaffari, Mehdi (Professor of Political Science, Denmark)
Naficy, Majid (Poet/Writer, USA)
Nafisi, Azar (Writer/Johns Hopkins University, USA)
Nassehi, Reza (Human Rights Advocate/Translator, France)
Pakzad, Jahan (Teacher/Researcher, France)
Parham, Bagher (Writer/Translator, France)
Parsipour, Shahrnush (Writer, USA)
Parvin, Mohammad (Human Rights Advocate/Founding Director of Mehr/Adjunct Professor, California State University, USA)
Pirnazar, Jaleh (Professor, Iranian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, USA)
Pourabdollah, Farideh (Human Rights Advocate, USA)
Pourabdollah, Saeid (Human Rights Advocate, USA)
Rashid, Shahrouz (Poet/Writer, Germany)
Royaie, Yadollah (Poet, France)
Rusta, Mihan (Human Rights Advocate/Refugee Adviser, Germany)
Sadr, Hamid (Writer, Austria)
Sarchar, Houman (Independent Scholar, USA)
Sarshar, Homa (Journalist, USA)
Satrapi, Marjane (Writer, France)
Sayyad, Parviz (Actor/Playwright, USA)
Shahriari, Sheila (World Bank, USA)
Soltani, Parvaneh (Actor/Theater Director, Great Britain)
Tabari, Shahran (Journalist, Great Britain)
Taghvaie, Ahmad (Founding Member, Iranian Futurist Association, USA)
Toloui, Roya (Human Rights Advocate, USA)
Vaziri, Hellen (Germany)
Wahdat-Hagh, Wahied (Social Scientist, USA)
Zarkesh Yazdi, Fathieh (Human Rights and Refugee Rights Advocate, Great Britain)
Ziazie, Arsalan (Writer, Germany)

Joe Klein issues a challenge to his smart-ass detractors [emphasis added]:

The illiberal left just hates it when I point out that the Democratic Party’s naivete on national security–and the left wing tendency to assume every U.S. military action abroad is criminal–just aren’t very helpful electorally. The fact that I’ve been opposed to the Iraq war ever since this 2002 article in Slate just makes it all the more aggravating. But it’s possible to have been against the war and to hope for the best in Iraq. I’d bet that the overwhelming majority of Americans who now oppose the war are praying for a turn for the better in Iraq. Listening to the leftists, though, it’s easy to assume that they are rooting for an American failure.
And so a challenge to those who slagged me in their comments. Can you honestly say the following:

Even though I disagree with this escalation, I am hoping that General Petraeus succeeds in calming down Baghdad.

I’m looking forward to reading the responses.

Meanwhile: Klein isn’t the only one pushing back. Elsewhere in the leftosphere, individual commenters continue to challenge the questionable but firmly held assumptions of certain bloggers.

For example, there was a very interesting comment left on Abu Aardvark’s blog. AA, whose blog I read for his take on media narratives, wrote about the quickly changing focus of the anger (in the Arab media) over Saddam’s execution. What had started out as “calculated” Iraq-based sectarian rage, AA said, ”conveniently” (for the U.S.) turned to rage at Iran.

To which the commenter replied [emphasis added]:

[quoting AA:] Both comfortably align with American interests as understood by the Bush administration, of course, which is convenient.    

[commenter] Yes it does. You state the obvious. What is less obvious, is why you seem to have a problem with [this alignment with American interests]… maybe I’ve misundertsood what your job is again? I thought you were an expert on public diplomacy?

Here is a case where the interests of a large part of the arab world and the United States coincide, and you seem to be denouncing it as a ploy on the part of Arab Governments and the United States. Isn’t it the goal of public diplomacy to find the common ground and open channels of communication? Or am I missing something? You seem to be sowing the seeds of strife here, to me, and you are jumping through hoops to do it!

This part, for instance:

[quoting AA:] quickly - and largely without explanation - morphed into anger with Iran.

Without explanation? Really? You find it hard to understand why people blame Iran for what the Iranian backed militias in Iraq do? Is that so?

Posted by: Craig | January 07, 2007 at 05:01 AM

As my grandmother used to say: it’s the tone that makes the music (TM).

Lefties interested in making political inroads really should examine their oh-so-20th-century attachment to atonality, and get a little more musical.

A couple of years ago, Bret Stephens, writing in the Wall Street Journal about “Easongate,” made an important observation about this phenomenon (he was talking about  media bias, not about lefties per se, but what he said pertains to our political discourse in general.) 

Stephens nailed defamatory innuendo as the culprit in political discourse.

Whether with malice aforethought or not, Mr. Jordan made a defamatory innuendo. Defamatory innuendo–rather than outright allegation–is the vehicle of mainstream media bias.

This is a crucial insight: it addresses something that all those involved in political discourse (and media critics) should understand—that subtext is at least as important as text in political discourse. (If you want an example, look no further than the flap over John Kerry’s “botched joke.” Even if it was a joke—and I’m willing to give Kerry the benefit of the doubt that it was—it contained a defamatory innuendo. Granted, the innuendo was directed at Bush, not at the troops. But when you use innuendo and your audience misunderstands you, it is you who is to blame, not the audience that doesn’t get the joke. Upshot: when you live in a cocoon, stop saying things that you think “everyone” will understand. “Everyone” doesn’t live inside your cocoon.)

Stephens also commended those present at the Davos conference who directed follow-up questions to Eason Jordan when he made his defamatory innuendo about the American military targeting journalists in Iraq.

Had Mr. Jordan’s innuendo gone unchallenged, it would have served as further proof to the Davos elite of the depths of American perfidy.

Here’s to challenging all faith-based assumptions!

Oh no! How do we account for this?

According to CNN, six in ten Americans think George H.W. Bush (that’s “41″) is a better president than Dubya (that’s “43″):

 Six in 10 said the elder Bush, who served one term from 1989-1993, did a better job in office, according to a poll conducted by Opinion Research Corporation.

Poppy isn’t having any of it, though. In Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, George Herbert Walker Bush took on his son’s Arab critics. Took them on face-to-face:

“We do not respect your son. We do not respect what he’s doing all over the world,” a woman in the audience bluntly told Bush after his speech.

Bush, 82, appeared stunned as others in the audience whooped and whistled in approval.

A college student told Bush his belief that U.S. wars were aimed at opening markets for American companies and said globalization was contrived for America’s benefit at the expense of the rest of the world. Bush was having none of it.

“I think that’s weird and it’s nuts,” Bush said. “To suggest that everything we do is because we’re hungry for money, I think that’s crazy. I think you need to go back to school.“

For what it’s worth, I agree with Poppy: it is weird and nuts. It’s also, however, what they learn in school.

Not to mention from the American press and American Bush critics. But, hey, who’s paying attention?