On February 26, 2003, Daniel Davies wrote:
D-squared Digest -- A fat young man without a good word for anyone: I find myself with a few spare minutes and make the mistake of reading Thomas Friedman again. His conclusion after a long, dull and witless ramble... reads "If [it is] done right, the Middle East will never be the same. If done wrong, the world will never be the same". There's not much you can say to that except "shut up you silly man". But it does inspire in me the desire for a competition; can anyone... give me one single example of something with the following three characteristics:
- It is a policy initiative of the current Bush administration.
- It was significant enough in scale that I'd have heard of it (at a pinch, that I should have heard of it).
- It wasn't in some important way completely f***** up during the execution.
On June 17, 2004, New Republic editor Peter Beinart writes:
The New Republic Online: Partisan Review I tried hard not to be partisan. I distrusted the Bush administration and feared it would be politically empowered by the war. But such thoughts felt petty and limited at such an important time. And so I evaluated the arguments for war on their merits.... But, in retrospect, my efforts not to be limited proved limiting. Partisanship, it turned out, was an extremely useful analytical tool.... They divided the world, the country, and even their own administration into people who could be trusted and people who could not. And, unfortunately, the people who could be trusted knew much less about how to build democracy in Iraq than the people who could not....
Since most academics who studied the Arab world were self-evidently anti-American, conservatives trusted only one prominent historian of the Middle East: Bernard Lewis. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) also had hidden agendas. In the 1990s, America's NGOs had amassed considerable experience in postwar reconstruction. But that experience had come from Bill Clinton's "social work" wars: Bosnia, Kosovo, Haiti, East Timor--wars the Bushies had ridiculed. And, thus, these examples were rarely cited or examined.... [T]he Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) didn't hire veterans of the reconstruction efforts of the '90s; it hired conservative lobbyists and Hill staffers. As journalists in Baghdad joked about CPA headquarters, "They don't call it the Republican Palace for nothing."...
[W]hen Jay Garner, Iraq's first post-Saddam administrator, hired Thomas Warrick, who had led the State Department's prewar planning effort, he was forced by Rumsfeld to fire him. After Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz rebuked General Eric Shinseki, who had led U.S. peacekeeping efforts in Bosnia, for saying Iraq would require "several hundred thousand" troops, The Weekly Standard wrote an article on the topic. Determining how many troops it would take to occupy Iraq was an "important question," the article acknowledged. But, it added, "most of the people who ask this question are isolationists trying to make the case against war."...
For conservatives, the right lesson of Iraq is that, if you apply a loyalty test to this country's best sources of knowledge--the academy, the press, and the government itself--you'll lose the war on terrorism through sheer ignorance. For liberals, the lesson is to see conservatives as they are, not as you'd like them to be. I'll try to remember it next time.
Does this mean that Crooked Timber is invariably sixteen months ahead of centrist conventional wisdom?
It's a lot shorter too!
Posted by DeLong at June 17, 2004 08:55 PM | TrackBack | | Other weblogs commenting on this postDoes this mean that Crooked Timber is invariably sixteen months ahead of centrist conventional wisdom?
Absolutely. A lemma of this theorem is that we are 10 to 15 years ahead of right-wing conventional wisdom.
Posted by: Kieran Healy on June 17, 2004 09:06 PMCan someone explain to me Mr. DeLong's problem with Thomas Friedman? Mr. DeLong, perhaps?
-dk
That's Mr Davies' problem with Mr Friedman, for which you can find documentation by looking at d-squareddigest or searching Crooked Timber for 'Globollocks' or 'Airmiles'.
Posted by: nick on June 17, 2004 10:47 PMDoes this mean that I'm OK now, and not a paranoid sectarian fanatic anymore? Can I marry a girl of good family now? Can I walk on the sidewalk with normal people, and drink at the same drinking fountain that they do?
So far the punditocracy and opinion-makers are exactly the same as they were before The Big Fuckup. No one has been banished or fired, not even Judith Miller, and no one has been promoted or rehabilitated. There may have been slight changes in the power rankings, but I haven't heard about any. Basically the conservatives and the liberal hawks are still in the driver's seat. And the doves are still untouchables.
Posted by: Zizka on June 18, 2004 12:11 AMKaplan wrote, "Can someone explain to me Mr. DeLong's problem with Thomas Friedman? Mr. DeLong, perhaps?"
The fact that TF is a blithering, cliche-ridden idiot, perhaps?
The funniest parody of TF is:
-----
The Datsun and the Shoe Tree
Florid Affairs
By Thomas L. Freetrademan
http://www.prospect.org/print/V11/13/devil5.html
If the "Standard" was correct in asserting that "most of the people who as this question are isolationists trying to mae the case against war," then isn"t this an awfully strong condemnation of White House war planning? Is the "Standard" indulging in Straussian "writing for various audiences" or just completely oblivious to the implication of its own assertions?
Posted by: kharris on June 18, 2004 05:00 AMOh, make that "ask this question are isolationists trying to make the case..."
Posted by: kharris on June 18, 2004 05:10 AM"But that experience had come from Bill Clinton's "social work" wars: Bosnia, Kosovo, Haiti, East Timor..."
Oh yeah, those were dazzling successes. Just ask "Father" Aristide.
Posted by: Patrick R. Sullivan on June 18, 2004 06:31 AM"The Datsun and the Shoe-Tree" is a riot. I wonder about this part though:
"Post-Hapsburg Lichtenstein-Morocco Theory of Conflict Prevention"
Did the satirist perhaps mean Monaco, or is Morocco part of the humor?
Posted by: Batavicus on June 18, 2004 08:36 AMThanks, Patrick. With all of the rain recently, my roses are growing like mad. They need all of the food that I can shovel onto them. You're an inexhaustible source, and I thank you.
Somebody who reads Slate may have beat Crooked Timber, at least for brevity. Back in February 2003, the Fray had this argument regarding the invasion: "If Bush is for it, it must be stupid and dangerous." That cut thru a lot of static for me.
Posted by: Kyle on June 18, 2004 02:52 PMSomebody who reads Slate may have beat Crooked Timber, at least for brevity. Back in February 2003, the Fray had this argument regarding the invasion: "If Bush is for it, it must be stupid and dangerous." That cut thru a lot of static for me.
Posted by: Kyle on June 18, 2004 02:52 PMSomebody who reads Slate may have beat Crooked Timber, at least for brevity. Back in February 2003, the Fray had this argument regarding the invasion: "If Bush is for it, it must be stupid and dangerous." That cut thru a lot of static for me.
Posted by: Kyle Hack on June 18, 2004 02:52 PMThe same post 3 times, and just to quote the Fray? Man, that's excessive. My apologies to everyone.
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