or Powell's or me• • •
"Mike and Jon, Jon and Mike—I've known them both for years, and, clearly, one of them is very funny. As for the other: truly one of the great hangers-on of our time."—Steve Bodow, head writer, The Daily Show
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"Who can really judge what's funny? If humor is a subjective medium, then can there be something that is really and truly hilarious? Me. This book."—Daniel Handler, author, Adverbs, and personal representative of Lemony Snicket
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"The good news: I thought Our Kampf was consistently hilarious. The bad news: I’m the guy who wrote Monkeybone."—Sam Hamm, screenwriter, Batman, Batman Returns, and Homecoming
June 11, 2007
Can't Our Foreign Policy Elite Come Up With Higher-Quality Lies?
Kenneth Baer is the kind of person who'll end up somewhere in the next Democratic administration:
Baer was Deputy Director of Speechwriting for Gore-Lieberman 2000 and Senior Speechwriter for Vice President Al Gore...During the 2004 election, he was a senior advisor to the Joe Lieberman for President campaign and later advised the Kerry-Edwards campaign on a variety of policy issues...In addition to running his own consultancy firm, Baer Communications, he has taught at Georgetown University and at Johns Hopkins University.
So it's interesting that he writes things about US foreign policy that make no sense whatsoever. It's not that I expect him not to lie about US foreign policy. Obviously lying about it is his job. But it's weird the people who fund the Democratic party can't find people to come up with higher-quality, more-convincing lies.
Here's Baer's argument:
Declassified documents from classified hearings before the Six Day War in 1967 show that senators from the Committee on Foreign Relations were concerned about Vietnam—and this led them to be skeptical, even as tensions rose in the mideast and Israel was threatened, about using US military force.
We are now in a parallel situation: Iraq has made the US skeptical about further military force, even as tensions rise in the mideast and Israel is threatened. We must not make the same mistake today that we did in 1967!
The problem with this, of course is...it's totally insane. Was America's mistake in 1967 the fact we didn't invade Egypt?
So Baer is stridently making exactly the opposite case he thinks he is. The "threat" to Israel in 1967 turned out to be wildly overhyped. The problem turned out not to be the US failing to come to the aid of our beleaguered ally, but rather our failure to reign our beleaguered ally in. And the long-term results of this have been catastrophic. If we really are in a situation today like 1967, the first thing we have to do is make sure Israel doesn't nuke Iran.
Again, I understand Baer has to come up with SOME kind of bullshit to cover up the actual goals of his funders: for the US to continue running the middle east without challenge (and with Israel acting as, in Melvin Laird's words, the "local cop on the beat."). But surely in a country as rich and talented as ours we can expect better crap than this.
EARLIER: "Please Put More Effort Into Your Lies"
Posted at June 11, 2007 05:31 PM | TrackBackThe ole RED DEVIL makes a hell of a lye.
Posted by: Mike Meyer at June 11, 2007 08:56 PMI feel the need to defend nice, mainstream, sensible Democrats like Mr. Baer who, unlike the wild-eyed liberal hordes, don't hate God nor love terrorists. It seems obvious that just, prudent, and fundamentally civil sorts such as they are routinely thrust roughly aside by bullying Republicans every week when the fresh, steaming piles of lies about everything that matters are shipped up from Hell for use in our public discourse. So naturally, the Republicans get all the really good lies, leaving public-spirited Democrats to string together whatever tattered bits of mendacity they can lay their hands on, to try to make a decent appearance (not that anyone appreciates it.)
Being unwilling to put forth a theory without rigorous research, however, I checked the "Please Put More Effort Into Your Lies" link first. As soon as I saw the name Condoleeza Rice, I knew my theory was going to need some work. As the earlier post, along with her every utterance, make clear, Secretary Rice can not be accused of an ostentatious display of finely-wrought lies. Any common, flimsy lie lying about the place will do for her. I still think Republicans grab off all the good, better and best lies for themselves, but as their approach to governance requires them to lavish huge sums of public money on themselves and their business associates, they must soothe their vestigial organs of conservatism, whatever those may be, by hoarding something. I believe all the mysterious, undisclosed locations to which important Republicans recede when Scooter Libby wants to host a Halloween party for their children are simply stuffed to the rafters with elaborate, glittering, subtly-crafted lies, which are too good to waste on the likes of us. Scooter probably put some in the Carville-Matalin kids treat bags, though. And I'm sure they thanked him prettily for the sparkly little lies he gave them, which is more than Patrick Fitzgerald had the decency to do. Clearly he was not raised by the right sort of people.
Posted by: Maud at June 12, 2007 02:13 AMYou can also file this in your stack of stuff that Americans barely notice, but that crazies in the Middle East will. Somebody in Cairo or Tehran or Beirut is probably right now emailing or posting the arabic/farsi equivalent of: "Look! Here is proof that all Americans think the problem in 1967 was that they didn't do enough to help Israel take our land!"
If the neocons really want Iraq to turn out well, the first thing they could do to help would be to stop sounding so much like %$#* neocons.
Posted by: Whistler Blue at June 12, 2007 01:52 PMBut don't let that stop you from voting for Hillary. After all, the DP elites the lesser of two bald-faced liars and the only hope in The Most Important Election Ever In History Ever!!!
Posted by: AlanSmithee at June 12, 2007 04:05 PMAnd it's ONLY a year and a half away.
Posted by: Mike Meyer at June 12, 2007 04:17 PM
