I loved that column, to the point where I was going to post it myself. Would have been a little rude of me, since the primary local posters of bloviating punditry seem to have gone missing, but it was just too juicy. Some favorite parts:
The ambassador of Eritrea was welcomed to the house on Kalorama Road, even as the French ambassador, who lives directly across the street in a grand chateau, was snubbed. The German ambassador is kaput, but the ambassador of the Netherlands mingled with Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith, and Gen. Richard Myers and Gen. Peter Pace of the Joint Chiefs. The winners were gaily lording it over the losers, sneering at the French.
Ewwwww, do you think the PNACers got advance clearance on the sneering front from the local grand arbiter? Or are they exempt by definition, being the source of all that is good and true? Who needs France, when you got Eritria and Bulgaria in your camp?
There are Rummy people: Mr. Cheney, Mr. Wolfowitz, Mr. Feith, Bill Kristol, William Safire, Ariel Sharon, Fox News, National Review, The Weekly Standard, the Wall Street Journal editorial board, the fedayeen of the Defense Policy Board — Richard Perle, James Woolsey, Mr. Gingrich, Ken Adelman — and the fifth column at State, John Bolton and Liz Cheney.
Nice, not just the whole PNAC crowd, but the entire "objective" media all together in one cozy group.
Newt, amateur historian, is part of Rummy's brain trust. The defense chief regularly forwards blathering Gingrich e-mail about military strategy to irritated Pentagon officials.
Cool, too bad we don't get any of Newt's blather forwarded here. The local blather quotient seems to have inexplicably declined of late.
This clash is epochal because it's beyond ego. It's about whether America will lead by fear, aggression and force of arms or by diplomacy, moderation and example.
Which side are you on, boys? Elsewhere at ground zero of the liberal media conspiracy Safire fires back today:
Invective's Comeback nytimes.com
Or should I have said Safires back? Old Mr. Nattering Nabobs of Negativism is all for it, needless to say. |
