Commentary Magazine

Posts For: March 25, 2012

Fake But Original

| @jpundit 03.25.2012 - 3:00 PM

The New York Times memorable headline on the falsified documents relating to George W. Bush’s military service — “Fake but Accurate” — has almost been matched by a Haaretz columnist’s description of Peter Beinart’s theory on Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu: he writes that the theory “may not be accurate but is nonetheless spectacularly original.”

Beinart’s theory — that what Netanyahu supposedly dislikes about Jews is what Vladimir Jabotinsky supposedly disliked about them — is not supported by the Jabotinsky essay Beinart cited as evidence for it. “Spectacularly original” does not seem quite the right phrase for what Beinart did.

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Failed Middle East Theories? Look in the Mirror, Tom Friedman

| @tobincommentary 03.25.2012 - 2:23 PM

Thomas Friedman’s rants about foreign policy on the op-ed page of the New York Times are generally predictable if not particularly insightful. But today’s installment is original in one respect. In it he references an article in the National Review by respected conservative scholar Victor Davis Hanson. Hanson gives a laundry list of American foreign policy failures in the Middle East and concludes that maybe America should just realize that all of the existing theories about the Arab and Muslim world are fatally flawed. Hanson is generally right, but what rings false about Friedman’s praise for the piece is that in doing so he fails to acknowledge his own support for some of those failed approaches. He also slyly tries to include one other aspect of American policy in the list of failures that was conspicuous by its absence from Hanson’s article: support for Israel.

It’s true that, as Hanson points out:

Military assistance or punitive intervention without follow-up mostly failed. The verdict on far more costly nation-building is still out. Trying to help popular insurgents topple unpopular dictators does not guarantee anything better. Propping up dictators with military aid is both odious and counterproductive. Keeping clear of maniacal regimes leads to either nuclear acquisition or genocide — or 16 acres of rubble in Manhattan.

But in endorsing this sobering judgment, Friedman fails to note that he has served for the last 20 years as a faithful advocate for the foreign policy “realism” that he criticizes. Nor does he have the guts to point out that his best-selling “flat earth” theories about how economic concerns will trump those of religion and nationalism in the 21st century have been shown to be as laughably out of touch with the reality of the Middle East as any other.

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Health Insurance Mandate Now, Forced Loans Tomorrow?

| @steelegordon 03.25.2012 - 1:10 PM

The five and a half hours of oral argument before the Supreme Court this week are probably the most anticipated since the final days of the Watergate scandal. Barring a major unanticipated event, it will utterly dominate this week’s news out of Washington. Indeed people have been camped out since Friday in order to get one of the very few seats available to the public. (For those not inclined to sit on the street for three days to hear it directly, audiotapes of the arguments will be available each afternoon). A good summary of the cases and the players can be found here.

In 1974, as the nation hung on every word, the Court heard arguments in United States v. Nixon on July 8th, 1974, and on July 24th delivered its unanimous verdict (8-0, Justice Rehnquist, later Chief Justice, having recused himself because he had worked in the Nixon Justice Department). The verdict, denying the president’s power to assert executive privilege over tapes relevant to the case, doomed the Nixon presidency and led to Nixon’s resignation on August 9th. For those of us old enough to be around in those days, now nearly forty years ago, it was the great constitutional drama of our lives. (You can hear the oral arguments and the delivery of the decision here.)

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Dick Cheney Always Had Heart

| @tobincommentary 03.25.2012 - 12:31 PM

The news that former Vice President Dick Cheney underwent a heart transplant procedure yesterday will be, no doubt, greeted with jokes, sniping about his age (at 71, he is near the upper limit for such an operation) and rehearsals of the laundry list of conspiratorial accusations that have always been thrown in his direction from the far left. Though we have grown use to seeing our leaders demonized by their opponents, no public servant in our time has been subjected to as much ill tempered imprecation as Dick Cheney. Yet throughout his long career Cheney has risen above such foolishness to compile an enviable record of achievement.

The power of popular culture is such that the mere mention of Cheney’s name is enough to conjure up images of Darth Vader-like villains and puppet-masters pulling the strings on a vast empire of evil right-wing minions. This is a tribute to the ability of the political left to manipulate opinion. His critics made him the whipping boy for all the second guesses about the Bush administration’s counter-terrorism policies. Cheney’s unapologetic approach to politics and to the causes to which he served made him the ideal target for such smears. But the truth was simple and readily understood by Americans who were not deceived by liberal conventional wisdom. Dick Cheney is a man who dedicated his life to serving his country, safeguarding its liberties and national defense.

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