Sirota disses Beinhart (hypocrite!)

[ProSense]

DAVID SIROTA
04.30.2006

Peter Beinart Has No Clothes

No matter how many times Establishment pundits and politicians contradict themselves and push policy prescriptions that then fall flat on their face, the sheer audacity of these people to continue puffing out their chests as "experts" never ceases to amaze. It's positively incredible, really - only in politics (and perhaps economics) can someone embrace brazen hypocrisy, make high-profile predictions that end up being wildly off the mark and then not only keep their job, but continue to be billed - and to bill themselves - as a guru.

The most high-profile example of this these days is Peter Beinart of the New Republic. He is running around promoting himself as the Democratic Party's visionary leader on foreign policy - sententiously berating the Democratic Party for not telling America "what their vision is" on foreign policy.

Beinart, you may recall, is one of the Washington pundits who most loudly echoed the Bush administration's push for war in Iraq. "If the Democratic Party becomes the anti-war-with-Iraq party...we really will no longer have a 50-50 nation, we'll have a 60-40 Republican nation," Beinart declared on Fox News in 2002. "The Democrats will be in a kind of McGovernite wilderness for a generation." He was, of course, about as far off the mark as one can get. Today, polls consistently show that Iraq has been a major factor in the decimation of President Bush's approval ratings. And it is no secret that one of the major reasons Democrats haven't done a better job of capitalizing on those poor numbers is because they have refused to support getting us out of Iraq.

But bad predictions are nothing when Beinart's subsequent attacks came. The Washington Post wrote the month before the invasion in 2003 that "Beinart is a full-fledged, talon-baring hawk on Iraq, a stance that has led him to assail, among others, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.)." Beinart specifically "chided Kerry for making anti-war noises after voting to support action against Saddam Hussein, saying Kerry's presidential candidacy 'is doomed to fail if Kerry keeps speaking so dishonestly about Iraq.'" In the New Republic, Beinart attacked Kerry for "think he can have it both ways on the war."

Snip...

Here's what the Atlantic Monthly now reports, essentially stripping Beinart naked and proclaiming "The Emperor has no clothes":

"Like many Democrats of his ilk, Beinart initially supported the intervention in Iraq, believing that bringing down a WMD-wielding, genocidal dictator was in the tradition of liberal interventionism. He has since changed his mind, however."

Let's review this one more time just to understand what kind of chutzpah is really at work here - a chutzpah so laughable in its egotism that it's almost hard to fathom. The very same pundit who is running around with a new book promoting himself as a model if intellectual integrity/courage and demanding Democrats reflexively embrace neoconservative hawkisness in the name of having a "vision" is the same guy who led the charge for war in Iraq, berated Democrats who criticized the war, yet now has quietly decided to change his mind on the whole affair, joining in criticizing the Bush administration for the war in Iraq that he himself originally promoted. I would say this is as ridiculous as a kleptomaniac telling people not to steal - but that would be an insult to criminals, as the brazenness of Beinart's behavior is even more disgusting.

More…

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/peter-beinart-has-no-clot_b_20089.html

But David, again, it wasn't a vote for the war! Kerry has been consistent. Geez!

[karynnj]

1. Beinhart has an article this week in the NYT magazine section

He says of Kerry that he should have emphasized his considerable foreign policy expertise rather than his Vietnam biography. I was confused about the article because I knew the New Republic was pro- Iraq war. I also got lost in his words on what the foreign policy should be. (Funny, I had no problem with Kerry's CFR or Ireland speeches, so I don't think it's totally me.) This Sirota article helps me understand the perspective - but if they want a vision KERRY has one.


I don't read David' comments as saying it was a vote for war. He is quoting the WP quoting Beihnart as critisizing Kerry for speaking against the war before the war started after voting to take action against Saddam Hussein. Oddly, Beinhart's comment intended as negative is relatively fair. Where he wrong is he then said speaking against the war doomed Kerry's candidacy. Sirota is right, it didn't - Leiberman is the one who did what Beihart suggested and I think the highest he got in a primary was 5th.

[ProSense]

2. Actually,

I should have indicated that the comment I was referring is the part snipped out.

Beinart, of course, was certainly right that Kerry's equivocation on the war hurt him in 2004. And in that same New Republic piece, he rightly said that Democrats need "clarity and direction" on foreign policy - with us expected to believe that Beinart provides that.

Beinart signed the PNAC letter, so he has no credibility in this area, IMO.

[karynnj]

3. Sorry - I missed that

That is questionable though - it's the old argument of where a firm total anti-war posture could have worked. Kerry was clear that he wouldn't have gone to war, but hung onto to saying that the IWR was the right thing to do. It's easy in hindsight to say that any possible alternative could have been better, but it's not provable.

It did show that there were situations under which Kerry would go to war - which was important to many people and that he would take strong positions against foreign countries not abiding by international law. When added to his last resort, not rush to war and wrong war comments, it did add up to a strong, but prudent leader.

The problem was that it became too abstract - and especially after the Grand Canyon confusion did become confusing. But even then, it was clear that Kerry would never have gone to war. In a way, it may have been Kerry's honesty and the fact that he, unlike most politicians, seems to always answer the question asked. Here, in retrospect, he might have been better off answering each time that he did say not to go to war before Bush invaded and that he voted for it to get the UN to resolve the issue of whether Saddam had weapons. This was an answer he sometimes gave - but there were many times when he said it was an authority he would want as President in that situation.

[TayTay]

4. Beinhart said something nice about Kerry?

OMG, get the smelling salts. Beinhart *hates* John Kerry with a passion bordering on obsession. He actually said Kerry had vast foreign policy experience? OMG, he must be trying to suck up to the reasonable and sane people again.

I like David Sirota but I don't think he is right all the time. His modern prairie populism has some problems with it and it alone won't save the Democratic Party. But in a Beinhart/Sirota fight, I gotta go with David.

:popcorn:

[karynnj]

5. Praise embedded in critisism, I guess.

Quote (in the very first paragraph of the long (boring) article:
"In 2004, John Kerry substitued biography for ideology, largely ignoring his own extensive foreign-policy record and stressing his service in Vietnam. " I don't know who exactly he thinks Kerry hired as his double for that first debate. That guy really showed off his foreign policy expertise.

[sandnsea]

6. "modern prairie populism"

Oh god Tay Tay, that is so funny. :rofl:

The really funny thing is that he usually misses what it is the "prairie people" are voting for anyway. He tends to jump on Schweitzer's bandwagon when Schweitzer is wrong, like pushing coal over wind. Montana has vast open stretches of windy places, one of the windiest is on a very poor reservation just east of Glacier Park. Anyway, Schweitzer does the running away from the party thing on a lot of issues, which is easy to do if you aren't faced with the problems a President is, like gun crime. Using him, or "prairie populism", as a national strategy isn't going to work.