I read Donald Rumsfeld's memoir as a teenager. I presume its account of how the Bush administration decided to invade Iraq is one of the most charitable possible accounts, and I remember reading it and it all seeming like aggressively motivated reasoning. I noticed when there were only a few pages left in the chapter and wondered how he was going to pull his case together with so little space left. He never did! He essentially just concluded, "So as you can see, we had to invade Iraq," and I thought, "I don't see that at all, and I'm 16."
Also, it's remarkable how totally backwards Brooks had it on who was living in a dream palace and would never admit they were wrong.
I remember most of America seemed to support the invasion, but this roster of misguided pundits is impressive. I was appalled by the whole thing. The pretense for invasion was so obviously manufactured and had zero to do with 9/11. You didn't have to be any kind of expert to see this. You just had to read the paper! I couldn't understand why 99% of people, including media, seemed to support it. I thought it was crazy. And all elected Dems seemed to feel like they had to support it or be branded wimpy liberals. Horrible time.
I remember as a kid who didn't know much about politics (and didn't care to) supporting the war in Afghanistan. Osama was the "bad guy." You go and beat up the bad guy. Understanding the toll of the war and its lingering repercussions, my stance is different now, but I'll admit I didn't always think this way.
Regarding Iraq, though, even then it seemed like a war without justification. These purported experts, many of whom were given a national platform, don't have much of a leg to stand on regarding their positions. So much for being the adults in the room.
David Brooks and Thomas Friedman still have their unassailable sinecures on the NYT opinion page to this day despite being hilariously wrong on top of being terrible writers, “dream palaces?” Wtf is he talking about? Jonathan Chait continues to wander around presenting himself as a center left wise man willing to ask (and conveniently answer,) the “hard questions” that happen to line up with right wing talking points. And Matty Yglesias... I guess he was always a bad take factory on two feet.
The real plum has to be the Atlantic’s David Frum, who masquerades as a deep thinker these days pretending his Never Trump status absolves his Iraqi sins. You won’t find any “hot takes” form 2003 from Frum, unless you count the “Axis of Evil,” speech he helped craft for Shrub Bush...
When Biden pulled out of Afghanistan, he got pretty much unanimous condemnation for it from the entire media. There are certain points of consensus among the beltway media, and this type of war-mongering is one of them.
Thanks, Parker, for reminding us that not just being total wrong, but presenting nonsensical arguments in support of a bad decision is no impediment to future success.
In particular, reading the Great Contrarian Matthew Yglesias’ column, I’m struck by how ridiculous his reasoning sounds — even if you thought invading was a good idea. But here we are and he’s making millions from “bad takes.”
The run up to that war was quite depressing. In Chicago there was a memorable event for those of us who were there. Shortly (I think it was a week?) before the war started Sonic Youth and Public Enemy had a show together at the Aragon Ballroom. After the show, outside the theater there was a peaceful anti war protest, which police broke up with force.
I was away a bit from the police beatings, but a police officer who was near us told us to “go back to the suburbs” which we didn’t do as we had come up to the show from Hyde Park, on the south side. One of our group was a 5’2” woman who had never lived in a suburb in her life (decades later I’m pretty sure that is still true for her) and she was ready to attack that cop. The rest of us in our group held her back. We didn’t end up in jail or beaten that night.
Parker (or anyone else), have you ever read Weapons of Mass Diplomacy? It's a graphic novel written by a member of the French Foreign Minister's team during that period, and gives a very good account of the tenor of the international diplomatic community outside the US at that time. I very much recommend it.
As someone who was only 6 on 9/11, work like this is invaluable in helping decode what happened when I was too young to understand, and also applying it to things like the treatment of Palestinian issues in the media we're seeing.
I read Donald Rumsfeld's memoir as a teenager. I presume its account of how the Bush administration decided to invade Iraq is one of the most charitable possible accounts, and I remember reading it and it all seeming like aggressively motivated reasoning. I noticed when there were only a few pages left in the chapter and wondered how he was going to pull his case together with so little space left. He never did! He essentially just concluded, "So as you can see, we had to invade Iraq," and I thought, "I don't see that at all, and I'm 16."
Also, it's remarkable how totally backwards Brooks had it on who was living in a dream palace and would never admit they were wrong.
I remember most of America seemed to support the invasion, but this roster of misguided pundits is impressive. I was appalled by the whole thing. The pretense for invasion was so obviously manufactured and had zero to do with 9/11. You didn't have to be any kind of expert to see this. You just had to read the paper! I couldn't understand why 99% of people, including media, seemed to support it. I thought it was crazy. And all elected Dems seemed to feel like they had to support it or be branded wimpy liberals. Horrible time.
This is an incredibly disheartening roundup with an incredibly charming endnote, thanks for that.
I remember as a kid who didn't know much about politics (and didn't care to) supporting the war in Afghanistan. Osama was the "bad guy." You go and beat up the bad guy. Understanding the toll of the war and its lingering repercussions, my stance is different now, but I'll admit I didn't always think this way.
Regarding Iraq, though, even then it seemed like a war without justification. These purported experts, many of whom were given a national platform, don't have much of a leg to stand on regarding their positions. So much for being the adults in the room.
If you believe AI becoming self-aware is what will bring forth the end of humanity, my solution is to train it on pundits.
David Brooks and Thomas Friedman still have their unassailable sinecures on the NYT opinion page to this day despite being hilariously wrong on top of being terrible writers, “dream palaces?” Wtf is he talking about? Jonathan Chait continues to wander around presenting himself as a center left wise man willing to ask (and conveniently answer,) the “hard questions” that happen to line up with right wing talking points. And Matty Yglesias... I guess he was always a bad take factory on two feet.
The real plum has to be the Atlantic’s David Frum, who masquerades as a deep thinker these days pretending his Never Trump status absolves his Iraqi sins. You won’t find any “hot takes” form 2003 from Frum, unless you count the “Axis of Evil,” speech he helped craft for Shrub Bush...
I hope that a LOT of people see this work!
It is illustrative of so much in our "hot takes" for big $$ media environment and the fail up nature of elite pundits. Brilliant
When Biden pulled out of Afghanistan, he got pretty much unanimous condemnation for it from the entire media. There are certain points of consensus among the beltway media, and this type of war-mongering is one of them.
Thanks, Parker, for reminding us that not just being total wrong, but presenting nonsensical arguments in support of a bad decision is no impediment to future success.
In particular, reading the Great Contrarian Matthew Yglesias’ column, I’m struck by how ridiculous his reasoning sounds — even if you thought invading was a good idea. But here we are and he’s making millions from “bad takes.”
The run up to that war was quite depressing. In Chicago there was a memorable event for those of us who were there. Shortly (I think it was a week?) before the war started Sonic Youth and Public Enemy had a show together at the Aragon Ballroom. After the show, outside the theater there was a peaceful anti war protest, which police broke up with force.
I was away a bit from the police beatings, but a police officer who was near us told us to “go back to the suburbs” which we didn’t do as we had come up to the show from Hyde Park, on the south side. One of our group was a 5’2” woman who had never lived in a suburb in her life (decades later I’m pretty sure that is still true for her) and she was ready to attack that cop. The rest of us in our group held her back. We didn’t end up in jail or beaten that night.
Parker (or anyone else), have you ever read Weapons of Mass Diplomacy? It's a graphic novel written by a member of the French Foreign Minister's team during that period, and gives a very good account of the tenor of the international diplomatic community outside the US at that time. I very much recommend it.
As someone who was only 6 on 9/11, work like this is invaluable in helping decode what happened when I was too young to understand, and also applying it to things like the treatment of Palestinian issues in the media we're seeing.