Leftist Admits Dean Barett Is Right About The Left's Cowardice In Speaking About Israel-Hezbollah War; And Yet, Somehow, Barnett Is Wrong And He Is Right

Barnett said (few posts down) that liberals were silent on the war because they were too cowardly to offer their true opinions. Somehow the genius Tbogg, who, as far as I can tell, blogs about nothing else but other blogs (let's be charitable by calling it a "metablog," rather than "perpetual masturbation without any satisfactory climax"), refutes Barnett by conceding he is entirely correct. And then he whoops it up like he's really bloodied Barnett by conceding the basic accuracy of his charges.

It's like getting sacked for a safety and then, for reasons unfathomable, doing an elaborately-choreographed coordinated end zone dance to celebrate the "score."

Anyway. Let's hear from Tbogg himself, who, I'm told, spends his off hours working at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, splitting atoms... With his mind. After reciting Barnett' basic brief, he defiantly concedes:

As I said before:

Basically it is impossible in America to criticize Israel, or speak in defense of the Palestinian people, without being called an "anti-semite" which is why I believe that so many blogs on the left have been so quiet about the attack on Lebanon and what is benignly referred to as Israel's "overreaction". In fact, I hesitated to even write this post remembering how Juan Cole was smeared and denied an appointment at Yale. It is a very rare occurrence when I hesitate to write what is on my mind; but you know us liberals and how we hate to be called a "bigot" or to be accused of being "intolerant" by people who are bigots and are intolerant. Well, as my grandmother used to say: "fuck that noise". Also, I'm not staying up late waiting for a call from Yale.

...

Basically what Barnett is doing is playing the taunting game where he is saying,

"C'mon. Just say it. Just tell me how you feel about Israel and Hezbollah."

and any answer [more] nuanced than

"Raymond Shaw Israel is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being country I've ever known in my life. "

will be de facto evidence of jew-hatred and anti-semitism. Face it: nuance is completely wasted on the war-war-war crowd so why play their game?

Yeah! Take that! You moron, you were completely right! Face!!

I had to change "less" to "more" above because Tbogg got lost in his own fairly simple sentences. It's what he meant.

He does claim that a scary-important analyst named "Billmon" has written a "veritable smorgasbord" of posts on the Israel-Hezbollah War (which he calls -- brace yourself for Big Funny -- The Summer of My Lebanese Incursion), which I'll assume is true, but he's conceding that most of the left won't write about Israel because their opinions are politically unpopular.

So, most of the left, by Tbogg's admission, does not, in fact, consist of Brave Independent Speakers of Truth To Power, but rather scaredy-cats who shy away from writing "truth" for fear of the "power" of other people saying mean things about them.

How exactly he contrues this admission of Barnett's esssential point as a refutation of Barnett is beyond me, but then, the left has had a great amount of practice recently spinning defeats as moral victories of some sort.

They say the French are the only people capable of haughtiness while groveling. Tbogg and his kind seem to be the only people capable of righteous indignation while admitting guilt. "How dare you impugn me with these scurrilous charges which are all the more odious for their essential truthfulness!"

That kind of thing.

I think the Bull Moose's observation is relevant here: If the left consists of such kill-crazy super-terrorist-keyboard-warriors as they so often claim, who are really, really are eager to fight the "right war" against terror (generally defined as any war the US is not actually involved in, or about to enter), then why are they incapable of supporting Israel's war against a group which is

1) unambiguously terroristic,

2) without any legitimate claims to land (as Hamas might have),

3) supported and armed by Iran, the country they often claim is the country we should have fought instead of Iraq (of course, had we done so, they'd've said we should have fought Iraq instead),

4) provoked Israel into an unavoidable defensive War of Necessity, not a "War of Choice," by raining rockets upon its cities

and

5) is furthermore required by the UN -- the UN! -- to disarm and cease all illegal paramilitary attacks on Israel?

All the usual prerequisites the left usually lists for gaining their blessing for war are easily met here. And yet-- no blessing.

Why?

If Tbogg is such a Tough-Guy, Name-Takin'-and-Ass-Kickin' Widow-Makin' Terrorist Hunter Extraordinaire -- as so many on the Strong, Tough left claim, all just chompin' at the bit to go get Osama bin Ladin, personally if necessary, if only Bush would withdraw the troops from Iraq -- why is it, precisely, he cannot actually support Israel in a defensive war against an enemy which attacked without provocation and is in fact attacking civilian population centers every day?

See, here's the thing, idiot: If you see a lot of "nuance" in this situation, you really see no "nuance" at all. You don't see nuance or shades of gray; you see black and white, where the non-Western terrorists are always the Good Guys and the Western non-terrorists are always the Bad Guys.

If not this war, which war on terrorism, precisely, are you forons willing to support?

I mean -- I hate to ask this -- but, you know, do we actually have to wait for an invasion by the aliens in Independence Day for the left to finally say, "All right, I admit it, this time America and those troublesome Israelis might have something of a point about attacking those city-busting motherships"?

Or would they be preening about their wondrous capacity for seeing "nuance" even then?

Correction: Due to Tbogg's, let us say, less than professional prose, I was baffled by who, precisely, wrote all these important pieces about Israel and Hezbollah. It turns out it was someone named Billmon, rather than Tbogg.

Either/or. So there is one lefty blogger Tbogg can cite covering the Israel-Hezbollah War.

And of course there are others Tbogg doesn't mention, or doesn't know about.

But, by his own admission, most aren't. Because... they're afraid to say what they really think, especially (this is my own hunch) with November approaching, and the "netroots" so intertwined with Democratic campaign staffs.

Which was, again, precisely Barnett's point.

posted by Ace at 10:28 PM

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