Digby's Hullabaloo

Mistah Kurtz, He Weird.

by tristero

America’s growing contingent of post-60’s doves and the hope of military transformation are two sides of the same coin. The post-Vietnam rise of reflexive opposition to American military involvement has given birth to the dream of military transformation: war conducted by technology, with a “light footprint” from soldiers. So I “blame” both the administration’s over-hopefulness, and the very real domestic political constraints that make almost any American military venture difficult to undertake.

Check out that second sentence in the above excerpt, folks. Read it again and marvel. Kurtz is saying that the Rumsfeld doctrine – “a war conducted by technology, with a ‘light footprint’ from soldiers” – is, in fact, a response to liberals who made the American public, for the past 30 years in the wake of Vietnam, risk adverse. Put another way, using the rhetoric Kurtz’s pals applied to brand people like me “objectively pro-Saddam,” Rumsfeld and Bush are merely political compromisers who made the mistake of taking the “anti-war left” too seriously in making their plans for war.

I’m sure Kurtz thinks this is a thoughtful, nuanced, and balanced argument. After all, he’s assigning blame equally to an overly optimistic administration and an overly cautious public. And indeed, Kurtz thinks Josh Marshall’s criticism of his drivel is – such a thoughtful word! – “simplistic.” So let’s provide another example of Kurtz’s fair-minded, sophisticated “analysis:”

In fact, a huge chunk of the Democratic Party was against the Iraq war from the start, and would have opposed it even if–no, especially if–they thought that war could be won.

You read that right. Kurtz said many Democrats would have opposed the war because they thought the US would win it.

But maybe you think I am lifting Kurtz’s crap out of context, creating bullshit from pure gold. Ok. Here are the following sentences:

The doves hugely exaggerated even minor problems, such as those we faced in the first week or two of the shooting war. And as I noted in “Troop Dearth,” the polarization of debate during even the early and more successful phases of the war made it tough for the administration to admit errors on troop strength and correct course. But that doesn’t mean I hold the administration blameless. Far from it.

Yup, that’s what Kurtz wrote. He actually blames Bush’s penchant for suppressing bad news and his failure to admit mistakes on none other than we liberals who are way too quick to criticize him.

Now there are many ways to respond to this kind of garbage. One way is to do what Josh Marshall does, correctly note that Kurtz’s argument is beyond absurd, but argue with it anyway, patiently reminding everyone that Republicans completely controlled the government for nearly all of the past six years. To take his argument as serious enough to deserve refutation (and Josh does refute it with passion), however, provides Kurtz with gravitas he doesn’t deserve. It’s as if Neil de Grasse Tyson took time out to refute convincingly a clown who thinks the moon is made of green cheese – a significant portion of the DC punditocracy will start to smell something funny during a full moon. Hey, y’never know!

Another response is to ignore Kurtz, which unfortunately has the effect of letting this stuff fester and grow, as the history of rightwing nuttiness in America proves it will.

A third response is to note that this life is far too short, and the situation in Iraq is far too dire, to take seriously a man who blames the tragedies perpetrated by the Bush administration on the profound influence Michael Moore – via proxy – had on Donald Rumsfeld’s military strategizing in 2001.

A fourth alternative: Offer Stanley Kurtz an internship on the writing team for The Colbert Report. But there’s a slight problem: Kurtz isn’t the slightest bit funny in the “funny ha-ha” meaning of the word.

I choose Door Number Three.