Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
The GOP concern trolls...
Bret Stephens has an entirely predictable opinion piece in the WSJ today, in which he voices the concern and newfound support for the Iranian populace, who have taken to the streets in an historic and inspiring fashion in order to protest the incumbent regime's handling of the recent presidential election. Leaving aside the obvious ironies of the Katherine Harris/Norm Coleman type, the concern trolls unleashed at the Journal are a bit hard to swallow, as they are the same group that until recently was insisting that it would be a swell idea to bomb the shit out of these same people. As Greenwald points out, at about the same time that Batshit Crazy John McCain was singing "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran", the Journal was running an editorial from Norman Podhoretz, the bloodthirsty ghoul who breathed life into the neocon movement, explaining that he "hopes and prays" that we bomb Iran.
The other toadies of the neocon movement, including Bill Kristol, Dick Cheney, John Bolton, and Joe Lieberman fell quickly into line, supporting pre-emptive strikes against the 70 million or so souls who live in Persia. Their recent conversion to Iranophiles may be somewhat cynically viewed by the protesters in the streets of Tehran, I'd guess.
Look, I don't know whether the election there was fairly counted or not. It seems plausible that the will of the Iranian people may well have been to return Ahmadinejad, certainly some of the polling supports that conclusion. My guess is that Stephen's bold assertion that the "election was so transparently rigged that the only serious question is whether the regime even bothered to stuff the ballot boxes", is probably a rash assertion based upon his hopes and not any familiarity with the facts on the ground or the true wishes of the Persian people. The elections in Iran probably had much more to do with the day to day lives of the citizens there than they did with what Bret Stephens, John McCain, and George Will hoped to happen there.
More to the point is the sad irony that we continue to take seriously the opinions of the Kristol's and Podhoretz' of the neocon right, who have been so transparently wrong on every question on which they have opined, and now cry crocodile tears for a people who up to a few months ago they lusted to destroy.
UPDATE: Leave it to TBogg to play the Pam Geller card. Read the whole post, it's priceless.
The other toadies of the neocon movement, including Bill Kristol, Dick Cheney, John Bolton, and Joe Lieberman fell quickly into line, supporting pre-emptive strikes against the 70 million or so souls who live in Persia. Their recent conversion to Iranophiles may be somewhat cynically viewed by the protesters in the streets of Tehran, I'd guess.
Look, I don't know whether the election there was fairly counted or not. It seems plausible that the will of the Iranian people may well have been to return Ahmadinejad, certainly some of the polling supports that conclusion. My guess is that Stephen's bold assertion that the "election was so transparently rigged that the only serious question is whether the regime even bothered to stuff the ballot boxes", is probably a rash assertion based upon his hopes and not any familiarity with the facts on the ground or the true wishes of the Persian people. The elections in Iran probably had much more to do with the day to day lives of the citizens there than they did with what Bret Stephens, John McCain, and George Will hoped to happen there.
More to the point is the sad irony that we continue to take seriously the opinions of the Kristol's and Podhoretz' of the neocon right, who have been so transparently wrong on every question on which they have opined, and now cry crocodile tears for a people who up to a few months ago they lusted to destroy.
UPDATE: Leave it to TBogg to play the Pam Geller card. Read the whole post, it's priceless.
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