(see 10 for introduction)
local to 3
express to 2.5
It’s Feingold for president! Having run his amazing senate speech as a Capital Time op-ed piece, John Nichols anoints him the 2008 standardbearer in Thursday’s column. “Absolute rejection of the war in Iraq and empire building” is to be the rallying cry.
As the dead horse is about to be beaten again, it’s fitting to recall the old Limelighters’ takeoff on the psychological western. “You’ve killed one hundred and forty men, old buddy, and now you want to settle down.” It turns out that the “Gunslinger” is not a bad cowpoke, just a sick one–he comes from a “broken home on the range.” I’d like to, indeed I do think that Russ Feingold’s deception isn’t willful.
How could someone who laments the “squandering” of “our power to lead, to persuade, and to inspire” and the “undermining” of “our ability to win…hearts and minds” have expressed solidarity with Israel after it wrought death and demolished the Palestinian infrastructure in the spring of 2002? He mentions the 9/11 Commission report, but ignores what it calls a “simple fact,” “American policy regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” as well as “American actions in Iraq are dominant staples of popular commentary across the Arab and Muslim world.”
Citing the Pentagon’s Defense Science Board’s conclusion that “Muslims” hate us for our policies, “especially ‘what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights,'” David Hirst notes that the Bush adminstration “can never acknowledge the real nature of the [Arab-Israeli] problem, which is essentially one of decolonization.”
Feingold notes that majorities in the four predominantly Muslim countries included in a 2004 Pew survey “doubt the sincerity of the U.S. war on terrorism and say that it is an effort to control Mideast oil and dominate the world.” Majorities in three of the five non-Muslim states agree. Does Feingold? I don’t know, but if he is “rejecting empire building” here, he’s on shaky ground, he’s denying the U.S. a prerogative he’s afforded Israel.
He doesn’t mention the survey’s finding that majorities or near majorities in the four Muslim countries “also believe the anti-terrorism effort is driven by the desire of the U.S. to protect Israel” (the elephant). Nor does he mention the 2003 Pew which finds that “in 20 of 21 populations surveyed – Americans are the only exception – pluralities or majorities believe the United States favors Israel over the Palestinians too much. This opinion is shared in Israel…”
Acknowledging that the anointed one has a severe psychological problem, that he needs deprogramming, is not going to help the effort to provide “progressives” something to feel good about. Feingold doesn’t use the word “Israel,” so neither does Nichols. That’s 106 columns down, four to go.
