{"id":11436,"date":"2011-09-06T08:43:44","date_gmt":"2011-09-06T16:43:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=11436"},"modified":"2011-09-06T10:28:49","modified_gmt":"2011-09-06T18:28:49","slug":"ny-times-editor-justifies-his-existence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2011\/09\/06\/ny-times-editor-justifies-his-existence\/","title":{"rendered":"<i>NY Times<\/i> Editor Finally Justifies His Existence; <i>TAC<\/i> Debuts New Blog"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Bill Keller provides a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/09\/06\/us\/sept-11-reckoning\/keller.html?pagewanted=1&amp;_r=3&amp;src=twr\">handy list<\/a> of people who should have been eternally discredited by their behavior after 9\/11:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>During the months of public argument about how to deal with Saddam Hussein, I christened an imaginary association of pundits the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2003\/02\/08\/opinion\/the-i-can-t-believe-i-m-a-hawk-club.html\" target=\"_blank\">I-Can\u2019t-Believe-I\u2019m-a-Hawk Club<\/a>, made up of liberals for whom 9\/11 had stirred a fresh willingness to employ American might. It was a large and estimable group of writers and affiliations, including, among others, Thomas Friedman of The Times; Fareed Zakaria, of Newsweek; George Packer and Jeffrey Goldberg of The New Yorker; Richard Cohen of The Washington Post; the blogger Andrew Sullivan; Paul Berman of Dissent; Christopher Hitchens of just about everywhere; and Kenneth Pollack, the former C.I.A. analyst whose book, \u201cThe Threatening Storm,\u201d became the liberal manual on the Iraqi threat.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Alas, the &#8220;Eternally Discredited&#8221; and &#8220;Handsomely Rewarded&#8221; files keep getting mixed up in this best of all possible worlds.<\/p>\n<p>While we&#8217;re all in retrospective mode, I&#8217;ll note that our friends at <em>The American Conservative<\/em> just debuted a new blog by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amconmag.com\/dreher\/\">Rod Dreher<\/a>. Dreher, as you probably don&#8217;t remember, contributed to <em>National Review<\/em> from around <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/author\/56256\">2001-2006<\/a>. I do remember, as I followed <em>National Review<\/em>&#8216;s blog closely during the run-up to the Iraq invasion (I even wrote a little <a href=\"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/barganier\/ba032403.html\">tribute<\/a>). I particularly remember one hot streak Dreher, then 36 years old, went on on <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/March_2003\">March 17, 2003<\/a>, the day President Bush gave Saddam Hussein an ultimatum and the day after Rachel Corrie got crushed by an Israeli bulldozer. Some highlights:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/corner\/60950\/teach-your-children-well\/rod-dreher\"><strong>TEACH YOUR CHILDREN WELL<\/strong><\/a> [Rod Dreher]<br \/>\nThe Little Green Footballs blog has a couple of photographs up showing the dead human shield Rachel Corrie showing Palestinian kids how to burn an American flag. Remind me again why we&#8217;re supposed to feel sorry for this America-hating, terrorist-loving idiot?<br \/>\nPosted at 11:32 AM<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/corner\/60951\/blixie-chicks\/rod-dreher\"><strong>THE &#8220;BLIXIE CHICKS&#8221;<\/strong><\/a> [Rod Dreher]<br \/>\n&#8220;Up with Darryl Worley, down with the Blixie Chicks,&#8221; writes a Washington, DC, country fan, who&#8217;s thrilled by the news that country stations nationwide are dumping the Bush-bashing trio. The &#8220;Blixie Chicks&#8221; &#8212; I like that.<br \/>\nPosted at 11:41 AM<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/corner\/60963\/one-casualty-war\/rod-dreher\"><strong>ONE CASUALTY OF WAR<\/strong><\/a> [Rod Dreher]<br \/>\nI&#8217;ve noticed, with regret, that it has become impossible to discuss the war with friends who oppose it. Mind you, I live in New York City, so I suppose it&#8217;s possible that people who are against the war are having similar problems offering their views in Red America. A liberal neighbor of mine stopped his car in the middle of the street the other day when he saw me on the sidewalk, and shouted out, &#8220;Your president is dragging us into a war nobody wants!&#8221; An old friend down South who is very liberal, and who denounced me in a scathing letter when I told her I voted for Bush (I then had to &#8220;confess&#8221; that I worked for NR), seems to have cut me off after a letter of months ago in which I said I supported war with Iraq. Haven&#8217;t heard a word from her since. This past February was the first birthday of mine in 22 years on which she hasn&#8217;t sent me a card.<\/p>\n<p>Much more difficult for me to deal with are many of my anti-war conservative friends, with whom I have much more in common, and around whom I spend vastly more time. I&#8217;ve had no luck discussing things with them. I do believe there is a coherent conservative case to be made against war with Iraq, but in my experience, <strong>things from their side quickly degenerate into hot-tempered, paranoid expectorating about &#8212; you guessed it &#8212; the Jews<\/strong>. And once it goes that far, it&#8217;s game over. No rational discussion is possible.<\/p>\n<p>And this is before the shooting has even started! I wonder if friendships are going to be a casualty of this war. Do you?<br \/>\nPosted at 01:23 PM<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Well, that&#8217;s enough blockquoting, but be sure to check out these two gems: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/thecorner\/03_03_17_corner-archive.asp#005000\">&#8220;MYXOMATOSIS&#8221;<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/thecorner\/03_03_17_corner-archive.asp#005022\">HUMBLE BUT MAGNIFICENT<\/a>. Ah, youth! Anyway, congrats to Rod and <em>The American Conservative<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>UPDATE: I&#8217;ve been accused of cherry-picking. OK. Please, do go read <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/author\/56256\">every single word Dreher wrote at <em>National Review<\/em><\/a> \u2014 for instance, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/corner\/116830\/islam-and-apocalypse\/rod-dreher\">this dusty relic<\/a> from prehistory. Islamocalypse! Apparently, at some point after Dreher left <em>National Review<\/em> for far less prominent publications, he had some second thoughts. I&#8217;m not terribly impressed by what people say after the damage is done, but <a href=\"http:\/\/www.realclearreligion.org\/articles\/2011\/05\/09\/why_i_cant_take_joy_in_osamas_death_106249.html\">here you go<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_s6DQSIjTFs\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"420\" height=\"345\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bill Keller provides a handy list of people who should have been eternally discredited by their behavior after 9\/11: During the months of public argument about how to deal with Saddam Hussein, I christened an imaginary association of pundits the I-Can\u2019t-Believe-I\u2019m-a-Hawk Club, made up of liberals for whom 9\/11 had stirred a fresh willingness to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,32],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-11436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-40","category-iraq"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11436"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11443,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11436\/revisions\/11443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11436"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=11436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}