What a Time It Was
Last night, some friends and I were listening to “Even Hitler Had a Girlfriend” and the little-known fact that The Mr. T Experience’s Dr. Frank was a big-time liberal hawk warblogger back in the day came up. Even better, unlike most classic blogs, his archives are still 100 percent intact. Those new to the Internet may not realize it, but things like this from February 28, 2003 were, at the time, what most political blogging was like:
Another great column from Johann
Another great column from Johann Hari, on Bush’s AEI speech and the promise of democracy in the Arab world. I doubt he’s right in including Syria in his list of repressive regimes that can be nudged towards incremental democratization through gentle pressure alone; Baathism is a pernicious obstacle to democracy in principle as well as in practice, and anything short of “regime change” isn’t going to cut it. It’s hard to argue with the overall thrust though, epitomized by this conclusion:
The democratisation of Arab and Middle East countries is one of the most exciting progressive causes in the world. It is sad that so many of us, living in comfortable democracies, seem to have forgotten the great promise that democracy offers to oppressed peoples.
I dare say many of his readers will read that quote and think “right winger.” We live in a very strange time indeed.”
I’m pretty sure my own work from that period was just like this, but since merit doesn’t count for anything in contemporary America, I went on to become a successful professional political pundit.
In my defense, though, I never wrote anything this dumb and always — always — regarded Steven den Beste as a fool.
103 Responses to “What a Time It Was”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
November 24th, 2008 at 11:35 am
I never got the cult of Den Beste, either, and I was gung ho on Iraq until mid-2004 or so. He didn’t seem to know anything, and yet his lectures (and “strategic briefings”) on why Iraq doves were so, so wrong contained no actual research or facts. Just a bunch of war nerd blather and patronizing explanations of what “war” is and what “straw men” arguments are, and so on.
There was also the matter of him being a deeply weird introvert who posted once a month or so about how he really hated getting e-mail that disagreed with him (dude, why have a blog) and occasionally revealed nigh-Norman Bates views on women. When people would point this stuff out or make fun of him, he’d hide the post and create a dummy page that demanded you go away.
He was, in short, the ultimate warblogger.
November 24th, 2008 at 11:37 am
From Den Beste’s classic essay on “Anglo women”:
Never forget – this was a guy Glenn Reynolds considered a genius.
November 24th, 2008 at 11:38 am
Re Matthew’s comment “but since merit doesn’t count for anything in contemporary America, I went on to become a successful professional political pundit.”
————
Hey, that’s nothing compared to what some fuckups have achieved.
From http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/24/us/politics/24rubin.html?_r=1&hp
“WASHINGTON — It is testament to former Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin’s star power among many Democrats that as President-elect Barack Obama fills out his economic team, a virtual Rubin constellation is taking shape.
The president-elect’s choices for his top economic advisers — Timothy F. Geithner as Treasury secretary, Lawrence H. Summers as senior White House economics adviser and Peter R. Orszag as budget director — are past protégés of Mr. Rubin, who held two of those jobs under President Bill Clinton. Even the headhunters for Mr. Obama have Rubin ties: Michael Froman, Mr. Rubin’s chief of staff in the Treasury Department who followed him to Citigroup, and James P. Rubin, Mr. Rubin’s son. ”
————
Anyone want to guess who joined with Larry Summers and Republican Phil Gramm in 1998 in “getting the government off the backs of the people” and repealing banking regulation?
Anyone want to guess who’s been a prominent Director at Citibank?
November 24th, 2008 at 11:43 am
Never read Dan Beste but aren’t some Doves for democracy in the Middle East, just not at the point of a gun? I never liked the self-righteous language of the blogs you quote, but I remember thinking that democracy in Iraq could influence neighbors Saudi Arabia and Iran.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/24/world/middleeast/24saudi.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=Saudi%20Arabia&st=cse
By ROBERT F. WORTH
Published: November 23, 2008
JIDDA, Saudi Arabia — They cannot perform in public. They cannot pose for album cover photographs. Even their jam sessions are secret, for fear of offending the religious authorities in this ultraconservative kingdom.
But the members of Saudi Arabia’s first all-girl rock band, the Accolade, are clearly not afraid of taboos.
The band’s first single, “Pinocchio,” has become an underground hit here, with hundreds of young Saudis downloading the song from the group’s Web site. Now, the pioneering foursome, all of them college students, want to start playing regular gigs — inside private compounds, of course — and recording an album.
“In Saudi, yes, it’s a challenge,” said the group’s lead singer, Lamia, who has piercings on her left eyebrow and beneath her bottom lip. (Like other band members, she gave only her first name.) “Maybe we’re crazy. But we wanted to do something different.”
November 24th, 2008 at 11:44 am
As best as I can recall, Dr. Frank was far from being the worst of the warbloggers though – he mostly seemed lucid and intelligent, if completely wrong. I had either failed to see or forgotten his mash-note to Den Beste though, whose grasp of geo-strategic complexities combined the worst features of a mediocre Risk player and Marvin the Paranoid Android.
November 24th, 2008 at 11:53 am
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Rubin#Economic_record_and_the_2008_global_financial_crisis
———-
“Critics credit Rubin with helping create the conditions for the Financial crisis of 2007–2008, as a result of the policies he pursued as Treasury Secretary. Together with then-Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, Rubin strongly opposed the regulation of derivatives, when such regulation was proposed by then-head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Brooksley Born. Overexposure to credit derivatives of mortgage-backed securities—and credit default swaps (Insurance on securities)(CDS)—was a key reason for the failure of US financial institutions Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, American International Group, and Washington Mutual in 2008.
Arthur Levitt Jr., a former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, has said in explaining Mr Rubin’s strong opposition to the regulations proposed by Ms Born that Mr. Greenspan and Rubin were “joined at the hip on this.” “They were certainly very fiercely opposed to this and persuaded me that this would cause chaos.” [7]
According to the New York Times, “In November 1999, senior regulators—including Mr. Greenspan and Mr. Rubin—recommended that Congress permanently strip the CFTC of regulatory authority over derivatives.”[7] This advice was accepted and derivatives were kept clear of regulation by the CFTC.
Warren Buffett later called derivatives “financial weapons of mass destruction”, and the lack of regulation of derivatives played a key role in the 2008 financial crisis.”
November 24th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Every once in a while I’ll be listening to Emergency & I and remember that the Dismemberment Plan’s Travis Morrison was also a major war-booster (and IIRC, stayed that way longer than many), and I’m glad it hasn’t tarnished my enjoyment of his former band at all. It’s unfortunate, however, that my enjoyment of his solo albums has been tarnished by their horribleness.
November 24th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
The two posts by Don Williams (above) are exactly right. The appointment of this team to high-ranking financial posts is about as bad a selection as can be imagined. It’s like hiring the contractor that built your house–the one that just collapsed!–to rebuild your new house.
November 24th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
SCDB’s greatest hit, disappeared down the memory hole but preserved on your own Atlantic archives here. Spectacularly dumb.
November 24th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
I’m pretty sure that Rainn Williams and the writers of The Office spent a lot of time reading circa-2003 archives of warbloggers in shaping the role of Dwight Schrute. He’s essentially a cross between Stephen Den Beste and Kim Du Toit.
November 24th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
Wow, I was reading through that Frank guy’s archive… trying to find at what point he stopped talking politics and started just talking pop culture bullshit.
Seems to be around 2005.
It’s interesting his November 2004 posts were all a big F-you to Democrats… but he seems strangely silent through 2008.
November 24th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
“I’m pretty sure my own work from that period was just like this.” I know it’s natural to wish to feel that truth, justice, and the American way have finally triumphed owing to the development of blogging, but that seems wrong on two counts.
First, the left did oppose the war, and the right is as nutty as ever. The public and the mainstream media are just less likely to get snowed at the moment.
Second, blogging still is all too often at the level of “this is a great post,” followed by a quote and a two-line comment. Aren’t most of today’s posts by Matt like that? I still think that it’s also why, no, blogging can’t make up for a lousy mainstream media. We still need them as something to quote other than one another, in the left echo chamber. And we still need to mobilize the left the way the right has, to play the refs, so to speak, so that the mainstream media start to do a halfway honest job.
November 24th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
“I’m pretty sure my own work from that period was just like this, but since merit doesn’t count for anything in contemporary America, I went on to become a successful professional political pundit.”
No, they weren’t remotely like that, and you were just barely prowar. Are you pretending to think that to make a joke, or is your memory really that bad?
November 24th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Excellent find. In fairness Hari has quite unequivocally recanted now.
November 24th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Extremism
Kevin Drum thinks there are too many extremists out there yelling and screaming about Iraq. So do I. So, in fact, does everyone I know. In fact, it seems to me that except for a handful of bloggers and newspaper columnists, everyone feels about the same way about this war — uneasy, but hopeful that something good may come of it. Indeed, this feeling is, in my experience, so universal that I sort of wonder why everyone feels surrounded by extremists. My advice: Read less and talk to your friends more.
Then he makes a different point:
I think that fundamentalism is the real enemy of progress, and that includes both fundamentalist take-no-prisoners conservatives as well as fundamentalist America-is-a-sink-of-corruption lefties — both at home and abroad. I’m tired of Christian fundamentalists, who apparently think America should be ruled via some lunatic interpretation of the book of Leviticus, and I’m tired of Islamic fundamentalists, who think it’s a sin for women to drive cars. Likewise, I’m tired of tax-cut fundamentalists who want to ruin the American economy via deficits as far the eye can see, and I’m tired of anti-globalization fundamentalists who think McDonald’s is the root of all evil.
Here’s a random sample. March 26.
I agree with that, too, but while the GOP really is dominated by Christian fundamentalists and anti-tax zealots, it’s pretty hard to believe that Bill Clinton and Al Gore were secretly anti-globalization radicals or America-bashers. The correct response to this sort of feeling isn’t Kevin’s “a pox on both your houses” pleading for a centrist party, it’s just to vote for your favorite uninspiring Democratic presidential candidate.
Posted by Matthew Yglesias at 03:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)
November 24th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Anglo women? Not as good as F. Roger Devlin!
November 24th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
I’m reading Matt’s archives, and he’s more than barely pro-war, but derisive of warbloggers.
Here’s another quote:
“Timing
It seems to me that whichever way you want to look at it, Bush has screwed the timing of this war up pretty badly. If we were going to do something that’s opposed by the population of every country on earth (besides Israel) it would have been better to do it quickly — like ripping off a band-aid — rather than taking all this time for opinions to harden, the anti-war movement to organize, terrorist groups to plan their responses, and letting international divisions wreak havoc with our policy in other areas. Clearly, the purpose of the slow-mo “rush to war” was to give the administration time to make the case and convince people to come on board. But that case-making has almost entirely failed. Yes, we’ve succeeding in bringing some additional governments on board, but most of the governments in question have little to offer the US in this sort of conflict. What we needed from the rest of the world were warm-and-fuzzy feelings so that going to war wouldn’t screw up all our other global priorities. We haven’t gotten any of that.
With all this said, I agree with Ken Pollock that it probably would’ve been better if the administration hadn’t started taking us down this road at all. Regime change needed to happen within the next few years, but perhaps we could have found a more opportune time. That said, if we back down now that’s going to make it all-but-impossible to try this again in a couple of years. In addition, it’ll make using pure deterrence against Saddam that much harder, since he’ll see himself as having “deterred” a US invasion without even acquiring nuclear weapons. So having come this far, I think we still need to do it.
But we need to recognize that with world public opinion where it is, we’re going to pay a heavy price. I think the gains in terms of both national interests and humanitarian considerations that could be reaped from regime change are considerable. But we have lots of other interests and lots of other ways where we could make the world a better place. If countries — and especially those with democratic governments — feel they can no longer cooperate with the United States then our efforts in all those other areas will be severely hampered.
That’s why it’s so important from a “realist” point of view that we do a good job of getting aid to the Iraqi people and establishing good government and democracy. World opinion will, I think, turn around if we handle the postwar aftermath correct, and if it doesn’t turn around we’re going to have a big problem on our hands.
Posted by Matthew Yglesias at 11:15 AM”
November 24th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
And this one’s mordantly funny:
Pressure
David Adesnik, who unlike me seems to be able to keep his wits about him, has a big long post on the prospects for real American commitment to a democratic Iraq. As he says, the key issue here is really whether the administration will come under pressure from conservatives to stick to it and see the job through. I’ve got some conservative readers, and you all seem like basically good people, so please, go forth and work your dark “hey, we’re your base!” magic on Dubya & co.
Posted by Matthew Yglesias at 09:39 PM
November 24th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
This was reasonable in some sense, and yet so unbelievably misguided:
“Moderate Blogging
Center Point’s road to the present says that
There do not seem to be many (anyone out there?) centrist bloggers.
That seems pretty wrong to me. It’s true that there are very few bloggers who do not seem to have a fairly firm attitude as to whether or not, all things considered, they think George W. Bush deserves to be reeleected, but that’s a sort of different thing. Consider such prominent conservative bloggers as Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Reynolds both of whom have views on abortion and gay rights that would easily get them booted off any GOP ticket. Indeed, Sullivan’s stance on gary rights would probably get him booted off a Democratic ticket.
Then take someone like Mickey Kaus. Many bloggers have (rightly) questioned the tendency of some to describe him as a liberal, but it’s a strange kind of conservative who supports universal health care, and opposes war with Iraq, social security privatization, and medicare “reform.” Rounding out the big ticket bloggers you have liberal Iraq hawk Josh Marshall and libertarian Virginia Postrel.
Indeed, while that cast of very prominent bloggers certainly tilts toward the right, it’s not really conventional American conservatism either.
I’m a bit less sure about the blogosphere left. I know that I’m certainly more of a New Democrat than a traditional liberal, I’m mildly hawkish and strongly pro-trade, I’m skeptical about affirmative action and open-minded about vouchers, and I don’t think I’m the only liberal blogger who holds those positions. It’s a little hard to say because some of our most prominent left-bloggers like Atrios and Kos don’t really talk much about the details of domestic policy.
Indeed, I suspect the reason why the blogosphere seems to be filled with extremists is that people tend to like to talk about the subjects they have extreme views on. Matt Welch, for example, has a virtuously moderate position on the Iraq issue which, due it’s being a bit of a confused muddle, isn’t something he likes to prate on about. I share similar mixed feelings, and tend to focus my posts on topics where I have strong opinions, and strong opinions typically mean extreme ones.
Posted by Matthew Yglesias at 01:38 PM”
November 24th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
I could do this all day, but I’ll stop now.
November 24th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
I just calculated I’ve been reading Matt for a fifth of my life now. Holy fucking shit.
November 24th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Fuck I actually read that ‘I’m a teddy bear’ lament and it made me sad. I can’t laugh at that!
November 24th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Mind you should the Obama fellow become an even more aggressive proponent of political reform over there than the Bush one it will almost certainly be the fault of lib Hitler.
November 24th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
If you want to see old-time Yglesias war blogging, back when he liked marty Peretz and was critical of the “Euroleft” and people who wanted to “appease Palestinian violence”, check out the original http://yglesias.blogspot.com/
See this classic Yglesias quote
I’m a liberal, and I think that means I ought to have a liberal attitude toward international relations — bear any burder, shoulder any load, the whole deal
Or this from Matthew in 2002
I do tend to worry that as we seek ways to cope with the immediate threat of Islamic extremism we may wind up taking our collective eyes off the ball with regard to the much more serious long-term problem of containing Chinese power
The really odd thing — Yglesian spelling was a lot better on that first, original blog. Maybe he edits in typos just to piss off his readers.
November 24th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
And here’a line specifically on Den Beste
Matt says
DEN BESTE GETS THE LESSONS of LAX Half right
So I’d say Matt had a chummy relationship with the stupidest of the early war bloggers.
Also, having read a little more of early-Yglesian era, did Matt ever apologize to Ziyad Yasin? Matt was a real jerk about “My American Jihad” back in 2002.
November 24th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
I love MTX. The fact the the combination of 9/11 and a radically incompetant President drove people’s political opinions off the deep end, left and right, for many years doesn’t really change that.
November 24th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Forget the content. It’s the style! I dare say indeed, hum, hum, old chap, old chap. It’s like they took writing lessons from PG Wodehouse, only seriously.
November 24th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
>I just calculated I’ve been reading Matt for a fifth of my life now.
If you stop moving your lips when you read, it wouldn’t take so long.
November 24th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Now I remember why I never really got the Yglesias-reading habit.
November 24th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
The guy called his blog (such as it was) “USS Clueless”. If ever there was truth in advertising, there it was.
November 24th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
NeoCon Utopians of the World Unite! – You have nothing to lose because War costs you NOTHING
November 24th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
Dr. Frank is hands down the smartest, cleverest pop-punk lyricist ever. So his, pro-war stance disappointed me, as I always thought we saw eye to eye. Fortunately, all the post 9-11 MTX stuff has pretty much sucked. Love is dead, fo’ sho.
I don’t know how big Phil Hendrie is, but he’s another guy who did a pro-Bush 180 after 9/11.
Would Dennis Miller fall into this camp? It seems I remember having a left leaning outlook pre 9-11, but the more I think about it, he may have always been how he is now, just less explicit.
November 24th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
You said it. This guy never served in the military, never occupied a foreign policy position, yet he was quoted by many other morons as being a serious strategist. More like straterigist, really.
It’s creepy that he now devotes himself to schoolgirl Anime.
Fuck him, a lot of what he wrote was genocidal nonsense, which is why Reynolds loved him – he’d just link to DenBeste rather than write it himself.
Odious. I hope he wanks himself to death to hentai in his basement.
November 24th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Wait wait wait. Best old post ever!
Ah, the wages of hindsight.
November 24th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
Sully will like this —
I CAN’T FIND THE STORY online, but I had a hardcopy of the Guardian yesterday that included a story by a man who had been held hostage by terrorists for five years. He stated that every day he had been beaten severely. Then he condemned the conditions in Guantanimo Bay as “similar.”
Could the European intelligentsia really be so far gone that even a man who has been tortured can’t recognize the difference between torture and normal prison conditions?
POSTED BY MATTHEW AT 1/24/2002 06:26:00 AM
November 24th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Interestingly enough, I mostly remember Den Beste from a much earlier time, when he was participating in the OS wars on comp.os.os2.advocacy back in the mid to late nineties.
He was a Windows booster back then. His one point (it’s the apps, stupid) is well taken, but his refusal to acknowledge the many superiorities of OS/2 as an operating system was pretty much designed to piss people off.
Ah those were the days, when men were men and disdained the asbestos underwear on usenet….
November 24th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Yep, I remember SDB quite well from the old days of Usenet on cooa. He was (and still is, I suppose) mendacious to a fault in arguing his one big point that he had to make. Of course, I suspect the real reason was somewhat different-he was old enough to really really dislike IBM for its behavior back in the even older days of the mainframe and minis. Usenet and especially the os advocacy groups tend to collect single minded people but he was exceptional in pushing his goal. Later on the goal changed to the neocon vision of war everywhere, war all the time-treating the world as being some sort of game that could be won if one only twisted the rules enough. Haven’t thought of him for quite some time now.
November 24th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
Den Beste is still blogging, as insightfully as ever! Don’t miss this recent entry:
http://chizumatic.mee.nu/weird_world/vanished_without_a_trace
Make sure and scroll down to comment #2.
MT
November 24th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
I read SDB from about 2000-2002; it was initially a fun “musings” blog, which had some interesting links, especially for a geeky type. There was crap, but I take that as a given for all authors. Really, like a lot of people I think his brain broke after 9/11, and while he might have been in a position to recover after a couple of years, I think that his own audience led him further down the primrose path. It’s really a good example of why you need to be, if you’re going to do something like this, be ready to be actively challenged. Then again, as others have pointed out, he’d already developed a reputation from metafilter suggesting otherwise.
And now he’s spending all of his time reviewing entertainment aimed at lonely 15-year old japanese boys.
November 24th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
This one sort of belies your ‘In my defense’:
STEVEN DEN BESTE RESPONDS to my queries about the other European settler-states by emphasizing the different historical contexts of settlement. What he has to say about Canada seems convincing to me.
POSTED BY MATTHEW AT 2/02/2002 01:31:00 AM
And another:
Evil — yes, of course — but an “axis?” I don’t think so. I’m not quite sure why no one else seems to be pointing this out, but Iraq, Iran, and North Korea have nothing to do with one another and even though we should take them all out, pretending that they’re some sort of allies is foolish.
POSTED BY MATTHEW AT 1/31/2002 01:32:00 PM
My bold.
November 24th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
SDB’s website is slashdotted already, or he’s killed any redirects coming from thinkprogress.org. Typical…
November 24th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Could the European intelligentsia really be so far gone that even a man who has been tortured can’t recognize the difference between torture and normal prison conditions?
POSTED BY MATTHEW AT 1/24/2002 06:26:00 AM
To be fair, note the date. By January 2002, Guantanamo Bay had only been used for three months or so. I think even the earliest reports in the mainstream of torture or abuse didn’t come until 2003. I have a book of political commentary from 2002 with essays by a dozen or so anti-war figures, and all the concern about civil liberties is phrased hypothetically in it.
I agree with you about the 1/13/02 post, though. Wow, that’s insane. Calling warbloggers stupid is accurate but incomplete. “Stupid” just sounds like a shortage of correct facts, while the real problem is the mentality.
November 24th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
I never wrote anything this dumb and always — always — regarded Steven den Beste as a fool.
You recently authored a post labeling Iranian arms supply to Iraqi insurgents BS based on an audit of caches post-1/08, despite a mountain of other evidence to the contrary. I’d say that’s in the ballpark.
Predisposed assumptions that influence bad analysis are an omnipresent threat, Mr. Yglesias.
November 24th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
Could the European intelligentsia really be so far gone that even a man who has been tortured can’t recognize the difference between torture and normal prison conditions?
And let’s not forget what those “normal prison conditions” turned out to be like:
Regularly tortured and subjected to close to 200 interrogation sessions by his [American] jailers, Sami Al-Haj began a hunger strike on January 7, 2007, in protest against his detention and to demand that his rights be respected. In retaliation, his jailers force-fed him on several occasions. His lawyer, Clive Stafford-Smith, who visited him in July last year, said he had lost about 40 pounds and was suffering from serious intestinal problems. He was also subject to bouts of paranoia and was finding it increasingly difficult to communicate normally.
….Another of them “suffered months of facial paralysis from a brutal beating inflicted by Guantanamo camp soldiers.” And then there’s this, about one of the other [Guantanamo] detainees, Saber Lahmer:
“When we last saw Saber in November, he was in his sixth month of solitary confinement. Since August, he has seen us, his legal team, twice and a psychiatrist on three brief occasions. For a few minutes each day, he sees the camp guards who bring his meals. He has had no other human contact. The glaring lights in his cell are on 24 hours a day, seven days a week. When we left the cell, we could hear Saber shouting — brief, truncated cries. We could not understand what he was saying.”
According to Human Rights Watch, that detainee — “a university-educated father of two who once taught at the Islamic Cultural Center in Bosnia” — “continues to be housed 22 hours a day in a single cell, with nothing to occupy his time other than his Koran” and “now reports that he is going blind in his left eye, a result that he attributes to being housed in cells with fluorescent lights on 24 hours a day.”
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/
November 24th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
Bill wrote:
But Bill, you don’t understand, the Democrats don’t have control of the White House yet. It’s in Matt’s political interest to cast down on Iranian perfidy.
When Obama is in the White House and the Democrats have control of the Executive Branch, only then will a more militant policy towards the Iranian fascists become acceptable.
You want to see how fast Matt Yglesias throws the Steve Clemonses of this world over the side? Have Ahmadhi-Nejad do something that could deeply embarrass Democrats at the polls, like take American hostages or sink an American destroyer while Obama is President. Yglesias and every so-called progressive in this country will be thumping for airstrikes against the Natanz Facility so fast you’d think they’d misplaced their Likud Party membership cards.
Trust me on this. It will go down this way. I know liberals like I know the back of my hand. Once they have power, they morph into a cross between Dick Cheney and Irving Kristol.
November 24th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
It was always a hoot to read SCDB’s bullshit over on Metafilter. People would call him on his lies and general idiocy, and then he’d play the wounded neo-con to the hilt. “WHY R U LIBRULS SO MEAN AND NASTY???”
Of course, now he’s retired to his bunker stocked with catgirl pr0n. The terrorists have won.
November 24th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Wow. I didn’t read Matt back in the day, so I didn’t realize how much of an asshole he’d been.
Why would the Muslims of the world even try to take us on? Maybe they’re just that crazy — I personally don’t think so — but if they all want to kill us, then we’ll just have to kill them all.
Just not ok.
November 24th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
Whoa, you just blew my mind.
I had no idea that Doctor Frank had a blog, and never pegged him as a warblogger.
I also had no idea just how off-base you were back in 2002.
November 24th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
This thread has to be the best ever on this blog – calling Matt out on every stupid thing he’s ever said. It pretty much confirms everything criticism I’ve ever had of Matt and his ignorance and arrogance.
Sadly, I believe that to be totally correct.
Justin Raimondo over at Antiwar has pretty much come to the same conclusion.
As soon as Obama is sworn in, the gin up for war with Iran will resume big time. And Matt, despite his protestations to me in an email last night, will swiftly convert back to being on board with that.
November 24th, 2008 at 9:31 pm
I just sent some of the quotes from Matt’s old posts above to him via email. Since he doesn’t read these comments, he doesn’t realize he’s been sandbagged by his old posts.
He’ll probably scream at me for sending him “spam”…
November 24th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
What a world, what a world. But I am curious — if Iran were to do something like “take American hostages or sink an American destroyer,” regardless of who is President, what would the correct response be? I mean, actually sink an American destroyer? What would the Naderite wing suggest in such circumstances?
November 24th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
I remember well how complicit Yglesias and other “liberal” bloggers and journalists were during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. As the sorry trajectory became clearer, they tacked back to the “left”–now defined as moderate criticisms of the management of the war rather than its genesis–and earned reputations as “moderates.” Which just goes to show: you can be totally wrong on the most important issues of the day, and just so long as you hedge your bets and stand ready to trim your sails you can emerge with “credibility” in the end. I for one would like to see some acknowledgment that the “Dirty Fucking Hippies” are the only ones in the political discussion of the past 8 years who got it remotely right.
November 24th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
But did you always regard Kenneth Pollack as a fool? To be fair, I think you’ve more than redeemed yourself, but I can remember being full of anger and disbelief at you, Kevin Drum and the rest of the “liberal hawk” crowd. I’ll still never understand why y’all found it so easy to eat the fresh, streaming bullshit chumps like Pollack were serving up on a platter. What did you really think Saddam Hussein was going to do if we didn’t invade? I understand the right either believed a. Saddam was working Al Qaeda or b. the whole thing was just an excuse from the beginning. But what did Matt Yglesias, Kevin Drum, Dr. Frank et. al. think was going to happen if we didn’t act? Inquiring minds want to know.
November 25th, 2008 at 12:01 am
Professor Booty: You are correct. While a restrained response might still be best, either of those actions (particularly the latter) would certainly be an act of war on Iran’s part. Partly for that reason, I don’t think they will happen.
YoloMike: Paleconservatives were also right.
In fairness to Yglesias, he has been forthright about his past mistakes. After all, this very post is self-deprecating, even if some found it not self-deprecating enough. Drum and Marshall have certainly tried to sweep things under the rug, on the other hand.
No one has noticed the funniest thing yet: the very last post (save notice of his move) on yglesias.blospot.com is complimentary toward future archenemy Jonah Goldberg.
November 25th, 2008 at 3:01 am
Steven den Beste sure has done well for himself since his fanatsy war became a nightmare.
“November 24, 2008
Bachelor Chef 01
Since I first tried making a quesadilla here, and found that it was easy and tasty, it’s become a staple food here for times when I want something fast and easy. For quite a while I grated cheese for it as I needed it, but about a month ago I decided to try an experiment. I grated up an entire block of Jack cheese, and then grated a bunch of cheddar and mixed it in, and stored it in my frig in a couple of hard boxes. When I want to make a quesadilla, I just grab one of them and take out a handful. It worked so well that when I finished that first lot I did it again, and included more cheddar the second time.”
Followed with pictures of grated cheese in tupperware, grated cheese on crackers, pre/post microwave.
Then he posts about slutty wolverine/young girl anime like its the next big thing.
November 25th, 2008 at 6:04 am
The 21 year old Yglesias (with approximately zero readers) was pretty obnoxious, but the 22 year old Yglesias, in the runup to the war, did spend some of his time defending war critics and criticizing warbloggers even as he supported the war.
As I remember it he changed his mind about the war before shit really hit the fan, more as a result of thinking through the issue more, and having been exposed to smart war critics for a while.
November 25th, 2008 at 8:13 am
From Den Beste and I’ll post it without comment, it speaks for itself.
November 25th, 2008 at 9:18 am
To be fair to Matt Yglesias, he was only 9 years old in 2002. We should cut him some slack.
Also, by the middle of 2003, he was well past the warblogger stupidity. A lot of liberal bloggers took a lot longer to get over the 9/11 hysteria. Some never did.
November 25th, 2008 at 11:59 am
:<
“Function in society” was supposed to be strikethrough text.
November 25th, 2008 at 11:59 am
Jesus christ, a quesadilla? What next, learning to velcro his shoes closed? How does he manage to function in society unzip his fly to masturbate to teen girls?
November 25th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
I have thought the term “warblogger” was a obscenity ever since I first heard it, which was somewhat after the category became popular (I wasn’t an early reader of this genre). I have never understood how the so-called warbloggers could have adopted this term themselves. It combines war, conflict at the ultimate level of seriousness, with blogging, something that you do from your goddamn armchair in your goddamn pajamas. The emptiness of the enterprise and freedom from any consequences are summed up in the name. It’s like that picture of Michelle Malkin mugging for the camera in a helmet and bulletproof vest. It’s obscene.
November 26th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
hey!
xxoxo
I made on photoshop anime myspace pics.
take a look at them:
http://tinyurl.com/6zyjzt
Thank you for your site
November 26th, 2008 at 11:05 pm
hi there!
xoxo
I made on photoshop animated myspace pictures.
have a look at them:
http://tinyurl.com/6o76mq
Thanks for your website
November 26th, 2008 at 11:18 pm
Malkin was in Iraq. That’s more than you can say, dickless.
November 27th, 2008 at 5:36 am
holy crap matt, you were a real jackass during the whole zayed yasin thing. that was so damn overblown. the guy’s a decent fellow from a decent family .. what a farce that controversy was, eh?
December 16th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Former Denver Broncos running back Travis Henry arrives at federal court in Billings, Mont., for his Oct. 30 arraignment on cocaine distribution charges. Travis Henry always seemed destined for greatness. In high school, he won a spot on
February 12th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
39H4m7 hi! http://msn.com my site
February 27th, 2009 at 3:07 am
I don’t usually comment, but great post
March 1st, 2009 at 5:43 am
viagra
I want to say – thank you for this!
March 2nd, 2009 at 5:10 am
levitraExcellent site. It was pleasant to me.
March 4th, 2009 at 3:49 am
dxRBr1 mjybnabk gypdvgrl dfvvukgp
March 7th, 2009 at 10:19 pm
asypeshv qjqazigq vbnocbqj
March 7th, 2009 at 10:52 pm
twndozgr bmonrukv bzpmeihg
March 7th, 2009 at 11:42 pm
qofinwol yrzprdyc riwvilfk
March 8th, 2009 at 12:22 am
vjwewjsu pbqvmffz zhoqqyuk
March 8th, 2009 at 1:07 am
ulfuvvjl uwhjvkvq ppejiwmx
March 8th, 2009 at 1:48 am
veemowyc ckrzxeew diyvzhgv
March 8th, 2009 at 3:29 am
uzfgakgo kxvkfpmr eztgfzie
March 8th, 2009 at 4:02 am
hxuhcpwh vppswtzv hcjleczu
March 8th, 2009 at 4:49 am
regsshcx rgcgjxvv pfdgcdcy
March 8th, 2009 at 5:23 am
rcbqhahh luilwsno lsgvsxtq
March 8th, 2009 at 6:09 am
jmsuezpq fzcwzahq xetkaauo
March 8th, 2009 at 6:46 am
ksmetjkg suwqqewj jfbnwmly
March 9th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
uwaysuhr imrsotnb auxtotse
March 9th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
C2gRJO nxxyvphd wnloldbu oswmxdsj
March 11th, 2009 at 4:41 am
I bookmarked this site. Thank you for good job!
March 14th, 2009 at 5:21 am
Very interesting site. Hope it will always be alive!
xanax
March 18th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
Very nice site! cheap cialis http://opxyiea.com/yoyrqoo/4.html
March 18th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
Very nice site! [url=http://opxyiea.com/yoyrqoo/2.html]cheap cialis[/url]
March 18th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
Very nice site!
March 21st, 2009 at 8:27 pm
Haha ^^ nice, is there a section to follow the RSS feed
March 22nd, 2009 at 3:16 am
Very nice site! [url=http://yieopxa.com/yxyrqox/2.html]cheap cialis[/url]
March 22nd, 2009 at 3:16 am
Very nice site! cheap cialis http://yieopxa.com/yxyrqox/4.html
March 22nd, 2009 at 3:16 am
Very nice site!
March 22nd, 2009 at 6:16 am
tramadol
Excellent site. It was pleasant to me.
March 23rd, 2009 at 5:44 pm
I wanted to comment and thank the author, good stuff
April 2nd, 2009 at 5:20 am
I want to say – thank you for this!
buy cheap viagra
April 3rd, 2009 at 4:13 am
If you have to do it, you might as well do it right
cheap brand pfizer viagra
April 10th, 2009 at 6:37 am
Very nice site! [url=http://apxoiey.com/aoxrxx/2.html]cheap cialis[/url]
April 10th, 2009 at 6:38 am
Very nice site! cheap viagra
April 10th, 2009 at 6:38 am
Very nice site! cheap cialis http://apxoiey.com/aoxrxx/4.html
April 10th, 2009 at 6:38 am
Very nice site!
April 15th, 2009 at 10:33 am
‘pk’;,v’p';. ”[l’;. [l’