Monday, April 27, 2009

Josh's World: Anti-Semites under the bed

In a recent comment on my previous post pointing out that Josh Rosenau had ignored my questions about Obama, he charged me with “deliberately ignoring” his response. So I went back and read his post another time. I even searched it for the word ‘Obama’.

Nothing.

Was his response secretly encrypted in the post somewhere? Was it articulated in a secret language that requires some sort of decoder ring I have to send in for?

Here is his comment:
Are you deliberately ignoring my response to your questions about Obama? Are you deliberately ignoring my explanation of the ways in which BUCHANAN DENIES THAT THE HOLOCAUST HAPPENED? Are you deliberately obfuscating about Demjanjuk and the many other Nazi war criminals Buchanan has defended (even when they admit their own guilt)? Are you unable to understand that the charges Demjanjuk faces now are different than those he faced in Israel? Are you not aware that Germany has tried quite a few of its own war criminals, and that trying one's own criminals is generally regarded as a good thing?
Gee. It almost seems like Rosenau is ... upset.

He makes no response to my argument about Obama's ties to anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli individuals and then accuses me of falsely saying he made no response.

But then about a day later, he apparently realized he hadn't responded and then came back with a post that actually addressed my question--sort of. But, as yet, no retraction of his charge that I "deliverately ignored" his response.

I'm not holding my breath.

I made the argument that there was little more evidence that Buchanan is anti-Semitic than that Obama is anti-Semitic. If you accept the former, you are to some extent obligated to accept the latter. Now I don’t happen to believe that either Obama or Buchanan is anti-Semitic, although I think both of them are prone to poor judgment on occasion, the difference being that Buchanan has appeared briefly on radio shows by groups with questionable views, while Obama has actual processional and social relations with them.

I wonder what Rosenau would have said if Buchanan had been endorsed and had actually worked on projects with a man who called Judaism a "gutter religion" and Jews themselves "bloodsuckers." And I wonder what he would say if Buchanan had attended a church for over 20 years where the priest was a supporter of this man and who had a penchant for anti-Israeli rhetoric from the pulpit.

Josh Rosenau, meet Barack Obama.

Now despite all this, I don't really think Obama is anti-Semitic. I think, as in Buchanan's case, it involved poor judgment. But poor judgment and anti-Semitism are two different things. Rosenau has yet to admit that Obama's associations were even the result of poor judgment.

Rosenau is almost entirely unhampered by caution in these matters. The rhetoric on his blog is characteristic of much of the rhetoric of the political left: any disagreement is automatically attributed to the evil that lurks in the hearts of conservatives and the disingenuous motives that are the only possible reason anyone would disagree with them.

When people lose their real religion, they invest their other enthusiasms with religious meaning and purpose. Therefore, everyone who dissents from their views on anything is some sort of heretic, to be burned at the rhetorical stake. No one can be admitted to disagree with them out of legitimate motive. Their opponents are evil, pure and simple.

In this particular case, the Devil words used against the dissenters are “anti-Semite” and “Holocaust denier.”

And we apply them upon the least provocation, as when Rosenau went after Buchanan on the basis of his comment in his recent column on John Demjanjuk in which he compares the so far false charges against John Demjanjuk with the quintessential case of an innocent man being punished for crimes he didn't commit (Christ's crucifixion). I found the remark rather off-putting, but he was obviously writing the article on Good Friday and wanted to make some connection with the commemoration.

Rosanau, however, who is in a perpetual state of firing at will, accused him of of invoking the "Blood libel" (the belief that the Jews are uniquely responsible for Christ's death).

Yeah. Right. There is no room in Rosenau's world for anything but malign intent.

In fact, it is a startling irony that the fundamentalists they rail against would envy their black and white vision of the world: a place where there are no moral shades of gray--a dwelling place for the Children of Light and the Children of Darkness--and no one else.

If Buchanan had associated himself in any way with Louis Farakhan, does anyone really believe Rosenau would have left it out of his laundry list of anti-Semitic charges against him? Of course not. Buchanan is a conservative, and therefore inherently evil. But the association simply doesn't count against Obama, since Obama is one of the Chosen, which is why Rosenau dismisses it without remark.

In the case of Demjanjuk, I don’t know whether the man is a war criminal or not. But what is clear is that the charges that he has been tried on so far have been shown to have been entirely false. He was not Ivan the Terrible, as the OSI--and everyone else who jumped on the anti-Demjanjuk bandwagon--swore up and down he was. The trials in Israel proved that. If he’s guilty for some other war crime and it is proven (a step in the process that Rosenau seems to have little patience for), I hope they fry him.

In fact, I’m for the death penalty for war criminals who are responsible for the deaths of others. Is Rosenau?

The problem is that the credibility of his accusers is, if not completely destroyed, at least damaged to such an extent that the case now has the tone of a witch hunt. And now, since they can’t get him convicted in Israel, a place where, if anywhere, you would think people charged with anti-Jewish war crimes would get their just due, they are extraditing him to Germany, a country that has a vested interest in making others look responsible for what Germany itself played the chief role in doing.

Gen. George Patton, upon liberating the prisoners of Auschwitz, marched every citizen of the nearby town through the camp to see what they had let happen in their very own back yard. It’s a pity that wasn’t done with more Germans.

Now watch Rosenau accuse me of being anti-Teutonic.

An anti-Semite is not a person you disagree with about whether someone is a war criminal—or even whether someone else hates Jews. An anti-Semite is a person who himself hates Jews—as Jews. And since that requires divining someone's inner feelings about the matter, the charge is best left to those cases in which it is crystal clear.

But in Rosenau's black and white world, where those who disagree with you constitute an evil force simply because they disagree with you, this distinction is lost, and you can use the term as a club to beat others over the head with, apparently insensible to the fact that you are divesting the word of its true and legitimate use and, in the process, diluting its moral force, and thereby place those who are really guilty of it on the same plane as those who are not.

He invokes William F. Buckley, Jr., who accused Buchanan of anti-Semitism. I remember when Buchanan was excommunicated by Buckley. I also remember when the same procedure was conducted earlier with Joseph Sobran—in both National Review Magazine and First Things. It was unfair and politically reckless (and I was far from the only one of their readers who thought so)—as politically reckless, quite frankly, as some of Buchanan’s and Sobran’s own rhetoric (Political recklessness not being equivalent to anti-Semitism, a distinction we shouldn't have to point out, but do here because Rosenau doesn't seem to recognize it).

But here is Rosenau, closing in on the smoking gun in the Buchanan case:
He [Buckley] found that, while individual comments by Buchanan might be individually defensible from the charge of anti-Semitism, but that the entire gestalt is inescapable. [sic] [Emphasis mine]
The “gestalt”? Is this the evidential bar Rosenau observes in his moral crusade against the Forces of Political Evil? Gestalt? Why don't we just throw Buchanan in the water and see if he floats?

'Gestalt' is a weasel word designed to cover up the insufficiency of the actual evidence, and his application of it results in absurdities that are simply laughable. It's too bad the word 'gestalt' wasn't in Joseph McCarthy's vocabulary. He could have used it to prove there really were all those communists in the State Department.

Rosenau seems singularly impressed with Buckley's condemnation, finding it significant because nobody could say that the two weren't allied politically:
I find Buckley's condemnation significant because his political interests would have been best served by defending an ally against such charges.
Huh? No one who is even vaguely familiar with the infighting that goes in the conservative movement could say that about Buckley (a neoconservative) and Buchanan (a paleoconservative). It's also interesting that Rosenau would quote a man as a source who once called for branding AIDS sufferers on the rear end as a means of quelling the epidemic.

If I used Rosenau's standards of evidence myself, I could accuse him of wanting to brand AIDS victims, now couldn't I?

Given the low standard of evidence Rosenau seems enthusiastic in applying, it is no wonder he sees anti-Semitism around every political corner (except the one occupied by Obama). It also accounts for his belief that someone can be a Holocaust denier even if the person does not actually deny the Holocaust.

If they don’t actually deny the Holocaust, we can analyze their "gestalt" and divine it there.

Here's Rosenau, in high dudgeon, asserting once again something refuted in his own earlier posts:
Are you deliberately ignoring my explanation of the ways in which BUCHANAN DENIES THAT THE HOLOCAUST HAPPENED?
No. I'm just making the observation that the ways in which he has pointed out that Buchanan is a Holocaust denier do not happen to include ACTUALLY DENYING THE HOLOCAUST.

Rosenau's entire case against Buchanan being a Holocaust denier is based on the fact that there are a few people who charge him with being one. It doesn't matter that Buchanan has never denied the Holocaust. Others have said he did, so it doesn't matter.

But we have learned, haven't we, that, with Rosenau, the fact that someone is charged with something is tantamount to proof of guilt? We've seen that in his treatment of the Denjanjuk case. The fact that Buchanan himself has never denied the Holocaust, and in fact has referred to it has having happened numerous times (at least one example of which appears on Rosenau's own blog), is apparently considered non-material to his case.

Rosenau's slipshod and disingenuous way of dealing with this issue is illustrated in his accusation that Buchanan blames the Holocaust on Churchill. At best this is a flagrant overstatement of what Buchanan actually said. At worst, it is just false. What Buchanan argued is that Chamberlain (not Churchill), started a historic chain of events which gave Germany the motive and opportunity to expand his campaign of killing Jews by making an alliance with Poland that it could not follow through on, and consequently caused Hitler to move west rather than east against Russia. Now you may disagree with this judgment (as I do), but to say it is the same thing as Holocaust denial is simply ludicrous.

When Wolf Blitzer asked Buchanan whether Churchill was responsible for this, Buchanan said, "Churchill was not." Not only that, but in the same interview, Buchanan said the following:
Look, there's no doubt Hitler was anti-Semitic from the time even before he wrote [Mein Kampf]. What we're talking about, when you mention the Holocaust, for heaven sakes, is genocide. You're not talking about anti-Semitism. It was anti-Semitism in Poland in those years. There's no doubt that Nuremburg laws were in 1935. They were dreadful. As a consequence, half the Jews had left Germany before November 1938. Another half fled after that. They were outside Germany with the curtain fell.

What Hitler did was a monstrous crime, Wolf. It was a war crime. Had there been no war, there would have been no holocaust in my judgment.

Talk about taking a remark out of context. The leap in logic Rosenau takes is that if someone has a different theory of the chain of causes that led up to something, the person therefore doesn't believe in the thing at all.

If I think that global warming is caused by sun activity, then I must therefore deny global warming altogether. If I think that headaches are caused by muscle tension the spine receiving too much input from muscles of the head, I must therefore deny headaches.

There are people who think that the reason people in trailer parks experience more tornado damage is because tornadoes are attracted to trailer parks. The theory may be wrong. It may even be stupid. But it doesn't mean they deny that trailers are ever hit by tornadoes.

Not only that, but, using Rosenauian logic, we can also conclude that Pat Buchanan is a liberal, since he appeared on Wolf Blitzer's program. And since Buchanan made these remarks in an argument against American involvement in the Iraq war, and since Rosenau also opposes the Iraq War, that Rosenau is also himself a Holocaust denier.

Such is the Rosenauian logic.

The best argument Rosenau has is that Buchanan questioned whether it was diesel fumes that had killed prisoners at Treblinka. Of course, Rosenau then employs his patented skill in logic leaping to say that this means that Buchanan denies most of the deaths that make up the Holocaust--despite THE FACT THAT HE DOESN'T.

All the bad logic notwithstanding, Rosenau has yet to produce a single statement in which Buchanan denies the Holocaust.

The examples of faulty logic, flawed interpretation, and questionable facts are almost too many to list. He argues that if you appear on a radio program, you must therefore agree with the host. I don't know how you justify this inference, but it would be fun to apply it to Obama's appearance on Fox's O'Reilly Factor.

He argues that Buchanan could only have gotten his information on the reliability of Holocaust testimony at the Yad Vashem Archives from a white supremacist source despite the fact that it was from a Jerusalem Post story that was widely available on the Internet without the accompanying denial from the director of Yad Vashem.

He questions whether there is an Israeli lobby in Washington.

At some point, this kind of things just gets tiresome.

And then there is Rosenau's final leap in logic (Well, maybe not final: he seems to have a great facility for it). He has repeatedly accused me of "defending Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism." Now I could simply point out that I don't defend these things, but when has the truth ever gotten in the way of a Rosenauism?

Rosenau's logic (and I use that term loosely) is that if you believe someone is an anti-Semite, and you find someone who disagrees with you about whether that person is an anti-Semite, then the person who disagrees with you must ipso facto be an anti-Semite too.

If you believe that Roosevelt goaded the Japenese into attacking Pearl Harbor, then someone who disagrees with you about it is not only wrong, but thinks that Japan should have been goaded into attacking Pearl Harbor. If you believe that O. J. Simpson really killed his wife, then someone who doesn't believe it is not only wrong about Simpson, but believes that O. J. should have killed his wife.

Is the distinction between legitimately believing someone else is not an anti-Semite and being one yourself so fine that it is beyond the capability of a science graduate student? Apparently so.

This is the kind paranoia--the kind that sees anti-Semites under every bed--that results from a dogmatic political ideology that can't allow for legitimate disagreement.

How do I know Rosenau is paranoid? The entire gestalt is inescapable.

15 comments:

Lee said...

Good article, Martin. A quibble: maybe you're right about the Patton anecdote. I have heard that anecdote myself, though I forget which American general it applied to. Perhaps it was Patton. But are you sure it was Auschwitz? That was in Poland, and it just seems more likely that the Russians would have overrun that place. Maybe it was Dachau? I guess I could look it up.

Martin Cothran said...

Lee,

Good point. It wasn't Auschwitz. It was Buchenwald. Patton liberated it on April 11, 1945 and about 1500 civilians from the town were marched through it on April 15.

Lee said...

Also, I'm not convinced Buckley was a "neo-conservative", nor that Buchanan is (any longer) a "paleo-conservative".

Buckley was definitely a friend of Israel, no question. Personally, I tend to line up that way myself. But I think the "neo" tag is something that we sort of glued to a group of Jewish scholars and men of letters who, aside from their pro-Israel stance and desire for a stern foreign policy, were otherwise fair to partly cloudy on other conservative issues. Essentially, a faction of pro-Israel hawkish liberals.

But the problem of conservatism runs much deeper than neo vs. paleo. Buckley and some of his original crew, notably Frank Meyer, struggled mightily and (I think) in vain to codify conservatism as a philosophy. I no longer believe it is codifiable. What we call "conservative" is simply a placeholder for one or more flavors of anti-liberalism. It's more of a diagnosis than a philosophy. Conservatism's splinter groups may or may not philosophically cohere within their group, but they don't cohere with each other.

I have written about this a couple of times on my blog. Liberalism attacks every institution in society all the time -- the Constitution, the law, the church, the family, the military, free enterprise, private property, you name it. Liberals blame all of society's ills on the existing institutions which poison man's nature and keep him from realizing his full potential -- and stand in the way of the liberals, who only want to help. At least, that's how they see it.

All Conservatism as it exists today is simply groups of people who are trying to defend the institutions they love. But not all conservatives love and respect all institutions. Libertarians don't appear to love the church any more than liberals do. Law & order types don't appear to respect private property (e.g., seizure law). Businessmen who have succeeded in some measure aren't particularly fond of free enterprise, which forces them to compete. Conservatives sometimes as a coalition can manage to achieve some political success, but every once in a while they need to be reminded just how bad the liberals can be.

I saw Buckley as, primarily, a philosophical conservative. Not a pure Burkean, but with enough libertarianism and Catholic Christianity thrown in to make him suspicious of liberal Protestantism and enthusiastic about free markets.

Buchanan, I just see as a partisan warrior. Strongly patriotic -- America as a whole is his pet institution, but I don't think he's a deep philosophical thinker. He certainly doesn't understand economics. And some of his writings suggest that the America he reveres and worships ought to be primarily Caucasian.

Personally, I think multiculturalism is a load of crap. I didn't move to Mexico. Mexicans are moving here. If they want to get with the program, they need to learn English, and we need to quit patronizing them. If they move here, there must be something about America they like better than Mexico. P.S. things are better here for a reason, namely (until recently) a Constitution, the rule of law, and free enterprise. Come here by all means, but please leave your culture at home, or at least the political part of it. Bring your food, your music, your dances, and your work ethic.

But adopt the country that's adopting you. What makes America great is not white people, but rather the ideas that certain white people at one time in our history were good enough to write down and ratify.

I think with Buchanan, it just might be about color. With me, it's about political culture. I would rather have a nation full of America-loving, law-abiding, Constitution-respecting Mexicans, Africans, Asians, you name it, than socialist Anglos or Scandihoovians.

Anonymous said...

"In fact, I’m for the death penalty for war criminals who are responsible for the deaths of others."

Does this include Americans, or only people from other countries?

BimBeau said...

Sir,

You have several facts backwards and have diligently forced them (as round pegs) into square holes.

Buchanan, both Bay & Pat) are anti-semitic. Are they then Anti-semites, not by your measurement.

It's the reactionaries, disguised as 'conservatives' that are continually attacking social, political and financial/economic enemies. Liberals are the status quo now.

Get used to it! 40 years of Democratic hegemony is here. History being the precursor of the future: Roosevelt in 32, 36, 40, 44; Truman in '48; by your indictment Eisenhower was a Democrat, not a Republican; Kennedy in 60, Johnson in 64. 68 - 32 = 36, but only because with all the liberal legislation Nixon signed, his administration is suspect. Reagan, the consumate liar counts as a Republican: 80 - 32 = 48 years between Republican administrations following catastrophic structural political failures: Hoover & Bush(43).

Get used to it white man.

Lee said...

> It's the reactionaries, disguised as 'conservatives' that are continually attacking social, political and financial/economic enemies.

Liberals don't even bother to argue anymore. They merely characterize in the form of an accusation.

Just so you know the difference, Bim, the "reactionary" financial sector is not now trying to nationalize Obama. He is, rather, trying to nationalize their businesses. That constitutes an attack on their shareholders' property.

> Get used to it! 40 years of Democratic hegemony is here.

Only if you guys can find a way to suspend free elections. I wouldn't put that past you, of course. We're about to find out how strong our institutions really are.

> Get used to it white man.

Funny how liberals use racist epithets just as they're taking a breath after accusing their opponents of racism.

> Liberals are the status quo now.

So does that make them reactionaries?

BimBeau said...

It's so difficult discussing an idea with a person fixated on personalities that we really don't even try talking to yuse guyse any more, unless it's about your collective personality disorders.

Actually - No! The federal government is the majority stockholder now in those corporations. Now let's see what else you don't know about that you're talking about ... suspending elections and disenfranchising the electorate is your gig, not ours. We learned the futility of that exercise as we got minorities registered in the south while you guys implemented barriers to participation. History's a bitch if you haven't read it.

If you believe that your complacency as a suburban or rural, white male is guaranteed by your gender, race and place - then the 'get used to it, white man' is not racist; it is an admonition that your reality is soon to change beyond your control, that is going to be a frustrating and angering reality, like that you used to visit upon people of color and with different religious ideas from yours.

Not that anyone could ever tell. If you know what the difference is between a reactionary & a liberal or progressive & those compared or contrasted to conservatives. Let me know when you've finished with the lexicon.

Lee said...

Bim, you seem fairly fixated on personalities yourself.

So when anyone disagrees with your politics, do you just automatically know he has a personality disorder?

> If you believe that your complacency as a suburban or rural, white male is guaranteed by your gender, race and place - then the 'get used to it, white man' is not racist...

So the question of whether a racist epithet has been hurled is determined not by looking at the hurler of the epithet and what was actually said, but by looking at the person at which it was hurled?

> it is an admonition that your reality is soon to change beyond your control, that is going to be a frustrating and angering reality, like that you used to visit upon people of color and with different religious ideas from yours.

So you're not in favor of getting equal, but in getting even.

> Not that anyone could ever tell. If you know what the difference is between a reactionary & a liberal or progressive & those compared or contrasted to conservatives. Let me know when you've finished with the lexicon.

I will be happy to respond to any questions that make sense.

Lee said...

Martin, I think you might have been a little hard on Joe Sobran. I always admired writings, and I have to admit that I don't see anything intrinsically wrong with questioning what the U.S. gets out of our alliance with Israel.

I know the Evangelicals see things a little differently than us Reformed folk. Most Christian Evangelicals believe that the Jews are still the Chosen Race and that Christianity's fate is inextricably tied with Israel's.

By contrast, the Reformed take is that Christians are now the adopted heirs of Abraham, and the Jews have been disinherited. Someday, they will come back. There is nothing anti-Semitic in this view. Personally, I love Jews (I married one), but their way to God is the same way as my way to God: through Jesus Christ.

Israel should be treated honorably, but not (in my view) specially. Honorably, it seems, would be a step up.

BimBeau said...

No, only when the disagreement is based on fiction instead of fact or opinions and beliefs are trotted out as fact, and in the extreme when I'm belittled merely because I'm liberal, liberals are charged as unpatriotic, religion is touted as the answer to all problems or some other unwholesome chestnut from right-wing reactionaries.

> If you believe that your complacency as a suburban or rural, white male is guaranteed by your gender, race and place - then the 'get used to it, white man' is not racist...

So the question of whether a racist epithet has been hurled is determined not by looking at the hurler of the epithet and what was actually said, but by looking at the person at which it was hurled? Duh. It's not a racist comment to call me a nigger - I'm white - at least, look like it.

> it is an admonition that your reality is soon to change beyond your control, that is going to be a frustrating and angering reality, like that you used to visit upon people of color and with different religious ideas from yours..

So you're not in favor of getting equal, but in getting even. I doubt that you would ever consider me your equal. I strive for equity. Your hobby is belittling liberals to inflate your sense of self. Poor white people do that all the time, especially in the south. That is the cornerstone of the anti- gender slander, anti racial epithets and contra-homosexual agenda of the south.

> Not that anyone could ever tell. If you know what the difference is between a reactionary & a liberal or progressive & those compared or contrasted to conservatives. Let me know when you've finished with the lexicon.

I will be happy to respond to any questions that make sense. I suspect that if I were to ask you a question, you would have to concede the truth to me or lie through your teeth; given that option and your revulsion at our equality, I leave it to the occasional reader to provide his or her own answer.

I'm addressing you in generalities because of what you've written. Any of these facets of character may not apply - but I doubt it. I grew up with too many of your type in the streets of the little company town that supported the local mine and faught integration of the public and then parochial schools back home.

I have the advantage of coming from a racially repressive home in western Kentucky that shuns my daughter and her wife, worships Howdy Doody & Bunning, meets with the bretheren in Dawson Springs monthly, and I'm not educated by Kentucky standards. I graduated Brown, AB - 67, USC, MLA - 70, SMU, JD - 74 and now I'm back in Kentucky. One daughter is a Surgeon, one - a LTC - flies BUF's; one son is a nuke engr (LTCDR) in the Navy and the other a cop. I'm liberal; have killed for my country and can claim to hold every standard of patriotism you can imagine, except a receipt from the Republican Party!
.

Lee said...

> No, only when the disagreement is based on fiction instead of fact or opinions and beliefs are trotted out as fact, and in the extreme when I'm belittled merely because I'm liberal, liberals are charged as unpatriotic, religion is touted as the answer to all problems or some other unwholesome chestnut from right-wing reactionaries.

Well, that's all very interesting, Bim, but let's have a reality check. You pronounced that conservatives have a personality disorder -- that's an opinion, not a fact, and yet you apparently believe it. Why is it okay for you to charge conservatives have a form of mental illness, but wrong for them to use unflattering characterizations of liberals?

> Duh.

Oh, do try to keep up.

> It's not a racist comment to call me a nigger - I'm white - at least, look like it.

Is this a response to anything I said? And should you be using that word?

> I doubt that you would ever consider me your equal.

It might depend on what you mean by "equal". I do expect you to speak rationally.

> I strive for equity. Your hobby is belittling liberals to inflate your sense of self.

So then, now that you have me figured out, why are you belittling conservatives?

> Poor white people do that all the time, especially in the south.

So why do rich northern liberals belittle poor white Southern folk?

> That is the cornerstone of the anti- gender slander, anti racial epithets and contra-homosexual agenda of the south.

But it's okay for you to slander poor white Southerners?

> I suspect that if I were to ask you a question, you would have to concede the truth to me or lie through your teeth;

Only if you're always right by divine edict.

> I'm addressing you in generalities because of what you've written.

But it's okay when you use generalities? I'm just trying to figure out the rules here, and I'm getting the impression that the rules are slanted in your favor.

> Any of these facets of character may not apply - but I doubt it.

You should doubt a lot more often.

> I grew up with too many of your type in the streets of the little company town that supported the local mine and faught integration of the public and then parochial schools back home.

Here's a suggestion: why not actually respond to something I actually said, rather than simply lump me in with people you already don't like? It would, among other things, do wonders for the general coherence of your thoughts.

> I'm liberal;

Say it ain't so!

Martin Cothran said...

Anonymous [re: the death penalty for domestic war criminals],

Yes.

Martin Cothran said...

Lee [re: me being hard on Sobran],

As I recall, I said Sobran lacked judgment on his own positions on Israel and the Jews. I didn't mean that as a particularly harsh criticism. I am a big fan of Sobran's.

All I really meant is that both Buchanan and Sobran get into unnecessary hot water because they don't take into account that there are people like Rosenau who pull the trigger on charges of anti-Semitism upon the least provocation. I just don't think we need to give people like that any excuses if we can help it.

This is a criticism of their manner, not their motives or the the substance of their rhetoric.

I should also point out that Sobran is not nearly as incautious in this area as Buchanan.

Lee said...

> All I really meant is that both Buchanan and Sobran get into unnecessary hot water because they don't take into account that there are people like Rosenau who pull the trigger on charges of anti-Semitism upon the least provocation.

I can't and won't speak for Buchanan. But I read over and over the couple of charges made against Sobran and the articles in question. Sobran's real problem was that Buckley was oversensitive to charges of anti-Semitism, and devoted an entire issue (in the wake of the Sobran/Rosenthal kerfuffle) to answering them. Sobran was beyond flummoxed, and complained that the more he explained what he had said, the more he was accused of saying something he didn't say. I'd have to concur. What Sobran did was to point out rather forcefully that U.S. foreign policy ought not be made in Tel Aviv. Again, I'm pro-Israel, but again, I concur.

Lee said...

Here is Sobran's account of his break with Buckley:

http://www.mecfilms.com/universe/articles/fired.htm

I want to disclaim two things:

1. Sobran and I are both Virginia Beach residents. We have never met, but through a friend of a friend, we will be having lunch together soon.

2. I believe Sobran is wrong about Islam and his error found his way into his writings. As a Reformed Christian, I believe there is more going on than just the politics we see. As Paul said, it is the invisible war around us in the spirit world that is most important. I believe our war against terrorism is really a religious war against Islam, and those with the insight to know this do not have the guts to say it out loud. That may explain, or at least partially justify, our alliance with Israel, who is on the front line of this war.