Alone perhaps, I continue to find it intriguing how the question in Iraq has gone from "Will we lose the peace?"* to "Will we lose the war?" In a fit of morning nostalgia, this led me to re-read this post from Ann Althouse. How well the post has worn with thirteen months of intervening history is left as an exercise for the reader.
* See, e.g., this interview with Howard Dean from July 2003. One quote: "We had estimates before we went into Iraq that this was going to be over within 18 months, then it got to two years, then four years. I believe that we are going to be there for a very long time... We cannot afford to lose the peace in Iraq under any circumstances, and yet this president seems to be handcuffed in terms of his ability to straighten the situation out over there."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
20 comments:
Michael Moore is fat.
Does Jeremy ever link to me in a positive way, as I do him? I think not.
Ann: First, I've said somewhere in the blogsphere that you look alluring in your comments photo, so there's something positive right there. Second, you are enjoyable to disagree with, which is one of the things I like about you. Third, I really liked your snow football photos from awhile back.
Jeremy, please blog some nice things about me too.
Btw, I've been trying to annoy you in the comments to a couple of your posts and you refuse to take the bait. What's up with that?
Jeremy: It's just that I write about a wide variety of things and probably often say things that you should agree with or at least find interesting or intriguing. You go looking for the posts of mine to try to make me look bad and that's all your readers ever see of me. Meanwhile, I choose posts of yours that I find smart or charming, and that's what my readers see of you. That's kind of screwed up!
Wow, I think somebody needs some cheese with that whine. How is Jeremy to blame for you saying things that many people disagree with on your blog, Ann? We don't need Jeremy to tell us what to think of your posts. If you don't like everything you say to be immortalized in the blogosphere only to be called upon at a later date, I would suggest getting one of those private blogs that only a select few non-critical people can read.
"Anonymous": You've failed to perceive the reason for my complaint. I'm hurt by the lack of mutuality in a relationship that in the real world is -- I think! -- one of friendship. Of course, I stand by my own blog posts and take responsibility for all of them. Bloggers attack me for things I've written all the time, and I don't visit the comments sections of their blogs to argue about it. That would be ridiculous.
anon 1:22, you do sound a bit obnoxious.
That still doesn't fly, Ann. You're basically telling Jeremy that he can't be openly critical of your positions because you aren't openly critical of his positions. And friends aren't allowed to openly disagree? The thing is, we already know that he disagrees with you on a lot of political points. So there's absolutely no surprise and no scandal from where I see it. There was nothing malicious in his post.
If disagreeing with Ann, or otherwise making her cross, is "enjoyable," I'd hate to see what Jeremy considers unpleasant.
A weird dimension to this is that I'm not really, contra my own earlier comment, "disagreeing" with Ann. Among other things, while certainly I had different opinions about the advisability of the war than Ann did, if I had written down my expectations of what was going to happen on the same day as Ann's post, I would have erred on the side of overoptimism.
More pertinently, though, I've been trying to think of what my own semantic characterization would be of what has happened in Iraq. I think it's that we have already won a war, lost a peace, and now entered into a different kind of conflict which involves the military and is violent but is not a war and maybe not even an "insurgency," and for which a wide swatch of plausible outcomes are not well characterized as either "winning", "losing", or "a tie."
Ultimately, though, Ann's point that I should really have a higher ratio of positive:snarky links to her blog is perfectly reasonable. Did I mention that I think she looks alluring in her Blogger profile photo?
Why are you trying to suck up to Ann, Jeremy? You never suck up to K. after your inaccurate retellings of conversations between you (mr. purple text) and your "anonymous" friend. I'm sure those irk her. Are you afraid that Ann has enough sway with Republican types that she can get your phone tapped? Oh! Even worse, what if they start reading your email?
Does anyone remember me ever blogging about or talking to you about whether it was advisable to go to war in the first place? I doubt it! I've only talked about how once we've started, we must win. That's what I agree with Bush about and the reason I couldn't vote for Kerry. I couldn't figure out what Kerry meant to do.
Now, hearing Kerry types talk about things, I'm inclined to think you wanted him to pull out and let whatever might happen happen. That's what I was afraid he'd do, which left me no alternative but to vote for Bush.
Mulling over your semantic characterization of Iraq, Jeremy? That's so Kerry-esque. I prefer Bush's clear answers -- even when I'm worried that they aren't the best choices. You anti-Bush folks are always trying to beat something with nothing. It doesn't work! You guys are gearing up for another loss, you know, with this sort of thing.
Whoops, I changed the subject over to the substantive. Anyway, Jeremy's been perfectly nice in response to my complaint here -- unlike some of the Jeremyettes around here. They say he's sucking up to me, so I'll just say thanks!
Ann: You don't want to identify me too much with Kerry. After all, I was against the war before I was against it. But, more to the point, I'm also far from the Standard Liberal Position on what to do going forward. I think the top priority has to be figuring out what we can do that will be most fair to those in Iraq to whom we have made ideals-based committments. I do think all the stuff about how we "have to win" or how we are "going to lose regardless", not to mention much of the weird macho talk about "honor," just detracts from that fundamental point.
"weird macho talk about 'honor'"?
Is this the fave new liberal semantic trope I miss no longer being in a university setting?
Talk of honor is *macho*?
The claim that some talk about honor is "weird macho" does not entail the claim that all talk about honor is "weird macho". Whether this is a simple logical point one misses by not being in a university setting seems unlikely.
I scrutinized your post for the word "some" and don't see it. Without providing an example of said weird talk, one may reasonably believe the discussion is therefore general.
Bush's apparent need to pull a reverse-Dukakis every once in a while to rally the wingnuts and make the National Review cornerites swoon looks like weird macho to me. Almost as if it's meant to pre-empt an eventual revelation that Bush enjoys the occasional flogging from Condi, or some such thing.
Mostly proud to be a 'Jeremyette,' BTW.
Chuck B: Your point is well-taken, but I'm too wrapped up in my actual job to go hunting for my own exemplars. So, with regrets for its nonspecificity, I'll just assert that I have no quarrel with the general concept of "honor" but do with some ways in which it is deployed when talking about Iraq strategy, in ways that I would characterize as both "weird" and "macho."
Post a Comment