Saturday, April 11, 2009
This gadfly is becoming an attack dog
I demand the same from Tomasky. Smacking down Republicans that unduly criticise the president he admires so much still produces a bit of a buzz, and when these guys act the goat they still need egg on their faces. But this rather unproductive pursuit is almost a week-in week-out process for our Michael, with examples here, here, here, here and here. Not to mention here. And here. And this adorable yet ultimately pointless example here. It’s easy to beat Fox News or Dick Cheney from up high now that they are relegated to the status of yapping mutts biting the ankles of power, and while I still need to occasionally pinch myself to remind myself that these guys are out of power, Tomasky should bear in mind that all their angry rants in the Murdoch press put together aren’t going to bring the GOP back to power, at least for nearly two whole years. Keeping Obama on course is a much more pressing concern than paying those tipped onto history’s rubbish pile more attention than they deserve. By the way, here too.
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But Tomasky won't be the guy I can rely on to keep those who now find themselves with the power think again before abusing it because he's coming from a totally different angle from the leftist Guardian readership and the more progressive American left. Two recent cringeworthy posts raised my attention to this fact. A few days ago Tomasky put the frankly weird question to his readers of whose view of the world is closer to reality. On the one hand, Noam Chomsky, who opposed the Afghan and Iraqi bombathons from the start, is highly critical of the poverty and inequalities unchecked capitalism brings, advocates an independent Palestinian state to stand alongside Israel, despised both Reagan and the USSR, supports the right of Latin Americans to pick their own leaders without external ‘guidance’, fears the effects of anthropogenic global warming, wants a ban on nuclear weapons and believes that the tactics in the ‘war on drugs’ and ‘war on terror’ are not only immoral, but are making both problems infinitely worse. And on the other hand, Dick Cheney. Positioning yourself dead centre between these two individuals surely places you in the centre-right bracket in America; expanding the sample of opinion to the whole world propels you beyond the status of unreasonable lunatic.
Then there was the rather startling question about why there is no Palestinian Gandhi, a baffling ‘let them eat cake moment’ from a journalist who had previously seemed a personable type to me, but who clearly has far less of a clue about the lives of blue collar Palestinians than he does blue collar Americans. It is one thing to recommend that Palestinian activists adopt a form of passive resistance against Israeli crimes, it is quite another to claim that this isn’t currently happening. Non-violent resistance, from rebuilding demolished homes to protesting the wall to exploring links between Palestinians and Israelis is going on up and down the West Bank and it is absolutely not their fault that the feckless media doesn’t pick this up. Maybe he means that one inspirational leader should come forward, like a Martin Luther King, a Nelson Mandela or a Rosa Parks. But these individuals all operated within a vast framework of activists and are only isolated from their cohorts for special distinction by those for whom people’s history is too complex and needs to be reduced to a few high profile individuals. Going to at-Tuwani or Bi’lin and reporting on the non-violent response to provocations that even I think justify a concentrated dose of force to stop would represent a good day’s work for a s
erious journalist.
Slightly off topic, it should be added that the passive resistance that has come from Palestinians is brave in another respect: time is running out for them. The West Bank is being eaten away by the construction of settlements that vastly reduce the scope for an independent Palestine, especially those building a ring around East Jerusalem, which is sought by Palestinians and the majority of the world’s population, the international consensus, as its future capital. The penalty for time lapsing without successful results in Gaza is mortal: malnourishment and sickness. The lack of reporting on this peaceful resistance therefore could be said to be assisting the criminal acts of an Israeli military command that relies on the demonisation of Palestinians for the success of its operations.
Mind you, like his presidential pick, Tomasky still comes out with the odd beauty and still makes the odd thought provoking post, plus his audience interaction is as good as any Guardianista. I hold his coverage of US reaction to other issues, like the financial crisis and the gay rights ruling in Iowa, in high regard because it has a strong degree of analysis accompanying it. But I think Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch would groan in dismay at this bout of strangeness.
To sustain productivity and my interest, die-hard Republican bashers who now find themselves peering down on their foes from the seat of US power would do well to explore the following, still relevant, avenues in their columns:
1. Investigating how criminal proceedings could be brought against Republicans from the Bush era for authorising torture.
2. Learning from mistakes made by the previous government that Obama and co. should avoid repeating (*cough* Afghanistan).
3. Exposing Republicans that actually are still in power and are abusing their office.
4. Shaming Republicans for any support of bloodthirsty soul mates that are in office, such as Israel's Binyamin Netanyahu, Colombia's Alvaro Uribe and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.
5. Legitimising the more regular use of impeachment proceedings for abuse of office so we never get eight years of unchecked criminal behaviour again.
6. Facilitating Glenn Beck’s descent into total, utter meltdown. OK, maybe watching these unhinged little twerps squirm in the face of change is fun after all.
Come on Michael. You used to be cool. You could have been a contender. For god's sake stop feeding the animals.
Repeating the ground rules for a post like this can’t hurt. I loathe the US Republican party. And I think that while Barack Obama is not going to oversee the sort of foreign policy I want my country to unquestioningly hitch a ride on, he is a standup guy with some common sense and a medium-sized broom to sweep away select fractions of the colossal mess his predecessors made. With that in mind, today’s query is why The Guardian is still giving so much prominence to someone who these days is serving as little more than Obama’s attack dog. Michael Tomasky provided a useful function in opposition to Bush’s legions of the undead, pointing out their callous stupidity in a likeable fashion. But now that these Republicans are vanquished and forced to sit and watch from the peanut gallery his new job doesn’t seem to extend beyond loyally shielding Obama from their sour booing and hissing – that is when he isn’t lording it over their scattered remains or seemingly settling scores with fellow commentators that have got on his wick. Wouldn’t readers benefit from at least a bit of constructive criticism of the new administration? Don’t expect too much of that. I might pine for the old Tomasky back, but he hasn't changed. Just the world around him.
Tomasky popped up on my radar in the run up to the election. He wanted Obama to win and he despised the tactics and policies of John McCain, not to mention his newly-hatched litter of self-harming sidekicks. It was evident he was a centre-left Democrat with many liberal principles and core values to his name, and therefore a fellow traveller in opposition to the horrors that the previous eight years had spawned. He remains a decent enough chap, with enlightened (i.e. correct) views on the environment and civil liberties and possesses a sensible take on the projection of American power abroad. But increasingly I find myself parting ways with him because of where we find ourselves after the election. His horse has crossed the finishing line, whereas I’m not entirely sure which one is my horse, let alone how well he or she is doing.
Where we can share joy is that the GOP horse has been roughly escorted from the track and shot. It is an oddity that, if you somehow managed to shut out the full extent of the horror of the world around you, being in opposition to Bush (Blair-bashing comes with nuances that make it a marginally more complicated pursuit) was an often warm, frequently unifying experience. By 2005, probably earlier, you could strike up a conversation with a stranger and be confident that there was a one in a million chance that you would offend them, even fail to endear yourself slightly to them, with a contemptuous remark at the expense of the blundering gangster chimp soiling the White House furniture. I would be handed yummy chocolate biscuits by nice folk I’d never met before at anti-war and global justice actions. Solace from the latest bout of sabre rattling against Iran or faffing about with people’s civil rights could be found in websites like Democratic Underground, whose hilariously spiteful sniping in its weekly ‘Top 10 Conservative Idiots’ knocked these cowboy Republicans off their horses so we could jump up and down on them and rub their faces in the mud with the vindictive spite they had all but been asking for. We knew that by next week these haughty bastards would have doggedly clambered back on the horse, but when one went down and stayed down, Donald Rumsfeld, John Bolton and Paul Wolfowitz come to mind, it was a victory that the whole lot of us, the Democrats, Greens, anarchists, hippies, socialists, trade unionists, Quakers, non-interventionists, Bill Clinton supporters, John Edwards advocates, Chomsky readers, Michael Moore fans, Maoists, dwarves, ewoks, hobbits, even moderate Republicans, could savour together. If 4 November 2008 could have been played on a continuous loop then the bliss and harmony it radiated could have made us happy in our nirvana of collective triumph for all time.
The fractional distillation of this blob of anti-Bushism, as with any coalition of the dissatisfied and disgusted, came immediately as some of our celebrating collective were united with what they wanted. For Democrats the goal of the revolution was limited to a return to the status quo anti, also known as the Clinton years, also known as the decade that saw the bombing of four countries (Iraq and Afghanistan among them). The collective euphoria of the 2006 House election had already proved to be the departure point for many Democrats, who proceeded to do little or nothing with their new power to hold Bush and Cheney to account for their malfeasance and even aided GOP efforts to entrench the USA deeper into Iraq, thus alienating previous ally Ciny Sheehan. And in the 2008 electoral campaign Democratic Underground repeated its 2004 inclusion of Ralph Nader in their ‘Top 10 Conservative Idiots’ for having the nerve to run for President against their party. Er, ha...great guys, I laughed when you put Bill O'Reilly through the shredder, but this aint so funny... maybe I'm not your target audience after all. Never mind that Nader is a hero for more than just some fancy speeches and that great swathes of his principles have more in common with the aspirations of the majority of Americans than those of his Democratic counterparts, or that moving to escape a tightly regimented duopoly could further progressive politics. The blackmail from these chuckleheads was clear: vote for this man and America gets McCain.
Where we can share joy is that the GOP horse has been roughly escorted from the track and shot. It is an oddity that, if you somehow managed to shut out the full extent of the horror of the world around you, being in opposition to Bush (Blair-bashing comes with nuances that make it a marginally more complicated pursuit) was an often warm, frequently unifying experience. By 2005, probably earlier, you could strike up a conversation with a stranger and be confident that there was a one in a million chance that you would offend them, even fail to endear yourself slightly to them, with a contemptuous remark at the expense of the blundering gangster chimp soiling the White House furniture. I would be handed yummy chocolate biscuits by nice folk I’d never met before at anti-war and global justice actions. Solace from the latest bout of sabre rattling against Iran or faffing about with people’s civil rights could be found in websites like Democratic Underground, whose hilariously spiteful sniping in its weekly ‘Top 10 Conservative Idiots’ knocked these cowboy Republicans off their horses so we could jump up and down on them and rub their faces in the mud with the vindictive spite they had all but been asking for. We knew that by next week these haughty bastards would have doggedly clambered back on the horse, but when one went down and stayed down, Donald Rumsfeld, John Bolton and Paul Wolfowitz come to mind, it was a victory that the whole lot of us, the Democrats, Greens, anarchists, hippies, socialists, trade unionists, Quakers, non-interventionists, Bill Clinton supporters, John Edwards advocates, Chomsky readers, Michael Moore fans, Maoists, dwarves, ewoks, hobbits, even moderate Republicans, could savour together. If 4 November 2008 could have been played on a continuous loop then the bliss and harmony it radiated could have made us happy in our nirvana of collective triumph for all time.
The fractional distillation of this blob of anti-Bushism, as with any coalition of the dissatisfied and disgusted, came immediately as some of our celebrating collective were united with what they wanted. For Democrats the goal of the revolution was limited to a return to the status quo anti, also known as the Clinton years, also known as the decade that saw the bombing of four countries (Iraq and Afghanistan among them). The collective euphoria of the 2006 House election had already proved to be the departure point for many Democrats, who proceeded to do little or nothing with their new power to hold Bush and Cheney to account for their malfeasance and even aided GOP efforts to entrench the USA deeper into Iraq, thus alienating previous ally Ciny Sheehan. And in the 2008 electoral campaign Democratic Underground repeated its 2004 inclusion of Ralph Nader in their ‘Top 10 Conservative Idiots’ for having the nerve to run for President against their party. Er, ha...great guys, I laughed when you put Bill O'Reilly through the shredder, but this aint so funny... maybe I'm not your target audience after all. Never mind that Nader is a hero for more than just some fancy speeches and that great swathes of his principles have more in common with the aspirations of the majority of Americans than those of his Democratic counterparts, or that moving to escape a tightly regimented duopoly could further progressive politics. The blackmail from these chuckleheads was clear: vote for this man and America gets McCain.
There will no doubt be members of the left, further down the line than I, let alone Tomasky, that feel that Obama’s election halted the cause of progress in America and globally by killing stone dead the rage that motivated so many to get up do something. These people will hope I choke to death on those chocolate biscuits because I’m not totally convinced by such a view. I do believe, though, that the overwhelmingly positive reception he received, and the relief at who he isn't, could reduce the will of the public and press to hold him to account like they did Bush. It was therefore amazing to see one of Obama’s most vocal cheerleaders, Keith Olbermann, using his show to say this.
I demand the same from Tomasky. Smacking down Republicans that unduly criticise the president he admires so much still produces a bit of a buzz, and when these guys act the goat they still need egg on their faces. But this rather unproductive pursuit is almost a week-in week-out process for our Michael, with examples here, here, here, here and here. Not to mention here. And here. And this adorable yet ultimately pointless example here. It’s easy to beat Fox News or Dick Cheney from up high now that they are relegated to the status of yapping mutts biting the ankles of power, and while I still need to occasionally pinch myself to remind myself that these guys are out of power, Tomasky should bear in mind that all their angry rants in the Murdoch press put together aren’t going to bring the GOP back to power, at least for nearly two whole years. Keeping Obama on course is a much more pressing concern than paying those tipped onto history’s rubbish pile more attention than they deserve. By the way, here too.
.jpg)
But Tomasky won't be the guy I can rely on to keep those who now find themselves with the power think again before abusing it because he's coming from a totally different angle from the leftist Guardian readership and the more progressive American left. Two recent cringeworthy posts raised my attention to this fact. A few days ago Tomasky put the frankly weird question to his readers of whose view of the world is closer to reality. On the one hand, Noam Chomsky, who opposed the Afghan and Iraqi bombathons from the start, is highly critical of the poverty and inequalities unchecked capitalism brings, advocates an independent Palestinian state to stand alongside Israel, despised both Reagan and the USSR, supports the right of Latin Americans to pick their own leaders without external ‘guidance’, fears the effects of anthropogenic global warming, wants a ban on nuclear weapons and believes that the tactics in the ‘war on drugs’ and ‘war on terror’ are not only immoral, but are making both problems infinitely worse. And on the other hand, Dick Cheney. Positioning yourself dead centre between these two individuals surely places you in the centre-right bracket in America; expanding the sample of opinion to the whole world propels you beyond the status of unreasonable lunatic.
Then there was the rather startling question about why there is no Palestinian Gandhi, a baffling ‘let them eat cake moment’ from a journalist who had previously seemed a personable type to me, but who clearly has far less of a clue about the lives of blue collar Palestinians than he does blue collar Americans. It is one thing to recommend that Palestinian activists adopt a form of passive resistance against Israeli crimes, it is quite another to claim that this isn’t currently happening. Non-violent resistance, from rebuilding demolished homes to protesting the wall to exploring links between Palestinians and Israelis is going on up and down the West Bank and it is absolutely not their fault that the feckless media doesn’t pick this up. Maybe he means that one inspirational leader should come forward, like a Martin Luther King, a Nelson Mandela or a Rosa Parks. But these individuals all operated within a vast framework of activists and are only isolated from their cohorts for special distinction by those for whom people’s history is too complex and needs to be reduced to a few high profile individuals. Going to at-Tuwani or Bi’lin and reporting on the non-violent response to provocations that even I think justify a concentrated dose of force to stop would represent a good day’s work for a s
erious journalist.Slightly off topic, it should be added that the passive resistance that has come from Palestinians is brave in another respect: time is running out for them. The West Bank is being eaten away by the construction of settlements that vastly reduce the scope for an independent Palestine, especially those building a ring around East Jerusalem, which is sought by Palestinians and the majority of the world’s population, the international consensus, as its future capital. The penalty for time lapsing without successful results in Gaza is mortal: malnourishment and sickness. The lack of reporting on this peaceful resistance therefore could be said to be assisting the criminal acts of an Israeli military command that relies on the demonisation of Palestinians for the success of its operations.
Mind you, like his presidential pick, Tomasky still comes out with the odd beauty and still makes the odd thought provoking post, plus his audience interaction is as good as any Guardianista. I hold his coverage of US reaction to other issues, like the financial crisis and the gay rights ruling in Iowa, in high regard because it has a strong degree of analysis accompanying it. But I think Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch would groan in dismay at this bout of strangeness.
To sustain productivity and my interest, die-hard Republican bashers who now find themselves peering down on their foes from the seat of US power would do well to explore the following, still relevant, avenues in their columns:
1. Investigating how criminal proceedings could be brought against Republicans from the Bush era for authorising torture.
2. Learning from mistakes made by the previous government that Obama and co. should avoid repeating (*cough* Afghanistan).
3. Exposing Republicans that actually are still in power and are abusing their office.
4. Shaming Republicans for any support of bloodthirsty soul mates that are in office, such as Israel's Binyamin Netanyahu, Colombia's Alvaro Uribe and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.
5. Legitimising the more regular use of impeachment proceedings for abuse of office so we never get eight years of unchecked criminal behaviour again.
6. Facilitating Glenn Beck’s descent into total, utter meltdown. OK, maybe watching these unhinged little twerps squirm in the face of change is fun after all.
Come on Michael. You used to be cool. You could have been a contender. For god's sake stop feeding the animals.
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