Janeane Garofalo fancies herself politically informed, a critical thinker, but she certainly disproved it on last night’s edition of Real Time with Bill Maher. Aside from botching the French president’s name (“Sarkozky,” Maher’s mistake as well), the 9/11 conspiracy theory dabbler first offered a rousing defense of Maher’s satellite guest, former CIA creep-turned-author Michael Scheuer. Funny, since Scheuer is an advocate of torture and a staunch defender of extraordinary rendition, believes that reporter Dana Priest “abetted America’s enemies” by reporting on it, and also believes the U.S. is far too concerned about how many civilians it kills in the war on terror. But Scheuer is a virulent critic of Israel — on strategic rather than human rights grounds of course — and this is enough to get a knee-jerk ultra like Garofalo to take your side.
Garofalo then began to put forth Deep Thoughts on terrorism — one person’s terrorist is another person’s national resistance movement, she informed us. If only people would put down their Chomsky and read the far less sexy Fred Halliday, who rips this insidious cliché to shreds in his 9/11 book, Two Hours that Shook the World. Terrorism does not belong to the realm of the subjective, Halliday insists. There are acknowledged principles of international law, upheld by the United Nations and various bodies such as Human Rights Watch, that make absolutely clear what is and is not permitted in matters of armed conflict.
The Bush administration, of course, has made a mockery of these international norms. But so do Garofalo and people who mouth the same arguments — like the previous week’s guest, Mos Def, who said that George Washington was a terrorist in the eyes of the British. Actually, GW never waged a bloodthirsty campaign of random slaughter against British civilians in the fledgling U.S., much less on British soil. As I’ve argued before, there are those on the left who are far too willing to extend moral legitimacy to authoritarian, illiberal movements so long as they claim to stand against American hegemony.
Since 9/11 the left has been faced with a choice: cede moral revulsion over terrorism to the Bushies, or develop an alternative analysis that outspokenly deplores the scourge of Islamist fanaticism while also rejecting the worldview of the neocon right. Barack Obama, for instance, has taken the latter course. So has Salman Rushdie, who sat immediately to Garofalo’s left during the whole Maher program, but oddly failed to challenge her.
Following Garofalo’s remarks on terrorism, Maher joked that Bill O’Reilly sure will be mad. This is just my point about ceding moral revulsion to the right. What Garofalo said shouldn’t just be upsetting to charlatans like O’Reilly, who has his ulterior motives. It should raise the hackles of thoughtful people as well. But we’ve deadened our senses. I’ve taken plenty of flak for speaking out against people on the left, and so be it. The more we allow people like Garofalo to represent the progressive wing of American politics, the less chance anyone will take us seriously, much less hear us above the right-wing din.
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