The Right
Nir Rosen, major war monger
After critiquing Nir Rosen’s shoddy excuse-making for terrorism in January 2009, I paid only slight attention to his work. But on the occasions when I stumbled onto his Twitter feed, I actually had to stop and wonder whether someone had hacked his account. The opinions were so extreme, so loutish, so flagrantly unprofessional, so obviously unbecoming of a Fellow at
Viva Palestina’s bigotry
Much attention is focused on Tony Blair as he testifies before the Iraq Inquiry, but I want to say a quick word about Blair’s sister-in-law, Lauren Booth. A recent convert to Islam, Booth is someone whose politics, like George Galloway’s and Cynthia McKinney’s and Gilad Atzmon’s, can only be properly described as far-right — although all these individuals and their
Giffords and guns
I’m reluctant to add to the flood of commentary in the wake of the horrific Arizona shootings, although to me the key point is always going to be gun control. Despite what the NRA says, guns do kill people, and Loughner acquired his gun and extended ammunition clip with no problem whatsoever. Governor Jan Brewer signed into law in April
“America has disgraced itself”
I agree with this strongly worded assessment of the Cordoba controversy by Peter Beinart. Key point: Once upon a time, the “war on terror” was supposed to bring American values to Saudi Arabia. Now Newt Gingrich says we shouldn’t build a mosque in Lower Manhattan until the Saudis build churches and synagogues in Mecca—which is to say, we’re bringing Saudi
In support of Cordoba House
I’m proud that the president of my country, and the mayor of my city, have spoken out forcefully against the bigoted campaign to block the construction of a Muslim community center on Park Place in lower Manhattan. This is a phony issue ginned up by the right, in fact part of a wider outburst of xenophobia that actually has little
Oliver Stone’s theory
“Jewish domination of the media.” I didn’t think my opinion of this huckster could sink any lower. Comments from Norm Geras, Judeosphere, Z Word, Modernity Blog. Stone has issued an apology. Translation: he’s sorry for revealing to an interviewer that he’s essentially a far rightist, an apologist for dictators, a man without a shred of moral comprehension, an ignoramus who
No place for racists?
As much as I applaud the NAACP for calling out rampant racism within the Tea Party movement, the problem is this. The NAACP’s rhetorical strategy is a delicate one; they don’t want to alienate masses of blue-collar whites who might be drawn to the Tea Party’s brand of (I would argue phony) libertarianism. So the NAACP instead insists that the
Obama’s spill speech fallout
The right is blasting Obama’s Oval Office speech for pushing too hard on costly clean energy initiatives. Wait a minute, the left is blasting Obama’s speech for not pushing nearly hard enough on clean energy initiatives. What is going on here? To me it looks like a de facto left-right alliance to tear down this president halfway into his term.