December 28, 2003

REALISM AND SAUL LANDAU

If people haven’t worked out by now that the turkey wasn’t plastic, it kind of disqualifies them from opining on more complex subjects, wouldn’t you say? Here’s Saul Landau writing about Realism and Fanaticism:

Almost ten months after Bush invaded Iraq, seven months after his "mission accomplished" speech-photo op on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, and one month and many deaths after his Thanksgiving plastic turkey pose in Baghdad, the President faces serious problems.

A useful working definition of fanaticism might be the absolute refusal to believe this turkey is genuine. What roast conspiracy do Landau and the other plastic fanatics expect from Bush next Thanksgiving?


Professor Landau reveals Bush’s 2004 stealth turkey

UPDATE. Two-time offender W. David Jenkins writes:

Once again, just like the Lynch story or the plastic turkey stealth mission - things aren't always what they seem.

On the contrary, W. Dave. The turkey seemed real -- and it was. And from an unknown Charlotte Sun-Herald fact gobbler:

From his jumpsuit landing on an aircraft carrier to serving a plastic turkey to the troops in Baghdad, President Bush was never far from a photo-op.

Posted by Tim Blair at December 28, 2003 05:14 PM
Comments

Tim,
Molly Meldrum's funniest interview ever was with Plastic Bertrand (who had a monster hit in French, "Ca Plane Pour Moi"). Molly kept calling him variously "Plastic Fantastic" and "Plastic, maate".

When Plastic lip-synced his hit, he bounced up and down like a plastic boy !

... why is this relevant ? I don't know. C'mon I did this bit, someone else finish it off and figure the relevance. I'm not the only one who comments here for chrissake !


Posted by: Robert Blair at December 28, 2003 at 07:25 PM

From another part of the "article":

half the soldiers "questioned described their units' moral as low

Usually we talk as if moral were plural, but I'll buy the singular. I'm glad that neither their morale, nor their molars, were low.

Posted by: dazed at December 28, 2003 at 10:06 PM

I tried reading this thing but between the moral/morale illiteracy and the breathlessly pointless paragraph breaks:

REAL HISTORY:

I found it too incoherent to follow. Your tax dollars at work once again employing the well-read but poorly thought-out in academia....

Posted by: Mike G at December 29, 2003 at 12:23 AM

If you read Cynthia Glick's column in Friday's Jpost you must come to the conclusion that there seems to be some Spongiform malaise in academia
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1072326002827
"Undeterred, she pressed on, "How can you support America when the US is a totalitarian state?"
"Did you learn that in Russia?" I asked.
"No, here," she said.

"Here at Tel Aviv University?"
"Yes, that is what my professors say," she said."

Posted by: Barry at December 29, 2003 at 12:47 AM

Checking some of Saul's other writings I came across this link:

http://www.tokyoprogressive.org/~tpgn/worldcop/landaukos.html#KL

where you find his article "Kosovo Lesson". In that article you find the following:

"Humanitarians - left, liberal and conservative -- who supported the bombing to stop ethnic cleansing may want to reevaluate the air war strategy in light of these figures.

Did the bombing actually lead to more killing? Or if NATO hadn't struck would Milosevic's para-military squads have done even more damage? An iffy question."

Seems to me in Iraq that calculation is pretty clear. By ANY estimate the intervention in Iraq has saved lives. Apparently that logic is country specific and doesn't apply to Iraq.

Saul also doesn't let other facts stand in his way.

"Bush, like most alcoholics even those who stopped drinking rarely admit to causing messes."

From the AA website, note the following steps of the twelve step program:

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

Nice Saul. You just demeaned an entire organization that has truly helped people in order to get a slam in at Bush. But then, your value system is all relative anyway, isn't it?

Another interesting point is how his latest article focuses on the potential problems in the future. Let's see...Bush freed Iraq from the worst dictatorship since Hitler, captured Saddam alive, has won capitulation and full disclosure from Libyia on it's WMD program and Saul can only point out:

"Capturing the big, bad witch and grabbing a turkey photo op presents a flimsy façade for Bush's failure to define policies that will prevent Iraq from turning into a Vietnam style scenario."

Note the "will prevent" which is future tense. Hasn't happened yet, Saul. But you keep forecasting...can't fail with the old "Arab injustice" meme.

"The longer the occupation drags on, the more Iraq will stand as a symbol for the injustice felt by tens of millions of Arabs and Muslims."

Let me grab a clue bat and let you in on something. Arabs felt injustice before we intervened in Iraq. That hasn't changed. But maybe, just maybe, the fall of Saddam will cause that anger to be directed against those who are the actual oppressors of the majority of the Arab people. The thugs and dictators who want power and control while point the finder at the big bad Satan as the root cause of all their suffering.

Saul, you enabled Saddam's Irag. You opposed armed intervention in Kosovo. You still enable the other thugs and dictators to continue to oppress their people because you do not accept that force is the only way some of them will give up power. And you continue do this opposition in the name of "human rights".

Shame on you.

Posted by: Jeffe at December 29, 2003 at 01:00 AM

This "plastic turkey" is becoming the Left's MacGuffin--the thing that distracts us all. I'm waiting for a shower scene next.

Posted by: ushie at December 29, 2003 at 02:11 AM

This yoho appears to fit the definition of 'fanatic' that I work with:

Fanatic: someone who has redoubled their efforts immediately after losing sight of their goal.

What a troglodyte!

Posted by: Eye Opener at December 29, 2003 at 02:55 AM

Making a real turkey look enough like a plastic turkey to have it be mistaken for a plastic turkey by gullible naysayers, only to have it revealed later that it was a real turkey--why, that may be the most fiendish plot this President has hatched yet.

Posted by: R.W. at December 30, 2003 at 02:28 AM

Saul Landau also fell for the "Kurds captured Saddam" fairy tale.

Posted by: RoboBubba at December 31, 2003 at 12:07 AM

"... never far from a photo-op"? Get a bit of a clue, a US president IS a photo-op. LBJ signing a bill (with a seperate pen for each letter, as souveirs), JFK relaxing in a rocking chair, FDR and Fallah...

And of course, Carter and the "Killer Rabbit".

Posted by: John Anderson, RI USA at December 31, 2003 at 04:10 AM