Jacob Heilbrunn

 Here’s the comment I left yesterday on the Washington Post’s ridiculous opinion piece “5 myths about neoconservatism” by Jacob Heilbrunn, a senior editor at The National Interest (founded by the grandaddy of all neocons, Irving Kristol)…

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 Asking a senior editor of The National Interest to debunk neocon myths is about like asking Stalin to debunk myths about the communists. The unspoken truth about neocons is that most (if not all) are Jews who passionately believe in “Israel’s strategic value and moral importance as a bastion of democracy in a sea of tyranny” (to quote Mr. Heilbrunn). If that doesn’t make them Israeli lackeys, pray tell what does? Perhaps a better myth to debunk is that neocons are all pathologically delusional. Anyone who believes that festering sore of injustice in the Middle East is a “bastion of democracy” is either incapable of rational thought or is living large on the generosity of ignorant Americans.

Shame on the Washington Post for allowing this flummery to see the light of day! Mr. Heilbrunn’s article is a stinking pile of lethal codswallop. Neocons are the dual-citizenship ghouls of war who seduced our jug-eared naked emperor with obscene whispers about the glories of conquest. Never forget what evil they have wrought together. Spend a few moments each day poring over the sterile statistics at http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/iraq_casualties.htm and http://www.iraqbodycount.org/. Those aren’t just abstract numbers, but bloodied and mutilated sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, ordinary people who died for a neocon wet dream.

 …thus ends the vaunted Fourth Estate, not at the hands of a tyranny hell-bent on suppressing the truth, put in the pitiful whimpers of sanctioned mendacity. You might as well resurrect Hitler to debunk myths about Aryan supremacy. Shame on the Brainwashington Post for allowing this travesty. There is more “real” reporting in these civilian comments than your professional prima donnas dare utter, much less write or publish…

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/05/AR2008020502852.html

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I did actually feel a twinge of remorse after reading another piece yesterday by the same author.  I can’t quite figure out what the guy thinks of neocons unless the “5 myths” piece was actually some sort of twisted, tongue-in-cheek ploy to goad a reaction from readers (the comments were nearly 100% hostile to neocons).  Heilbrunn’s piece for The Huffington Post, titled “John McCain, Neocon” is actually quite critical.  Here’s a bit of it:

 The canonization of John McCain has begun. In his Monday New York Times column, William Kristol suggested that McCain isn’t simply a candidate for president. He’s something more-the next Winston Churchill who can lead the U.S. to victory in the war on terror. … For both Kristol and David Brooks, McCain epitomizes the belief in American national greatness that can replicate the glories of the nineteenth century British empire. In reality, their anachronistic exaltation of warfare as the highest test of manly courage may end up ruining the U.S., much as it did the British empire.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacob-heilbrunn/john-mccain-neocon_b_82530.html

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He’s also written the just-released “They Knew They Were Right: the Rise of the Neocons” (which perhaps explains why he’s drumming up interest in neocons).  Maybe I’m just over-analyzing, but to me, Heilbrunn seems a bit obsessed with convincing Americans that neocons are not Israeli lackeys.  If so, he’s sure got his work cut out for him…

Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2008/02/08/jacob-heilbrunn/

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