PEE-WEE ARGUMENTS. Jonah Goldberg loooves hypocrisy arguments. It's his very favorite thing. Get into an argument with Goldberg on a given substantive issue, and nine times out of ten he will turn it promptly into a discussion of how different liberal X made the same argument he was making on different topic Y � so Q.E.D., or something. Hypocrisy arguments have their place, of course. It's just that, inherently, they don't advance any actual substantive argument. They don't lead to a conclusion on any actual subject. They're as intellectually productive as Pee-Wee and Francis's argument over the latter's bike.
Goldberg's Los Angeles Times op-ed, about Wes Clark and Matt Yglesias's comments regarding various Jewish groups' and political donors' hawkishness on Iran, is a case in point. Goldberg scores points off Matt for defending Clark on logical grounds that were (according to Goldberg) contradicted by other, not-Matt lefties who attacked Larry Summers in an unrelated controversy. Goldberg scores more points by pointing out that the same Pat Buchanan whom other liberals attacked for past comments in an unrelated matter happens to, in this matter, support Wes Clark and Matt. And Goldberg concludes the column by making explicit this point -- his favorite point of all: "even liberals can be hoisted on the petard of insensitivity." On the questions at hand -- about Iran, about the motivations of people sounding alarms about Iran, about the Israel lobby, about what should constitute anti-Semitic rhetoric -- these arguments get you absolutely nowhere.
To be fair, Goldberg does address some of this substance about two thirds through his column, where he makes the point that Jon Chait also made -- that sounding alarm bells about the looming Iranian threat doesn't imply a desire to go to war with the country. As Goldberg writes, "All Yglesias says is that pro-Israel organizations are calling attention to the danger posed by a nuclear-armed Iran. It's Yglesias and Clark who infer that such warnings amount to nefarious backroom warmongering by 'New York money people.'" This is probably worth delving into at a bit greater length, but for now let's say that Matt and I and many others might perhaps be forgiven for being a bit wary when, once again, we're entering into a foreign policy discussion featuring a large number of people (of many religious persuasions) peddling alarmism and bombastic arguments concerning the Iranian threat without -- it's true! -- explicitly stating "we fully support an invasion, to take place on this specific date." I recall, for example, George W. Bush assuring us on numerous occasions prior to March 2003 that "the United States does not desire military conflict" and "seek[s] peace" while discussing the looming Iraqi threat. Was it out-of-bounds to assume a desire on Bush's part to go to war, given such platitudes?
Also, what Scott said.
--Sam Rosenfeld
