Prometheus 6

In response, the American Prospect's Matthew Yglesias, who is Jewish, led the liberal rescue party, denouncing some of Clark's conservative critics as "moronic" and "hacks" and defending Hurricane Wes on two fronts. First, Yglesias argued, "everything" Clark said "is true" and "everybody knows it's true" so it can't be anti-Semitic. And, second, given that Israel's defenders will call any criticism anti-Semitic, there's no point in getting worked up about it.

Ooohhh...did Jonah Goldberg just imply that Mr. Yglesias is a self-hating Jew?

Truth is a defense against slander, but is it a defense against bigotry? Liberals rarely agree when it comes to defending honored members of the coalition of the oppressed. Just ask former Harvard President Lawrence Summers, who questioned whether innate ability explained why fewer women succeed in math and science and who was defenestrated from Harvard as a sexist for his troubles. And let us not run through the list of people called bigots for pointing to inconvenient facts about blacks, Latinos or gays.

No, let's run through those names, Jonah. You'd have a harder time denying their bigotry than I'd have establishing it.

The soft bigotry of blowhards
Wesley Clark et al should watch what they say and how they say it.
[P6: sounds like a threat...]
Jonah Goldberg
February 1, 2007

WESLEY CLARK, the retired general and once — and no doubt future — presidential candidate, says the United States is going to attack Iran. How does he know? Well, he told Arianna Huffington, "You just have to read what's in the Israeli press. The Jewish community is divided, but there is so much pressure being channeled from the New York money people to the office seekers" that the U.S. government will have to attack Iran.

Clark's comments, predictably, earned him denunciations from Jewish groups. After all, the notion that rich, secretive Jews living in places such as New York are pulling strings to visit war and misery on the masses is a time-honored anti-Semitic cliche heard from Charles Lindbergh, Ignatius Donnelly and "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion."

Of course, groups like the Anti-Defamation League are not hard to offend. When the United Nations group tasked with proposing names for hurricanes suggested "Israel" for one storm a few years ago, the league's national director, Abraham Foxman, went into overdrive denouncing the bigotry of such meteorological nomenclature. So it's not like Foxman et al could give a pass to an even bigger blowhard — Clark.

In response, the American Prospect's Matthew Yglesias, who is Jewish, led the liberal rescue party, denouncing some of Clark's conservative critics as "moronic" and "hacks" and defending Hurricane Wes on two fronts. First, Yglesias argued, "everything" Clark said "is true" and "everybody knows it's true" so it can't be anti-Semitic. And, second, given that Israel's defenders will call any criticism anti-Semitic, there's no point in getting worked up about it.

The first is a rich and fascinating claim. Truth is a defense against slander, but is it a defense against bigotry? Liberals rarely agree when it comes to defending honored members of the coalition of the oppressed. Just ask former Harvard President Lawrence Summers, who questioned whether innate ability explained why fewer women succeed in math and science and who was defenestrated from Harvard as a sexist for his troubles. And let us not run through the list of people called bigots for pointing to inconvenient facts about blacks, Latinos or gays.