The Big Time Messenger Blames the Small Time Messengers

Our sage of conventional foreign policy wisdom, Mr. Jim Hoagland offered these comments in his recent Washington Post column:

"The most vindictive bloggers and many others eager to push the mainstream media, established politicians or other remnants of the status quo off a stage that they want to occupy smash reputations with abandon to call attention to themselves. What do they have to lose in the unpoliced badlands of the ether? They contribute to a general deepening of cynicism in the land at no perceived cost to themselves.

But deeply polarized nations that devote an inordinate amount of their time and energy to hunting and prosecuting both real villains and convenient scapegoats -- at the expense of failing to recognize and respect heroes and helpers of the common good -- do pay an enormous collective price. Such nations descend into easily manipulated despair and resentment that inevitably lead to ever-greater destruction. Americans would do well to ponder that in a summer of doubt and division."

I am not one to deconstruct line by line the comments of our pundit class as other bloggers may. However, these comments do deserve some response from one of the so-called "vindictive” bloggers who promulgate "in the unpoliced badlands of ether."

Columnists like Mr. Hoagland have been found out. He was wrong about Iraq War. He was wrong about George Bush. I am not one to tar and feather someone for his or her views. I will not engage in name-calling. But he is wrong and for many of the conventional wisdom pundit class, this is a very hard pill to swallow. When the vast majority of Americans know that this Iraq thing is a "bad thing," are they being "vindictive" when they disagree with the administration's policies?

The cynicism Mr. Hoagland decries was not invented by the bloggers from "the badlands of the ether." Its roots are in the false and erroneous reasons created to start the Iraq War invented by the neo-conistas and carried out by the Bushie sycophants. Every justification for the war, every policy adjustment during the war, and every benchmark established to measure progress has been either been proven false or is failing. Its not surprising that reasonable people watching this morass unfold become a little suspicious, little jaded.

Mr. Hoagland ends his piece with “Such nations descend into easily manipulated despair and resentment that inevitably lead to ever greater destruction.” I say who is manipulating whom? Again, his so called “despair and resentment” are not the result of bloggers. The deepening sadness and nihilism readily apparent in the body politic is because most Americans have lost confidence in our ruling classes to solve the Iraq mess. The bloggers of ether land are only an artifact of this deepening despair.

Instinctively, we know the Iraq morass will hurt our standing in the world for decades. We know the war has created more people who are willing to strap bombs on themselves, walk in to crowds and kill innocents. We see the carnage and billions of dollars lost or squandered. Our country is moving into unchartered waters with no one to guide us.

Mr. Hoagland and his ilk have led us to this dark and awful place and do not have the courage to stand up and admit they were wrong. Nor do they really have idea how to get us out. I find it ironic that one nationally recognized messenger, James Hoagland, uses the old canard “to blame the messenger.” This war and the lack of national leadership have created the despair and resentment he decries and not the Daily Kos, Talking Points Memo or Firedoglake.