Friday, January 26, 2007

Progressive Lindberghs   [Jonah Goldberg]

We had a dismaying amount of consensus in our blogginghead taping (not uploaded to command central yet). Chait seemed particularly vexed by our agreements. One subject that came up was his recent blog spat with Matt Yglesias over  Wes Clark's comments that Jews are pushing us to war with Iran (see here for relevant links etc). I'm pretty much in agreement with Chait on this. But one point that occurred to me afterwards is that Yglesias' position is very reminiscent of Charles Lindbergh's. Now, while no fan of Lindbergh's myself, I've nonetheless criticized the cartoonish demonization of the guy as well (see here and here for two recent examples). So, Yglesias shouldn't take too much offense, at least when I make the comparison. Regardless, Lindbergh believed Jews were pushing American foreign policy in an unhealthy direction, and so does Yglesias and, more significantly, so does Wes Clark. The merits and motives of the arguments surely differ in important respects, but they are similar in important respects too. 

01/26 02:18 PMShare