NRO released this on their site:
Vanity UnfairThey then follow this up with statements by those listed.
A response to Vanity Fair.
An NRO Symposium
Editor's Note: On Friday, Vanity Fair issued a press release highlighting excerpts of a piece in their January issue on “neoconservative” supporters of the war in Iraq who today, unsurprisingly, have some negative things to say about how the war is going and how the Bush administration has been handling it.
In the wake of the press release – which has gotten considerable play on the Internet – some of those “neoconservatives” highlighted in the article have responded to the excerpts and its misrepresentations, in some cases, of what they said. We collect some of those reactions — including from Eliot Cohen, David Frum, Frank Gaffney, Michael Ledeen, Richard Perle, and Michael Rubin — below.
Personally, I agree that what VF did was not ethical. But I then wonder where these conservative voices were in 2004 when Bush/Rove were using terror alerts to bolster flagging support (Time article here and here is a timeline showing how bad news for the administration was followed with terror alerts).
Still, two wrongs do not make a right. It's time to introduce the notion of karma into politics.
Progressives cannot stoop to the same tactics that Rove uses to manipulate public opinion -- it's wrong when he does it and it's wrong when progressives do it. If progressives ever want to regain power and public trust, it will have to be through taking and owning the moral high ground.
Poll after poll shows how fed up the American people are with corruption, lies, and manipulation. Give them something different, something better , and they will follow. That should be the Dems plan to lead America.
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2 comments:
I don't think that the folks at Vanity Fair are progressives -- they just have a magazine that they are eager to have seen as being edgy and interesting.
I am bothered by anything important or controversial that happens right before Election Day that isn't given time to be digested and understood by all sides and then given time for the public to have a chance to understand what is going on.
It appears that the Vanity Fair quotes that were provided were not fair, balanced and fully representational of what was meant and what will be in the article in the January issue. That is reprehensible.
Still, there is another side to all of this. The neocons appear to be acting in conjunction to keep their full-throated views of the incompetence of the Bush Administration out of the press until after the election. Also, Bush has been trying to stall any re-assessment of strategy in Iraq until after the election. I tend to think that the public is rather entitled to know where we are in all of this before voting.
Hey Tom,
I pretty much agree with you. It's not fair to voters to drop bombs on them at the last minute, just like it isn't fair to create fear as motivation to vote GOP. VF was out of line, but then the GOP has been out of line for years.
I think the really funny thing, aside from all this, is that the GOP has put up Nancy Pelosi as the bogeyman to fear this time around -- much more scary than bin Laden. Many more GOP than Dems know who she is -- the GOP tactic has been "vote for us, or she'll be in charge" (while ignoring the fact that we are waging an insane war and have stolen your civil rights).
I'm glad this crap ends today, at least there will be a couple of days of licking wounds before the 2008 presidential campaign begins on Friday, Monday at the latest.
Peace,
Bill
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