FOX News really likes Glenn Greenwald and Logan Murphy of C&L lately. They quoted both of us twice this week. Why would they do that you ask? Because we had the audacity to question such serious men like Pollack and O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institute about their new article "A War We Just Might Win."
Here's O'Hanlon's response to us on Wallace's Sunday program:
Download O'Hanlon: Well, I've had a hard time with some of the bloggers and their take. I think left leaning politicians have been fair. A lot of them haven't liked what we said but they've read it and they've tried to digest it, Bloggers of course to some extent have a business of trying to to make comments more extreme, but I respect the bottom line judgement. but you can look at the facts that Ken and I have reported and I think they are facts. There is military progress...
He respects us, but...since we're in the business of being extremists you can't believe us. We're Dirty F&^king Hippies after all. Greenwald documents that these two fellows are no "war critics" like they're being portrayed by the media circus. And I have a question for this dynamic duo. Why didn't they tell us that the military set up the trip to Iraq for them? Check this out from HH's radio interview with Mike Allen:
MA: The military organized the O'Hanlon-Pollack tour, and I didn't know until I read your interview with Mike O'Hanlon that they'd had an interview with General Petraeus . . . .
HH: Right.
MA: That had not been reported before. That was very fascinating. But I think that shows you that the military's getting better at this.
The military is getting better at propaganda. Wonderful..They are just giving us a very timely good report (something they've been doing since the beginning of the Iraq war) with honest facts is all. Even though the political structure of Iraq is crumbling---the most important part of their trip is to report that troop morale is high. Their NY Times piece ends with this:
But there is enough good happening on the battlefields of Iraq today that Congress should plan on sustaining the effort at least into 2008.
Even though they have doubts, we should keep funding the war..What a shocker from them. We already know what the Petraeus report will say...Improved military strategy...mixed bag with the government...give me another six months. You see---we're mean and nasty bloggers that shouldn't be taken seriously. We aren't on a war supporting payroll of a think tank or a recipient of some wingnut welfare from the NRO. We're not warmongers. If only we were warmongers we could fly to Iraq for a few days and then we also could be trumpeted to the masses. Well, maybe not....
William The Bloody Kristol just got back from Iraq too and essentially said the exact same thing on the All Star Panel to end FNS. He had a pin on his jacket from the troops. What a coincidence you might say. Yes, hehe, who would have guessed that these pundits would come up with the same report at a time that the WH needs it most....Oh wait, there is this one little detail.
In March, 2003, Michael O'Hanlon -- the Joan Baez of our time -- was one of the signatories to a letter on Iraq policy issued by Project for New American Century, Bill Kristol's warmongering group.
