I love straightforward journalism, even like to do it myself now and then. Al Kamen has a good column in the Washington Post on Doug Feith chickening out from testifying before a House Judiciary subcommittee because Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former chief of staff, would be there.
[Feith's lawyer John Moustakas wrote in a letter to the committee that] he'd been assured his client would
testify "in an atmosphere free from the vitriol and ad hominem attacks
that have regrettably dominated the debate."… Moustakas said that in 2006 Wilkerson accused Feith of being a "'card-carrying member of the Likud party' whose allegiance is to Israel rather than the United States."
(Actually, according to writer George Packer's book "The Assassins'
Gate," it was Powell who made that allegation to President Bush in the Oval Office in January 2005.)
Couple comments. Wonderful that the issue of dual allegiance is broached in the Post. Let's talk about it (let's interview Grant Smith about A Clean Break). And Feith's attitude suggests again to me how hunted the neocons feel. I observed this first in Bill Kristol's appearance at Yivo. The man is afraid, feels hunted. I feel some sympathy: these are plainly genuine feelings in both Feith and Kristol. Maybe Holocaust-rooted, they believe antisemitism is at the heart of it. Obviously I've contributed to that hunting climate. I do so because this war is the greatest disaster of our lifetimes, and there must be accountability. This is America, we're not going to shoot them. Just deprive them of their prestige sinecures. They can keep the sinecures even. Just lose the influence.
