The Washington Post ticks me off. Here it makes a foodfight out of a serious battle between Joe Klein and the New Republic’s James Kirchick during a panel at the Jewish Federations General Assembly this week. You’d think the fact that Joe Klein agrees with Walt and Mearsheimer that neoconservatives put Israel first in their disastrous Iraq war plans would be the subject of a real investigation. It is, after all, the best and the brightest of our generation: another elitist moral hazard with a gory outcome. And the problem hasn’t gone away, because it’s not been fully exposed, let alone the guillotines erected on the mall.
You’d think the fact that sagacious Joe Klein sees tough John McCain as a captive of the Jewish neocons is also important. No. Remember that we just went through a presidential election campaign in which neoconservatism/Israel policy was one of the most important differences between the two candidates, and the issue was almost never addressed head-on by the press. Yes, it is a conspiracy: a conspiracy of incuriosity, underlaid by religious attachment. Klein’s comments remind me that all the neocons’ apologists, including Douglas Feith himself, always argue that George W. Bush and Cheney bear the full responsibility of pulling the Iraq trigger. As if ideas had nothing to do with it.
A rich and important subject; but for the Post, this is a cute story about a spat between journalists. When will we ever learn? The gossip:
People in the room say things heated up on the panel when Klein said he was dismayed that John McCain was swayed, he said, by Jewish neocons to support the war in Iraq, and cited his own experience with soldiers on the front line. Kirchick noted McCain’s Vietnam experience — and Klein said it wasn’t the same, since McCain fought from the air. Kirchick lit into Klein, saying Klein was denigrating McCain’s service and hard years in a POW camp. Klein argued back, saying he honors McCain’s time as a prisoner — but that the senator’s experience doesn’t relate to current troop experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Lively stuff, huh? Discussion moderator Ron Kampeas, a journalist with Jewish news agency JTA, told us "We had people walking out later saying, ‘This is the best panel!’ "
As the crowd filtered out into the hallway of the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel, Klein caught up with Kirchick and said he fully expected the young journalist would "misrepresent" what he had just said. Words were exchanged — including the expletives.
"It was an entirely expected confrontation," Klein told us today, saying that Kirchick "has distorted the stuff I’ve been writing, puts words in my mouth. He says I accuse Jewish neoconservatives of being traitors, which is a word I’ve never used. I’ve said, at times they put the interests of Israel above the interests of the U.S."
