The Dance of The Bush-Haters
Mickey Kaus is one of the few voices, right or left, who consistently points out the follies of his own side when warranted, and that’s one of the reasons he’s a blogging big dog. His commentary on the Katrina video is right on the money:
A good deal of the gleeful Froomkinian outrage in the press and Democratic party over that pre-Katrina video seems to be based on what is at best is a semantic misunderstanding. After Katrina, Bush said “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.” In the video, Patterico points out, Bush is warned by hurricane expert Max Mayfield that there’s a chance the “levees will be topped.” Topping is different than breaching, no? When a levee’s “topped,” or “overtopped,” some water sloshes over it and into the city. Then the storm passes and that’s it. When a levee’s “breached,” there’s a hole in the levee and Lake Pontchartrain pours in the gap and keeps pouring in until the city is completely flooded. What Bush said after the storm seems quite consistent with what Mayfield told him before the storm–i.e., he thought the levees might be topped by the storm surge but not that they’d be breached, with the catastrophe that resulted.
That was following another gem of an item pointing out the New York Times‘ hysteria regarding the recent Iraqi violence:
Did the New York Times really run a story last week headlined:
More Clashes Shake Iraq; Political Talks Are in Ruins
“Ruins”? Wow. That is embarrassing. … The hed was repeated in the story’s lede, which said that “political negotiations over a new government” were “in ruins.” Funny thing, though–in today’s NYT, negotiations seem to be going on again. Those Iraqi “ruins” get picked up pretty quickly… P.S.: I’m not saying Bill Keller’s headline and lede writers were amping up the Iraq hysteria in order to manufacture another Tet. Maybe they just have no judgment or perspective. It’s bleeding obvious that when a Sunni delegation announces it is “suspending talks” in reaction to some awful sectarian attacks, that doesn’t mean talks won’t be un-suspended after a decent interval. ..
Few bloggers are truly essential reading – Mickey is one of them…
Love the Mick, not least because, regardless of the subject matter or his views on same, he’s always funny!
You’re right about that, mega. Look at how he’s used humor to repeatedly needle Andrew Sullivan. And Sully, being one of the most self-important bloggers going, just goes nuts when he does it.
If they ever bring back “Celebrity Deathmatch” they will have to feature a Kaus v. Sullivan match. The two of them have been each others’ throats since I started reading blogs (in 2002). If anyone knows how this grudge match started, I’d be very interested to know.
I believe Sully’s problems with Kaus began when he (Sully) started viewing every issue of any consequence through his Gay rights prism. Kaus called him on that, and it escalated after Sully’s increasingly unhinged rants on the Gitmo and Guantanamo incidents became so off – kilter as to resemble the words of someone suffering from Tourette’s syndrome.
Sullivan’s constant shifting of allegiances has also played into Kaus’s hands – one day he’s gung – ho for Bush; next day he’s the worst President in history, etc. Used to read him, but his lack of coherent thinking has made him virtually unreadable to me – and he also finked his entire audience out when he asked for lots of $$ to keep his site going, then immediately tanked it after he reached his goal (however, he soon came back after that miscue).
Weird dude.
No it was actually before that. Back in late 2002 and early 03 Sullivan was a pretty obsequious Bush cheerleader and strong advocate for the Iraq war, while Kaus, came across as fairly skeptical, albiet noncommital. Shortly before March 03, Sullivan ran a lengthy rant chastising Kaus for not making up his mind and asking how it was possible for someone employed by Microsoft to not know whether the Iraq War was a good idea or not. Even as someone who agreed with Sullivan’s then-viewpoint, his rant came across as extremely incoherent and nonsensical. So I figure whatever animosity exists between the two must have occurred sometime in 2002 or sooner.
SP, you probably have the story right here, since I only became aware of both writers in ’02. Too bad that Kaus doesn’t get the support that sites like the Kos do – he exemplifies a moderate/Liberal viewpoint that corresponds to many of my own ideas about things these days (except the WOT).