The Nation: Chas Freeman Redux: "When Idiots Attack"

[marmar]

Chas Freeman Redux: "When Idiots Attack"
posted by Robert Dreyfuss on 03/04/2009 @ 3:55pm



The appointment of Chas Freeman as chairman of the National Intelligence Council is a done deal, and it's probably the single best appointment that Obama has made to date. But small-minded critics are out for blood. And now John Boehner, Eric Cantor, and other Republicans on the Hill are demanding Freeman's head.

The critic with the smallest mind, I'd say, is Jonathan Chait, a rabid, pro-Zionist hawk and supporter of the war in Iraq, who wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post this week called "Obama's Intelligence Blunder." Chait, who knows squat about intelligence, had the temerity to call Freeman a "fanatic." As in:

Freeman was attacked by pro-Israel activists, but the contretemps over Freeman's view of Israel misses the broader problem, which is that he's an ideological fanatic.

By "fanatic," Chait meant that Freeman is a "realist," which is sort of like calling someone a fanatical moderate. Listen to Chait's "reasoning":

He's not an ideologue of the sort who draws most of the attention. When most people think of foreign policy ideology, they mean neoconservatism, which dominated the Bush administration. ... Freeman belongs to the camp that's the mortal enemy of the neoconservatives: the realists.

In other words, if you're a mortal enemy of neoconservativism, you can't be appointed. .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/dreyfuss/414169/chas_freeman_redux_when_idiots_attack?rel=hpbox

[Idealism]

1. Neocons and right-wing Israeli governments, hand in hand...