world affairs (WAS: Friedman and the NYT)

[Kevin Troy]

On Wed, 2 Jul 2003, pynchon-l-digest wrote:
> Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2003 15:49:43 EDT
> From: Bandwraith at aol.com
> Subject: Friedman and The New York Times
>
> The problem with Friedman is fairly obvious. He is pro-war.
> [snip]
>
> Unfortunately for moderates everywhere, he is also the
> New York Times' man, and therein lies a bigger problem,
> in my view, of which Friedman is just one example. In case
> you haven't noticed, The New York Times ain't what she used
> to be. Long considered moderately left-leaning, but fairly
> unbiased and accurate as papers go... [etc.]

If I may take a detour from that point...  I've never understood the
public's assumption that the NYT is "left-leaning."  If anything, it leans
toward the Democratic Party -- more specfically, to the "New Democrats" of
the Kennedy era -- which does not always translate to left-leaning,
especially in the area of foreign policy.

If I had to sum up Thomas Friedman in one breath, I would say
"pro-Israel," which very much matches the overall inclinations of both the
Times and the State Department.

I got the impression during the buildup to the Iraq War that the Times'
coverage (including op-eds) could be best categorized as "pro-State," as
opposed to "pro-Rumsfeld."  This, of course, buys into a central theme of
their coverage, that the debate was Powell vs. Rummy.  (Howell Raines
loved simple conflict between titans as a story -- AOL vs. Time-Warner and
the Augusta Nationals are two other examples).  But if we assume that the
Times's coverage was genuine, and not a delicious meta-poison designed to
hide the REAL story, we can take that characterization to the next level,
and see that Powell/State = professional, pragmatic bureaucrats and
Rummy/Feith/Wolfowitz/et. al. = politically-driven ideologues, the type of
people who would float up from the ground like a bubble if the polling
data said they could.

The Bush administration, together with the 108th Congress, is probably the
most anti-bureaucracy regime modern America has ever seen.  They fight the
EPA, the CIA, State, and these mysterious "Clinton generals" (who were
probably Bush colonels and Reagan majors) at every step.  These are
ideologues who cut their teeth on the Contract With America and spent the
second Clinton administration filing those teeth down to fangs.  By
launching sustained, savage attacks on Beltway professionalism (you know
-- proper accounting, scientific empircism, complete and accurate analysis
of strategic intelligence), they have managed to jam an extraordinary
number of cylindrical pegs through the square pigeonholes of government.
The war on Iraq was one.  (How many can _you_ find?)

As for the obglitatory Pynchon connection... If there's anything we can
learn from Gravity's Rainbow about foreign affairs, it is that they are
best left to people with some humanistic sense, some both/and balance --
not to romantics with grand visions.

Or, Pynchon connection #2... have there been any discussions on-list about
Leo Strauss in the last few months?


--Kevin T.