Dan Drezner [1] grew a bit, apparently, over the weekend. He’s still got a long way to go, in this, but the progress is notable.
Remember when I said earlier this week that, “Glenn Greenwald might be a good blogger/collumnist, but he’s not that great at social science”? I apologize — I was clearly in error. Replace “good” with “simplistic and Jacobin” and replace “not that great at social science” with “not aware of the concept of social science.”
What it took for the change in perception, is, however, less than encouraging:
Here’s how Greenwald resonds to [2]responded to my prior post [3]. He first tries to rebut points I made about his methodology… but let’s get to the good stuff:
I want to leave their specific claims behind and focus on what is actually important here. What really underlies the mentality of people like McArdle and Drezner are two pervasive though toxic afflictions — a drooling, self-loving American exceptionalism, along with a self-interested refusal to acknowledge that there is anything truly wrong with our political and media establishment because they both support and are part of that establishment….And then there is the self-absorbed motivation to defend the establishment which they support. Both of them supported the Bush administration and advocated for the invasion of Iraq. Hence, the absolute last thing they want to face — just as is true for most of our political and media establishment — is that the things they cheered on have spawned grave atrocities and vast destruction.
It can never be the case that there is anything profoundly wrong — fundamentally wrong — with the American political establishment. Why not? Because the McArdles and Drezners both support it and are part of it, and they are Good and thus can’t possibly be responsible for things like “war crimes” or “torture regimes” or illegal wars of aggression.
Well, of course, and as usual, Greenwald has it exactly backwards… they are good in large part because they are not guilty of what Greenwald charges. What Greenwald won’t admit is he sees them as not being good because they’re not running under his chosen brand name. And in any event, unlike Greenwald, and a few others, I don’t see torture, including Drezner, under some conditions, as a bad thing, and thereby I’m unwilling to paste a Greenwaldian label on it. To be fair, neither is Drezner, But, Greenwald sees it as bad, I suspect, because it’s done to support the American brand… a brand Greenwald has problems with… problems, that like Sullivan, are at the very center of his politics. You guess which they might be.
The real reason Drezner is reconsidering Greenwald, in the end?
I’ve defended Greenwald as of late, and I actually enjoyed my prior blog exchanges with him. After his latest column, however, I don’t see the point of engaging with him anymore. If Greenwald is incapable of distinguishing between different streams of thought, if he is incapable of distinguishing positive analysis from normative advocacy, if he is incapable of doing anything other than indicting the “establishment” as an undifferentiated mass of lickspittle imperialists, then there’s no point in debating him. As Megan put it, “Mr Greenwald’s anger at the establishment power structure seems to be rapidly transmuting into anger at the non-Glenn-Greenwald power structure:”
Well, of course, Dan. The difference between us is, I’ve never considered that Greenwald’s bitching was anything more than this. What disturbs me is that you did, and that it took personal attacks from him to get you to see what he is about.
Now… about this drooling idiot, Juan Cole…. the one you spent an entire interview giving a tounge bath to… Had it occurred to you that Cole and Greenwald have been working the same political side of the street, and are equally vacuous and have been for quite a while, now?
Oh, never mind. I suppose there’s only so much learning that can be done in a day. You’ve already got a lot to think about, already.