NY Post-Partum Depression

It was a mistake and I knew it, yet when the street vendor shoved the NY Post in front of me saying, “It’s free, man!,” I felt obliged to take it. And when I saw that I had 45 minutes to wait for my train to Philly, I figured, “What the hell,” and decided I might as well read it.

All was going reasonably well until I turned to “Post Opinion” on page 25, whereupon I suffered immediate flash burns to my face and eyes from the radioactive levels of pure stupid streaming from the newsprint.

The lead op-ed, “Gray Lady Hedges” (by Ralph Peters), was filled with such dangerously high levels of lunacy, idiocy, and fallacy that I wondered why the paper hadn’t been wrapped in lead. The editorial in question dribbled faint praise on the NY Times for running the Petraeus puff-piece by Brookings Brothers O’Hanlon and Pollack. You know the piece I mean - the one that assures us that we might just win this damned thing in Iraq provided that we “stay the course.”

The first three paragraphs of Peters’ commentary read like they came straight out of “Wingnut Welfare for Dummies: How to Score Big as a NY Post Pundit – Even if you Can’t Write!” or some other, similar manual for no-talent right-wing hacks. The rhetorical devices employed include the following favorites:

• Red-Baiting: “The… Times was as dogmatically pessimistic about the Bush administration’s efforts as it was gushingly supportive of Joseph Stalin in the 1930s.” [This is, of course, the former employer of Judy “I was proved fucking right” Miller, chief war-drum majorette and Chalabi cheerleader for war in Iraq.]

• Bare-Naked Hyperbole: “It even promoted the least-qualified op-ed writer in North America…” [No, Ralph, I think that honor belongs to you.]

• The Bald-Faced Lie: “…as its point man for its attacks on our military…” [What the fuck are you smoking, man?]

• Gay-Baiting: “Frank Rich, whose experience was with ballet slippers, not combat boots.” [Ah, yes – unlike all those steely-eyed missile men in the Bush administration who had “other priorities” during Vietnam.]

• Feminize The Democrat: See previous and following.

• Nyaa-nyaa-nya-nya-nyaa: “Rich must feel like a dying swan just now.”

I won’t go into the more subtle absurdities in the piece (that is, every bit of text telling us how wonderful things really are in Iraq); better men than I (Glenn Greenwald, for example) have already said all that I could say and more. No, I’ll concentrate on Peters’ prevarications, pomposity, and love of underpowered and overworked stock insults in describing his opponents. To wit:

• “[Pollack and O’Hanlon] …aren’t typical Washington think-tank drones parroting party lines.” [You mean like everyone at the AEI?]

• “…Pollack was sharply critical of the Rumsfeld-era mess in Iraq…” [See Greenwald, Glen for an in-depth refutation of this point.]

• “Cynically, one might suspect the Gray Lady of hedging her bets as the turnaround in Iraq becomes impossible to dismiss…” [I’ll wait for you to stop laughing before I move on…]

• “(by anyone except the blustering Rich, who might usefully spend a few weeks in Iraq himself.) [Still laughing? OK, I’ll wait…]

• “…left-wing America-haters may disparage the Post and every other paper in the country…” [Right, Ralph, it’s you and every other paper in the good old US of Fucking A against the commies and their Pravda, the NY Times.]

• “…but they cling to the Times more avidly than Linus clutches his security blanket.” [No fair, Ralph – you used that tactic already!]

• “… the “last to know” and the “don’t want to know” anti-war hucksters on Capitol Hill…” [Along with the 70% of the nation that hates ‘Murka as much as they do.]

That’s enough… my eyes are starting to burn again. Suffice it to say that Peters ends his op-ed with an obligatory “blame the Iraqis” flourish and one last dig at the Times.

Next time I’ll know better.

Technorati Tags: NY Post, Post, Ralph Peters, Frank Rich, Iraq, war, wingnuts, OUT NOW