Objectivity gone mad
When Chris Lightfoot accused Oliver Kamm of a 'gag' in pretending to be 'objective' he rather...well the expression is 'wigged out'.But reading his piece in today's Times (in the proper newspaper as well, not their 'readers' corner' Thunderer section) you get the point.
Obviously the aim of the piece - which is basically a gag about why a left-leaning person should support George W Bush (!) - is to be controversial.
The best thing you could say about it is that if Oliver really believes what he is writing then it represents the 'I'm alright Jack, smash the ladder' school of thought, in which as long as US foreign policy suits his narrow aims the fall-out is irrelevant.If you're gay, if you're poor, if you care about the environment, if you believe in honesty and decency in government, if you believe the war on terror should be fought against terrorists, if you're in Guantanamo, if you're in Abu Ghraib then tough.
On the specifics he criticises John Kerry for saying the stain of Abu Ghraib requires the removal of this Administration, taking comfort in that hoary story of the Right that it was all down to American 'jailers', ie it's Lynnie England's fault. No-one outside of the National Review seriously believes that now (for ample proof it was an Administration policy - to what heights still unclear - read Josh Marshall's site).
If this Administration had decided to rename itself 'Liberal Democrats' then on Oliver's site we'd have had months of daring exposes of their lies and duplicity and errors. But as they are in fact 'Republicans' we get fantastical posts like this. 'A state that lies to its own people is unlikely to be open and trusted on the international stage' Oliver writes at one point, clearly oblivious to the fact that this is the legacy of this disastrous Administration as well as Saddam's odious regime (again I recommend Josh Marshall or Kevin Drum's archives -- links on the right).
posted by Matthew @ 7/10/2004 08:07:00 AM
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