The World Changes! A Full-Page Ad for Walt/Mearsheimer in NYT!

Let us celebrate the moment. Today the great publishing house Farrar, Straus & Giroux has bought a full-page ad for Walt & Mearsheimer in the New York Times. Two years after The Atlantic refused to publish their work and they had to go to London to put out their ideas, amid warnings that they would blast their careers to hell, these two brave scholars have gained a strong foothold in the American discourse. History in front of us.

Perhaps most important, they have weathered the smears. They have gotten past the anti-semite badge. That attack failed. Today there is a full-page ad for them in the Times. And CFR's  Leslie Gelb conceded in yesterday's Times: "Most unbiased students of the matter would probably agree that the lobby is the single most influential force on American policy toward Israel." At last that statement is made in the NYT, under the intellectual influence of these two scholars. Soon W&M will be on PBS and Stephen Coulbert. Oh my god, but our world has changed!

And what motivated these so-called realists? A moral understanding that Palestinian suffering must have a place in American politics (a moral understanding utterly lacking in eminence grise Gelb's critical review).

A million people are now following in W&M's footsteps. On Bill Maher's show the other night, Janeane Garofalo and ex-CIA spook Michael Scheuer both went off on Israel, suggesting its security needs were the cause of the disaster in Iraq. The world is changing. And these two scholars deserve the credit. It is as I wrote: their book has the power of Silent Spring and The Jungle. A friend compares it to Uncle Tom's Cabin, which transformed American attitudes towards slavery.

The new line of defense is in the Boston Globe, where Jeff Jacoby calls the book "The Big Lie About the Great Silencer." You are getting a ton of attention, Jacoby writes. No one has tried to silence you!

Mearsheimer and Walt are more than welcome to peddle their anti-Israel message. But when all is said and done, most Americans just don't buy it.

This is an attempt to rewrite history and make a virtue (they have free speech!) of a necessity (we had to let them in!). Walt and Mearsheimer were silenced. Many others have been silenced. Now they are breaking thru, because of this book's eloquence, and because Americans are hungry for a different point of view. The dam is breaking.

Comments

[Adam]

Bill Maher seemed pretty freaked out by Michael Scheuer's criticism of US policy towards Israel. I wish Scheuer had pressed the issue a bit more and clarified Maher's misconceptions about Israeli "democracy".

I thought the crowds reaction was interesting as well with many more cheers than boos for Scheuer's and Garafalo's comments.

[cooper]

FREE THE JENA SIX!FREE THE JENA SIX!FREE THE JENA SIX!

[NewSpeak translation:
.
"White Man, return to your cubicles.
.
Noble Black Man, Arise!
.
Ignore the puppeteer-ovitz; you must save
The Magic Negro.
.
Pay no attention to the terrorists Walt and Mearsheimer.
.
Our next Hate will again feature Osama Bin Goldstein as regularly scheduled..."]

[anon]

Michael Scheuer shocks Bill Maher by talking about American wars for Israel--http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18442.htm

[lester]

I think what the maher show illustrates is something that the book made abundently clear to me: regardless of your view of the various issues surrounding israel, much of the rhetoric about it is out of date. Some of it is leftover from the cold war and immediate post 9/11 shock. israel supporters need to update their arguments, as the old ones don't really cut it anymore. israel can't logically be described as a strategic assett.

[WM]

I think the media strategy last time is to not talk about the W&M paper, but have their editorials blast them as anti-semites. Obviously it has changed this time, instead of calling them anti-semites, call them delusional because the fact that they are being covered by the media shows that the power of the lobby is a myth.

Scheuer is starting to show a little more spine. I remember when he did talk about the Israel lobby, he will frequently follow it up with "but you got to watch out for the Saudi Lobby". Now he is coming out and playing realpolitiks.

South Africans in the Apartheid days might have thought American soldiers should die so their beacon of civilization in a land surround by savages could thrive, only the Aryan nation might have joined that struggle. America would have armed SA to the teeth, but would let them defend against the savages on their own.

[daveg]

Is Scheuer Jewish? He look it, and in this press conference he seems to be wearing a Kippah, no?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAt6Pf7jZjA

He comes in around minute number 7:00.

[Steve]

Petty scholars
=====================================

I think WM will go down in history as petty pitiful one-dimensional trash writers.

I hope I am right.
=====================================

[daveg]

Read somewhere else that Scheuer went to Jesuit school, so not Jewish.

[WM]

Steve, I assume you are ignorant and don't know what I am talking about. So you better go watch the Scheuer video and apply it to what Maher and the rest of the politicians are saying. If you still don't get it, I will explain it to you.