Dean Slaughter:

Thanks for participating in these debates: I think it benefits everyone involved despite the often vigorous disagreement.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with people questioning your credentials or motives. Indeed, such things are part of the debate.

I read the comments yesterday and made quite a few of them. You were not mistreated or unfairly criticized. You were subjected to some hard questions and objections, along with a few jokes. But I don't see any "Road Rage" at work here.

But yes, your credentials, motives and even your capacity for feeling and judgment are part of this discussion -- they inform the values that you claim have universality and they inform every claim you've made about what should be debated, how it should be debated and who Democrats should work with on foreign policy issues.

It's all fair game and you've been treated quite fairly during it.

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

I’m all for witty retorts and sharp disagreement – that’s what makes reading blogs worth it. But there’s a big difference between that and a lot of what I read here.

Ann-Marie, this statement speaks volumes about the sort of "bipartisanship" you've been exposed to at your recent Princeton study group, and about your "idea that is America". What time was tea served?

I completely agree with Destor: "You were not mistreated or unfairly criticized. You were subjected to some hard questions and objections, along with a few jokes. But I don't see any "Road Rage" at work here." And a lot of wisdom, I would add. TPM is one of the best, wisest and fairest blogs on the web, in my opinion, and a lot of what I read here rates a lot higher than you credit it. (But what do I know, I'm just a common citizen.) The slander is minimal. Visit award-winning ThinkProgress if you want to get a real taste of slander.

Despite your cheapening of their input, and calling it road rage, I wouldn't expect the TPM bloggers to give up their liberty to speak their minds if I were you. I suspect that your put-down of their remarks may even sharpen the dialogue.

If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. This is America--we are exercising our liberty to speak up about the lousy bipartisan policies we have to live with. And remember, bloggers have two differences from your Princeton group. First, bloggers are much more diverse. They come from every economic strata and many different backgrounds. They are not academics. Secondly, bloggers feel free to speak their minds. THAT is the idea that is America, Ann-Marie. We're bringing it to you, live.

=== hat you are writing very much on the record and your writing will have a definite and personal affect on your public life. For essentially all of us, on the other hand, posting is a hobby not a career ===

AMS writes in her LA oped:

the Democratic Senate leadership opposed a bipartisan resolution led by Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.) and Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and supported by 10 other moderate Democrats [...]

Moderate Democrats. That expression has always cracked me up. I guess we wouldn't want to confuse them with the extreme, radical, rabble-rousing firebrands on the Democratic side of the aisle... The Muqtada al-Sadrs of the US Senate like Boxer or Feingold.

George Orwell would love it.

mod-er-ate: adj. Not extreme, excessive, or intense. For example, when Hillary Clinton signed on to Shock-and-Awe and thus advocated the dropping of bombs on the heads of sleeping children, she was being a "moderate Senator."

The main thrust of any counter argument is best directed at the ideas expressed in the original argument, and not at the author's various social standings, views on other issues, etc.

Of course such things are "fair game". But, the rules of civil argument have always suggested that some types of critique ought to be taken with a great deal more skepticism than others. The phrase "more heat than light come to mind".

(By the way, my own view is in line with Max and the responsible critics of Anne-Marie Slaughter's original post.)

Kevin Russell Cook

This site when it started was very vibrant and exciting with many experts who had a lot of interesting things to say. Then over time in a Bush like fashion the experts were denounced with personal attacks by people who don't know half of what the experts know. Now the site has become rather dull. It is filled with lots of anti-Israeli posts, and an occaisionaly other topics with the same ideological ideas batted around endlessly.

Since Professor Slaughter and the others of the former America Abroad have far greater credentials and knowledge than anyone who posts here it is a shame that they were attacked on a personal basis. Instead we have a site that is not too far different from the right who also dilike expertise.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

I missed that part of the op/ed, which argues that Salazar-Alexander will be the first step in a new direction in Iraq. This is the preferred delusion of those who insist on believing that people like Warner and Lugar will do the right thing. S-A will be a first and only step, a meaningless fig-leaf for people like Collins and Sununu, so they can pretend they've been something other than rubber-stamps for this abominable administration in their upcoming re-election campaigns in Democratic-leaning states.

That said, the sentence quoted above is, at best, misleading. Reid offered McConnell a straight up-or-down vote on Salazar-Alexander if McConnell would allow the same on Reid-Levin, which would:

Sets a firm start and end date to transition the mission and begin the reduction of U.S. forces – beginning 120 days after enactment and completed by March 30th; Limits the U.S. mission to limited counter-terror, training and force protection operations after March 30th; Requires that the reduction in forces be part of a comprehensive diplomatic, regional, political and economic effort.

This is pretty much what Ms Slaughter and her fellow champions of bipartisanship (Klein, Broder) delude themselves will happen after the Salazar Alexander bill and the Petraeus report turn George W Bush into a reasonable human being. The fact that Republicans filibustered this pretty much tells you everything you need to know about what they will do after September.

There must be something in the air, Greenwald yesterday.   Great minds, and all that.:-)

re: "road rage"

I must note, even the bottom half of the class here is usually pretty bright. Check the general quality of the comments at HufPo.

Kevin Russell Cook

"pimping her book"?  You didn't have to write that. ;-)

Whether she's uncomfortable or not I don't know, but I give her lots of points for trying for dialog.  Perhaps she is "a Washington insider who just doesn't get the fact that there has been a paradigm shift in American politics in the past decade" (quote from yesterday).  

I believe her when she says "I welcome responses and do read them and actually pay attention. Why else would I even be posting on a blog and reading and responding, rather than just writing occasional op-ed pieces?"  Insulting her will not encourage her to pay attention.  And a lot of the comments were insults.

Sorry, but how does blogging compare to talk radio? How does an uninterrupted talk-radio monologue compare to a diverse scattering of pseudonymous comments on a blog?

Now I understand that bloggers can be rude. But they are not rude because they are bloggers. Okay? Some people are habitually rude because that's in their DNA. They are the kind of people that get road rage whenever they get behind the wheel. They find reasons to get mad, irrespective of whether anyone else has wronged them. You know who they are, every community has to deal with them.

Most people, myself included, get rude when we witness stuff which pisses us off (Racism and xenophobia are kryptonite to my anger-management). And in this very case, I am sick and tired of the obsession with bipartisanship. Bipartisanship got us into Iraq and is keeping us there. Bipartisanship has given us a surfeit of awful legislation. The experience of the last 7 years had absolutely convinced me that the desire to be bipartisan is the source of our problems, not the solution.

There's another issue beside the fact I see bipartisanship as part of the problem. Try looking at it this way: you have come out with a product (Historical American Awesomeness), and are trying to convince us to buy it because the product is going to market so well.

I don't deny for a moment that when you've got something to sell, you need a good marketing strategy... but your marketing strategy is to say that you've got a great marketing strategy and that's why we should be convinced by your idea. Doesn't really resonate... And that's before I've even been put off the by the "bipartisan" sales pitch which basically only succeeds in putting an image of Joe Lieberman into my head.

I'd like to see ideas, foreign policy ideas, that stand up on their own merit, not because someone reckons they will get bipartisan support. I guarantee this: you present a good idea, the question of bipartisanship will take care of itself.

I agree completely. Not every comment might be delivered with Ivy League decorum, but jeez I think people here generally do a pretty good job of being constructive.

As I have suggested in the past, Daniel, the ideological uniformity of the America Abroad lineup contributed to that unhealthy and antagonistic situation. If, in addition to the mainstream center-left perspective offered by Slaughter, Daalder, Ikenberry et al., the lineup had also included several writers from the left who were equally serious, well-informed experts - and there are many such writers - then the debate might have taken a different direction. The left wing front pagers could have exerted a civilizing influence on the left-wing commentators, while giving the latter articulate, expert champions and a voice. The site would have been better able to self-police and maintain standards of civility.

Several of us requested, repeatedly, that the lineup be expanded to encompass the left. But nothing ever happened. Indeed, it seems that management preferred that the department be closed down rather than diversified.

Matthew Yglesias makes the case for why it is perfectly reasonable to question Anne Marie-Slaughter's credentials and motives.  He does it without even mentioning her name.  But this is how the debate should be defined, not the way Slaughter wants it. 

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

"We should hear from Gen. David Petraeus, the top military commander in Iraq, in September and then announce a timetable for shifting the nature of U.S. operations in Iraq, withdrawing combat troops as the surge comes to an end and turning to special operations and support of Iraqi troops."

You can't be that naive. Petraeus's report will be "stay the course forever"; it's why he was chosen for the job. He'll announce that The Surge is working and must be continued (why stop such a successful effort?) and that we have to stay and "fix" Iraq because we've messed it up so badly so far. (That's the latest neo-con excuse.) There will be bipartisanship only to the extent that Democrats do what Bush wants.

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself!" - Franklin Roosevelt

You were not mistreated or unfairly criticized. You were subjected to some hard questions and objections, along with a few jokes. But I don't see any "Road Rage" at work here.

Although they didn't make up the bulk of the discussion, there were a number of comments that were inappropriate. I don't think calling *anyone* a "blood-soaked bag of hot air" is advancing the discussion. It's not a hard question. Likewise, insisting that someone isn't "outraged enough" isn't really productive. Instead, how about laying out *why* one thinks the speaker has misrepresented things. What actions / recommendations does the commentator deem to lack outrage?

There are a number of ways to express disagreement. A lot that were on display yesterday attacked Ann-Marie Slaughter as a person. That's not questioning her ideas or raising objections to a proposal. That's ad hominem. I'm not saying that questioning motives or credentials cannot be a part of the discussion, but it shouldn't be the *only* part of the discussion.

The difficulty here is that most of those who disagree with your strategy are saying quite clearly that it has been tried repeatedly and it has failed repeatedly. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. In the past seven years particularly this strategy of cooperation has brought us one disaster after another.

The almost sentimental quality of your desire to cooperate with those who would just as soon cut your throat is something many of us are tired of not simply because we disagree but because of the horrific results this kind of strategy has yielded now for a generation. We will not stand idly by while the same enemy cuts our throats.

It's as though, after 30 years of getting our asses kicked over and over, the elite Democrats are still punch drunk and under the impression we are playing a tennis match when we are now in the 10th round of a heavyweight fight with only a few rounds left to go. We know we can win this fight, but it isn't going to happen by being nice to the guy trying to knock us out or by cooperating with him. We intend to fight back. It is not in our nature to just stand there and take more of it. We are sick and tired of the defeat, not to mention the downright evil the "bipartisanship" you want to see has produced and not just once or twice but over and over again.

Worse still this bipartisanship has weakened our political position immeasurably, making it much harder for us to do now what we have to do to preserve our freedom and our way of life. We are now having to win back political territory we had previously held and lost precisely because of the truly shameful capitulations of Democrats over and over in the name of bipartisan consensus. We are saying: "Wake up! The game has changed!" But are the elites listening?

Many of us, whose voices are heard on the net live amongst the great unwashed (what am I saying here, many of us are the great unwashed!) and the course of the government will have direct impact on our lives and those of our neighbors, friends and families. As a result of bitter experience, many of us refuse to take our cues about politics from the elites any longer. Many of us believe the non-elite opinions found on sites like this, Eschaton, etc... more closely reflect the opinions of regular citizens than do those of the elites.

The elites, whose voices are vastly over-represented in the media don't have to suffer the consequences of their failed strategies, but we do. On the net, the elites actually have to put up with hearing our voices and the way we express ourselves. The rough and tumble statements written here and elsewhere are typical of the conversations we have around our living room tables, in bars, at our kids athletic events, etc... These are the conversations elites have never had to put up with before and could blithely ignore. Those who believe that these expressions differ markedly because we are anonymous on the net and the like are fooling only themselves. The only real difference is that in past times these sentiments went unheard because of the difficulty of making them heard via traditional means.

When the only means of political discussion were newspapers, magazines, radio and tv (owned and operated by and for the elites) the elites could far more easily ignore what the non-elites sentiments were. Even the letters to the editors sections are sanitized to reflect the boundaries of debate as defined by the elites. We know that the elites are uncomfortable with hearing from us, but as far as many of us are concerned, that's just too damn bad.

When the elites make calls for more listening and less invective it makes many of us laugh because we have been listening to the elites all our lives and only in the past few years have they ever even acknowledged our presence and even then it consists mostly of patronizing sentiments about the sort of crude language that might pop up on a site or the lack of manners demonstrated by what is simply a "vocal minority".

Now that the elites no longer are the only ones allowed to have a voice they admonish us to listen more and shout less. The funny thing is that despite the fact that the grassroots of the Democratic Party have demonstrated the patience of Job for the past 30 years of bipartisan shame and surrender, the moment our voices are raised to an audible level, the elites are concerned with "the tone" of political debate and "lack of civility" in our discourse.

We have been shouted at all our lives by a tiny, unrepresentative elite who used to have the exclusive right to be heard on a regular basis and when we finally shout back it is the nonelites who need to listen more and shout less? Surely you jest?

The Democratic elites are close to losing whatever credibility they have left (if, indeed, they have any left at all) and their desire for cooperation with the enemies of the average American's economic interests, civil liberties, democracy and peace have failed us miserably. Many of us are tired of the ideas that have handed us defeat year after year. That is the message the elites need to get through their heads, that's what they need to be listening to and hearing from these unruly and sometimes coarse voices out here on the internets.

It is more than maddening to many of us to hear the elite voices in our party calling for anything resembling further compromise or cooperation with the criminals in charge of our government starting with Bush himself. The man should be behind bars for the crimes he has committed and the lives he has destroyed as should many of his henchmen. Many of us have no patience for the "now, now be practical... we need them" sort of argument for bipartisanship when it is that argument that got us in this mess to begin with! Sometimes you just have to put your foot down and refuse to cooperate with evil even if that means a messy fight with an uncertain outcome. That is what should have been done on Alito and Roberts for example, not to mention Iraq and many other issues. That is where we are now and what we need to do on most important issues.

Many of us continue to be horrifed and revolted by the Democratic cooperation that enabled the illegal, immoral invasion of Iraq particularly. Many of us knew we would end up in exactly the position we are in now and said so in every way we could, but were not heard because the voices of moderation and bipartisanship from "serious" elites who drowned us out and tuned us out in October 2003 and in the months leading to the invasion. Those elite voices were wrong then and they are wrong now on Iraq and most every other issue I can think of.

Other than a lack of courage and determination to fight for what is right, many of us simply see no reason why so many elite Democrats are so frantically desirous of cooperating with these criminals instead of denouncing them forcefully and doing all we can to sweep them away as soon as possible. Cooperation won't keep them from bombing Iran, it will only encourage them because they know that the Democrats will cave in on anything as they demonstrated on the FISA revisions.

Many of us, likewise, are amazed when we hear elite Democrats saying that we "need" some Republicans to cooperate in order to do what is right. Hello! In politics you use your power, if necessary, to force the other side to go along. The time has come for us to do that with our opposition. Perhaps we do not have absolutely controlling power in Congress, but we have enough to produce better outcomes than capitulation has brought us.

Yet, as clear as it is to so many of us that the time to fight has come, we still see atrocities like Democrats voting for Bush's FISA revisions last week and cannot understand how those who love their country and the Constitution could possibly vote for something like that. It is downright shameful, but even more so it is a threat to our Democracy and many of us, at least, are not afraid to say so even if it isn't genteel or if such declarations are made in a tone that is not quite what the "serious" elites are comfortable with.

Many of us want to see the population riled up over this stuff and they are. They would be moved to action far sooner if the elites would join us rabble rousers in condemning the criminals in charge of the government and their cohorts in the Republican Party instead of urging cooperation with them.

The elites, however, seem to be afraid of what might happen if the people get angry enough to become involved once again in the political life of the nation. The failures of bipartisanship to produce any real, tangible benefits for average Americans in a generation caused millions in the average to low income groups to simply quit voting which is understandable. They have little or nothing to vote for because no one represents their interests. This is the point on which Ralph Nader is absolutely correct and which resonates with many people. Unfortunately, this withdrawal from participation has only benefited right wing Republicans.

Many of us agree that the sort of debate that occurs here and elsewhere ought to be in the spirit of open-mindedness and there ought to be some room for changing minds. We further believe very strongly that it is long past time for the elites to realize that it is their minds that need changing: not ours.

Many of us believe the elites lost touch with reality, let alone the sentiments and best interests of the people long ago. Many are not content any longer to accept the failed strategies of our betters nor will we continue to follow or support those who take their bad advice. We are the ones who have to live with the terrible consequences of capitulation with evil in the name of bipartisanship.

Unlike those of the elite, our families are not necessarily going to be okay when the wealthy, comfortable elites once again lead us over the cliff. The elites are going to be fine no matter what happens. Maybe that explains their willingness to pretend that our nation's politics and policies are a parlor game. They have the luxury to pine away for more decorum and more genteel debate. Regular people are not abstract concepts. They are the living, breathing humans who bear the brunt of the consequences of bipartisan compromise. Why? Because it is primarily the interests of the average American, not the elite American, that are being compromised or perhaps to put it more accurately we could say undermined or harmed by such capitulations.

Tremendous suffering has been brought upon our people and people's around the globe because of well-meaning, but out of touch Democrats who would rather compromise than fight for what is right. Many of us who vigorously oppose appeasing the right any further are tired of getting humiliated and beaten up via bipartisan surrender. Many of us are tired of seeing our principles compromised for the sake of social peace amongst the powerful, and we're not going to take it passively anymore.

Just as in revolutionary times, there comes a time to take a stand and say we will not put up with this any longer. Many of us simply refuse to keep following the same failed strategy and expect a different result. If we fail to realize that our democracy and constitution, as well as our economic well being are now in serious jeapordy because too many compromises have been made with the very people our elites say we "need" to accomplish our ends between now and the 08 election, our children and our grandchildren may well look back and wonder why we didn't fight to preserve our nation and society when we had the chance.

Many of us believe that it is our responsibility to fight to preserve and expand what is good about our nation and society if necessary. The time has come when we find it necessary. The battle is joined. Will the elites join us or stand in our way? In my opinion that is the question. Either way, many of us do not intend to stand idly by and allow a pack of criminals and their enablers to rob us and our posterity of the blessings the founders established and our grandparents and parents preserved for us.

I think Viviane's quite right.  I lose it with most of the comments in any blog myself, and it makes me wish for more cooperation, at lesat within our own side. As long I also admit I learn a lot, and I mean a lot, from other comments, too. 

i'd hate to feel caught between the vituperation of, say, the Middle East threads (and many of the candidate or impeachment threads) and the resistance to criticism of those posters who have been characterized as "insiders." Both are real, and neither justifies the other. 

John 

http://www.haberarts.com/

The good dean Slaughter teaches us about not assigning motives to the other side but instead engaging in a healthy debate about the issues and hearing the other side. Strange then in her LA Times piece we read:

"Besides, the ideological purity of "pull out now" is preferable to the kind of messy political compromise that is likely to get us out."

Correct me if I am wrong but hasn't the good, the pure, the intellectually open, Dean Slaughter of the very high and mighty and of course prestigious Woodrow Wilson School of Foreign Affairs just reduced the "pull out now" approach to a need to maintain "ideological purity". Caricaturizingng and name-calling is something that the opponents of Dean Slaughter's viewpoint engage in (according to the Dean), not the open-minded academic Dean Slaughter.

Suggestion to Dean Slaughter: instead of dismissing and caricaturizing the "pull out now" viewpoint, deal with it seriously and honestly. At least half as seriously or honestly as you admonish your critics to be. A lot of thought has been put into it (not by you, I know) and a lot of smart people find it persuasive and NOT for reasons of ideological purity but for reasons of pragmatism and realism and compassion and creating justice and peace and furthering American and Arab and Israeli interests. True it HAS been dismissed out of hand by the Washington elite and the serious foreign policy community and the corporate media (the same three groups that have gotten us into the disasater that is Iraq), but that is no reason for an open-minded academic like you to repeat the foolish and disastrous mistakes of your past.

J. McCutchen

And so it goes.

US policy elites continue to indulge the fantasy that this country has any control over the disaster that it's neoCon/Wilsonian (sorry for the name calling but that is what you are Dean Slaughter)

Iraq is About to Get Worse, Much Worse

Again sorry for the name calling but the Democratic Party is now at a moment of truth - does it align itself with the War Party of Bill Clinton, take that Bridge back to the 20th Century or get real

Long before Shock and Awe, Clinton was destroying and killing in Iraq. Under the lawless pretense of a "no-fly zone," he oversaw the longest allied aerial bombardment since the Second World War. This was hardly reported. At the same time, he imposed and tightened a Washington-led economic siege estimated to have killed a million civilians. "We think the price is worth it," said his secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, in an exquisite moment of honesty.

These days, you see Good Ol’ Bill, or the Comeback Kid, as he is variously known, wiggling his head on the TV news, campaigning for his wife, Hillary, among Americans who, terminally naive, still believe the Democratic Party is theirs and that "it’s time to vote a woman into the White House." Together, the Clintons are known as "Billary" and rightly so. Like Good Ol’ Bill, Hillary wants to continue Iraq’s torment for perhaps a decade. And she has "not ruled out" attacking Iran.

Good Ole Bill - Liberal Hero

Yeah. Gets better on a reread. Especially the part where he skewers the notion that people are hiding behind online identities by telling us that people will gladly say the things they write here when they're in a bar or on the basketball court... Nobody's hiding.

I think it's what frustrates me most about this, the notion that I wouldn't say the things I write to Slaughter's face. I would.

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

I agree 100%.

But what is the solution?

For real road rage, there is no total solution since we do not give psychological tests for driver's licenses and demand traquilizing medication before many can drive. We do, however, have serious punishment for the consequences any driver practicing road rage might cause, including removal of license. This keeps the traffic in a reasonable state.

Talk radio always springs up as an comparison for uncivil blog forum discussion because we recognize so many of its characteristics in what we read. But it's not totally accurate, and the reason is very important to point out: inflammmatory talk radio is purposeful, the participants are screened and the host has nearly full control. They CHOOSE to make it inflammatory, they want to inflame for ratings.

The fault, ultimately, then, must be placed on the management of a website. If they offer an open forum and do not require "licensing" in any way, they will get unfettered road rage driving more and more frightened or turned-off non-road-rage drivers off the road.

Further, if they allow the police or community leaders to practice road rage (forum example: name calling of public figures in original posts) even if it's skillful or amusing road rage (forum example: Larry Johnson), then the rest of the drivers will not only feel free to do same, they will be encouraged to express themselves with return emotions.

It's not an intractable problem unique to this new medium. That's nonsense, as proprietors pretty much have a lot of control. It just requires an editorial process of some kind, time and labor. You can produce a highbrow Letters to The Editor Section, or you can have a Juan Cole website with every comment fully vetted, producing high quality for the reader, or you can have a liberal version of Michael Savage talk radio. This medium is not special in that, it's all in the hands of the proprietors of a website.

I must offer a personal gripe: it's growing quite tiresome to me to constantly see good forum websites ruined over neglect of editorial control and rule enforcement as to original vision. It's so easy to just let the zeitgeist degrade and take a laissez-faire attitude because the income from the multiple hits of inflammatory, lowest common denominator discourse is so good and one can always go back to one's individual blog without comments capability.

I might note that voluntary contributors, asked by a proprietor to contribute to a large forum website, have almost as much power as the management without having to put in much time: just say no if the audience is not sufficiently "licensed" to your liking.

Well, as a youngin', I admit I was slow, I think it took me about a year to figure out that that particular one had become tiresome and counterproductive.

yes , but some mornings I just like to yell at the TV. Drives the wife nuts but she loves me anyway.

Jack

Yep, she's waded into namecalling territory herself and she also lectures at those who disagree with her. Then, after she's stirred the nest a bit she acts like a victim.

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

I commented before I saw MJ's post just above this one. Matt Yglesias' article is right on.

I totally agree. Kos and virtually every other blog and those sucking up to bloggers never miss an opportunity to say how powerful they are. However, they seem both out of touch with the huge majority of Americans, just as the Limbaugh crowd is, and certainly out of touch with both the history of the country and the realities of those who currently have to govern the country.

Therefore anyone who is connected with the "establishment" gets denounced and insulted because they actually face reality from the perspective of knowledge. The result is ad hominem attacks that pass for clever and principled commentary.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

I did not find them ideologicaly uniform just regularly informed and interesting. They would be attacked by people who are ideologically driven and seem to be remarkable ill informed both about the world and the country they live in.

I have regularly asked that M.J.Rosenberg whose every post is both anti-Israel and leads to an endless array of anti-Semitic posts that are both silly and boring to either be replaced or to be supplimented. Andrew Golis both denied the obvious and rejected the idea that I should have any say in the editorial of the site. Thus it does not suprise me that you did not get too far expanding the offerings.

My one difference with you about the site is that it is remarkably uniform in thought. It represents a very insular and self-righteous view point that on substance reminds me often of Pat Buchanan and in approach, rejection of both expertise and differing ideological points of view Bush.

The fact that Daadler, and the others had and probably will have again actual government and foreign policy experience seems to be only a source of anger and rejection rather than something a serious discussion can be organized around.
Daniel A. Greenbaum

Uprated to balance unwarranted downrating.  Do not agree with perspective on America Abroad. 

I hardly think you're "wrong". One always considers the source. But, I think Max was on to something when he said Slaughter was trying to "Naderize" him. He was pointing up a weakness in her argument. (How Ironic that Slaughter should then complain.)

I would allow that even emotional arguments have a place. Though too often they are used to sway those who "think" only in that way. Is this not why we are in Iraq? "..and those damn intellectuals..."

With styles of argument, reason will always take first place among those who will reason.
(P.S. Please see my earlier comment about the high quality of the comments here.)

Kevin Russell Cook

There's a very good chance that we don't disagree to the extent we think we do.

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

"Please -- put your principles in action: Draw up a petition on Iraq withdrawl, and get your colleagues at Brookings, and AEI, and elswhere, to sign it; then present it to the Congress of the United States. Present it to the 'administration'.

Do it publicly. Do it seriously."

Good points. I pulled out the above quote because I believe that we have reached a point in this nation where it is time for all of us to walk the walk. It might be a good time for MS Slaughter to dig out her Amer gov 101 notes and reread “Plunket of Tammany Hall”. Especially the part about how college boys can't do real politics because they are more tied to their theories instead of practical on the ground politics. She may have the political skill to do what you suggest but it would take a knowledge and skill in hard ball politics that I’ve not seen her display.

Jack

That description reminds me of the exchange from Manhattan:

ISSAC: Has anybody read that Nazis are gonna march in New Jersey? Yeah, I read this in the newspaper... We should go down there, get some guys together, you know -- get some bricks and baseball bats and really explain things to them.

VICTOR TRURO: There is this devastating satirical piece on that in the Op-Ed page of the Times. Absolutely devastating.

ISAAC: Well, a satirical piece in the Times is one thing, but -- bricks and baseball bats really get right to the point.

WOMAN: But satire is always better than violence.

ISSAC: Yeah; I know, but -- it's hard to satirize a guy, you know, in shiny boots.

***

The message being that past a certain point, intellectualism needs to inform, but take a back seat to, principled action.

Some people thought joining the National Guard was a hobby and not a career. Foreign policy is an elitist hobby in peace time. In war time, it gets farm kids killed for their amusement. This makes some of us significantly miffed.

Excuse me for repeating your comment but it can't be said boldly enough.

Lugar, Warner, Alexander as well as Ken Salazar and many if not most of his Democratic co-sponsors for the bill mentioned have consistently voted with George W Bush on laws and acts that are in direct, flagrant and appallling contradiction to those founding principles. From the AUMF of '02 to the MCA and the FISA vote just last week, your noble "moderate" warriors war on the Constitution.

Slaughter fails to understand that many of us have core values.   One of those values is particularly corny affection for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. 

 You are messing with our values, Dean.   Some would call that a culture war.  The culture of human rights and just wars objects.  

Well Professor Slaughter,

The night shift is on its way in and will have comments for you, too. Allow me to suggest a solution and truce.

We've been talking about civility when we should be talking about issues. I'd like to propose five for you to address in a direct fashion:

First, that the Iraq Study Group guidelines don't go far enough for many of us, even as a first step.

Second, to take a stance that getting out of Iraq in the quickest possible way should be our primary goal is a reasonable, mainstream view that has nothing to do with ideological purity.

Third, that we have good reason not to trust the "moderate Republicans" at this point. You should address the FISA "compromise" which was basically a capitulation by Democrats who sold out their constituents in order to cooperate with the other side.

Fourth, the war's unpopularity is as important as anyone's view of the "situation of the ground" because the will of the people should count for something.

Fifth, please address the concern that many of us have about the foreign policy establishment -- that it fails to take the needs, wants and wishes of the American people into account and that the views that you see expressed here by the commenters at TPMCafe are not given adequate hearings in foreign policy journals, at conferences, in government advisory panels or in academia.

But I've made five points of substance that I believe you should address directly. They speak to why the discussions you have here always seem so heated and I've never seen you address any of these points in a blunt manner.

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

I'll add a sixth. Please address the use of the National Guard in the war(s?) the foreign policy establishment expects to conduct over the next n years? How many tours abroad? How long should they be sent abroad? What should the states do in their absence to replace them? Should they have the same health benefits as active military? What will you do to support their families who are not career military and lack the support structure to handle their long absences? Will you support research to determine the long term impacts of frequent, long overseas combat deployments? Will you support public disclosure of the long term consequences of caring for these veterans over the next 60 years?

And that brings a seventh question to mind: How much are these wars going to cost, how are we going to pay for them, and what priorities will be sacrificed to your foreign policy?

Really good point.

In academia the focus is entirely on the ideas, and people who do not have the credentials to deal with the ideas are simply not allowed into the discussions. So anyone who has an idea to discuss can expect that the other participants understand the idea or at last are capable of understanding it, and have the credentials and reputation that show they can discuss the idea. Those credentials come from outside the discussion and generally are in place before the discussion starts.

The minute a person from academia presents material in an editorial things happen a bit differently. First, the background and assumptions behind the presentation are scraped off because of the very short format. There is literally no room for anything else.

Second, many of the people who do respond not only to not have the experience and credentials that demonstrate they CAN discuss the idea, they very frequently are those who have an emotional investment in an alternative outcome. They will reject the process of coming to a rational conclusion because of their emotional investment in one or more alternative decision processes or outcomes.

Since a blog article is often even shorter than an editorial, and the nature of the qualifications of the writer are not obvious even if they are known, then someone who writes on the Internet needs to be ready to answer questions about their qualifications online, and needs to be ready to explain and justify the assumptions that went into the idea presented.

I had more than my share of academia before I started presenting my ideas in the blogosphere. I found the changes of subject and the emotional attacks difficult to deal with, so I started discussing ideas on news groups. No rules and almost no ideas there. But occasionally there are some ideas. You have to learn who to bother to respond to. Effectively anonymous posting is a very good idea on newsgroups. Do that and you can get some viewpoints that you will never hear otherwise. Some are even worth responding to, and after that you discuss the mutually acceptable subjects (often those on which you most sharply disagree) with selected people.

It takes a while to separate the irrational from the poorly explained rational and to develop a thick skin to handle the way a lot of (mostly non academic) people behave in order to force someone presenting an idea they hate to go away. (They feel they 'win' when you stop responding. In fact you have simply judged them worthless.) Then you have to learn to question credentials and assumptions, taking nothing for granted.

Ms. Slaughter, I fear that you are no longer in Kansas. The rules are a little different here, and if you violate the rules it is generally hard for anyone to refuse to invite you back to the discussion.

That said, this is generally a very good place to discuss things. It is not a newsgroup. You just have to let go of some of your assumptions as to what acceptable behavior and discussion are. Not the important ones. This is not Little Green Footballs. But freedom of access and broad access does change the nature of how ideas are discussed.

There is a lot of road rage on the internet, but very little of it is found here or a few other sites. We generally don't reward it, and the crazies go away. We still look for reputation, but the reputation is developed from what is presented here in articles and in discussion, not from some other source.

In academia the focus is entirely on the ideas, and people who do not have the credentials to deal with the ideas are simply not allowed into the discussions. So anyone who has an idea to discuss can expect that the other participants understand the idea or at last are capable of understanding it, and have the credentials and reputation that show they can discuss the idea. Those credentials come from outside the discussion and generally are in place before the discussion starts.

I have to respond here with a "yes, but".  I've been attending Academic Association meetings since about 1966 in my palmy graduate school days.  I've attended meetings of the following:

• AHA (American Historical Association)
• OAH (Organization of American Historians)
• AASLH (American Association for State and Local History)
• ASA (American Studies Association)
• and the AACU (American Association of Colleges and Universities). 

(I'm a history guy, so my list is biased in that direction).  Professional meetings can be as brutal (if slightly more polite) as the blogosphere is.  Generally speaking three generations of historians participate in sessions:

• The minor gods.  These are the well-tenured, multi-published, gray of hair and staunch of paunch.  These generally preside.
• The Young Turks.  These are the nearly-tenured, or recently admitted, somewhat published, up-and-comers or up-and-comer wannabes. These generally read a paper prior to publication.  The papers tend to either (a) be controversial or (b) are presented as if they are controversial.  They will subtly imply that the reader is thinking things nobody was smart enough to think of before, and are heavily, heavily, heavily (heavily cubed) documented, just to show how diligent the researcher was.
• The Old Lions.  These are the minor-god wannabes, the names one seems to remember, the department chairs, the tenured, and the ones wondering whether to let their hair grow gray to indicate gravitas.  They "comment" on the papers recently read, sometimes saying very nice things, sometimes picking them to shreds in order to show that the papers either (a) aren't controversial or (b) everybody else had already thought those great thoughts and had decided they were really jejune.  (They'll use that word, so people have to go look it up).
• The audience, composed of the very young, the very old, or those who just like conventions because it gets them off campus, and who really are quite happy with 35 year careers in colleges nobody ever heard of, who sit, listen, laugh appropriately, nod wisely, or nod off.  Sometimes it is hard to tell which.  They get a chance to ask their own embarrassing questions if the session doesn't run overtime.
• I should also add that all groups come in all gender varieties.

<duck and hide mode>Oddly enough, this isn't that different from what goes on here.  Maybe that's why I like TPM Café.  It really is rather academic.  </duck and hide mode>

aMike

p.s.  For all my funning at them, these organizations do good work, and I've provided links to their home pages because there are things of interest to be found there...some things require membership, but others are available to the general public.

But today, me and Ryan Crocker visited Ramadi on ABCNews, and we walked around shaking hands with all these guys.  Well, Ryan did; me not so much.

So, HA! 

I stayed at the Ramadi Inn. It seemed pretty peaceful. I think the surge is working.

Sorry, bad joke. :) I'm going to go take my impulse control pill now.

Roger,
The Dems don't HAVE any points to get out, talking points, policy points, program, nothing. Pelosi and the rest have been tied to the war so long, they're a part of it. Even if Pelosi has had a change of heart Hoyer, Emanuel and all the Blue Dogs haven't. They dance to Bush's and Israel's tunes.

So there is no possibility of a united Dem position against this war and all the smoke about a 'new congress' was just smoke, no substance. The Dem anti-war coalition has, what, twenty members?

The Dems and Repubs are two branches of the War Party so this talk of 'bipartisanship' is amusing. With that in mind, let's see what kind of script AMS comes up with, which I think will reflect HRC's position. Or non-position.

It is really amazing how thin skinned some members of the academic community are! (I am not referring to Max S.) They seem allergic to being challenged in any way.

Very strange.

Ann Marie Slaughter has used her position to justify the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Now she is telling us that we must pursue a course of bipartisan inaction --- because unless she can find the 11 Republicans who will vote for cloture on Reed-Levin, the status quo isn't going to change.

I didn't call Slaughter a "blood soaked bag of hot air".... I challenged her to prove that she wasn't a "blood-soaked bag of hot air" by providing the names of 11 Republicans that will make it possible to stop the carnage in Iraq. Calls for bi-partisanship that do nothing to change the status quo are a tacit endorsement of the continued bloodshed in Iraq.

You can call that road rage. I call it brutal honesty directed at people who supported this war in the first place, and continue to support it through calls for inaction.

I shall not seek and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your President. March 31, 1968

"About a year to figure [it] out"? You're in good company. That's about the amount of time it took LBJ, too.

Talking to lost of academics, having spent a lot of time among academics myself it seem that were few more adept at infighting and backstabbing than academics.

Daniel A. Greenbaum