If you’re like me, and I know I am, then you’ve spent the past four and a half years baffled that you’re nodding in agreement with the likes of Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin. Sometimes it seems that she is the only person in the media that actually gets it, when it comes to Joe Biden’s approach to politics. Considering her previous life as a Mitt Romney shill, it’s quite a turnaround—and one that I welcome.
But you don’t get to whitewash your own history—certainly not when the Internet is forever, and certainly not when you’re Jennifer Rubin, who laments the trust that was a casualty of September 11.
The media’s trust issues didn’t end with Afghanistan; the trivialization of news, the artificial drama created for clicks, and the false equivalence between one normal, democratic party and one authoritarian, reactionary party were each instrumental, too, in the breakdown of a shared reality and the decline of mature political discussion. In perpetuating a tabloid view of government wholly focused on supposed scandals (who can forget Hillary Clinton’s emails?) and too often devoid of policy substance, the media contributed to a political nihilism in which “nothing matters” and accountability is ridiculed.
This is the same Jennifer Rubin who wrote a lively little column entitled “Why it’s correct to label the Obama administration ‘anti-Israel’”, promoting this delightful quote from the American Enterprise Institute’s Danielle Pletka:
She continued, “And while the administration would surely argue that forcing Jews to wear yellow stars is not a sign of discrimination but merely a diktat about clothing, it should be clear to Jews everywhere that the 1930s are returning.”
In another column, Rubin , again surely in good faith and not at all eroding trust in government officials, quotes JINSA’s Michael Makovsky’s opinion that President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry were “bordered on the anti-Semitic” for forging a nuclear deal with Iran. It’s worth noting that JINSA
“supported President George W. Bush’s policies in two regards, advocating the need for regime change in Iraq, cultivating close ties with Ahmed Chalabi, and supporting American funding for opposition groups in Iran.”
So… maybe not the best judges of character there?
The hits keep comin’. Here’s Ms. Rubin accusing Obama of working to betray our allies and give aid, comfort and protection to a sworn enemy of the United States and Israel.” In a column titled “Obama won’t defend Western civilization”, Rubin claims that “Obama is capitulating in slow motion to the demands of Iran.” She closes THAT column by helpfully asking,
How do we defend Western civilization when the leader of the free world won’t, and doesn’t even like it all that much?”
Are you fucking KIDDING me, lady?
And I haven’t even gotten to the hysterics over the “Ground Zero mosque,” beginning with “Obama Sides with Ground Zero Mosque Builders vs. Americans”, a masterpiece of overwrought, hyperventilating, right-wing propaganda that served only to promote more American culture warfare and sow mistrust of government.
Obama has shown his true sentiments now, after weeks of concealing them, on an issue of deep significance not only to the families and loved ones of 3,000 slaughtered Americans but also to the vast majority of his fellow citizens. He has once again revealed himself to be divorced from the values and concerns of his countrymen. He is entirely — and to many Americans, horridly — a creature of the left, with little ability to make moral distinctions. His sympathies for the Muslim World take precedence over those, such as they are, for his fellow citizens. This is nothing short of an abomination.
Look, I’m happy that Jennifer Rubin has, for now, seen where she went wrong. Her support for President Joe Biden is admirable, and as I wrote above, I think she’s one of the rare pundits who seems to get the Biden presidency. Here’s a good one on how the media underestimates Biden. Another praising Biden’s response to critics of the Afghanistan withdrawal. Frankly, if you told me 10 years ago that I’d be praising a creature like Rubin, I would have laughed you out of town. Politics makes strange bedfellows.
But nowhere in her cri du coeur, her lament for the trust that was lost after 9/11, does Rubin acknowledge her own role in sowing those seeds. Not even a single sentence.
So far as I’m concerned, that’s dishonest and it’s not playing straight with your readers. I’m enjoying Rubin’s work lately, but I guess a hack is always gonna be a hack to one degree or another.
I agree completely. I read her columns with astonishment. I’m often pleased but don’t trust the woman one little bit. If she came clean about her past transgressions, that might shift. But whitewashing them does nothing to leave me thinking she’s had a sincere change of heart. Frankly, I don’t have a clue what motivates Rubin.
I’ve been pleasantly surprised by her columns over the last few years. I’m not quite sure what motivated her change of stripes. I hope it’s genuine. I’d be more favorably impressed if she just faced her past writing head on. Many of us do make some subtle and sometimes not so subtle changes to our perspective over time, and sometimes those changes are very sudden. Maybe she’ll candidly discuss how she now views her past writing and its contribution to the clusterf*ck that is US political discourse. I won’t hold my breath. But I am grateful for her current writing.
When you wonder why so many liberals don’t trust progressives, this post is a good example. One of the enemy has defected to our side, has joined us in fighting a common foe, so of course the progressive approach is to attack her. “Ally” is a one-way street for progressives because they care much less for actual real-world consequences, and much, much more for self-righteous posturing.
I think you’re misunderstanding me. I totally welcome Ms. Rubin to the cause, and like Don Durito above, I’m grateful for her current writing.
But history is real,and people who spent years enabling and supporting the worst of the GOP don’t get to forget that. If anything, taking ownership of one’s past makes the voice MORE credible—witness John Cole at Balloon-Juice, who regularly reminds his readers he was once a RWNJ.
Analogy: Several years ago, I took my kid to the Space Center in Huntsville, AL. While there, we saw a huge exhibit on Werner von Braun, who helped get the USA to the Moon. But they left out a certain 6 year period of Mr. von Braun’s life, as if he didn’t spend WW2 designing the rockets and bombs that rained down on Europe. Would you say that “one of the enemy has defected to our side” so bygones are bygones?
Rubin was a big part of the problem, pre-Trump. Glad she’s on our side (for now) but she doesn’t get a pass.
I would say that if we were still in the midst of the Cold War, and if our best way of achieving our defense priorities during said Cold War involved dealing with a former enemy, then yes, I would think it’d be pretty stupid to trash said ally, because nothing would be gained, and something might be lost.
Do you really think the people in the military in the 40’s and 50’s who dealt directly with Von Braun needed reminding that he used to work for the Nazis? Would you have liked them to show up for work each day and start off my fronting Werner and reminding him that he was responsible for thousands of civilian deaths? Maybe they could have waved pictures of the dead in his face. Would that have been helpful? Or would it more likely have driven Von Braun to dial up the Soviet embassy and see if he could work out a less hostile work environment?
I’ll give you an even more obvious historical analogy. We fought Hitler by making nice with Stalin. IOW, we defeated Evil #1 by allying with Evil #2. Then, when we had defeated Evil #1, we turned our attention to Evil #2.
We are nowhere near the end of this fight for the survival of democracy. Rubin is an ally. If you take the fight seriously, your first priority is to win. Not score righteousness points: win. Because it’s not about moral purity, it’s not about you or me, it’s about people living in tents under freeways, and people needing health care, and vulnerable populations needing protection against the real bad guys out there.
Now, do I think your post hurts the cause in any real way? Nah. But it goes to the difference between progressives and liberals. Progressives see themselves as the little boy willing to yell out that the emperor has no clothes. Liberals know the emperor has no clothes, FFS, but they also know he’s helping the homeless. The priority should be real world consequences, and that demands a degree of flexibility.
Defending a museum’s decision to whitewash Werner von Braun’s history is quite a flex, fella—but you do you.
Also, you sure have a misconception of my politics, so you keep arguing with your imaginary version of me. Have fun with that, Stranger on the Internet! I’m done engaging!
If you don’t like engaging ‘strangers on the internet’ you may be in the wrong line of work.
Thanks for sharing your opinion!