The Agonist is better than you, and you, and you. He is also "thoughtful, global, and timely." Well, I'm thoughtless, square, and timeless, so we complement each other.
Update: Alex Knapp says it better.
Second Update: Dean Esmay provides this counter essay by Gary Utter.
Posted by Andrea Harris at January 31, 2003 11:24 AMHah! Don't you just love it.. He finally agrees with what we were saying all along, but is not a man enough to admit that we were right all along. Now his shtick is "Well, yea, war is inevitable... BUT you want war, because you are bloodthirsty... while I am a "serious student of Foreign Affairs".
Love it!
i really don't want war. what i'd like is a nice, tidy, PAINFUL asassination of Hussein and his immediate supporters and family. and then a quick democratization process.
oh, and if you can do that, can we hit the Saud family next, with a similar rollover? blinks innocently
thank you!
seriously, the New Yorker winter ficton issue (birthday present) had a very interesting (and even-handed) article detailing how Rumsfield and the Pentagon's top generals are at odds about turning the war on terror into a 'manhunt'. it seems that the Pentagon has a lot of Clinton peacetime-era brass piled up, and Rumsfeld is having a problem getting them into "fighting mode." but also, that Rumsfeld is willing to take the step of assassination, such as when a drone took out a top target in - i think - November, whereas the generals, with past failures in other wars (Castro, anyone?) is wary.
it was an interesting read.
Posted by: chris at January 31, 2003 at 12:24 PMStan is totally misrepresenting my point. Not man enough to admit that the Right was "right" all along. I know he reads my blog. I know that he knows that I have been a pro-war liberal, just like Josh Marshall and many of the folks at the New Republic for a very long time. But that is ok. He can misrepresent all he wants.
My point is best made by quoting a poem:
[Admin note: poem deleted. If you want to read the poem go to the article linked above.]
Andrea, since we compliment each other so well, I would ask you out on a date, except I am engaged. We could have been a new Carville/Matalin.
Posted by: Sean-Paul at January 31, 2003 at 12:43 PMNo thanks. I don't date smug people.
Face it, Sean, you want to have it both ways: you want to go to war against Saddam, but you want to keep your liberal, holier-than-thou bona fides. It don't work that way.
And please, don't fill up my comment box with crap poetry. I am very picky about poetry, and very little finds my favor. I pay for this website, so I prefer to be the one to say what is published on it, if necessary.
Posted by: Andrea Harris at January 31, 2003 at 01:23 PMHe raises a good point - when is Doom III coming out?
Posted by: Frank J. at January 31, 2003 at 02:41 PMI started to make a comment, but it got way too long so I turned it into a post.
Posted by: Alex Knapp at January 31, 2003 at 02:45 PMwow. now i feel honored that "Because I could not stop for Troll" made the cut! ;)
Posted by: chris at January 31, 2003 at 03:10 PMAndrea,
You're not being fair. You have to take the time to realize what a tremendous burden it must be for Sean-Paul, being so terrific in such an immense mud puddle of mediocrity.
I've always thought war was just like a video game. There are health packs everywhere; your adversaries helpfully leave armor all over the place - and it's your size! You can run at full speed carrying seven guns, one of which has a barrel the size of a storm drain, and you have perfect aim even though you've been hit by 17 shotgun blasts as long as you have 1 percent health.
Finally, when the one lone soldier faces down Saddam for the boss level, that soldier had better stock up, because Saddam - who will be nine feet tall - will not go down until you shoot him in the head 49 times with the rocket gun. (Tip: soften him up first by circle-strafing with the railgun.)
Yes, I've always thought war is like a video game.
Posted by: Lileks at January 31, 2003 at 04:27 PMYou mean it's NOT? => Shock, horror, disillusionment =O
Posted by: Andrea Harris at January 31, 2003 at 05:40 PMLike Alex I got a little carried away, so I blogged my response.
Posted by: Robin Goodfellow at January 31, 2003 at 07:45 PMHey,
I've said all I wanted about the topic on Sean-Paul's site, but decided to drop by here and check Spleenville...nice site...
My impression of "The Agonist" is that he's convinced, not merely of his intellectual superiority to those he castigates, but also of his moral superiority -- and that's both a sign of a closed mind and an express ticket to Hell.
Thomas Sowell did a nice evisceration of his sort of pretensions in The Vision Of the Anointed. But somehow I doubt "The Agonist" would allow himself to be caught dead reading that book, even if he'd heard of it.
Posted by: Francis W. Porretto at January 31, 2003 at 08:22 PMSean Paul, what am I misrepresenting? Your article is still on your blog for people to see. Let them judge if my analysis is accurate or not.
Posted by: Stan D at January 31, 2003 at 09:01 PMThe attitude Mr. Self-Praise shows here is surprisingly (though by no means universally) popular on the left: whether or not what you do is justified is of secondary importance, and what really matters is that you wear an appropriately long face while doing it. Even a justifiable war is ruined if you go at it like the Rohirrim who "sang as they slew"; the great thing is to spend a good long time agonizing about the Terrible Necessity of it all, and make sure everyone gets a long and admiring look at your deeply furrowed brow.
Posted by: Paul Zrimsek at January 31, 2003 at 10:05 PMAndrea, please do me a favor and post this where most of your readers will see it:
It deserves wider distribution.
Posted by: Dean Esmay at February 1, 2003 at 04:30 AMI think he wants us to be horribly offended by his pathetic little essay and I did get fairly pissed off. But I'll calm down and he'll still be an asshole.
Posted by: Joy at February 1, 2003 at 09:12 AM