New Historians’ Hissie Fit

History, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Propaganda, Pseudo-history

In Harvard Hucksters, I spoke about the modus operandi of the New Historians: This is a group of popular far-left fabricators (one of whom facetiously boasted: ‘We perform at weddings and bar mitzvas’), who’ve cocked a snook at the liberal country in which they’ve thrived, so as to gain admittance into the fashionable Palestinian pantheon… they misrepresent documents, resort to partial quotes, withhold evidence, make false assertions, and rewrites original documents. Such is the incompetence of these Arabists that they even neglect Arab archival material, “relying almost exclusively on Western often only secondary sources.” As Ha’aretz’s Avraham Tal puts it, they are preoccupied with the systematic invalidation of the Zionist narrative in the Israeli-Arab conflict. Avi Shlaim, one of the performers in the New-Historian’s much sought-after vaudeville, juggles the facts to come up with an analysis of Israel’s failed war in Lebanon. The shtick is familiar: no mention of the eight dead and a murderous diversionary shelling of border communities by Hezbollah, but plenty of assertions about the vampiric lusts of the Jewish State’s leaders. The anatomy of hating Israel is worth reading.

King Cuts Coulter Down

Ann Coulter, Homosexuality, Media, The Zeitgeist

Florence King leaves most pipsqueak contemporary “writers” standing (they’re syndicated, however, she’s not). The famous misanthrope and recluse saw fit to emerge from hibernation to kick Ann coulter around in a column for National Review. Some other conservatives crawled from under dank rocks and attempted to respond to King’s studied contempt. Here’s a taste of why they failed so miserably:

Coulter’s sexual remarks are at once grim and flippant. Commenting on a psychologist’s plan to teach children about gay sex in a loving way, she said: ‘How can you teach children about anal sex in a loving way? Or any sodomy, for that matter?”
I am not saying that everyone has to be witty and original and overflowing with dazzling bons mots — after all, Coulter is a lawyer and I wouldn’t want to see her let down the side. I am just curious to know why she was content to call Katie Couric “the affable Eva Braun of morning TV.” Couldn’t she come up with something better? How about Simper Fidelis?…
At her best, Coulter writes well, but the chief source of her success is that she is a perfect match for the American ideal: smart as a whip but dumb as a post, educated but not learned, sexy but not sensuous, all at the same time. She would not hesitate to choose a sledgehammer over a stiletto because her instincts would pull her back from what the 18th century called ‘demolishing your enemies without raising your voice.’ She would know that if a writer uses a stiletto, a lot of people might not get the point, but they would definitely get the loftiness that accompanies irony and understatement. And so, knowing that being called an elitist spells ruin, she opted for a sledgehammer and raised the roof instead.
Her timing was perfect, putting her before the television cameras just in time to take advantage of the whoosh. That’s the sound cable news uses to signal each new 15-second segment in a roundup. They report the latest border debacle, then they go whoosh! and start talking about midwestern floods. When they finish the floods there’s another whoosh! and the subject changes to the stock market. Gone are the days when a break was signaled by a soft rattle of the host’s fake papers and a murmured ‘We’ll be back in a moment.’ Now, if a revered philosopher came on a show, the host would say, ‘Hold your thought, Plato,’ and cut to whoosh.
CNN has the loudest whoosh, a harsh wheezing sound so labored that at first I thought it was me. After all, I made my NR debut 16 years ago with a cover story called ‘I’d Rather Smoke Than Kiss.’ But no. The whoosh is television’s way of telling us that we are being swept up and borne aloft on gusty torrents of swirling excitement. To train us to gasp, they walk us through it by gasping for us.
The whoosh needs a blowhard and it has gotten Ann Coulter, a one-woman Hyde Park Corner who, love her or hate her, is saving television from itself by never uttering Guestisms — those gummy little nothings that guests keep saying over and over without thinking until everybody thinks they have said something thoughtful.”

King’s complete column, “Watch Ann Go Whoosh!,” is here. And here is my “Coughing Up Some Coulter Fur Balls.”

Updated: Barely a Blog Back

Barely A Blog, Ilana Mercer

Barely a Blog crashed a few weeks back. The hundreds of comments readers contributed (and my responses to those) were lost. Thankfully, all blog entries written by me were retrieved and the archives remain intact, so do delve into those. My gratitude goes to Crystal, the very skilled and sympathetic class act behind the VDARE blog.

The Hebraic Bond

America, Israel, The West

“If lily-livered Europeans want to understand the ties between the US and Israel, they’d be better off reading Russell Kirk than the Economist. In The Roots of American Order, Kirk traced the profound influence the Hebraic faith and traditions had on the New England Puritans, who drew for sustenance and guidance on Exodus, just as they did on Kings and Romans…”
“In the prophets, in particular—from Amos to the second Isaiah—John Adams saw exemplars for American order, political and private. ‘The great prophets restrained the kings’ ambitions and constantly rebuked the king and the people for their transgressions (at great personal risk)…”

Read the complete column, “The Hebraic Bond,” here.