Sunday, January 22, 2006
OSAMA’S ECHOES
“Conservative US commentators are increasingly isolated from reality and the American people,” writes Antony Loewenstein, in the gentle, conversational style of a Comintern proclamation. “Soon after the airing of Bin Laden’s tape, they compared the statements by the al-Qaeda leader to critics of the Bush administration.”
Loewenstein’s problem—aside from the publication of his Israel-bashing book being shuffled back from May to July, presumably while Antony’s dimensionless prose is beaten into shape—is that those comparisons are, how to say it, quite reality-based.
Perhaps Loewenstein is merely upset at being overlooked. After all, he spent most of last year auditioning for a Sammy speech-writing gig:
“The defeat of America and its allies in Iraq is vital ...”
“US failure in Iraq gathers speed.”
“The situation in Iraq is so dire, the Bush administration will do anything it takes to try and calm the divided nation. A failed policy cannot be redeemed.”
“While the ‘Coalition’ still talks about bringing ‘democracy’ to Iraq and winning hearts and minds, the battle is lost.”
With lines like that, Loewy is obviously hoping for a sales-boosting celebrity endorsement:
An unexpected endorsement from al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has resulted in a huge jump in sales for a book by a critic of US foreign policy.
William Blum’s Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower was ranked 209,000 on Amazon.com’s sales list before bin Laden mentioned it in an audiotape released on Thursday ...
By Friday, the book was number 30 on the Amazon.com list.
“I was quite surprised and even shocked and amused when I found out what he’d said,” Blum said in an interview in his Washington apartment ...
“If he shares with me a deep dislike for the certain aspects of US foreign policy, then I’m not going to spurn any endorsement of the book by him. I think it’s good that he shares those views and I’m not turned off by that.”
Victor Davis Hanson put it best: “The more left-wing the Westerner, the more tolerant he is of right-wing Islamic extremism.” Anyway, Antony already has the support of Holocaust revisionists at the Adelaide Institute; cadging some kind words from Binny shouldn’t be too difficult.