So much has happened this week that plenty of essential reading went unmentioned here. First Crowther is fed up with the sort of commentary represented by Maureen Dowd or Molly <\/P> He goes on to say:<\/P> I don’t know what he’d say about Straight Up. He must loathe all my one-liners (or my He believes that Iraq is this generation’s Vietnam, which is the He goes even further, contending that Iraq is worse than Vietnam:<\/P> <\/P> If memory serves, Lyndon Johnson didn’t do a bad job of deceiving the Congress and abusing Next on the list — especially after witnessing yesterday’s “badass swagger” in the Rose We all know who “he” is. Go read the rest. Packer was just getting started.<\/P> Then there’s John Powers in the Village Voice So much has happened this week that plenty of essential reading went unmentioned here. First on the list: “With Trembling Fingers,” an angry, bitter, and most of all, truthful invective by Hal Crowther, who won the H.L. Mencken Award for column writing in 1993. A former writer for Time and Newsweek, his column has appeared for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-824","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-di","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\non the list: “With Trembling Fingers,”<\/FONT><\/B><\/A> an
\nangry, bitter, and most of all, truthful invective by
\ncolumn writing in 1993. A former writer for Time and Newsweek, his column has appeared for
\nyears in the Independent Weekly<\/FONT><\/B><\/A>. <\/P>
\n
\nIvins. He doesn’t name them, but whom else does he mean when he writes of “the columnist who
\ntrades in snide one-liners”?<\/P>
\n
\nIf this is not the worst year yet to be an American, it’s the worst year by far to
\nbe one of those hag-ridden wretches who comment on the American scene. The columnist who
\ntrades in snide one-liners flounders like a stupid comic with a tired audience; TV comedians and
\ntalk-show hosts who try to treat 2004 like any zany election year have become grotesque, almost
\nloathsome.<\/BLOCKQUOTE>
\n
\n
\nOur most serious, responsible newspaper columnists are so stunned by the
\ndisaster in Iraq that they’ve begun to quote poetry by Rupert Brooke and Wilfred Owen. They
\nlower their voices; they sound like Army chaplains delivering eulogies over ranks of flag-draped
\ncoffins, under a hard rain from an iron sky.<\/BLOCKQUOTE>
\n
\nattempts anyway, though I doubt he’s read them), and in self-defense I could point out that I
\nquoted Wilfred Owen long ago in “The Juice,” which preceded this blog. At the same time,
\nCrowther is not above cracking wise himself:<\/P>
\nI come from a family of veterans and commissioned officers; I understand
\npatriots in wartime. If a spotted hyena stepped out of Air Force One wearing a baby-blue necktie,
\nmost Americans would salute and sing “Hail to the Chief.”<\/BLOCKQUOTE>
\n
\nconventional wisdom on the left — and rightly so. But he offers this striking historical
\ncontext, and he’s such a fucking good writer: <\/P>
\nVietnam proved conclusively that no modern war of occupation will ever be
\nwon. Every occupation is doomed. The only way you “win” a war of occupation is the
\nold-fashioned way, the way Rome finally defeated the Carthaginians: kill all the fighters, enslave
\neveryone else, raze the cities and sow the fields with salt.<\/BLOCKQUOTE>
\n
\n
\nEvery Iraqi, every Muslim we kill or torture or humiliate is a precious shot of
\nadrenaline for Osama and al Qaeda. The irreducible truth is that the invasion of Iraq was the worst
\nblunder, the most staggering miscarriage of judgment, the most fateful, egregious, deceitful abuse
\nof power in the history of American foreign policy. If you don’t believe it yet, just keep
\nwatching.<\/BLOCKQUOTE>
\n
\n
\npower. In view of the millions of Vietnamese and tens of thousands of Americans who died in that
\nwar of occupation, it’s going a bit too far to say the invasion of Iraq is the “worst blunder” ever.
\nBut in terms of what it means for the future, with nuclear terrorism on the horizon, Crowther may
\nbe right.<\/P>
\n
\nGarden<\/FONT><\/B><\/A> — is George Packer’s commentary<\/FONT><\/B><\/A>,
\nwhich said it all earlier this week:<\/P>
\nHe forced a congressional vote on the war just before the 2002 midterm
\nelections. He trumpeted selective and misleading intelligence. He displayed intense devotion to
\nclassifying government documents, except when there was political advantage in declassifying
\nthem. He fired or sidelined government officials and military officers who told the American
\npublic what the Administration didn’t want it to hear. He released forecasts of the war’s cost that
\nquickly became obsolete, and then he ignored the need for massive expenditures until a crucial
\nhalf year in Iraq had been lost. His communications office in Baghdad issued frequently incredible
\naccounts of the progress of the war and the reconstruction. He staffed the occupation with large
\nnumbers of political loyalists who turned out to be incompetent. According to Marine officers and
\nAmerican officials in Iraq, he ordered and then called off critical military operations in Falluja
\nagainst the wishes of his commanders, with no apparent strategic plan. He made sure that blame
\nfor the abuses at Abu Ghraib settled almost entirely on the shoulders of low-ranking
\ntroops.<\/BLOCKQUOTE>
\n
\n
\nof Twinkies and Wonder Bread<\/FONT><\/B><\/A>,
\ntwo of the 20th century’s most recognizable brands, has filed for bankruptcy
\nprotection. What does this mean in a broader historical context? I can think of lots of things, but
\nthey all sound ridiculous.<\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"