Patterico's Pontifications

1/31/2007

iowahawk Lampoons David Bell

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 9:37 pm



iowahawk has the latest in his “First Drafts Found Behind the Dumpster” series. The latest installment lampoons David Bell’s L.A. Times piece questioning whether 9/11 was really that bad. Here’s how iowahawk’s piece opens:

IMAGINE THAT on 9/11, six hours after the assault on the twin towers and the Pentagon, terrorists had carried out a second wave of attacks on the United States, taking an additional 3,000 lives. Imagine that six hours after that, there had been yet another wave. Now imagine that the attacks had continued, every six hours, for another four years, until nearly 20 million Americans were dead. Okay, I know we’re talking a fantasy here, but just roll with it. Guess what? This is roughly what the Soviet Union suffered during World War II, and I don’t remember Uncle Joe Stalin getting his panties in a bunch about it. Maybe these stoic Bolsheviks could teach us crybaby Americans a thing or two about perspective in our current “war” “against” “terrorism.”

Does it get better? Why, yes it does.

No disrespect to the victims of 9/11 or to the men and women of our armed forces, but by the standards of past wars, 3000 yuppie bond traders and a couple of high-rise developments is basically geopolitical chump change. Okay, so the widdle Jihadis want to level an occasional Manhattan office building, let the baby have his bottle. As the big star on the international stage, the United States needs to show it is secure enough to take a few zingers from the B-list comedians at the annual global Friars Club Roast. When we nuked Hiroshima, did the Japanese whine and bitch and send their armies to invade us out of spite? No, they made a couple of Godzilla movies, got over it, and moved on to making transistor radios and Toyotas. In the history biz, we call this “making lemons into lemonade.”

As always, read it all.

6 Responses to “iowahawk Lampoons David Bell”

  1. Between David Bell on the west coast and William Arkin on the east coast, http://blog.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2007/01/the_troops_also_need_to_suppor.html
    I think the elite press has just shown the country just how far over the edege they can go.

    Meatss (5a573d)

  2. Wow, Arkin is totally insane.

    G (722480)

  3. I was unable to leave a comment for Mr. Arkin at the Washington Post website. Apparently there is a glitch or they may have disabled comments. Either way, it’s not surprising given the flood of responses I’m sure Arkin’s articles caused. Perhaps the WaPo editors are enthused to see an increase in traffic.

    Arkin confuses opinion with judgment. We all have the right to our opinions, no matter how misguided others feel they may be, but not everyone’s opinions demonstrate good judgment. Sadly, he used his position and intellect to attack our military as ignorant mercenaries. His follow-up accuses them and his fellow citizens of arrogance and intolerance.

    I can disregard Arkin as a pitiable fool, and Iowahawk’s skewering of him was (as always) a comedy classic. In addition, however, we should acknowledge the poor judgment and bias demonstrated by the Washington Post’s editors who published his screeds. Both Arkin and his editors are the equivalent of people who spit on our soldiers, and they should all be ashamed.

    DRJ (e69ca7)

  4. I meant to bring together Arkin’s and Bell’s screeds, including Iowahawk’s lampooning of Bell (not Arkin), but I ended up conflating the two. I apologize.

    DRJ (e69ca7)

  5. 9/11… Not Your Grandfather’s Kind of Apocalypse!…

    Was That Headline Really That Bad? Apparently, Yes Patterico David Bell’s “terrorism? schmerrorism” piece from Sunday was originally titled “Was 9/11 really that bad?” — at least on the Web. A Google search for that title reveals numerous h…

    Bill's Bites (72c8fd)

  6. Of course, we should remember that Mr. Arkin used to write for our local Dog Trainer.

    Another Drew (8018ee)


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