The O'Hanlon Factor

Atrios takes us on a little Michael O'Hanlon memory tour. The noteworthy thing about this incident, though, is that it occurred at a congressional hearing convened by a Senate committee under Democratic control. A lot of things about the current media environment are both crappy and also very hard to alter. This, however, is easy to alter.

As things stand, the next time O'Hanlon publishes some liberal-bashing op-ed somewhere, the editor who published it can always say "but look, this is the expert the Democrats in the Senate turn to on Iraq." But Democrats could just, you know, not turn to him. The first step in building a better "expert" class would be for the politicians and their staffs to take some time to actually think about who they want to be putting forward.

Comments

I couldn't disagree more. It's not just Democrats - ABC regularly features him as a consultant on prime time news. The Brookings Institution (in spite of Serious O'Hanlon's hackery) is still regarded as a non-partisan/liberal think-tank, depending who you talk to. He isn't going away, even if Democrats were to wise up and stop taking his advice serious.

Posted by ihateemo | July 10, 2007 1:24 PM

Maybe the reason that ABC features him is that the Democrats have turned to him. The circle is not easily broken, but the Democrats have to be the first to try.

Posted by Rich | July 10, 2007 2:06 PM

Why single out O’Hanlon when there are other hacks like Kenneth Pollack, Dennis Ross, Martin Indyk, regularly touted as experts on the Middle East by the media, who are standing in waiting to be installed as “senior policy advisers” by a new Democratic Administration when the time comes?

Posted by Justin | July 10, 2007 2:27 PM

CSpan had on last night evidently some panel discussion -- AEI vs. Brookings -- concerning the Iraq war.

I have nothing against Brookings ... I like much of their work. But to treat them as the liberal equivalent to AEI is such a false equivalency. And with O'Hanlon, et al, to have them as "balance" to the AEI on the subject of Iraq? That's sheer wankery.

It's this false equivalency that kills us -- as many have discussed before, by setting themselves as the left-edge of acceptable discourse (or being so set up by others with an agenda), the moderate, sensible centrist liberal types cause huge problems for the health of our political debate. This kind of gamesmanship should have no place in our political sphere, but it's just all too common.

Let's hear some real diversity of voices for a change. Then the marketplace of ideas might actually allow the best ideas to win forth. But they can't win forth if we pre-label them as loony. Intellectual prejudice can be a dangerous thing for a democratic republic. Look at how the lack of diverse voices helped shepherd us into the current pickle we're in in Iraq, etc.

BTW ... this is why Colin Powell's claims of "I couldn't have stopped the war" are so false. The war was enabled by debate being shut down by chattering classes dismissing those opposing the war as dirty hippies, etc. If Colin Powell, who is "serious", would have even made it known to those chattering classes that the war was a bad idea, maybe things would have been different. Simply telling Pres. Numbnuts the war was a bad idea wasn't gonna have any effect, and to claim "well, I told him it wouldn't work, but he didn't listen -- I did all I could" is to have that second part be a lie. Powell didn't have to "quit" -- resign in protest a la a dirty hippy in the Carter admin -- but he did have to "backchanel" info to people besides Cmdr. Codpiece ... why didn't our chief diplomat use some diplomatic strategery? Maybe Bush & CO weren't entirely disengenuous about "diplomacy failing"? Maybe the diplomats' bosses failed? Which, of course, makes Powell's current protestations even more odious ...

Posted by DAS | July 10, 2007 2:34 PM

Maybe the reason that ABC features him is that the Democrats have turned to him.

Nah, O'Hanlon's been on the news for many years.

And since when has being spurned or scorned by the Democrats stopped charlatans being legitimised by the mainstream media?

Posted by ihateemo | July 10, 2007 2:45 PM

Well, that's fine, ihateemo, but if the Democrats advanced some non-mushy, non-wanker, non-O'Hanlon type, there's a better chance that person would get on TV, don't you think?

The most important point, I think, isn't to drum the O'Hanlons into extinction, but to expand what is politically correct to say on TV. See Atrios today on the roundtable discussion that Charlie Rose had 6 months ago-- everyone there had supported the war.

I'll argue that, say, Norman Podhoretz deserves to be laughed off stage, but what's most important now is to murder the mentality that Joe Klein and Michael O'Hanlon are the leftward edge of sanity. Their discrediting by events hasn't gotten the job done.

Posted by Elvis Elvisberg | July 10, 2007 3:04 PM

Democratic politicians have to take a page from Obama's f.u. to fauxnews and start taking on the media directly.

And disavowing people like O'Hanlon has got to be the first step, clean your own house.

Want to change policy? Don't march on a federal building or a city hall, march on the media headquarters of your town. Encircle it with a human chain until you are given airtime to express your views. The Media will give nothing to us that we don't force them to give up. Just look at the bipartisan grassroots assault on media consolidation a few years ago, if the public unites the system will respond.

Posted by feckless | July 10, 2007 3:26 PM

Re Justin

"Why single out O’Hanlon when there are other hacks like Kenneth Pollack, Dennis Ross, Martin Indyk, regularly touted as experts on the Middle East by the media, who are standing in waiting to be installed as “senior policy advisers” by a new Democratic Administration when the time comes?"

Sure, O'HKanlon, Pollack, Ross and Indyk are far inferior to Mr. Justins' favorite experts Norman Finkelstein, Noam Chomsky, George Galloway, etc. Not.

Posted by SLC | July 10, 2007 3:34 PM

Its pretty hard to find anyone with credentials to speak on an issue when you have spent years mocking them. Here are a few people that one could call on Iraq: Lt. General Odom, Former Sen. Paul Sarbanes, Former Sen. Bob Graham, Ret. General Batiste, Former Gov. Cuomo, Former Senator Cleland. There are many more. These people are not running for anything and were exactly right about this idiocy. It is too humiliating to call them though, because they were right and the media and the political parties mocked them. Sarbanes-- too dull, Graham -- took too many notes, Batiste -- quit his job, Cuomo -- too ambitious, Cleland -- only lost 3 limbs or whatever crap they throw at these people. Of course, Chomsky and Galloway were right too, so the whole bunch of people who were right were really crazy leftists, so we shouldn't pay attention to them which is how you end up with O'Hanlon, who was wrong, and Ignatius, who was wrong, and Friedman, who was wrong, as supposed liberals.

There are plenty of people whom the democrats could call and plenty whom ABC could call if they chose to. They choose not to and that my friends is how you end up with a 23% approval rate and a bunch of dopes like O'Hanlon speaking for the progressives in this country.

Posted by Peter Driscoll | July 10, 2007 4:07 PM

Sure, O'HKanlon, Pollack, Ross and Indyk are far inferior to Mr. Justins' favorite experts Norman Finkelstein, Noam Chomsky, George Galloway, etc. Not.

Posted by SLC | July 10, 2007 3:34 PM

And you know these are Justin's alternatives by way of what? Your magic troll 8-ball?

It might actually be interesting to see Finkelstein and Chomsky. I note with some skepticism of your motive, SLC, that you add George Galloway to this list.

Galloway is good for a nasty comment, that's about it. And that's why he's on your little fantasy troll-list.

Posted by Max Renn | July 10, 2007 5:42 PM

Yeah, SLC, you're getting goofier and goofier. I think you're starting to lose it as the real world moves further and further from your circa-2002 neocon / PNAC world view.

Galloway is not respected by anyone and Finkelstein does not do any foreign policy. But the clear truth is that this country would be much better off today if we had taken foreign policy advice from Noam Chomsky than from Cheney, Rumseld, Feith, Wolfowitz, et. al.

Posted by mq | July 10, 2007 6:28 PM

Re Max Renn & mq

1. Contrary to Mr. Renn and Mr. mq, there are a lot of people on the left who think that George Galloway is the cats' meow. For instance, the publisher of our local Falls Church newspaper and his asshole buddy, Congressman James Moran. By the way, one could also add Robert Fisk to the list of Middle East experts (not).

2. Mr. Chomsky and Mr. Finkelstein think that the answer to Americas' problems in the Middle East is to dump Israel in favor of such fine upstanding liberal folks as Khalad Maashal, Bashar Assad, Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad, Ismail Haniyeh, etc. Sounds like Joseph Kennedy advising Roosevelt in 1940 to dump Great Britain and support Hitler (who, after all, was anti-Communist).

3. The neocons may be a bunch of bums but they, at least stand for something. The only thing that the far left stands for is surrender and appeasement.

Posted by SLC | July 10, 2007 7:52 PM