Rubin's Smears

Michael Rubin decided this morning to accuse my friend and former colleague Mark Leon Goldberg of committing "outright fabrication for the sake of politics" in this years-old item. Since Mark doesn't have a blog where it would be appropriate to respond, he's kindly agreed to post a response here, to wit:

Using L'affaire Beuchamp as a pretext, Michael Rubin lashes out at me for allegedly making stuff up about his bubbly deportment prior to Ahmed Chalabi's fall 2005 lecture at the American Enterprise Institute. I feel I should defend my honor.

I recall that day well. It was Chalabi's first public appearence beforeWashington's most influential pro-war think tank since his allegations about Iraq's WMD program were proven false. What seemingly got Rubin's blood boiling was not anything Chalabi said, but my description of Rubin in a November 200 American Prosepct piece about the event. Here is the sentance in question: "Inside the plush conference center, a beaming Michael Rubin, AEI fellow and former aide to Iraq viceroy Paul Bremer, bounced around like a 6-year-old at Hanukkah."

Now, Matt was sitting next to me at the time. He can also attest that there was a palpable excitement in the air, and that Rubin contributed to that by zipping across the room, enthusiastically greeting various conference goers the meeting. I don't doubt that Rubin helped a blind man find his seat, as he says he did. But he certainly was beaming before the lecture.

Rubin also says I was mocking his (our) religion. On the contrary, I was mocking him, not Judaism. Still, if Rubin recalls this one sentence after all these years, then I must have really touched a nerve, so I apologize for the snark.

I'll add two observations. First, the idea that Mark would, as part of a nefarious ideological scheme, fabricate Rubin appearing to be very excited by the event his institution was hosting is absurd on its face. What political agenda, exactly, does this help advance? Second, while I've grown accustomed to hair-trigger accusations of anti-semitism from neoconservative foreign policy types, this one is really absurd. It's now mocking Judaism for a Jewish writer to write something implying that Jewish children are excited by the prospect of Hanukkah gifts? Come on.

Comments

Well, I'm sure he would have written "like a kid in a candy shop," but that would have been anti-Candite.

Posted by Jake H. | August 7, 2007 1:27 PM

In fairness, like "an 8th grader at his first rainbow party" would be more inclusive.

I think Rubin has missed the point (unless the point is he enjoys feeling victimized). My mental picture of someone "bouncing around" is a kid with ADHD who's off his meds, that is someone who can't sit still as opposed to someone who's actually walking (or bouncing Tigger-style) around the room. So even if Mark didn't see him get out of his seat, he could reasonably describe him as "bouncing around" if he was visibly excited that Iran's greatest agent, Ahmed Chalabi was in the house.

Posted by beowulf | August 7, 2007 2:02 PM

I guess we can conclude that if he had written "like a 6-year-old at Christmas," he would have been mocking Christianity.

Seriously, speaking as a Jew myself, one Jew playing the victimology card on another Jew is just so pathetic. I'm embarrassed.

Posted by Steve | August 7, 2007 2:03 PM

It's now mocking Judaism for a Jewish writer to write something implying that Jewish children are excited by the prospect of Hanukkah gifts? Come on.

Jeeze Matt, you know you really sound like Lindbergh when you say that.

Posted by Eric the Political Hack | August 7, 2007 2:10 PM

It is rather insulting to describe an adult as acting like a child.

To say someone acts "like a 6-year-old at Hanukkah" implies they are naive, incredulous, living in a fantasy when everyone around them recognizes reality, etc. -- quite true of the cornerites but insulting nonetheless.

Posted by Oberon | August 7, 2007 2:19 PM

Would Mr. Rubin have preferred "like a 6-year-old at Id-ul-Fitr"?

Posted by gregor | August 7, 2007 2:22 PM

What about "like a bishop in a room full of 6-year-olds?" Y'know, switch it up a little bit--that way you're not calling him a child. No? Man, this political correctness stuff is hard.

Posted by Jake H. | August 7, 2007 2:40 PM

Rubin's feelings were hurt, not surprisingly, because the characterization was painfully accurate. Six year old kids at Hanukkah and/or Christmas are joyfully ignorant as to their good fortune. The WMD had been proven not to exist. Goldberg doesn't just perform the Jewish equivalent of saying Santa Claus is make-believe, he manages to expose Rubin as an adult who is silly enough to actually still believe in Santa Claus. That hurts, obviously. So much so that Rubin goes out of his way to bring the whole thing up again now. Sadly for him, he puts himself in the position of having to prove a negative. But proving "I WASN'T BOUNCING!" two years after the fact is pretty impossible, especially when you're still enthusiastic about the war, Chalabi, etc. So his charges of fabrication are utterly unconvincing. And the allusion to the blind guy and the implied antisemitism are all about trying to gain the victimized high ground. Poor Rubin, he would've done much better to ignore the whole thing. None of this, of course, will keep the Corner people from cracking insulting Kwanza and Ramadan jokes when those holidays roll around.

Posted by Pinson | August 7, 2007 3:32 PM

Rubin's quite cross at Matt for "alleging a charge of anti-Semitism where known [six] existed"... Pls apologise immediately.

Posted by DavidS | August 7, 2007 3:44 PM

Pinson's got it right.

An aggressive, if illusory, sense of victimization is one of the chief driving factors over at The Corner. For a particularly strange, repressed, pubescent version, see Kathryn Jean Lopez.

On the other hand, for all that I disagree with Derbyshire, he does at least believe in science, and is intellectually honest to a greater extent than anyone else there.

Posted by Tashtego | August 7, 2007 3:55 PM

Shorter Rubin: Waaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!!

Posted by Col Bat Guano | August 7, 2007 4:06 PM

Both Mark's description and Michael's reaction are vintage Michael Rubin. The guy is seriously unstable and it terrifies me that anyone ever pays any attention to him.

Posted by Known Michael for 17 years | August 7, 2007 4:32 PM

The criticism that PHB makes could equally well apply to his pro-Palestinianism. Perhaps if they could react to critics without accusing them all of being anti-Muslim they would not have such a gaping hole in their moral compass that they can give a pass to projects such as support of Hamas, Hezbollah, suicide bombers, etc..

As far as failed utopias go, "Palestine" is pretty much par for the course. Looks great if you can only ignore the 'need' to throw 5 million Jews into the Sea and the inherent contradition between equality before the law and the conception of a 23rd Muslim state.

Posted by ILP | August 7, 2007 4:34 PM

Rubin writes like a six-year-old who's certain that the liberal took his best Pokemon card.

Posted by calling all toasters | August 7, 2007 4:45 PM

Perhaps if they could react to critics without accusing them all of being anti-Muslim . . . the inherent contradition between equality before the law and the conception of a 23rd Muslim state.

Perhaps we'd be less inclined to accuse you of being anti-Muslim if you could refrain from displaying anti-Muslim bigotry, at least in the very paragraph in which you complain about being unfairly accused of anti-Muslim bigotry

Posted by rea | August 7, 2007 4:56 PM

ILP, I am constrained to recant my accusation: I see on review that you waited until the next paragraph . . .

Posted by rea | August 7, 2007 4:58 PM

Uh oh!

Mark's subsequent work—while I do not always agree with it—is more serious...

Mark has been called serious! By Michael Rubin! This is terrible for your career, Mark, and I suggest you post something forthwith to disavow that six-year-old Hanukkah-bloated child of his mistaken notion.

Posted by Marshall | August 7, 2007 5:03 PM

"like Jonah Goldberg in his mother's clothes hamper."

"like John Derbyshire at a White Power Rally."

"like Kathryn Lopez in a pie shop."

"like John Podhoretz at the Hellfire Club."

"like William F. Buckley at a Southern lynching."

Posted by Bounced Around | August 7, 2007 5:19 PM

Goldberg doesn't just perform the Jewish equivalent of saying Santa Claus is make-believe, he manages to expose Rubin as an adult who is silly enough to actually still believe in Santa Claus.

What would, in fact, be the Jewish equivalent of saying Santa Claus is make-believe? My house had a Hannukah bush, so I don't know the answer.

Posted by Steve | August 7, 2007 5:22 PM

But if, as I read it, the issue was Rubin wasn't in the room when Mark wrote his piece, then this whole thread exposes why the left so often loses the important policy battles: It rather attack people than ideas.

Posted by Silliness of this thread | August 7, 2007 5:29 PM

Rubin has responded to Matt at the Corner. He's saying Matt made up the entire "anti-semitism" angle. Rubin claims his earlier comment wasn't about MLG "making fun of my religion," but "rather, a comment about Mark making silly jokes about religion". Except that Rubin actually wrote that MLG was making fun of his religion (Judaism).

Which seemed to me like playing the semite card, but now things are all cleared up. Just talking about silly jokes..."Hey, Rubin did you hear the one about the priest, the rabbi, and the hacktacularly disingenous conservative pundit?"

Posted by keatssycamore | August 7, 2007 5:31 PM

What would, in fact, be the Jewish equivalent of saying Santa Claus is make-believe?

That Michael Rubin is a moron.

Posted by Anderson | August 7, 2007 5:34 PM

As a fellow Jew, let me explain what these reprehensible neo-con Jews are actually doing.

They live in a world where language itself is a constant tool of manipulation (thus WMDs, freedom on the march, etc), therefore exploiting their own Jewishness is simply another tool in an existential arsenal where facts and reality don't exist, and wordplay is simply an intellectual game of one uppsmanship.

So do not hate them for their Jewishness, of which they clearly know nothing about. Hate them for their craven cynicism and ability to lie/distort at any given moment, so log as The Noble Cause (republicanism) gets advanced.

They are the scrape off the bottom of the barrel of self-hating Jews, and like any minority group, are the small sliver willing to sell themselves out to Massah if it pays well.

They do not represent the American Jewish community, which votes overwhelming democratic, and would never fall for such ridiculous cons as offered by, well, the Cons.

Posted by Jim | August 7, 2007 5:38 PM

And this entire discussion is in a comment thread here instead of a comment thread at NRO because? The brave polemicists at NRO don't allow comments. Pussies.

Posted by jimbo | August 7, 2007 6:05 PM

If antiwar Jews start emphasizing the Jewyness of their pro-war Jewish opponents, don't be surprised if the blowback from the paleos and radical lefties hits all politically active Jews, and not just ones who think they are on the side of the angels on this particular issue. Wouldn't be the first time it happened, and if previous waves of anti-Jewish sentiment are any guide, no one will bother to sort Jewish pundits out by ideology. You will be marginalized and discredited en masse.

Posted by Juan | August 7, 2007 6:16 PM

Poor Michael Rubin. First George Packer puts him in the wrong meetings:

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWZlYmQyZDY4Mjg3MzhkNGU3ODBkZGRiMGRlMTM0ZTQ=

Then Vanity Fair quotes him correctly, but is still being, you know, unfair:

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MzM4OWE4ZGJhNDZjMjhiYzExYWM2MDg4OGU2YjAxZjQ=

My favorite part:

"I don’t speak to anyone from The New York Times, the New Yorker, The American Prospect, or Vatan (a Turkish paper) because some of their reporters have eschewed ethics and moved beyond bias into fabrication. "

For the record, even though Michael doesn't speak to Vatan, he still enjoys doing their soduku.

"Life is what happens to you while you're busy at the Office of Special Plans" -- Michael Rubin

Posted by Mike | August 7, 2007 6:19 PM

Pope had this nailed years ago:

You think this cruel? take it for a rule,
No creature smarts so little as a fool.
... Who shames a scribbler? break one cobweb through,
He spins the slight, self-pleasing thread anew;
Destroy his fib or sophistry, in vain,
The creature's at his dirty work again;
Thron'd in the centre of his thin designs;
Proud of a vast extent of flimsy lines!

Posted by Delicious Pundit | August 7, 2007 6:45 PM

If antiwar Jews start emphasizing the Jewyness of their pro-war Jewish opponents, don't be surprised if the blowback from the paleos and radical lefties hits all politically active Jews, and not just ones who think they are on the side of the angels on this particular issue.

Uh, yeah. I'm not going to wet the bed out of fear of Pat Buchanan, but thanks for the well-intentioned warning.

You will, of course, stick up for us when your warnings come to fruition, won't you?

Posted by Steve | August 7, 2007 8:34 PM