Blue Crab Boulevard

One Of The More Annoying Habits

Of the more left-of-center blogs is a propensity to cite things out of context in order to "prove" whatever point they happen to be making. When I first started doing this blog, I actually tried to confront folks who misquoted, or used a "movie review quote" or twisted what I had written. Then I realized it frankly was a waste of time. Most of them, I suspect, are quite smart enough to know they are distorting things.

But, heck, today they got my goat, not about the rather strained misrepresentation about what I had written, but over another issue. So let's go.

I write this blog by going out and trying to find interesting things from a number of different news sources. Yahoo News, WaPo, a raft of British newspapers, Memorandum and Real Clear Politics are all part of the rounds along with many other things that tickle my fancy or pique my interest. I do this on my own, I only get a few tips (mostly funny stuff about animals) from email. I try to write about things I think my readers might find interesting or amusing – or sometimes just because I think it is interesting, even if nobody else gives a darn.

In other words, I do this all by myself, without a net.

I write about Hillary! Clinton because I feel like it. I write about Fred Thompson because he's interesting. In neither case is it an endorsement. For the record, yet again, I am not a Republican or a Democrat. I have a lot of conservative ideas – that are my own, but I am not a party member or a campaign worker for anyone. But I wrote this about Thompson yesterday:

He says we have missed a great opportunity to engage people in Latin America and in the Middle East. I don't disagree that this is something we should be doing. Counteracting the information offensive the al Qaeda and their fellow travelers are engaged in is, in and of itself, a good idea. Thompson does not mention Radio Marti, however. That operation, launched in 1985, has continuously attempted to send the truth into Cuba ever since. It has not had a noticeable impact on Cuba, unfortunately. (On the other hand, they have wasted a lot of money trying to jam those signals.) So it doesn't always work. But planting the seeds of freedom is a good thing. I rather like his closing lines:

I do know, though, that it's time for a new generation of Americans to stand up for freedom — like others before us. And this time, we’ll have a whole new set of media technologies.

Which, of course, makes Cernig at Newshoggers cite me as an abject, lockstep member of the Bushitlerian mindless hoard that ignores reality and will do or say anything for the party. Ignoring the fact that I regularly – and rather forcefully – disagree with the current administration. From Cernig at Newshoggers:

Unsurprisingly, yet depressingly, none of the conservative bloggers listed on Memeeorandum as writing about Thompson's article take issue with his gloss over events. Not McQ, Not Captain Ed, not Blue Crab Boulevard or even Micheal van der Galen. From this we learn two things: firstly, that the Right is still willing to look the other way to stay in lockstep with its next generation of leadership even if many are deserting its current one and secondly, that Fred Thompson shouldn't be allowed to be the Commander In Chief at a time when a frank examination of the rise of Islamist terrorism is going to be of more use than a hagiographic attempt to rewrite history to exonerate the Legend Of Reagan. Garbage in – garbage out.

So Cernig hasn't a clue what I wrote – only that I did not preemptively agree with what he wanted me to say. Fine. But that isn't what got my goat. This is, from Libby at Newshoggers:

But what really struck me about this piece was the photo. If you didn't know, you would think it was a father and daughter, well except for the slightly lecherous look in his eyes. It's clear he's proud of his beautiful young wife, who is actually four years younger than his real daughter.

I don't have a problem with the age difference. I know of many successful May-December marriages, but I do find it distasteful when a man dumps his wife of 25 years in order to trade-up to a wife that looks better on his arm, which appears, acording (sic) to rumor, to be the case here. And yes, I know that he played the field for a while in between and Jeri had to "catch" him, and maybe the wife even kicked him out for all I know but it's difficult to deny that Jeri looks like the classic trophy wife.

Even assuming they fell crazy in love and just had to be together, it's somewhat jarring to see them together in the photo. She looks so young, you expect that she signs her name with a little smiley face instead of a dot on the "i" at the end. In studying that shot, I couldn't help but think if Fred has been dating her only a few years eariler (sic) it would have been considered a sex offense.

And here I am having to write to defend a candidate that I find interesting, but whom I am not at this point backing, from a rather vicious attack that is, frankly, beneath anyone. That Libby at Newshoggers is cheerfully recycling the sewage from Wonkette in an attempt to get that little innuendo into the marketplace of ideas just plain wrong. Oh she does a pro forma preemptive denial, but it is despicable. I do not have a resume for Thompson's wife, but by all the stuff I can get off the internet, she appears to be a) extremely smart with a very good resume, b) not a minor and c) good looking.

So. Freaking. What. That makes her a target for vicious slurs and denigration? Beneath you, Newshoggers. Seriously. You can go on twisting what I write – hell you will anyway by all indications – but attacking someone's wife (who is NOT in the political arena at this point) to further your agenda – sleazy.

For the record, Thompson's first marriage ended in 1985, according to Wikipedia. And Jeri Kehn is in her 40s – hardly a baby. Taking about 18 years to remarry isn't exactly the classic "trophy wife" scenario.

Blogosphere, Politics | Gaius June 3, 2007

By Cernig, June 3, 2007 @ 7:30 pm

Hi Gaius,

We don’t intend to pick on you – it’s just that you’re a prolofic Rightwing blogger who thus crops up on memeorandum time and time again. It isn’t personal.

As to my own post – I read yours but maybe you didn’t read mine well enough. I say that because in your response above you again ignore the entire point of my post, which was the Right’s refusal to look closely at Reagan’s support for the Taliban/Al Qaeda axis in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation, which was a necessary precursor to their current pre-eminence in radical Muslim circles. That is Thompson’s “gloss over events” that i specifically address and to not address it yourself in turn seems a evasive.

As to my colleague Libby’s post on Jeri Thompson, I think you should go back and read my comments to that post. Like you, I acknowledge that “Fred!” had 20 years of playboy reputation between wives. I also looked at his wife’s resume. Nice. She works for the number one political lobbying firm in the nation. It’s hip deep in Bob Dole’s shannanigans and also in Tom DeLay’s.

Regards, Cernig
By Libby Spencer, June 3, 2007 @ 7:49 pm

I’ve revised the post in response to the comments. I misread her age initially, and I’m pleading dyslexia and failing eyesight on that. I retracted that part of the post but I’m not willing to concede the trophy wife point. I also did some googling and the fact remains the man left his wife of 30 years, after she worked to put him through school and raised his kids, coincidentally at the same time he hit his big breakthrough in the movies.

That he spent 17 years catting around with groupies doesn’t make Jeri any less of a trophy wife, just a deferred one.

Not to mention, I don’t bring it up as a slur. It’s a real question. I’m genuinely interested in how it’s going to play in Peoria, so to speak.
By Gaius, June 3, 2007 @ 7:52 pm

Cernig, I’m really not bothered, nor do I feel picked on. I was pointing out that you drew an unwarranted conclusion from something I wrote.

I do not believe that the attack on Thompson’s wife – who has not entered the public arena of politics is warranted, however, regardless of whether or not Thompson ultimately runs.

Guilt by association is not a good standard. I happen to know people who work for companies and firms who do not agree with every aspect of what those outfits do. Do you? Or is everyone you know perfect in every way and employed by only the best companies? That is a serious question, not a snark.
By Gaius, June 3, 2007 @ 8:07 pm

Well, Thanks to both of you for the civil replies. Frankly, I’d rather not make this into a flame war. My personal opinion – which you may disagree with – is that candidate’s spouses are out of bounds unless and until they enter the fray, so to speak. I would personally never bring up, say, Joe Biden’s wife unless she made a political speech that made the news. (I have no idea what Biden’s wife’s name is at this point.)

Again, that’s my personal opinion, which you may disagree with. When the spouse enters the arena, then it is fair – and part of politics – to call them on what they say in public – but not necessarily on who they are – or who you judge them to be.
By Callimachus, June 3, 2007 @ 8:18 pm

“… the Rightâ€™s refusal to look closely at Reaganâ€™s support for the Taliban/Al Qaeda axis in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation …”

Ronald Reagan, president January 1981- January 1989.

Al Qaida established late 1989 or early 1990.

Taliban emerges as a military force 1994.

Perhaps we should note the Left’s refusal to look closely at a calendar.
By Gaius, June 3, 2007 @ 8:32 pm

Yeah, I hadn’t gotten around to that point. Now I don’t have to.
By Quilly Mammoth, June 3, 2007 @ 10:05 pm

ARGGGHHH. I simply cannot stand this revisionist history any longer.

As a back-up to Callimachus the Left seems to forget the “rogue CIA” agents that leaked captured weapons and documents to Soldier of Fortune in order to pressure the Carter Administration into supporting the Mujaheedin. This was in the fall of 1980, before Reagan was elected. Galin Geer and others championed the cause through SoF for the next decade.

The incoming Reagan Administration was indifferent to the Afghan situation at best. It had it’s own agenda for defeating the Soviets.

Private groups raised money…and not in the way Oliver North and Secrist did…and made a big deal of delivering supplies, doctors and trainers to the Afghan fighters. It was an interesting and bizarre assortment of old Yankee money, Liberals in Congress and British aristocracy. These private groups, such as Committee for a Free Afghanistan and Federation for American Afghan Action, felt that Afghanistan was the Soviet’s Vietnam and aimed to pressure the Reagan Administration into a more active role (would it surprise anyone to know that Barney Frank, Paul Tsongas and Paul Simon were players in this?).

The Frank/Tsongas/Simon connection is important because over the next several years with the Reagan Administration reluctant to support the Afghan fighters it became a talking point. Reagan was spending oodles and oodles of dough in the Arms race with the Soviets while the Afghanis were kicking butt on the cheap. Meanwhile they got one Charlie Wilson (D TX) involved. Wilson despised Reagan and all he stood for. That Reagan turned his back on the Muj made the challenge of funding the Muj just too delicious for Wilson to pass up.

Meanwhile, there was a small, but vocal group of dedicated anti-Communists that were stunned by Reagan’s lack of interest. One soldier they found was Andy Evia. Evia was a gifted Green Beret who ran the Soviet specialist team. He was convinced that when Reagan took office he would be loosed like a wolf. When that didn’t happen Evia resigned his commission and headed to Peshwar. There he met, among others,one Louis Dupree. Dupree was a sometimes French Intelligence operative, sometimes British Intelligence operative and through Galen Geer became the SoF man in Peshwar.

Through contacts they made in Peshwar a supply system, albeit small, was set up in Peshwar. In 1982 they got Charlie Wilson to go and see the situation. And Charlie Wilson (D,TX) became a believer in the Muj and embarrassing the Reagan Administration.

Two years later Tsongas, Franks and Wilson piloted a bill through Congress that forced the Reagan Administration to send several hundred million dollars to Afghanistan resistance groups.

AT that time the Reagan Administration wanted nothing to do with an insurgency in Afghanistan for a number of reasons. Chief amongst those was the effort they were making to defy Congress over covert operations in Latin America. They also wanted not to further provoke the Russians who were, by then, becoming quite displeased with Reagan’s arms and economic pressure.

They also had a different plan. By the fall of 1983, in the wake of the Lebanon disaster, they were sending scores of officer trainees through Infantry Officer Basic Course in Ft. Benning. Which is also home for the School of the Americas. Reagan’s people felt that we had terrible intelligence and connections with teh Islamic world. They felt that one reason we retained such a close grip on Latin America was through the SOTA program. They thought they could do the same with officers from other areas.

As a personal note the current King of Saudi Arabia’s fourth son is a very nice fellow who often had his chauffeur drive one of his Silver Clouds down the tank trails of Benning to pick up laundry during training exercises. Not just for him but for everyone in his platoon. Simply rent a dry cleaner for a day, bring back clean clothes and pizza and you have made some friends. Reportedly he threw one hell of a bash after graduation on the top three floors of the Peachtree Hilton in Atlanta…but I digress.

Let’s just say I have personal knowledge of teh training, and the reasons for it, that Foreign Officers received at Ft. Benning from 1983 to 1986.

Back to our tale:
The CIA was so less than enamored with it that assigned one man, Gust Avrakatos, to run virtually the entire operation. Which mostly consisted of giving lots of money to thugs to buy guns at Peshwar arms markets. (Ever seen a 1903 Springfield or Enfield from there? Gorgeous weapons, hard to believe they are made entirely by hand exactly to match the rifle they were copied from…including the serial numbers! ) The Reagan Administration found itself politically having to smile and support a plan that they didn’t like and didn’t come up with.

Politics.

Some members of the Reagan Administration did get involved from time to time. Folks like Richard Perle and Ollie North. From everything I heard North’s interest was primarily because the NSC had oversight and Pearle like d to tray and pawn off some of his more fanatical disinformation programs. Such as trying to get Russian officers and men to defect.

Once passed interest by most of the Congressmen and Senators waned. Except for Charlie Wilson who kept teh funding alive until the very end. And everyone ignored his plea that Reagan didn’t care. I wonder how Charlie feels now when folks blame Reagan for a program that really happened because of Charlie Wilson (D.TX)?

And there you have “the Rightâ€™s refusal to look closely at Reaganâ€™s support for the Taliban/Al Qaeda axis in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation”. It never happened.
By Libby Spencer, June 4, 2007 @ 5:15 am

Gaius, I’m not attacking her. I thought I made clear I had no problem with the marriage itself and I don’t understand why you consider the term trophy wife insulting. It’s a commonly used description for a May-Dec relationship.

My interest in Jeri is relative to how it will be perceived by the voters in terms of his character and I don’t think you can really claim that Thompson is not in the race since he’s declared he’s going to declare.
By Gaius, June 4, 2007 @ 5:57 am

I’d disagree that “trophy wife” is a common description. Rather it is meant to disparge both people involved.
By Marcus Antonius, June 4, 2007 @ 6:59 am

The noble Cernig hath told you Thompson had a trophy wife:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously should Thompson answer for it.
Here, under leave of Cernig and the restâ€”
For Cernig is an honorable man;
So are they all, all honorable menâ€”
By Rustmeister, June 4, 2007 @ 10:06 am

If we helped the folks fighting Russia, so what?

We’ve backed other freedom fighters who turned on us as soon as they won. Fidel Castro, for one.