Ian, on James Kirchick:

Freeman is not qualified for what is a very important job on innumerable levels. That the administration appointed him indicates either at best extraordinary incompetence or worse a basic ideological ugliness. People have commented on the general media indifference. In part this is likely the tendency for a pro-Democratic media to cover for a Democratic administration. But it is likely also a reflection of the not so veiled anti-Israel attitudes that have permeated into the mainstream media from the political left’s outer fringes. How many in our media are conditioned to use glib terms like “neo-conservative” with all its connotations without so much as a passing thought? A media that traffics in terms like Likudnik or neo-con, that so willingly entertains cabalistic notions of neo-conservative conspiracies, cannot be too bothered by McCarthyite terms such as “Israel Lobby”, and the response to such canards is typically a studied agnosticism that masks sympathy for the viewpoint. Its not a coincidence that the same pundits and commentators who complacently speculate about “neo-cons” find nothing particularly offensive about other cabalistic accusations and are prone to share them. Of course in that case human rights or more general considerations mean less than fidelity to their dominant ideological belief. Their support for Freeman is not in spite of his extreme anti-Israel views, but precisely because of them, whatever else may be claimed.

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