Behold the birth of Osama’s Book-Of-The-Month Club…
Twenty-four hours after Osama bin Laden told the world that the American people should read the work of a little-known Washington historian, William Blum was still adjusting.
Blum, who at 72 is accustomed to laboring in relative left-wing obscurity, checked his emotions and pronounced himself shocked and, well, pleased.
“This is almost as good as being an Oprah book,” he said yesterday between telephone calls from the world media and bites of a bagel. “I’m glad.” Overnight, his 2000 work, “Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower,” had become an Osama book.
In gray slacks, plaid shirt and black slippers, Blum padded around his one-bedroom apartment on Connecticut Avenue. A portrait of the Brooklyn Dodgers in the ’50s hung on his kitchen wall. Bookshelves bowed under the weight of secret histories of the CIA. The cord on his prehistoric phone let him roam across the living room. He’d already done CNN and MSNBC. A guy from the New York Post knocked on the door to take pictures. The BBC rang, then Reuters and Pacifica Radio stations on both coasts.
From Blum’s end of the conversations, you could tell the reporters were expecting him to express some kind of discomfort, remorse, maybe even shame. Blum refused to acknowledge feelings he did not have.
“I was not turned off by such an endorsement,” he informed a New York radio station. “I’m not repulsed, and I’m not going to pretend I am.” He patiently reiterated the thesis of his foreign-policy critique — that American interventions abroad create enemies.
You know, it takes a special kind of twit to be happy about their work being used in war propaganda against their own country. There is a reason Osama wants Americans to read Blum’s book. It is because Osama knows (as too many left-wingers don’t) that the “blame America first” sort of Vietnam-era defeatism is the key to turning our country into the “paper tiger” he has long labled us as. Osama would like us all to believe that we cannot win in our war against Islamic extremism and that we are really making things worse when we attempt to spread freedom and democracy in the world, and people like Blum are just the right sort of tool for that job.
Lenin called these people “useful idiots.” Not word yet on what Osama’s pet name is for people like Blum.
(via Link Mecca)
You can read more from Rob Port at SayAnythingBlog.com
The NY Post ran a shorter story about Blum, but they had more background info. The guy worked for the State Department until he quit in protest over its policies on Vietnam in 1967. After then, he’s been associated with Leftwing groups ever since.
I’d say this is another instance of a terrorist appeaser growing in Brooklyn. Or, just as appropriate – a useful idiot grows in Brooklyn.
Does anyone else find the following to be quite funny?
“Bookshelves bowed under the weight of secret histories of the CIA. “
I mean, seriously.
“Osama would like us all to believe that we cannot win…”
Bush on the GWOT:
“I don’t think you can win it.”
lol
I just wish he was concerned about him. Just a little.
Hmmmm.
My prediction: “asshat”.
Hmmm.
Frankly the endless bout of liberal nonsense just makes me all tired.
1. Bush’s statement was, in context, that GWOT isn’t like a regular war in that there is no defined end where victory can be declared. Thus the war is fought, and won, one battle at a time.
2. Rob’s point is that Osama is trying to get the American public to accept that fighting the GWOT at all is a gesture in futility.
oh hell. why do I even bother.
We are also never going to win the war on:
racism
illiteracy
povery
cancer
homelessness
drugs
sexism
child abuse
infant mortality
world hunger
illegal immigration
gambling
sexual abuse
prostitution
or forest fires….
should we stop fighting those, too?
jp2, there’s a world of difference between a statement meant to create fear of being overtaken by Islam and one that points out that as long as there is Islam and non-Islamic nations or factions, there will be a war on terror.
Should anyone here thank you for implying that the US can expect Islamofascism to prevail, sending us all back to the 3rd Century? Frankly, screw you. And Blum. And OBL.
Jp2 there is a word for what you did…its called cherrypicking. Go look it up and learn.
You can bet the talk-show bookers are crawling all over each other like worms in a can to get Blum on their mindless babble-fests. What a coup to get another Bush hater out there in the TV asteroid belt!
True to leftist tradition, Blum has never had a real sustained job, but after leaving the State Department computer corps because of Vietnam, or more likely, screened out because of a faulty work ethic or an attitude problem, he devoted his life to gnawing at the hand that had so briefly fed him.
But this American life had a greatly belated Second Act. Now he can cruise the campuses with the likes of Richard Clarke and ex-Amb. Wilson in a search for money and that bitch-goddess that has eluded him so far. Can Valerie Plame be far behind?
I’m a little confused. It’s been quite awhile now, since 9/11. Shouldn’t this guy be dead now. That’s right, I remember now. We had to launch an illegal war against a country that hadn’t attacked us so we could steal their oil. Maybe when we get done there, we can capture and kill the terrorist that attacked us.
You are more than a little confused rick. Might want to wait until the haze clears before you post again.
Rickster,
You DO know that “Syriana” wasn’t a documentary, right?
Also, we are in control now, and will wage war anywhere we damn well please.
All your base are belong to us.
SOTG
>Lenin called these people “useful idiots.”
BS.
Lenin never wrote the term in any published document, no one has claimed to have heard him say it first hand, and it contradicts the opinions expressed in Lenin’s published documents in reference to the Comintern.
Next time you quote wikipedia, you might actually want to read the entry before you link to it.
So who’s the idiot now?