Bob Herbert

The battle over Reagan and race that had been playing out recently on the New York Times op-ed page appeared to have subsided by the end of last week.  But it received new life over the weekend when Reagan biographer Lou Cannon contributed a guest op-ed asserting that "Ronald Reagan was not a racist." 

Today, Paul Krugman responds, arguing, as he has before, that Reagan used racist appeals for political benefit.  Referring to Mr. Cannon and Times columnist David Brooks, he notes: "Reagan's defenders protest furiously that he wasn't personally bigoted. So what? We're talking about his political strategy. His personal beliefs are irrelevant."

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The recent Brooks vs. Krugman (with an assist from Herbert) smackdown on the New York Times op-ed page has left a lot of people wondering: Why aren't Times columnists allowed to attack each other by name?  After all, doing so would make these arguments a lot easier for readers to follow.

Well it turns out that, as near as anyone can tell, they are allowed. So why don't they?  We've put in queries to Messrs. Brooks and Krugman, as well as Times op-ed page editor Andy Rosenthal, and we'll let you know what we find out.

So many of us, leftleaners, were confused through the first week of the Lebanon fighting. It was obvious that Nasrallah was provoking something, wrongly; it is obvious that Iran is not a good actor; those rockets were targeting civilians in Haifa. Still, I/we sensed that there was something awful about the Israeli reaction, the carnage, the indiscriminateness. Of course such statements divide the Democratic "base." The Lieberman/Berman/Clinton bloc, which answers to rightwing Jewish sentiment and money, thinks (as Bush does) that anything Israel does is O.K.

But the Lebanese horrors may actually serve to clarify our own political confusions, and help our antiwar movement get its feet out of the potato sack. Especially as Israel is now imitating us, after we imitated them in occupying Iraq. This is helping nobody.

What's my evidence? It's just in the air. Nicholas Kristof's beautiful column yesterday. Bob Herbert's great column the day before that. Tom Friedman appealing, in spite of himself, for an overture to Damascus today. The Nation's brave editorial condemning the bombing, and Izaz Haque's moving letter to the Times today describing two great Arab capitals laid to waste.

And here is an email from an Israeli that I got today via John Coyne, the writer and Returned Peace Corps leader. His friend lives in the north of Israel. He leaves her anonymous, though he says she was a hawk years ago.

Hi John,

We are fine, thanx. We stay at our home and try to lead normal life, as we hate shelters we never stay inside ours. It's very noisy, day and night, because of our cannons and aircrafts and because of their Katyushas and other rockets, and it's getting worse every day. A few rockets fell in ___, no casualties. Yet.

Needless to say that I am strongly against this war. Nothing can justify what Israel is doing to the Lebanese people, not to mention the Palestinians getting killed by us at the Gaza strip every day. The situation at the M.E. can't be solved by force. We should talk with anybody wiling to negotiate, including Chamas and Chizballa. Our government is both stupid and evil and your president isn't much better.

How is your family ???????

Love,

Bob Herbert had a breathtaking column in the Times today, condemning Israel for going overboard in its (just) retaliation for the Hezbollah strike, and faulting the U.S. for allowing it. "Neither Israel nor the United States can kill enough Muslims to win the struggle against terror," he writes, and says the United States should have been a friend to Israel and told it "the carnage has to cease."

The piece echoes other critiques of Israel-U.S. relations in the last few months: the Walt-Mearsheimer bombshell on the Israel lobby, and Tony Judt's attack in Haaretz on "The Country That Wouldn't Grow Up."

Like many adolescents Israel is convinced - and makes a point of aggressively and repeatedly asserting - that it can do as it wishes, that its actions carry no consequences and that it is immortal.

The shock is that Bob Herbert is now saying something along these lines on the Times Op-Ed page, a place given to Tom Friedman's explanations of all Israel's choices and David Brooks's construction of camouflaged bunkers for fleeing neoconservatives. I admire Herbert's courage and hope he stays on message. Many Americans are confused and disturbed right now, and share his instincts. Herbert has done what a columnist should do, and told them how to think.

In a city forever stunned and horribly awakened by theterrorist attack of Sept.  read more »