One good point that Jon Chait made about the debate over Charles Freeman's appointment as Chairman of the National Intelligence Council was that the pro-Freeman cohort's reluctance to discuss the criticisms of Freeman on their merits, instead interpreting everything as a struggle over Israel, made for a poisonous debate. It's like responding to my contention that Peyton Manning is better than Tom Brady because stats are more indicative of talent than Super Bowls with the charge that I am anti-Big Ten. Even if Israel did play a role in organizing and energizing the anti-Freeman coalition, the criticisms themselves, which focused on his over-the-top support for the autocracies in Saudi Arabia and China, deserved to be discussed without being twisted into something else. With that in mind, it was striking that in Walter Pincus' post-op of the episode in today's Post, the word "China" appeared once, "human rights" and "Tiananmen Square" not a single time, while "Israel" (or some version of it) appeared 14 times.
I also think Freeman would have stood a better chance had he dealt with the criticisms as they were made, rather than screaming "Israel conspiracy" at everyone who spoke up against his appointment, but we'll never know.
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I'm biased because Freeman is one of the very few people in DC that are must-see panelists if you have the chance. Vocal, sharp, and most of all, informative, he stands in stark contrast to 99% of the diplo-bullshit bureacrats in DC. Obviously that doesn't qualify him to be NIC chief, but it made me even more skeptical than I usually am of the TNR take on a foreign policy issue.(Digression: the gap between how amazing Jon Chait is on domestic policy and how crap he is on foreign affairs is unparalleled.) Reasonable people can disagree about the outcome of l'affaire Freeman, but I would suggest you take a look at these pieces:
http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/03/chas_freeman_and_china.php
http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/03/two_more_on_chas_freeman_and_c.php
http://www.slate.com/id/2213468/pagenum/all
I was essentially agnostic on whether or not he should have been pulled, but I don't understand why so many people supporting him tried to make it about Israel. I thought the most convincing argument in his favor was that first post from Fallows, because it dealt with the charges that had been hurled. As a matter of getting him appointed, I don't think the ulterior motives of the people making the charges should have entered into it. In general I do think it's bad practice to leapfrog someone's arguments an focus instead on his motives.
Also, wouldn't the gap between Chris Hitchens' views be more extreme on both ends? Of course he doesn't write so much about domestic politics, and I may be way off, but I think of him as something of a socialist at home. Actually, I'd be interested to see what a lot of those neoconservatives think about domestic policy. Robert Kagan for example, I dont think I've ever read a written he's uttered about domestic affairs.
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