Walter Russell Mead is writing about Walt and Mearsheimer new treatise, of course. His review is a devastating with one glaring exception: He insists that the authors are NOT Anti-Semites?
Yes, he agrees they used familiar Anti-Semitic strategy. Yes, their book will give ammunition as well as aid and comfort to Anti-Semites but they are not.
Why? Because they say so and Mead insists we believe them.
How can we given all the evidence to the contrary?
Because they are “unwitting and innocent,” if “admirable and courageous” authors of a book “written in haste” which he assumes they will “repent in leisure.”
Fat chance. Mead writes that Walt and Mearsheimer err by decontextualizing Jewish action. Mead errs in decontextualizing Walt and Mearsheimer’s book. They started by writing an article in which they also looked, talked and walked like Anti-Semites as so many (myself included) took time to point out. Had the duo acted innocently, they would have taken care to avoid falling into the same pitfalls when expanding their treatise into a book. Yet they did nothing of the sort. The opposite is true.
In other words, the infamous couple acted knowingly and Mead’s attempt at cover up is suspect. Who knows? Maybe they are is their friend or maybe some disclaimer is the price Mead has to pay for the privilege of being permitted to write this otherwise astute review. Part of me hopes so as I admire Mead’s work and has used his book Special Providence in a course on American Foreign Policy.
What can I say, being Jewish means that hope must reign eternal.
