Max Blumenthal

Sen. Larry Craig Joins the CCC Honor Roll

Republican Idaho Senator Larry Craig is the latest Conflicted Conservative in Crisis (CCC) to be caught with his pants down. According to Roll Call, Craig was arrested in June at a Minnesota airport by a plainclothes police officer investigating lewd conduct complaints in a men’s public restroom.

I have no idea what Craig’s alleged lewd conduct consisted of, but he has faced pointed pointed rumors of same-sex affairs in the past. Craig responded to these allegations with strident denials. Now, as details of Craig’s recent arrest emerge, he seems increasinly cock-eyed, so to speak.

To be sure, this story would not matter if Craig wasn’t using his position to advance the Republican Party’s officially homophobic agenda. In November, 2006, Craig flamboyantly endorsed Idaho’s successful anti-gay constitutional amendment, HJR 2, which banned gay marriage, civil unions and domestic partnerships in the state.

Craig is up for re-election in 2008. Will his alleged carnality in public restrooms put an end to his career in public life? Idaho conservatives may be willing to reward bigotry, but lying is another matter.

Jamie Kirchick has had a rough debut at the Daily Dish. Now, Scott Horton and Dish co-blogger Steve Clemons have rebuked him for his out-of-the-blue attack on me. Horton and Clemons are leading experts in foreign policy and human rights, and more than that, they are real mensches. I hope Kirchick learns something from them.

Horton has a theory about Kirchick’s motivation:

One other thing really sticks in my mind. Max Blumenthal has been out there busily defending The New Republic from the onslaughts of Bill Kristol and the Weekly Standard over the last two weeks. It looks like Kirchick is giving him repayment in kind. Remind me please: which of these publications is Kirchick actually working for? I think we just found out.

Hateration

I hung out with Andrew Sullivan this year’s CPAC and he has posted my videos on several occasions. He is presently on vacation. One of the people keeping The Daily Dish warm in Sullivan’s absence is Jamie Kirchick, a self-described “homocon” who serves at the pleasure of Marty Peretz. I hear from a TNR source that Kirchick has rewarded his employer by helping web weirdo “Throbert McGee” leak inside information to the Weekly Standard to assist the neocon rag’s swiftboating of “Baghdad Diarist” Scott Thomas Beauchamp.

Now, Kirchick has decided to go after to me for daring to say in my Q&A with the Forward that my videos have been viewed by an audience outside what I described as the “liberal intellectual bubble.” He calls that assertion “laughable.”

But what did I do to earn Kirchick’s wrath? Perhaps Kirchick is angry that Sidney Blumenthal is my father (Kirchick inexplicably quotes Sullivan’s negative review of my father’s book, “The Clinton Wars,” to buttress his attack on me). Maybe he is jealous that my interpretive dance moves so perfectly evoked the brilliance of Jose Limon. Or maybe it’s this. Who knows? For now, all I will say in response to Kerchick — I actually pity him for some reason — is that while I welcome his promotion of my interview, he needs to stop sipping that haterade.

Matt Yglesias was also baffled by Kerchick’s weird post, and takes him to task for poor reading comprehension.

Why My Blogging Will Slow Down Until Next Year

I have made a verbal agreement with Nation Books to author a book for them that will (hopefully) appear next summer, during the height of election season. Our contract has not yet been finalized, but it should be completed shortly.

My book will encapsulate much of the work I have done about the right during the past four or five years. I plan to focus my narrative on the political psychology and underlying culture of the right by revealing how a cult of personal crisis animates the movement’s politics of resentment. Over the years I have encountered countless high-profile right-wing activists whose extreme political behavior was galvanized by the existential crises they suffered. In their attempts to purify the land of sin, they hope to purify their souls as well. For them, conservatism is more than ideology — it is a unique form of self-medication. It is no wonder that the most influential figure in the Christian right, James Dobson, is not a preacher or theologian, but a child psychologist. Dobson understands the cult of personal crisis and has exploited it to his advantage.

I have a short period of time to write this book. This will make it hard for me to keep blogging on a regular basis. It has already been difficult for me to maintain a regular blogging schedule given all the other projects I have taken on. So until next year, this blog will mainly serve as a bulletin board for updates about my work. I won’t be blogging on the news or taking on other projects, so don’t look for any new videos or lengthy articles, though I do plan to continue researching for Media Matters. For those of you who have trafficked my blog since the beginning, back in 2004, or kept up on my reporting and videos, I hope we’ll meet next year at a book event in your town. Until then, check in here for updates.

Federal Funding for GOP S&M

Looks like the White House’s Office of Faith Based and Community Initiatives has been sending your tax dollars to Love Demonstrated Ministries, the evangelical S&M youth camp where a counselor dragged an allegedly lackadaisical teenage girl from a truck. This is from the 2003 White House budget for HHS:

Partnering with Faith-based and Community Organizations

The San Antonio Weed & Seed Coalition consists of 120 community, neighborhood, and law enforcement organizations whose mission is to reduce drug-related crime and victimization. The coalition has helped to reduce crime in San Antonio by 43.5 percent from 1992–2000. One of the coalition partners, Love Demonstrated Ministries (LDMI), is a faith-based organization which focuses on youth offenders, gang members, and high risk youth. Over the past three years, 135 of 165 young offenders entering its Life Skills and Parenting Camp have graduated from LDMI, a success rate of 82 percent.

More GOP S&M

Call me old fashioned, but I thought camp was supposed to be fun:

A San Antonio pastor and an employee of his Christian boot camp were arrested today on aggravated assault charges, accusing them of dragging a girl behind a van after failing to keep up with others during a running exercise.

Investigators with the Nueces County Sheriff’s Office arrested Charles E. Flowers shortly before noon at the Faith Outreach Center in northwest San Antonio, said Brad E. Bailey, a spokesman for the Schertz Police Department.

The department assisted Nueces County authorities in the arrests because some of the camp’s training exercises occur in Schertz.

S&M, OSU Style

A shirt on sale at Operation Straight Up’s website, courtesy of Jonathan Hutson, the man who exposed the Left Behind videogame.

Hutson writes:

And given the Pentagon’s policy of discrimination against gays in the military, it is ironic that the Christian missionary group that they promote sells T-shirts that display what can only be described as homoerotic art. In short, the Pentagon seems to have adopted a new missionary position for the Operation Straight Up Tour and its “Tough-Men Meetings.” Basically, the OSU Tour is promoting a holy war against the alleged enemies of Christ — not unlike, say, a jihad. But there’s a difference: jihad does not come with a homoerotic T-shirt.

Learn more about college Republican values here.

Common Sense 101

From: “Miles L Fisher” Add to Address BookAdd to Address Book Add Mobile Alert
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To: maxblumenthal3000@yahoo.com
Subject: U R A Traitor Jew
Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 16:35:22 -0400

Max Blumenthal,

You are a moron. The Christian Right is the only people in the world supporting the Jews living in Israel . You and the rest of the idiotic leftist blind Jews have the wrong enemy. Why don’t you focus on the real enemy, (THE ISLAMIC JIHADISTS)? You can’t be this stupid can you, or are you another self-hating Jew. Remember, the Islamic Jihadists who want to slit your Jewish throat are the enemy, not Christians like John Hagee who wants to love you.

Billy Bob, the 7th grade drop-out from the rural south understands who the enemy is, why don’t you? Perhaps I should send Billy Bob over to you and teach you, his class is called Common Sense 101.

Miles Fisher

My Q&A With The Forward

Last week I was interviewed by Daniel Treiman of America’s oldest Yiddish-language daily, the Forward. The interview is now up:

How did you wind up starting to make these political videos? What was the impetus behind it?

I’ve been covering the conservative movement, the religious right, the anti-immigration movement for well over four years, and I wanted to show people what it was like doing the work that I do, because so many people had sort of expressed fascination with the idea of just hanging out with people they consider to be intolerable, I guess. These are sort of progressive fans and friends. And so I just wanted to show them what it was like and how interesting and intellectually stimulating it can be, and also how funny it can be to hang around these kinds of conferences.

You said you find covering this beat to be intellectually stimulating, but in the videos people come across, oftentimes, as laughable or ridiculous. Do you find hanging out with the conservatives to be something you enjoy, or do you find it intolerable? Do you find that they make points that make you think?

I suppose when I initially delved into covering the right, it was because I found it so fascinating. I realized that there were so many unacknowledged components of this movement that I could explain to people and try to investigate for myself. It propelled me to go further into the movement. And on my videos I think that there are some subjects who are unintentionally self-satirical and hilarious, and stupid also, brain-dead even. But there are also people who are part of something that fascinates me. For instance, the people on the Christians United for Israel video explaining their eschatology — that’s really interesting, a whole movement that supports Israel because of end-times theology. Also, I find the spectacles that the right produces to be really fascinating. As far as how I feel about it personally, covering this movement and being among people who I deeply disagree with, I guess it doesn’t have that much of a lasting effect on me. I have a pretty short emotional memory.

Have you gotten more response from your videos than you have from your articles on the same topic?

I wrote in 2005 a piece on the College Republican National Convention, and I asked participants the same question. While the reaction was immense, it wasn’t the same. I think for so many people, reading is just such a rigorous mental exercise; they just can’t handle it. They respond much more to my videos. That’s partly why I produced it, to break out of the liberal intellectual bubble that I’ve been working in and that audience that I’ve been writing for. And I think I’ve really broken through. Also, young people have responded more to my videos because they’re like the YouTube generation. And I think it’s difficult to capture the aesthetic of these rallies and conservative conferences in print, and my videos, I think, have captured it perfectly, especially in the case of Christians United for Israel. I’m not comparing this organization or its agenda to fascism, but I think if you read Susan Sontag’s essay on the “fascist aesthetic,” there clearly is a fascist aesthetic to their Night to Honor Israel, which I portrayed in this video.

So I take it from this video that you don’t think that American Jews should ally themselves with these Christian Zionists?

Whatever you think about Israel, whether you’re a Zionist or not, whether you’re a Likudnik or you support Labor or even a more left-wing party, you have to recognize that Israel’s survival depends on a permanent settlement with the Palestinians. And this organization opposes and lobbies against any sort of negotiation with the Palestinians or Israel’s Arab neighbors, and that’s extraordinarily dangerous to Israel’s short-term security and long-term survival. If you look deeper in a moral sense, it’s absolutely immoral for Jews to align themselves with this organization and cynical, because of their theology, which his openly antisemitic and culminates in a battle between what one participant in the conference described as a war between the Christians and the anti-Christians — the anti-Christians encompass Jews, Muslims, Hindus, atheists, anyone who isn’t a born-again Christian, including mainline Christians and Palestinian Christians who’ve lived in Nazareth and Bethlehem since the days of the Apostles. So absolutely, I think it’s cynical and dangerous for Jews to align themselves with this organization and with Christian Zionists. And those who have reflect a level of desperation that I think is really troubling.

In part, this is because American Jews feel spurned by some groups that they had seen — particularly liberal Jews had seen — as their natural allies. For instance, the more liberal mainline churches are seen as unfairly placing the onus on Israel for its conflict with the Palestinians. The Presbyterians had moved forward on a divestment measure, an effort that we’ve seen echoes of in other mainline denominations. And many Jews view the intellectual left or the activist left — including The Nation magazine — as hostile to Israel. So people say, “Well, Jews and Israel should take their friends where they can get them, irrespective of what these friends think is going to happen in the afterlife.” How would you respond to people who say that, who feel because they perceive those on the left as being unfriendly to Israel, they can’t really turn away these people who are coming to them as allies, and as supporters of Israel?

“Being friendly to Israel” is sort of a loaded phrase. It’s a very subjective phrase. And I don’t know how you would define that, “Being friendly to Israel.” But if anyone thinks “being friendly to Israel” means encouraging Israel to take more land, encouraging Israel to expand its illegal settlements in the West Bank, encouraging Israel to ramp up hostilities with its neighbors, then I think those people need to look in the mirror and assess the consequences of their priorities, because these sort of initiatives have very dangerous consequences for Israel’s long-term survival. If they want to be in a permanent state of war, I think Christians United for Israel, those are great allies for Israel, and Christian Zionists in general.

What’s your Jewish background like? Are you involved at all in communal activities or communal activism?

I’m not in the army of God, I’m more in the secret service, which means I go to shul on the High Holy Days, or when I feel like it, sometimes on a Friday, I’ll go. I haven’t gone in quite awhile, because I just haven’t been connected to any element of the Jewish community because I’ve been so transient as a reporter living in so many different cities. But recently I took Hebrew lessons with a Lubavitcher rabbi. I’ve traveled to Israel. I went to Hebrew school, so I have sort of a traditional Reform Jewish background. My faith right now is pretty much dormant — not in the army of God.

Was this video a way of weighing in on an issue that you feel is of import to you specifically as a Jew, the Christians United for Israel video?

It’s a very personal issue. The Christian right and Israel are both issues that are really personal to me. No. 1 because I think the Christian right wants to relegate American Jews to second-class status by removing the Establishment Clause, eroding the First Amendment and smashing the wall of separation. They’ve openly intimidated and attacked Jews who’ve tried to combat their efforts. For instance, Mikey Weinstein, who heads the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, told me he gets dozens of death threats every week for what he’s trying to do — to protect, for instance, his son, a Jewish cadet in the Air Force Academy, from Evangelical proselytization. And the fact that they’ve allied themselves with Israel is just extremely dangerous, because I care about what happens with Israel, and I care deeply about the Palestinians. And I think our history as Jews now, because of Zionism, is inextricably linked with that of the Palestinians. I really want to see a settlement. So this organization and this movement of Christian Zionism personally troubles me a lot, and I think it should trouble not only Jews, but anyone who wants to see some sort of a peaceful resolution to what’s happening across the Middle East.

Are the videos going to be your new focus? Are you still going to be doing journalism? Or, given the great response the videos have received, do you think you’re going to be moving more in that direction in the future?

I’m actually going to be writing a book that’s either going to appear during or after the election about the culture and political psychology of the right, and that’s where I’m going to be putting my energy this year. And if there’s any room to do videos, I’m going to continue to do them. But I have nothing planned, and I think because people recognize me so much, I might have to wear, like, a John Edwards wig and a Geraldo mustache to get into the next conference.

You grew up in the thick of things politically. How has that affected your outlook?

I grew up in Washington and saw things from the inside. It’s had a profound effect on me. No. 1, I don’t have any reverence for powerful people or influential people. I just see them as my equal. I can even see through the veneer they put up. At the same time, there was a period in my life when I wanted to divorce myself from politics and from Washington. But when Bush was elected, a lot of the things that my father had written and that he had told me about the conservative movement started to ring true, and I started to understand why he had pursued this career and also who the forces were that tried to destroy him. During the Clinton scandals, I just saw it as a dirty business that I wanted no part of. I just wanted to stay away from the personal destruction of it. But when these forces that tried to destroy Clinton came into power, it was really illuminating for me. That’s partly what propelled me into journalism. But not all of what propelled me into it. I just love reporting. I love the craft and the process of it. So that’s the main reason why I do this