The world’s longest job application had its second instalment today, with Niall Ferguson’s latest piece for Newsweek bagging President Obama.
Followers of the brilliant, hardworking, lunatic British historian may remember his piece “Hit the Road Barack“, a purported excoriation of the President’s record, which itself earnt a firestorm of criticism for errors and obvious misinterpretation. Newsweek, an increasingly desperate publication yoked to online daily The Daily Beast, wasn’t keen on issuing clarifications and corrections, and Ferguson has now doubled-down on that piece with a foreign affairs overview “The President Fiddles As The World Burns“.
It’s the same mixture of half-truth and outright lies — Obama quit Iraq (no, the Iraqis wouldn’t consent to continued bases), refuses to consent to an Israeli pre-emptive strike (which even ex-heads of Mossad say is crazy) and “fiddles while Syria burns” (as opposed to doing what, precisely?). It rises to a fine pitch of frustration in the final passage:
“The president who was once a foreign-policy neophyte now makes much of his experience. That claim depends heavily on a program of targeted assassination that liberals would have denounced if it had been pursued by his predecessor.”
Well, liberals do denounce the drone policy — but more interestingly conservatives don’t approve what, under Bush, they would have applauded as “dealing with our enemies”.
Ferguson’s rather plaintive appeal to Mitt Romney to get his act together is all the more desperate given the Mittster’s unforced balls-up of the Embassy burning. But the disaster is not Mitt’s alone. Ferguson’s desire for to be a consigliere to American power has been naked on display for years — only to be thwarted by, of all people, a black half-Kenyan, who allegedly banished a bust of Churchill (who killed thousands of Kenyans) from the White House.
Since Ferguson’s rosy view of empire was borne of a couple of years of childhood spent in … Kenya, post-independence, but still in the imperial afterglow, the fact that he may be shut out of power for another four years by the grandson of a Mau-Mau sympathiser has plainly sent the poor man mad.
As an added bonus, the magazine has a lead feature by Ferguson’s current partner Ayaan Hirsi Ali which is, amazingly, mostly about Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
Enjoy.
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Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Because there’s nothing the right respects more than the opinions of black Muslim women.
Niall Fergusion and cartoon character John Archer – compare and contrast.
(Something I wrote at the time of his Hit the Road piece:)
Ferguson has some heavy maintenance dues for his positions at Harvard Biz School, Hoover Institute, LSE, Barsanti (UN Texas) and GLG hedgefund to just name a few. He has about three regular news column gigs so it seems he has spread himself so thin the inevitable happens–grotesque errors of fact and interpretation/judgement.
I am loathe to make comparisons with Christopher Hitchens but it’s there. Something about Brits with big intellects and egos and sharp tongue (esp. Oxford types) eventually succumbing to the naked pursuit of power across the pond. What would have the younger Hitch said about his older self at the point he joined the Hoover Institute? (Well, at least Kissinger isn’t a member. … is he?) It was a bit sad to see Hitch since he embraced the Iraq war and kept doubling down. But he had a lifetime of goodwill to draw upon. But Ferguson doesn’t and now he has truly burned any bridges, and become ridiculous. Worse for him, he is on the losing side (though I suppose he figures he will be eagerly sought by the Rightards during another 4 years of Obama, perhaps he is thinking more of 2016 as there seems no end to his ambition; who knows, who cares?).
Another lunatic neocon.
I had forgotten this gem with which Ferguson finished his article:
“I was a good loser four years ago. But this year, fired up by the rise of Ryan, I want badly to win.”
It reminds me of his other priceless remark, of boasting of being converted to Thatcherism when at Oxford because “….they were obviously the coolest dudes in college”!
Did he mean David Cameron, Boris Johnson and George Osborne?
Inexplicably the old IronLady handbagger seduced these Oxford types (famously including Hitchens) though years later Oxford, after popular outcry from students and staff, withdrew their offer of a honorary doctorate to her.