Tikun Olam-תיקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

Pages

• Home
• Photo Gallery
• Advertising
• Comment Rules
• Subscribe to Posts (per post)
• Tikun Olam Store
• Donate
• Subscribe (daily digest)
• Contact
• About
• Monthly archives
• Terms of Use

12 Responses to “Charles Johnson, Political Baal Teshuva?”

1. Mary says:

   December 2, 2009 at 7:15 AM

   So now what’s Charles to do? Will he ask Helena Cobban for a job?

   I liked Dennis the Peasant’s analysis. I agree with it because I’ve seen a lot of these right-wing phonies as nothing more than political opportunists who have no principles of their own. The term “political whore” comes to mind.

   Reply
2. Gene Schulman says:

   December 2, 2009 at 9:41 AM

   Wake up everybody. The last sentence in the above reply applies also to Obama.

   Reply
3. fiddler says:

   December 2, 2009 at 9:48 AM

   When did Benny Morris have a “change of heart, abandon [his] own political and moral infirmities, and come on over to our side?” I must’ve missed that.
   Unlike many others he hasn’t allowed his ideology to mar his science, which is honourable by me, but that doesn’t make him a progressive or liberal, not even a liberal Zionist.

   Reply
   • Shirin says:

     December 2, 2009 at 11:45 AM

     I think you missed the key word there. Richard referred to a “a reverse-Benny Morris-like change of heart”. Get it?

     I agree with you about Benny Morris’s academic integrity – up to a point. His internpretation and analysis of the documentation and facts he exposed so thoroughly and so well has suffered enormously from is ideological leanings. Even as he has meticulously described and documented ethnic cleansing, he has felt compelled to insist that it was something else.

     And by the way, Benny Morris has not generally been known as a nice guy.

     Reply
     • fiddler says:

       December 2, 2009 at 2:55 PM

       Oops, you’re right, I missed the “r” word.
       I didn’t (and wouldn’t) say he was a nice guy though.

       Reply
       • Shirin says:

         December 2, 2009 at 3:09 PM

         No, I know you didn’t say he was a nice guy. I just decided to add that bit of “inside” information. I had a little bit of contact with him once upon a time, and he was OK, but some Israeli friends of mine were not as fortunate. One of them was a fresh-faced HS student at the time, and he was really, really awful toward him.

         Reply
4. Cody says:

   December 2, 2009 at 8:27 PM

   When Charles Johnson was on the “right,” he acted fairly horribly toward his opponents, especially those who opposed the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and those who expressed any sort of sympathy for the Palestinians. Charles Johnson is a dishonest hack, regardless of what side of the political spectrum he now finds himself on (he bounces to and fro like a tennis ball).

   Reply
   • Richard Silverstein says:

     December 2, 2009 at 9:16 PM

     It does remind me a bit of the woman who has an affair with a married man & then marries him. Who’s to say he won’t cheat again & leave the 2nd wife? Johnson was, if you can believe his own statements, a liberal turned neocon & now turned independent. When the wind blows in a new direction what’s to stop him fr. blowing with it?

     Reply
5. DICKERSON3870 says:

   December 3, 2009 at 12:12 AM

   RE: “Frankly, I’m so astonished I don’t know what to say (about Johnson’s conversion).” – RS

   MY COMMENT: Johnson seems to have had a real “come to Jesus moment”. (lol) Seriously though, he and Sullivan seem to have ‘snapped out of it’ without the need for formal “deprogramming”. That’s a good “sign”.
   Until a few years ago, I considered myself a moderate Republican. Then I was “mugged by reality”. Or was I mugged by ‘unreality’? I’m not certain; it happened so suddenly. PTSD?

   Reply
6. Shirin says:

   December 3, 2009 at 8:57 AM

   Based on my admittedly very limited direct exposure to LFG (I don’t voluntarily wallow in cesspools), it seems to me that Johnson should have included his own website in the list of examples for 1,2,7, 8, and most particularly 9. Maybe it’s just me, but I thought he was part of the very gang he now so roundly condemns.

   Reply
   • Richard Silverstein says:

     December 3, 2009 at 12:33 PM

     Exactly right. He was one of the most popular & therefore most pernicious of the Islamophobes. That’s why it’s hard for me to accept his supposed political conversion.

     Reply
     • Mary says:

       December 3, 2009 at 12:52 PM

       Maybe he’ll just go away. That would be good. He could open a car wash.

       Reply