Richard Perle Blames His Failure On The Negroes
I get letters:One of America’s best-known neoconservatives, Richard Perle, doubts we will see much foreign-policy change in Obama’s Oval Office. This is because responsibility for the failures of the last eight years lies with the State Department, not neoconservative plots in the White House. Please join us on Thursday, February 19, 2009, for a discussion of the future of neocon ideology based on Perle’s article from the January/February issue of The National Interest, “Ambushed on the Potomac.” A lunch reception will run from 12 to 12:15 pm; the meeting will start promptly at 12:30 pm and end no later than 2 pm.
The event will be held in the conference room of 1615 L St., NW, Suite 1250. Please RSVP by replying to this email. For additional information, please call [underpaid conservative stooge] at 202-xxx-xxxx. We regret this invitation is nontransferable.
All best,
Justine A. Rosenthal
Editor, The National Interest
My reply (yes, of course I really sent it):Dear Justine,
Unless you pay me north of $10,000 to attend, you won't catch me dead in the same room with Richard Perle.
Love,
tristero
(I know, I know. But there’s a recession on and I thought I’d give them a break on my usual fee to attend neocon blather-fests. And yes, we know what I am, we're just haggling about the price.)
Now, if you think the title to this post is some kind of joke or hyperbole,if you think Powell and Rice's race don't figure in Perle's blaming State for his crimes, then you don’t know Richard Perle, or the kind of sleazebags he hangs with and who ran this country into the ground over the past eight years. The average dung beetle deserves more respect for its opinions on foreign policy than Richard Perle (in fact, a lot more).
Perle's loyalty to the US was first called into serious question during the Reagan administration when he was caught putting Israel's interests above America's. He further demonstrated his disloyalty to the US, or at least his incredibly poor judgment, by befriending one Ahmad Chalabi, whose embezzling, serial lying and fugitive status was well-known to everyone in government circles. It appears, furthermore, that Chalabi was something close to a double agent acting in Iran’s interests. For years, Perle was smoochy-smoochy with Chalabi, and Perle was among those eagerly angling to install this thief and international criminal as the replacement for Saddam Hussein once Iraq was conquered. Perle, of course, was also the man who famously said there’d be monuments to George W. Bush in town squares throughout Iraq. Most unforgivably, Richard Perle is responsible for formulating and advocating a policy that has directly led to the deaths of more Americans than died on 9/11 as well as hundreds of thousands - if not a million - Iraqis.
Okay, you say, Richard Perle may care more about Israel’s survival than American and Iraqi lives - Okay, you say, Richard Perle may be personally complicit in the planning of the unspeakable and completely avoidable outrage of the unprovoked invasion and wanton destruction of Iraq.* But hey! Perle's no racist. That's going too far, tristero! It’s just sheer coincidence that Perle is blaming an African-American-run State Department for the failures of his screwball ideas.
Well, if you think so, let's set you straight right away about the kind of people the neocons and their pals are. Most of them - Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and so on - would never dare say in public what Richard Perle’s BFF, Norman Podhoretz, actually once wrote about blacks. It’s disgusting to read, but you can bet your bippy NoPod's friends think his racist rant was thoughtful, brave, and needed to be discussed at their numerous dinner parties or barbies (the neocons like to hang out together; nobody else likes them). Oh yeah, Perle certainly signs on to Podhoretz's sick negrophobia, not to mention the racial inferiority theories of that paragon of conservative racism, William F. Buckley, Jr. (As for what neocons and their pals say of Arabs and other Muslims, let's not even begin to go there.)
Let’s get real about the neocons and their extended family, folks. They are positively obsessed with race and racism. It's not just their own admissions of racism, they project it onto others. If you dare to criticize a neocon, then, well... you don’t risk being called an anti-semite: you will be called an anti-semite. And they’ve pulled that garbage again and again. Just ask Eric Alterman. And Matt Yglesias.
Or rather than a self-hating Jew, Richard Perle will call you a terrorist, as he did the brave and brilliant Sy Hersh. (BTW, Perle threatened to sue Hersh for libel because Hersh published the truth about him. Of course, Perle chickened out, as he did from military service during Vietnam.)
Now you may have noticed that there are no links to back up any of the accusations I’ve made against Richard Perle. That is intentional. Why is that, you ask? Why have I broken with a sacred blog convention, and one I happen to passionately believe in? Simple: I don’t waste my time engaging with traitorous, dishonest, cowardly, racist murderers. You don’t believe what I’ve said about Perle is true? Everything I assert is exactly one Google-click away so go ahead, look it up. And if you do, I hope afterward you have the moral character to feel ashamed of yourself for giving a worthless scoundrel like Perle such a huge benefit of a doubt. I assure you, Perle never would be so generous. Just take a look at his encounter with Josh Marshall in late 2003 or early ’04. Perle all but accused Josh - Josh! - of treason.
The very notion that the State Department failed with Bush/ Iraq and not the cabal - their word, not mine - of neocons in Defense who thought up the batshit crazy idea of invading Iraq in the first place, is ludicrous. If such idiotic notions were advanced by someone with far more credibility than Perle - although I can’t think of anyone with more credibility who would blame State instead of the neocons for the disaster of Bush/Iraq - it would still be beneath notice, not worth the breath or internet storage space to argue over.
And to think there actually once was a time that Josh Marshall felt it somehow would be worthwhile to go to AEI and actually debate this piece of racist scum! Hopefully Perle will crawl back France, where he owns a house, and, as Groucho once famously said, never darken our towels again. Richard Perle is an object of contempt; he deserves scorn and humiliation, and should never again be dignified by intellectual engagement. Did you know Perle once co-wrote a book called "The End of Evil?" Anatol Lieven called the title "insane." He was right.
*Does this shrill, hysterical language offend you? Have I no feelings of sympathy, of shared humanity with Richard Perle? Well, no. You haven't heard Perle respond to the most mild-mannered criticism; he knows absolutely no limits to his hate. This man has no business whatsoever having any influence over anyone. Don't believe me? Go ahead, check him out. The last I heard Google was free.
Special note: Of course, I'm not saying that either Powell or Rice's State Department was terrific. In fact, just the opposite. But for someone to blame State instead of the neocons for the disaster of Iraq is simply ridiculous. And, I believe, given Perle's entire history and milieu, it's a racist thing to do.
Special note #2: While I do believe that Richard Perle has demonstrated that he would willingly sacrifice an uncountable number of American and Iraqi lives in order to guarantee Israel's existence, that does not mean that I think Richard Perle's ideas about Israel are any good. Remember: modern conservatives, especially neo-conservatives, are wrong about everything. If Israel is stupid enough to listen to the likes of Richard Perle - and it looks like they are about elect his pal Netanyahu - then I truly worry about Israel's future, and the fate of all the innocents who will be caught up in the catastrophe.