Iran-Contra Figure Can’t Follow Straightforward Blog Post on Rendition
If you factor out the self-awareness, Michael Ledeen is to neoconservatism what Kathy Griffin is to fame. How a man who helped arrange arms sales to the Iranian government and who now has imaginary conversations in public with dead spies can be published for money might explain a great deal about the intellectual collapse of the right, but not even the Bush administration, which gave the likes of Doug Feith senior positions, would bring Ledeen to the party through the front door. At the moment he doesn’t understand a post that Hilzoy wrote about rendition:
“„An author I don’t know, writing at The Washington Monthly, argues that “rendition” would not permit CIA to transfer terrorists to foreign countries that practice torture. I hope he’s right, and I’ll try to follow it, although it’s not at all easy. Anyway, thanks to an alert reader who was kind enough to call my attention to the article.
The post is actually pretty straightforward. The Los Angeles Times printed a wobbly story on renditions and Hilzoy — who’s a woman, by the way — carefully went through the problems with it. It’s not hard to understand, but it’s certainly long. Maybe she could have used a famous dead person as a literary marionette to reaffirm her particular viewpoint with an added and unearned authority.
Smarter, please.
