Saturday, May 26, 2007

Corpse And Memory Hole, Yglesias Style

All of that said, I think that Yglesias ends up being partially right (even though he doesn't mean to be) when he lays the lawlessness in Gaza at Bush's feet. The sad truth is that Gaza today is a testament to the failure of the entire 14-year project of creating the Palestinian Authority, retrieving Arafat from exile, and attempting to drag the Arabs of Palestine, against their will, into western political modernity. This process was started, and most forcefully pushed forward, by the Clinton administration, and today its corpse is still being dragged around the Middle East, Weekend at Bernie's-style, by Condoleezza Rice.

Readers might be surprised to hear -- Mr. Yglesias probably among them -- that less than a year ago, Yglesias wrote the following: "I happen to think the White House made the right call on the question of Palestinian elections -- even in retrospect, even knowing that Hamas won."