• axont [she/her, comrade/them]
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    edit-2
    2 years ago

    Isikoff was the guy who broke the story about Clinton/Lewenski and about Abu Ghraib, so you'd think he's an informed insider who knows how the imperialism gears are oiled. He should know better. Except in this interview he sounds identical to some goofy Russiagate Twitter liberal. He's got nothing. He can't conceive of any alternative, like that moment he's like "I assume Elizabeth Warren is your second pick."

    I've been trying to figure out for a while if DC liberals are purely cynical or if they really believe they're saving the world. I think Isikoff is somehow both.

    • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
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      2 years ago

      He can’t conceive of any alternative, like that moment he’s like “I assume Elizabeth Warren is your second pick.”

      I mean, in a saner world she would be, because she and Sanders would be working hand-in-hand to advance the policies they both claim to espouse. If you just kinda take what everyone says at face value, then sure - ranking the candidates puts Warren roughly behind Sanders.

      But Warren's not working hand-in-hand with Sanders. And these aren't people with an equivalent amount of credibility who are just working at adjacent points on the political spectrum.

      I’ve been trying to figure out for a while if DC liberals are purely cynical or if they really believe they’re saving the world.

      If you spend your whole life doing something, I have to assume you either become a cynical turd about it or you build up some kind of fantasy about your self-importance. Because otherwise why wouldn't you just fuck off to the Hamptons as soon as you had a big enough pile of money?

    • mittens [he/him]
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      2 years ago

      Matt thought the same, that he was going to get creamed by a seasoned pundit

    • Judge_Juche [she/her]
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      edit-2
      2 years ago

      Isikoff and Corn wrote the definitive book on how the Bush administration manufactured the Iraq war, Hubris in 2006. It was a legitimately ground breaking book becuase war fever was only just beginning to break and not many mainstream journalists were prepared to say the pretext for war was completely fabricated.

      Isikoff also did a lot of good reporting on Gitmo and torture during the war on terror as well. Its genuinely disappointing, and emblematic, that he abandoned all of that to become an Obama admin cheerleader and then went all in on Russiagate.

      • axont [she/her, comrade/them]
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        2 years ago

        That's why I'm so perplexed by him. Is it the old "no one is immune to propaganda"? Did he just get old? Did he smell where the blood in the water was and hopped on board with mainstream liberals?

        Basically I don't want to end up like this guy and it frightens me to think I might

        • KingPush [he/him]
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          2 years ago

          They've spent their entire lives within that framework, and they're old as shit. So they can critique the inefficiencies of the empire, but ultimately it must exist.

    • emizeko [they/them]
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      2 years ago

      He is the co-author with David Corn of the book titled Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin's War on America and the Election of Donald Trump, published on March 13, 2018

      • aaaaaaadjsf [he/him, comrade/them]
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        edit-2
        2 years ago

        Wonder what he thinks of the CIA run anti Russian bot army that's happening right now. Is that the USA interfering in other countries elections, foreign policy and political struggle?

    • Blottergrass [he/him]
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      edit-2
      2 years ago

      I’ve been trying to figure out for a while if DC liberals are purely cynical or if they really believe they’re saving the world. I think Isikoff is somehow both.

      I think it really comes down to the media they consume. If you've only gotten your news/political content from TV and newspapers, and also stopped trying in the 90s when you were in your 30s and had "established yourself", then nothing has really changed. They still think politics is one or two west wing gotcha-remarks away from fixing america's problems.

    • Huldra [they/them, it/its]
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      edit-2
      2 years ago

      Like a lib Glenn Greenwald, you'd think he knows better and then he goes out posting shit about how the US establishment hates and fears Bolsonaro and prefers Lula.