So far so good. I've managed to post daily for a full week now -- and during my busiest time of year at work, even. I still don't like the short posts as much as the long posts, but that was never really the question.

When I started this experiment, I worried that shorter, more frequent posting would tempt me toward discussing gossipy political issues destined to become irrelevant within days, or traffic-directing blogging where I provide a link and say, "Go read this."

Tonight, I'm going to do both. The latest buzz in the political campaign is that one of Obama's foreign policy advisors is anti-semitic. I heard whisperings on some of the blogs I read, but I paid little attention at first. What caught my interest is when, commenting on a post on my brother-blog Done with Mirrors, someone whom I have a lot of respect for said, "Obama has yet another problem. His newest advisor blames American Jews for war in the Middle East. Not Israelis. American Jews."

The advisor in question is Merrill "Tony" McPeak. Gen McPeak is a former Air Force chief of staff. In past campaigns he has supported Howard Dean and John Kerry. He is clearly a devoted Democrat, which I sort of am. He is just as clearly a devoted believer in using America's superior military force to project power across the globe, which I'm pretty emphatically not, so it's inevitable I'm not going to like everything he says.

If this mini-scandal goes like most of them do, it will quickly travel far from what Gen McPeak actually says and will devolve instead into shallow bickering between advocates of preconceived notions. Stories will be written about other stories so that it takes on a life of its own. This is already happening. As far as I can tell, the commenter whose post I read drew his impression from a story at ynet news, which was based on an opinion column in American Spectator, which cited an interview Gen McPeak gave to the Oregonian newspaper.

Soon this trail will be obscured, too. Even the Spectator column, which everyone is still arguing about, is no longer being linked. Before long every story you read will be commentary on other stories, and no one will care what the guy actually said.

If I'm going to play traffic cop, I'm at least going to direct my readers to the source. If you're reading along on whatever your favorite blog is, and you step into a mudfight about how Obama should deal with new demands that he denounce his advisor who blames Israel for war in the Middle East, just say no.

Forget about whether Clinton operatives are to blame for circulating the rumors. That's stupid trivia, and it doesn't matter. It does matter what Gen McPeak believes and whether Obama agrees with it. For that, read Gen McPeak's words yourself.

The Oregonian interview is here. It's long, but it's interesting.

Read it first. Then decide if you think it is fair to summarize Gen McPeak's views, as Spectator columnist Robert M Goldberg does, like this:

Me, I don't particularly like McPeak's views (though his ideas on the strategic value of legitimacy are interesting), but I think Goldberg's characterization of those views is a ridiculous caricature.

11:41:29 PM  [permalink]  comment []