On Wednesday, the Washington Times ran an editorial slamming Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) for his “appalling refusal to condemn Hezbollah” in a recent interview, and for his vote against House Resolution 921, which supported Israel while condemning Hezbollah.
The paper, echoing a post from the right-wing blog Powerline, which ran a clip of the interview, quotes Dingell as saying, “I don’t take sides for or against Hezbollah; I don’t take sides for or against Israel.” Asked if he wasn’t “against Hezbollah,” Mr. Dingell replied, “No.”
On first blush, it sounds like a pretty open and shut case. Only problem is, as ThinkProgress (the blog of the progressive think tank Center for American Progress) pointed out, by ending the clip at the word “No,” both Powerline and the Times so briefly excerpted Dingell’s quote that he is left appearing to say the exact opposite of what he really said. The full quote:
Q: You’re not against Hezbollah?
DINGELL: No, I happen to be — I happen to be against violence, I think the United States has to bring resolution to this matter. Now, I condemn Hezbollah as does everybody else, for the violence.
It’s as if you were quoted as saying, “I’d like to boil my cat,” when in fact what you said was, “I’d like to boil my cat’s tormentors.”
This morning, the Times offers an apology for the lame editing decision, while somehow sticking to its original conclusion. The paper writes that it had “unintentionally omitted Mr. Dingell’s full answer” and “We regret not having been aware of and thus not including Mr. Dingell’s complete answer in yesterday’s editorial. However, we stand by our conclusion that Mr. Dingell’s refusal to denounce Hezbollah is appalling.”
According to the Times‘ logic then, to “condemn” Hezbollah (the word Dingell used) is not the same as to “denounce” Hezbollah. And therefore the Times‘ willful perversion of Dingell’s point is A-okay — or, at worst, merely the result of having a non-existent fact-checking department.
Powerline, similarly, is refusing to give up. In a post — which it has been repeatedly updating — it tries to defend its dishonest partial quote. They write: “The excerpt was emailed to me by a reader; I considered the possibility that it might be misleading because of something that came before or after. I concluded, however, that Dingell had plainly declared himself neutral between the state of Israel and the terrorist group Hezbollah, and that nothing that preceded or followed could change that disgusting fact.”
This alleged neutrality, friends, is called diplomacy — something in short supply inside the Beltway (and even more so inside the conservative blogosphere) these days. It seems obvious to even the most casual reader that when Dingell (or anyone else) says he condemns Hezbollah’s use of violence, he’s also condemning Hezbollah. After all, if it wasn’t for its use of indiscriminate violence against civilians, what would Hezbollah be? Just another Middle Eastern political party making noise about Israeli “aggression.” It’s the violence that sets the group apart, and it’s the violence that makes it a terrorist organization. And Dingell criticized the use of violence, and by logical extension Hezbollah itself, while hoping for an American-mediated solution.
Now, we understand what Powerline and the Times are getting at. They’re angry that Dingell offered up the apparently outrageous comment that the United States “must be a fair and honest broker and a friend to all parties” — instead of sitting back in his easy chair and watching placidly as the violence spirals out of control, which is what the Times and Powerline alike have been doing concerning Iraq since March 2003.
And why not? As long as other people are doing the fighting, it’s easy for keyboard jockeys safe and sound back home to play the part of the tough guy.
Paul McLeary is a former CJR staff writer. Since 2008, he has covered the Pentagon for Foreign Policy, Defense News, Breaking Defense, and other outlets. He is currently a defense reporter for Politico.