Kurt Andersen slams Kossacks in NY Magazine

On the cover of this weeks New York Magazine (NYM) there is a teaser that says "Kurt Andersen on why liberals hate good news." Here is a link to the article La Vie en Morose

While I enjoy NYM I often find it kind of obnoxious. If you read it enough you start to think something is wrong with you if you aren't helping your kids brush up on their studies for entry into the best pre-school, or if your kids aren't on 12 different psychotropic medications. However they are usually pretty progressive.

What annoys me about this article is that Andresen says he wants progressives to win, but then opines about how we have to ignore "good news" e.g. "The Surge is Working". Its bad enough when you have to listen to Lou Dobbs blathering right wing talking points, but to see this guy get it so wrong really pisses me off

Andersen says,

How strange it is, then, that among the many dozens of posts on Daily Kos during the past two weeks there was only one citing this major and, for antiwar activists, inconvenient turn of events. No mention of or link to the Times piece, but simply an opportunity to rant once again about Joe Lieberman. Shouldn’t the online headquarters of the Democratic left be chewing over the issue like crazy, if not admitting they may have been mistaken about the surge then at least trying to figure out how to deal with the possible domestic political impact of the new facts on the ground? It seems like willful obliviousness, childish and slightly cowardly—not unlike hard-core Republicans’ four-year-long circle-the-wagons refusal to face the facts about the rest of the misbegotten war.

Its obvious that Andersen like Matt Bai doesn't spend alot of time at DKos.

It stuck out at me because I started a thread talking about the issue
on November 23rd that included a link to the times article

OK I guess I can't expect Kurt to read every openthread but he could do a little "RESEARCH" Now I'm just a dumb old blogger in slippers and a bathrobe, but I do know how to type "Success of the Surge" into the search function.

Lookie here!

Iraq and Afghanistan War Surge Hokey Pokey WH attempts to Obscure the War Failures by stevenlesser

Coincidentally, the Iraq surge, which has temporarily reduced violence levels in Iraq but failed in its primary purpose, providing a respite so a political solution could be enacted, totaled 30,000 troops. These troops will now likely need to be redeployed to Afghanistan to provide a surge in the worsening situation there. No, no one has come forth and said any of this yet, but the Bush administration is not going to have a choice. Either they can cede Afghanistan to the Taliban or they will have to send the additional troops.

You can also look here,here,here,here,here,and here.

just because you don't accept the conventional wisdom GOP Propaganda doesn't mean you are ignoring the issue.

OK... so maybe a search engine is beyond Mr. Andersen's capability. He could have at least looked at what the Front Pagers have written. Again without really trying all that hard here is.

Expectations and Delusions in Iraq and Afghanistan from DHinMI

Then he goes on to say.

Yet ... aren’t we pleased, too, that the Israelis and Palestinians are restarting negotiations, that the U.S. seems seriously engaged, that the Arab League and Syria came to grant their imprimatur? And in the unlikely event that the jump-started peace process actually does produce a treaty a year from now, with credit going to this administration for making it happen, won’t we and even the Kos mob welcome it as a miraculous world-historical achievement? It’s arguable that such an outcome, if it were to affect the 2008 election, would help Democrats—by reducing the general geopolitical fear factor and reminding Americans that diplomacy can actually work. But even then ... some celebrations of the news would be grudging. There are still those on the left, after all, whose pleasure over the end of the Cold War is tainted by the fact that Ronald Reagan helped make it happen.

You know Kos mob = Angry out of touch liberals.

Hey Kurt - News Flash the New York Times, CNN, and the rest of the corporate media (now apparently including New York Magazine) are the enablers of the GOP reign that you say you want to end. If you really want to help the progressive movement and make your job easier spend a little time actually READING DKos, and then just paraphrase the salient points for your column - you know like Jon Stewart and Keith O do.