Back on March 25th, we asked the non-musical question: Is anyone sadder than David Sirota?
Last week provided a definite answer: Yes. And his name is David Sirota.
Oh, it's not the David Sirota who saw conspiracies afoot, the David Sirota who (unintentionally) slimed US Rep Lynn Woolsey by suggesting anyone who said that amendments would not be allowed to the Pelosi measure was nuts. (In fairness, nuts or people who just need something to complain about.) It's a new kind of Sirota. And it's actually sadder than Sirota 1.o.
For the record, we never got so many e-mails from independent media 'names' as we did when we called out Sirota. We think that's partly due to his faux populism and also because who else was calling him out? Howard Zinn wrote a powerful, amazing piece and it laid it all out precisely. So imagine our shock and sadness when one writer (for a publication we like so we'll not name it this time) attempted to offer the kind of 'balance' The New York Times traffics in and offered that both Sirota and Zinn were right and wrong. No, dear, they weren't both wrong and they weren't both right. Zinn was right, Sirota was wrong. Quit trying to have it both ways (and do it again and we'll call you and the magazine on its shit loudly and clearly).
That's the way it worked. Zinn, one of the most respected voices of our times, one of the most passionate, powerful and thoughtful poured his heart into an essay that cut straight to the heart of the matter and publicly independent media either ignored it or tried to play "Well, they're both right!" (Publicly. In e-mails to this site, there was no such waffling.) Who the hell is David Sirota that so many appear to live in fear of him?
We don't run scared. We had no problem that the campaign he praised for tricking voters into thinking a progressive candidate wasn't that progressive was a campaign that he failed to note he worked on. We had no problem calling out that shit for what it was, an effort to put one over on the voters and then to brag about it.
The Pelosi measure (in March) was laughable but everyone and their dog (and its fleas) were telling you it meant troops home! It didn't. It was nonbinding and toothless. (One of the many points Zinn had no trouble powerfully calling attention to.) But while Sirota was screaming "conspiracy!" and distorting reality, he rushed to caution:
Say the binding anti-war language gets eliminated or weakened to allow the President to get out of it. That is a possibility. But it does not negate my position that progressives should vote "yes" because remember - if that happens, then we have a chance to stop it by voting down the conference report because the conference report (aka. the final bill) comes back for a final vote before being sent to the President's desk.
As we asked then, "We"? Sirota's not serving in Congress and has never been elected to it. (He's a toilet scrubber. If he learns to be a good house pet, he can do task for years, otherwise he'll be out within six.)
As he realized too late, his faux populism was hanging out, he quickly pulled up his pants and spent the next several weeks attempting to shore up those faux roots in column after column. Last week came the Democratic Cave. (Actually Cave II: The Sequel.)
And where was Sad Sirota? Was he arguing that the Democrats should have been forced to come out (in March) with a bill much stronger than was provided so something would be left after the expected compromise? No, he wasn't. The Common Ills argued that and curiously so did The Notion shortly afterwards. "Curiously" not due to the similar strand of thought (which no one owns a patent on) but "curiously" because The Nation actually elected to sit it out when the Dems caved in March (John Nichols was an exception). But all the sudden, The Notion had an opinion! Even more "curious" when you consider the weak ass editorial The Nation ran on Cave I: We Sell Out The People. (In the May 21st issue, in an unsigned editorial entitled "Showdown on the War" -- they love their manly titles -- the magazine was firmly behind the weak ass Pelosi and Reid measures and declaring, "In the face of crude and dishonest Administration-driven attacks, Pelosi and Reid must not back down. To blink now would put Democratic leaders on a road to future admissions of a mistake as serious as Gephardt's -- ane every" blah blah blah. It was too much then for them to call it out. So glad they showed up after the fact with the courage momentarily intact.)
We really don't demand a hair shirt, honest. But as Carly Simon once sang, "What about some good old dishonest modesty?" (Another Passenger.) Sirota seemed to have learned a lesson even as everyone attempted to look the other way while his faux populism stuck out of his fly. Maybe his attempts at remarketing weren't false? Maybe he realized how far from populism he was?
We'd give the benefit of the doubt were it not for last week's nonsense. While we didn't expect to see Sirota give himself a public flogging, we also didn't expect to see him jerking off in the public square while he talked dirty to himself: "Now, though, it seems at least some major news organizations have caught on that I was exactly right." Oh please.
"Shower the people you love with love" translates to Sirota as some form of "I Sing the Body Electric." And it's sure not pretty. In that column posted May 25th, he concludes:
This is what we're dealing with folks. A party that runs to the press to brag about the brilliance of using their majority not to end the war, but to create a situation that makes it seem as if they oppose the war, while actually helping Republicans continue it.
Well lots of "folks" knew that back in March back when Sirota was the first to run and brag over the Democrats not using their majority to end the war. That's all the Pelsoi and Reid measures did -- not end the war. To cite only one example, by declaring every US service member in Iraq "military police," Bully Boy didn't have to bring even one service member back to the United States. There was nothing in those measures that enforced troop withdrawal. What was in the measures, what, in fact, was still in what passed last week and was signed by the Bully Boy was a call for the privatization of Iraq's oil. If you're wondering why Sirota didn't brag about being "exactly right" about that, it's because he's never addressed it. He knows damn well what was in last week's bill and what was in the Pelosi and Reid measures. He was just too busy in March essaying the role of Party Hack to tell anyone about that.
In fairness, he may also have failed to note it because he appears to have as big an oil lust as the administration as evidenced by his personal war on Hugo Chavez. Or maybe just too busy attempting to pass himself off as Lloyd in Say Anything? He strikes us more as Joe but let him self-cast as he may. We do feel Say Anything would be a great title for a documentary on Sirota.
He was "exactly right"? Well Judith Miller has argued she was "proved f*cking right" and the world does need more laughs.
It also needs reality. All the posers pretending last March, slice yourselves off a piece of the Blame Pie, you've earned it. And be sure to leave a slice for Sirota.
I don't want to bum it all
But this axe, she's got to fall
Even it, come on, even it, even it up.
-- Ann Wilson, Nancy Wilson, Sue Ennis (then going by "Susan"), "Even It Up," first appears on Heart's Bebe le Strange.