I just had the displeasure of reading a post at HuffPo in which Alan "Keeping OJ Free" Dershowitz shamefully says that those who worked to defeat Chas Freeman's nomination to the National Intelligence Council:
should be praised for an act of high patriotism
Of course he hides behind Freeman's views on China to mask his true outrage about (gasp) an assessment of the American-Israeli relationship:
Freeman is an ideologue who apparently believed that China should have been more aggressive in its crackdown on the peaceful Tiananmen Square protestors. At the same time, he has been critical of American support for Israeli efforts to stop violent terrorists from blowing up Israeli schools buses and firing rockets at Israeli kindergartens.
Not that I can prove if his comments regarding Freeman's views on China are accurate or not, but he is employing a technique of equating the two: the oppressed Chinese and Israelis. He refers to the idea of changing US policy towards Israel as "extremist" and refers to Freeman as a "zealot". He brings up alleged financial improprieties that have been proven to be untrue. And he dismisses the idea the AIPAC is a powerful force in American policy (!):
Freeman acknowledged that he is deeply and emotionally committed to a fundamental change in US policy toward Israel. That is certainly his right as a private citizen or even as an elected official. But his extremist views would not have served him, or our nation well, as the person responsible for what are supposed to "policy-neutral intelligence assessments." An ideologue with such heavy financial baggage is simply incapable of policy-neutrality, and he should have known that.
To assert that intelligence should not be policy neutral is akin to saying that intelligence should be shaped to fit policy. Sounds familiar. Sounds like the crowd that has been kicked out of Washington. That he is able to spew this nonsense on HuffPo is more evidence of the once proud blog devolving to MSM levels. Great job, HuffPosters.