agreed. but I don't actually see where he's said what you say he's said. And, if he did say it, there's no evidence that he absolutely didn't know anything about it. For instance:
> Like many pompous people, he is led to comment on
> subjects about which he knows nothing and try to pass
> it off as wisdom. For instance if I recall correctly,
> in his jottings he states
This is what he says about Russia in the "jottings"
http://www.newleftreview.org/?page=article&view=2695
<OPEN> Russia has been stabilized by a neo-authoritarian regime, financed by the world commodities boom. Less dependent on the West than Yeltsin's government, Putin's system has a larger margin of diplomatic leeway, and smaller need to simulate democratic niceties. It enjoys a less enthusiastic press in the West, and is a more abrasive partner for the US and EU. But while seeking to restore Russian influence in its near-abroad, the new regime has hitherto been careful never to cross the will of the United States over any significant international issue, and offers a far better basis for capitalist development than Yeltsin's could do, since it has not only wiped out any traces of serious political dissent, but achieved very high levels of social support, secured by economic recovery. At home, Putin has for some time now been far and away the most popular leader of any major state in the world. Given the demographic collapse of the country, and continuing misery of much of its population, this is an impressive achievement. <CLOSE>
> that the new law for party
> representation in the Russian Duma (by which I assume
> he means the law that you have to get at least 7% of
> the vote to have representation, raised from 5% as it
> was previously) was intended to bar liberals and
> communists from the Duma. Now the liberals,
> altogether, got about 3.5% of the vote, and thus are
> not in the Duma, as they would not have been before
> the law was changed. The Communists got 12%, and thus
> are in fact in the Duma and have not been barred from
> it. Actually I think they have increased their number
> of seats. So Anderson's position doesn't look very
> tenable, does it?
For one, I don't see where he said that. And none of what you just said precludes the argument that, regardless of the effects, the intent was X. It would be an interpretation and, certainly, for it to hold water I'd want to see the evidence on which it is based. I don't see him saying either of those things, so it's difficult to say whether his hypothetical position is tenable. I'm sure you know what your talking about, but I recall reading what he had said about Russia and thinking, "he seems pretty close to what Chris Doss says, that might be right." In any case, it was a better reading of the situation, it seems, than one usually gets in the western press. Not everyone who mentions Russia can approach the eXile in their familiarity with facts on the ground.
On the other hand, does this mean that this attempt to draw in broad strokes that might mess with some of the details should not be attempted unless someone is a specialist who can roll electoral stats of every country on mentions off the top of their head? One thing he is fairly good at is providing a well informed reading of a certain situation which then provokes conversation. Thus when Anderson opens the piece with the statement, "simplifications and short-cuts are scarcely to be avoided. Certainly, the notations below do not escape them. Jottings more than theses, they stand to be altered or crossed out," I don't think it is because he doesn't know his shit, but because he realizes that he might not be up on every detail. I realize this is, at times, a tenuous path to tread and I won't say that Anderson--or people like him--aren't susceptible to falling on the side you put him. But on the other hand, pundits in the US say much more moronic crap on a daily basis, get paid a whole lot more, and have a much more unreflective public they are speaking to. Anderson says stuff like this and he expects people like you to call him out. If that means that he is pompous, so be it. I think he serves a useful function in the general discussion and much of what he tries to pass off as wisdom is pretty on the mark in my opinion.
I will say that, in this piece, the thing that seems the most off is his punctuating the forces that led to the Iraq war. I'm sure the "Jewish lobby" has some influence, but he likely puts too much influence on it in American culture and politics. Most of the people that were most likely to hew to the will of the Jewish lobby are also fairly interested in American supremacy (the PNAC line) and, on some level believe both of the major narratives in which the war was pitched to the population--the official GWOT line and the unofficial rhetoric about freedom and liberty. At the same time, the various valences he tries to balance here are impressive because it defies the conventional attempt to posit a linear causality flowing directly from one or two factors. So while the direct relationship of the Jewish lobby on US policy might not lead to the war, "The point is rather that in the Middle East every normal calibration of means and ends has already been so corrupted by the discrepancy between the ostensible and actual determinants of American foreign policy that an arbitrary adventure of some kind was always on the cards. So long as Washington remains affixed to Tel Aviv, there is literally no way that the ordinary rules for a rational exercise of US power apply." In this, he means not only the direct pressure from Tel Aviv to Washington, but the indirect effects of that which then feedback into that environment itself. I'm not doing the full appraisal justice, and its not totally original or unimpeachable as an argument. But it doesn't just find the one cause and settle on it, prepared to defend it against all others--which is often the province of intellectuals challenging the dominant version of history.
I think it is important to get facts straight, but I also think it is important to be a good, dialectical thinker. In theory they should go together, but in practice most western intellectuals--especially the editorial writers and what passes for experts in the mainstream--settle into a dominant interpretation of facts and hide the fact that they are an interpretation behind their "fact-i-ness." I am by no means claiming that facts aren't important, but so is the framework through which you filter them. Anderson, it seems to me, is usually pretty good on both counts. He does take a lot of risks and does get into trouble from time to time, but his provocation is usually in a positive direction.
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