I met Seymour Hersh early in the early winter of 1968 when he was press
secretary to Eugene McCarthy in the first primary state of New
Hampshire. There wasn't time to get to know him since in a matter of
weeks he quit with a shabby attack on Gene for not being serious about
civil rights. This was hum-bug which turned out, save for his important
story about My-Lai, to be Hersh's specialty in the rest of his career.
In any case, Hersh visited Jon Wiener, an old friend and former Harvard
colleague, at the University of California, Irvine and came to his history
class to speak. Now, Jon used to teach courses on substantial intellectual
matters in which you couldn't possibly imagine Hersh speaking or, for that
matter, really understanding. But, since Jon focussed on J. Edgar
Hoover's obsessive relationship with John Lennon, anything goes...or
comes. Including Sy Hersh.
From Wiener's blog post on the Nation web-site, one guages that anything
goes in Wiener's current classroom, including Hersh's meandering
bullshit. Barack Obama is "the only hope for the U.S. in the Muslim
world." Or Obama "could lead a reconciliation between the Muslim countries
and the U.S." In his fatuous way, Hersh dismisses any seriousness in the
conflict between the Muslim orbit and the West. After all, it is not
just a fantasy of the vice president.
Hersh's enthusiasm for Obama is not good news for the senator from
Illinois. Hersh's writing may titillate readers. But they do not take his
words as wisdom. So my friend Barack has the enthusiasm of both Zbig and
Sy. What a pair, unified only in their disdain for Israel, the old Pole
and the late middle-aged Jew.