Topic: Horowitz
Dan Rabkin's April 24 FrontPageMag article is a laughably overbroad attack against the New York Times, which he claims "has now run two front-page articles smearing American war heroes."
The first, according to Rabkin, was a February story that "attempted to brand Sen. John McCain a philandering, lobbyist-bedding, crook." Rabki ncalled it a "a low-grade attack on a decorated veteran" that "was a revealing demonstration of its deep-seated contempt for the military." But the article did not address McCain's military service beyond a single description of him as a "Vietnam war hero." What Rabkin appears to be saying is that decorated military veterans in politics should not be criticized at all. Yet he writes for a website that repeatedly attacked a "decorated veteran" who ran for president in 2004. Where's his criticism of that?
The second Times article Rabkin objects to is the recent story that, in Rabkin's words, "suggests that dozens of 'decorated war heroes' are simply a 'media Trojan horse' – puppets of the Defense Department who only support the war because they are profiting from it." Rabkin takes on logical leaps from there, claiming that "Indeed, these military veterans’ biggest sin, in the paper’s eyes, seems to be their voicing displeasure with the liberal media establishment personified by the New York Times." and adding, "Equally contemptible to the Times is that these military men have sided with their government in a time of war."
Rabkin finally concludes: "If you support your nation in a time of war, you are doing the Pentagon’s dirty work. American military veterans deserve more respect for their years of committed service." But we see no evidence that he thinks John Kerry deserves respect for his years of committed service, since he writes for a website that tried to discredit said service. After all, if mere criticism of military service is his threshold -- as Rabkin seems to be claiming here -- then he must defend Kerry as he has McCain.
Who the heck is Dan Rabkin, anyway? According to his end-of-column bio, he claims to be "a Middle Eastern Affairs and National Security analyst based in Toronto, Canada. He was Canada’s 2005 Governor General’s Medalist." No further details are offered about where, if anywhere beyond op-ed pieces, he does his analyzing. And what's that "Canada’s 2005 Governor General’s Medalist" thingie? That's apparently an award given to, as this University of Windsor writeup of Rabkin's award details, "the undergraduate student with the highest academic ranking in his graduating class," where he "receive[d] an A+ in every one of his 40 courses." And it was a "Silver Medal," which the Governor General's office describes as being for undergraduate students.
In other words, he's just a fairly recent college grad spouting enough right-wing talking points to get some cheap praise from the likes of the Horowitz empire.
