A different kind of 'expert'

I really try to ascribe a general level of basic intelligence to foreign policy observers with whom I disagree; mostly I prefer to believe that people who do this stuff for a living are serious about having the right base-line information but come to the wrong conclusions because of poor analytical thinking, the wrong lessons from history, or even plain old ideological predispositions. But increasingly I have to face the fact that some "experts," widely respected, cited, and published, are completely and totally talking out of their ass on topics they claim to know thoroughly.

Norman Podhoretz is a former senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, the editor-at-large of Commentary Magazine, and, Lord help us all, the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor the US president can bestow upon a civilian. As a leading neoconservative, he was instrumental in pushing for the war in Iraq, and is currently the loudest voice for bombing Iran.

And according to a recent article, here's what he had to say after a talk on Kurdistan by Jeffrey Goldberg in 2003, right before "Mission Accomplished": "What's a Kurd, anyway?" Goldberg reports that "Podhoretz seemed authentically bewildered." You couldn't make this stuff up.