Double-daring Philip Weiss
Philip Weiss posts today about an old bloggingheads exchange I had with Henry Farrell as follows: The Boston Globe has a little piece following up the bogus controversy started by Jonathan Chait when he wrote that Steve Walt did not hurt his career by writing, The Israel Lobby. Chait is wrong, and either foolishly misleading, or ...
Philip Weiss posts today about an old bloggingheads exchange I had with Henry Farrell as follows:
The Boston Globe has a little piece following up the bogus controversy started by Jonathan Chait when he wrote that Steve Walt did not hurt his career by writing, The Israel Lobby. Chait is wrong, and either foolishly misleading, or fraudulently so. A statement on this matter from the New Republic, which called Walt an antisemite, has the same authority as, say, Roy Cohn’s opinion on whether there was a blacklist in Hollywood. Now Daniel Drezner has taken up the issue, in a further motion of deceiving the public about the power of the Israel lobby.
Some day maybe I’ll tell these academics about New York journalism…
Weiss doesn’t have any contact information on his blog, so I’ll just ask him here. Please do tell me about New York journalism. Seriously. I want to know what evidence Weiss has for his claims beyond mere assertion.
And, in the process, I’d love for Weiss to describe exactly what I said in my bloggingheads exchange that was, "a further motion of deceiving the public about the power of the Israel lobby." He seems to think that I was refuting the notion that The Israel Lobby cost Walt a DC job. I’m pretty sure I said that Walt not getting a DC job is an overdetermined outcome, of which publishing The Israel Lobby is certainly one viable explanation. Weiss’ evidence for this explanation, a quote from Walt, is not particularly persuasive. There are many other explanations, some of which might be less flattering to my esteemed co-blogger.
Some day, maybe, I’ll tell those New York journalists about the academic-policymaker pipeline…
As much as I love doing bloggingheads, this is the second time in two months someone has twisted what I said way out in one of those diavlogs of context. I attribute this to be an occupational hazard of moving to Foreignpolicy.com.
Damn you, Moises Naim!! Damn you to hell!!!
Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner
More from Foreign Policy

Saudi-Iranian Détente Is a Wake-Up Call for America
The peace plan is a big deal—and it’s no accident that China brokered it.

The U.S.-Israel Relationship No Longer Makes Sense
If Israel and its supporters want the country to continue receiving U.S. largesse, they will need to come up with a new narrative.

Putin Is Trapped in the Sunk-Cost Fallacy of War
Moscow is grasping for meaning in a meaningless invasion.

How China’s Saudi-Iran Deal Can Serve U.S. Interests
And why there’s less to Beijing’s diplomatic breakthrough than meets the eye.