14 Comments

Thank you for your candid replay of “what goes through a commenter’s mind whilst dealing with prickly people who are on the other side of.”

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Yikes! You are hard on yourself. It was a great clip. They should have had you on longer.

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Thank you for that commentary. As you had come across well, some of your self-regulation wouldn't have occurred to me, but I also think sometimes the tics & quirks of an educator or technical expert on tv can help make an argument more convincing. Journalists and politicians are better at media presentation, but are (instinctively) thought less trustworthy

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The way to slip in pedantry is at the end, not the beginning. "The only thing Israel's Arab neighbours have done today is defend her; Jordan and Saudi Arabia defended Israel, can we take a moment to acknowledge that amazing fact? Iran, by the way, is not an Arab neighbour, they don't speak Arabic."

...your call on whether "by the way" is a verbal tic, or, worse, too condescending. Hard to find the right (tiny) touch of condescension is the way to counter the other sides's natural "deprecation of the egghead".

Please consider reading up on Tony Judt and his interactions David Brooks on TV, with the NYT staff at a cocktail party, where none less than Judy Miller dressed him down for giving ivory-tower advice to those with up-to-the-minute real-world information. The entire NYT brass watched without any pushback. It takes some stiffness to be in this arena.

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You came across well. Fascinating to be allowed to see behind the curtain. Next time you have to use your wife's office, move the camera up at least to eye level. I’m consistently enlightened and entertained by the output of the hard-working staff.

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In any case, Dani, AEI, NDD, and similar hawkish leaning think tanks, and the roster of pundits published by the Wall Street Journal, speak with a breathless confidence and certainty that the record doesn’t justify, is laden with convenient assumptions, and isn’t questioned nearly enough when put in front of the media.

Dani’s people never took care of Iran when they had total political power under Bush-Cheney. They poked the Persian lion but didn’t kill it under Trump.

I don’t think they, or Netanyahu, may have considered the probably true thought that maintaining Iran to about the status quo of escalation: Iran shoots, but it mostly “shoots to miss” is “as good as it gets,” or as good as it is going to get.

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You could have made that a lot nastier, but it's very good and probably more useful as is.

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You looked and sounded good Daniel. Analytic and factual. Most wear bias like a sombrero : )

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He called you Dan so as not to confuse either you or Danielle.

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Six minutes for two people to discuss the Middle East with a focus on Iran and Israel, against the backdrop of the war in Gaza and American politics. This is why Noam Chomsky said he couldn’t go on TV to explain anything of substance.

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This was really cool. Thanks, Dan.

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Daniel, thanks for sharing your first person perspective.

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Thank you for doing your best to disseminate truth. Everybody has an off day. You handled it quite well.

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huge win

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