Comments & responses.

• Author: Frum, David
• Position: Letter to the editor

"So when we talk about the antagonism that has arisen between bloggers and the FPC, we are really talking about liberal bloggers and the Democratic half of the FPC. This is a family feud, one that bears more than a passing resemblance to the great Democratic schism over Vietnam."

--David Frum

"Foggy Bloggom"

Jan./Feb. 2008

AS SOMEONE who has a foot in both the blogosphere and the foreign-policy community, I feel compelled to highlight a few errors in David Frum's "Foggy Bloggom" (Jan./Feb. 2008).

In his essay, Frum suggests that bloggers are "pretty much the opposite" of the foreign-policy community, which "insists upon formal credentials, either academic or bureaucratic." It is puzzling, then, that the first four bloggers quoted in Frum's essay possess the very credentials that the foreign-policy community extols. Duncan "Atrios" Black holds a PhD in economics from an Ivy League institution. Matthew Yglesias is a Harvard graduate writing for the Atlantic. Steven Clemons is the director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation. Glenn Greenwald is a Salon columnist and a partner in a DC law firm. Pajama-wearing stereotypes to the contrary, most influential bloggers possess the elite credentials necessary to crack the foreign-policy community.

Frum's effort to frame the debate between the foreign-policy community and the netroots omits a key source of irritation between the two groups--the role of neoconservatives in foreign-policy discourse. What truly rankles the netroots is their conviction that neoconservatives have been granted a seat at the foreign-policy table that is without merit. In the wake of a series of costly foreign-policy blunders and reversals of course under the Bush administration (cough, Iraq, cough), this anger might well be justified.

I'm a paid-up member of the foreign-policy community. I vehemently disagree with many blog diagnoses regarding American foreign policy. I've vigorously debated Greenwald, Yglesias and Black in the blogosphere. In this case, however, I'm not sure the enemy of my enemy is my friend. It's nice that Frum is trying to referee a debate among those to the left of him. I'd be much more interested, however, in his justification for why the netroots are in error with regard to neoconservatives. Simply put, given the track record of the past half decade, why shouldn't the former replace the latter at the foreign-policy table?

DANIEL W. DREZNER

Associate Professor of International...