Radley, looking at the other comments posted, I see I'm not alone in my reaction. You're being way to hard on yourself. I went down pretty much the same list with the Oath Keepers you did--and for the same reasons. Damned hard to know what to think about an organization like the Oath Keepers initially, particularly when they're--apparently--hitting all the right notes. A lack of trusted honest-broker media sources doesn't help. There's a few--yourself very much included--and thank you for that. I've watched your evolution with interest over the years, and take seriously apparent course corrections. Coming from you, they're at least markers for something I might want to take a closer look at and might--gasp--even be wrong about. A strong indicator of where the truth might actually lie in a sea of spin, dis- and mis- information. I count it an honor to toss a few bucks your way every month to keep up the good fight.
I appreciate the accountability. I think it’s become ever-clearer since 2011 that there is no such thing as a right-wing figure who sincerely cares about police brutality in a principled way; the use of state violence to crush their enemies is the beating heart of this political tendency. They may get mad when state violence is employed against their allies or in such a way as to undermine their political project due to backlash, but they don’t care about these abuses for their own sake.
I think you're being way too hard on yourself. On its face, the pledge to uphold the constitution is a legitimate one. You did your interview in good faith, and it was the right thing to do and you should be proud of it, not rend garments over it because of something the interview subject did 10 years later.
I also want to challenge the idea implicit in your apology, that by interviewing a person or otherwise "giving a platform" you somehow become responsible for that person or that person's views or actions -- even if you had *known* he was going to get into crazier shit. Nuts to that whole idea. Ahmadinejad spoke twice at Columbia, yet I do not blame Columbia for the repressive regime in Iran. Nixon / Frost is a great interview, and there should be more like it, not less. A journalist should have been free to interview Adolf Hitler, Osama bin Laden, Che Guevara, Augusto Pinochet, Pol Pot or name your favorite boogeyman and not be considered in any way responsible for the interview subject. Obviously that should involve asking tough questions and not just tossing softballs, but I don't think you ever did that.
I think most of us had a moment or three of in-retrospect unjustified credulity like that, unfortunately. I wonder if there's a connection between Rhodes' trajectory over the last decade and that of the national Libertarian Party and some of its more right-wing state affiliates.
It is possible that Rhodes meant what he said to you at the time that he said it, not himself realising consciously that whatever he or others claimed the Oath Keepers were for, the fundamental motivation was simply opposition to Obama and the Democrats.
Consider the Tea Party organisations, founded supposedly in protest at government deficits and out of control spending - and they sure sounded sincere at the time, Yet once Trump got in, their founding principles were junked in favour of more amorphous pro-Trumpism.
When any organisation, supposedly founded on a set of principles that are the claimed raison d'etre for that organisation, renounces those principles when there's a convenient political change. it was never really about those principles in the first place, even if the founders, in all conscious sincerity,, think it was.
Good mea culpa. Probably overly self-critical but it’s always good to inspect our priors and ruminate on how they color our view of the world. I certainly need to do this more
I think he changed a lot after that, after 2012 when Obama was re-elected. So don't be too hard on yourself, there's no way you could have predicted that.
Just for the record: I did not interview Rhodes, or (iirc) write about him when the Oathkeepers started, but I recall, when they started, thinking: they are promising to obey their oath, which is something they should do; if it turns out that they mean something strange by "not violating the Constitution", I will start disagreeing with them then. And of course I did.
Keeping your oath is a good thing. Taking it to mean something it plainly does not mean is not a good thing. I don't think it was obvious, at first, that they were doing that.
I respect you for this mea culpa, but I think your take was understandable and open-minded.
I used to be a reporter, and I was always conscious of the fact that sources, whether the government or lawyers or activists or ordinary people, could lie to us. Rhodes lied to you.
Was there anything specific Rhodes had said or done before your interview, perhaps cited by the Mother Jones journalists, that should have tipped you off?
Radley, looking at the other comments posted, I see I'm not alone in my reaction. You're being way to hard on yourself. I went down pretty much the same list with the Oath Keepers you did--and for the same reasons. Damned hard to know what to think about an organization like the Oath Keepers initially, particularly when they're--apparently--hitting all the right notes. A lack of trusted honest-broker media sources doesn't help. There's a few--yourself very much included--and thank you for that. I've watched your evolution with interest over the years, and take seriously apparent course corrections. Coming from you, they're at least markers for something I might want to take a closer look at and might--gasp--even be wrong about. A strong indicator of where the truth might actually lie in a sea of spin, dis- and mis- information. I count it an honor to toss a few bucks your way every month to keep up the good fight.
I appreciate the accountability. I think it’s become ever-clearer since 2011 that there is no such thing as a right-wing figure who sincerely cares about police brutality in a principled way; the use of state violence to crush their enemies is the beating heart of this political tendency. They may get mad when state violence is employed against their allies or in such a way as to undermine their political project due to backlash, but they don’t care about these abuses for their own sake.
This is why I've followed you for 18 years.
I think you're being way too hard on yourself. On its face, the pledge to uphold the constitution is a legitimate one. You did your interview in good faith, and it was the right thing to do and you should be proud of it, not rend garments over it because of something the interview subject did 10 years later.
I also want to challenge the idea implicit in your apology, that by interviewing a person or otherwise "giving a platform" you somehow become responsible for that person or that person's views or actions -- even if you had *known* he was going to get into crazier shit. Nuts to that whole idea. Ahmadinejad spoke twice at Columbia, yet I do not blame Columbia for the repressive regime in Iran. Nixon / Frost is a great interview, and there should be more like it, not less. A journalist should have been free to interview Adolf Hitler, Osama bin Laden, Che Guevara, Augusto Pinochet, Pol Pot or name your favorite boogeyman and not be considered in any way responsible for the interview subject. Obviously that should involve asking tough questions and not just tossing softballs, but I don't think you ever did that.
I think most of us had a moment or three of in-retrospect unjustified credulity like that, unfortunately. I wonder if there's a connection between Rhodes' trajectory over the last decade and that of the national Libertarian Party and some of its more right-wing state affiliates.
It is possible that Rhodes meant what he said to you at the time that he said it, not himself realising consciously that whatever he or others claimed the Oath Keepers were for, the fundamental motivation was simply opposition to Obama and the Democrats.
Consider the Tea Party organisations, founded supposedly in protest at government deficits and out of control spending - and they sure sounded sincere at the time, Yet once Trump got in, their founding principles were junked in favour of more amorphous pro-Trumpism.
When any organisation, supposedly founded on a set of principles that are the claimed raison d'etre for that organisation, renounces those principles when there's a convenient political change. it was never really about those principles in the first place, even if the founders, in all conscious sincerity,, think it was.
Excellent mea culpa.
Good mea culpa. Probably overly self-critical but it’s always good to inspect our priors and ruminate on how they color our view of the world. I certainly need to do this more
I think he changed a lot after that, after 2012 when Obama was re-elected. So don't be too hard on yourself, there's no way you could have predicted that.
Just for the record: I did not interview Rhodes, or (iirc) write about him when the Oathkeepers started, but I recall, when they started, thinking: they are promising to obey their oath, which is something they should do; if it turns out that they mean something strange by "not violating the Constitution", I will start disagreeing with them then. And of course I did.
Keeping your oath is a good thing. Taking it to mean something it plainly does not mean is not a good thing. I don't think it was obvious, at first, that they were doing that.
I respect you for this mea culpa, but I think your take was understandable and open-minded.
I respect your willingness to revisit the interview in light of what has since transpired.
I used to be a reporter, and I was always conscious of the fact that sources, whether the government or lawyers or activists or ordinary people, could lie to us. Rhodes lied to you.
Was there anything specific Rhodes had said or done before your interview, perhaps cited by the Mother Jones journalists, that should have tipped you off?