Tales from Moronica: A Hollywood Story

Ah, the glitter of Hollywood...the bright lights..the money...the adulation...the addled brains.

Matt Damon on Hardball last night put on a display for the ages, in one interview capturing the essence of the inane rantings and ravings that characterize the most ridiculous of e-arguments:

MATTHEWS: Do you think the war was fought because the region--was it about WMD? Was it about Mideast politics? Was it about ideology?

DAMON: It kept changing when their excuses would change. They'd go, wait, actually they don't have any of that stuff. They'd go, oh, oh, well then it's actually about democracy. Well democracy is not going to work. We're just going to settle for--as long as it's secure. I mean, it just keeps changing.

MATTHEWS: Do you think guys like Cheney--I love to pronounce his name correctly, by the way. Do you think guys like--it's like a Dickensian name, Cheney. Do you think he knew he was saying stuff that wouldn't turn out to be true, or was he just mad dogged to fight the war?

DAMON: I'd like to see him under oath.

MATTHEWS: I would, too. I'd like to see him with you.

(APPLAUSE)

MATTHEWS: Do you think if you waterboarded Cheney, like in the movie, that you'd get a different truth out of him?

DAMON: Well, there's two answers to that question. One is he doesn't strike me as the kind of person who has any real personal courage. When it was his turn to go, he didn't go. He deferred six times.

MATTHEWS: He said he had other priorities.

DAMON: Yes, he had other priorities. And he doesn't seem to have other priorities about sending other kids there and other peoples kids.

(APPLAUSE)

MATTHEWS: We'll be back...

DAMON: ... The second part to the answer is that I believe that if you waterboard anybody, they'll tell you anything and that torture is completely impractical, on top of being dishonorable. It's completely impractical because you can--I mean, if you torture a normal person, if you torture anybody, they're going to tell you whatever you want them to tell you. So if you're getting information that you're going to then use and you get it by torturing them...

MATTHEWS: ... Why is man at his worst throughout history used it then if it doesn't work? Why has it always been part of--going to the Middle Ages, back to ancient times. People were so cruel to each other, they get what they want out of them. Why do they do it if it doesn't work?

DAMON: I don't know. I don't do it.

This is the kind of top-of-your-head, off-the-cuff ranting that passes for deep thinking at places like Democratic Underground and Daily Kos. Damon's criticism of Cheney's deferments ignores the fact that thousands of other men in similar life circumstances and of similar age were likewise granted the same kind of deferments.

As Hugh points out, it ignores even a basic understanding of Cheney's time in public service or the roles he's played over most of the last 30 years. Damon's criticism of the pro-war arguments fare no better.

As Hugh also notes, there were multiple arguments made for toppling Sadaam in 2002-2003. Tacit among them the humanitarian as well as transformative: The Administration's main public proponent of this view is Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, who often speaks about the possibility that war in Iraq could help bring democracy to the Arab Middle East. President Bush appeared to be making the same point in the State of the Union address when he remarked that "all people have a right to choose their own government, and determine their own destiny-- and the United States supports their aspirations to live in freedom."

Even those suffering from justification fatigue ought to pay special attention to this one, because it goes beyond the category of reasons offered in support of a course of action that has already been decided upon and set in motion. Unlike the other justifications, it is both a reason for war and a plan for the future.

Hugh is correct in this statement of the obvious about Nick Lemann's 2003 piece in the New Yorker: The complex arguments made for the invasion of Iraq were detailed by a liberal writer for a liberal magazine before the invasion and they haven't changed.

Damon was against the invasion. Fine. He has valid criticisms to make, fine. But he doesn't get to make stuff up and the charge of "changing justifications" is utterly ridiculous.

Matt Damon is a fine actor. To that he should stick. Like his early collaborative partner Ben Affleck, when extemporaneously discussing things political, he tends to look less like even an actor and more like a poser. And not a very good one.