The Nation Magazine is now Fair and Balanced. The American Left and the Middle East: the case of Robert Scheer (again). By the way, notice that Lebanese voices are missing from the various articles about Lebanon in the Nation magazine. And notice that the magazine has an article titled "View from Israel" but no "View from Lebanon." But then again. According to the Nation, Arabs have no view. Furthermore, some of the writers on the Israeli war have served in the Israeli army, and for the Nation magazine that qualifies as expertise in the Arab world. Scheer says: "The alternative to such excessive violence--an authentic peace process--had been supported by every American president since Harry Truman. Yet it was abruptly abandoned, indeed ridiculed, by the Bush administration." First, notice the term "excessive violence." So it is not the violence of Israel that is objectionable, but the "excess" of it. So if Israel commits less massacres, one would have been able to support it. So this is a call for 4 massacres instead of 8, say. He then wants the US to go back to "the peace process." Oh, ya. American foreign policy has been "fair and balanced" until George W. Bush assumed office. Yes, go back to the splendid US foreign policy of previous years. Oh, ya. Then Scheer says: "Israel foolishly jumped at the tempting opportunity presented by Bush." Notice that criminality and the perpetration of massacres become "foolish." Merely foolish. And then the thrust of the article becomes clearer at the end: "Israel will be threatened by a new generation of enemies whose political memory was decisively shaped by these horrible images emerging from Lebanon." So killing Arabs is not bad in itself, but is bad because it is bad for Israel on the long term. OK.