Ungrateful Iraqis.

BT's masterful post on uberwanker Jules Crittenden, who wonders why the Iraqis aren't kissing more American ass, reminds me of the urtext of genre. (In case you had a doubt, Iraqis have never been sufficiently grateful that we destroyed their country.) Since not everyone was wiling away the hours reading Putz in '03, I figure it's worth revisiting one of his, and his fellow travelers', uglier moments.

In November 2o03, at which point a mere 450 Americans had perished in Iraq, an Iraqi blogger named Salam Pax wrote the following in The Guardian:

Dear George,

I hate to wake you up from that dream you are having, the one in which you are a superhero bringing democracy and freedom to underdeveloped, oppressed countries. But you really need to check things out in one of the countries you have recently bombed to freedom. Georgie, I am kind of worried that things are going a bit bad in Iraq and you don't seem to care that much. You might want it to appear as if things are going well and sign Iraq off as a job well done, but I am afraid this is not the case.

Listen, habibi, it is not over yet. Let me explain this in simple terms. You have spilled a glass full of tomato juice on an already dirty carpet and now you have to clean up the whole room. Not all of the mess is your fault but you volunteered to clean it up. I bet if someone had explained it to you like that you would have been less hasty going on our Rambo-in-Baghdad trip.

To tell you the truth, I am glad that someone is doing the cleaning up, and thank you for getting rid of that scary guy with the hideous moustache that we had for president. But I have to say that the advertisements you were dropping from your B52s before the bombs fell promised a much more efficient and speedy service. We are a bit disappointed. So would you please, pretty please, with sugar on top, get your act together and stop telling people you have Iraq all figured out when you are giving us the trial-and-error approach?

Anyway, I hope this doesn't disturb you too much. Have a nice stay in London, wave hello to the demonstrators, and give my regards to your spin doctors. I bet they are having a hell of a job making you look good.
Regards,
Salam Pax
The Baghdad Blogger

Not particularly objectionable, right? Mr. Pax was nothing if not prescient about the degree to which President Bush just did not give a shit about the country he'd upended.

As you can imagine, the wingnuts -- or "warbloggers," as they liked to be called -- went crazyier. Sgt. Jim Lileks threw the first stone, writing:

Hey, Salam? Fuck you. I know you’re the famous giggly blogger who gave us all a riveting view of the inner circle before the war, and thus know more about the situation than I do. Granted. But there’s a picture on the front page of my local paper today: third Minnesotan killed in Iraq. He died doing what you never had the stones to do: pick up a rifle and face the Ba’athists. You owe him.

"Indeed he does," preened Putz. "I just think that Salam has lost a bit of perspective hanging out with Guardian types in London."

(Reread that sentence, just in case you ever forget what sanctimony looks like.)

Roger L. Simon, who is no doubt ashamed of his output from this period and has purged his archives, wrote:

Salam Pax should be ashamed of himself. What a moral twit! I used to think he was a shill for the Mukhabarat and took a good deal of heat from my fellow bloggers for it. I was probably wrong, but I wasn't wrong about the character of the man.

You get the idea. As Putz's post suggests, the only conservative blogger to see how ugly this was was Daniel Dezner, who, to his immense credit, wrote a honey of post stripping the bark off Lileks.

My point? Only that Putz, Simon, Lileks, et al, have always been, and will always be, worthless.