Mearsheimer/Walt enter the best-seller list via Franzen

Great post by MJ Rosenberg on Jonathan Franzen’s new best-seller Freedom and its deep message about the Zionist lobby:

I just want to comment on a minor stream that runs through the book: it is that neo-conservatives are loathsome, that they joined up with war profiteers to get us into Iraq, and that they were motivated by a combination of pro-Israel zeal, profits, and the belief that we must Americanize the Middle East. One character, who I think is modeled on Norman Podhoretz, gets to pronounce the neocon philosophy at a Thanksgiving dinner (basically a thanks giving for the blessing of the Iraq war).

Before the crazies say it, I want to add that Franzen is by no means anti-Jewish, just anti-neocon. In fact, there is an ultra-Orthodox family in the book, whose dream is to live in the West Bank, who are lovely people — just a little muddled.

So why is this significant? It is significant because this book is so huge (about as big as any work of fiction can be in this country) and that it’s “oh-by-the-way” incorporation of the Walt-Mearsheimer thesis demonstrates that the two professors have won. Nobody much argues about the role of the neocons in promoting Middle East wars.

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