I never heard of The Forward, but they're apparently finding some sort of irony in the fact that "liberal" bloggers aren't saying much about Israel's war. To support their point, they quote a bunch of centrist and center-left bloggers (like Kos and TPM) who've basically said that there's not much to say because our government is not directly involved so there's nothing we can do about it or because they don't want to attract a bunch of anti-semite "supporters". That's all fine and maybe they should be beaten up a little for not taking a stand, but why make it seem like it's a trend when you've got Billmon, Digby, Juan Cole, and James Wolcott, all prominent liberal bloggers, doing fairly detailed and ongoing analysis of what's happening there.

This is the best part, though:

Leon Wieseltier, literary editor of the The New Republic and a general critic of bloggers, rejected the "complexity" explanation.

"Why would you expect complexity from bloggers, left, right, or Martian?" Wieseltier wrote in an email to the Forward. "They are not in the complexity business on any issue. Maybe the problem is not complexity but complication - the way in which sympathy with Israel's campaign against Hezbollah, and therefore with the use of force, might complicate their lives in progressiveland, where they live."

Waaaaah!!! Why won't anyone read our magazine???

You know, why is the guy from The New Republic sending emails complaing about bloggers to The Forward anyway? How do you think that went down:

Hey, we're doing sort of a half-assed article on how liberal bloggers aren't talking about Israel as much as maybe we thought they would be. Care to comment?

Or do you think Mr. General Critic of Bloggers has been emailing his critique to everyone in his Contact List, and only The Forward took the bait and wrote the article?

interesting that he would automatically assume the sympathy would be with the nation bombing the citizenry in retaliation for the kidnapping of 2 military personnel.

oh, and rejected UN mediation because "it was premature". read "we're not done bombing the shit out of them just yet, thanks."