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13 Angry Seymour Hersh Responses, Ranked

Seymour Hersh this week authored an article for the London Review of Books in which he claims that the Pakistanis were holding onto Osama bin Laden for a number of years prior to the American raid in which the al Qaeda mastermind was killed. Additionally, Hersh's sources allege that the Obama administration and the Pakistani government orchestrated an elaborate plan to simulate an American raid on the compound, after which bin Laden's body would be taken to Afghanistan and, a week later, it would be announced that he had been killed in a drone strike.* Oh, also, SEALS shot bin Laden so many times that his body was torn to pieces and they then chucked portions of his body out of the helicopter on the ride back to base. For funsies. No word on whether or not this corpse desecration was at the behest of Opus Dei.

Some questions have been raised about this narrative, and a few news outlets have partially backed up some of Hersh's less amazing claims. Gun to my head, I'd guess Peter Bergen's analysis is probably right, but who knows. I certainly don't think it's impossible that the Pakistani military was holding onto bin Laden for a while and I certainly don't find the idea of a walk-in giving him up for the cash and the chance to relocate to America unrealistic.

Anyway. I come before you today not to adjudicate Hersh's claims. Rather, this is a celebration! Because in the midst of all these questions, Hersh has revealed himself to be the most delightfully cranky old man of all time. This interview of Hersh by Isaac Chotiner is just gold. So gold that I'm having trouble settling on a proper ranking of golden quotes. It was hard to pick a winner, but that's why I get paid the medium-high dollars. Without further ado, etc.

 

13: 'Swing away fella.'

This isn't a particularly mindblowing insult or anything. But it is classic old man crankiness: dismissive and overly familiar, Hersh is putting Chotiner in his place. Love it.

 

12: 'I am too old and too cranky and too tired.'

A bit on the nose, perhaps, but points for honesty.

 

11: 'What difference does it make what the fuck I think about journalism? I don’t think much of the journalism that I see.'

I bet he loves listicles about cranky quotes.

 

10: 'I don’t mean to yell at you but I feel good doing it. Goodbye.'

 

9: 'Oh poor you, you don’t know anything. It is amazing you can speak the God’s English.'

Not even the King's: "the God's."

 

8: 'You probably don’t know that NBC reported, and now they have reported it on one of these dopey afternoon shows with that woman, what’s her name, the NBC woman who claims to have some knowledge of foreign policy, married to Alan Greenspan.'

That's what Andrea Mitchell gets for referring to the Free Beacon solely as an 'anti-Clinton website.' Check's in the mail, Sy.

 

7: 'It is a very good question. Although [Remnick and I] have huge disagreements. My children and I have huge disagreements. I have a huge disagreement with my dog.'

That poor dog.

 

6: 'David Remnick knows who I talk to. I do have sources, which is a problem for a lot of people that don’t.'

 

5: 'If you have another question then ask it. This is going on too long.'

Always a good sign the interview is going well.

 

4: 'Would you care to hear the truth? Would you care to hear something that didn’t come from Vox, whoever Vox is?'

Why would anyone ever want to hear something that doesn't come from VOX DOT COM? They have cards, Sy. CARDS.

 

3: 'Go fuck yourself! A blog?'

[lol he makes a good point here]

 

2: 'I am the guy who said fuck it, I will do what I want to do.'

And we're all glad you did, Old Bro.

 

1: 'There was a point with the New Yorker where I thought they should rename the fucking magazine the Seymour Hersh Weekly.'

Honestly, I would subscribe just so I could read the Andy Borowitz "humor" pieces about the Knights of Malta. It'd be gold, Jerry. GOLD.

 

*This seems ... unnecessarily complicated. No? If the ISI had bin Laden under wraps, why not just put a bullet in his head, stuff him in the trunk of a car, and drive him to Afghanistan? Why go through the trouble of staging a fake raid? Especially if you want to keep Pakistan's involvement in the whole thing under wraps? That don't make no sense.