Denier for Hire

Following up on this article on the Armenian genocide lobbying war currently taking place in Congress, Michael Crowley blogged this video starring Clinton impeachment casualty Bob Livingston, who is now employed by the Republic of Turkey to lobby against official U.S. recognition of the Armenian genocide. Words really don't do justice to Livingston's pathetic, unprinicipled propagandizing ("Historians disagree...No one really knows...There were atrocities on all sides...") over what is, at this point, a rather overwhelmingly accepted historical fact: Between the years 1915 and 1918, around a million and a half Armenians were killed in an organized campaign of ethnic cleansing, transfer, and extermination by the Ottoman forces. It's certainly true that official recognition of this historical fact by Congress would seriously complicate the U.S. relationship with Turkey, a very important relationship which is on shaky ground right now because of Iraq, among other things, but I'd have a hell of a lot more respect for Livingston, which is to say I'd have some, if he'd just make that argument rather than attempting to "teach the controversy" over the systematic murder of 1.5 million human beings and the destruction of Turkey's Armenian community.