When will they ever learn

[pecunium]

Jonah Goldberg really needs to learn that Trouble rather the tiger in his den than the sage among his books.

Goldberg, as bellatrys pointed out, made the mistake of going after Juan Cole. I may disagree with the arguments Mr. Cole makes, from time to time, but I wouldn't dream of saying he wasn't qualified to make them.

I certainly wouldn't, after a public spanking for committing such an idiocy, return to that folly.

But perhaps that's why I'm not making the sorts of money Mr. Goldberg does, pontificating on television.

Comments

I will say this:

[http://users.livejournal.com/_nymphette_/]

I am bothered by Cole on this - his entire critque seems to be that because Goldberg does not agree with his analysis, Col can therefore assume he KNOWS what the man has read???


and he has a problem someone took issue with that. Hell, my Logic meter exploded after the second sentence!

Cole's been doing this alot lately too - he's a smart guy, but he's made the cross over from intellectual to snob in the last year. You can't be rational if you can't admit you're wrong... and many intellectuals seem to fall into that trap.. which is usually when I stop paying attention to them. Those who cannot admit error have nothing of value to say - after all: that's certain Cole's stance on the Bush administration. It's only fair the same hold true for him. ;)

Re: I will say this:

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

If you mean this sentence, " I think it is time to be frank about some things. Jonah Goldberg knows absolutely nothing about Iraq. I wonder if he has even ever read a single book on Iraq," He isn't stating, he is, from evidence (the statements of Goldberg, measured against the experience/knowledge of Cole) making an extrapolation. When I see someone spouting blather about what it's like to be in the Army, with no connection to the facts as I know them, and have studied them, I say similar things, and I see very few people calling me over the top for that.

If you mean this sentence, "First, I alleged that Goldberg has never read a book about Iraq, about which he keeps fulminating... I expected Goldberg to say, "That is not true! I have read Phebe Marr's book on modern Iraq from cover to cover and know all about the 1963 failed Baathist coup!" But Goldberg did not respond in this way. I conclude that I was correct, and he has never read a book on this subject. " it is also an extrapolation. He made a rhetorical statement, and then got a non-responsive answer (Goldberg said lots of things, but never said, "your're wrong, I've read, "x"), in court that's accepted as an admission (the principle is, "silence equals assent."

Is Cole being snarky, you bet. By why shouldn't he? Goldberg is abusing him. Taking a perfectly reasonable unwillingness on Coles part to risk making an uncleaer statement in his second language as an admission of no skill in it, Cole seems particularly keen on reminding people that he speaks Arabic (although he doesn't speak Arabic well enough to, well, speak it). Goldberg responds. All of the logical fallacies (the anachronisms, the comparison of administration, when the question was elections, the ad hominem attacks, the apples to oranges responses) are there, and Cole doensn't resort to misrepresenting Goldberg's comments, which is not true for Goldberg on Cole. He is sharp, but he shows not just the comments he is is responding to, but includes the links to the original, so the reader can make a direct comparison.

The issue wasn't the analysis, the issue was expertise. Goldberg's initial comment was, " Consider Juan Cole. You probably haven't heard of him, but he's the dashboard saint of lefty Middle East experts. President-elect of the Middle East Studies Association, Cole has made a new career for himself in finding the dark lining of every silver cloud. After the Iraqi elections he harrumphed on his Web site that he was "appalled" by the media's cheerleading of the election. He absurdly declared that the 1997 Iranian elections were much more democratic (Iranian candidates had to be approved by the mullahs). He whined that Bush did not originally intend to have elections of this sort and only agreed when Ayatollah Sistani insisted. Suddenly, Bush the rigid ideologue is too flexible.


Most telling, Cole offered a world-weary sigh that "This thing was more like a referendum than an election." Goldberg on the commentary That isn't a disagreement with Cole's analysis, it's an accusation that Cole is substituting personal opinion for analysis. Which is an imputation against his character, both personal, and professional.

The sort of thing which Godlberg responds to, when he thinks it directed at him, with vitriol and abuse. Far less deft and scathing than this of Cole's, though more heated.

TK

[fritz-freiheit.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the links! Fascinating (and infuriating) read.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I'm not so sure about infuriating. It is mostly a tempest in a teapot. Goldberg's writing isn't why people know him, so his attacks on Cole are mostly resonating in places like this.

Cole is a bit more widely read, but again it is running in an echo chamber.

I can only hope, actually, that more people in Cole's position do what he did, and make a reasoned, and snarky, response; with the links to the originals.

1: the linking makes it fair... no random comments about things past without context.

2: Not taking that sort of abuse lying down is important. When one side is fond of attack theatre, and gets away with it, they are rewarded, and will keep it up. When they have the bully pulpit, they get to shape the whole debate.

TK

[fritz-freiheit.livejournal.com]

I think what I am responding to vis-a-vis my "infuriating" comment is some of recent encounters with hit-and-run bloggers (particularly on the Clue Fairy). Willful ignorance is a hot-button for me...

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Wilfull ignorance is annoying, in the extreme.

I don't tend to get many hit and run comments. I don't know if this is for good or ill.

On the one hand, it preserves a sense of calm, on the other it probably means I am preaching to the choir.

TK

[cluefairy-j.livejournal.com]

Take my hit and run bloggers, please.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Ok, but you have to take the idiots who get sanctimonious on me.

I see that there's a problem there. Apparently you do not. We'll see what happens in the next 20 years.

This was in "response" (because the responses were tangiental, and only semi-relevant) to comments I made on Social Security.

I can better bear righteousness (because I've been known to use it) but smarmy sanctimony (I can't pretend I've not been sanctimonious, on things like torture.... but on Social Security?) irks the shit out of me.

Sorry bout the drive bys.

On the other hand, it means people are reading you. :)

TK

[cluefairy-j.livejournal.com]

>>> I see that there's a problem there. Apparently you do not. We'll see what happens in the next 20 years.

huh?

Nah, I guess i'll keep 'em. The drive bys are less. I do like the fact that I don't have everyone commenting on my blog with a "yeah!" Sometimes I get tired of reading "yes men" type responses. It's nice to know I have friends who are willing to speak their minds even if others disagree.

Well, let's not get overboard with "people are reading you"....I'm a fluff blog.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Oh, the happy.

> Actually, of course, it would be desirable that he had read more than one book. Books are nice. They are rectangular and soft and have information in them. They can even be consumed on airplanes. Goldberg should try one.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Yes, I saw that sentence, and swooned. The snark at the end was just icing, the meat was "they are rectangular and soft and have information in them."

TK

[ad-kay.livejournal.com]

Yes, that sentence was a great start to my day!

[mayakda.livejournal.com]

I love that sentence.
And so far Cole has a pretty good batting average on Iraq predictions, afaict.

[ad-kay.livejournal.com]

IIRC, he's been right on just about everything I can think of. Which makes his fear of a future Baathist coup pretty scary.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

The trouble with that is the question of the levers of power. At present the Sunni, which is where the Ba'ath party strength is, are out of the loop, which means the people needed to enforce the coup are likely to be thin on the ground.

And the Shi'a have weapons now, and so they may elect to fight back. Which leads to the three faction civil war and the Lebanization (which Cole is real familiar with, since he lived there for six years, during the war).

TK

[ad-kay.livejournal.com]

Cole says something similar about the possibility of a post-coup civil war in this post:
http://www.juancole.com/2005/01/third-baath-coup-if-as-i-have-argued.html

[sethg]

The point of the "trouble rather the tiger in his den..." proverb, as I understand it, is that annoying a sage can be dangerous. Unfortunately, as you point out, Goldberg isn't exposing himself to any danger by taunting Cole. The people who pay Goldberg's bills aren't interested in learning from his expertise; their interested in hearing whatever blather confirms a certain world-view.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Actually Goldberg has made something that wasn't all that dangerous (sniping at Cole) into a something which could (not likely, but possible) bite him.

Both of them write in narrow fields (Cole the right-wing echo chamber where all dissent is treason and all liberal mean-spirited types who fail to understand either people or real-politik) Cole on the left, where it's take that free-spirited debate leads to real change, even if no one but the left reads it.

So Cole ought to have been allowed his return fire.

But Goldberg, like a usenet hack, just couldn't let it go. He took a couple of paragraphs, and turned them into a full-blown column. Which means Cole scored a palpable hit.

Cole, it seems, isn't likely to do another one, I wouldn't be so sure about Goldberg. Like Michelle Malkin he feels he has something to prove. He has less case for feeling so than she does.

TK