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