Sunday, February 06, 2005

Heavyweight Smackdown

At this point, my directing you to Juan Cole's smackdown of wingnuttian pundit Jonah Goldberg might be redundant, since it's been the subject of much online discussion over the past 24 hours. Still, if you haven't yet had the chance to read Cole's article, by all means, do so. I'd characterize the feud as a heavyweight match of ideological gasbags, but I'm going to give Professor Cole a pass, because in taking on Goldberg at an intellectual level, he's fighting an unarmed man.

Goldberg is such an intellectual lightweight on middle east issues that it boggles the mind. I've never been quite sure what empowers Goldberg's views within the wingnuttian community, other than the fact that his last name implies that he's a Jew. Apparently, by default happenstance of his religious affiliation , this renders him an expert on all issues in the middle east as one of the Wingnuttistan house organ spokemouths.

I won't sit here this morning and give you the impression that I agree with or stand behind everything that Juan Cole posits, but at least when I hear Cole on NPR or read his written opinions, I know I'm getting informed comment.

At the end of the day, when a weasel of the magnitude of Jonah Goldberg makes a stuttering, assinine rejoiner to Cole like this...

As for why my sorry a** isn't in the kill zone, lots of people think this is a searingly pertinent question. No answer I could give -- I'm 35 years old, my family couldn't afford the lost income, I have a baby daughter, my a** is, er, sorry, are a few -- ever seem to suffice."

...longtime readers of ASZ know exactly the direction I'm going to point his sorry ass.

Why am I even bothering to give anymore bits and bytes to Goldberg than he's already received? Maximum exposure of this intellectual fraud and his complete inability to even begin to understand why Juan Cole (or anyone else with half a brain) would rip him apart at the seams.