And in this corner...
Professor Cole (GO BLUE!) has posted an audio link to an interview Warren Olney did with him, Anthony Cordesman and our own Victor Davis Hanson. It's about 1/3 of the way down the page.
UPDATE: Apparently you need Real Player {TM} to hear it. Depending on how long it is, maybe I could burn it at home and we could listen to it on the 16th before we talk about how good abortion is for America.
UPDATE: Apparently you need Real Player {TM} to hear it. Depending on how long it is, maybe I could burn it at home and we could listen to it on the 16th before we talk about how good abortion is for America.
posted by Mockrates at 3:26 PM
9 Comments:
The exchange kind of sucked, and was too short. VDH demonstrated even more clearly than in the book we read that he doesn't know much about the region in question, and Juan Cole seemed way too dismissive of the large areas of the country in which life seems to be relatively peaceful.
For those who haven't listened, the relevant comentary starts around 25 minutes in (the whole clip is 50 minutes long)and lasts 10-15 minutes.
I was hoping for a CNN Crossfire Steel Cage Death Match type of exchange, instead it was dualing sound bites by two milquetoast academics.
I have some first hand experience with Cole. Back in the day before he was The Official Middle East Expert of the Anti-War Left (TM) he was a lowly associate professor who had to teach the likes of me. In my case it History 542 - Modern Iran and the Persian Gulf. I took his class in the fall of '90 which was timely considering it was the the run up to Gulf War I. I had no complaints about his teaching so far as learning about the Safavid and Zand dynasties went.
My basic take on Cole today is that he generally knows his facts and figures (witness his smackdown of Hanson for overstating the # of Iraqi Kurds by a factor of aprox. 2X), but I've never been terribly impressed by his powers of analysis. I guess this shouldn't be surprising considering his blog carries ads for "advertise liberally" and "Anti-Bush/Anti-War Merchandise"
One thing I have noticed about Cole is that for a nebbish academic he seems very thin-skinned when challenged. If time permits I'll look for his responses. In the mean time here are some challenges to him
Cole vs. Jonah Goldberg -links to more critiques are in the second to last paragraph
Cole vs Martin Kamner Kamner compares Cole to Inspector Clouseau
"I was hoping for a CNN Crossfire Steel Cage Death Match type of exchange, instead it was dualing sound bites by two milquetoast academics."
Amen!
Here's Cole's final response to LBB.
I'm very dyslexic today. The second link I posted goes to Martin KRAMER.
Quote the Prof:
"Books are nice. They are rectangular and soft and have information in them. They can even be consumed on airplanes. Goldberg should try one."
MEOW!
There's definitely something about the professor's tone that says "spaz" to me.
mk: I guess this shouldn't be surprising considering his blog carries ads for "advertise liberally" and "Anti-Bush/Anti-War Merchandise"
Good point. I only trust media sources whose advertisers I respect. For example, check out this great record player for sale via Bill Bennett's website:
http://www.crosleyradio.com/billbennettoffer/
For only $249.99 (FREE SHIPPING!!!), this 21.5 pound, "paprika-colored" record player, outfitted with Stack-O-Matic Record Changer Technology and a Belt-Driven Turntable Mechanism, can be yours! Be transported back to a time when "rationing still affected the food we ate, the clothes we wore, the toys with which children played, and the lifestyle we kept."
With sponsors like Crosley, I know I can trust Bill Bennett to eschew the defeatist, pinko leanings of the cut-and-run JuanColeniks. Too bad recordings of MORNING IN AMERICA aren't available on vinyl!
Bill Bennett is on too early in the morning, making it even more difficult to stay awake when driving my wife to work. I don't know what kind of an idiot buys a 250 dollar record player, but I'm not surprised that he starts his day with Bill Bennett.
Of course, compared to Air America, he's downright Socratian.
I can't defend Air America at all, but there's still something about calling Bill Bennett "Socratian," even in comparative terms, that should bring a harrowing curse down upon you and your family for a thousand generations.
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