Hitchens Vs. Cole, Death Match

This is getting to be more and more amusing. Hitchens went in swinging, Cole responded with a complete below the belt foul and set himself up for the mother of all uppercuts.

But he's 10th rate, and he's a sordid apologist for Islamist terrorism, and for Islamist terrorist regimes. And I've been on his case for a while. But he recently wrote in a blog conversation group he takes part in, that Ahmadinejead had never said that about wiping Israel off the face of the Earth, and neither had his role model, Ayatollah Khomeini. They'd never said it. It was a sort of slander. So I thought well, this isn't going to take me very long. And I have a lot of Iranian friends who, alas for them, can't live in their own country anymore, because of the hideous tyranny there, and who hate people who make excuses for their regime, as they should. And with their help, I was able to show very easily what I had long known, that Khomeini's statement that Israel must be completely destroyed has been a canonical statement in Iran for a long time. Ahmadinejead was only repeating it. He probably was a bit surprised at how much attention it got, given how commonplace the thought is to him. But that it is nothing but a lie to say that this is not a statement from the Iranian theocrats, and it also suggests very strongly, which is the fun bit, that Professor Juan Cole does not know what he is talking about, in any language.

That's probably the mildest part of the smackdown.

I'd say Cole (to paraphrase and earlier smackdown) didn't bring a pair of cuticle scissors to a gun fight, he brought a feather. Which he still managed to do harm to himself with. I absolutely cannot wait to see the foaming at the mouth response this one will bring.

Anyone at Yale having second thoughts on what a catch Cole is?

Other Links to this Post

1. Blue Crab Boulevard » Blog Archive » Just How Far Did They Go — Monday, 12 June , 2006 @ 6:14 am