Dr Cole's latest reply to Jonah Goldberg is by turns snarky, substantive, and annihilating:
I challenged Goldberg to a public debate on the Middle East, since that was the subject on which he attacked me. His response was not, quite frankly, the response of a man to a challenge. He wanted to put on all kinds of pissant conditions on the subject of the debate. It is sort of as though Wyatt Earp challenged a bad guy to a shootout after the outlaw burped rotgut whiskey in his face and called him a wimp. And when Earp challenges the black hat, the guy turns to jelly and says, "O.K., but you can't use that Colt, it has to be little bitty derringers like the one I use to shoot people in the back at night."
Very nice. But read the whole text. That was just the snark.
Jonah, for his part, is reduced to posting the same e-mail Michael J. Totten's been spamming people with for four years:
Posted at 04:26 PM
MONEY EMAIL [Jonah Goldberg]
Sorry for posting self-serving emails but given all the invective I've been getting I kinda feel like I've got it coming. From a reader:
Subject: I think that I must simply resign from the left
This is the second time that I have written to say that I have been wholly entertained by your column -- and with no subtext of derision implied. Good god, Juan Cole, is a simpering offensive little man. I am so sick of my cohorts on the left: when will they get down from the crucifix? Their whining is just so boorish and self-absorbed. I have really had it. With Christopher Hitchens, I may be one of two liberal "hawks," but I didn't expect liberals to lose their minds so entirely with the re-election of President Bush. I believe it would be better if
our country had two viable alternatives to choose from -- but, it doesn't look as though the liberal front will be offering up any worthwhile candidates soon. At any rate, your column makes me think that the right at least makes for better company: sensible and funny, what more could I ask? I will have to subscribe now.
Thing is, he's often "got it coming". The phenomenon of posting suspiciously convenient e-mails at the World's Shittiest Weblog is one that has been noted for a long time. Often it takes the form of a smear or particularly ugly utterance which a Cornertard lacks the guts to affix to his own name: the ventriloquist/dummie trick. Just as often its used as Goldberg does here, as an approving voice available on command when the crickets start to chirp and the audience is restless or aghast: The Co-conspirator In The Crowd whose lines are memorised and who is paid in cash after the show.
Anyway, here is a little reminder of why Goldberg deserves everything Cole has sent his way.
Added: See also The Poorman, and the Jonah Goldberg Nickname Contest at Rox Populi, via Majikthise.
posted by RETARDO MONTALBAN @ 7:10 AM
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