Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

Republicans don’t trust women.

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

“woke” is the new caravan.

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

The GOP is a fucking disgrace.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

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Reader Interactions

23Comments

  1. 1.

    jcricket

    You mean Juan Cole’s not the name you use when trying to pick up chicks in bars?

  3. 3.

    Clever

    I wouldn’t put too much weight on it…the guy got trashed in the comments. There were a few that agreed with him, but it was quickly painted as a “gotcha” piece.

    I pretty much see it as a “my sources are better than yours” argument.

  4. 4.

    Steve

    The genesis of it is a pissing contest between Cole and this guy Kramer. Most commenters in the diary thought Kramer’s criticisms of Cole were bullshit.

    A day or two later, Cole gave a shout out to dkos, and suggested maybe they could do some oppo research on Kramer to help him out. A few people did google searches and most just said “he can do his own fucking research.” So there is a limit, I suppose, to the adoration of Cole.

  5. 5.

    ppgaz

    Blogdom is always in danger of turning into Usenet. Here, it strays perilously close.

    Usenet is a little like the monkey cage at the zoo. Noisy, and lot of shit being flung around. A lot of personal flame wars.

    Cole (Juan, not John) is sort of out of place in the monkey cage. DKos, however, is, thanks to the ease with which its bandwidth can be set upon by chatterers, and the volume of the chatter, not the place I would go looking for help, even if I were looking for help, which I would not be. As a veteran of the Usenet wars, I know that “never let them see you sweat” is rule number one. DKos has become what Marcos himself is not, namely, high on attention-seeking and low on listening. They even had a “people aren’t listening” thread going over there recently. Got no traction; nobody was listening.

  6. 6.

    ppgaz

    Revising and extending my remarks …. Cole (Juan, not John) is a Middle East wonk.

    The Middle East is the world’s dogpile, AFAIC. Somehow, the idea that people who traffic in Middle Eastdom are going to get into a dogpile doesn’t seem all that odd.

    If you took oil out of the Middle East, what would you have there? I rest my case.

  7. 7.

    Clever

    If you took oil out of the Middle East, what would you have there?

    An oil company?

    Sorry, I live to snark.

  8. 8.

    Defense Guy

    IMO it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. I often wonder if Juan Cole can find something that he is NOT willing to blame on the Jews or Israel.

  9. 9.

    Pam is a non stick spray

    Juan Cole is an arrogant, dishonest expert with whom I am in strong political agreement. I used to read his blog daily, but I became disillusioned with his processes after reading some of Tony Badran’s criticisms. Badran may be a confused right-wing partisan prone to impulsive judgements, but his facts seemed convincing, and Cole’s behavior in response to criticism does as little for his credibility as Karl Rove’s does for him. I still check in occasionally because Cole does a fairly good job summarizing and interpreting the news from Iraq, but now I’m always wary of his motives. The perks of being an influential expert blogger and academian can lead certain self-possessed individuals away from the very standards of good judgement, integrity and self control that got them to where they are. If Cole would show a little more humility and stop considering himself beyond reproach due to his status, he would be a much more valuable source.

  10. 10.

    SoCalJustice

    That Kos link appears not to be working – or maybe the whole site is down, but I was reading it a couple days ago, following all the stuff that Tony Badran had been writing on the topic, and yes, there was a Kos “diary” highlighting Cole’s ineptitude, but the “diarist” got hounded by the lion’s share of the posters as a “troll” for even trying to discuss Cole’s biases and failures.

    And Cole thanked the Kossacks for defending him and asked them to do some “oppo research” on Kramer, which they happily did the next day – although even some of the people defending Cole were offended by his request, saying they’re not some “left-wing hit for-request hit squad.”

  11. 11.

    SoCalJustice

    Whoops.

    Rather, “left-wing hit for-request hit squad.”

    Just a “slip of the keyboard” plus “I post late at night and sometimes am sleepy and make mistakes.”

    It happens to the best of us.

  12. 12.

    Steve

    A lot of that Kos post was devoted to showing that Cole had very mixed feelings about the war in Iraq despite saying well after the fact that he opposed it. Then it quotes a bunch of Cole pieces from the time which give the impression that Cole was inclined to oppose it (unless there was international legal backing) but thought that Saddam Hussein was a genocidal lunatic who the world would be better off without. I would have thought that you would have a lot of support for that stance, John, regardless of your feelings about Cole’s scholarship or Cole himself.

  13. 13.

    rs

    the Kos diary entry by mikepridmore on July 12 regarding Juan Cole and his neocon detractors provides more context

  15. 15.

    Jimmy Jazz

    I’m pretty much in agreement with Pam. I treat Juan Cole as a biased, partisan, but entertaining source who I usually agree with, but take with a grain of salt.

    I find the fact that Israel is treated as the holiest of sacred cows in our political culture to be more reprehensible than anything Juan Cole’s done or said.

  16. 16.

    anon

    Another anti-Semite heard from.

    By the way, I read on at least two blogs, atrios was one, that said you were the illegitimate half brother to this Juan Cole professor. Why do you deny it?

  19. 19.

    p.lukasiak

    Give me a break, John. Only two people recommended the diary that you cited, which pretty much tells you that the vast majority of Kos readers thought it was complete bullshit.

  21. 21.

    Randolph Fritz

    The criticisms of Juan Cole seem quite minor, really. And they’re coming from deeply partisan opponents, one of whom apparently draws a claim to intellectual authority from being a grad student, for heaven’s sake.

    One really has not won an debate if one exposes a minor error in one’s opponents argument.

  22. 22.

    Rick

    Shoot, plenty of comment folks here claim victories even with such puny successes. Like we’ve made big advances since USNET.

    Cordially…

Comments are closed.