When I first read this insane post by our friend Juan Ricardo (JR), I didn’t think too much of it: yet another anti-neocon seizure. It was extra colorful, I thought, falling back on the post-Orientalist fixtures, with a special emphasis on psycho-sexual stuff. It had the feel of an ill-tempered piece, well, more than usual that is. It also focused exclusively on The New Republic as the center of neocon evil (what, no Weekly Standard!?).
Well, now we know why. It was a vendetta piece against The New Republic, which published a devastating piece (reg. req.) by Efraim Karsh, trashing Cole and his “bad blog.”
As you may remember, Cole “accused” the guys of Iraq the Model of being CIA agents, and part of a -- you guessed it -- neocon scheme. Why? They had dared to question his authority (or authoritaaa, if you’re into South Park). That’s something JR simply does not take kindly to.
The sad thing is that in his mind he really thinks there’s a Right-wing/Jewish/Neocon/Likudnik conspiracy to take him down, which may help explain the off-the-hook material on Jews recently. As Jonathan Edelstein put it in a comment to my post the other day: it’s a total meltdown chez Juan. Well, small wonder, considering what Karsh wrote. Here’s a sample:
Not that that’s anything new to my readers! PS: Martin Kramer also called Cole on not having written a single book on Iraq, and for having the gall to belittle Kanan Makiya, who’s written two:
See this earlier post of mine as well. posted by Tony at 5:17 PM
