Here's a pettish attack on Times columnist Roger Cohen by Atlantic blogger Jeffrey Goldberg, following Cohen's swipe at Goldberg. Goldberg titles it, "A Memo to Roger Cohen."
is: Never attack your critics, particularly in personal terms. Columnists for the Times have scaled the Mt. Olympus of punditry; when they attack their critics they demean their lofty position, and inevitably draw
more attention to the criticism
than it would otherwise receive. Roger
Cohen never learned this rule.
It goes on. This strikes me as an impish and unstraightforward attack. Impish because: all that Cohen did was call Goldberg Netanyahu's "faithful stenographer." That's a good sharp line. Doesn't feel very personal to me. It's fun. Fun is always good, in writing. Also, Goldberg is very important. He's a powerful voice. He should be taken on in any terms a writer wants to use that are persuasive, and Cohen is persuasive. I criticize Goldberg all the time because he is so important. Cohen knows the same thing, whether he's on Olympus or just at his desk. As to Goldberg's lack of straightforwardness, well, it's not straightforward. Goldberg is condescendingly offering a lesson in writerly etiquette/establishment manners. I say, Crap. We're writers dealing with a terribly important matter of our country's foreign policy; Cohen should engage his writerly tools, including wit. All that Goldberg's saying in this is, I know the ways of status.
but what did Golberg call Walt and Mearsheimer, some play on Nasrallah or Ahmadinejad. Seems hypocritical in the extreme.
Goldberg has a petty, insignificant intellect.
What's so damn impressive about Goldberg, Phil? Please tell me because you constantly parse him as being the most important blah blah out now.
Is he the most important Jewish intellectual or journalist? Is that it?
I could understand that because I think most Jews are tribal and psychologically captive by Zionism.
But to us goys, Goldberg is another run-of-the-mill Establishment goon.
First of all, his writing is garbage. He's petty and infantile. What does anyone learn from this hack that they couldn't learn from an IDF spokesperson?
I'm so sick of the Zionist narrative imposing itself on our country. The Jewish Establishment is not indicative of the US. They just have the strongest control (social and political pressures).
And it's sad. We are becoming more and more idiotic and violent like Israel. It's affecting our collective social awareness and potential for progressive reform.
I mean, stuff like gay rights? That's a technical issue. It will be pushed through based on a kind of superficial liberalism. I say superficial because we sure as hell do not care about the rights of people we invade.
The true test of our progressive reform potential and the Enlightenment values that helped us overcome Slavery and racial discrimination (against Blacks anyways) is whether we can mitigate or (long stretch) defeat imperialism and colonialism.
If we can change our foreign policy and our tactics abroad. If we can hold our leaders accountable. If we can apply to ourselves the standards we apply to others.
If we can do that then we've truly changed for the better.
But that will not happen as long as we buy into the bullshit of the Jewish Establishment. And I believe it's more appropriate to call it that then the 'Israel lobby'. This is what the Jewish identity has become.
Zionism is itself a kind of religion. State worship. Just look at Witty. Constantly employing rhetorical acrobatics to justify the obvious crimes of his pariah State. While at the same time softening the reality of their effect on the Palestinians.
His windbaggery and bureaucratic spittle is indicative of the Jewish Left. The so-called progressive Left. Because we're constantly told how Jews are really liberals and that Zionism has corrupted them. Bullshit.
They know what they are doing. THEY accept Zionism. It doesn't accept THEM.
And so, lets say farewell to their narrative. It's all bullshit. Why do we let them dictate the premise of the debate? Why is Goldberg held in such high esteem?
It's a members only country club and we're not invited. So why do we let them call the shots?
Fuck em'.
Goldberg:
"I'm happy to have gotten under Cohen's skin. He is a Jewish apologist for an anti-Semitic regime, and he should be reminded often that he has debased himself. But in a way, I'm disappointed that he's so easily rattled."
Well said. What a wonderful writer.
As a Jew, a former kibbutznik, I dislike the writings of Goldberg, I hate the thought of a Jewish lobby fooling with Congress. Both the Israelis and the Palestinians have done some terrible things and made some horrible decisions—mostly religion based–I'm temmpted to call religion -the root of all evil–excuse me—I'm very upset–What the US needs to do is to take the leaders of bothe sides and bang their heads together and impose some sensible divisions (ha-ha)like declare Jeruselem an open city—exchange the populations of Gasa and the West Bank –the Jews in Gaza and the Arabs in the West Bank——-the Arabs would have the best part but the Jews would soon have Gaza blooming!!
Easily rattled? Goldberg has very thin skin
If Goldberg is a light onto the nations we are all doomed. He responds to Cohen's extremely concise and thoughtful article (which I think may be the best realistic capsule rendition of the problem addressed currently in MSM) by picking out a single tiny part of it, when Cohen called Goldberg Netanyahu's "faithful stenographer." This was a most rational as most brief way of referring to Goldberg's past POV as the same as Netanyahu's. It called on the former savvy of the readership to allow all the rest of the alloted text to display why Cohen disagrees.
Goldberg took it personally, his petty ego all agog, when it was not, as Phil agrees.
Goldberg was further motivated by wishing to divert attention from the content of the other 99%
of Cohen's article–or he simply was not up to the challenge.
If nothing else, Jewish Zionists like Goldberg are masters at constructing golden calves of conceit and affectation. Cohen has debased himself, he says, and has lowered the New York Times, by daring to criticize Goldberg in its sacred pages, and by criticizing the sacred Jewish Zionist people of Israel, he infers.
Jews like Goldberg are desperate to maintain the Jewish Zionist facade of "sacredness" because they know that behind the curtain there is just a sadistic, impotent little twerp pushing levers that produce images of lightning bolts and wrath.
Yeah, Goldberg. You Zionists are real sacred tough guys, aren't you? You can bomb Palestinian women and children from the clear blue sky with US taxpayer supplied and installed weapons. Makes you feel like God, doesn’t it?
RE: "I say, Crap. We're writers dealing with a terribly important matter of our country's foreign policy; Cohen should engage his writerly tools, including wit. All that Goldberg's saying in this is, I know the ways of status."
MY COMMENT: WELL PUT!