Hitchens not Drunk, Only an Asinine Thief
I'm told Andrew Sullivan is saying that he was at Hitchens's house when Hitchens stole my private mail and published it without my permission, and that he was sober, and that I owe Hitchens an apology.
I am very sorry to hear this. Hitchens came drunk to my talk last year and was incoherent. I was making excuses for his shocking lapse of simple journalistic integrity by hoping that it was the outcome of besotted judgement. If Sullivan is correct, then Hitchens is just plain without any ethics.
At my talk at Georgetown in January 2005, I mentioned that the Communists in Iraq defined the Baath Party as fascist. When Hitchens came up afterwards to the microphone, he uttered a rapid-fire set of somewhat incoherent critiques. He instanced Rashid Ali al-Kailani and asked how I could say that only the Communists spoke of the Baath as fascists. He did not actually allow me to answer his diarrheac question-flow.
In any case, I had not said that it was only the Communists who so defined the Baath.
And, Rashid Ali was not a Baathist, and he engaged in his pro-Axis politics before the Baath Party had been invented. I believe there may be a videotape if he would like to contest what I am saying. We could review his performance, perhaps even post it to the Web.
Hitchens does not know very much about Iraq, but this sort of silly error was owing to his judgment having been damaged by drink. People saw him swigging away in the hallway before he entered the hall. That is why the point about his drinking problem is not ad hominem. It is germane to his failing faculties and increasingly immoral behavior.
I had so hoped that the purloined email and the bizarre characterization of my argument, and the attempt of this Western journalist who is clueless about reading Persian texts to correct my philology, was the mere result of too many whiskey sours taken too early in the morning.
I see that instead it is mere asininity and lack of character. Thanks to Sullivan for settling the issue.
posted by Juan Cole @ 5/03/2006 11:48:00 AM
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30 Comments:
Way to not give a substantive response! I came over to your site, for the first time, genuinely curious as to what sort of coherent rejoinder you might be offering. It appears you have none.
Please, let's have a brief interlude of civility here -- from all parties.
It was an error in morality and tactics to suppose that alcohol was responsible for Hitchens' writing. Moreover, it was ironic that you had so recently run into trouble with John Fund's published words.
Hitchens should not have taken comments from that email, if he was aware that it was off-the-record and personal property.
But, what is actually at issue here is cowboy foreign policy and people's lives. Let's stick to arguments on that.
Check out Sulli's 12:03 PM post - in particular the 2nd paragraph. He is saying that you somehow deliberately mislead your readers. Somehow I doubt you mislead anyone - but is Sulli now saying he can read your mind?
Professor Cole,
I can understand the outrage of having a private email hacked and displayed Valerie Plame-style, but probably the easiest way of creating any significant change to this, is probably to get a translated version of the Iranian President's entire speech translated properly and probably verified and signed by several other authorities on the language and send it to slate as a rebuttal. If your translation of it rings true, then fair minded people would see Hitchen's verision of it being completely off, and it would speak for itself.
Keeping at it the way you/Andrew Sullivan/Hitchens have been going at it would be creating another futile flame war with less basis in fact and more in personal spite.
Although I must say, anyone who resorts to stealing someone's email just to write an article to Slate is sorely on the downhill in his life.
I think if you were to show photographs of the horror of World War II, we would all be sufficiently disturbed. What point exactly are you trying to make? Such sensationalist scaremongering is flat-out shameful.
I don't understand how Hitchens' reasonable critique of your (questionable) interpretation of the Iranian president's remarks should inspire a shallow, rally-style anti-war chant. Are you trying to say that, because Hitchens supported the Iraq war, his critique of you somehow implicates a possible war on Iran? I guess I can see the tenuous relationship between the two, but I suspect you are nothing more than a cynical opportunist: you wanted to demonstrate that you, the virtuous anti-war activist, are better than the war-monger Hitchens. By extension, his critique of you lacks all merit. Am I starting to get it?
If Hitchens is indeed an alcoholic, what relevance is it to his published articles? His articles should be read and scrutinized without reference to his alleged alcoholism. His alcoholism is only relevant if you already have legitimate concerns about his research or his logic, not as a basis for attacking his otherwise sound work. So, yes, accusing Hitchens of being drunk is an ad hom attack without extra justification.
Professor,
You're a public figure, and I'm sure you've applauded on numerous occasions when jouranlists--through leaks--revealed the inner thoughts of other public figures.
Hitchens article failed because his main point--which is that you seem to be ignoring or dismissing arguments that Iran is attempting to get a bomb and that this poses a danger to Israel and the United States--was buried under this translation quarrel. You should address that issue head on instead of focussing on character attacks (which you may be right about, but are of secondary importance to those of us just interested in the issues).
Well said Sir. I personally feel that Hitchens is a doomed character; that all this wretched behavior results from his decision to abandon his friends and his principles and engage in the most hideous forms of urging and war-boosting. The psychological stress of his treachery must be overwhelming; hence his bloated nastiness, his lying, and his inability to engage with the consequences of the policies he has championed.
A simple google search reveals this tidbit:
"Anyway, Cole spoke to an auditorium full of graduate students, Iraqi exiles, a few professors from the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, a collection of assorted gummint types and probably a few journalists too. Most of the Iraqis appeared to be vocal supporters of the invasion to topple Saddam Hussein, and did not appear inclined to support Cole's criticisms of the Bush administration. (One young Iraqi, who said he was attending a college in New Hampshire but had come to Washington to vote in the election, even thanked Americans and their government for invading his country.)
Also not inclined to support Cole was a sneering, hissing, self-righteous Christopher Hitchens, every Republican's favorite Commie, who was ready to criticize Cole for almost everything, from how he "deliberately ignored" the connection between the Revolutionary Islam of al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's government to citing al-Jazeera's crawler as a source.
And when heckling Cole, Hitchens would slur the word "professor" as if he were a drunken New Zealander who'd had his head stomped on a time too many during a muddy rugby match in the pouring rain.
(I know what Hitchens ought to do with all his self-righteous rage. He ought to enlist in something, and not as a staff weenie ensconced safely in one of the many wings or wedges of the Pentagon writing pretty speeches for CENTCOM four-stars, nor penning clever dialogue for vehicle maintenance comics, but as an Army cavalry scout or a Marine Corps sniper. If he thinks this cause is such a good one, one worth killing for, then he ought to go kill for it himself. He may find he likes it. He may find that he's good at it. On the other hand, he may find that humping a ruck, carrying a rifle and getting dirty and staying that way for days on end are hard work and not all that fun, no matter how noble the cause.)
I have been reading you for at least a year. There are only two people I read whom I believe actually know something about Iraq, Iran, and the rest of the neighboring realms of unfolding furies: you and Robert Fisk. Poor Christopher Hitchens. I used to like him for general style and talent but have lost all taste for him since his general spiral into the hell hole of support for the war against the people of our ancient kingdoms. He's a clever fellow and talented writer in a pathetic tangle of intellectual sophistry.
Oh, and Sully just sat by giggling like a schoolgirl when Hitch did this highly questionable act? Well, between the two of them, they would be hard pressed to summon up anything even approaching the ethical standards of a two-tenths of a bucket of lukewarm spit.
Sullivan is a mendacious blowhard. He's lucky you didn't take him to task for some of his more outrageous failings as a man and a writer.
Regarding the "thief" part:
I forgot to post on your blog earlier that as per the 1986 ECPA, (Electronic Communications Privacy Act), the unapproved capture, reception and publication of electronic communication, without the consent of the original users, is a crime - and the law holds that the person who receives the communication and publishes it knowing it came without consent is also liable, in addition to the person who actually stole the email...
The 1986 ECPA will only apply, though, if NONE of your email list users gave your email to Hitchens, but he got it from tapping into the list or having someone else do it... If you have a mole in your email list who is passing along your comments to Hitchens then he is, legally speaking, in the clear...
It is still a very unethical thing to do - he ought to have at least asked your for your reply to his allegations before he published his own MSM translation of Ahmadinejad's speech and claimed to have discovered faults in your email...
It is OK for Hitchens to throw around hissy fits on the internet or in public, but a news article should meet a higher standard of ethical conduct.
well said .. you really have to wonder how some people justify themselves, to themselves, in this case both Sullivan and Hitchens It must be hard work, and each instance presumably makes it that much harder the next time for themselves to be honest with themselves (and therefore others).
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I don't think it's an error in morality to notice that an alcoholic is an alcoholic. If Hitchens isn't drunk on wine this time, so what? He's been drunk on hubris for several years now. He would be a disgrace if he weren't a genuinely sad spectacle. Seen him punditing on TV recently? He's impatient, talks too fast (and too loud), knows it all. You don't have to be actually drunk to be suffering the ill effects of too much drink.
As to translation, something tells me it's not a question of weighing up and deciding between the interpretation of a Persian-speaker and a non-Persian-speaker. It's a field in which two Persian-speakers can have a civilised conversation. Non-Persian-speakers like me will await the outcome.
It doesn't matter how the translation of the speech comes out. Both Cole and Hitchens agree on the main point....Iran's President is a puppet with no power.
There's no reason to pay much attention to his b.s.
BTW, does anyone else find it laught out loud funny that a puppet in a non-nuclear state is threatening a nuclear one?
I mean, it's ridiculous on the face of it.
Don't let the warmongers in. Call a puppet a puppet, and focus on real problems.
notches (1:17 am) writes
I don't understand how Hitchens' reasonable critique of your (questionable) interpretation of the Iranian president's remarks.
Are you fluent, notches?
Please provide examples of your expertise, cv, etc...
Professor --
Hitchens's tragedy is that he has spent the past 3 years unable to admit error, talking himself into an ever-more-implausible hole (with a great deal of moral culpability slowly piling up), and now finds himself lashing out furiously, still unable to recant.
Don't make his mistake. The reference to the drinking problem was an ad hominem attack as anyone understands the meaning of "ad hominem". A simple: "Fair enough. I shouldn't have brought up the drinking issue; I was furious at the theft of my private emails" would get you back on the high ground. Everyone knows about the drinking problem anyway.
Hitchens has now been on the radio repeating his smears.
It's hard to have a reasonable debate with Hitchens since he is stuck on one and only one thought. Here's my small contribution to this dustup.
Professor Cole,
Well done. May I suggest enlisting Digby or Susie Madrak for the tag-team that Hitchens and Sullivan appear to have cooked up?
Best,
Chris Fox
Wichita, KS
Professor Cole:
Sullivan & Hitchens. What a name for a law firm.
Those two are not in your league, professor. You have class and dignity, while these two are nothing but low-lifes. It is amazing that they both still have the nerve to throw stones at anyone. But that only confirms their lack of shame.
Hitchens paraded his true colors when he injected himself into the Clinton impeachment mess by lying on his "friend" Sydney Blumenthal. As for Sullivan, he had no problem shamelessly exposing his needs to the world so it's no surprise he's there to prop up Hitchens. Two of a kind, these two. I suggest you stop wallowing in the muck with them. That's their turf.
Professor Cole:
Sullivan & Hitchens. What a name for a law firm.
Those two are not in your league, professor. You have class and dignity, while these two are nothing but low-lifes. It is amazing that they both still have the nerve to throw stones at anyone. But that only confirms their lack of shame.
Hitchens paraded his true colors when he injected himself into the Clinton impeachment mess by lying on his "friend" Sydney Blumenthal. As for Sullivan, he had no problem shamelessly exposing his needs to the world so it's no surprise he's there to prop up Hitchens. Two of a kind, these two. I suggest you stop wallowing in the muck with them. That's their turf.
Ha! Hunter S. Thompson would have said, "Hell yeah, I was drunk and it was damn good hootch." But they don't make honest drunken journalists anymore.
they don't make honest drunken journalists anymore.
Actually, in response to this post Hitchens did cheekily say that when Sullivan wrote he was "stone cold" sober he was "exaggerating" and that he probably had a drink with Sullivan to "celebrate" the piece. When Galloway called him a "drink-sodden former Trotskyist popinjay," Hitchens hilariously wrote, "some of which...was unfair."
Its rather amusing that a post entitled "Hitchens not drunk, only an asinine thief" is more about Hitchens being a drunk than it is about him being an asinine thief. Hitchens is drunk and an asinine thief, the post is saying, just not necessarily at the same time. Astoundingly perceptive.
Hitchens' most recent response to the Hitchens-is-an-alcoholic line is: "They can ask themselves how it is that I manage to turn in copy that everyone wants to print, on demand, regularly, every week and every month." If one assigns alcoholism is the cause of faulty reasoning, then shouldn't Professor Cole assert that the editors at the Atlantic, Wall Street Journal, and Slate are as drunk or more drunk than Hitchens himself?
The issue with the speech translation is not whether Hitchens understands a single word of Persian, the issue is whether his sources understand Persian as well as, or better, than Professor Juan Cole or not. And if there is a possibility that those sources put their political bias ahead of their expertise, the same possibility exists for the Professor.
Wallow in the mud with a pig and you just get dirty.
At 11:15 PM, Meme chose said...
Way to not give a substantive response! I came over to your site, for the first time, genuinely curious as to what sort of coherent rejoinder you might be offering. It appears you have none.
This is plainly false. Prof. Cole offered the version of the translation he was prepared to stand behind publicly and discussed it, in relation to the points he had made. His discussion of Hitchens as an alcoholic, and opinions on a possible war with Iran do not cancel out the substantive response he did make to Hitchens criticism: In short: Hitchens critisized a draft, not the final result. If you don't understand the difference, I guess you don't understand why newspapers have editors.
Hitchens whole argument is nothing but a straw man, critiquing an early draft translation that even Cole does not stand behind as fully accurate.
If anything, the fact that Cole bounces ideas off others knowledgable in Persian only adds to his credibility in my opinion, that his translation has been vetted by others already and is not solely him rhyming off what he thinks a passage in Persian means given his imperfect non-native mastery of the language.
All Hitchens has is an AP translation that has no such proven backing or even proof that its translator went through several drafts, bounced ideas off anyone else or is even equal or better to Cole in both English and Persian (which is Key, a native Iranian might still give an inferior translation if his english was weak).
I speak imperfect French, and could generally give someone the gist of French text, and I know enough to realize certain phrases have no exact translation or no agreed one anyway, as the meaning shifts in subtle context that only native speakers of French (and sometimes, native speakers from particular French speaking Regions) would understand. I have queried bilingual english/french speakers on certain French phrases and seen them disagree on meanings at length. This is between 2 latin based languages. English and Persian are far more remote linguistically.
Why his detractors automatically put so much stock in the AP translation and immediately discount Cole's amounts only to proving their own bias. As I have outlined, Hitchens' ethical lapse has served to show the rigorous process Cole engages in to translate tricky passages and I commend Cole for that. Unless AP issues some statement of translation methodology that is substantively superior to Cole's, I will trust his translation more.
Thank you Christopher Hitchens for increasing my respect for Professor Juan Cole.
Well, Mr Cole, I think you have been frequently and unfairly smeared lately by some very dangerous and unscrupulous people, cetainly a few who are much more dangerous than Hitchens.
Anyone would feel pressured and angry in your situation. I disagree with some of your responses, which I think plainly reveal the pressure and anger; but I also think it's quite understandable.
Does anyone else see the non-irony of one unreconstructed drunk defending another for mindless mass murder in the Mesopotamian?
Alcoholism is more than occasional ataxia, you know.
If Hitchens' theft and misrepresentation did occur during a rare moment of approximate sobriety, I can only imagine that all the sweating, shaking, vomiting, and picking of imaginary insects off of his skin made the man even more unsympathetic than [hic!] usual to positions he's never grasped.
.
You might want to reference the famous mistranslation of Khruschev's supposed "We will bury you".
According to Alan Melby, a more appropriate translation would have been "We will be present at your burial" - i.e. the West will self-destruct and will be outlasted by the USSR - not a statement of aggression.
see this PDF.
On fighting Hitchens
In the end, what Hitchens says in his recent article in Slate, boils down to f* Iran, f* Cole, f* any quality info on the ME in general. IMO, his argumentation on translation of Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric is simply meaningless. As for the fact that he used Dr.Cole’s e-mails without authorization, it is outrageous, but when subtleties like this stopped attack dogs like him?
This reminds the story of George Galloway’s fight against the British neocons. In January 2006, he went as far as appearing on Big Brother show to donate money for pro-Palestinain charity Interpal. What is remarkable, in response, Israeli ambassador to the UK, bothered to put pressure on the British government to act against Interpal!
This sad story gives some idea about the degree of ruthfullness involved in dealing with people like Hitchens.
Note: Link to Hitchens' piece can be easily googled out, I don't provide it here.
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