Murdered blogger and journalist Steven Vincent's wife rips Juan Cole up one side and down the other for (surprise!) uninformed commentary. She's right... they ought to change the blog's name. Need we remind you that this prize dreg of humanity is president of the professional association associated with Middle Eastern Studies in American universities?
Vincent, in contrast, becomes an even more impressive figure given what he was planning to do.
...They would not listen,
They did not know how.
Perhaps they'll listen now.
But I'm not holding my breath.
UPDATE: Glen Wishard hits it dead center in the comments: "My respect for Steven Vincent never stops growing. He was everything that Establishment media journalists fantasize about being, and aren't."
My respect for Steven Vincent never stops growing. He was everything that Establishment media journalists fantasize about being, and aren't.
His plan to save his translator makes him a vastly superior version of William Shawcross, for example. And he died for his story, the way heroic journalists do in worshipful Hollywood movies. The real world counterparts of those movie journalists - Shawcross, Woodward, and all the rest - never seem to give their lives for the truth. They're still sitting at their desks with their arteries clogging up. All the awesome forces they took on with their courageous stories never found them worth shooting.
Even if it were the case, which it demonstrably is not, can you imagine having the nerve to title your blog 'Informed Comment'?
I have nothing but contempt for the mainstream journalists who report from the barroom of the Palestinian Hotel in Baghdad, too frightened to actually do their jobs. Hey twits: either do your jobs or go home! What frauds!
... said the courageous Mr. Funt from the comfort of his home.
Yes, indeed. Mr. Funt isn't claiming to be a journalist and claiming special status and access to the truth, while shirking what that job entails. This makes staying at home a perfectly acceptable option.
Michael Yon, on the other hand... now THERE'S a real journalist. And he isn't alone. But he is all too rare, and pointing that out is the responsibility citizens in a free society.
If journalists are going to expect privileged status and treatment, and the prestige and credibility they picked up during the Watergate era, they're going to have to pay the price required to earn it. The same goes for NGOs - and both, as a general class, are failing miserably.
This is going to be part of the coming adjustment for both of these interconnected segments of the "New Class". It's going to be painful. also necessary.
I hope Steven Vincent gets at least a Movie of the Week. NOT directed by Oliver Stone or Stephen Spielberg.
Yehudit: At least he's probably not named on a cross down at "Camp Corey". Thank Heaven for small blessings.
Leaving aside the party political posturing, I rather fail to see your collective case against Cole, except you don't like his politics or what he had to say.
Pity that, while no fan of Cole's Leftist politics, as someone with fairly substantial experience in the region, I rather find Cole a useful read on his areas of expertise. His comments on Vinctent, while harsh, strike me as not unfounded. Painful, but not unfounded. Vincent was over his head and acting like an advocate, not a journo, whatever the odd party political jihad you collectively have against the profession might desire.
Rather vapid and frothy all this, vapid and frothy.