Bleh. My criticisms of sieve-boy roused the ire of another subset of the wingnut community, so now I'm not only getting e-mail from creationists, but apologists for Jonah Goldberg. One insists that "Intellectual integrity requires [me] to respond" to Goldberg's whiny rebuttal…no, it doesn't. Goldberg is a talentless hack, a pathetic creature with no skills other than as fluffer to warmongers. Besides, Juan Cole has already addressed it.

This particular e-mail ranter singles out Goldberg's accusation that Juan Cole was also a "warmonger" as a devastating indictment. All it indicts, however, is the limited, binary mindset of the right wing, which tries to pretend that everyone to their left loves Saddam Hussein, coddles terrorism, and wants to see America destroyed. What Goldberg has discovered is that Cole despised Hussein; this is not a shocking revelation. I think Hussein was an evil butcher, and I thought so even at the time Donald Rumsfeld was shaking his hand. I also have no problem agreeing that terrorists are the scum of the earth, and I also love my country as a source of great egalitarian ideas and democracy and freedom …which is why I'm particularly incensed to see these winger nutcases endorsing the idea of my country using terror and torture and bombing and restrictions on civil rights. These wingers push two of my buttons: love of country and hatred of terrorists. Why must they oppose those ideals?