Should they keep on so seeking even when their quest begins to look like this?
| Senator John McCain, who seeks endorsements from haters of Roman Catholics, is alleging that Hamas has "endorsed" Barack Obama. He darkly suggests that this means something. It is a despicable, dirty campaign trick. Who do you think the Ku Klux Klan will be endorsing? And if the Grand Dragons plump for McCain, does that tell us anything about McCain except that he is pasty faced? You can't logically read off anything at all from an unsolicited endorsement. Actually it occurred to me to ask who is endorsing McCain in the Muslim world. Well, it turns out that al- Qaeda No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri has declared that he is actually on McCain's side in wanting to destroy Iran. Al-Zawahiri is hurt that McCain keeps confusing hyper-Sunni al-Qaeda with radical Shiism: "Ayman al-Zawahiri said al-Qaeda wants to see the destruction of Iran - a Shiite nation battling the terrorists . . . ‘The dispute between America and Iran is a genuine struggle, and the possibility of the US striking Iran is real,’ al-Zawahiri said. . ." Al-Zawahiri hopes that the US struggle with Iran will destroy the latter and weaken the former, putting al-Qaeda in a position to administer the coup de grace. In essence, al-Zawahiri is endorsing McCain's plan to "bomb, bomb, bomb/ bomb, bomb Iran." Then, it turns out that 8 percent of Pakistanis support McCain. 30 percent support Hillary Clinton, and she leads in this Muslim country over Obama (13%). But surely it is Pakistani liberals who are favoring Hillary, the sort people who supported Benazir Bhutto. So which Pakistanis are supporting McCain? Presumably the conservative Muslims who can't accept the leadership of a woman. And wouldn't some of those be, like, part of the so-called 'transcendent challenge'? |
Now the quotidian teacup of NALEO, North American Liberal Educationist Orientalising, affords much more impressive tempests than that one. The critical hot vapour of Hurricane Juan gets diffused through so great a volume of alien and bewildered political atmosphere that one scarcely feels a breeze move on JC’s account. Naturally what we, the denizens of Teacup World, really want to know at the moment is how JC feels about the latest goofball accusations from the direction of Lynx Badger Iconoclastes LLC: "The unfortunate appearance is that Cole is part of this operation, using his informed commentator status to encourage his readers to swallow the bait."
Forget J. Sidney and Doctor Zed, O Bones! Does Juan Cole endorse Michael Gordon or does he not? THAT is the issue of the hour, sir, and do not allow theeself to be distracted thence! At this point, JC having made it plain that he would prefer that thee was distracted by this desperate chatter about other folks’ sins of endorsement, are thee and we to conclude that JC really is Part of The Operation?
Actually, I dunno. We might do worse than take a cue from the rigorously nonsectarian Sunní-lover goofs and examine what the Colean readers have been swallowing lately. I fear that in general the peanut gallery over at Ann Arbour is almost always better attended when JC starts going on about the politics of the holy Homeland with as small an admixture of libero-educationistical orientalism as can be. Presumably Don Júan would sink without a trace at once if he ever set up as an all-purpose lefty scold modo Huffingtoniano, though. So it looks as if the announced specialty, the wealth of Ormuzd and of Ind, is what lures custom to the e-gate, but that once they arrive, the customers mostly want to gossip about Huffingtoniana rather than plunge on ever deeper into Morgenlandkunde. Well, ’tis better that Wissenschaft gets that much respect, surely, than that it should be frankly despised and rejected. [1]
But does Don Júan do his tonier wares justice? Look at today’s scribble, sir: he ridicules the ridiculous notion that Lesser Breeds Without -- without a vote, that is, in the case at hand -- can seriously "endorse" anybody in holy-Homeland politics, but then marches straight on to discuss which electorally unreachable candidates the huddled masses of Pakistan are alleged to "support." One might get the impression that nonsense is only detected as nonsensical at Ann Arbour when somebody else does it.
"Endorse" and "support" strike me as exactly on a par, which might in principle be an error. Until corrected, though, I shall continue to think that both these verbs are deployed figuratively to signify that such-and-such a lesser-breeder anticipates feeling happy should such-and-such a Yank pol prevail on Thursaday 4 November 2008. The only difference is that she who "endorses" and does not merely "support" is conceived by the rhetor as the cause of other lessers’ "support" over and above her own. Mathematicians coldly inform us, however, that to multiply zero by any other quantity, however vast, does not usually much avail.
Once J. Sidney and Doctor Zed have been dragged in by name, we find ourselves in a different township, rhetorically. The effective object of every orator’s "support" and "endorsement" becomes the Islamic Republic of Iran, an entity which unmistakably does not exist on the same level as Senatorino B. Hussein or Senator Clinton or even President Presumptive McCain. That is how I should analyze myself, of course. Don Júan probably does not care to exactly "support" or "endorse" the works and pomps of Khomeinianity. With him it will be rather a matter of opposing and disendorsing the spirit of "Bomb, bomb, bomb / Bomb, bomb Iran."
But why not bomb Iran? JC is sufficiently libero-educationistico that so shocking a question never effectively arises for him, which is a credit to his niceness but of no public and political importance. Fortunately he cannot, I think, do any positive damage: very few, if any, militant extremist Republicans are gointa decide that Dr. Zed can’t really be quite such a bad guy as he has been painted, not if he favors the B5I plan of J. Sidney McCain. That received claptrap about the enemy of one’s enemy being a friend scarcely applies to the militant extremist GOP. Those folks are so sodden with narcissism and self-esteemin’ that they cannot have even such friends as that, not if friendship has anythin’ to do with an exchange of benefits. J. Sidney (presumptively) presides over an Indispensable Nation, over the one and only Indispensable Nation that ever was. Like Aristotle's Unmoved Mover, J. Sidney McCain is far exalted above any need for friends. JSM does not need friends (and very likely he won’t have many). As for Doctor Zed, it utterly can not matter what he thinks or says, whom or what he supports or endorses or "supports" or "endorses."
A fortiori, "Informed Comment" cannot matter either. I apologize for wasting your time on such stuff, Mr. Bones.
____
[1] I remind thee, Mr. Bones, that we know almost nothing about Prof. Cole’s peanut gallery, or about St. Helena’s, or about ’Abú Aardvark’s, except on the basis of the (presumably tiny) minority of peanuts who have actually posted. Being libero-educationistico, these three forums of Teacup World are likely to have quite a number of strange lurkers in the shadows whose views cannot be predicted â priori, unlike the typical waterin’ holes of Wingnut City and Rio Limbaugh. MESH!!! and lesser dossier-watchin’ e-communities can appeal only to the smelly little orthodox plus a few masochists like thee and me willing to risk ending up inside one of the dossiers. (But God knows best about the peanut gallery persons!)
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