Professor Cole Under Attack

From Glenn Greenwald at Unclaimed Territory:

One of the most annoying victim movements around is the petulant and growing group, led by the odious David Horowitz, which incessantly whines that pro-Bush students on college campuses are treated very, very unfairly because their views are not praised by all that many people and sometimes are even harshly criticized.

As I've written about many times before, the examples of supposed victimhood almost never entail any actual repression of, or institutional punishment for, the expression of unpopular conservative views, but rather, are composed only of disagreement by other students and faculty members which make the right-wing students feel uncomfortable and unloved.

A vivid example illustrating their true agenda can be found in the blossoming "controversy" over what appears to be the imminent offer of a tenured professorship by Yale University to liberal Professor of Mideast Studies (and well-read blogger) Juan Cole, to teach at the Yale Center for International and Area Studies and in the Yale History Department. Many Bush supporters are arguing that Professor Cole espouses political views which apparently ought to be off-limits on college campuses, and there is thus a burgeoning movement to induce Yale to reconsider its decision. These efforts, of course, are coming from many of the same circles of sermoniziers who hold themselves out as defenders of academic freedom when they decry the oh-so-terrible reception which greets right-wing views on some campuses.

A lengthy smear piece by two students -- one an undergraduate at Yale (who happens to be Powerline Big Trunk's daughter, whom he calls "Little Trunk") and the other at Harvard Law -- was published yesterday in the New York Sun. The article selects multiple half-sentence snippets of Cole's writing in order to "demonstrate" that he harbors a "deep and abiding hatred of Israel"; that "if it were up to Mr. Cole, the country wouldn't exist at all"; and that he is "best known for disparaging the participation of prominent American Jews in government."

I read Professor Cole's blog and often use bits and pieces here. I don't agree with everything he says. I don't agree with all of his assessments of Israel. That said, he has shown nothing, except for a strong dislike for the actions and philosophy of the Likud Party, to substantiate the Right's claim that he is an anti-Semite.

Go read Glenn Greenwald's piece. Stop by Informed Comment and leave Professor Cole a bit of encouragement. Incidentally, I truly hope that Professor Cole gets his position at Yale. That way when I post something from him, I'm not linking to one of them...