In today’s centersmear at Frontpagemag, a Steven Plaut writes:
- In a New York Times editorial, [Juan] Cole said that he saw the elections in Syria as a model for other Arab countries to follow: “The last thing the Arab people need is a red herring like ‘free and open elections’ to distract them from the international Zionist/Neo-Con conspiracy to take their oil.” Professor Cole then added that President Assad’s ability to gain such a high percentage of the vote “all the while maintaining an oligarchic cult of personality oppressive regime mired in nepotism and corruption” was “truly impressive” and a positive sign of “Arab solidarity.”
Wow. What a jerk that Cole is!
One slight problem: Cole never wrote, and the New York Times never published, any such thing. It’s a lame attempt at satire from an Iraqi blog. I didn’t bother reading any further. If David Horowitz can’t use some of his massive cash to hire a goddamn editor, then I assume he wants his writers to lie. Which they do, constantly.
UPDATE 10:30 a.m. CT: Steven Plaut sends the following e-mail:
- Well, here then is a LEGIT citation from Abu Cole
Abu Cole’s ideas of democracy:
From http://www.juancole.com/ this week:
“Al-Qaeda has some political support in some regions of Saudi Arabia, and it should be remembered that Islamists did well in the recent municipal elections, so al-Qaeda there is sensitive to public opinion.”
Aside from the sheer pointlessness of this out-of-context quotation, am I to understand that a fake citation is nullified by a real one?
By the way, the fake citation is still up, and the charming little Plaut has put the same message on the Frontpage comments board under a pseudonym (Gallows).
UPDATE 3:30 p.m. CT: The passage in question has finally been removed. I saved the page this morning if anyone would like to see the original.
