Saturday, January 30, 2010

I knew that Totten is very boring and thougtless, but I never knew that he could be funny

"The Barney Fife of Middle Eastern “expertise” is at it again. With a couple of exceptions, I try to not write about Michael Totten, mostly because his ignorance makes my head hurt, and his childish worldview is depressing to me. Some things, however, cannot be ignored. Usually, Totten doesn’t allow himself to wander freely into undisguised racism — his “analysis” is generally of the patronizing paternalistic order, without being overtly bigoted. But this time he’s outdone himself. In a discussion with Lee Smith, whose book was panned recently by Max Rodenbeck in The National, these two luminaries of all that is Arab and Muslim sit down and have a chat about “why they hate us.” The gist of their logic is summarized here by Totten:..." (thanks Sean)