Quote:
|
Scholarly merit? How can you take seriously a guy who would say Iran is showing marvelous restraint in the face of Israeli and USA threats, this AFTER the president of Iran said Israel should be "wiped off the map," comments universally denounced from one end of the globe to the other, comments which are causing global alarm as this religious nutbar goes looking for nuclear bombs.
|
Typical strategy of Chomsky critics is to gloss over the issue at hand and then rely on unrelated controversy to discredit him. I'm not justifying what he said about Iran (because I didn't read it). All I'm saying is that in light of THIS debate, Chomsky's arguements were backed up by credible research. Dershowitz's arguements were not. Therefore, from a scholarly perspective Chomsky had won because he proved his points using the data and primary sources, while Dershowitz used conjecture and generality. A particularly poignant instance is when Chomsky actually called Dershowitz on it saying something like "
"Well, you have two options. You can believe the diplomatic record, as reflected in the sources I've mentioned, or you can believe what Professor Dershowitz says somebody told him."
From grading papers, the ones that use Chomsky's approach get 'A's. The ones that use Dershowitz's get 'C's and 'B's.
Why don't you focus on the debate instead of whatever else Chomsky is to you Cow? It's like saying that I don't think Harper will manage the economy well because he doesn't support gay marriage. Limit your criticisms to the confines of the debate or to the specificity of the issue.