I’m having too much fun watching ‘Army-of-Juan’ Cole stagger across the Internet (metaphor selected in honor of his assertion that Hitchens is only challenging him because he’s drunk) to let it go this weekend. So I decided to do some homework on Cole’s core claim – that Hitchens had ‘stolen’ his email.<\/p>\n
I first thought of Googling Cole’s own site to see what he’d said about others – for example – revealing national secrets via ‘pilfered’ documents, but I didn’t think that would be hard enough to be any fun.<\/p>\n
So here’s Cole’s latest<\/a>, an epistolary post that opens with:<\/p>\n Cole\/Weisberg Correspondence on Hitchens<\/b><\/p>\n \nWith Mr. Weisberg’s permission, I am posting our correspondence on the Hitchens hatchet job on me in Slate earlier this week.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n and ends with Jacob Weisberg:<\/p>\n Dear Mr Cole,<\/p>\n \nI have read your message and also your blog post today. In my judgment, there is no ethical issue here. Commentators are under no obligation to call people they write about. And Hitchens correctly described the email he quoted from as being from your Gulf discussion group. Your substantive disagreement about the translation and the issues around it are a fit matter for public debate, which appears to be taking place.<\/p>\n \nYours sincerely,<\/p>\n \nJacob Weisberg<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n In between, Cole rants about the valuable intellectual property stolen by Hitchens:<\/p>\n I am sorry that I did not do a better job of explaining the issue of the purloined email. It is not a matter of going to the law, but it is a matter of Slate’s reputation, especially in the blogosphere . . .<\/p>\n \nThe email correspondence that Mr. Hitchens published without my permission had not appeared publicly. The emails were sent to a small private list, of scholars and experts, for reaction, and I was aiming to write something journalistic or give a major address on Ahmadinejad. The list to which I sent the emails has a requirement that no material appearing there be forwarded off the list. Obviously, a list member violated his pledge and passed the messages to Hitchens.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n In his original fulmination<\/a>, Cole said:<\/p>\n I belong to a private email discussion group called Gulf2000. It has academics, journalists and policy makers on it. It has a strict rule that messages appearing there will not be forwarded off the list. It is run, edited and moderated by former National Security Council staffer for Carter and Reagan, Gary Sick, now a political scientist at Columbia University. The “no-forwarding” rule is his, and is intended to allow the participants to converse about controversial matters without worrying about being in trouble. Also, in an informal email discussion, ideas evolve, you make mistakes and they get corrected, etc. It is a rough, rough draft.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n So, being a fact-based guy, i decided to do a simple test.<\/p>\n I Googled [“gulf\/2000” message]<\/a>, and got a pretty extensive result set (420 results).<\/p>\n I went through about half of them, taking about six minutes, and came up with this list of sites, blogs, articles, and messages that cited, quoted, or copied messages from the gulf\/2000 listserv:<\/p>\n Reason Magazine: An Ornamental Education? Political relevance and the funding of Middle East studies in the U.S.<\/a><\/p>\n A guide to the Gulf arms bazaar maze<\/a><\/p>\n \nDr. Rasool Nafisi<\/a><\/p>\n \nCenter for Contemporary Conflict: “In Defense of the Nation”: Terror and Reform in Saudi Arabia<\/a><\/p>\n \nIran Focus<\/a><\/p>\n \nAcross the Bay: The Latest on the Hit<\/a><\/p>\n \nAFSA News: Diplomats on the Front Lines<\/a><\/p>\n \nBeeman: Understanding Osama Bin Laden (fwd)<\/a><\/p>\n \nFriends of a Free Iran: “People’s Mojahedin of Iran” Mission report<\/a><\/p>\n \nAcross the Bay: Young on American Democracy Promotion<\/a><\/p>\n \nReflections on Bahrain<\/a><\/p>\n