We aren’t up for one this year (we didn’t deserve one, but watch out for us next year!), and I’ll be commenting tomorrow on some of my choices.<\/p>\n
But the Battle Royal right now is between Michael Totten and Juan Cole for best Middle East and Africa Blog. It’s not just that Michael posts here, that he and I are on a page ideologically; or that that he’s a great, generous guy. It’s not just that he actually goes out and puts his eyes on what he writes about and offers original reporting, rather than recycled 1950’s international politics. <\/p>\n
It’s that he’s an honorable guy, who plays straight in his writing and life. Cole, on the other hand – famous for ‘disappearing’ his mistakes<\/a> (scroll to the bottom) on his blog, famous for whining about how MEMRI was lawyer-lettering him<\/a> – only to have been outed as someone who had done the same thing to Martin Kaplan<\/a>.<\/p>\n There are first-rate minds who live in second-rate people, and we excuse their behavior because of what they add to our store of knowledge, art, thought, or beauty. Note that I’m not saying I think Cole is a first-rate mind (I’m doubtful – but I haven’t read his real scholarship); just that I try and separate the thinking from the living. In Cole’s case, though, the living is problematic enough that I’d really hate to see the guy rewarded.<\/p>\n Plus, he’s massively wrong on Israel, on the role of ‘colonialism’ in modern international relations, and on pretty much everything he writes about US politics.<\/p>\n