Monday, May 15, 2006
Martin Kramer notes some tactical retreats by Professors Walt and Mearsheimer:
...I'm going to make a prediction here: Mearsheimer and Walt will continue to back up from claims made in their original paper, not because of pressure but because they got in way over their heads on substance, and now they know it. They will continue to duel straw men, merely to cover the withdrawal or sacrifice of many of their main pieces. In doing so, they will lose the support of the extremists who earlier rushed to embrace them for their courage. They will thus have succeeded in enraging one half of their readers, and disappointing the other half. And they would advise Washington on strategy...
And on Juan Cole's petition -- ah, the irony:
Noted: The bizarre petition launched by Juan Cole back on April 28, ostensibly in support of Mearsheimer and Walt against charges of antisemitism, has petered out well short of its extremely modest goal of 2,000 signatures. There are about 1,300 signatories at the moment, and only a handful sign on each day. It would be hard to compose a list of more obscure academics, ex-academics, stray students and alumni, and simple wannabes. The premise of the petition--that the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations has some duty to police expression by Jews--is absurd. I wonder whether Cole even consulted Mearsheimer and Walt before launching the petition. If not, he did them a disservice and owes them an apology.
The extent to which W&M actually revise and reconsider their many assertions will dictate the degree to which their effort is characteristic of scholarly effort, or just an old-fashioned usenet war where each side just keeps dancing around and revising their arguments on the fly in order to avoid admitting they were wrong about anything. So far I see far more of the latter than the former in W&M's rejoinder.
