Not sure I agree– Biden and Holbrooke and Lieberman et al are solid supporters of Israel– but you’re right that something very weird, and deeply saddening (to an old-time hawkish lib Dem like me), has occurred within the past four years to the Dems’ base.

A large number of what Orwell called “smelly little ideologies” have crept into the mainstream of the Democratic Party under cover of Bush-hatred, one of which is a creeping Euro-view of Israel as the Source of All Evil in the Modern World. Prior to 2000, the likes of Juan Cole would have been a ranter on the fringe of the national debate, perhaps an occasional NY Review of Books contributor but otherwise ignored for the most part by the MSM and of course by the party elite.

Today Cole is front and center, the go-to analyst on Iraq rather than the hack called up to represent “the other side” in Israel-vs-Arab debates. Very disturbing. Demands a full-court press against NPR and the other shills for Cole’s incompetence and hatred.

Nutty professor? Juan Cole is simply the typical intellectual who supported John Kerryís bid for the presidency. Thereís nothing at all unusual about him. Kerryís unofficial foreign policy revolved around blaming the Israelis for the rage of the Islamic nihilists. Subtle, and sometimes not so subtle, anti-Semitism is the standard theme of the national Democratic Party.

Iíve repeatedly advocated for studies concerning the thinking of the hard core Democratic Party membership. This almost certainly wasnít done before the national election because of the fear that it would damage Kerryís chances for victory. The election is over. What are the Pew Foundation and the major polling organizations waiting for?

When the Jews are invoked to settle an argument in which they are not involved the argument is over.

Since about 1,000 or so Islamics got killed in Mogadishu calling for a million of them would wipe out Islam.

I’m down with that.

This is a bit on the relationship of the good prof. to Kylan.

All the stuff below is from the linked url.

–==–

KYLAN didn’t support the decision to go to war in Iraq. But he believed that once begun, it was crucial for us to finish the job. He had a running email dialogue with anti-war University of Michigan professor Juan Cole, right up to a few days before his death.

Professor Cole had a personal correspondance with the murdered sailor, and didn’t fucking mention it.

He doesn’t have the simple decency to recognize – even in passing – the humanity of the murdered man. Why do that? It would get in the way of his ideologically sound point. Back in August, Kylan was a human being. Now he’s a token in Cole’s ideological game.

We are a nation of educated morons who have specialized in a narrow field and know how to write papers filled with bullshit in order to get a good grade. How would you like to come up against Cole in class when you were 19 years old and knew nothing and needed a decent grade to graduate? You’d parrot his party line. That’s what I did and it worked.

thibaud, it’s worse than that. Check this out. (In the blogosphere, everything you have ever commented on any blog comes back to haunt you. . . .)

He called for a “million Mogadishus”, if I recollect…

Good! Then you all will be unhappy when your alma mater is the butt of jokes on SNL and will make your unhappiness known to the PTB.

I have this feeling that the Left thrives on the outrage of the conservatives and the Right. Outrage convinces them they’re right. But they just can’t deal with ridicule because that dismisses their arguments.

I went to IU. I live within an hour drive of the place.

This idiot is dependent on a university in a state that voted 60% for Bush.

The alumni tend to be pretty conservative.