Stop Me Before I Vote Again

All I need to know about this Marsh creature is that she refers to "Secretary Gates" as a legitimate source of anything but further self-incriminating/evidence for a war crimes tribunal.

I've come across her writing before, but always considered it third string Democratic boosterism. Forgettable stuff, like any of Franken's, targeted at the audience that enjoys being a couple of watts brighter than Limbaugh fans.

"I always welcome vigorous debate and believe that arguing substance in public is essential to our attaining the ideals of a democratic republic"

stated with a pomp and circumstance
foolish beyond my wildest dreams

" I am interested in being the academic equivalent of Hunter S. Thompson"

you gotta be
pullin' my pud here juan

Give him a break! Owen, his one sin in this, if any, is taking Marsh's attack seriously. Once he decided to do so, he was stuck -- in the exact same way any good-hearted pwog is stuck when arguing with a wingnut; they have to do so on the terms set by the wingnut.

Me I find the dance much more interesting than the music. Here's Marsh, an ignoramus, but a glib and aggressive brand manager. There's Cole, a real scholar! How rare is that in academia? He actually believes in democratic republic too, with substantive public discourse even. Paging Citizen Nader, red courtesy telephone, please... So Cole feels obliged to respond substantively and a quite a response it is too. He's got a vocation as a teacher. What a pity it's wasted on the pwog equivalent of a right wing flying monkey.

self serious grave even
thin skinned
scholar linguist
righteous gadfly (and he swans all this around )

that's more then i can swallow
in a hard on like this guy

i lack all scholar envy for some reason
hey soak up as much shit as you want pal
knock yourself out

doc smiff has a full house par example

but
i'm a salvation by faith not works guy
when it comes to being on the side of the world historical

marxo-calvinism <=> leninism-maoism
(just foolin and pretendin)

but here's my credo :
we are all totally depraved burgerites
exploiters idealists and magpies... to the bone

only by the grace of class revolution
are we or the after we to be liberated

juan cole is an ally pending his
almighty rejection of any class based rough housing

btw
a good scholar under cp discipline wouldn't
take this shrew on

better tasks teem in on the general staff of the working class

"i lack all scholar envy for some reason
hey soak up as much shit as you want pal
knock yourself out"

It's not so much the scholar, Owen, although Cole on his specialty is good,

First, it's that the ghoul's delight meritocracy of academia hasn't eaten him yet. My experience of the credentialing sector is that scholars who really are scholars are an endangered species. There's a lot of stuff to wrote on that, no doubt.

Second, it's morbidly fascinating (to me) to watch a rabidly anti-intellectual perception manager like Marsh use the exact same rhetorical style and idiot guilt tripping as her colleagues on the wingnut bench. Not only is she out of her depth on the topic itself, she's fighting to appear a cut or two above the Limbaughs and O'Reillys. It looks like a bid for audience share. I hope it backfires. Although it's never wise to misunderestimate the pwog appetite for smiley-face authoritarian hectoring.

As for Paine's Credo, I couldn't agree more, but I might try to agree more if I could be sure it would get your antinomian goat.