Hitchens vs. Cole continued

I’m a new reader of Language Log, where today Mark Liberman provides all the primary-source links for the continuing blogospheric, academic, and Talmudic debates on Hitchens vs. Cole.

He offers nuanced analysis of the debate and its aftermath (coming down on the side of Hitchens, eventually). He’s also got the best blog-post title of the day:

The alcoholic orientalist thief vs. the tenth-rate syntactical train wreck

Jacob Weisberg, editor of Slate (where Hitchens published his original attack on Cole), also stands firmly behind Hitchens, as he notes in an exchange of emails with Juan Cole.

From Weisberg’s first letter [emphasis mine]:

I don’t know what manuscript or piece you are talking about. And how has Hitchens stolen your email? If someone you sent a message to forwarded it to Hitchens, that is not “theft” by any definition I am familiar with — it is something that happens all the time on the web. I would suggest that you try to respond calmly on the substantive issues.

Weisberg’s second letter:

In my judgment, there is no ethical issue here. Commentators are under no obligation to call people they write about….

Your substantive disagreement about the translation and the issues around it are a fit matter for public debate, which appears to be taking place.

Good for Weisberg.