This is really too funny for words. You may recall that two years ago today, National Review winger/pundit Jonah Goldberg foolishly proposed a wager with Juan Cole along the following lines:
I do think my judgment is superior to his when it comes to the big picture. So, I have an idea: Since he doesn’t want to debate anything except his own brilliance, let’s make a bet. I predict that Iraq won’t have a civil war, that it will have a viable constitution, and that a majority of Iraqis and Americans will, in two years time, agree that the war was worth it. I’ll bet $1,000 (which I can hardly spare right now). This way neither of us can hide behind clever word play or CV reading. If there’s another reasonable wager Cole wants to offer which would measure our judgment, I’m all ears. Money where your mouth is, doc.
One caveat: Because I don’t think it’s right to bet on such serious matters for personal gain, if I win, I’ll donate the money to the USO.
Having obviously lost the bet (as even he has admitted), Goldberg now won’t pay up (to be fair, Cole declined the bet, after which Goldberg said he took his “victory lap”). Because he’s, well, pathetic.
And so left blogistan has taken up the challenge, agreeing to pay up to the USO to make up for Goldberg’s non-contribution:
I don’t want this whole ordeal to rest uncomfortably upon your conscience, so I and a few friends of mine are going to cover your bet, Jonah. A few of my left blogger friends and I will each toss a few bucks into a hat to send to the USO to cover the $1000 they won’t be getting from you. (I’ll post some of their names later if they tell me they want me to.) Hell, I’ll even put “From Jonah Goldberg” on the memo line of my check. There. You can rest easy.
After you do one more thing.
You have admitted that you were wrong about Iraq and that the war was a “mistake,” but let’s go back to your original post:
Anyway, I do think my judgment is superior to his when it comes to the big picture. So, I have an idea: Since he doesn’t want to debate anything except his own brilliance, let’s make a bet…
You see, while you’ve admitted your error, you have never clearly backed away from the first sentence in this paragraph. So, all I ask that you do in return for the fact that we lefties are covering your bet is admit clearly and publicly that Juan Cole’s judgment is superior to yours when it comes to the big picture.
The USO will get the money no matter what you decide, Jonah. As someone who slept in a few airport USOs while in the service and drank plenty of the coffee at the USO on Bagram Air Field, I know how helpful the USO is to soldiers away from home. I hope, however, you can see your way clear to the admission that Professor Cole deserves. Trust me, you’ll feel better. You might even feel so good you’ll want to make a habit out of saying and writing things that have a clear basis in fact.
Hilarious. So far, Editor & Publisher has picked up the story. Let’s hope a few more MSM outlets follow suit.
…a few months ago on his web site. I can’t link to it, but it was a point by point takedown of Goldberg.
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Let’s understand something. If Jonah had not been the vile spawn of the idiot self-promoter Lucianne Goldberg (she of Linda Tripp fame), nobody would have heard of Jonah. Why National Review Online chose Jonah as its editor is a mystery, but they did, and they are stuck with him.
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National Review, before it went Online, was a moderately respectable, nominally Catholic, “journal” of conservative criticism. Since it went Online, and hired such right-wing wackidoodles such as Jonah and Stanley “can’t have same sex marriage because straight boys don’t want to see openly gay men as leading men in movies” Kurtz (yes, he actually wrote that) it has completely tanked.
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Has Buckley sold National Review to a bunch of idiots?