{"id":1779,"date":"2007-02-05T15:11:38","date_gmt":"2007-02-05T15:11:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kaninka.net\/stefan\/2007\/02\/05\/nick-cohen\/"},"modified":"2007-02-05T15:11:38","modified_gmt":"2007-02-05T15:11:38","slug":"nick-cohen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/truflun.net\/stefan\/2007\/02\/05\/nick-cohen\/","title":{"rendered":"Nick Cohen"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nick Cohen, bla\u00f0ama\u00f0ur \u00e1 The Observer, skrifa\u00f0i um daginn b\u00f3k sem f\u00f3l \u00ed\u00ad s\u00e9r har\u00f0a gagnr\u00fdni \u00e1 andst\u00e6\u00f0inga \u00ed\u008draksstr\u00ed\u00ad\u00f0sins. Egill Helgason fjalla\u00f0i n\u00fdveri\u00f0 um b\u00f3kina undir yfirskriftinni Vinstrimenn f\u00e1 \u00e1 kjaftinn<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Eins og \u00e9g gat um \u00e1 d\u00f6gunum<\/a> eru pennarnir \u00e1 Spiked of flugbeittir. N\u00fa hefur Michael Fitzpatrick skrifa\u00f0 d\u00f3m um b\u00f3k Cohens, sem er mj\u00f6g \u00ed\u00ad anda \u00feeirra Spiked-manna. Hann heitir: You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re so vain, Nick, you think this war is about you<\/a> – sem er \u00f3neitanlega svalur titill.<\/span><\/p>\n

D\u00f3murinn byrjar kr\u00f6ftulega:<\/span><\/p>\n

Walter Benjamin wrote that the polemicist approaches his text \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcas lovingly as a cannibal spices a baby\u00e2\u20ac\u2122. In this book, Nick Cohen aspires to the tradition of radical polemic but he reproduces only its confrontational form, without grasping its intellectual content. Whereas polemic presents a battle of ideas, Cohen\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s book is about conflicts of feeling and emotions. The Princess Diana of the journalism of attachment, he reduces political comment to personal psychodrama, passion to petulance, argument to abuse. <\/em><\/p>\n

Og ekki er ni\u00f0urlagi\u00f0 s\u00ed\u00ad\u00f0ra:<\/p>\n

Cohen makes some legitimate criticisms of the anti-war movement, of its self-hating moral relativism, of its crass anti-Americanism, of its self-absorbed fears of terrorist retribution, of its indulgence of anti-Semitism and Islamic reaction. Yet even these pointed observations are drowned in a torrent of self-exculpatory bile. Everything comes back to Cohen\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s inner turmoil, and the ongoing battle for his soul, between the former Blair-baiting journalist and the new Cohen, Blair apologist and laptop bombardier. What is extraordinary in the public discussion of What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Left? is that so many commentators take this contest as seriously as he does. That those who must know better should indulge this rot is shameful. It is bad faith, driven by the guilt so many feel for so rashly sponsoring the futile, brutal politics of the invasion. <\/em><\/p>\n

Nick Cohen\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s book takes its place with the autobiographies of Robert Kilroy Silk and Derek Hatton as one of the worst books I have ever been asked to review. He shares most obviously their combination of self-regard and lack of self-awareness, but also their limited historical and political purview. Like them, too, his relationship with the left seems to have been a curious accident.<\/em><\/p>\n

Svona ritd\u00f3ma s\u00e9r ma\u00f0ur \u00fev\u00ed\u00ad mi\u00f0ur ekki \u00ed\u00ad \u00ed\u00adslenskum fj\u00f6lmi\u00f0lum…<\/p>\n

# # # # # # # # # # # # # # #<\/p>\n

\u00ed\u0081\u00f0an sparka\u00f0i \u00e9g me\u00f0 litlu t\u00e1nni \u00ed\u00ad st\u00f3lf\u00f3t. \u00dea\u00f0 var vont.<\/p>\n

Megi Moggabloggi\u00f0 reka litlu t\u00e1nna harkalega \u00ed\u00ad.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nick Cohen, bla\u00f0ama\u00f0ur \u00e1 The Observer, skrifa\u00f0i um daginn b\u00f3k sem f\u00f3l \u00ed\u00ad s\u00e9r har\u00f0a gagnr\u00fdni \u00e1 andst\u00e6\u00f0inga \u00ed\u008draksstr\u00ed\u00ad\u00f0sins. Egill Helgason fjalla\u00f0i n\u00fdveri\u00f0 um b\u00f3kina undir yfirskriftinni Vinstrimenn f\u00e1 \u00e1 kjaftinn. Eins og \u00e9g gat um \u00e1 d\u00f6gunum eru pennarnir \u00e1 Spiked of flugbeittir. N\u00fa hefur Michael Fitzpatrick skrifa\u00f0 d\u00f3m um b\u00f3k Cohens, sem er … Halda \u00e1fram a\u00f0 lesa: Nick Cohen<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/truflun.net\/stefan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/truflun.net\/stefan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/truflun.net\/stefan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/truflun.net\/stefan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/truflun.net\/stefan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/truflun.net\/stefan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1779\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/truflun.net\/stefan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/truflun.net\/stefan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/truflun.net\/stefan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}