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AMERICAN_DELONG

                                             March     27, 2013
                                             September 02, 2013



Brad DeLong-- economist at UC Berkley, currently renowned on
the net as the other end of the "Krugman-DeLong" axis-- has
a long standing grudge of some sort against Chomsky.

It's a little difficult to say what's going on with this:
DeLong largely sticks to two areas, economics and -- perhaps
oddly -- WWII history.

I sometimes wonder if the
obsession with WWII minutiae is a
tip-off... WWII is the Good War,
the shining example of The West
triumphing over the villains.           Another theory: Delong
                                        seems protective of his friends
If you're an addict of American         from his days in the Clinton
Triumphalism, Chomsky must be           administration, and maybe
particularly hard to take.              Chomsky's opinion of Clinton's
                                        actions are what gets To Delong.


                      Still another theory: If
                      you want to prove your
                      credentials as a
                      centrist, doing a little
                      Chomsky-punching now and
                      then might be politic.


Looking over what Delong says, I
see he uses three lines of attack,          These attacks aren't
one bogus, one I can't evaluate,            unusual for Chomsky-haters...
and the other fairly minor.
                                                        CHOMSKY_DONT_ROCK

                                            Though Delong may do a
                                            better job on quotes and
                                            references than most do.


  Khmer Rouge:

     Chomsky did not have the psychic ability to
     determine what had happened in Cambodia as of
     1979.  Or maybe: Chomsky has not apologized
     for not having said psychic ability.

  Faurisson:

     Chomsky supposedly took the guy for some sort
     of moderate, and supposedly the guy isn't.
     No doubt very sloppy. But then, the main issue
     was whether the guy has a right to speak, not
     his status as a moderate.

  Kosovo War:

     Chomsky was not a fan of Havel the way everyone
     else was.  And his *tone* indicates he's secretly
     a sympathizer for whatever side it is you hate.

     Personally, I couldn't tell you about this jazz...
     (I'll get back to you when I understand the Balkans.)

         This seems like the strongest point of the
         three to me, but then, it's the one I know
         the least about, and maybe that's why?          In general I always
                                                         seem to find that
                                                         after digging deep
                                                         into criticism of
                                                         Chomsky I find very
                                                         little there at
                                                         bottom.








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