Hypocrite? Moi?

I just got the following comment accusing me of hypocrisy:

You're such a hypocrite to enforce moderation of comments after the stink you kicked up about Nick Cohen's site. Don't think people don't recognise this.

Bob

Here's my reply:

I had to start moderating the comments because I was getting a ridiculous amount of nonsense here that was clearly aimed at closing down debate and was therefore itself a form of censorship. Many people who disagree with me quite strenuously, and even insultingly, I allow to comment here but the main thing I won't put up with is time wasting stupidness. I got the moderating idea from the Engage website when I posted a simple question under a post they had linking to a direct allegation that George Galloway had made demonstrably anti-semitic statements. The question was "what has George Galloway actually said that was anti-semitic?" They wouldn't allow the question in spite of the fact that two Engage people - David Hirsh and Alexandra Simonon - have quite happily (and hypocritically) posted comments here.

Regarding Nick Cohen's site, he doesn't allow comments at all. He posted a comment here accusing me of all manner of horridness and signed off as Baruch Spinoza. I caught him out and wrote to him about it and posted about it. He denied it and said that he had closed down the comments because of anti-semitism and potential libel. Complete tosh of course. I posted about it here and here. None of it amounts kicking up a stink.

Anyway, Nick Cohen has now deleted all of the comments that he got to his stupid "antisemitism" article. Luckily I captured most of them here. I didn't get all of them and I wrote to Nick Cohen to see if he still had them and he hasn't written back. I think he dug such a hole for himself posing as being of the same ilk as Baruch Spinoza to accuse me of self-loathing and sophistry and then lying as to why he had closed down his comments that he thought it best to remain shtum and he's probably right. Go check the comments. See in particular the contributions from Linda Grant and David Hirsh.

It seems to me that Nick Cohen closed down his comments because I had posted a link to my posts exposing him as a liar. Certainly his own excuses are entirely lacking in credibility. I'm not sure why he deleted the existing comments apart from the link to my site here unless it was because David Hirsh and Linda Grant made such asses of themselves and he felt that he owed them a favour as they were so supportive of him over his stupid artcle, but try asking him since you feel so strongly about open commenting.

Regarding what people recognise or not, something I notice about Israel's defenders is their complete lack of shame. Even in your case, you have come here simply to indulge in a bit of name-calling. You don't make a case for Israel because there isn't one but what started this whole thing with Nick Cohen was his posing under a false name to make unsubstantiated allegations about me and to accuse Respect of closing down debate. When I exposed him he then went and removed any possiblity of debate with him. If people see hypocrisy in my action then what might they see in his? Have you called him any names lately? You could write to him or you could post here if it's a serious or witty comment. You can't post anything there of course because the great debater just won't allow it.

I might have mentioned to the guy that anyone is welcome to post here if they want to contribute seriously to the debate. He can even post here again even though it's very painful for me to go through all that Nick Cohen stuff again - chortle!