June 26, 2013

The Growing Pain of David Aaronovitch

Below is hopefully a tweet exchange pretty much in the order that they were tweeted:
  1. @crookedfootball @DAaronovitch Perhaps it's a McGinn argument - he wasn't calling anyone a p. f., just saying that p. f.s shd be ignored...

  3. @jewssf @crookedfootball In what way were you "smeared" in that piece, Mark? Criticised, yes. Characterised, yes. But "smeared"? Nah.
  4. @crookedfootball @JackofKent I am not furious. Anyone following our exchange can see that you made an accusation you couldn't substantiate.
  5. .@DAaronovitch you impugned my motive for being AntiZionist & lied about why I described Tony Blair as a zionist @crookedfootball

  6. @jewssf @crookedfootball I described you as adolescent. In light of your tweets that seems fair.
  7. .@DAaronovitch you lied about (ie "smeared") me to make your point and you're being equally dishonest and "adolescent" now @crookedfootball

  8. @jewssf @crookedfootball No, I didn't lie about you. I just wdn't take you at face value. You dish it out industrially M, but can't take it.
  9. @DAaronovitch u think calling ppl worried about the growth of surveillance state "paranoid fantasists" isn't a smear then? #semantics
  10. @DAaronovitch no comparison between ur ad hom smears and my honest criticisms of u & u can give yourself a right of reply @crookedfootball
  11. @DAaronovitch & you did lie about me. I can take it, I just dont see why I should. You cant even take true & fair criticism @crookedfootball

There's some weird stuff from Aaro there.  His appearance on the thread at all is bizarre given that he is such a celeb these days BBC Radio 4 uses him to send out the message that the dumbing down is strategy, not a blip.

Do we need to analyse Aaro's nonsense?  Probably not but here goes:

First up, I don't know specifically what Chris Bertram was referring to about earlier smears but clearly what he links to involves smears by Aaronovitch.  My own tweet was perfectly honest. Smearing the critics of his most favoured states is a major part of Aaro's stock-in-trade.  I could understand him denying it on BBC Question Time or a radio phone in but I was surprised he popped into a thread involving, at that point, two relative unknowns.

I'm also surprised at Aaro's apparently unself-conscious projection of his own flaws onto others.  I mean, isn't it adolescent of him to get into a spat that involves a semantic argument over what amounts to a smear?

Anyway, I wouldn't have bothered doing a post on this but I got an email from Twitter yesterday telling me that since I follow BBC Radio 4 Today I might to like to follow the "similar" David Aaronovitch.  Sheesh, does BBC Radio 4 Today know this?  Should they complain to Twitter or should their listeners complain to the BBC?

I'm weary of this already but I made the mistake last night of telling someone I was going to do a post called, The Growing Pain of David Aaronovitch.  I'll tell you what, I'll get ready and go to work where I can't blog and I'll come back to this later.

What I intend is to show several instances where Aaro has resorted to ad hominem smears, usually impugning a person's motive for adopting a certain position, projection (ie accusing others of what he does wrong), contradicting himself from article to article whilst pretending consistency and even contradicting himself within the same article leaving one to wonder if anyone actually checks his stuff.

Meanwhile, check out this post on Aaronovitch on a blog that I only really discovered when it was on the verge of closing down, Aaronovitch Watch.

 UPDATE: Many thanks to Gert in the comments for saving me an easy but potentially endless job with the following comment:
I'm still inclined to say: 'Leave it, he ain't wurffit...'
Agreed! No more Aaro for now and I usually only notice him in the JC. I wouldn't have noticed him this time if it wasn't for his ludicrous denial of ad hominem smears.  Perhaps I'll come back when he comes up with another bogus redefinition of Zionism.
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