A couple of days ago I put up a post mocking Seymour Hersh’s latest New Yorker piece and among other things I said Hersh if full of crap. Well today I find that Gal Beckerman at the Columbia Journalism Review (look ma I made the bigtime!) has cited my post and taken exception to it.

By contrast, righty bloggers responded mostly by questioning Hersh’s credibility and launching ad hominum attacks like this one by the aptly named Really Ugly American: “Hey I have an idea why can’t you as a nice Jewish guy from New York head on over to Tehran and sit down with Achmadiawhackjob and settle this thing over a cup of tea? What you don’t wanna go? Oh yeah that’s right HE WOULD CHOP YOUR FREAKING HEAD OFF!! You can read this jerkoff’s [Hersh’s] entire article if you like but I found him mostly to be full of crap.”

So after reading that I felt compelled to reply to Gal via email. Here it is:

Hello Gal,

Just wanted to say thank you for the link and glad you liked the name of my blog 8). For the record I am not “a righty blogger”. I am a registered Democrat, and consider myself to be a liberal.

So much for basic journalism I guess. You and Sy Hersh prolly get along quite well.

Blog on!
The Ugly American

As to Gal’s charge that mine was an ad hominem attack, I can only offer truth as my defense. As one of Gal’s colleagues Scott Sherman documented in another Columbia Journalism Review article, and is well known by anyone who has ever dealt with Mr. Hersh he is indeed a jerkoff.

Sherman states:

Seymour Hersh is a very difficult man, as prickly as a porcupine. When I first contacted him, his response was unequivocal: “Leave me alone!” When I phoned him to discuss the logistics of a trip to Washington, Hersh erupted, shouting into the phone, “What do you want to ask me! What do you want to ask me!”

The article also offers this tidbit:

“He has no idea of social behavior,” says a close friend and former colleague at the Times,

The Sherman piece lists several instances of Hersh’s trademark jerkoffish (I bet they didn’t teach you that word over at your fancy pants Columbia school of journalism did they?) behavior:

One of his editors at the Washington bureau, Robert Phelps, recently recalled, with wry disbelief, the kinds of messages that Hersh would leave. “He would call people and he’d say ‘I’m Seymour Hersh, I’m doing a story on this . . . If he doesn’t call me, I will get his ass.‘ They’d call back.”

or how about this one:

Hersh reportedly said, “You better see me. Otherwise, you are going to jail with the others”; “G&W is a piece of shit — garbage”; etc.

or this one:

Rosenthal described to Goulden an occasion in which he saw Hersh working the telephone. Rosenthal was quoted as follows: “He was practically blackmailing this guy. He was saying, ‘Either you tell me what I want to know or I’ll . . .’ I put my hands over my ears and ran out of the room. I didn’t want to hear this sort of thing. I didn’t want any part of it.”

Still another:

Only one reporter, Joe Trento of the Wilmington, Delaware News Journal, bothered to investigate Korry’s version. Trento, in the middle of his reporting, got a call from Hersh, who sneered: “You have no business reporting on this story. You should turn your sources over to me . . . . I work for the New York Times, this is our story.”

Sure comes across as a Jerkoff to me. What’s your definition Gal?

In the same article President Bush is quoted saying in his own Texas way Hersh is full of crap.

When General Pervez Musharaff, Pakistan’s leader, asked George W. Bush about Hersh’s report, the president, according to Bob Woodward’s book, Bush at War, replied thusly: “Seymour Hersh is a liar.“

That’s about as blunt as it gets.

Now add to the fact that Hersh has published numerous stories that have since proven to be completely wrong and I think I am on pretty solid ground when I say the man is full of Crap. Particularly when he is trying to convince us that the President is seriously considering; even pushing for tactical nuclear strikes against Iran using nothing more than a series of anonymous sources. I have no doubt we have plans to Nuke Iran and every other country on the planet given the necessary circumstances. I just don’t believe we are anywhere near that point right now and certainly not on your buddy Sy’s questionable word.

Your short record with me Gal isn’t too good either so how about we make a little wager. If we do indeed Nuke Iran in the next year I publicly apologize to you and Mr. Jerkoff….errrr Hersh and if we don’t Nuke Iran in the next year you apologize to me?

Deal?