Juan Cole Exposed Again

Juan Cole, who flaunts substantial "academic" credentials as an Iraq expert, but who apparently has never been to the country and can only "get by" in Arabic, gets his comeuppance yet again in Iraqpundit.

I lost all respect for Cole some time ago when he responded to a couple of his Iraqi critics by branding them "CIA plants." That was a totally irresponsible and unfounded charge, and a dangerous one -- the kind that gets people killed.

Here, his claim to have a "command" of Arabic is exposed as something less than true, and humiliatingly so.

Things like this raise a serious question as to the validity of "academic" credentials in certifying an individuals' level of expertise. The Chronicle of Higher Education recently questioned the psychological competence of highly-credentialed academics [here]. The failure of the peer review system to root out intellectual shortcomings in many highly publicized cases also calls into question other aspects of the entire credentialing system that is the primary reason for the existence of the modern university.

Read about Cole's humiliation here [hat tip to Instapundit].