Brad DeLong is a liberal Berkeley economist who is often a sharp critic of the lies and distortions of the Bush Administration–he’s a Krugman for the blogosphere, as it were, not as distinguished an economist, not as pithy, but he does the same basic job. Proof that he’s basically a “good guy”: he’s got Donald “I’m rich and stupid” Luskin on his case all the time.

Brad DeLong is also a Chomsky-hater. Of course, as is well known, there are lots of them in the United States, but most are rather obviously not very bright (remember the blogopath Pejman–an “ignorant blowhard” as one of his friends described him to me in an e-mail–the Pepperdine Law grad who mostly rambles on about how he went to University of Chicago undergrad?). DeLong seems to be bright, but he really hates Chomsky. He has even published a long take-down of Chomsky, which, befitting a bright person, is well-written and cleverly crafted (though do see the first comments on the posting by one Simon Kisby).

But there’s a problem. His whole take-down is riddled with errors and quotations taken out of context. Edward Herman has documented this at some length: to put it gently, Herman demolished most (not all) of DeLong’s original criticisms. DeLong couldn’t really respond on the merits, of course, so he simply posted a short and nonsubstantive smear of Herman instead.

Here’s what puzzles me about all this. There’s plenty to quarrel with Chomsky about (though at least he’s worth quarreling with!). One could reasonably say, “I think Chomsky is wrong about X,” or “The evidence really doesn’t support Chomsky’s claim about Y,” and so on. But DeLong, and other Chomsky haters, aren’t content with engaging Chomsky in argument: they have to establish that he is beyond the pale, that he is intellectually corrupt and dishonest, that it is no longer necessary to take him seriously.

Don’t get me wrong–there are plenty of folks who are beyond the pale and intellectually corrupt and dishonest: Donald Luskin, David Horowitz, legions of right-wing dopes in the blogosphere, almost anyone at the Discovery [sic] Institute, all come to mind. Chomsky just isn’t one of them, indeed, isn’t even close, isn’t even on the same planet as these pathological liars and noxious mediocrities.

Why would an intelligent person, even one who disagrees with Chomsky, believe otherwise?