Wednesday, December 18, 2002

Searching The Nation by hand

Back on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving I wrote an article claiming that Alexander Cockburn had changed his tune on the Workers World Party from 1990 to 2002. In a letter exchange with Cockburn and David Corn that appeared in the Dec. 23 issue of The Nation, contributing editor Marc Cooper said he had unearthed Cockburn’s column from the Dec. 31, 1990 issue of The Nation. “So big deal. I caught Cockburn in a glaring, self-serving contradiction. No biggie,” Cooper said in his letter. In a Dec. 7 piece, I argued that Cooper was probably tipped off to Cockburn’s Dec. 30, 1990 column by my pre-Thanksgiving article in Press Action.

Below is Cooper’s explanation to me of how he uncovered Cockburn’s writings on the first Iraqi war.

Dec. 17, 2002

Dear Mr. Hand:

I’m afraid you have caught me red-handed! Here is my complete confession: After having written an off the cuff response to Alexander’s ad hominem attack on me I took advantage of Thanksgiving weekend to see what Alex had written about the first Iraq war. Sitting in front of me are six white file boxes with every issue of the Nation published since 1978. They are musty and dusty. So before taking on the burdensome task of leafing through every issue of 1990 and 1991 to see what Brother Alex had written I came up with a truly devious idea: I would use the Internet to run an electronic search. Even more sinister, I used the very rare Google site to run a couple of searches pairing up Alex’s name with words like “Iraq” and “Workers World Party.”

Lo and behold! After about three minutes your article indeed popped up — the article in which you congratulate Cockburn for switching his position from 1990 and now coming out in support of the miserable Stalinist sect — the Workers World Party. I found the quotes you reproduced from Cockbirn’s column so aberrant, so brashly contradictory of what he says today that I couldn’t believe they were real. I must also add, that the general content of your web site lent no further credibility to the matter. So, with a mixture of glee and resignation, I popped open File Box #4 of my Nation files, and I dutifully fished out the last issue of 1990. I opened it to Alex’s column and I cannot tell you the pleasure I felt to have found that Alex had indeed written those words — a blaring contradiction to what he says today. So, yes, my own search of Alex’s work turned up your citation of his column which I then double checked (and by the way triple checked via Roane Carey in the Nation Copy and Research Department). If I had not found your article on Google, then I would have found Alex’s piece anyway as I had planned to hand-search the dozen or so of his columns written around the Gulf War. So your tip-off saved me a half hour’s work.

Marc

P.S. I am amused to learn that you had previously sent a copy of your article to David Corn. I speak to David every day and he never mentioned it — he probably automatically trashes his crank mail. If he had told me about it, I would have further been saved the time of the Google search.

Marc

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