Chomsky isn't anarcho-anything anymore. He's a full-blown authoritarian leftist. He's quite intelligent, but he's not a real intellectual, because he doesn't actually base his worldview on his intellect. Instead, his whole outlook is predicated on an entirely prejudicial hatred of anything he associates with the "right wing." He'll endorse virtually any kind of tyranny, as long as it's "left wing" enough for him (the Democrats are too capitalist for him though), and he brings his full brainpower to bear to defend this ideology - and the myth of his "intellectual" persona - in a closed feedback loop. Pinochet? Evil of course...but only because he was right-wing. Pol Pot? Oh, he was "misunderstood." Chomsky likes defending a brutal communist dictator who killed anyone remotely educated for being too educated, and who would have killed him without a thought and slept like a baby. This isn't the worldview of an intellectual...it's the worldview of a completely unreasonable and emotionally driven partisan. (Have we only heard a one-sided, highly propagandized, and even fictional account of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia? Perhaps, and I wouldn't put anything past our propaganda machine...but any kind of revisionist history coming from Chomsky is likely to be worthless, because he is virtually guaranteed to include and omit facts exclusively on the basis of extreme bias.)
Chomsky uses his near-genius IQ as a mere blackbox tool instead of actually using it for introspection or reflection. He's capable of some brilliant insights regarding US foreign policy and our media culture, but he's only willing to look in those areas because they help him justify what really drives him: his prejudices. He could have been a real intellectual, and he's certainly smart enough for it, but his ego has gotten so out of control that he will never live up to the potential he might have once had. He's become too arrogant and closed-minded, and it's shows not only in his aloof defense of left-wing totalitarians, but also in the haughty, dismissive, and intellectually dishonest way he debates people. I've read enough of his criticisms of "American libertarians" (or, um...real libertarians) to know he'll never face our actual views...only straw men.
Let him attack Ron Paul if it feeds his ego, or let him defend Ron Paul if he's afraid of losing his relevance. It doesn't matter to me. I feel a bit guilty about ranting like this, but he's such a self-serving tool in my eyes, and I'm tired of hearing about him.
