“THE MOST HATED PROFESSOR IN AMERICA” — that’s the title of this Chronicle of Higher Education interview with Columbia professor Nicholas De Genova of “million Mogadishu” fame.

Daniel Drezner has this comment:

I found the entire exchange hysterical — it basically consists of the interviewer asking reasoned questions, De Genova popping off an irrelevant or incoherent answer, and the interviewer having to gently re-ask the question.

Irrelevant and incoherent. That’s what it’s all about with these guys.

UPDATE: Eugene Volokh asks:

What in heaven’s name do the actions of a warlord in Mogadishu have to do with decisionmaking “by the Somali people,” or “human self-determination”? What did the Saddam regime have to do with “human self-determination”? The U.S. invasion at least yields some possible hope that the Iraqi people will determine for themselves who will govern them — the Saddam regime offered no such hope.

Or does “self-determination” by “[a country’s] people” somehow mean “decision by [the country’s] warlord,” on the theory that he somehow innately represents the people whom he is ruling by force? And this representation must obviously flow just from ethnic connection, since there’s no other foundation through which he’s a more suitable ruler than, say, you or I.

So does “self-determination” boil down to “One folk, one ruler, one party?” Or is De Genova just spouting a load of nonsense that boils down to “U.S. bad, anyone else good!”?

UPDATE: Here’s more on De Genova from The Filibuster, which notes that De Genova appears to be accusing Eric Foner of pro-war McCarthyism.