Barnett Bites Back?

The amount of slams of Tom Barnett lately have increased in both their number and their precision. The consensus of the critique seems to be that Barnett's PNM thesis, and specifically CORE/GAP dichotomy fails the Iraq test. Whoda thunk?

Some bloggers have even gone so far as to argue that Barnett's theories are shrouded in a deliberate inattention to real world events in order to make it an easier sell. But we'll let those bloggers remain nameless at this point, though I know of at least three.

Barnett bites back today though, at least he shows his teeth to John Robb in this post. In the short jab, Barnett manages to get in:

... Robb straw-mans opposing views too often, reducing them to absurdity...
... Robb's being silly and mechanistic ...
... Robb is being rhetorically obtuse ...
... Robb prefers to fight straw-men ...
... This is very weak Robb today...
... He usually performs better ...

Somewhere in that post there is a criticism which deals with Robb's work, but I'm still looking. Of course, he should have stopped there, but Tom has an uncanny ability to say a little too much. Love to play poker with the guy at some point. He ends with this:

I find a lot of it has to do with your daily confidence level.

I'll call.