Radio Free Dylan — Dylan Ratigan Interviews The War Nerd from The eXiled on Vimeo.

It was pretty much an open secret that eXiled star columnist Gary Brecher, otherwise known as The War Nerd, was actually the site’s intellectual guru John Dolan. But on a recent podcast of Dylan Ratigan‘s Radio Free Dylan, the host made it official: There is no Brecher, only Dolan.

Dolan’s voice is pretty recognizable. So even if Ratigan hadn’t been so explicit, people would have figured it out.

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Amidst the huge celebrations in Los Angeles for Ronald Reagan‘s 100th birthday over the weekend, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention The eXiled‘s little tribute they posted on their site. And by “little tribute,” we’re really referring to former UC Berkley professor John Dolan‘s penning of one of the most glorious character annihilations we’ve ever come across.

A small taste:

I’ve had Reagan all my life. In 1967, 13 years before the rest of you got President Reagan, he became governor of California. It was the terrarium in which Reagan’s tinkerers figured out how to stimulate the beasts in the tract houses to hatred and bathos, the tools with which they ruled and destroyed the nation.

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There’s a great back and forth currently going on between eXile philosophical godfather John Dolan and the neoconservative dean of The American University of Iraq – Sulaimani, John Agresto–a former Reagan appointee who’s attempting to run an American-esque university system in Iraq with our tax money. And when we say back and forth, we mean Dolan is tearing him to shreds.

The battle started a couple of months ago, when Dolan returned from teaching at Sulaimani after being fired by Agresto. Dolan alleges that Agresto fired him after digging up pieces he’d written for the eXile that were critical of neoconservatives and the war in Iraq. That’s actually a mild description–as Dolan doesn’t really allege things, he drops rhetorical daisy cutters on anything he doesn’t like. Read the piece and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

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It had been awhile since fans of the site had seen his byline. Now we know why. Dr. John Dolan, the intellectual godfather to The eXiled and a frequent contributor to the site, had been in Iraq for the past year–teaching English at the American University of Iraq in Sulaimani Kuwait. Dolan’s last few posts prior to his work in Iraq were about his struggles with poverty and homelessness, so he figured he’d hop on the Iraq gravy train. No sense Haliburton making off with all his cash.

It apparently worked. Until his connection to The eXiled eventually wound up killing the deal a year later. He writes about it in a piece on the site called “Neocon Like Me.”

A true nihilist-poet-genius working as a private contractor in Iraq. You can imagine what he came up with. No sense excerpting. Well worth the read in its entirety.

Yeah, yeah, according to internet time we’re a little late on this – according to normal time…it’s still the current issue. So there.

You

Charges: You think it’s your patriotic duty to spend money you don’t have on crap you don’t need. You think Hillary lost because of sexism, when it’s actually because she’s just a bad liar. You think Iraq is better off now than before we invaded, and don’t understand why they’re so ungrateful. You think Tim Russert was a great journalist. You’re hopping mad about an auto industry bailout that cost a squirt of piss compared to a Wall Street heist of galactic dimensions, due to a housing crash you somehow have blamed on minorities. It took you six years to figure out what a tool Bush is, but you think Obama will make it all better. You deem it hunky dory that we conduct national policy debates via 8-second clips from “The View.” You think God zapped humans into existence a few thousand years ago, although your appendix and wisdom teeth disagree. You like watching vicious assholes insult each other on TV. You support gun rights, because firing one gives you a chubby. You cuddle falsehoods and resent enlightenment. You think the fact that 43% of whites could stomach voting for an incredibly charismatic and eloquent light-skinned black guy who was raised by white people means racism is over. You think progressive taxation is socialism. 1 in 100 of you are in jail, and you think it should be more. You are shallow, inconsiderate, afraid, brand-conscious, sedentary, and totally self-obsessed. You are American.

Exhibit A: You’re more upset by Miley Cyrus‘s glamour shots than the fact that you are a grown adult who is upset about Miley Cyrus.

Read the entire list written by Allan Uthman & Ian Murphy
with contributions from John Dolan, Eileen Jones and Alexander Zaitchik here.