I’m moving in a positive direction, joining forces with those who understand with utter clarity how men like Glenn Reynolds, or the Michael Ledeens of this world, have abandoned themselves to authoritarianism and mindless devotion to war as a solution to the problem of Islamic terrorism.

No clearer example of why most of the world outside anti-Bush echo chambers ignores this writer. Framing a debate in such absolute terms forces those with whom you might find common ground into apostate status, and whose opinions and inputs might be valuable to be cavalierly discarded merely because they see no evidence that rational centrists such as Instapundit embrace authoritarianism.

But at least Mona has Ellensburg, Ellers, Ellison and Greenwald agreeing with her.

But it’s like this, Lance: there aren’t any Democrats punishing gay people in any way.

Unless they’re Republicans. Then it’s open season on them and any salacious detail they can get their hands on is like homophobic manna from heaven.

This is a defining anti-Glenn Reynolds statement….

http://time-blog.com/daily_dish/index.php?dish_inc=archives/2005_09_01_dish_archive.html

EMAIL OF THE DAY II: “‘Andrew Sullivan is completing his transformation into a Kos Diarist.’ Don’t you understand yet? You are either ‘with’ them or ‘against’ them! I understood perfectly well from the outset that all you were trying to do was show that the triumphalism of the Bush apologists (including Reynolds) was, shall we say, er… premature. Instapundit has been quoting and linking to triumphalist anecdotes about Iraq for the past 2-1/2 years, wholly unfazed by the fact that the news headlines give the lie to it just about every other day. Only unswervingly partisan hit-men seeking to score rhetorical points would have interpreted what you wrote the way Reynolds and his correspondents did. This is another example of the way your friend has lowered the level of debate. You should not have apologized.”

If I ever do start a blog, I’m going to have a no-first-anti-other-blogger-diatribe rule. Other public figures is fair game, though.

but tend does not mean never nor does overvalue mean no value.

Yeah. This is true. However, frankly, Glenn Greenwald didn’t say, “Glenn Reynolds has said that negotiation has no value”. You’re interpreting Greenwald’s statements. You’re doing what Greenwald does to Reynolds.

Here’s Greenwald’s quote:

In response, Reynolds says that the Gregg interview “made me very grateful that he no longer has a hand in formulating U.S. policy.” Thank God that someone who thinks we should negotiate is out of government. After all, refusing to negotiate with North Korea has worked so very well.

Reynolds is glad that someone who expressed support for negotiation has been kicked out of governemnt. That’s not a very moderate position in my opinion. In fact, it’s the position of someone I would say holds contempt for democracy. That’s not 100% proof. It’s just a reasonable inference.

I actually hadn’t looked at your example recently, and I when I looked at it again, I was dissapointed. See, we can’t pin Reynolds down on a clear statement like, “I think everyone who advocates for diplomacy with North Korea should be kicked out of government.”
Nope. That’s just what his statements logically suggest and infer.

I don’t think it’s alright to lie. I think whether someone misreprents someone is a subjective question, and that it’s impossible to separate interpretation of someone’s statements from drawing of conclusions and inferences about intentions and implications that may at times be considered misrepresentation – with any certainty. Barring clear spoken or written intention from said person expressing their intentions to misrepresent.

For example, I don’t think Glenn Greenwald was wrong about North Korea and Reynolds. I think Reynolds couched his rhetoric, but the aggregate message I get from his blog is a consistent, steady, near-univeral stream of criticizing diplomacy with unfriendly nations. I wouldn’t testify that as fact beyond any dispute, but it’s the impression I have. I think that’s basically Reynolds’ message.

I think both I and Greenwald are free to draw conclusions on that. I don’t think it’s bad faith.

And I think that although you are right that Reynolds is officially pro-gay marriage, I think it’s also fair game to question whether and why he puts up stuff on his site from Rammesh Pomurru, who is definitely not. My personal judgement on Glenn Greenwald’s attempt to paint Reynolds’ as anti-gay marriage – in the sense of the particular instance he used – was that it was a weak and questionable instance. On the other hand, Harold Ford seems to definitely be anti-gay-marriage, and Reynolds, as you mentioned, is promoting him. Democrat or not.

I don’t think it’s bad faith to ask these questions. I think the difference between a perceived misrepresentation and an insightful teasing out of the real message is a subjective question. I think if and when Greenwald puts out interpretations that I disagree, I don’t assume he’s mendacious or acting in bad faith. I think he either simply has a different interpretation, or else he simply failed to appreciate some nuance of an argument that changes the totality – another constant action.

You’re trying to draw a line under Greenwald and I don’t think you’ve supported it. So, again, I suppose we just disagree.
Truth is important. I don’t feel that you’ve demonstrated Greenwald as lying.

As for Peters.. I have no particular axe to grind against him. But I don’t think it demonstrates bad faith to call him a warmonger. I think it’s an easy impression to get.

It’s not a picture-perfect capturing of how of the emphasis and nuance that Reynolds placed, sure

Nuance? Tend is not always. Overvalue is not no value. This is not a subtle difference. Spin is not the same thing as misrepresent. Nor is everyone does it an excuse. Greenwald does it in essentially every thing he does. Do you endorse claiming Reynolds in that post was saying negotiation is never a good idea with a hostile regime? I guess I’ll start reading Coulter, I mean it is just spin right?

Neither I nor Greenwald are the only ones who don’t understand what the h*ll is wrong with the trash he promotes – both Greg Djerijan and Andrew Sullivan have lamented his role as the genial gatekeeper for a host of obnoxious, insulting, barbarian crap that he pleasantly dissassociates himself personally from.

He links to all kinds of people, mostly libertarian and conservative, but liberals as well. Most are not obnoxious barbarian crap. One of my first posts was on Sully and Djerejian slamming Reynolds and it was obvious they hadn’t read him because he doesn’t agree with them about a couple of things. So whose word did they take? Greenwald, who of course lied about Reynolds. He is an aggregator blog! He finds views interesting and within bounds that you don’t, so what? He bashes liberals sometimes. Well, that is what people who disagree do. Actually he rarely bashes, he criticizes as gently as anybody around. Compare the vitriol flowing from Greenwald to Reynolds. It is no comparison.

I have discussed putting together an aggregator page myself and specializing in areas Glenn doesn’t. Specifically the neo-libertarian/libertarian space. If I did I would be subject to the same criticism Glenn gets. It would be just as unfair.

both Greg Djerijan and Andrew Sullivan have lamented his role as the genial gatekeeper for a host of obnoxious, insulting, barbarian crap that he pleasantly dissassociates himself personally from.

I could say the same for them, and I could definitely say the same for greenwald who endorses far worse, though you might not notice because they are liberals.

More to the point, what does that have to do with my post? You don’t agree with Glenn’s politics, so it is alright to misrepresent him, to lie?

I sometimes feel like there’s an arc being formed, spanning across troll liberals like Dean Esmay to troll moderate-indies like Reynolds (and yes, here included, though not deliberately) all the way to out-and-out-hatemonger sites like Malkin, that disagrees on many things but all unites around the theme of bashing liberals, the genuine left blogosphere. I can tell you who is part of the arc or not by a sort of gut instinct.

So what? We disagree with liberals. As long as we do not misrepresent them egregiously that is fine. If Glenn Reynolds accuses Greenwald of something along the lines of wanting to set up a harem of teenage boys because he says that having sex with a sixteen year old isn’t a crime then I’ll agree with you. Until then you cannot compare anything Reynolds does to Mr. Sock Puppet. Besides, the Puppetmaster is not a liberal.

Also, are you saying there isn’t an arc doing that on the left? I have no problem with that, they disagree. I just expect them to not smear and misrepresent. While they are not liberals, Greenwald and Mona do, and from your comment you acknowledge that, you just say it is okay and they don’t really do it in such a bad way. I don’t think it is okay, especially when the charges are as foul as they tend to throw around. That is my opinion.

It’s not as if he spends much time on his site dealing with the issue, taking on social conservatives, promoting gay rights, etc etc.

Actually he does. That is why I was so flabbergasted. One of the reasons I enjoy Reynolds is he is a right leaning site that does spend time on the subject. You may not have noticed but this is a big topic with me. You’ll see more on it in the future. I searched his site and came up with lots of citations. He criticizes social conservatives regularly and is a booster of Ryan Sager’s book.

You’re putting up marginally accurate selective representations of Greenwald’s

I am going to dispute that. Not one thing I said wasn’t scrupulously accurate about Greenwald. If Greenwald showed up I doubt he would argue with my characterization of his views in this piece one bit. He would argue about my interpretation of Reynolds, my assesment of his logic, etc. He would not say he wasn’t saying Reynolds was anti-gay or that Reynolds rejects all negotiation with hostile regimes. He would not say he was being hyperbolic.

Nor am I being selective. I could do this with most of his posts. Obviously there are other things i want to blog about. I am using a few pieces for representativeness. I also don’t feel like spending a lot of time defending Rush Limbaugh or many other targets, but he does the same stuff to them as well.

But sometimes I look at something you’ve looked at and think you’re wildly off the mark, making a totally unfair case. Who’s right and who is wrong? Is it always so black and white? Or are we squabbling over interpretations of ill-defined rules and semantic interpretation?

Usually glasnost we just disagree. For example on the outing thing. The facts are not the issue, though some of them may be unclear, it is whether it is okay. We disagree on that. Also, you tend to view some things we write through a certain prism which means you read into things I say that I am not intending. I know that fighting the ideological battle can lead to that, but that happens in our conversations at times. I’ll take a bow on that one, because I don’t think you have had cause to note that from me at all. I may be wrong, but I am very careful about what other people are saying, and if you notice, I ask lots of questions, including in this comment to make sure I understand. I try this with Mona, but it is like trying to spear an eel, it is constantly moving around.

By the way, for a token counterpunch, next time Glenn calls for his political enemies to be executed, you can compare him to Coluter.

That is what I mean about being careful. I have specifically noted that my comparison is not based on that kind of hyperbole. I am talking about the way they represent their opponents and build their arguments. In that sense they are directly comparable.

Djerijan is not a warmonger while Peters is even though they call for the same policies.

Djerijan doesn’t refer to those policies along the lines of “Armies are made to destroy things. We’ve become all wussy and sensitive and don’t let our soldiers fight a real, savage, unrestrained fight.”

That may seem to be true because of their rhetorical style. There are differences between them as I pointed out. However, he is not just called a warmonger because of his style, he is called a warmonger for the policy. I have tried in the case of Mona to pin her down on that and that is what she says. It is the policy that is offensive and makes him a warmonger. I am not criticizing you (and I think you have noticed, I am willing to do so) but Mona in that piece.
In addition, Greg’s policy amounts to the same thing. More troops and more aggressive security means doing pretty much the same thing. They can quibble over a few aspects of that, but the gap is small. The soldiers won’t be standing around directing traffic, they will be out attacking the terrorists and other bad actors. To say otherwise is to say they will not be doing anything over there. I understand criticizing his rhetoric, but in this case it wouldn’t make the reality of how those soldiers behave very much. Mona routinely condemns people who advocate more troops whether they use warlike language or not. Why not Greg? anyway I only used peters as an example, I could find others.

The point is that people get the reputations they deserve. Peters – he’s in the new york post, it’s a good hint – is claimed to slaver for the blood of arabs because he mixes sensible military advice, maybe, with a tone of bombastic, apocalyptic rhetoric.

Maybe so, but people should read Peters more closely. He caused a near riot amongst those who have been using the anti-Arab and anti-Muslim rhetoric because he tore into them for acting as if Muslims were our enemy instead of the Islamists.

To get a more rounded view of peters I suggest you read this.

You will probably like this quote as will Omar:

The most repugnant trend in the American shouting match that passes for a debate on the struggle with Islamist terrorism isn’t the irresponsible nonsense on the left – destructive though that is. The really ugly “domestic insurgency” is among right-wing extremists bent on discrediting honorable conservatism.

How? By insisting that Islam can never reform, that the violent conquest and subjugation of unbelievers is the faith’s primary agenda – and, when you read between the lines, that all Muslims are evil and subhuman.

I’ve received no end of e-mails and letters seeking to “enlighten” me about the insidious nature of Islam. Convinced that I’m naive because I defend American Muslims and refuse to “see” that Islam is 100 percent evil, the writers warn that I’m a foolish “dhimmi,” blind to the conspiratorial nature of Islam.

Web sites list no end of extracts from historical documents and Islamic jurisprudence “proving” that holy war against Christians and Jews is the alpha and omega of the Muslim faith. The message between the lines: Muslims are Untermenschen.

We’ve been here before, folks. Bigotry is bigotry – even when disguised as patriotism. And, invariably, the haters fantasizing about a merciless Crusade never bothered to serve in our military (Hey, guys, there’s still time to join. Lay your backsides on the line – and send your kids!

).
Hardly the words of a man who wants to see the desert run red with the blood of Muslims. I suggest reading the whole thing. I often disagree with Peters, though he may be right in each instance, but most of the outrage is because he is saying things the way they are. He doesn’t hide the truth of what increased security and more troops means in the context of war.

Look, you and I could discuss the NSA and the suspension of habeas corpus and have all kinds of disagreements. You can find the arguments bad or even offensive, unfair even. What I expect you will rarely see is me saying you believe something you don’t by selectively quoting you. Unfair is understandable, misrepresentation is dishonest. I think I heard someone say earlier today that truth was important.

Mona and Greenwald are lying or acting in bad faith. I won’t excuse it. I may be wrong about some things, and you are free to feel so, but tend does not mean never nor does overvalue mean no value. Because you tend to favor government programs does not mean I get to claim you want to nationalize our industry and then refuse to correct the view. How productive would our many conversations be if you and I conducted ourselves that way? Could we learn anything?

I value our conversations precisely because hwen I say something and you take it to mean something different than I intend or assume other things to interpret my meaning you at least attempt to understand where I am coming from. You don’t sit there and say “you do too mean that,” as if I don’t know what I meant. We don’t use the excuse that we disagree with each other to go off and fabricate a diatribe about how horrible the other person is without being willing to let them say clearly what they believe.

Greenwald is a fabulist, I just think you are often mistaken, as you do me. Those are very different things.

I hadn’t thought of it, but I think I was aware of it.

Glasnost,

It is good to see you are being brief again;^)

… but Michael, did you know that the title of your post is also the name of a book by David Horowitz?

Was this a Freudian slip, a deliberate reference, or a complete coincidence?

This post, and the title, are Lance’s. I’m going to assume that he probably knew of the book. If it had been my post, that would have been pure luck.

Was this a Freudian slip, a deliberate reference, or a complete coincidence?

I give you credit for trying to apply another, less blogospherically charged example of your theorem.

But’s it’s not, Djerijan is not a warmonger while Peters is even though they call for the same policies.

Djerijan doesn’t refer to those policies along the lines of “Armies are made to destroy things. We’ve become all wussy and sensitive and don’t let our soldiers fight a real, savage, unrestrained fight.”

That was basically Peters’s article today on the new counterinsurgency doctrine.

Greg simply says, “We need more troops in Baghdad.”

While Peters may also support sending more troops, he’s talking about a lot of other things. Sending a lot of other messages.

When I said that McQ backtracked today – and specified is probably more fair – it’s because his initial post, to me, seemed to be ambiguous. It could have either been “we didn’t kick enough ass” or “we didn’t send enough troops and secure weapons depots aggressively enough”. Djerijan is 2. Peters is 1. In comments, it came to appear that McQ was talking about 2. But who knows?

The point is that people get the reputations they deserve. Peters – he’s in the new york post, it’s a good hint – is claimed to slaver for the blood of arabs because he mixes sensible military advice, maybe, with a tone of bombastic, apocalyptic rhetoric.

I suppose you could say the same thing about Greenwald. But that’s not the same thing as writing him off as a huckster because Glenn Reynolds was taking one in a series of 1000 moderately-worded postshots at diplomacy, and Greenwald dared to fail to appreciate how subtle the potshot was.

It’s not. That’s the blogopsphere. In a nutshell.

I read Reynolds sometimes, and he makes me angry quite a lot. He’s a got a very frustrating style. He’ll link to, oh, forty-five nasty, unfair, and/or tenuous testimonies painting withdrawal advocates as weak, unhinged, or stupid. Some he won’t comment on at all. Others he will post mild disclaimers, like “I’m not sure I agree with all of this, but”, or, “X feels strongly on”, etc. Neither I nor Greenwald are the only ones who don’t understand what the h*ll is wrong with the trash he promotes – both Greg Djerijan and Andrew Sullivan have lamented his role as the genial gatekeeper for a host of obnoxious, insulting, barbarian crap that he pleasantly dissassociates himself personally from.

I sometimes feel like there’s an arc being formed, spanning across troll liberals like Dean Esmay to troll moderate-indies like Reynolds (and yes, here included, though not deliberately) all the way to out-and-out-hatemonger sites like Malkin, that disagrees on many things but all unites around the theme of bashing liberals, the genuine left blogosphere. I can tell you who is part of the arc or not by a sort of gut instinct.

This isn’t neccesarily a something I can intellectually defend. It’s just something I feel at times. I see it as a product being marketed. And I see it as an exercise in groupthink.

Now, sure, maybe Greenwald draws a lot more fire naturally than, oh, Matt Yglesias. Yeah, he’s generally on the attack. Yeah, I believe that Reynolds is pro-gay-marriage, although it’s not something I’d be more than peripherally aware of. It’s not as if he spends much time on his site dealing with the issue, taking on social conservatives, promoting gay rights, etc etc. I know Andrew Sullivan is pro-gay-rigths from casual reading. Like Reynolds’ views on civil liberty, his views on gay marriage from his blog are invisible to the casual reader.

But the fact is, somehow you and I are both, supposedly reading Greewald regularly, and I think he’s right 98% of the time and very very careful and informed about factual matters, and you think he’s wrong and misleading most of the time. We’re both smart people and neither of us have an agenda. So how does this happen?

You could explore that question as a genuinely interesting one, and I wouldn’t be posting with irritation – but instead you’re just playing the game. You’re bashing the bashers of the bashers. You’re putting up marginally accurate selective representations of Greenwald’s marginally accurate selective representations of examples of people he considers to be pushing marginally accurate selective represenations. To me, anyway.

I’m not accusing you of anything specific. I don’t think you’re dishonest or a mendacious researcher, or any of the things you’re accusing Greenwald of, either. But sometimes I look at something you’ve looked at and think you’re wildly off the mark, making a totally unfair case. Who’s right and who is wrong? Is it always so black and white? Or are we squabbling over interpretations of ill-defined rules and semantic interpretation?

While I might try to tear down that case, I hope I won’t ever cross the line into general demonization.

I get angry and shoot from the hip as a commenter – I’ve done it from here, and I just savaged Reynolds in vague and possibly, from his perspective, unfair generalizations. Possibly I just did to him what I think you do to Greenwald.

So what’s the lesson to be learned? I don’t know. But I’m a permanent skeptic of other people’s lessons on these subjects, their pejorative names and selective quoting.

Everyone’s unfair. Djerijan is unfair. Sullivan is unfair. I like them both. Greenwald, as I semi- agree with you in one of two cases vs. Glenn Reynolds, maybe was unfair. Reynolds, to me, is unfair a lot.
You’re unfair. Kos is unfair. I’m probably unfair at times.

But I don’t buy this campaign. I fundamentally don’t. Greenwald resonates with a lot people, just like Malkin. Just like Malkin, he’s tapping into something related to reality.

By the way, for a token counterpunch, next time Glenn calls for his political enemies to be executed, you can compare him to Coluter. Until then, it’s only an example of ,to me, how flawed your system of comparison is – the right-wing-shading, that arc of bias among everyone that hasn’t been pushing into a (possibly equally biased) leftosphere community of its own – that you compare the two.

Addendum: I returned only to secure a copy of this last comment and its url.

That was weird. How would we know if she returned or not? Why would we care?

Mona, you can come back all you want. You don’t have to tell us or comment. It is not as if you are from an ISP in Brazil which sticks out or anything when we look at our aggregate numbers. I mean if you were the only person who visited this site who was from Brazil, well you notice that somebody is visiting the site from Brazil. We wouldn’t know it was you unless we happened to know that you lived in Brazil. You don’t live in Brazil, so we would never attach the ISP to you. No, we would assume that we got lucky and have one fan from Brazil. Of course if you were from the Netherlands that wouldn’t work because we have lots of readers from the Netherlands. Brazil however, it seems only one.

You are welcome to not come here. However, it is really funny to hear you complain about other people criticizing people. I hold no candle in that department to the likes of Greenwald or you. I certainly have mentioned both of you far less than either of you have mentioned Reynolds and numerous other people. I will also point out a another difference. You are attacking people, I am showing how you and the sock puppet misrepresent others. I would suggest those are two rather different activities.

You know that was my point, I stated it clearly, but you imply otherwise.

I didn’t imply anything other than at one time you were belligerent. I will say the idea that 90% wanted to bomb Afghanistan back into the stone age is a bit high. I certainly knew few people who wanted to be so indiscriminate. Not that I don’t understand it, I do. I just think given your support for the Iraq war and the above you are rather not the one to be giving people who opposed the Iraq war a tongue lashing over their belligerence. I certainly do not remember Glenn Reynolds desiring such a thing either, but I’ll check and see.

I can no longer access Pejman’s article to quote from it. It was breezy, and made it sound like well, gee, we can just win if we partition, with no indication what a huge and precarious endeavor that would be, but he wanted to assure all that it would still count as “winning.”

So if you say essentially the same thing, but it is too “breezy” you are a dunce who deserves ridicule, while Col. Lang is a steely eyed realist. Pejman doesn’t say it would be easy, he thinks it makes the most sense and it is hardly the only time he has posted on it. So maybe before we treat him as a joke we survey his numerous posts on the subject. I predicted you would come back with some “difference” that would make the positions so dissimilar as to deserve ridicule on one hand and high praise on the other. I’ll accept your explanation, but I still argue that the disparate treatment is bad faith.

Oh, and the link is in the post if you need it. He, by the way, was quite pleased to know you are now a convert to the partition plan. Hopefully you will treat him with more respect in the future.

I should point out one more thing, in no part of my post did I misrepresent you or Greenwald’s views. In fact, whenever you have felt I should have stated your views differently, I have agreed that it was fair, though you have never made a major complaint in that regard. Notice, if breezy is all you meant, I accept that, but it doesn’t change my main point about your treatment of the two.

No, our argument has always been over whether your representation of others is correct, not that I am misrepresenting you.I was quite careful not to put words in your mouth. If defending others from your poisonous pen makes me mean spirited, well, I guess I am. You should be glad that nobody here has twisted your words to make you out to be believe something you do not such as vicious smears about desiring genocide, mass murder or other such nonsense. At least our argument is over what you do believe.

Finally, I have never made a single post criticizing you or the sock puppet morally over a policy belief or anything like that as you two so often do others, though rarely does it seem to be an accurate representation of your victims beliefs. Those are mere disagreements to me. I criticize the two of you for your tactics and your dishonest treatment of others.

Addendum: I returned only to secure a copy of this last comment and its url.

And you felt the need to tell us this because ……..?

You can’t even leave in a huff without contradicting yourself.

1. As you well know, I admitted that I, like 90% of the population (including David Weigel), wanted to bomb Afghanistan into the Stone Age right after 9/11. For the moral and sane among us, bloody carnage and revenge swimming in our heads passed. You know that was my point, I stated it clearly, but you imply otherwise.

2. I can no longer access Pejman’s article to quote from it. It was breezy, and made it sound like well, gee, we can just win if we partition, with no indication what a huge and precarious endeavor that would be, but he wanted to assure all that it would still count as “winning.” By contrast. Col. Lang says it would be very tricky indeed, and cannot be done without a heavy component of competent diplomacy — a talent the Bush Administration shows no evidence of having.

This will be my last comment here, for any reason. I’m moving in a positive direction, joining forces with those who understand with utter clarity how men like Glenn Reynolds, or the Michael Ledeens of this world, have abandoned themselves to authoritarianism and mindless devotion to war as a solution to the problem of Islamic terrorism.

So, snipe away as you like; my time will be spent continuing to expose what is so wrong with the people you still defend, and also working toward the replacement of them in the halls of Congress, as well as in relative respect among the pundit class. I suggest that the rather excessive preoccupation this blog shows with Glenn Greenwald — and secondarilty with me — is indicative of something about you other than what you might think.

In any event, me, I’m moving forward to see what can be done to fix the mess the Bush movment has gotten us into, pursuing coalitions to that end and such — and will continue, when necessary, to show the inanity and hypocrisy of Bush’s defenders. So snipe at me here as you like, but please stay out of my comments at Inactivist. You actually creep me out with your zealous and mean-spirited, juvenile discussion of both Greenwald and myself, and if I am to take pleasure in my own blog, I would ask that your disturbing presence not show up in my threads.

I will do the same, and shall not show up here again.

So long.
(I have removed the email notification option, for I am done here.)

As for not clicking through, that is what Greenwald counts on. That is no big deal if you can rely on someone to represent others fairly, it isn’t with Greenwald. Take it from us. When we get linked less than 10% of people who visit a site actually follow the link, even if the link is most of the story, like at instapundit. Greenwald and Kos links have follow through of around 1 or 2%. They structure their arguments to discourage it. Go back and re-read my dissection of he and Coulter, I pointed that out then. I routinely follow every link of Greenwald’s and find out that almost always he has misrepresented what was said. Sometimes subtly, sometimes his link has almost nothing to do with what he claims it does. This is a man who claimed Megan McCardle is an inciter of violence, a user of eliminationist rhetoric. Jeez.

It is also a bit rich to defend Greenwald as being picked on when Greenwald’s entire schtick is the attack, once again, just like Coulter. I doubt you can find one post at his blog that isn’t a rather vicious attack. So spare me tears over criticisms that are completely justified. I have not misrepresented him one bit.

I don’t know, Mike, it seemed to me like the post I linked to had about ten different excerpted quotations. So, he made those up? That’s what we’re assering? You’re right, I undoutedly didn’t click every link. I felt the point was adequately made quite well without them.

Bashing Greenwald is a sport among pissed-off right-wingers. You won’t see me sign up.

I love you, baby. You know I love you.

What’s that? Support your right to get married?

Naah, baby. It’s not the right time.

Now get out there and vote! (slap on the ass)

First of all many Democrats are creating an atmosphere filled with innuendo about gay people. They are responsible for that and the left should be calling them out for it.

Not to mention when you “out” somebody you are exposing them to other peoples prejudices and to do it now is to do it at the worst time for them, and in an atmosphere the Democrats have a part in creating. If they want that, they can do it for themselves. All those people who are prejudiced are not Republicans by the way, but even if they were it would still be wrong.

As for all the gays in the Democratic party being out, how do you know that? You don’t. It is just that there is no campaign to out them, no list. I know people who are not out, and they are not all Republicans by any means.

I am not avoiding criticism where it really belongs. I just haven’t posted about the criticism I have about the “masses” as you call them. My criticism was leveled at one of the places it belongs. You don’t get these people off the hook with me by pointing at others.