Xrlq smack down
I haven’t kept up with the Glenn Greenwald thing. He said:
Prominent right-wing blogger today calls for the murder of Supreme Court Justices – the Right fails to condemn it
Failing to comment on something isn’t an endorsement so it’s a pretty lame accusation. Xrlq says:
That sounds pretty damning, until you consider that (1) no one called for the murder of Supreme Court Justices, (2) “the right” is not a religion, political party or any other entity worthy of being capitalized, (3) no one had any duty to reply to Misha’s rhetoric, and therefore cannot be reasonably said to have “failed” to condemn it if they haven’t discussed it at all, and (4) numerous right-wing bloggers have in fact condemned it. Apart from those four minor details, however, the title is spot-on.
Ok, then.
July 17th, 2006 at 9:30 am
Well, the only way to “smack down” on Greenwald’s post, apparently, is to completely misrepresent its point. I think it’s pretty clear that Greenwald wasn’t saying that “right wing bloggers ought to condemn all the vile rhetoric that comes from their more extereme factions,” he was pointing up the ludicrousness of right-wing calls for roughly the same thing out of people on the left, in the wake of the what’s-her-name comments. It was a way of pointing out that cries of “where’s the outrage” are usually crap.
Jon at Q and O gets this, at least:
July 17th, 2006 at 9:50 am
TGirsch, you didn’t actually read that post, did you? Almost every sentence of Greenwald’s post was a half-truth, a quarter-truth or an outright lie. It doesn’t matter whether you believe his post hoc explanation of supposedly having intended to make an ironic point. I don’t, but even if I did the guy would still be a serial liar.
Meanwhile, Tim Lambert’s response to my grand fisking must be seen to be disbelieved.
July 17th, 2006 at 11:37 am
Actually, yes I did read it. And oddly enough, I got the ironic point the first time I read it, without having to wait for any “post-hoc” explanations to that effect. And if Jon at QandO is any indication, I’m not the only one who got it. The fact of the matter is, much of the right choose to ignore that and instead take it literally, because a dishonest reading of his post was the only thing they had any ability to attack.
Frankly, in your “fisking,” there’s some serious pot-kettle action going on.
July 17th, 2006 at 12:01 pm
“Dishonest reading” of Greenwald’s post? In the first place, any reading of Greenwald’s original post has to start from the fact that Greenwald wrote that post in defense of a psychotic left-wing comment troll – a professor of psychology, no less! – who posted threats of death and sexual violence against the toddler son of blogger Jeff Goldstein on Goldstein’s own blog. I’m not sure which is sicker: Deb Frisch’s cyberstalking of Satchel Goldstein or Greenwald’s implicit “Everybody does it and you’re a hypocrite!!!” defense of it.
In the second place, Greenwald had to twist facts and truth into a pretzel to draw parallells between the sick comments Frisch left at Protein Wisdom and what Misha said about the Hamdan majority on Misha’s own blog…and Misha’s “Rope, tree, judge” comment doesn’t constitute a death threat any more than do cries of “Kill the umpire!” at a baseball game. Greenwald then used this bogus argument as a springboard to attack the entire right side of the blogosphere. The only honest reading of Greenwald’s scribblings is that Greenwald is, to put it mildly, dishonest.
Feel free to criticise Misha’s over-the-top rhetoric, if you want…but don’t pretend the two are in any way morally equivalent. Or that Glenn Greenwald isn’t, as Xrlq put it, “a lying douchebag.”
July 17th, 2006 at 1:25 pm
TGirsch:
Since it’s clear that all liberals are too dim to understand that tuquoque is not a valid argument, perhaps you’d care instead to document your claim that I have committed any misconduct comparable to Greenwald’s. And since you still think the entire fisking depends on whether or not one buy’s Greenwald’s post-hoc HHOS rejoinder, you probably should read it again for comprehension. Whether Greenwald’s deceits were intended to make a serious argument to the effect that right wing bloggers have a duty to condemn, or a snarky one to the effect that no one does, his deceits are still deceits.
July 17th, 2006 at 4:12 pm
Since it’s clear that all liberals are too dim to understand that tuquoque is not a valid argument
Ad hominem, on the other hand, is perfectly legitimate.
Greenwald’s arguments must all be taken quite literally, whereas Misha’s lynching “joke” was clearly hyperbole. Viewed through that lens, it all makes so much sense!. Yes, when Greenwald said “virtually every blogger,” he meant that quite literally; he wasn’t referring to the the big guns like, say, Malkin and Insty and the like; he literally meant all the obscure bloggers you rattled off. And of course, given that he commits the unforgivable sin of linking to another’s links, rather than re-presenting the cases himself, that just submarines what little shred of credibility he had left.
Yes, I see the light now! It’s all so glaringly obvious! Overblown hyperbole is the exclusive domain of the right, with nobody on the left allowed to use it, particularly not to point out the absurdity of the overblown hyperbole of the right. Greenwald is a lying douchebag, a huge threat to democracy as we know it! I can’t believe I ever linked that douchebag.
July 17th, 2006 at 4:46 pm
You guys either have absolutely no idea what this entire thing sprung from, or you have absolutely the worst reading comprehension I have ever encountered in my life. Last weekend, conservative bloggers took “liberal bloggers” to task for their silence on Deb Frisch.
Well, there was complete silence from me too—and every other lefty blog I read, for the simple fact that nobody had ever frickin’ heard of Deb Frisch. Not only was her blog totally unheard of, but she didn’t even make the offensive comments on her blog—they were comments left in Goldstein’s blog, Protein Wisdom.
So in other words, a totally unheard of “liberal” leaves horrid comments in Goldstein’s blog, and all of a sudden the entire left-wing blogosphere was supposed to instantly:
1. Magically become aware of Deb Frisch’s existence, then
2. Automatically read the comments at Protein Wisdom, and then
3. Mobilize and devote the day to condemning Frisch.
But until we were being yelled at for “defending her” with our silence, nobody had any frickin’ idea that anything had even happened.
Greewald’s post was just noting the complete hypocrisy of the entire situation—you expect us to apologize for remarks made in comments on someone else’s blog by someone we never heard of on a blog few of us ever read, meanwhile prominent righties blogs frequently fail to condemn equally horrid things said by people on their side—on the front page of their widely-read blogs (or even on TV).
Example: Sister Toldjah, on Frisch: “I wish I could say I was amazed at the lack of significant liberal condemnation from the higher ups on the left hand side of the blogosphere over Frisch’s harassment of Goldstein but, sadly, I’m not.”
Two days later, she says: “Apparently Mr. Greenwald thinks the monolith right should spend their time scouring the rightie blogosphere and punditocracy for offensive comments and in turn post the obligatory condemnation”
But isn’t that exactly what we were being berated for? And now you’re all sitting here, with no irony, complaining that Greenwald expects righties bloggers to play by their own rules. Oh, the audacity of that man!
You can’t have it both ways. Either we’re all responsible for the violent things our whackjob extremists say or none of us are. If you’re going to let death threats from your fellow bloggers slide, then don’t expect us to condemn death threats THAT WE WEREN’T EVEN AWARE OF.
Just make up your minds.
July 17th, 2006 at 5:26 pm
A couple of points;
– Greenwald appears to get his traffic by insulting other people. I’ve stopped clicking on links that point to his blog with a comment like; ‘look how this guy is insulting / taunting me / someone I like’. From my perspective, he’s a troll who actually did go out and start his own blog. And now peeps feed him by linking.
– With the revelation of the Townhose e-mail circle, one could make an argument that people who use web-ads sourced from Kos have a coodinated agenda from which they bloviate upon.
(For those not familiair with the “Ko$” story, apparently Kos controls the blog ads to the blogs that have signed up with him. He maintains an e-mailing list that has mentioned what topics to discuss and listed some topics that he didn’t want the people recieving money from his ad-sources to discuss.)
(What does this have to do with Greenwald’s points? Well, in my opinion, he references the “Right” as if it were a coordinated organization of bloggers, which I have seen no proof of. But I have seen proof of a coordinated organization of bloggers who could be labelled as the “Left”. I am unsure if Greenwald is a member of the Townhouse mailing list.)
July 17th, 2006 at 6:30 pm
Of course Misha’s joke was hyperbole. Maybe some of Glenn’s babbling was, too, but when you refuse to acknowledge obvious hyperbole from others, you kinda give up the right to claim that defense on your own behalf. Then again, just for grits and shins let’s try on your “hyperbole” defense for size:
A lie? Noooooo. It’s HYPERBOLE! All he really meant to say was “a few right wing bloggers spent an hour or two of their spare time to write blog entries on a topic I’d rather they hadn’t blogged about.
“More standard call” being a link to …. Misha himself. That wasn’t a lie, designed to trick the reader into thinking that there was some kind of meme going around. Oh, no, it was HYPERBOLE for “Misha’s exaggerated rhetoric is a play on Misha’s own exaggerated rhetoric.”
OK, just one more, to make the point (yes, I could do the whole friggin’ post all over again if I needed to, but no I’m not going to do that).
Nope, that wasn’t a lie, either, just hyperbole. We all know that Glenn didn’t really mean to accuse Dean Esmay of calling for anyone to do anything at all to NYT reporters, let alone kill them. Heavens no. Glenn was just being his usual, hyperbolic self. All he really meant to say was that Dean Esmay supports the death penalty for government agents who commit treason. Hanging reporters? He just meant that the spectacle of their public trial might be a newsworthy event, giving NYT reporters good reason to “hang around” the courtroom to report on it.
No deceit in there, no sirreee. Just “hyperbole,” the one thing he can’t see when others employ it. Then again, maybe he can see it, given that it’s plain as day, but he also knows he’s a fucking moron, and figures that playing dumb on Misha’s obvious hyperbole is itself a wonderfully ironic use of hyperbole, whereby Glenn Greenwald, the ordinary, garden variety douchebag, grandly masquerades as the Biggest Douche in the Blogosphere.
Sorry, Tom, but this douche don’t clean.
July 18th, 2006 at 9:23 am
OK, Guav. Now if you can just link to the righty bloggers who suggested that anyone was supposed to do any of the above, you’ll have made your case. You’re going to run into a little problem with this. You’ll find exactly one blogger and you’ll find the comment in a post that was soon updated to include links to those leftys who did chime in.
One blogger, one comment = the Entire Monolithic Right Wing Blogosphere and it’s Nefarious Townhall Mailing List.
Whoops. Scratch that last part.
July 18th, 2006 at 9:33 am
Er, Townhouse, that is.
_Jon says:
Yes, Gleen Greenwald who is a Libertarian and NOT! NOT! NOT! a liberal (just ask him!) is indeed a member of the leftwing blogosphere’s message command and control unit, the Townhouse mailing list.
July 18th, 2006 at 11:13 am
Meanwhile – speaking of hyperbolic rhetoric – a couple of posts up the page Say Uncle himself, speaking of pending confiscation of Barrett .50s by California authorities, said the following:
“Here’s hoping they turn in all their ammo first.”
Ooooh, that sounds scary! Even more so than “Rope, tree, judge, some assembly required.” I’m sure that any minute now Tgirsch and Guav will be rushing to condemn Say Uncle for his extremist comment threatening brave, outgunned California cops. Maybe even Glenn Greenwald will rush to condemn Say Uncle…which will at the very least boost Say Uncle’s traffic, so that would be a good thing.
…Yes, I’m being sarcastic. But here’s a serious question: Just what do you do in the final extreme, when you’re faced with authorities – state or federal, California AG or Supreme Court justice – who have utter disregard for individual liberty and the Constitution, and who persist in acting as if their personal opinions ought to be the law of the land, regardless of what the law and the Constitution actually says? In all the mud being slung back and forth over what Greenwald had to say about Misha, I have yet to hear anybody really addressing that point (other than, I believe, Q and O).
July 18th, 2006 at 5:32 pm
Yeah, that brings up a tough point.
What would most of us do if we had a .50 and a few dozen of Cali’s finest showed up on the front lawn at 9am?
I suspect most of us would let them in, let them take the gun, request a receipt, then call a lawyer to sue on 2nd A grounds.
But I bet there are a few who would say “No” and close the door. That’s when the Governmental Ninja’s would swing into action and someone would die. And that would be bad.
July 19th, 2006 at 3:02 pm
Xrlq:
Misha runs thoseshirts.com? I did not know that…