Letters to the Editor
-
No apology to the liberals who were right
Ah, so it turns out that the so-called "attack machine" was right. Ben Domenech may have apologized for his "obfuscation", but he didn't apologize for his attacks against his critics in his defense, and his colleague is continuing in the attacks, even after Domenech has admitted that they were right.
The amazing thing about all this is that Domenech actually had to step down (he would have been fired if he hadn't quit). Wrong-wingers so rarely have to pay any price for their mis-behavior. Look at the records of Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Hannity, et. al.--full of lies and distortions, yet they're still on the air.
-
Enlist, Mr Big Talk
Ben, I got a new address for ya right HERE:
http://www.goarmy.com/
Go help your coward-assed President fight what you characterized as his "coherent and just response to 9/11" so we make damn sure those Iraqis NEVER attack NYC again.
No? Gotta stay home in the 101st Keyboard Commando GUI Reserve Battalion?
Hoooo-ah!
-
Just when one feels a modicum
of real sympathy for Lil Ben...
His pals break the mood, and reveal that not even a 2x4 upside the head will help them get it.
I don't know if this a kid thing, or a sociopathy thing...but I am just so grateful my own son who is Ben's age has a conscience...and the decency to at least know when to shut up.
And yeah. He is a liberal.
-
Ah, the beam in your eye...
Does no one see the irony of ending a piece with "the only answer they have is yet another personal attack" when you kick it off with "Loathesome, vile, and disgusting - their contempt for civil behavior surpassed only by the emptiness of their own souls."?
I mean, come on. That's just absolutely brilliant.
-
Post time! (and I don't mean 'Washington'!)
Dearie dearie me...
"Putting aside the charge for which Ben has been pilloried...
And I'm sure he's all too glad to do that...
... and [what] you're left with is a particular group of critics. Unlike Ben, there is far less hope for their redemption. You see -- before they settled on the attacks on his writing -- they spent three days proving that they are the lowest of the low. Charges of racism were born of poor reading comprehension. Threats of violence. Obscene commentary about his mother, his sister, his father. Loathesome, vile, and disgusting - their contempt for civil behavior surpassed only by the emptiness of their own souls.
An earlier post at 'Red State' made the same accusations against Domenech's critics (that they're accusing his family of incest, or somesuch thing); now, I'm no Peter Daou, but I've trawled quite a few blogs posts on this subject, and I've yet to see anyone insinuate anything about Domenech's family, apart from a few suggestions in comment sections that home-schooling might have aggravated his disregard for the kind of journalistic ethics most other people get a grip on by grade-school.
It's almost as if the 'Red State' posters themselves are generating the incest accusations against Domenech's family! 'With friends like that', huh?
These are a people that see a man who gives up drinking in the middle of his life for the sake of his family, and respond by creating rumors of cocaine addiction. These are ignoramuses that think portraying an African-American politician as Sambo is appropriate, as long as the critics are liberal and the target is a Republican.
Always a useful rhetorical tool -- fuse every administration critic into one monolithic straw boogeyman, and voila! Now no-one with liberal views can call Domenech on his thievery, much less anyone suspicious of Bush's drug record or despairing of black bureaucrats who prove that sociopathy and criminal incompetence are truly colourblind.
(Incidentally, I'd be interested to see some, y'know, examples of the Sambo comparisons -- there'd want to be an unholy raft-load of them if they're supposedly so prevalent that everyone who dared to notice and/or report Domenech's misdeeds can be tarred with the same attitudes.)
Our critics can raise their glasses and toast to what they think is success
Excising a serial plagiarist from a paid editorial gig on a major newspaper's website?
-- tearing down a flawed conservative.
Ohh, right.
But therein lies their greatest weakness: destroying a conservative is not to destroy conservatism.
This might be a good time to note that Domenech did this to himself. His exposers didn't put the pen in his hand and force him to steal the work of other writers, (however fervently some of Red State's readers might wish otherwise.)
And while they put all their energy and venom into this campaign, it is worth remembering that for all the noise -- they have yet to present a real alternative to an America that rests on the foundation of freedom, free markets and family.
I don't see why it's incumbent on American liberals to provide an alternative to 'freedom', considering that they're already clamouring for it (you know, under Bush's illegal programs of espionage on American citizens, and indefinite offshore detention?) Nor do I see why they should provide an alternative to 'family' (how vague!), considering that they're the ones clamouring for increased funding and reform of the benighted healthcare and educational systems which are there to provide support for American families.
As for an alternative to 'free markets'... Well, far be it from me to suggest that corporate monopolies, overseas outsourcing, unfettered industrial pollution and massive layoffs are bad for families in any way, but how does 'regulated markets' sound?
Against that, the only answer they have is yet another personal attack."
"Against the brutal power of unfettered capitalism and 'family', those dumb racists only have personal attacks!"
-
Accountability
When someone sees a conservative accept the accountibility they like to preach about, please let me know. Heck, when a conservative abstains from blaming a leftie for a mess they made please let me know. I'll settle for that.
-
Those last two paragraphs...
...really encapsulate comtemporary conservatism for me. Is this what it's come down to? I mean, what kind of person can write something like that and look themselves in the mirror? When he writes "...their contempt for civil behavior surpassed only by the emptiness of their own souls." it's hard to remember that he's not referring to members of the Ku Klux Klan or the Khmer Rouge; he's talking about people who write in to web sites. The phrase "...herein lies their greatest weakness: destroying a conservative is not to destroy conservatism." is not about a sniper who killed Domenech while he was at home, making a sandwich in his kitchen; it's about people who sent in proof that he had plagarized.
This is why I avoid blogs, but with the right nowadays, this type of breathless hyperbole is not confined to blogs; it's comes out on the radio, it's comes from nationally syndicated coloumists, and it creeps onto FOX's cable coverage. When I see something like this, I have to wonder whether they actually beleive what they're saying, or if they're simply consciously pandering to the lowest common denomiator. I don't know which is worse, but if it's the former, how can these people assert that they are the sober, rational, alternative to the "wild-eyed" left?