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1. Bravo. This was so perfectly incisive that I thought Millman had written it. (That comes across as a backhanded compliment but is not meant as such in any way. Just has his style.)

   — Max · Jan 10, 07:20 AM · #

2. It’s that they frequently utter indefensible nonsense. The problem isn’t their tone. It’s that the substance of what they’re saying is so blinkered that it isn’t even taken seriously by their ideological allies (even if they’re too cowardly, mercenary or team driven to admit as much).

   For a second there, I thought you might be talking about your boss. I can’t think of any pundit who has spewed more indefensible nonsense than Andrew Sullivan and yet his allies are too cowardly too call him out on it. (Glenn Beck comes close, but Sullivan has been around longer so he has a head start. Also, everyone recognizes that Beck is a clown while The Atlantic discredits itself by pretending that Sullivan is someone worth taking seriously.)

   — Joe Carter · Jan 10, 07:20 AM · #

3. Joe,

   It’s rather tiresome to have you dropping by this comments section to criticize Andrew Sullivan every time I write any post about political discourse. You’ve made your feelings about him perfectly clear. And although I disagree with him sometimes — and do so publicly, I might add, just as I disagreed with you publicly when you were my boss — we disagree in our overall assessment of his work. You write that Andrew’s “allies” are “too cowardly” to call him out over disagreements, but that’s exactly wrong. You’ve been most vocal about criticizing Andrew’s work on Trig Palin. I’ve disagreed with him publicly on that story. So has Patrick Appel. So did Dave Weigel and David Frum when Andrew had them guest blog at The Dish.

   You think Andrew is indefensible. I disagree. Get over it. If you’d like to disagree with what I write, you’re free to do so in this comments section. If you want to criticize Andrew Sullivan, start your own conversation on your own blog rather than repeatedly hijacking my comment threads.

   — Conor Friedersdorf · Jan 10, 07:46 AM · #

4. I know the decline of political discourse and basic civility is one of your favorite topics. But you lost all credibility to speak on it when you took a job with Sullivan. It would be like someone who complained about irresponsible oil companies taking a job with BP—and then acting surprised when someone pointed out the irony.

   And although I disagree with him sometimes — and do so publicly, I might add, just as I disagreed with you publicly when you were my boss

   Oh please, that’s a silly comparison You may have disagreed with me publicly about certain political issues but I’ve never trafficked in asinine conspiracy theories. You get no points for tut-tutting Sullivan’s Trig Trutherism. No one with a modicum of credibility could do anything but point out how stupid that was.

   we disagree in our overall assessment of his work.

   I’m not completely sure we do. I’ve known you for some time and have a fair idea about how you think and what you consider important. I find it hard to believe that you could truly think Sullivan’s overall work has been anything other than an embarrassment and a colossal waste of intellect. I always thought you had a pretty good BS detector. Either I was completely wrong about you or you won’t admit what you really think about Sullivan.

   I realize that you have to pay your bill and I can (almost) understand why you took a job with him. (Though I think you’ll come to regret it in the long run.) But you should also understand that most rational people consider Sullivan to be a nutjob. He’s squandered whatever goodwill his previous early (and overrated) work once earned him. He’s been acting like an idiot for so long now that anyone that doesn’t distance themselves from his erratic and irrational rantings doesn’t deserve to be taken seriously either.

   You write that Andrew’s “allies” are “too cowardly” to call him out over disagreements, but that’s exactly wrong.

   As I said, no one could retain their respectability on the Trig Trutherism stuff if they didn’t call Sullivan out on it. But I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about more recent stuff. What about his latest Blame Palin approach to the Loughner shooting? You write an entire post about it and don’t bother to mention that your boss is the primary one passing on this stupid meme.

   You think Andrew is indefensible. I disagree. Get over it.

   I don’t think he’s indefensible, I know he is. And you do too. You might not want to admit it to yourself because it would cause you to have to resign from your position.

   What I think is that you’ve sold your integrity to go work for an insane conspiracy theorist. Once you get out of the little bubble you work in I think you’ll find that a lot of other people who used to respect you feel the same way.

   If you want to criticize Andrew Sullivan, start your own conversation on your own blog rather than repeatedly hijacking my comment threads.

   Fair enough. I’m starting to realize that it’s pretty much a lost cause. I’ll leave it to other people to point out the irony of your posts.

   — Joe Carter · Jan 10, 08:31 AM · #

5. Joe,

   I’ll thank you to stop asserting that I secretly agree with your assessments, but persist in doing something that I know to be indefensible. You’re wrong, it’s insulting, and it’s beneath you. The frivolity with which you impugn the character of others is the real irony in this thread – particularly when you say yourself that you formed a high opinion of my character when you worked with me and actually had all the necessary information to make such judgments.

   Again, if you have a problem with my work – with anything that I say or write – you’re more than welcome to raise it here. What I won’t do is indulge your compulsion to point out what you take to be Andrew Sullivan’s faults in the aftermath of posts that I write. Forgive me if I don’t share your sense of irony, or the notion that it entitles you to hijack comments threads to air it.

   I’ll happily be judged on the quality of my work. I’ll not be judged based upon your inaccurate and irrelevant opinion of my boss.

   — Conor Friedersdorf · Jan 10, 08:58 AM · #

6. What I won’t do is indulge your compulsion to point out what you take to be Andrew Sullivan’s faults in the aftermath of posts that I write.

   Excoriating Joe Carter for a “compulsion” is funny coming from a guy who can’t write a political column without Beck, Limbaugh, or Palin being the villains. But you’re slipping—you wrote a whole column without describing someone’s behavior as egregious.

   — jd · Jan 10, 02:12 PM · #

7. It’s off the post topic, but I went from being a regular Sullivan reader to not reading him at all some time back — the Trig stuff, which was revolting, was the last straw but to be honest it was more that I didn’t feel like he was adding a lot to the stuff he linked and the ratio of posts that interested me to sort of contant that didn’t (or frou-frou stuff like ’80’s music videos) got below where I thought, honestly, that I was using my time productively. (Similarly I de-list Yglesias from RSS when there’s a lot of basketball shit going on.)
   Which isn’t anybody’s business but mine and maybe Sullivan’s, but I mention it because then every now and then he goes on vacation and then it turns out there’s interesting guest posters and I don’t know about it at all until it’s over, which sort of blows (although the “view from your window” crap goes on…) So I wish you guys would put up a big blinking sign on the Atlantic front page or something, or temporarily change how the blog is listed there, as a heads-up, and I actually think there might be a reasonable consituency for you to do that so please consider it, and with that, I’m sorry for continuing the ``this thread is about Andrew Sullivan’‘ thing.

   — Kieselguhr Kid · Jan 10, 03:47 PM · #

8. I’m more with Jack Shafer, I guess, although like you I think that Shafer and Sullivan are really talking about slightly different things. As you know, I have a real feeling that there’s this kind of mild corruption that comes from sociability. I felt throughout the health care debate that it was very odd that supporters of health care reform didn’t do more to highlight the essentially moral elements of the push— that, regardless of whether our health care system as it stood was efficient or not, it was producing outcomes incompatible with most Americans’ ideas of morality, what with all the people uncovered and undercovered. I couldn’t figure out why, for example, I could read several posts in a row by people like Ezra Klein, Matt Yglesias, and Jon Chait without reading one of those kinds of appeals, even though the three of them argued quite hard for reform and clearly cared. The moral claim was a background logic but it seemed like efficiency and cost and such almost always took center stage.

   Over time I have become convinced that a lot of it has to do with the social element. Washington area bloggers spend a ton of time, as I understand it, socializing and drinking and hanging out together. There’s nothing wrong with that and I would never tell them to stop; it’s not realistic or fair to say “don’t be friends,” and I wouldn’t want to. But I do think that it’s a problem if people avoid certain arguments for fear that they could create social awkwardness. I could be all wet about this, but I don’t think so.

   I’m pretty far out of the mainstream of American politics, so I’m sensitive to the degree that the supposedly wild and wooly blogosphere really contains a lot of unanimity on very important questions, such as the neoliberal economic platform. My fear with a focus on level of rhetoric is always that it will end up masking real policy differences. But I think you’re spot on here in urging a focus on honesty rather than a focus on rhetoric.

   — Freddie · Jan 10, 04:00 PM · #

9. Well put, Conor. I have to disagree, though, on Palin.

   I don’t have much use for Palin, but I don’t think her death panel comments were false. The first comment was clearly a “slippery slope” argument about where increasing government involvement in health care might lead. (And not an unreasonable one, IMHO). The second comment was a gotcha about the end of life counseling, which proved to be controversial enough that Obama has now pulled it twice.

   — J Mann · Jan 10, 05:22 PM · #

10. Well Conor, I guess I sort of have to agree with you on the tone issue since my own tone isn’t always … as, ah, civil as perhaps it should be.

    On the substance … let me come at this from a couple of directions.

    Firstly, in my own case, I own a number of opinions the are well outside the mainstream, and at the same time have some pretty extremely negative opinions about contemporary movement conservatism and its idiot cousin, the tea party movement. Mind you, I’m not a Freddie by any means – I dissent from the Dems in a number of ways, many of them not in a conventional left direction (I have a pretty strong libertarian streak, despite the fact that most libertarians are assholes). The relatively few areas where I dissent in what is considered a “left” direction, it’s on issues such as foreign policy, where my views are shared by many libertarians and even some conservatives. But my point is that, at the same time, I think that MOST people have deranged opinions on certain issues (I’m a non-interventionist)*, and I think some people (movement conservatives and their dupes) have deranged opinions on most issues. So in that world … it’s not like your plea is WRONG so much as it … is impossible, given differing world views.

    Secondly, and relatedly – you have a rough time being a conservative in a nation where “conservatism” has gone so far off the rails. And on the whole you do a pretty good job of calling out the crazies for what they are. But at some level, I think you still believe that most people on the right are amenable to reason. And, of course, among smarter conservatives who aren’t monsters, you are right. But ALL of those people – well, 99% – are already dissident conservatives. People in the movement – and tea partiers – are ALL idiots, or massively uninformed, or monsters, or some combination thereof**. As much as I admire your work, you’re mainly pissing into the wind – at least to the extent that you hope top have any influence of movement conservatives or the tea partiers. And mind you, my “natural” disposition is NOT to jump to that conclusion about people – which is why I’ve had many productive conversations with non-movement conservatives, and how I opened myself up to libertarian thought. But years of futilely giving movement conservatives the benefit of the doubt has awakened me. It’s true that the contemporary left is in some ways “unfair” to some conservatives*** – but the sad fact is that, ON THE WHOLE, the left (and center, of course) does not fully appreciate just how bad these people are, and how serious a threat they pose to our polity and the world.

    I don’t have any movement conservative or tea partier friends, I will never have them as friends, and I no longer engage in dialog with them. I don’t consider them fellow countrymen. Is there any chance I’ll change my opinion about that? None. You might as well ask what it would have taken for a good German in the 1930s to be reconciled with the Nazis. Or ask a survivor of sexual abuse if they might someday want to have a productive dialog with the abuser.

    *Okay, some opponents of non-interventionism aren’t deranged, exactly. Many – most, even – merely uncritically accept the monstrous “conventional wisdom.” And the relatively few people who adopt the POV that, despite all of the uncontestible horrors of our foreign policy, and dubious rational for most of it, a unipolar world is more peaceful than a bi or multi-polar world. They are wrong, but that’s at least a POV that I have some small respect for.

    **Take a guy like Reihan, whose writings I often enjoy. He’s maybe the closest you can get to a sane person in the movement. But even he (a) doesn’t sit entirely comfortably in the tent, and (b) in order to stay in the tent, often has to resort to obfuscation and sometimes to out and out dishonesty. And of course he is an admitted neocon, akin to being an admitted child molester.

    ***And, yes, the left has their loons too. But they are mostly marginalized, instead of controlling the movement, such as it is.

    — Larry Maggitti · Jan 10, 07:16 PM · #

11. “… the current GOP is contemptible in all its permutations – from the base to the intelligentsia…. my political judgment, honestly held, proudly expressed, is that destroying this Republican party is essential if this country and the world are going to recover from our current morass.”

    Every time you read Conor Friedersdorf, remember that this is the kind of rhetoric that he respects and admires.

    — y81 · Jan 10, 09:01 PM · #

12. Y81,

    I certainly HOPE that Conor is more on my side rather than on the side of mass murdering monsters like you.

    — Larry Maggitti · Jan 10, 09:14 PM · #

13. Conor,

    You say, “If all of these charges were true, a radicalized citizenry would be an appropriate response.” Well, what if only some of those charges are true — maybe just an angry citizenry that mobilizes to vote the recent leftist Congress out of power and (God willing) in 2012 vote Obama out of power. In other words, the Tea Party in action. What’s so wrong with that?

    Freddie,

    I actually think you may be on to something here:

    “Over time I have become convinced that a lot of it has to do with the social element. Washington area bloggers spend a ton of time, as I understand it, socializing and drinking and hanging out together. There’s nothing wrong with that and I would never tell them to stop; it’s not realistic or fair to say “don’t be friends,” and I wouldn’t want to. But I do think that it’s a problem if people avoid certain arguments for fear that they could create social awkwardness. I could be all wet about this, but I don’t think so.”

    For example, how many young conservatives (like Ross) would be comfortable talking openly about why homosexuality is a sin or why out-of-wedlock births are sinful — in other words, using the rhetoric of sin and personal morality in a casual conversation? Not many is my guess, which is a shame and a problem from my point of view.

    — Jeff Singer · Jan 10, 09:57 PM · #

14. Excellent points, Conor. You articulated my thinking on this way better than I could have.

    Also have to say I read the comments on this post with fascinated discomfort. The most interesting comment thread ever, but also the most embarrassing. I felt like a voyeur. I think your former boss has a discretion problem and respectfully ask him to keep such feelings to private emails. His manner of castigating you publicly about Andrew Sullivan shows a lack of self-control akin to Sullivan’s without displaying all the endearing qualities that keep me reading Sullivan even when he pisses me off. Sullivan at least has the ability to self-reflect to a degree (at least he tries), as his walk back of Palin-blame for the Tucson massacre demonstrates. If this Joe Carter guy is capable of self-reflection, maybe he’ll concede that such personal attacks on a former protege have no place on a comments thread that the world is reading; I’d like to be able to read your blog without having to peek through my fingers.

    Thank you,

    Elizabeth

    — Elizabeth · Jan 10, 09:57 PM · #

15. Yes, perfectly sane people understand that heated rhetoric in politics is, while sometimes a little disturbing, it’s usually not to be taken literally. But we’re not talking here about the dangerous of such rhetoric fermenting in the minds of ordinary people here.

    — Tim · Jan 10, 10:01 PM · #

16. responding to the Sullivan/Joe Carter/Friedsdorf kerfuffle (not trying to hijack, just found it interesting, and at least somewhat illuminating of the tone/substance distinction):

    I think most of us who read Sullivan regularly and continue to find him valuable understand that he contains multitudes. We take the bad with the good, because there’s much more good than bad.

    Sure, his obsessiveness about Trig Palin might ultimately have been a bizarre waste of time. His obsessiveness about U.S. official torture, however, was and is invaluable, and so far outweighs Trig Palin in the scales of importance that it makes someone willing to write him off strictly because of the Trig Palin obsession seem like the trivial and cynical soul.

    Again, is politics just a game or are we fighting over crucial, real-world values here? If it’s just a game, then, sure, write someone off because they have one idiosyncratic opinion — what does it matter, it’s all just a power game anyway?

    — Ban Johnson · Jan 10, 10:05 PM · #

17. Conor, I don’t think you can compartmentalize the “indefensible nonsense” from the tone. As you say, “If all of these charges were true, a radicalized citizenry would be an appropriate response.” The point is, the commentators are saying these things are true, and so the implication to their listeners is that radical action is appropriate. The problems here are: (1) the tone and the substance go together to form the message; (2) the message is intimidating and threatening to the commentator’s opponent; (3) the message is makes the commentator’s constituents too fearful and angry to think straight; (4) the tone puts winning the public debate above reaching reasoned, give-and-take solutions necessary to national problems; and (4)some unhinged persons might take the message too far.

    Witness the victimized response from the right. Calls for cooler rhetoric (what’s so unreasonable about that?) are met with fear of censorship, which no one is suggesting.

    — Jim N · Jan 10, 10:05 PM · #

18. By the way, via the invaluable Mr. Last, I just discovered Pejman Yousefzadeh is back to blogging at his own place and has been eviscerating the Left over their stupid comments related to the Arizona shooting in his inimitable style: http://www.chequerboard.org/. Scroll down for all the good stuff.

    — Jeff Singer · Jan 10, 10:16 PM · #

19. Conor,

    Very well written. I couldn’t entirely put my finger on it, but the tone/substance difference was what I was missing from the argument. You can say anything and some unstable individual can run with it. The point is it’s being said, whether couched in polite terms or radical violent terms, it doesn’t matter. What’s being locked on to is the message, regardless of imagery.

    — Bradley Johnson · Jan 10, 10:34 PM · #

20. Elizabeth says: His manner of castigating you publicly about Andrew Sullivan shows a lack of self-control akin to Sullivan’s . . .

    Conor is displaying his hypocrisy in public so why should I not call him on it in public? If Mark Levin’s assistant were to write a post chastizing anyone for using extreme rhetoric, people would laugh him out of the blogosphere. Yet here we have Andrew Sullivan’s assistant saying that, for certain people on the right, that “it’s impossible for them to mount the defense of their rhetoric that is true.” Conor’s not dumb so he’s certainly aware of the irony.

    Conor frequently calls Levin out on his nonsense. That’s all well and good, and certainly deserving since Levin is a jackass. But Conor’s new boss does the very same thing and yet Conor remains silent. Why is that?

    Conor can read so he’s obviously aware of the garbage that Sullivan spews on a daily basis. For example, Sullivan once wrote, “ “… the current GOP is contemptible in all its permutations – from the base to the intelligentsia…. my political judgment, honestly held, proudly expressed, is that destroying this Republican party is essential if this country and the world are going to recover from our current morass.”

    Is Sullivan saying, as Conor would put it, “ If you think my rhetoric logically implies that people should behave violently, you’re mistaken …”? Yes, actually he would. Sullivan has a pattern of making the most idiotic and inflammatory statements and when he’s called out on it he merely shrugs and says he wrote it in the heat of the moment. He gets away with it because his gullible audience is willing to give him a pass.

    But why is Conor, the ombudsmun of the conservative movement, willing to give Sullivan get a pass? I suspect he’s willing to go along with the ridiculous classification of Sullivan as a “conservative.” (seriously, though, how can anyone still say that with a straight face?) If so, then he should be fair game for Conor’s endless (and endlessly tedious) critiques of conservatives. Why does Sullivan get an exemption?

    Either Conor thinks that Sullivan’s rhetoric is substantially different—in which case we have reason to question his judgment—or he is willing to excuse Sullivan because he signs his paychecks—which means Conor has an integrity problem.

    I wish I were wrong but I’m beginning to think that Conor cares less about civility and rhetoric than he does about establishing him bona fides as a “dissident conservative.” After all, if he really cared about reasonable rhetoric, how could he work for Sullivan?

    Now let me be clear: If Conor decided that it would be prudent to avoid the appearance of hypocrisy by not writing on this subject at all, I could understand and respect his decision. But when he chooses to publicly make comments about the rhetoric of others while excusing one of the most despicable, misogynistic, hateful pundits in the country simply because he works for him, then he deserves to be called on it.

    I understand that Conor wants to be judged on his own writing. But it’s what he refuses to write about that speaks volumes.

    For what it’s worth, I wish I weren’t the one that had to say all this. I like Conor and I used to appreciate his writing (before it became the same repetitive schtick denouncing conservatives and the conservative movement). But someone needs to tell him—even if he won’t listen—that he is destroying his career by aligning himself with a pundit that absolutely no serious person takes seriously.

    By the way, Freddie is spot-on when he says that DC people “avoid certain arguments for fear that they could create social awkwardness.” It’s actually worse that even he could imagine. In DC defending one’s convictions and principles come second to making sure you don’t offend the sensibilities of the people you’ll be having drinks with later. And the decision whether you are going to attack Jonah Goldberg or Andrew Sullivan is solely dependent on which guys’ friends are going to be at your Happy Hour event.

    think most of us who read Sullivan regularly and continue to find him valuable understand that he contains multitudes. We take the bad with the good, because there’s much more good than bad.

    If this is true, then Conor’s post is meaningless. The same could be said for the fans of any pundit, from George Will to Mark Levin. But if we’re willing to give anyone a pass on eliminationist and violent rhetoric on the condition that every once in awhile they need to say something intelligent, then who doesn’t get let off the hook?

    Also, Sullivan’s problem didn’t start with the Trig Trutherism—or even with Sarah Palin. Before Palin he spent considerable time hating on Hillary Clinton. Sullivan hates powerful women and has used his blog to destroy them in what limited ways he can. (Don’t believe me? Show me where he spend much time praising powerful women.) He also engages in the most idiotic knee-jerk reaction to events based on spite and emotion. Look at his blog today. Putting any blame on Palin or conservatives for the shooting is absolutely asinine. It’s the kind of thing that would be said by some low-IQ yokel in the comments section of a Daily Kos diary. And yet the claims are being made by a presumably intelligent man who gets to write for one of the most esteemed magazines in American history.

    Seriously, at what point will Sullivan’s fans admit that the man has lost all credibility and has become the Mark Levin of the blogosphere?

    — Joe Carter · Jan 10, 11:39 PM · #

21. Tell me again why I still subscribe to “The Atlantic” but not “First Things”? The pretty pictures? I guess I still like to read long-form journalism of the sort that Bowden or Kaplan will write (or like the brilliant piece Goldhill wrote last year about healthcare). But I promise you Joe, since I already visit “First Thoughts” every day, it won’t be long before I break down I get the print edition! Keep up the superb work.

    — Jeff Singer · Jan 11, 12:05 AM · #

22. “In contrast, Palin’s remarks about death panels communicated an untruth: the notion that Barack Obama’s health care reform effort sought to empower a panel of bureaucrats who’d sit in judgment about whether an old person’s life would be saved or not.”

    Actually, that is true. Go and try to have Medicare or Medicaid pay for a lung transplant on a 104-year-old woman some time. They won’t.

    The part that’s inaccurate is to assume that Obamacare is unique in this regard. We have death panels. We had tghem. Your insurance company has them.

    They say “no” all the time.

    They have to. What I don’t understand is why people insist this is not the case. Are there bureaucrats in charge of deciding which procedures are covered and which are not? Yes.

    — Sam M · Jan 11, 12:24 AM · #

23. I think you presented a rational position. I also think 9/10’s of the critique coming back at you for this rational position is logical fallacy. Strawmen, slippery slopes, misdirection, the lot.

    If one of the people responding to you here, Conor, would actually find fault with the logic instead of extenuating, unrelated nonsense, we might have an actual discussion instead of pointless comments by a lot of posers driven by obviously personal vendettas.

    — RW · Jan 11, 12:26 AM · #

24. Of course Palin is not responsible. She remains, as ever, perfectly irresponsible. Only a madman would take her seriously, which is what happened.

    I fault Palin for lack of muzzle etiquette. The NRA preaches, correctly, that Thou Shalt Not Point Thy Weapon At What Thou Wouldst Not Blow Away. Her rifle-wagging on “Sarah Palin’s America” proves that she does not know this commandment. Nor did she know that her big mouth was loaded, but it was.

    If you don’t mean to publish a hit list, then you shouldn’t do so.

    — paradoctor · Jan 11, 01:31 AM · #

25. Good lord, Joe, crawl back under your rock. Do you really think we haven’t heard all that before?

    Your spell-checking has improved but your writing is still pedantic and awful. Find someplace where you’re appreciated; this ain’t it.

    — Max · Jan 11, 01:36 AM · #

26. This article came to my attention via the central villain in Joe Carter’s known media universe: Andrew Sullivan.

    Non-nerd that I am, I no nothing of Mr. Carter, beyond this obsession, and that he seems well beyond his depth—both in terms of the quality of his arguments and his selection of sites from which to launch this sort of invective.

    On the other hand… Setting matters of indefensibility and egregiousness aside, one must give Andrew credit for his deft and shameless self-promotional chops: Not only did he draw attention to this antic comment thread (which is more about him than the article to which it pertains) he did so without once referring to this farcical, philosophical food-fight.

    (Highly effective, if a tad crass… Pity that Sully will brook no criticism on his site; But alas, Andrew don’t do comments.)

    In any event, getting back to the article:

    It is about tone, and substance, and context. To wit:

    Imagine, for a moment, if in 2008, Barack Obama had approved a political advertisement depicting (take your pick) Hillary or McCain—in cross-hairs. For that matter, mix and match these three candidates (the Negro, the Female and the POW) vis-à-vis one and other. The outcry would have destabilized the Earth’s axis.

    People would’ve been trampling babies en route to the nearest microphone in order to feign outrage over any number of forbidden “isms,” (let alone, the murderous imagery.) And there would have been precious little parsing over the provenance of the cross-hairs (an assassin’s riflescope? or innocent surveyor’s transit? We report—you decide.)

    — unclesmedley · Jan 11, 01:53 AM · #

27. This really has been a fascinating thread. Conor, I’m impressed by your argument about substance, and I’m also happy about the way it made me think about the terms of the debate over rhetoric. I think the people defending Palin are technically correct; nothing about Palin’s crosshair map or or even Sharon Angle’s unhinged “Second Amendment” speech can be seriously credited with responsibility for a crazy person in Arizona taking a shot at a woman he’d apparently been obsessing over for years.

    On the other hand, the tone of the conversation we’ve been having about politics – and I think left-wingers are equally responsible – has felt very much poisoned by paranoia and simmering violence for years. It’s no accident that Journolist got in trouble for the vehemence in its comments section, for example.

    But the crazy rhetoric on the Right (and we all know there’s more of it there, no matter what anyone says) is accompanied by statements (like the ones about “palling around with terrorists” or “death panels”) that imply a counterrevolutionary response, and much of the crazy on the Left is a reaction to how frustrating it is to have to deal with the mainstreaming of that kind of total nonsense. It might be weird and obsessive to constantly accuse Sarah Palin of lying about who gave birth to which child, but if she was lying, nobody would march on Wasilla. Truly scary leftist memes – like 9/11 conspiracy theories – don’t get much play, because the vast majority of leftists understand that they’re just noise and are averse to them for that reason.

    I think what I’m saying here is that it’s unfair to blame Sarah Palin for what happened, but it is fair to say that the Right’s unfathomable fetish for stupidity has created a level of discourse that has moved politically-motivated violence a little bit closer to understandable, and that the unfortunate truth is that it isn’t really unfathomable, it’s an industry that produces Sarah Palins and Michelle Bachmans and Rush Limbaughs and the rest for profit and public amusement, and now it has helped produce a media circus around a mentally ill person who killed (among others) a 9-year old child because he thought he could control minds. Or something.

    — Somebody · Jan 11, 03:10 AM · #

28. To understand Andrew Sullivan, you have to read his long article in the NYT Magazine in 2000, “The He Hormone,” which explains the powerful impact his prescription testosterone cycle has upon his judgment:

    “Soon after I inject myself with testosterone, I feel a deep surge of energy. My attention span shortens. My wit is quicker, my mind faster, but my judgment is more impulsive. …

    “Then there’s anger. I have always tended to bury or redirect my rage. I once thought this an inescapable part of my personality. It turns out I was wrong. Late last year, mere hours after a [Testosterone] shot, my dog ran off the leash to forage for a chicken bone left in my local park. The more I chased her, the more she ran. By the time I retrieved her, the bone had been consumed, and I gave her a sharp tap on her rear end. “Don’t smack your dog!” yelled a burly guy a few yards away. What I found myself yelling back at him is not printable in this magazine, but I have never used that language in public before, let alone bellow it at the top of my voice. He shouted back, and within seconds I was actually close to hitting him. He backed down and slunk off. I strutted home, chest puffed up, contrite beagle dragged sheepishly behind me. It wasn’t until half an hour later that I realized I had been a complete jerk and had nearly gotten into the first public brawl of my life. I vowed to inject my testosterone at night in the future.”

    Sullivan’s article is archived here:

    http://www.photius.com/feminocracy/testosterone.html

    — Steve Sailer · Jan 11, 11:40 AM · #

29. “palling around with terrorists”

    How does that compare with “negotiating with hostage takers,” which is the kind of rhetoric Mr. Friedersdorf finds so inspirational and uplifting?

    — y81 · Jan 11, 02:57 PM · #

30. I think that it’s fine to say that, for the most part, people do not take tone seriously when the substance is farcical. But I point out the obvious to say that people are not always in on the joke, and I offer that the more disturbed and disconnected from reality people are the more likely it is that they take lunacy seriously—regardless of the degree to which this is true with Loughner.

    Many main-stream voices on the right (and left, but much less so, and less main-stream) have a tone that matches their false or exaggerated substance: If democrats truly supported health care reform that would employ “death panels”, then heated and violent rhetoric against them would be appropriate indeed. An over-heated tone is needed to give credence to crazy ideas, and i don’t think that you can only take aim at one side of the equation.

    — Joe · Jan 11, 04:17 PM · #

31. Unfortunately, Conor, I’m not sure your argument entirely works. It may be that the people uttering this incendiary nonsense don’t really believe it and don’t intend people to act on the implications of what they are saying (although the right wouldn’t gain much by exculpating itself from murderousness by pleading unseriousness, given that it’s the country’s future that’s at issue). But surely SOMEONE is intended to believe this stuff — for example, the people to whom they sell their books and tapes and from whom they solicit volunteer time and contributions. Why would these people bother to spend their money and time supporting people they regarded as unserious manipulators? So the whole model does indeed rely on keeping millions of people out of the joke — peoople who may in fact decide to act (indeed, in some cases such as the intended Tides Foundation attack, have acted) on the truly awful implications that you describe. And even without such resultant violence, having a major party and an important political movement led by cynics with deformed souls whose whole “business model” consists of endlessly perpetuating a sick hoax is appalling.

    — George · Jan 11, 07:59 PM · #

32. An insightful take Conor and while you’re probably right that most of the people uttering this nonsense know it’s nonsense (certainly in the for profit crowd) I can’t entirely buy your contention that there is no link between the hyperpole of Palin/Beck et al and what happened in AZ. Otherwise you’re saying political rhetoric of any kind has no meaning and doesn’t motivate anyone do anything which is clearly not the case. Political rhetoric has provoked revolutions, massacres, assassinations, and all manner of mayhem. And after all he did go to that mall to shoot a democratic congressman and not the manager of the Safeway. Between 11,000 and 12,000 people a year are gunned down in homicides, many of them multiple, many of them by people who are in varying degrees deranged. It’s patently obvious that most of them have no political connection but that doesn’t mean the phenomenon does not exist. The fundamental problem is that large numbers of people are not in the joke, which is when it has the potential to become tragedy.

    — Ottovbvs · Jan 11, 09:54 PM · #

33. Come on now. We all thought it was a right-wing tea-party type nut.

    We hear that someone shot a democratic congresswoman in deeply divided, gun-carrying, border district. We had heard Sharon Angle and Sarah Palin’s gun-based rhetoric, we heard her saying that some people are not “real” americans. We knew about all the crazy tyranny, socialist stuff the right-wing pundits had been spouting against Obama. We knew about the anger that the tea-party movment was based on. We know the right-wing is really big on guns (see Sarah Palin’s Alaska).

    So of course we all thought it was a right-wing nut (no matter what, it’s always going to be a nut). It made perfect sense. IT WAS PERFECTLY PLAUSIBLE. Maybe we should go back to our first insticts again. We all know that mobs can be incited by words to do evil stuff. We have seen people kill abortionists for ideological reasons. We should all just admit what our first instict told us: that it is perfectly plausible for an unstable person to be stirred up enough by political rhetoric to kill a politician.

    — cw · Jan 11, 10:54 PM · #

34. “it is perfectly plausible for an unstable person to be stirred up enough by political rhetoric to kill a politician.”

    And it’s equally plausible for rhetoric from any side of the political spectrum. The problem is that potential violence-inducing rhetoric seems to be propagated and validated far more by the conservative political and media establishments.

    Mike

    — MBunge · Jan 12, 12:01 AM · #

35. I agree, at least at this point in time. The southern strategy the conservative party has been on for decades now means that they have to appeal to southern/rural personalities (where ever they now live). That means they have to strike a certain pistol-packing tone. And also, as connor said, spout a bunch of insane bs. I think they both contribute to a dangerous atmosphere, whether the current case is a result of that atmosphere or not.

    — cw · Jan 12, 01:16 AM · #

36. Conor, I love reading you here and I’ve been a fan of your insights for a couple of years.

    I greatly appreciate The Daily Dish for the ‘overview’ of current discussions. I think Andrew has his blindspots and obsessions….but his leaning is always toward humanity over ideology.

    — Frank · Jan 12, 04:47 AM · #

37. Conor, I have been reading you for awhile and like your writing. I have never bothered to read the comments til today. Wow.

    Thank you for being someone who doesn’t stoop to being personal and argues the issues not the person. We need more of that—a lot more.

    Sounds like Joe Carter is jealous of Sullivan. Everything he says about Sullivan is in fact true of himself.

    Trig this way or that is a minor issue compared to the massive incredible body of work he has done that is probably the best blogging ever on the internet.

    And what the hell are we doing arguing about him on this blog anyway?

    Keep up the good work.

    Michael Haley

    — napablogger · Jan 12, 05:02 AM · #

38. Readers, be advised: much of Joe Carter’s spleen earlier in this thread stems from the Atlantic’s refusal to publish his repeated submission of a photograph of the wall across the alley from his office, covered in his own hard-flung feces, to Sullivan’s “View from your Window.”

    — Tony Artaud · Jan 12, 07:18 AM · #

39. “They’re in a tough spot these days partly because it’s impossible for them to mount the defense of their rhetoric that is true: ‘I am a frivolous person, and I don’t choose my words based on their meaning. Rather, I behave like the worst caricature of a politician. If you think my rhetoric logically implies that people should behave violently, you’re mistaken – neither my audience nor my peers in the conservative movement are engaged in a logical enterprise, and it’s unfair of you to imply that people take what I say so seriously that I can be blamed for a real world event. Don’t you see that this is all a big game? This is how politics works’”

    So I should just ignore every word you say? Then is it okay if I ignore (or, at very least, not take seriously) any and all of your ideas, good or bad, even at the risk of your own disenfranchisement? Is it okay if We (as in “We, The People”) ignore your votes — as in your choices as to who will represent you within our system of government? Is it okay if We ignore your religion? (i.e. Tax or persecute your churches.) Is it okay if we ignore the needs of your children and old people? (i.e. Deny them access to schools, playgrounds, hospitals, nursing homes, etc. And deny them access to public aid like Food Stamps, WIC, services for the disabled, etc.) Is it okay if We deny you and your families housing — AND a place under the local bridge or in the park to sleep? Is it okay if We deny you any and all higher education, employment and/or business opportunities? Is it okay if We can imprison you on a mere whim with no right to due process? Is it okay if we can pretend that you’re just NOT HUMAN?

    “‘Stop pretending you’re not in on the joke.’”

    Who’s pretending? Then again, I’m not laughing either…

    — reynard61 · Jan 12, 09:32 AM · #

40. Dear Joe Carter,
    Your statement that:
    ‘It doesn’t really surprise me that Carter, a former President/former Southern Baptist, thinks America is ready for an openly gay president. In fact, I fear that he’s probably right’
    dispossess you of any right to accuse others of ‘spewing indefensible nonsense’.

    — JJ · Jan 12, 02:53 PM · #

41. Transplants are a special case due to the chronic shortage of donor organs. Major surgery for the extremely elderly is normally rejected on medical grounds without cost being considered. A 104 year old is rather unlikely to be in good enough general health to risk surgery.

    A more apposite question is will state health care pay for a hip replacement in an elderly person. This is also major surgery but doesn’t have the availability problems that affect transplants. The NHS will carry out hip replacements in the very elderly if they are in sufficiently good general health that they have a reasonable chance of recovering from the surgery and having an improved quality of life.

    — Brett · Jan 12, 06:55 PM · #

42. I think we’ve forgotten exactly how horrible the death panels smear was. It wasn’t merely that medical care would be denied to old people, it was that medical care would be granted “based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society’”. We’re not talking about some years-of-live saved metric (questionable as that might be), we’re talking about the government deciding some people live worthwhile lives and others don’t.

    That would be absolutely monstrous. It’s sufficiently monstrous, that it represents an accusation against not just Obama and Democrats, but against the entire medical profession—that doctors and nurses would go along with such an inhuman system without protest.

    That is the real problem. It’s not that they’re alleging some evil so large that violence is the only sensible response. I don’t think John Brown’s approach to our nation’s greatest evil was actually sensible. It’s that the theories they espouse are so paranoid that rationality becomes impossible—assuming that hundreds of thousands of professionals would be willing to betray their own nation.

    In a world were people were that untrustworthy, where the government could pull off that kind of evil, would there be any limit to the kind of conspiracy the government could pull off? How could you trust anything if lies were that easy? Could you even trust grammar?

    — Consumatopia · Jan 12, 08:38 PM · #

43. Well, it turns out Jared Loughner didn’t listen to talk radio, or to Sarah Palin, or any politicians for that matter. He wasn’t aware of the targets that Sarah Palin put on political opponents. No, it turns out that, according to a good friend of his, he was influenced by the movies “Zeitgeist” and “Loose Change”. If they can be characterized at all, these movies are left-wing or anarchistic. The former blames banks for the world’s ills (currency manipulation). The latter was narrated by Charlie Sheen, (well-known left-wing nut job), financed by Mark Cuban, and is all about how 9/11 was an inside job. Loughner was a 9/11 truther. These movies cannot be categorized as right-wing.

    So, not only can we not blame Conor’s usual suspects—Palin, Limbaugh, Beck, etc.—instead we need to look at my usual suspects: a Democrat politician named Sheriff Dupnik and his willing accomplices in the press who have been running with this blame-everyone-but-the-shooter blather for the last four days. This is a perfect example of liberal media bias. There is no basis in fact for Sheriff Dupnik’s allegations of the shooter’s motivations. But that doesn’t matter to the media. They run with it (without committing any of Conor’s egregious errors of fact) until they run into the fact that not only is Sheriff Dupnik wrong, but Sheriff Dupnik knew about this shooter and didn’t do anything about him.

    If it were not for Conor’s usual bogeymen on the right, we could go on believing that Loughner was a right-wing nut, that he was influenced by right-wing nuts, and then move on to really important matters like re-instituting the fairness doctrine to stop those egregious right-wingers.

    And, by the way, it was Barack Hussein Obama who said that he wanted people to be angry at the banks.

    — jd · Jan 12, 08:52 PM · #

44. “instead we need to look at my usual suspects: a Democrat politician named Sheriff Dupnik and his willing accomplices in the press who have been running with this blame-everyone-but-the-shooter blather for the last four days. This is a perfect example of liberal media bias.”

    Yes, let’s not forget the real victims here.

    Mike

    — MBunge · Jan 12, 09:12 PM · #

45. “These movies cannot be categorized as right-wing.”

    Actually, there’s probably a good bit of intersection between Ron Paul fans and Zeitgeist fans.

    — Consumatopia · Jan 12, 09:46 PM · #

46. “Yes, let’s not forget the real victims here.”

    Exactly. Dupnik needs to resign and the left needs to start becoming liberal again before we have more killings like this.

    — The Reticulator · Jan 12, 11:07 PM · #

47. JD, did you actually read the post that you just commented on? Did you notice how I was exactly correct in my initial assertion that “I don’t think the right’s rhetoric is responsible for the shooting in Arizona”? It’s like you’re a bot programmed to disagree with me using whatever talking points found their way into your CPU that day, even when they’re completely nonsensical given what I wrote.

    — Conor Friedersdorf · Jan 12, 11:15 PM · #

48. “Voices like Andrew Sullivan insist that violent, inflammatory rhetoric poisons our country, and runs the risk of empowering the deranged.”

    Yes, Andrew Sullivan’s recent call for calm was most serene:

    “The Poison Of Limbaugh
    “11 Jan 2011 04:31 pm
    “Very very very few people have contributed more poison and hatred and extremism to the culture than Rush Limbaugh.”

    — Steve Sailer · Jan 13, 12:11 AM · #

49. “The problem is that potential violence-inducing rhetoric seems to be propagated and validated far more by the conservative political and media establishments.”

    Actually, it seems just the opposite. But it doesn’t matter because the killings were Bush’s fault.

    Before you start to think I’m as crazy as old man Krugman at the New York Times, please hear me out. It goes like this:

    Bush was a bad president. He provoked unprecedented vitriol and hateful, murderous rhetoric from the left. After he left office, the whole tone of civil discourse became somewhat more civil. Loughner, being an unstable character to begin with, was thrown off balance by the change, and went over the edge. Therefore it’s Bush’s fault.

    — The Reticulator · Jan 13, 12:26 AM · #

50. It made perfect sense. IT WAS PERFECTLY PLAUSIBLE.

    Not unlike the way it used to be perfectly plausible that when someone was molested, it was plausible that an African-American man did it, so a lynch mob quickly organized to act on the perfect, plausible sense of it all.

    — The Reticulator · Jan 13, 12:52 AM · #

51. Conor:

    Yes, of course, I noticed that you were exactly correct in your initial assertion that “I don’t think the right’s rhetoric is responsible for the shooting in Arizona”? It’s the other initial assertion that I’m concerned about; the one you’ve been making all along: that the right is somehow more guilty of egregious errors than the left. If we take everything you say about the right as truth, then the left and the right are guilty in two different ways. The left is guilty of misleading us for at least 40 years by means of control of major media and not having the least self-awareness that they are leftists. The right is guilty by getting their facts wrong. My problem with you is that you have claimed to be a conservative, with no attendant awareness of the bias in mainstream news.

    If your bogeymen—Limbaugh, Palin, Beck, Levin, McCarthy—just go away—my bogeymen will simply pick up where they left off, relegating conservatives to a small group of hateful, gun-toting bitter clingers.

    I mean, who’s going to counter Diane Sawyer, Brian Williams, Katie Couric, the New York Times, Washington Post, etc. etc. etc.? You? If we’re lucky, Glenn Reynolds? If we’re really lucky, Fox News? That’s what you don’t seem to get. If the horrible Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News aren’t around, conservatives would still think they were all alone in a sea of “normal” people.

    As Walter Cronkite would say, “And that’s the way it is.”

    — jd · Jan 13, 01:13 AM · #

52. Yeah, Reticulator, criticizing someone for having put crosshairs on their opponent when the opponent gets shot is not at all unlike lynching a man because he’s black.

    — Consumatopia · Jan 13, 01:23 AM · #

53. National Review’s Jay Nordlinger runs down some examples on the left:

    “Even before [George W.] Bush was elected president, the kill-Bush talk and imagery started. When Governor Bush was delivering his 2000 convention speech, Craig Kilborn, a CBS talk-show host, showed him on the screen with the words “SNIPERS WANTED.” Six years later, Bill Maher, the comedian-pundit, was having a conversation with John Kerry. He asked the senator what he had gotten his wife for her birthday. Kerry answered that he had taken her to Vermont. Maher said, “You could have went to New Hampshire and killed two birds with one stone.” (New Hampshire is an early primary state, of course.) Kerry said, “Or I could have gone to 1600 Pennsylvania and killed the real bird with one stone.” (This is the same Kerry who joked in 1988, “Somebody told me the other day that the Secret Service has orders that if George Bush is shot, they’re to shoot Quayle.”) Also in 2006, the New York comptroller, Alan Hevesi, spoke to graduating students at Queens College. He said that his fellow Democrat, Sen. Charles Schumer, would “put a bullet between the president’s eyes if he could get away with it.” (copy and pasted from the WSJ)

    “Death panels,” like “assault weapon”, and many other little phrases, are simply a means of changing the debate. Possibly intellectually dishonest, but no one has a monopoly on that.

    — a-dub · Jan 13, 01:49 AM · #

54. Yeah, Reticulator, criticizing someone for having put crosshairs on their opponent when the opponent gets shot is not at all unlike lynching a man because he’s black.

    Not like that, but there are strong similarities. Ironic, isn’t it.

    — The Reticulator · Jan 13, 04:07 AM · #

55. Not ironic, no, even if we accept your description on its own terms.

    — Freddie · Jan 13, 04:16 AM · #

56. JD,

    I’ve been very specific in my criticism of Rush Limbaugh on numerous occasions, pointing out the exact statements to which I strongly object. To take one example, consider the time he said that Barack Obama has brought about an America where it’s okay for black kids to beat up white kids on buses. Or to use a more recent example, consider his assertion that the Arizona gunman knows that leftists are on his side.

    Now explain to me how rhetoric like that counteracts whatever it is you dislike about “Diane Sawyer, Brian Williams, Katie Couric, the New York Times, Washington Post, etc.”

    It makes no sense. Your somewhat mixed up, somewhat valid ideas about media bias have led you to support people whose rhetoric is indefensible by any standard. And manipulating you to do so is what they’re expert at — what they’re counting on.

    Smarten up.

    — Conor Friedersdorf · Jan 13, 06:53 AM · #

57. Not ironic, no, even if we accept your description on its own terms.

    Are you referring to the fact that Consumatopia grossly misrepresented just what it was that I was comparing to a lynch mob, and that it was a mistake for me to let him/her get by with that behavior?

    — The Reticulator · Jan 13, 09:18 AM · #

58. The bottom line proof that conservatives and liberals are NOT equally to blame in the excessive rhetoric game is in the difference between the 9/11 Truthers and the Birthers. One after the other, from media blowhards to elected officials, prominent and mainstream conservatives have either refused to condemn Birtherism or out right flirted with it themselves. On the other hand, virtually everyone of any standing or significance on the left has attacked Trutherism whenever it arises.

    Mike

    — MBunge · Jan 13, 05:46 PM · #

59. What people are missing in The Reticulator’s comments is his obvious belief that black guys stand around all day talking about how white women are a threat to America and have to be dealt with or all liberty and freedom will be extinguished. That’s the connection he’s drawing with conservatives.

    Mike

    — MBunge · Jan 13, 05:50 PM · #

60. I don’t have to misrepresent anything to note that you made a comparison to racist lynchings. If you’re comparing anything that the left said about the right to racist lynchings, then you’ve scored a massive own-goal.

    You’re good at that.

    — Consumatopia · Jan 13, 05:52 PM · #

61. I don’t have to misrepresent anything to note that you made a comparison to racist lynchings. If you’re comparing anything that the left said about the right to racist lynchings, then you’ve scored a massive own-goal.

    Then why did you misrepresent my comparison, if you didn’t find it necessary? Try answering that one.

    As to whether I scored an own-goal it depends on whether cw reforms his behavior and doesn’t again try to justify a lynch mob mindset on the basis of the thoughts in his own imagination. If we don’t see any more of that, then it’s a win-win for public discourse.

    — The Reticulator · Jan 13, 06:51 PM · #

62. What people are missing in The Reticulator’s comments is his obvious belief that black guys stand around all day talking about how white women are a threat to America and have to be dealt with or all liberty and freedom will be extinguished. That’s the connection he’s drawing with conservatives.

    Your thought process is extremely flawed. What we’re talking about are the fevered imaginations of those who justify a lynch-mob mindset on the basis of what they imagine some persons identified as “other” are capable of doing.

    — The Reticulator · Jan 13, 06:55 PM · #

63. There was no misrepresentation. You just scored it again—I don’t see cw hanging any nooses from a tree. Those nooses exist only in your imagination. That makes cw very unlike the very lynch mob that you said cw was “not unlike”. cw didn’t convict anyone of a crime, didn’t dish out any punishments. It’s not wrong to have suspicions in the face of incomplete evidence, it’s wrong to punish people on the basis of them.

    Furthermore, what Palin did was still irresponsible and indecent. It didn’t become any less irresponsible or indecent when it became unlikely to have caused this tragedy.

    — Consumatopia · Jan 13, 07:20 PM · #

64. “What we’re talking about are the fevered imaginations of those who justify a lynch-mob mindset on the basis of what they imagine some persons identified as “other” are capable of doing.”

    Did anyone, anywhere accuse George Will of being responsible for Tuscon? How about David Frum? Ross Douthat? The incorrect aspersions cast on some conservatives were based on their behavior and pronouncements. That you think that’s the equivalent of racial prejudice is…well, words fail me.

    Mike

    — MBunge · Jan 13, 08:50 PM · #

65. Conor:

    consider the time he said that Barack Obama has brought about an America where it’s okay for black kids to beat up white kids on buses.

    He didn’t say that. What he said was that this is Barack obama’s America and this kind of violence was supposed to stop when he was elected. It’s called irony.

    You have completely missed my point. If I concede that your bogeymen make more egregious factual errors than my bogeymen, that doesn’t change my point. I gave just the one small example of how Sheriff Dupnik thought the shooter was motivated by right-wing talk. The media ran with it. They didn’t make any factual errors: they were simply reporting what Dupnik said. If there were no Rush or Hannity or Fox News, we might still be thinking that Loughner was a right-wing nut. Now we know that not only was Loughner apolitical, we also know that Dupnik is a Democrat and that he might have screwed up big time by not stopping this guy before he killed some people. As Archie used to say to Edith: Dummy Up!!

    — jd · Jan 14, 01:25 AM · #

66. There was no misrepresentation. You just scored it again—I don’t see cw hanging any nooses from a tree. Those nooses exist only in your imagination. That makes cw very unlike the very lynch mob that you said cw was “not unlike”. cw didn’t convict anyone of a crime, didn’t dish out any punishments. It’s not wrong to have suspicions in the face of incomplete evidence, it’s wrong to punish people on the basis of them.

    And to think they say Sarah Palin is a bit dim between the ears. Good grief. It’s an analogy, not an identity. Two analogous behaviors are not alike in every respect. You could look it up. They are merely alike in some important respects, which I identified.

    There is the bigotry and prejudice, the jumping to conclusions, the smearing of an entire class of people with the actions (real or imagined) of a few, and the danger of inciting people to take vigilante action. If cw or anyone else wants to raise their kids not to be the sort of people who would lynch blacks, a good way to start the training is to not accept the kind of behavior that cw exhibited here.

    Furthermore, what Palin did was still irresponsible and indecent. It didn’t become any less irresponsible or indecent when it became unlikely to have caused this tragedy.

    Sure, everybody has been irresponsible and indecent. I have been, President Obama has been, you have been, etc. etc. Doesn’t have anything to do with the topic at hand, though. Even President Obama had the decency to point that out.

    — The Reticulator · Jan 14, 08:26 AM · #

67. The incorrect aspersions cast on some conservatives were based on their behavior and pronouncements. That you think that’s the equivalent of racial prejudice is…well, words fail me.

    Not only have words failed you, but your thought process has failed you. It’s not equivalent. But there are some important similarities.

    — The Reticulator · Jan 14, 08:30 AM · #

68. <p><blockquote>I don’t have much use for Palin, but I don’t think her death panel comments were false. The first comment was clearly a “slippery slope” argument about where increasing government involvement in health care might lead. (And not an unreasonable one, IMHO). The second comment was a gotcha about the end of life counseling, which proved to be controversial enough that Obama has now pulled it twice.</blockquote><br />
    Slippery slope arguments are next to useless, as the applicability of a sliding scale varies so wildly depending on the topic. Starting from a horrific premise, its easy to see everything as a portent. However, its not enough to ask whether something could metastasize, but one must also consider the logical leaps required to cast an earlier benign iteration as validation for whatever monstrous conclusion is being considered. The sort of squalid utilitarian who would support a death panel would do so in the absence of state-ordained end-of-life counseling.</p>

    <p>As an example, the state permits some gonzo porn producer to exploit underveloped twentysomethings in some middle school fantasy act. To claim that this allowance will lead to state-endorsed pedophilia is outrageous, since the underlying similarity is overwhelmed by the outright theft of autonomy of such an act, as well as its moral turpitude.</p>

    — Tommy Deelite · Jan 14, 05:00 PM · #

69. “What he said was that this is Barack obama’s America and this kind of violence was supposed to stop when he was elected. It’s called irony.”

    1. That’s not what Rush said.

    2. A lot of conservatives need to stop using the words “irony” and “satire” because they do not understand what they mean.

    Mike

    — MBunge · Jan 14, 05:36 PM · #

70. “It’s not equivalent. But there are some important similarities.”

    There are important similarities between you and a syphilitic chimp, but I would hope the differences are greater.

    Likewise, the differences between people criticizing Sarah Palin for intemperate rhetoric and people lynching black guys are far greater than any possible similarities, rendering the comparison not just useless but actively offensive. Even a syphilitic chimp would see that.

    Mike

    — MBunge · Jan 14, 05:41 PM · #

71. Reticulator, you’re so great!

    It’s an analogy, not an identity.

    No. If you say that two things are “not unlike”, and it turns out that there are respects in which they are unlike, that means you’re wrong. That’s what the meaning of “not” and “unlike” imply.

    But, hey, if that was all you got wrong, that would be kind of minor. Unfortunately, you go on…

    There is the bigotry and prejudice

    Nope. Calling out unusually irresponsible and indecent behavior as such isn’t bigotry and prejudice.

    the jumping to conclusions

    Nope. Stating a suspicion doesn’t isn’t the same as jumping to a conclusion.

    the smearing of an entire class of people with the actions (real or imagined) of a few

    Nope. We criticized the documented statements of Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and Sharon Angle, and those still willing to support them.

    and the danger of inciting people to take vigilante action.

    Wow, this list is definitely Freudian projection run totally amok. The similarities you describe are simply absent. But why don’t you work that cognitive dissonance into a little bit more of a lather, eh?

    Sure, everybody has been irresponsible and indecent.

    Not everyone’s been calling for Second Amendment remedies.

    Doesn’t have anything to do with the topic at hand, though.

    No, it has everything to do with the topic at hand. The fact that politicians occasionally get shot by crazies is why it’s irresponsible and indecent to talk about violent revolution if you don’t win an election or cook crazy conspiracies about bureaucrats declaring people not “productive” and killing them.

    Even President Obama had the decency to point that out.

    I’m pretty sure you misunderstood.

    — Consumatopia · Jan 14, 05:44 PM · #

72. Oh come on guys. You know one would have been shocked if it been a nut with rightwing ties “taking back his country.” That’s all I’m saying. A majority of republicans believe Obama is a muslim, which to many conservative republicans is tantamount to an enemy. So a large numebr of republicans believe the white house is occupied by an enemy of the united states. JD? Reticulator? IS he a muslim? IS he an enemy of the United states?

    If he is, then shouldn’t someone try to kill him? Isn’t it logical that is obama is a muslim and muslims are our enemy, then obama is an enemy of the us and should be killed?

    Isn’t it concieveable that out of the majority of republicans who believe this—millions of people— that one or two might be crazy enough to actually try to kill obama? Or, much easier, one of his percieved allies?

    So my point was, the atmosphere is such at this time in our history, that it is perfectly plausible that a right wing nut, stirred up by the current rehtoric, would shoot a congresswoman. Just like in the sixties, it was perfectly plausible that some left-wing college kid, stirred up by the rhetoric of the times would set off a bomb in a campus rotc office.

    And that once we admit that to ourselves, then, maybe we should all try to cool it, or something. Or maybe not us, becasue we are jsut a bunch of dumbasses spouting nonsense at each other, but maybe people in position of power who either contribute to the atmosphere or seem to sanction by thier silence, those who contribute to the atmosphere.

    — cw · Jan 15, 03:38 AM · #

73. CORRECTION: the first line should read “you know NO one would be shocked….”

    — cw · Jan 15, 03:40 AM · #

74. All sorts of things were plausible, including that some deranged leftist or rightist had gone nuts, or that somebody did it over a girlfriend problem, or who knows what. There was no end of plausible possibilities.

    But there is nothing that excuses the behavior of people like Dupnik, Krugman, or those people in the blogs who immediately pointed the finger at Palin or the political “climate”. No type of plausibility excuses that behavior.

    — The Reticulator · Jan 15, 07:39 AM · #

75. I don’t know how long Andrew Sullivan and Joe Carter were togther, but it must have been one seriously bad breakup.

    — Milke · Jan 20, 02:49 AM · #

76. Joe Carter, take 1:

    I can’t think of any pundit who has spewed more indefensible nonsense than Andrew Sullivan and yet his allies are too cowardly too call him out on it.

    Joe Carter, take 2:

    As I said, no one could retain their respectability on the Trig Trutherism stuff if they didn’t call Sullivan out on it.

    Walt Whitman got this one right:

    Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.

    We know Joe Carter contains multitudes, because no one person could be that full of it.

    — Milke · Jan 20, 05:18 AM · #

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