Blog Commissars

Last week, John Hawkins at Right Wing News compared Charles Johnson's methods to the way the ChiComs treated U.S. prisoners of war in Korea. I recently had an e-mail exchange with Kathy Shaidle about this stuff, and she told me about Ezra Levant's experience with the Canadian "human rights" tribunals.

What's bizarre is how some bloggers have decided that the best use of the medium is as an online Court of Inquisition, as I recently commented:

You seem to be making the same mistake other people have made, supposing that what you think I said is the same thing as what I said. You further seem to suppose that your accusatory method -- "This, That and The Other," as I've sometimes described this type of attack -- can result in a perfect distillation of my beliefs. Liberals have composed similar laundry-list indictments of Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin and Rush Limbaugh, for similar purposes. Lather, rinse, repeat.
By this method, you attempt to make yourself the arbiter of what is or is not to be admitted as evidence and then -- j'accuse! -- you declare that I be judged only on that evidence. And if I refuse to allow you to set the rules, you accuse me of not playing fair, despite the fact that I was minding my own business when you decided to arraign me in this manner, as if I were accused of some crime.
You see that you are arrogating to yourself a most frightening authority. I am not a candidate for public office, and it is profoundly strange to find myself the target of this sort of opposition research project.
Consider that I've been attacked like this since 2000, and was forbidden to respond while I was at the Washington Times. I quit the Times in January 2008, and nobody said anything about this until Charles Johnson targeted me on Sept. 12. So if it is to be demanded that I make a comprehensive declaration at this late date, there's a lot of catch-up for me to do, at a time when I've got no shortage of more useful work to do.
All things considered, some of this confusion is understandable. Your purpose in belaboring it is less understandable.

When I was at The Washington Times, I understood that the attacks by SPLC on me were actually aimed at my employer, and by extension at the conservative movement, the Republican Party, etc. And those attacks did not begin, as I've explained, until I published a May 2000 interview with Laird Wilcox, a critic of the SPLC.

Exactly why Patterico has recently taken an interest in me, however, I haven't the foggiest idea. (You might think he'd be busy enough with Roman Polanksi and Michelle "kittykat" Sullivan.) Maybe this is a lingering grudge from March, when I sided with Jeff Goldstein against Patterico:

As the incompetence and corruption of the Obama/Pelosi/Reid regime become increasingly evident, the Ordinary American seeks an alternative. The task of conservatives in this time of peril is to raise a banner around which the good and true will rally. We need a fighting creed, and courageous hearts with strong voices to shout it: WOLVERINES!

The Goldstein-Patterico debate was about Rush Limbaugh. The American people admire a fighter and as Wally Onakoya said of Limbaugh, "He is a man, you know."

Looking back over the past nine months, "Wolverines" conservatism -- especially the Tea Party movement -- has triumphed over Brooksian wussyism.

If we heed the voices of defeatism and despair, if we allow ourselves to be distracted by carping criticisms from The Dogs Who Bark While the Caravan Moves On, if we start endlessly second-guessing our gut instincts because we're afraid of offending the sensibilities of the editors at Newsweek -- well, that way lies disaster.

Disaster has been averted so far, but the barking continues. As Donald Douglas at American Power notes, I am in effect accused of wishing him out of existence. Instead, he's got over a million hits, and his traffic has roughly quadrupled in the past year. Gee, I wonder how that happened?

Coincidentally, it was a lawyer who asked the famous question, "And who is my neighbor?" Like the bloggers say, read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Speaking of Kathy Shaidle, never try the "cultural pride" defense with a Canadian. Thanks to "human rights," it is now illegal to have culture in Canada and, honestly, what do Canadians have to be proud of? Gordon Lightfoot? Neil Young?

For months now, I've been doing my best to get Kathy deported from Canada, the desolate arctic non-nation I call Un-America. She's a "known associate" of mine. That's got to be a serious human rights violation in Un-America.

THE DISCUSSION CONTINUES . . .