Bang the (Kevin) Drum lowly

"I hope that Power Line and Hugh Hewitt and Michelle Malkin and the rest of the crew trying to relive the glory days of Rathergate will take his lead and just STFU," writes lefty blogger Kevin Drum, trying to put a lid on the Shiavo memo controversy.  We haven't posted about said controversy here simply because the entire debate never crossed the threshold of our interest.  We knew without thinking about it that many Republicans calculated federal intervention in the Florida case would appeal to their constituents. If some aide from either side of the aisle promulgated a memo averring that fact, so what? As a federalist, we disagreed in principle (states' rights and all that), plus our gut told us it was all wrong.  Now it turns out a Republican aide was the memo's source, and lefty bloggers are gloating.

Debates about the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin come to mind. What DID spark our interest was Kevin Drum's use of the acronym "STFU" [shut the f*** up], not to mention one or more of his commenters' using the C word in reference to Michelle Malkin.  Is that the level of debate he favors?  We suspected his honor way back when he lost the will to catblog.  Then he went wobbly over why woman bloggers are scarce in the upper reaches of the Ecosystem.

Compare Drum's and his readers' choice of words with any number of perfect gentlemen and ladies of the right.  Can you even imagine Glenn Reynolds, Michelle Malkin, Roger L. Simon or Ann Althouse -- just to mention a handful of the right-of-center jewels in the crown -- even DREAMING of criticizing their opponents in such language?  Class will out, and the lack of it has, big time, with Kevin Drum.

Update:  Oh, gosh, what a day of sluggish TypePad recalcitrance we've had. Couldn't publish our posts for hours and hours this morning.  But at the end of the day, the sweetest thing a girl could wish for, a sunny, sunny InstaLanche. Nevertheless, even now we can't reach any blog whatsoever.

Comments

[byrd]

The truly sad thing is that Kevin Drum IS one of the class acts of the lefty blogosphere.

[Sal]

Is it wrong to use FUBAR ?

Acronyms take a life of their own, you know.

[davebo]

Well, I think you're missing the obvious here regarding the comments on Drum's site.

If we apply the logic that Malkin/Powerlineblog/LGF applied to the original news of the memo we could only arrive at one possible conclusion.

Obviously Malkin, or someone working on her behalf, logged onto Drums comments section and added the vile posts as a smear campaign.

[festus]

How in any way do the commentators speak for the author? Have you ever seen the vile things people say about Andrew Sullivan on Lucianne.com?? Is Lucianne Goldberg personally responsible?

This is all just nonsense, and Michelle Malkin is grasping at straws here. Eesh. Embarrassing.

[Big Worm]

This is pretty dumb. Catching the vapors because Drum used an acronym for a naughty word? Debates about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin come to mind.

It's not like those Powerline guys ever use that kind of language with their e-mailers. Oh, wait...

[Steve White]

In reply to Festus, I've visited Ms. Malkins's blog from time to time, and I recall the (brief) time she had comments open.

My goodness.

Unfortunately, the language of her detractors was so vile, so rude, that you lost track of whatever point they were trying to make (which was, I suspect, that they didn't like an attractive, Filipina-American woman who has a mind of her own and the language skills to express it). Ms. Malkin suspended the comments section in her blog because of this and subsequently took the predictable bashing in the lefty blogs for that.

Even today, one of the quicker ways to spark numerous commentary employing the f-word and the c-word on DailyKos or Atrios is to mention her name. It's unfortunate, of course: the Left would do far better to match her arguments.

If they could, I mean.

[Mike K]

Kevin is usually pretty reasonable although reliably lefty. Many of the commenters on his site, however, act like teenaged boys trying to outdo each other in outrageous vulgarity. Some, however, are very well informed and it's a site worth reading.

He does seem to have slipped in the cat blogging department.

[MWB]

In my book, no one tops Jeff Jarvis for juvenile "argument" these days, even though I agree with his actual positions many times.

See Exhibit A right here.

It's especially pathetic in light of the "civilized discourse" ideal he pledged back in November.

[festus]

Steve, you're just proving my point. WHO CARES? There's idiots everywhere. I don't consider myself Left or Right, and I see ugliness of equal ferocity and crudeness on BOTH sides. How is pointing this out helping anybody in a debate? "Uhh...I win the argument because his commentators said mean things about me." At that point, it's time to GROW UP. It's for nonsense like this that makes me want to be done with blogs altogether, it's bush league, and it's boring.

[Brew]

There's a great quote in last weeks economist from a Dutch Parliament member who's currently facing a number of threats because of her involvement in Theo Van Gogh's projects. I don't have it in front of me, but i'll paraphrase:

"When we strive not to offend, we don't treat each others as equals."

Using offensive language doesn't necessarily lower the level of debate - in fact using such emotionally charged words can inject much needed passion into the political discourse. THe politics of in-offense has just led to a lot of people dancing around what they really care about so that they don't offend. To posit that the use of adult language somehow lowers the debate is, well, juvenile.

Going back under my bridge now . . .

[festus]

Annnnnd I'm back. Yes, I have too much free time. Saying "the Left would do far better to match [Malkin's] arguments...if they could" completely ignores the fact that in this instance Malkin's arguments have caused her to embarrassingly backpedal on her recent "scoop," blame others who fed her false information, and resort to juvenile ("they're being mean") arguments. Of course it's convenient that she never came out and said that the memos were fake or came from Harry Reid, she only strongly and insistently suggested it in 2 dozen posts. Well, that's her M.O. (remember how she also didn't claim that John Kerry shot himself?), and doesn't everybody see the cowardice?? C'mon people!

[Laurence Simon]

C**T stands for CAT.

I guess that would make her a Grim Malkin?

[Hunter McDaniel]

Brew, foul language DOES lower the debate. Hirsi Ali's point was that we shouldn't paper over our differences just because others are "offended" by our opinions.

I remember an old piece of advice Tom Hayden, a veteran leftist and SDS founder, gave to lots of hippie activists back in the 70's - "why offend your opponents with your style when you can offend them with substance instead?".

[Al]

As one of the commenters on that thread of Kevin's, let me say that I don't think that it is fair to blame Kevin for the remarks of his commenters. And I'm sure that he does not "favor" the "level of debate" to which the thread descended.

Kevin permits a very open forum, which attracts a large number, and diverse levels, of comments. Some are sophmoric or offensive. Some aren't. Given the number of comments, I understand Kevin's desire to avoid having to monitor his comment section. Even given some of the comments there (and I am on the receiving end of a few) I appreciate his relatively open forum; too many blogs have too few or too homogenous comments. And while there is a downside to an open comment section, there are also upsides. Accordingly, I don't think your implicit criticism of his choice to allow an open comment section is fair.

[Quilly Mammoth]

I still haven't figured out why the Left is so gleeful about this. Not only Drum, but Oliver Willis and the rest are practically jumping up and down. When the fact is they bought into the original story that claimed it was a memo from the RNC, that it was super secret, and that all Repub Senators were using it.

None of which was true.

Seems that the very people who are getting such great enjoyment out of this ought to realise they, too, were fooled by a WaPo Reporter who didn't fact check his article.

[Will Allen]

Isn't the story here that one of major national news outlets has once again been shown to make stuff up out of thin air?

[capt joe]

Festus,

When the only point of the comment is to say that Michelle Malkin needs to be raped and killed, then what sort of discourse is that.

Ooh, such passion. so badly needed as a matter of discourse. Yeah right!

Please, that is just idiotic and completely juvenile.

Personally I have never felt the need to say anytime like that. Sure I have called someone an idiot but not that they needed to be raped and murdered.

Sorry for you that you feel the necessity thereof.

On blogs that I go to, people are warned if they use garbage like that. I have been warned and appologized on ocassion when my "passion" got the better of me. I then toned it down and stuck to an "argument" rather than a spew.

[Memekiller]

What's insane is holding Kevin Drum responsible for comments posted on his board. Memekiller IS a c***, but just because I post that here doesn't make you any more responsible for it than Kevin.

Of course, you could remove my post in the interest of removing any dissenting viewpoints, but Kevin doesn't do that. He has an open forum, and having an open forum means allowing points of view - even offensive points of view - to remain (as he has with many a right wing troll post which you can go read right now). A differing opinion is something you cultists simply can not abide, which will be proven as soon as this post is removed.

[Kathy K]

I could post links to blogs on the right whose posters use far worse language (never mind the commentors). And on the left as well. Festus was correct about there being "ugliness of equal ferocity and crudeness on BOTH sides."

[Sissy Willis]

How disagreeable for fellow Americans to find the C word to their liking in expressing their feelings towards a certain woman's views. I myself could never take your "arguments" seriously when they are couched in such gratuitously obscene language.

[JD]

Memekiller said:

...A differing opinion is something you cultists simply can not abide, which will be proven as soon as this post is removed.

Or perhaps the post will be left up, if only to demonstrate the depth to which the Left has to go in order to attempt to win an argument.

The poster above relating the Hayden story had it right. Memekiller offends with style. Sissy does it with substance.

BTW - seeing as how so many different people are referring to Malkin (and indicating their displeasure with her) by primarily throwing the C-bomb, it makes me wonder who might be the cultists on the blogosphere...

[Jamie]

My goodness. I've been hitting the right side of the blogosphere really hard since the summer, to the point that my housework NEVER gets done any more, and I've never seen any poster OR commenter on the sites I visit (I generally start with janegalt.net, move on to instapundit.com, and follow my nose from there) use the obscenity that just came up. Is it really the position of the person who used it that that type of loaded language, that tends to deflect attention from the content and focus on the visceral reaction, is the best way to make a point?

How'd you do in high school debate? Or are you purely of the SNL "Jane, you ignorant ----" school?

[capt joe]

Sissy, re-read Meme killer's statement and substitute the N word (for black people) and see how illuminating his commentary is and what it really reveals about the speaker.

N is just as offensive and degrading as the C word is for women.

That the whole point of MemeKillers post is to call Ms Malkin a C@#$ and call us cultists because we disdain this form of address as reasonable discourse. Now that is really interesting.

The most interesting thing is that these same posts will use the N word when a black man or woman wanders outside allowable ideology.

Which side still owns plantations?

[Memekiller]

If you go to Kevin's site, you'll see right wing trolls referring to liberals as "dickless". I'd hardly say conservatives argue with substance.

The C word is not one I would personally chose first to describe Malkin (gutless hack, perhaps), but since she took such offense to one post that used it among hundreds on an open forum, I take great pleasure in using it.

I say the 'C' word loudly and proudly, but it's mostly for her benefit. If Malkin wants to be a big, fire-breathing conservative pundit, then she needs to be able to play with the big boys and grow a thicker skin. Just because she's a woman doesn't mean she's can't be greeted with the same level of venom she dishes out on a daily basis. She could start by showing the same courage Kevin has by allowing open comments on her site. I'm not holding my breath.

[capt joe]

Another story of Hirsi Ali's that I like is this one.

When Ms Ali goes about town, she travels with several bodyguards because of the very real danger and constant death threats.

In one restaurant, a young Dutch man (early 20s) came up to her and identified himself as a recent convert to Islam. He then proceeded to tell her that he hoped that the mujahadeen would soon "get" her as she derserved worse than death. She picked up a knife from her table, reversed with handle facing him, and told him why doesn't he do it just now, why wait? He left the premises quickly after that.

There are those would believe that a woman should say what she wants and there are those that threaten her with death when they don't agree with her ideology.

No wonder they view the insurgents as minutemen. Lots of similiarity there.