Bloggers, led by Instaignorance, love to congratulate themselves for holding mainstream journalism to higher standards of accuracy, but they, in fact, do nothing of the kind, except when it is trivial and irrelevant (e.g., the attack on Dan Rather of CBS News for using unreliable documentary evidence about Bush's National Guard "service", when the facts about his National Guard "service" are equally well-established by other kinds of evidence routinely ignored by Instaignorance and co.).
But when the blogosphere is confronted with an actual issue--namely, fascist propaganda whitewashing race-based internment, propaganda already being picked up by the right wing of the mainstream media (do read this piece, especially if you are Arab-American--this is very scary stuff--and see Muller's comments here)--only a handful of bloggers (North Carolina Law Professor Eric Muller paramount among them) really take it on, while the rest of the self-congratulatory charlatans pass by in silence.
Shame on these bloggers, as Professor Muller says. Shame, indeed, on these moral cretins and self-important poseurs.
UPDATE: Gordon Smith (Law, Wisconsin) doesn't understand why the Malkin fraud on the public is an "actual issue". I shall help him, because I am a nice guy. When CBS news reports, accurately, that George W. Bush is a draft dodger, who used connections to get a "safe" spot in the National Guard, they are reporting a by now well-established fact; that they offered as support for that fact some discredited evidence is irrelevant as to the truth of the proposition in question, and that is what matters. By contrast, when a know-nothing journalist whitewashes the herding of minorities in to concentration camps during WWII, on the basis of shoddy history, and her whitewash is then picked up by the mainstream media, that is alarming. It is alarming because we are living in an historical moment when such violations of human rights are real prospects again--not for law professors at Wisconsin and Texas, to be sure, but for real people who have the misfortune to be members of the currently suspect racial group. That is why the Malkin fraud on the public is an "actual issue" that ought to command the attention of a blogosphere interested in the truth, as opposed to a blogosphere interested in pandering to the right.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Here's a conservative blogger who has also taken Malkin to task.
AND ANOTHER: Ann Althouse, another Wisconsin law professor, is apparently shocked by the word "shit." I'm a bit surprised, frankly. I still recall the Chicago litigator at a firm I once worked at who routinely referred to his clients as "the shitheads" and those suing his clients as "the fucking douchebags." Now that was gratuitous vulgarity! I can only assume Professor Althouse worked in tamer environments than I did. She also takes exception to my disdain for the misinformation Professor Reynolds regularly puts in to circulation--a disdain widely shared, as she surely knows, by academics. Since Professor Reynolds has done much to boost her readership, I understand her indignation on his behalf. Predictably, Insta-Ignorance (good point about the hyphen!) himself has now linked to her, and I've already started to get letters from those who take exception to my disdain as well. Please, save yourself the effort: I delete them. Life is too short to quarrel with those who believe that Professor Reynolds is providing them intellectual uplift.
And for those who still think the CBS story is important, I invite you to consider a contrary perspective. And for my views on "civil discourse," of which Professor Althouse purports to be an advocate, try this.
AND ANOTHER UPDATE (YAWN, I KNOW): A law student writes (I almost deleted this, before realizing it was not a tirade from an Instapundit fan--happily, my advice appears to have been heeded, and I've gotten hardly any tirades at all):
"After having the misfortune of reading Instapundit's blog, I just have to ask how such a morally-bankrupt character has the gall to call himself an academic? I know there are laws out there protecting academic freedom, but do these laws cover hacks who do nothing but spread lies and misinformation? Every day, he posts intellectually dishonest material.
"Don't get me wrong, I am all for debate, and always enjoy getting into intense arguments on politics, religion (I'm an atheist at a Jesuit law school). And I definitely support the open dissemination of ideas (Which is why I despised the 'free speech zone' at my undergrad university). Nevertheless, it scares me that such a character is allowed to openly spread lies.
"When un-educated, right-wing morons cite him, I don't mind as much. But when people teaching at prestigious universities justify his idiocy, it makes me wonder how low those on the right have gone."
There is no question that academic freedom, and more importantly, the First Amendment, protects him as much as it protects me or Professor Althouse. All one can do is respond, criticize, resist.
AND THIS IS IT, REALLY: A colleague elsewhere writes to object that I was "too nice" to Professor Althouse (this charge doesn't often get levelled at me, so it's notable when it happens). He notes: "Once you overlook her prissiness about your choice of language, she manages to ignore or mangle every substantive point you made, and respond to nothing on the merits. You made clear why the Malkin defense of internment is an issue of current importance, not merely historical interest as Althouse dishonestly suggests. Your link to the Counterpunch piece does a good job of demolishing the CBS story as a story of no importance. Isn't it clear that this has nothing to do with nice manners, and everything to do with the fact that she's just another conservative you've offended by not taking the usual conservative pablum seriously?" Perhaps.
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