Today in Instapunditry…

by Ted on November 12, 2003

we learned that opponents of the Iraq war are unpatriotic ghouls who are glad when Americans die.

I actually got several variations on this theme, from antiwar types who always seem glad when people die in Iraq, so long as they’re Americans or our allies. They’re usually the same people who puff up if you “question their patriotism.”

I don’t question it. They’ve put its existence beyond question by wishing for America to lose.

Oh Brave New Media, that has such Pundits in it!

(via Matthew Yglesias)

P.S. Oh, and don’t try to excuse it by saying “he wasn’t talking about everyone who opposed the war.” Glenn Reynolds and Lt. Smash have taught me to see right past that kind of tricksiness.

{ 8 comments }

1

Andrew Northrup 11.12.03 at 9:31 pm

There’s a point at which it stops making sense to pay attention to this stuff. I’m as guilty as anybody of this, but it would be hard to understate Reynold’s importance in the grand scheme of things, and so it’s hard to understand why we continue to get upset when he does something stupid, as opposed to when LGF says something dumb, or Free Republic, or Indymedia, or my mailman, or whoever. Instapundit isn’t the NY Times – he doesn’t have any kind of institutional advantages that any dude with internet access doesn’t have. All he has is attention, and, somehow, this makes him worthy of more attention. He’s a distraction.

2

MikeR 11.12.03 at 9:32 pm

Glenn also says that the war in Iraq is part of the fight against “fundamentalist Islamic terrorists”. In what way does he think Saddam Hussein (aka “the apostate”)fits that description?

3

David 11.12.03 at 9:39 pm

The “who” limits the class of people to those identified after the word. What’s the problem? It’s like saying “track stars who took steroids, are cheaters.” We’re not saying that the class of all track stars are cheaters, only those who took steroids. Show me the universal quantifier which renders the statement applicable to the entire class of “anti-war types.”

4

MK Hackensack 11.12.03 at 9:50 pm

Glenn Reynolds is a trained lawyer and a self-taught hack.

If I had been proven absolutely, embarrasingly wrong on every factual point of contention with my ideological adversaries, as he has in the past six months, I would probably unravel too.

5

Ted Barlow 11.12.03 at 10:46 pm

Andrew,

I know, I know. I can’t justify it. To be fair, I’m very hard on your mailman.

6

Frugal Liberal 11.13.03 at 5:16 am

Who exactly doesn’t have respect for the lives of American soldiers?

Maybe it is the man who went on international television and demanded that the militants “BRING IT ON”.

Who was that guy again? Some ultra-left “nation-builder” with a shady past of drug abuse, I’m sure….

7

Marco 11.13.03 at 5:16 am

Haven’t even looked there for months, but anyone who puts a testimonial to his “dry sense of humor which I’m not sure everybody gets” on the side bar of his blog is damn tootin’ a funny dude.

Einstein’s blog — “He’s not stupid! No oh no, no he ain’t! Only the stupid would call him stupid!”

Stalin’s blog … (oh well, you get the idea).

8

Andrew Northrup 11.13.03 at 5:20 pm

My mailman is an egregious hack! And, also like Reynolds, he doesn’t actively court anyone’s attention. It’s all a bit Luskinian, really.

In honor of whichever religious holiday we’re on now, I’m giving up reading things that I only read to get upset about. In the spirit of religious tolerance, I will not pressure anyone else to join me in my fast, but simply wish that peace be upon you all, and I hope you all enjoy roasting in hell forever.

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