Shaun Kenney on Waldo-gate

Shaun Kenney has a wonderful post on the recent imbroglio over Waldo Jaquith's decision to remove from his Virginia Blog Aggregator a pseudonymous blog which reproduced a picture of an American beheaded by Islamo-fascist radicals in Iraq.

Shaun expands on some of the things I've already said on Waldo's blog. And while I agree with virtually all of Shaun's points, one won't find a "Bloggers for Waldo" logo here. First, I don't even put my own picture on my own blog; why should I put Waldo's (his aesthetic superiority to the contrary notwithstanding) on mine? Second, I'm just too damn lazy to figure out how to do so.

I had to laugh, though, when I saw the "Attaboy!" from F.T. Rea. Recall that F.T. has a record of rhetorically savaging the President, as well as deleting comments from those who dare to challenge his often hypocritical pretensions on his own website.

As to Shaun's comments about "tone," some might be surprised to learn that I agree, to a point. However, I am not going to simply turn the other cheek when, e.g., someone from the far Left asserts that I am "greedy" simply because I oppose far Left politicians from taking the money I earn and using it to buy the votes of the irresponsible, the unindustrious, or merely unlucky, or suggests that an eminently disputable but defensible foreign policy decision by a President of my party was solely to help his oil buddies. Or declares that I am "far Right" simply because I don't buy into an objectively crypto-Socialist agenda. It has recently been established that Conservatives and/or those in the "Red" states are more "caring" in their commitment to charity, insofar as they make contributions higher in proportion to their income than those made by Liberals and/or those in the "Blue" states. And, of course, enlisting the power of government to take money from one's neighbor to spend on one's preferred social welfare programs has no more to do with real "charity" than it has to do with Christianity.

I didn't believe in unilateral disarmament when our main enemy was the Soviet Union, and neither am I going to practice unilateral rhetorical disarmament in the face of far Left slanders. That kind of "dignity" is what relegated the GOP to virtually permanent minority status in the House of Representatives for forty years.

While Shaun makes many good and indisputable points about Waldo, one might read a portion of his post dangerously to approach advocacy of unilateral rhetorical disarmament.

To any such suggestion, I say "Never!"