Mickey Kaus bemuses me in that way the Founder, President, and sole member of the Libertarian Society at the college I went to bemused me. You like to think he's harmless such that the sophistry will go unnoticed, but then you wonder about it and ponder whether a rebuttal is in order.
Well, in this case he compares Kos' comments about the 2004 killing of American contractors in Fallujah on the offensiveness meter to Ann Coulter's book. Surprise surprise he finds Kos "more offensive" even while professing to find it less so in its original context. (Don't bother trying to follow Kaus' links back to the original, because Slatemislinked it. Is that some form of meta-irony?)
Another Mickey mis-fire, because there's a big difference between Kos and Coulter. My reasoning on the flip.
Disclaimer: I write occasionally for
Slate.
Here's the complete entry:
I rag on Markos Moulitsas for his 2004 "screw them" comment about the four American security contractors killed in Fallujah. That comment was more offensive than anything Ann Coulter's book is currently being criticized for. But I have to say that just as Coulter's comments become much less shocking when read in context (Chapter 4 of Godless, criticizing the press canonization of four highly political, pro-Kerry 9/11 widows), Moulitsas' comment also becomes more understandable when you read it on its original page, which is here. As his subsequent childhood-blaming non-apology makes clear, he thinks he's making a distinction between Americans who are "trying to help the people make Iraq a better place" and mercenaries who voluntarily accept risk in exchange for cash. True, that distinction breaks down under inspection (the people trying to make Iraq a better place rely on the mercenaries, who are also human beings). And only someone who doesn't want the U.S. to succeed in Iraq would say what Moulitsas said. Still, it's less odious than I'd thought. ... P.S.: But it's still worse than Coulter! Yet Tim Russert and the rest of the MSM are falling over themselves giving respect to Kos. Is this due to a) liberal bias or b) Kos' seemingly determined Graydon-Carteresque attempt to make himself presentable and join the club [$] he's been attacking? I suspect (b). Coulter would be on Meet the Press too if she decided to tone herself down. [But she wouldn't have gotten famous in the first place if she'd toned herself down--ed. Right. It's all in the timing!] ... 5:25 P.M. link
- Coulter's work appears in print, Kos' was in a single blog entry. If we're going to elevate our medium of bloggery into one equivalent to that of the authoritative printed word, I guess traditional media is dead, after all. It's one thing to post quickly or emotionally. It's quite another to go through multiple edits in the print process in terms of rhetorical fire and sincerity.
- Kos apologized. I think we all know the context was about the role of mercenaries, and even so, there was no intent to wish evil to the deceased. Coulter apologize? Unlikely.
- Let's just look at the victims of the two alleged verbal outrages: widows of victims of 9/11 or contractors killed in an insurgency in Iraq. If we have any moral ground to stand on with respect to our own national victimhood in the Global War on Terrorism (tm), then we have to make a distinction between those two groups. If I have to explain it further, god help us all.
What I find particularly laughable about the Kausfile comment is the suggestion that Kos, in making himself more "presentable" to the Mainstream Media (despite John Dickerson in this same edition of Slate lauding Kos for his continued "arrogance", which I thought was a funny and observant piece) vis a vis Ann Coulter, who remains in the nether regions of Fox and wouldn't get near Meet the Press even if John Chancellor's ghost begged her, suggests that Kos is in it for the money, or alternatively, it's that pesky Liberal Bias of the media once again bowing to their evil lords.
This is sooooo STUPID. (Oops, there I go again, being an offensive blogger.) Let's think about this logically: if DailyKos and the blog*phere needed the mainstream media for validation, then there would be no story in the first place about the emerging importance of on-line movements (which is an old story anyway: cf. 2004 primaries), nor would the liberally-biased mainstream media be in such a hurry to jump all over Kos, et alia. The respect, if you can call it that, is for the speech, movement, and money.
But Kaus like everybody else continue to conflate Kos the person with the community as a whole. This is not the tale of a charismatic leader crashing down the gates of Havana (apologies Kos) so much as a civilized orange revolution of sorts. The continued fascination with the individuals associated with it just shows you they "don't get it". It's not about following the leader, here.
In any event, to get back to the main point here, if we're going to have an offensiveness meter, let's make sure we look at the comments in not just the context they were meant, but their intended permanence. Trying to drag Kos into the mud (for a 2004 comment) with Coulter seems to me like a classic case of misdirection: debating Gay marriage while the deficit balloons, etcetera. Or just plain old mudslinging. I've already given this more space than it deserves.