“blindingly stupid”
“So, the latest New York Times OP/ED page conservative affirmative action case has his debut editorial for the paper, and what is his trenchant analysis?
It’s that the Republicans should have nominated Richard Milhaus Cheney as their presidential nominee in 2008.” ~ Matthew Saroff in a post titled “Ross Douthat is a F$#@ing Moron!”
Saroff, as Larison notes, is either “unaware that Ross doesn’t actually think Dick Cheney should have been the Republican nominee, or at the very least he hasn’t the foggiest what it is that Ross was actually arguing.”
I think it’s fair to say that if you’re not going to read someone’s piece, you probably shouldn’t go on to attack its merits (or lack thereof). I had my own quibbles with Douthat’s piece, but I damn well read the entire thing before putting pen to paper. It’s one thing to criticize ideas, and quite another to simply write every conservative writer you come across off as just “another Kristol.”
Perhaps Saroff is simply out of touch with, or uninterested in, the infighting within the conservative movement, which was the thrust of Douthat’s counter-factual regarding Cheney as the better loser. Perhaps then he should have avoided spewing such nonsense.
To quote Larison once more:
Ross’ column was a thought exercise, which can be difficult for people who do not think.
Might be a quibble, but I don’t think it’s fair to label this a “TPM Post” when the item in question is a reader reader diary.
You can read a lot of useless reader-generated content on blogs all over the place (comments, diaries, etc.), so I’m not sure I see much point in highlighting the stupidity of Matt the Mechanical Engineer, who lives in Owing Mills Maryland with his two cats.Report
Dave, duly noted and changed. Linked to the blogger’s home blog instead…Report
He’s got some more though:
Of course this is not really what the author believes. He wanted Cheney to run because he would have been beaten like a baby seal while showing how the right wing orthodoxy needs to be repackaged: It’s simply link bait, as Froomkin notes.
So he actually gets that Douthat is doing a thought exercise. Or counterfactual or whatever. More or less. He just thinks that Douthat is being a douche to get some coverage. I disagree with him there.
And talk about link bait, Saroff says that Douthat is being Doug Feith f’in stupid. Sorry but not quite. In fact not within the same universe of stupidity. That’s the same Doug Feith who thought the proper response to 9/11 was to immediately invade Iraq. Not even close.Report
Yeah it’s a pretty incoherent analysis.Report