A slightly more interesting case involves Glenn Reynolds, a/k/a the Instapundit. Reynolds seems to be talking the loss of Andrew Breitbart to heart and he jumped down the throat of the blogger Robert Wright pretty good:
Really, how pathetic is this piece? When it starts out “I didn’t know Andrew Breitbart,” and then praises an “acute” observation by David Frum, the cause is already lost. Robert Wright: You should apologize to your readers, and to everyone who actually did know Andrew Breitbart. This is unworthy of you. You schmuck.Calling someone a schmuck is not very nice, of course, although in this case I think was defensible if not polite. Wright's piece was an old favorite of professional thumbsuckers, the psychoanalysis by 800-word column routine. And it was pretty pathetic, as all such pieces are.
Still, later on Reynolds thought better of his remarks:
But on reflection, one schmucky post doesn’t a schmuck make. Sooner or later, every blogger will make a schmucky post, so taking a contrary view would make us all schmucks or schmucks-to-be. But I’ve known Wright for years and in truth have not found him to be a schmuck. So I’ll retract my characterization of Wright, which on sober reflection seems unfair, though not my views on the post, which really was a stinker.This is an important point. If you get into the arena and get any sort of audience, eventually you're going to write or say something you're going to regret. We all have reasons to apologize, every day, because we all are sinners. It's well nigh impossible to get through a day without doing something that you might, on reflection, want to take back. And that's worth remembering as you deal with these sorts of arguments, and your own reactions to them.
3 comments:
been doing this in one form or another since late 2000. 99% of what i've said i still stand by (in the context of its time), though i admit that i could have said some of it differently.
1% i wish i could take back for various reasons.
what i get a kick out of are those who take one thing you say that they dislike and smear your character with it, if not directly, then by misrepresentation.
seriously, i get i kick out it. their attempt to offend doesnt work on me. instead, it means that i'm in their head.
and thats kinda cool, considering i'm not 'All That' in the first place.
because...i am largely unoffendable. but in their attempts to offend me, they instead show themselves for who they are. its a judgement upon them so much more than being a judgement upon me.
love me or hate me... i'll let the 11 year body of my 'work' (if my postings and responses can be called that) speak for me.
1% i wish i could take back for various reasons.
That's a pretty good batting average, actually.
Rush shouldn't have apologized. To these alinskyite pigs, it's a sign of weakness.
Ms. Fluke probably isn't a slut or whore, she's far worse. She's a community agitator working for obama.
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