They Have to Be Wrong, Even When I Agree With Them

I realize the "Two-Minute Townhall" feature at Sadly, No!, which offers one-sentence parodies of columns from the conservative Web site, is not meant to be strictly accurate. The glosses, based on the premise that every columnist carried by Townhall is a predictable Neanderthal, are often funny without necessarily being fair. The last few summaries of my columns are neither, for the simple reason that the author, Travis G., can't bring himself to admit that he agrees with someone he has pegged as a right-wing moron.

Sadly, No! summed up my May 17 column criticizing the NSA phone call database this way: "I feel bad even saying this, but I think the NSA may have overstepped some legal bounds, insomuch as these things matter." My May 24 column, in which I condemned the Justice Department's threats to prosecute the New York Times reporters who revealed the NSA's illegal wiretapping program, became: "I'm not so sure that the president's approval rating is the same thing as national security." And this week's column, which faults Congress for not standing up to the president's absurdly broad assertions of executive power, was rendered as: "As much as it pains me to say it, I think Congress should be concerned about the president violating the Constitution in the name of national security."

As anyone who reads the columns (or a random sampling of my other work) can see, the bad feelings, uncertainty, and pain allegedly associated with my criticism of the Bush administration exist only in Travis G.'s imagination, where I am a GOP flack notwithstanding all the evidence to the contrary. If I'm going to be mocked, can't I be mocked as a crazy libertarian, rather than a blindly loyal Republican?