Sadly, Not Even Close

The folks at Sadly, No respond to Jacob's kvetch that they seem unable to read his columns accurately by demonstrating that they can't read my blog posts accurately either. They mention (as just one piece of evidence we're secret GOP shills) "Reason's endorsement" of Samuel Alito. Except, funnily enough, they don't directly link the blog post they're referring to, but to yet another post elsewhere describing my "lengthy defense" of Alito, with the witty and original suggestion that libertarians are just Republicans who smoke pot. (I'm never sure whether the appropriate response to that is a wry pun invoking the consonance between "Dem" and "Dumb," in the tradition of Oscar Wilde, or a volley of feces, in the tradition of the howler monkey.) Presumably that's because, had they linked the post in question, readers might have noticed my "endorsement" begins with the statement "I haven't got a verdict one way or another on Alito yet" (he'd just been nominated) and just proceeds to pick apart one set of anti-Alito talking points I thought were overblown. Worse, someone might've scrolled up from that post and seen the two the following day where I added that there were good reasons to be disturbed by his Fourth Amendment record and linked Andrew Napolitano's negative assessment. If that's supposed to pass as an endorsement, it's a pretty crappy one.

I don't know if I spot any general pattern in what other folk here said about Altio, which I recall as being pretty mixed. Matt Welch blasted him for being too enamored of executive power; Jacob sounded a more tentatively optimistic note. But apparently, this is how political categories work now: Anyone who criticizes George Bush is, ipso facto, a "liberal"; anyone who fails to intuit by direct apprehension of a Platonic form the intrinsic evil of a Bush nominee is carrying water for the Republicans. And ever since Alberto Gonzales only half-blocked that vial of acid hurled at my face, I've been a crazed Bush hater and sycophant simultaneously. Which is fine, provided I get to wear one of those funky suits.