Monday, February 12, 2007

The Edwards Bloglodytes: Another View

Unlike the local fellow Jay (who has yet to explicitly condemn the vicious anti-Catholicism expressed by Edwards' new hires,) Diogenes is clear about the role of the MSM in the affair:

First, the laughably supine harlotry of the prestige media in their coverage of the story. Below are the sole specimens of the bloggers' bliggotry cited in yesterday's New York Times article:

In some of their online writings, Ms. Marcotte and Ms. McEwan used vulgar language to characterize religious conservatives and Roman Catholic teachings on birth control, homosexuality and the virgin birth. On her personal blog, Shakespeare's Sister, Ms. McEwan had referred to conservative Christians as "Christofascists."


On the Pandagon blog site, Ms. Marcotte had said that the Catholic Church's prohibition on the use of birth control forced women to bear "more tithing Catholics."

Really, however, it's not just Catholics:

The second and more intriguing aspect of the flap is the nature of Marcotte and McEwan's anti-Catholicism. To call it "offensive" misses the point. It's the hatred behind the offensiveness that's the interesting phenomenon. After all, ridicule -- even ridicule intended to offend -- need not proceed from hatred. But Marcotte and McEwan's does. Nor is their antipathy "anti-Catholicism" of the old fashioned tribal variety. Their language about the Catholics they hate differs in no respect from Bishop Reggie Cawcutt's language about the Catholics he hates; tidy up the spelling, and you can't tell them apart. Whom do they hate? Anyone that professes orthodox Christian doctrine.

And it's a peculiar vice which these Blog-Trixies have--because, you see, they do not "hate."

To understand what's going on here it's vital to grasp that left-liberals are incapable a priori, on axiomatic grounds, of acknowledging their own hatred. It may be said that, performatively, they define and distinguish themselves from their adversaries precisely in virtue of their being preserved free from this sin. There is simply no such thing as a "left-wing hate group," as a Nexis-search will attest. That conservatives have a monopoly on this vice is dogma -- perhaps their only dogma. This means that the hatred that exists within left-liberal breasts must be accounted for as something other than what it is. In the case of in-house antipathy, of leftist versus leftist, malice is reflexively attributed to a recrudescence of right-wing politics (sexism, racism, hetero-centrism, etc.). When their hatred is directed toward non-leftists, it is explained as some variety of righteous indignation.

Which brings us back to Jay, who absolutely despises the writings (but not the person, he avers) of P-Mac. See, P-Mac quotes "haters." Because of this, P-Mac should either NOT be "part of the media," or he should not quote "haters."

Clearly, the Blog-Trixies in question are NOT "haters." They are just opinionated. That's why it's just fine that the Breck Girl hires them.

Right.

3 comments:

Other Side said...

Funny and so sad.

Anonymous said...

It was a good thing that Edwards was not able to be 'swift-boated' by conservatives on this non-issue. I actually heard on the radio someone lament that the bloggers in question had written something unkind about the Pope. And.....Who hasn't stated/written about the Catholic Church? And so what if runs counter to Catholics?

When freedom of expression no longer exists what will the country be worth? And if any presidential candidate would fold on this issue to conservatives, how would anyone respect him/her?

Dad29 said...

Well, there's little enough respect for "the man of the people" out there now.

He just opened a BIG door for the Hildebeeste to walk through.

Watch the game.