Well, it looks as though another story may make it beyond our online echo chamber, only this one really doesn't deserve to, as it's been strictly a blogospheric pissing contest of little interest to anyone who doesn't hang out here - and of minimal interest to many of us who do. From what I've been able to figure out, seems a couple weeks back the son of right-wing sleazemonger Lucianne Goldberg, who has a blog at one of those radical rightie think-tank aggregates that I've never had occasion nor desire to visit, said some stupid things about Iraq. Whereupon Juan Cole, Professor of History at the University of Michigan and an acknowledged expert on the Middle East, called Goldberg on his fallacies. And the war of words escalated from there, culminating in some bloggers holding contests to come up with the cruelest/funniest nickname for Goldberg and others announcing, "When WW1 broke out young Englishwomen would hand white feathers to men on the street who were not in uniform to shame them into enlisting. Let's send white feathers to a prominent chicken hawk who is willing to vilify anyone who opposes the war in Iraq but seems to have many reasons for staying safe here." Accompanying tar not needed, I suppose, as that's all been verbal and Goldberg has proven himself quite the tar-baby.
Anyway, I'd given this as much attention in my blog as I thought it obviously merited - none - until I noticed that both Cole and Goldberg are scheduled to have a "throwdown debate" tonight on The Majority Report. Why on earth Air America is stooping to the same mentality as many of my blogpals astounds me. Didn't anyone learn that the more attention you pay to trolls the more they love it, and the more it validates the nonsense they're spewing? It ought to be self-evident that this guy's an idiot; why give him the satisfaction of more publicity? People like Goldberg are going to lap up the Air America appearance, even if he "loses" the "throwdown." The most effective thing one can do about these folks is to stop wasting time and energy on them; ignore them and let them languish in obscurity. But, sadly, I appear to be well in the minority on this thinking.
Anyway, I'd given this as much attention in my blog as I thought it obviously merited - none - until I noticed that both Cole and Goldberg are scheduled to have a "throwdown debate" tonight on The Majority Report. Why on earth Air America is stooping to the same mentality as many of my blogpals astounds me. Didn't anyone learn that the more attention you pay to trolls the more they love it, and the more it validates the nonsense they're spewing? It ought to be self-evident that this guy's an idiot; why give him the satisfaction of more publicity? People like Goldberg are going to lap up the Air America appearance, even if he "loses" the "throwdown." The most effective thing one can do about these folks is to stop wasting time and energy on them; ignore them and let them languish in obscurity. But, sadly, I appear to be well in the minority on this thinking.
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