In The Interest Of Clarity

I got some linkage from a couple of my favorite all-snark local leftyblogs the other day.

Now, let's bear the following in mind:

1. If you mention two leftyblogs, you are generally, probably dealing with half a dozen bloggers, meaning your comment could touch on 6^2, or a total of 36 different blogs, because - here's the funny part about Minnesota leftyblogs - there really are only like 15 liberal bloggers in Minnesota. Except for Jeff Fecke, they all write for each others' blogs; in fact, since there are (without Fecke) 14 bloggers, the total number of Minnesota leftyblogs is or will soon be 14^2, or 196. That's presuming that some permutations don't repeat themselves: for example, if Mark Gisleson, Eva Young, MNob and Rew don't accidentally start two collaborative blogs among the four of them, rather than one, plus the original blogs on which each of them either write alone or in collaboration with one more more other members of that foursome, to say nothing of the blogs on which each collaborates with people not in that foursome. It's like keeping track of Dave Grohl's bands, if that helps. I know it probably doesn't.
2. It goes without saying that "leftyblogs are primarily snarkfests" is sort of like declaring that "public restrooms have lots of funny smells"; a statement so obvious as to be unneeded.
3. By the same token, picking a "favorite local leftyblog" is like picking a "favorite smell in the public restroom"; an interesting diversion, perhaps, but lacking much in payback (yes, I know that's unfair; there are a few local leftyblogs that are well-written and that I genuinely enjoy; they are significant in their solitude).

So with that in mind, I noted that both Jeff Fecke (of the BlOTMoL and, oddly, no other blog) and "Clever Sponge" (he of many local blogs, and who indeed may be less a "person" than a "concept") both jumped to the same deeply flawed conclusion.

Both responded to my piece the other day regarding Colonel Joe Repya's response to Nick Coleman's hatchet jobs on the Gold Star Family's TV ads.

I entitled the post "Absolute Moral Authority". That's probably where the problem comes in.

Step back with me through history, won't you please, to last year. Leftybloggers were leaping up and down like poo-flinging monkeys, declaring every war supporter who hadn't served in the military a "chicken hawk" (especially in the presence of a few veterans who came back and came out opposed to the war). A few months later, the phrase itself was born in reference to Cindy Sheehan, who had - with me, so far? - "Absolute moral authoritiy" according to the leftymedia in criticizing the war, the Administration and everyone who disagreed with her her supporters, because her son had been killed in Iraq.

So - and again, I'm trying to spell out the history of the "argument" here - supporters of the Administration who don't drop everything and join the military have no authority, while people who have an intimate stake in the war - through their family, especially through loss - have absolute authority.

OK. With you so far.

So Joe Repya - who has left retirement after serving in two wars, so nobody can call him a "chicken hawk" (back to this in a bit) - should have authority to speak, right? Especially as compared to Nick Coleman, a man who neither served (joked on the air, in fact, about his days as a lice-ridden, unbathed anti-war protester at the U of M, standing on the roof of a U building and giggling like a schoolgirl as protesters mixed it up below him) nor checks facts before devoting three columns to attacking the Gold Star Veterans' ads (primarily, I think, to divert attention from Brian Melendez' attempts to squelch the GSFs' right to free speech using the machinery of the DFL) - right?

I entitled the piece "Absolute Authority" as a riff on the left's and the media's assignment of same to the likes of Sheehan, even as they deny the even stronger claim to authority of the likes of Joe Repya.

Didn't seem that opaque to me. Was it?

Apparently so; Mr. Sponge wrote:

Mitch Berg anoints Joe Repya as the Supreme Being of the Universe.

Now, we've become accustomed to Mr. Sponge's sense of hyperbole (he is to rhetoric what Germans are to jazz), but, er, no. Not the "supreme being of the universe". Sponge, who has referred to Repya as a "sick mind", and who has castigated the Strib for giving Repya and war supporters too much visibility in its pages, is mistaken (or had his conclusions written before reading anything on the subject); Repya is far from the supreme being. In fact, the hierarchy of the Universe is as follows:

1. God
2. Christ
3. Mike Ditka
4. Bruce Springsteen (politics excepted)
5. Almost everyone else
6. Mike Hatch
7. Mike Malloy
8. John Wayne Gacy
9. The people who did that "Come on Barbie, Let's Go Party" song a few years back.

Clear so far?

Jeff Fecke, on the other hand, said:

Mitch Berg has declared LTC Joe Reppya (yes, that Joe Reppya) to be the most moralestest person evah.

I wondered about the appended "evah", but I'm told Jeff does the most fabulous Eva Gabor impression. However, otherwise, no - apparently, the pure cleverness of my Sheehan allegory has zigged as yet another leftyblogger zagged.

But maybe there's another explanation:

But Mitch also thinks FOX News is overrun by liberals, so his judgement isn't all that good.

Mr. Fecke is apparently huffing paint. I never said Fox was "overrun by liberals" - merely that their news coverage is a lot closer to center than the Big Three, CNN or most newspapers (thus, by comparison, appearing "conservative"; from Sacramento, Boise is "east", I guess), and that mixing their right-leaning programming (like Hannity and Colmes) with their news is misleading at best, disingenuous at worst.

Sigh.

OK, to clarify; Joe Repya's authority is not "absolute" in the metaphysical or philosophical sense.

Just more absolute than that of any of his critics.

Clearer now?

Posted by Mitch at March 10, 2006 05:33 AM | TrackBack