Dennis Prager, in excessively kind and gentle fashion, takes Charles Johnson, of Little Green Nutballs (which I will not link) to the woodshed (kindly, gently) with, An Open Letter to Charles Johnson.
For those of y’all who may have missed the blogospheric kerfuffle, Charles Johnson once ran Little Green Footballs (still not linking it), which, once upon a time, long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away, used to be a place where he fought against the evils he today defends. No, not just defends; virulently, slanderously–in many folks’ opinions–attacks those with whom he once allied himself.
Prager reiterates Johnson’s list of “justifications” for his switch and rebuts them all. Here’s #9, a typical example,
9. Anti-Islamic bigotry that goes far beyond simply criticizing radical Islam, into support for fascism, violence, and genocide (see: Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, etc.). [Johnson]
I saw Pamela Geller’s site (The New York Times Magazine article about you cited it — Atlas Shrugs — and mentioned nothing remotely approaching your charges against her or her site) and I’ve interviewed Robert Spencer. Your charges against them only cheapen the words “fascism,” violence” and “genocide.” [Prager]
As I said, Prager takes Johnson to the woodshed most convincingly (read it for yourself) and, IMO, all too gently, especially given the fact that I have read the positions and assertions of all the parties Johnson condemns and have a good idea of their place in “the right”. Johnson’s place? IMO, Little Green Nutballs is juuuust the place for him… until someone can get commitment papers in order, for his own good. Then, of course, if a physical etiology for his psychological issues can be diagnosed, perhaps medical treatment could return him to sanity.
Of course, if there’s no one in his family who cares enough about him to begin commitment proceedings, he’ll likely spend the rest of his life frothing at the mouth and baying at the moon.
No, I’m not really hoping from trolls from Little Green Nutballs to find this in a Google search and drop by foaming at the mouth. Nor am I hoping for the notoriety (and amusement) of being attacked by The Emperor of the Little Green Nutballs and threatened with a libel suit (though I have no doubt he knows all about covering his own ass with “It’s my opinion” comments but doesn’t recognize opinion pieces written by others). But if either of those happy things comes to pass, I’ll just have my usual fun with trolls and idiots and worms (Oh my! :-)).
Still, I’m such a little fish (an amoeba, by now no doubt, as my UNsubscription from the TTLB game has taken its toll) in the blogosphere that such happy occurrences are unlikely. Oh. Well. We all have our places in the world. Mine is to simply keep the voices in my head down to a relatively quiet roar.
I guess mental regression is a danger to us all. I wonder if Mr. Johnson might not have had a quiet stroke to make such a radical change in his viewpoints and method of reasoning. The type of personality chang and logical regression seems to me, in my very inexpert opinion to fit that diagnosis.
Well, either something along that order or he just went over to the Dark Side on his own. In any case, he certainly seems to need new meds.