See the update…

Boy, that was an annoying cliche when it was first spoken, back in the ’60s. It continues to be annoying today, even when I use it.

Today, it’s puzzling to me how it is that the left blogs, who make ‘speaking truth to power’ their raison d’etre, seem totally incapable of having anyone speak to them.

Now, making fun of Oliver Willis is kind of cheating. But I’ve got to laugh a bit as one of the pet bloggers of Media Matters for America, an organization devoted to “correcting conservative misinformation” is unwilling to engage in dialog about misinformation he posts himself.

He linked to my Examiner piece on Lieberman, and just flat missed the point.

I registered, and posted a comment. You can see a screenshot here.

What I said was:

Oliver, Oliver. Ya gotta read the posts before you comment on them.

I didn’t say that “not having Joe Lieberman in Washington” would be a bad thing for the Democratic party, I said that “having Joe Lieberman in Washington after having been kicked in the nuts by the netroots and the Democratic party” was a bad thing.

It’s a subtle difference, but it matters.

Hugs to George and the folks at M.M.

A.L.

You can’t read it on his site, because he hasn’t approved it in moderation. Two later comments have appeared; and maybe his comment tools allow more trusted commenters to post directly, in which case I’ll apologize, Or maybe Oliver just isn’t comfy when people don’t applaud everything he says.

There are certainly commenters here who challenge everything from my math to my sanity, and I think I’m a better thinker and writer because of them.

The antidote to bad speech ought to be more speech, not muzzles.

[Update: the comment has appeared, and Oliver (politely as always) informs us that new commenters must be approved (because he is so popular), so I’ll hereby apologize for assuming he was censoring me.]