Instapundit is upset that people don’t see the world through the same paranoid filter he does. To go back to the beginning of the Burk mess he said:
Sounds pretty creepy to me. In the Corner post linked above, Kathryn Jean Lopez says that this is exaggeration for effect. Perhaps. But I can only imagine the response in, say, Ms. if some conservative male engaged in similar exaggeration where women’s reproductive rights were concerned.
Perhaps? What Glenn seems unable to grasp is that he was joining in the bashing of Burk based on what might have happened if someone else had written a similar parody. His excuse of his behavior is that he was making another point about how PC leads to the messenger depends on the acceptability of the language. This is, of course, irrelevant. In a piece like Burk’s the point is blood obvious. ‘Perhaps’ demonstrates one accepting that it wasn’t satire. A little personal responsibility would be nice out of someone who can’t let academic dishonesty go for a second. It is a spoof and Lopez refused to concede this point. Worse, it is pretty clear that someone (Hootie) is sending out this meme and hacks are repeating it.
More troubling is the notion that Burk is wrong because of a hypothetical or even a real example of satire being condemed if it is right leaning and not PC. Burk doesn’t deserve to be attacked for what others might do. If someone gets their panties twisted over one of two similar satirical pieces, the ninny getting the panties in a wad deserves to be criticized, not Burk for her work. This is a logical point completely lost on him.
A perfect example is when Mike Royko wrote one of the finest satirical pieces on Pat Buchanan. I kept going back to it all day it was so funny and dead on in pointing out what a bastard Buchanan was. If one read it straight one might get the sense that he was supporting Buchanan. However, to do so would mean one was a ninny. What did Royko get for that? Protests, protests and protests and a hell of a defense from the Tribune, to their credit. Those protesters were ninnies who didn’t understand he was standing up for Latinos (well Hispanics in Royko’s world 😉 ). Other ninnies are those who don’t get Mark Twain. Kathryn Jean Lopez is another ninny.
Instead of taking Lopez to task for stupidity, Glenn decided to play identity politics victimhood with conservative white males being the ohhh sooo great victim. It is a cheap ploy and rather useless unless one wants to change the subject. Instead of whining about what might occur in another case, why not call everyone on their lies?
I’m at a loss as to how Lopez wasn’t lying about Burk. Maybe she is simply too dumb to grasp the satire, but that isn’t much of a defense, is it?