Is That Mote Larger Than This Beam? Views Differ.

I give Brendan Nyhan fair-n’-balanced credit for this; he prints Tomasky’s justification for pushing him out of the Prospect, which he doesn’t directly rebut because he can’t: “there were a few posts in succession that struck us as either inaccurate or an effort to draw equivalences where none existed. The Prospect has always opposed a ‘pox on both houses’ posture, and that’s what we came to believe you were doing.”

Right–that’s the problem with Nyhan. I, at least, have no problem in principle with being tough on liberals who say things that are false or genuinely odious, but that for the most part isn’t what Nyhan is doing. His post about Ann Coulter was silly–oh, questioning the towering intellect and rationality of that great fair-minded scholar, get me the smelling salts. But even more definitive was this nonsense. First of all, you’ll note that Sean Penn didn’t actually call Bush Hitler or anything; the point is simply wrong. But much, much worse is the comparison he draws between major political figures, op-ed columnists in national newspapers, and high-rated primetime political talk show hosts with an actor. Even if his characterization of Penn’s views was fair, the comparison is a false equivalency straight out of the Karl Rove playbook. This routine is tried and true. OK, maybe the United States Senate is full of crackpots who advocate the execution of abortion providers, are virulent racists, give phony long-distance diagnoses claiming that a woman with a liquified cerebral cortex is conscious and communicative, etc. etc.–well, that’s counterbalanced because some obscure academic who thinks that the Democratic Party is a CryptoZionoChristofascist conspiracy can be cast as “The Face of the Left” by Tailgunner Glenn Reynolds and his ilk. This blurring the lines between politicians and cultural figures without any real power is crucial for conservatives who are trying to conceal their radicalism from the median voter, and as long as a useful idiot wants to play along by making illogical comparisons between incommensurate figures, he shouldn’t be working for a major progressive magazine.