Kill Muslim Children

Atrios directed me to this piece by Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon, which is a diatribe against Captain Ed for this piece about some of the fallout from this piece, originally at IMAO (whatever that is) and reposted at Right Wing Howler (which has since been shut down after a complaint by CAIR). Atrios' comment was unthinking, at best, and I expect better from him.

OK -- there's something about pots and kettles here.

The original piece is funny, in the best tradition of The Onion. (Well, maybe not the best -- The Onion's best pieces tend to be their really short ones, but this is certainly in the running.) Right Wing Howler reran it and lost their hosting after CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) complained about "hate sites." Now, CAIR is an advocacy group -- what politicians like to call "special interests" when they're referring to someone else's advocacy groups. Of course they don't want Muslims or Arabs to be the subject of satire. (F course, if you read the piece, it's obviously satire, Muslims are obviously not the target, and everyone -- CAIR, Marcotte, and Atrios -- completely missed the point.) Captain Ed's commentary seems perfectly reasonable to me, and on that basis I found Marcotte's diatribe very instructive. (I've only just started reading Captain's Quarters, and I don't agree with him on everything -- surprise! -- but he seems to be not only rational, but in fairly good contact with reality, unlike our friends at GayPatriot.)

To say that I didn't find Marcotte persuasive is sadly understating the case. "Brainless" works. Why on earth would anyone attack a commentator for referring to Jonathan Swift, with the main theme, apparently, that "how dare he do that when he obviously doesn't understand Swift," when he quite obviously does understand the application of Swift's "A Modest Proposal" in this case? The only thing I saw in Marcotte's post is that she is having a PC moment and is desperately trying to find a justification for it -- and failing miserably.

In fact, after reading her post a couple of times, I'm still not sure what the point is. I'm not sure there is a point -- unless it's to demonstrate that the left can be just as lacking in humor as it claims the right is.

Just another reminder of why I have no patience with the thought police at either end of the spectrum.

Don't take my word for it -- read the stuff yourself. The links are all there. See if you don't think Marcotte's piece is bullshit. It's the sort of thing that gives liberals a bad name.