Again not for print:

The R.S. McCain episode was a good example.  I argued that the
"natural revulsion" comment was racist and saw my words twisted and
misrepresented by Goldstein.  I was savaged over that but I was right.

But the bumper sticker deal was not what Charles made it out to be.
You also overreached on that.  I initially thought it was evidence of
racism but learned otherwise.

Again, this is all on my site.

I am about to leave for two weeks and will be mostly unreachable.  If
I don't respond to any further e-mails it's nothing personal.

P

Sent from my iPhone

On Oct 16, 2010, at 1:41 PM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi, Patterico-

This is Barrett Brown; you may recall linking to my Vanity Fair piece on Charles Johnson a while back, as well as disagreeing with it.

I'm writing to you because I've noticed that a number of the conservative blogosphere's less competent members have turned on you lately due to your criticism of O'Donnell, and that the argument is quite demonstrably one-sided insomuch as that you have been more than willing to address any points made in her favor while those with whom you disagree have often failed to even acknowledge several of your points, such as the suing of the think tank as well as the bizarre claims about her education and her alleged electoral victories. Rather, Dan Riehl, Jeff Goldstein, and other such figures have generally responded by characterizing you in such a way as to depict your points as somehow illegitimate for reasons that are never quite spelled out, but which often involve you secretly being a Marxist.

I wanted to ask you a question about all of this. In all honesty, can you see how this situation is at least somewhat comparable to the situation Charles Johnson has been in, and would you agree that Johnson himself may very well have honest and sometimes legitimate reasons for disassociating himself from some of these people, just as you do? I'm not asking this as a gotcha question or even for print, although I'd be happy to use any quote you'd like to give me for a piece I'm writing on this general fissure and the nature of those on the other side of it. I'm just curious about what your answer would be.

At any rate, you may be aware that Johnson has been working with me a bit on this thing I'm doing, Project PM, which will involve a loose network of bloggers whose work will transfer around the network by way of a schematic that's been designed to hypothetically ensure that the most important of their posts (as determined by a sort of human-driven "logic gate") will spread farther through the network. I've got a few bloggers who've agreed to give it a shot when the software is ready, but only a couple of conservatives such as E.D. Kain. In the unlikely event that you'd be willing to participate in such a project,  I'd be happy to have you on board as I do think well of your work even if I disagree with a portion of it.

Take it easy, yo.
--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302