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