The Old Find Whack Jobs In the Comments Section To Attack the Entire Left Tactic

I saw the Nat Hentoff op-ed in the print edition of the Tampa Tribune. I immediately could tell what Hentoff cherry-picked, from comment sections of blogs, to make his case. "Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman -- now an insistently independent Democrat," wrote Hentoff. "was pilloried during his losing primary contest with Ned Lamont, not only for his stand on the Iraq war but also because he is a Jew." That's a bold statement.

As Lanny Davis, special counsel to President Clinton, and a Lieberman supporter, reminded us in the Aug. 8 Wall Street Journal, blogging anti-Semites had Mr. Lieberman in their sights back on the Daily Kos Web site on Dec. 7 from a contributor: "... as everyone knows, Jews only care about the welfare of other Jews; thanks ever so much for reminding everyone of this most salient fact." And on July 8 of this year, on the Huffington Post Web site: "Lieberman cannot escape the religious bond he represents. Hell, his wife's name is Haggadah or Muffeletta or Diaspora or something you eat at Passover."

Those two statements were not blog posts. They are comments left by readers. Here and here. I don't feel the need to defend the comments. As a blogger, the words of others do not reflect my views. Some of my commenters are Republicans! I certainly am not.

Myself and others have noticed that Michelle Malkin started the wingnut tactic of finding a few nutty comments to lay blame on the whole lefty blogosphere. Conservatives don't like it when we blast the comments in Little Green Footballs. Charles Johnson constantly reminds people that he is not responsible for the comments. That's like saying the letters to the editor reflect a newspaper's political views. Untrue. If people want to take individual commenters or bloggers to task then that's their right. The blame the blogger for the commenters view or vice versa.

Malkin and Hentoff are third-tier columnists who aren't very knowledgable on policy. Malkin has backed the Minutemen. Hentoff's own publisher, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon preaches that Jews are responsible for the Holocaust because they rejected Jesus. I guarantee these two won't write op-eds about that. Malkin and Hentoff are partisan hack zealists. I have no problem with them attacking bigots on the left. I know it has everything to do with politically scoring points and nothing with racial justice.