Foul becomes fair

Anytime Shakespeare is quoted at Pajamas Media, it deserves a double look.  David Solway has captured a linguistic and philosophical trick becoming dangerously common.  He notes some are so “infected by lies, malice, and intemperate language, functioning as a kind of viral package, that they have absorbed the verbal toxin without the slightest conscious recognition of having been co-opted.” Foul is fair, indeed.  I wrote about a similar purveyor of rhetorical chiasmus — Adam Serwer — who writes for the foul American Prospect and the sometimes fair Washington Post blog. The trick your eye plays when you read his name touches upon the truth. I wrote about his rhetorical thuggery and factual dishonesty at my own blog. I compared Serwer’s dishonesty, journalistic malpractice and smears to the tactics used by Trotsky. Serwer, reflexively sensing a red-bait (as he no doubt has heard before), responded in the Washington Post to my little old blog that I called him a communist. I did no such thing. Serwer obviously didn’t understand that Trotsky’s demonic methods went well beyond communism. But why let truth get in the way of an old fashioned reflexive accusation. You might assume this was much ado about nothing, but in fact Eric Holder’s internal personal press clippings included our back and forth according to sources inside DOJ.

Nevertheless, the next time David Solway wants to provide another poetic portrait of the great divide afflicting America, he should hold his nose and read the American Prospect.