BUT OF COURSE: Dan Savage’s Website Celebrates Occupy Vandalism.

UPDATE: Reader Steven Jens writes: “He’s not ‘anti-bullying,’ he’s just on the other side.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Paul Butzi thinks this is unfair:

I dislike Dan Savage intensely.

That aside, as support for the claim that ‘Dan Savage’s website celebrates vandalism’, this example falls pretty short.

It’s a piece by Brendan Kiley, a potty-mouthed columnist of kindergarten intellect. Dan Savage is the editor. Savage, as editor, is free to exercise discretion to publish a variety of views – in this case, there are entries on the Slog which both support the vandalism (Kiley’s) and some that oppose it.

I thought that’s how it was supposed to work – you know, the whole marketplace of ideas jostling for adherents kind of thing.

There are plenty of things about Dan Savage to not like. Allowing the newspaper for which he is the editor to publish a variety of viewpoints including one that excuses the vandalism as well as some that condemn it, however, is not one of them. I wish he did it more consistently, in fact, since it’s usually just a spittle-flecked leftist rant through and through.

Please don’t bash Savage for the one instance where he’s allowing something vaguely resembling rational discourse is actually taking place on the pages he controls. It’s not as if there’s a shortage of valid things about Savage to point out.

That’s a fair point. I actually like his show okay — but it’s apparent that, as with Garrison Keillor — the public version of him is considerably spiffed-up and smoothed-over.