Mark Bahnisch continues to struggle valiantly against his blogging addiction, but with less than complete success. Instead of posting himself, he’s started to send me emails suggesting topics for me to blog as a proxy!! In fairness, the topic in question involved Mark being unfairly castigated by the dreaded Tim Blair for allegedly ignoring the Iraq elections. As such, it certainly warrants a response on Mark’s home blog. In a post titled “Silence of the Left“, Blair wrote:
UPDATE. Lefty Mark Bahnisch speaks for his fellows:
I doubt that I want to say very much about the current situation in Iraq actually
Yeah. It’s too good.
Actually it was too good (to be true, that is).
Earlier in the thread from which Blair quoted, Mark had said:
I mostly agree with this 1, support the elections, and largely agree with Rob’s position as well 2.
So Mark wasn’t guilty of “silence” on the Iraq elections at all. Blatant dishonesty by Blair? I blog, you decide. BTW, Mark is far from the only “leftie” to comment on the Iraq elections, as Red Interior and Miss Piss have both already pointed out. But why let the facts spoil a good ideological slur?
There you are, Mark. Is that enough to keep those fingers away from the MT post button for a while longer?
Somehow I don’t reckon heroin by proxy alleviates a junkie’s desite. I give him two more days.
I can’t see a problem. Tims post was about “leftie” bloggers not wanting to talk about the election. Tim quotes a “leftie” saying that he doubts he wants to say very much about the situation in Iraq. Tim also provides a link to Mark’s post so that anyone can see the context that quote was lifted from.
I dont see how the remainder of Mark’s post distracts from Tims point about “lefties” not wanting to talk about the election and I don’t see how Tim is being dishonest about Mark when he has linked to Mark’s post.
“remainder of Mark’s post distracts from Tims point about “lefties” ”
“Tim is being dishonest about Mark”
See Matt, it’s easy..and fun!
Nabakov
But you didn’t post a link back to Matt’s comment. Only then could you be said not to be acting dishonestly (by Matt’s standards anyway).
“not acting dishonestly ”
http://troppoarmadillo.ubersportingpundit.com/archives/008412.html#038132
And flutely, I just noticed that nice bit of wordplay: “junkie’s desite.”
Nab says in relation to tragic Iraq War, “easy and fun.” Disgusting.
Mark: don’t listen to the evil Flute. Think Tudor bonnet…
Do links work Ken?
Shocking Nab comment:
http://troppoarmadillo.ubersportingpundit.com/archives/008412.html#038135
Evil Flute comment:
http://troppoarmadillo.ubersportingpundit.com/archives/008412.html#038128
Tudor bonnet:
http://www.academicdress.com.au/main4.jpg
CL
No, we turned off the links (and html generally) in comments in the hope it might deter the blog spammers. It seems to have worked to some extent. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Media grab of CL saying Iraqis “disgusting”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Kkklan.jpg
(If you think that’s out of order Ken, why not ask CL about the context in which he used such an image on Road To Surfdom? Even Tim Blair wouldn’t have sunk so low. Or at least have been funny with it.)
How about we just leave this sub-thread here, eh? In fact I think I’ll close off comments on this post, because I can’t see it getting any more constructive, really.
Peaceful etc democracy?
Not yet, RWDBs should re-cork the champers and stop swaggering, here’s a few outstanding probs. Also see post above on Turkey.
Lancet Update
Apparently there have been a whole slew of posts from warbloggers claiming that leftie bloggers have not celebrated the Iraqi election enough–
Tim Blair, sycophant, fool, d*ckhead
Insurgency? Gone! Iraq held an election don’t ya know?
U.S. Bombing raids? Gone! Election!
Lack of water/food/medicine? Gone! Why? Election, of course.
under the radar
I can’t be a serious lefty. No-one has accused me of failing to post on the Iraq election so that I could feel that this is invisible. This particular crappy claim is showing up on Crooked Timber as well….