Thursday, October 11, 2007

On Pitches in the Dirt, and Consequent Swinging

The tarry residue after the Frost brouhaha has boiled for a while seems to be distilled in the hair-pulling match between Ezra Klein and Michelle Malkin. Ezra wins hands-down.

I disagree with well more than half of Ezra's positions but I'm a loyal reader of his blog because he engages in rational discourse 85% of the time and limits the ad hominem argument to the remaining 15%. With Malkin, those figures are roughly reversed, which is why I'm not a loyal reader of hers.

That said, the Frost clip was a masterpiece of PR but a ridiculous policy argument. How should the right counter that? With a policy argument? That clearly wouldn't reach the audience that would be swayed by the Frost thing (I keep wanting to call it an "ad" but of course it wasn't, strictly).

Please understand, the character assasination perpetrated against the Frosts is unforgiveable and stupid. But, while the response to the clip is a complete disgrace, the clip itself is symptomatic of the problem. As long as one side is going to whip up purely emotional arguments, the other side is going to take a swing at the occaisional pitch in the dirt. This benefits nobody.

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