Friday, January 06, 2006

Facts Are Stupid Things

I usually try to steer clear of intra-blog sniping, but Roger Ailes' takedown of the unconscionably stupid Captain Ed is too good to pass up. Ed claimed that while Patrick Henry may've said "Give me liberty or give me death," he didn't actually back it up with physical action.

"Of course, that slur [chickenhawk] would be ludicrous to use on Patrick Henry. Instead of picking up a gun and commanding an army, Henry relied on his better skills and went into politics and rhetoric [sic] to fight for freedom.
The gag, of course, is that Henry did pick up a gun and command an army. Better yet, the timeline Ed uses for his biographical details on Henry says precisely that:
May 2: Patrick Henry organized 150 men from Hanover County to march on Williamsburg and demand the return of the public gunpowder.

May 6: Dunmore issued a proclamation against “a certain Patrick Henry . . . and a Number of deluded Followers” who had organized “an Independent Company . . . and put themselves in a Posture of War.”
For some odd reason, Ed cites the two entries immediately following these ones, one of which says that Henry had "no military experience." None, that is, beyond leading a citizen's militia against the Royal Governor, an endeavor which involved a great deal of personal risk.

The homunculi in Ed's peanut gallery, needless to say, get right into the spirit of things. Some of 'em administer feeble kicks to Henry's corpse, while others insist that Henry's alleged unwillingness to put himself in harm's way somehow justifies and ennobles Bush's abortive stint in the "champagne unit" of the Texas Air National Guard.

What will Captain Ed's response be, seeing that he's a card-carrying member of the "self-correcting blogosphere"? A story in this week's Onion provides a clue:
Guy Who Just Wiped Out Immediately Claims He's Fine

SOUTH BURLINGTON, VT—A fraction of a second after wiping out on a patch of ice, South Burlington pedestrian Isaac Berkman loudly insisted that he was fine. "I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine," Berkman, 24, told concerned onlookers before he even straightened his badly twisted legs and attempted to stand up. "I'm okay." After noticing a deep gash just below his left knee, Berkman instantly assured witnesses that the heavily bleeding wound was "no biggie" and "totally under control."

1 comment:

Thers said...

Oh, Ed admitted he was wrong, but insisted that in the larger sense he was right, in that Kos is wrong to say that one needs to have miliary experience to have a legitimate political opinion, which is a great point except insofar as Kos didn't say that.

See? There was a rational explanation the whole time. Teach you to jump to conclusions.