Barbarous indeed! (Added note)

As a habit, I don't reveal both sides of an email exchange without the explicit permission of the correspondent. A week ago, said correspondent received warning of my intention to reveal the gist of what he said. He didn't object.

Our subject today is Professor Jeffrey Feldman, author of the book Outright Barbarous: How the Violent Language of the Right Poisons American Democracy. A few words about this volume, from Amazon:

Since September 11, 2001, most attempts at reasoned political debate in America have been severely limited by the violent language of the Right. In books and on television, it has become a regular ritual for conservative pundits and intellectuals to infuse violence—particularly against Democrats or liberals—into discussions of the major issues of the day, such as terrorism, immigration and gun violence.

The advertising for this book includes high praise from Arianna Huffington.

Feldman writes for the Daily Kos.

You know what is happening on those sites.

Nevertheless, Feldman pretends that intemperate dialog is entirely a conservative phenomenon, and he deliberately refuses to acknowledge the odious words now peppering all "progressive" discourse, particularly on Kos, a forum he calls his cyber-home.

The man is, in short, a hypocrite.

Previous writers (Krugman, John Dean, Al Franken, etc.) have exposed the right's ferocious language. If you re-read those works, you'll find that their examples of "outrageous" conservative speech -- quotes from Savage, Coulter, the Freepers, and all the other usual suspects -- no longer have any power to outrage.

The left, in aping the right, has lost its moral authority.

Here is the letter I wrote to Professor Feldman:

I have not read your book yet, but I've been able to get an idea of its contents.

Your hypocrisy makes me laugh, professor. You write for the Daily Kos, and you carry an endorsement from Arianna Huffington. And you dare to accuse anyone else of barbarity?

Recent Kos diary title: “Senator Obama please take your foot and step on her throat!”

Although irreligious, I've always admired the practical advice in Matthew 7:3-5. That's the splinter-in-the-eye bit. You may want to look it up.

I'm a lifelong Democrat, as was my father before me. But I've quit the party, since it now belongs to the Greek Libertarians whom you seem to admire so much.

Even since I turned against Obama on my own humble blog, I've been on the receiving end of the most thuggish insults imaginable. Most of these comments remain unprinted, but I can assure you that they were as bad as anything you decry in your book or on your site.

Death threats have come my way. I don't take them seriously. Still, I have received my share -- ALWAYS from those on the left, and never from right-wingers.

Lately, I've been comparing the language on the Free Republic to the language on Kos and Democratic Underground. I'm sorry, but the Freepers are now far more gentlemanly.

When Kos spread The Big Lie -- and it was just that -- that the Clintons are racists, he committed the single most barbaric act ever to sully a Democratic primary campaign. This smear tactic was a party-rending miscalculation on the scale of the decision to invade Iraq. Since you are tied in with Kos, you probably believe that nonsense about "racist dog whistles," even though David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager, admitted that this smear has no foundation. I did not notice you decrying Kos when he spread (for example) the "darkened video" hoax.

The progressive movement has turned into a mafia. At least one former friend in blogworld -- someone who makes his living from his writings -- refuses to decry in public the violent language against Hillary, even though he has registered his disgust in private. He knows that if he angers the mob, they'll go after him as they went after me.

You dare not mention the left's recent aping of the right's barbarity. You don't want to impair book sales.

I'm sure you can rationalize the left's descent into thuggishness. Rationalization springs enternal. Nevertheless, the examples of rightist uncivilization mentioned on Frameshop no longer have any power to move or to outrage. A Kossack speaking out against Ann Coulter? That's like Jesse James speaking out against Billy the Kid.

-- Joseph Cannon

His reply astonished me. After giving me the standard cheerful thanks, he told me that any problems I had with Daily Kos or the Huffington Post should be discussed with Markos Moulitsas and Arianna Huffington.

And that was that.

So. It seems that Professor Feldman does not consider himself responsible for his own associations. His abdication of accountability reminds me of Tom Lehrer's famous song:

"I just send zem up,
Don't care where zey come down.
Zat's not my department,"
Says Werner Von Braun.

Those who theorize that Jack the Ripper had an assistant don't consider the aide innocent simply because he drove the coach instead of wielding the knife.

In his latest edition of Frameshop, Feldman (correctly) castigates the violent political language of Ted Nugent. But what about the threats and violent language I receive nearly every day -- from "progressives"? What about the violent and sexist language directed against Hillary Clinton? What about the lies, the smears, the ceaseless low insults? What about the incessant false accusations of murder and drug running -- claims once relegated to the right, but which are now leveled by leftists?

The phenomenon cannot be minimized. I will never allow Feldman or any other hypocritical rationalizer to pretend that this language comes from "some" online Obama supporters. The vast majority are guilty.

What about the ghastly language recently used to denigrate Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame -- "The Wilsons are just disgusting CESSPOOL dwellers" -- simply because they endorsed Clinton?

I took some interest in the words of this reviewer:

Second, Feldman doesn't just lay out the evils of the right-wing pundits he discusses in his book, he also lays out "six suggestions to resolve the problem of violent language in the American political media." Finally, as Feldman writes at the end of his book, "[w]e cannot, as Orwell warned, 'change this all in a moment'" but "we can change one political debate at a time with the simple act of making new choices about how to write and speak."

Ah yes. Let us indeed re-read Orwell -- a man of the left who nevertheless refused to be gulled by the left, an intellectual hero who condemned Socialist hypocrisy and Communist barbarity just as readily as he condemned Bourgeois hypocrisy and Fascist barbarity. Unlike Feldman, Orwell did not adopt a "Right eye open, left eye blind" attitude, especially when discussing the misuse of language.

Orwell had courage, insight and talent. These qualities made him the greatest political essayist ever to write in English. Feldman, by contrast, is a coward and a hypocrite. For him, as for all small men, the enemy must always be The Eternal Other -- never an ideological comrade, and certainly never the fellow in the mirror.

UPDATE: Fledman's response is in the comments section below. I think my little "No Duck Dodgers" cartoon applies to him. Perhaps, if the prof cares to visit these pages again, he can find some way to duck and dodge any obligation to deal with the material cataloged here:

I will not miss seeing advertisements for T-shirts that bear the slogan “Bros before Hos.” The shirts depict Barack Obama (the Bro) and Hillary Clinton (the Ho) and are widely sold on the Internet.

I will not miss walking past airport concessions selling the Hillary Nutcracker

I won’t miss episodes like the one in which liberal radio personality Randi Rhodes called Clinton a “big [expletive] whore”…

I won’t miss [nice use of anaphora!] Citizens United Not Timid (no acronym, please), an anti-Clinton group founded by Republican guru Roger Stone.

I won’t miss political commentators (including National Public Radio political editor Ken Rudin and Andrew Sullivan, the columnist and blogger) who compare Clinton to the Glenn Close character in the movie “Fatal Attraction.”

The airwaves will at last be free of comments that liken Clinton to a “she-devil” (Chris Matthews on MSNBC, who helpfully supplied an on-screen mock-up of Clinton sprouting horns).

In Feldman-vision, none of that stuff is a problem. Instead, the real issue is the language used by Ted Nugent, esteemed author of Kill it and Grill It.