Ilana Mercer: In Defense of Bill O'Reilly

Barely A Blog � In Defense of Bill O'Reilly

This woman, as well as the majority of her commenting readers, frightens me.

I was content to comment away over at her site, until I discovered she intentionally cut a line from one of my posts. (Have I mentioned how cowardly I find bloggers who moderate the intellectual content of their comments, deleting those ideas they would rather not confront, and manufacturing a false aura of agreement with their ideas? If I hadn't before, I guess I have, now... 8>)

I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt for the moment--the line she cut WAS kinda snarky, but a direct rebuttal of an assertion she made--but I also won't be surprised when she does it again, or indeed turns out to be exactly the kinda coward that so many "moderated bloggers" are. Why engage a reader's argument, when you can just make it appear s/he never said it in the first place?

And then there's her defense of Bill O'Reilly's comments about Shawn Hornbeck... I must give her credit for going there (while opposing virtually every argument she makes in his favor)... Precious few legitimate writers are quite so foolhardy... Even if her debate tactics end up exposing her as a coward, it's a very brave thing to publicly defend a man who says Shawn enjoyed being with Deviln. She even goes so far as to expand that theory further than Billo ever took it. While I think she's a "classical liberal" (libertarian) kool-aid drinker, there is no doubt in my mind that she mixed it herself, and approves of every ingredient...