How do we know the shark killed all those people in Jaws? Maybe it was just a big moray eel, like the one in The Deep. I question the timing."

Nah. It was global warming. The icebergs melted and giant frozen eels were released. Kyoto! Kyoto! [I just threw the last part in. What the hell.]

Josh Marshall's version was entitled "Let's not be blinded by our outrage." (No link, for obvious reasons, and no, I didn't read it.) Couple of visionaries, obviously with their finger on the pulse of public opinion.

"sensible speculation"

Uh, I don't think Alterman knows what that word means. The sensible speculation would unavoidably focus on Al Qaeda.

What's Alterman's idea of "sensible"? Speculating that perhaps the Tripods did it?

Seriously, his is the worst use of the word "sensible" in a sentence since the arrival of the Slim-Fast diet.

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

These are exactly the sort of people who would have been weeded out before technology dulled the blade of evolution and survival of the fittest.

"I know that alligator ate the guy in front of me when he stepped into the water, but...

Don't rush to judgement on 50 innocent people being blown to pieces and another 700 people maimed and injured.

But let's rush to judgement on every two-bit conspiracy theory you can think of (as long as we can stick to Chimpy McHitler!)

This is actually one of the few statements ever made by Alterman that I have not found offensive. Note his phrasing:

So let's all try to resist the urge to exploit the tragedy to demonstrate how right we were about everything

To me, he's not only talking to his opponents, but also asking people like Oliver Willis and Atrios refrain from the kind of crap they slapped up on the screen yesterday (to no avail, obviously).

Also, I don't think he was saying "let's not rush to judgment on whether the perpetrators were bastards."

I don't see the problem there. Plenty of problems at Atrios and Oliver Willis, who will certainly keep us safe if Fox News correspondents ever try to storm our beaches.

Ace,

I almost, almost was going to write something along the lines of what Hubris did, that Mr. Alterman may have meant that we before we judge we should have conclusive information.

Almost.

That is until I read this:

"Judy Miller may be right or wrong in going to jail for refusing to divulge her source to prosecutor Robert Fitzgerald. It’s complicated, but it is also uncommonly brave for someone so wealthy, so privileged, and so prominent, and so well-connected to do so. I salute her for her courage. That said, her bravery, whether in the service of cause that is right or wrong, has no bearing on her misguided reporting for The New York Times in the period leading up to the war. That reporting brought shame on the heads of everyone associated with it, including most particularly her editors, who made the decision to break their own reporting guidelines and allow it into the paper, where it helped pave the political path for this ruinous, counterproductive and possibly illegal war."

Wow.

...

If Mr. Alterman were to have his way, and I write this advisedly, we would all be dead and tens of millions Iraqis would still and forever suffer.

Words.Fail.Me.

Alterman is still a serious douche nozzle, any way you look at it. In his world, George Bush is personally responsible for everything that's ever gone wrong in the world, with the only exception (perhaps) being events that clearly preceded W's first term -- though in those cases, Alterman just shifts the blame to either Bush Sr. or Ronald Reagan. I find his oh-so-predictable crapola literally unreadable. And so, if I had my way, I'd just bend Mallory over a sofa and drill the crap out of her for a couple of hours. Just sayin'.

This is an example of what deserves an Acing as opposed to a fisking. I would start but what I almost posted was not really funny as much as it was really, really mean. Lots of references to penis breath and shagging little boys.

Hubris - Actually, I did find that sentence highly offensive, due to Alterman's use of the word "tragedy" to describe what happened.

A tragedy is when a kid dies of leukemia. A tragedy is when a ship hits an iceberg and most of its passengers drown. A tragedy is when an earthquake strikes in Iran and thousands of people are killed when their houses fall on them. Et cetera, et cetera.

This, on the other hand, was not a tragedy - it was an attack, a terrorist act, an act of war, a crime, etc., etc. People will debate which of those terms to use, but all of them - unlike the word "tragedy" which implies something that just sort of happens - don't obscure the reality that someone, or more likely several someones - did this, deliberately.

The use of the word "tragedy" here, just as it was used after 9/11, is a subtle way of taking the focus off the fact that someone did this on purpose (and the corresponding questions of who it was that did it, and what is to be done to them in return), and redirecting it inward, to wallow in grief, sorrow, regret, and ultimately, fatalistic acceptance of what happened.

Eh, the word doesn't necessarily carry that connotation.

Bush called 9/11 a "national tragedy" right after it happened, and I don't think he was trying to take the focus off the deliberate acts of the terrorists.

When faced with the choice of giving Alterman the benefit of the doubt, I always choose "no".

Not sure why really. I guess I just don't like the cocksucker.

Hubris,

Yes, but then, Bush used other words too, like murder and stuff.

The real left -- the genuine left, the left that needn't worry about public opinion as politicians do -- tends to avoid such "judgmental" language.

I am appalled that anyone would attempt to save me from the sexual predations, deviant or otherwise, of Laurie Dhue.

Go save someone else.

Hmm...I agree that language is important (see Meryl Yourish's nice post on the [non]use of the "Terrorist" word), but I do tend to give anyone anywhere on the political spectrum the benefit of the doubt if neither the plain meaning of the language, nor the context, is incriminating. I know I seem to be a mamby-pamby word-parser, but I'm just generally opposed to overreading of alleged subtext (whether the subject is political or not). It's like my argument years ago with my sister--I disagreed with her assertion that Forrest Gump had racist undertones just 'cause the black guy got killed and the retarded white guy got rich. I was like, dude, a white guy got his legs blown off! And a white woman got AIDS and stuff!

The subtext we're leery of just isn't there sometimes, I think.

Trent Lott sure could of used you Hubris.

You should write more about "deviant sexual predations of Laurie Dhue". Sex sells ya' know.

I sense a Cinemax sequel in the works:

"Man-Handled: The Greatest Fucking Thing That Ever Fucking Happened to Me In My Entire Fucking Life 2: The Deviant Sexual Predations Of Laurie Dhue"