QandO

May 18, 2004

Charm Attack
Posted by Jon Henke

Brian Leiter, who has heard of civility but wants no truck with it, writes....

How Stupid (Twisted?) is the Right-Wing of the Blogosphere?

The video of Nick Berg being decapitated, and the reaction to it among some right-wing bloggers, is forcing me to ratchet down my already low appraisal of the intellectual and moral level of these folks. Right-wing bloggers (for example) have taken it upon themselves to make the video available; and, in the process, they are lambasting the mainstream media for not showing a video of a young man having his head cut off with a large knife. So, e.g., the aforementioned neanderthal intones:

"The blogosphere has the courage and integrity to show this video (or images from it) while Big Media cries 'Offensive!' as they continue to show pictures of naked Iraqi prisoners piled on top of one another."

What do you say to someone who can't see a difference between a real, graphic decapitation of a human being and naked men in a pile?
[...]
How is it that these individuals don't notice that:

(1) A young man having his head severed by a large knife is a disgusting and frightful spectacle of a kind that is never shown in the mainstream media, regardless of the perpetrator.

And for even suggesting that they should show something so far out of the bounds of taste - even just the stills - the right side of the blogosphere is "stupid".

Of course, Leiter neglects to mention that full frontal nudity of men performing oral sex on one another is also a "spectacle of a kind that is never shown in the mainstream media, regardless of the perpetrator". Yet, for some reason, that has managed to make every newscast for the past couple weeks.

So, I'm unsure where Brian Leiter draws the line, except perhaps at "whatever the right says is wrong".

NOTE: He also makes a somewhat more legitimate argument about family sensitivity, though I've rarely seen the press care a great deal about that. His third point is that the crimes at Abu Ghraib deserved a great deal of attention....a point we've argued here often. Just thought it was worth mentioning that not every point he makes is quite as ridiculous as his first.

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