Cheap Shots

Doing my usual rounds of my favorite blogs (linked helpfully over there on the left) I came across this post from The Moderate Voice. Follow it back and you come to the quote that was so upsetting: "If she didn't have tits, she'd be stuck writing at Townhall.com.", referencing Michelle Malkin.

I'll be honest and say I'm not as upset. I don't agree with the sentiment and think it's pretty unfunny, so whether he was going for scathing observation or laugh-out-loud line he failed either way. But I don't think a comment like that would make me ashamed to be associated with the same party as the person who penned the phrase, which by inference has to be left wing. I'd just ignore said member and what they said as worthless or at the least not worthy of repeating or considering.

However, it does lead me to another thought: If you actually CAN criticize a comment or an idea about someone else, you don't have to lie or go for the cheap shot. In some earlier postings, I slammed CNSNews for misrepresenting a quote from Paul Begala. It was possible to make several comments about his speech that would have been intelligent and factual - but apparently the people there found this mental challenge to be above their capabilities, so they had to lie about a quote he made. In the same fashion, Ms. (Mrs.?) Malkin has written several articles that could easily be argued against in an intelligent, mature fashion. Unless you can't, in which case take a shot at some odd imagined affirmative action deal instead. The easy way to argue - no thinking or facts required, just add insult and voila! Punditry achieved.

So the next time someone is making fun of how a person looks, or having to resort to outright lies about a person, that tells you about how deep the attacker's thought processes go. The odds are this person who can't master up enough brain cells for a good discussion will be a person on the radio or TV, highly respected for his "skills", and completely convinced of their near omniscience.

Sound like anyone you know?