Ezra The Scribe

One quick post before I go take my Dostoevsky final [wouldn't it be more appropriate if you psyched yourself up by blowing all your money gambling and marrying a consumptive?--ed.] [Well, maybe. Remind me to write a YDN piece about the "lofty and sublime" (by which I mean insulting and preposterous) practice of assigning final exams in literature classes--F.]

Riffing off of Matt Yglesias, Ezra Klein comes out of the blue with a respectable impersonation of his namesake, the 5th Century BCE Jewish scholar who, despite in all likelihood knowing better, excised any potentially offensive material from the authentic first edition of the Hebrew Bible [which came with the authentic signature on the dedication page, we're told, of its author, God Almighty--ed.]. Ezra wants liberals to have a moment of moral reflection over Grand Theft Auto. Et tu, I mean, v'Atah, Ezra? Have you really thought this through? We can't be for censorship, and shouldn't be---and if we were to take a Joe Lieberman line on video games, it would be transparent that we're not making any credible threat of force, the way that wackier conservatives do. And you know that. And moreover, there's nothing wrong with games like GTA. And you know that too. Yet you want liberals to sell their principles, look like jackasses, and still lose in the process. It's quite a troika.

UPDATE: Apropos of inappropriate content, I thought I'd pass along this link. Which you should avoid if offensive things offend you. If not, turn your volume up.