Instapundit Watch

Like Ted Barlow, I also didn't pay particular attention when Glenn Reynolds approvingly linked to this slanderous Nelson Ascher post. Why slanderous? Ascher writes:

This newly ever-growing Western left, not only in Europe, but in Latin America and even in the US itself, has a clear goal: the destruction of the country and society that vanquished its dreams fifteen years ago. But it does not have, as in the old days of the Soviet Union, the hard power to accomplish this by itself. Thanks to this, all our leftist friends’ bets are now on radical Islam. What can they do to help it? Answer: tie down America’s superior strength with a million Liliputian ropes: legal ones, political ones, with propaganda and disinformation etc. Anything and everything will do. [emphases mine--keep the first one in mind.]

Ascher is saying that the left in Europe, Latin America, and the United States is on the side of fundamentalist Islam in its war with "the West" as defined by Ascher, Reynolds et al. If you need to have it explained to you why these remarks are disgraceful, go read another blog.

Reynolds, mendacious as ever, comments: "Sigh. I wish he were wrong."

The reason Ted (and I) didn't take much notice of this when it first occurred is, as Ted says, that we (and you?) have been gradually but thoroughly desensitized to the extent to which accusations of treason have become mainstream in right-wing and Republican discourse. Sigh. I wish he were wrong.

Alerted to Ted calling him on his bullshit, Reynolds does his predictable Insta-backtracking. He writes in response:

The problem is that Barlow seems to miss the Euro angle, and proceeds to suggest that I'm calling American liberals terrorists. (To be fair, there's a brief reference to Americans in Ascher's post, which I didn't notice before, but Barlow doesn't mention it, and it's certainly not the main subject of Ascher's argument.) I'm used to having my posts mischaracterized by Crooked Timber folks, but I do think that this is a bit much. [emphasis mine].

"A brief reference"? "Not the main subject of Ascher's argument"? Somebody needs Insta-remedial tutoring in reading comprehension. Let's review what Ascher said:

This newly ever-growing Western left, not only in Europe, but in Latin America and even in the US itself, has a clear goal: the destruction of the country and society that vanquished its dreams fifteen years ago. [emphasis mine.]

Can we agree that the reason Ted didn't explicitly mention Ascher's inclusive denunciation of the American and European left is that any competent reader would have found it him or herself? Reynolds is either incompetent or lying. Or both.