First, duck the argument. Second, nitpick. Third, vilify. That’s what Niall Ferguson says liberal bloggers did after reading his Newsweek story on Obama’s record. Here, he offers a point-by-point defense of his argument.
Niall Ferguson
The Daily Beast
8/21/2012
The other day, a British friend asked me if there was anything about the United States I disliked. I was happily on vacation and couldn’t think of anything. But now I remember. I really can’t stand America’s liberal bloggers.
“We know no spectacle so ridiculous,” Lord Macaulay famously wrote, “as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality.” But the spectacle of the American liberal blogosphere in one of its almost daily fits of righteous indignation is not so much ridiculous as faintly sinister. Why? Because what I have encountered since the publication of my Newsweek article criticizing President Obama looks suspiciously like an orchestrated attempt to discredit me.
My critics have three things in common. First, they wholly fail to respond to the central arguments of the piece. Second, they claim to be engaged in “fact checking,” whereas in nearly all cases they are merely offering alternative (often silly or skewed) interpretations of the facts. Third, they adopt a tone of outrage that would be appropriate only if I had argued that, say, women’s bodies can somehow prevent pregnancies in case of “legitimate rape.”
Their approach is highly effective, and I must remember it if I ever decide to organize an intellectual witch hunt…
The article, with video and graphics, continues at The Daily Beast.
Mr. Ferguson’s article, Obama’s Gotta Go, is at the link.
Update: When Obama’s Lost Newsweek, Has He Lost America – Granite Grok