Responding to Larison

Daniel Larison of the American Conservative magazine takes offense at my recent posts about Rand Paul's win. Instead of glowering at me, Larison should school his friends: develop either better manners or a thicker hide.

Daniel Larison of the American Conservative magazine registers a protest against my posts about Rand Paul's Kentucky senatorial win:

Larison makes many points, most of which call for no further comment: we blog, you compare, you decide.

But then there's this PS:

I should add here that if a non-interventionist ever described his hawkish opponents as nothing more than trash and implied that they were an infection that needed to be wiped out, it would not be tolerated for a second. It would be roundly denounced as the vile, disgusting rhetoric that it is, and the reputation of the person responsible would be permanently damaged.

Larison is referring there to my use of this famous old political line from the election of 1940, when the Brooklyn ward heeler Hymie Shorenstein explained how Franklin Delano Roosevelt would carry a bunch of bum candidates to victory with him:

Did you ever go down to the wharf to see the Staten Island Ferry come in? You ever watch it, and look down in the water at all those chewing-gum wrappers, and the banana peels and the garbage? When the ferryboat comes into the wharf, automatically it pulls all the garbage in too.

And then to my question: "How is it that the GOP has lost its antibodies against a candidate like Rand Paul?"

Larison takes offense. I don't apologize.

Of all the many things I dislike about the paleo-libertarian faction championed by Larison, high on the list is this: they are howling Georgie-Porgy crybabies.

When they set to write, they produce some of the most unrestrained vitriol to appear anywhere in the blogosphere. Does Larison not read his own American Conservative magazine and website? Does he ever check in with Ron Paul central, aka LewRockwell.com? Has he ever flipped through any of the newsletters that carried Ron Paul's name and supported the Paul family budget during the years that Rand Paul was expensively enrolled in medical school? Ever visited any of the Ron Paul message boards? Do names like Karen Kwiatkowski, Alex Jones, and Justin Raimondo stir a recollection in him?

If not, Larison might profitably invest an hour or two getting to know the movement he has joined.

But in the more likely event that the answer is "yes," then all I can do is wonder at the strange combination of narcissism and preciousness that arrogates to itself the right to hurl the wildest accusations, epithets and abuse at others - while sulking petulantly at the lese majeste of applying a familiar American jest to itself. Instead of glowering at me, Larison should school his friends: develop either better manners or a thicker hide.