Technique

Over at Shakespeare’s Sister Thesaurus Rex makes an important point about the Blight: they depend on character assassination. If you take ad hominem attacks away they can’t respond. This is the problem they have dealing with Cindy Sheehan and the “9/11 Widows” – they can’t successfully attack their motives, so they claim they aren’t allowed to question their statements.

The essential problem is that the Blight feels it is necessary to hate people who disagree with their worldview. This is part of the inherent xenophobia of many people attracted to the “Dark Side”. It is not enough to disagree, you must be able to damn them for heresy.

Cindy Sheehan has attained her status because the vaunted White House publicity machine has failed to take the relatively minor actions necessary to dispel the perception that they are afraid of her and showing disrespect to a Gold Star Mother.

To combat the claims of the “9/11 Widows” all that is required is to take steps to actually improve the security of the United States, rather than simply talking about it. The “Widows” have respect for Richard Clarke because he had the manners to apologize for a grievous failure while the Shrubbery pretends there was no failure.

I think Mother Teresa’s attitude towards poverty and treatment of the ill was seriously flawed and her claims, regarding the number of people she “helped”, were vastly overstated. None of that requires me to question her as a person. I question what she did, not her motives for doing it. I have no need to demonize people to disagree with them.

Thesaurus Rex deals with One Who Will Not Be Named, which is a mistake, because the acidity of bile and volume of rant should not be the basis for being taken seriously.