Scott Johnson demonstrates his character
(Note: I was just reminded that readers may not have previously heard about the homosexual practice that the liberal media sneeringly attributed to Republicans at the time of the “Tea Parties” earlier this year and that is discussed in the
Powerline entry quoted below. I had never heard of it myself, and would just as soon not have heard about it. If I had remembered that aspect of the
Powerline entry (I had actually forgotten about that specific side of the issue by the time I posted this), and if it had occurred to me that some readers did not know about it and would have the unpleasant experience of learning about it here, I might have considered not posting the entry at all. However, the entry has been posted, and all I can do is issue a caution that that if you read further, you may be learning not only about a new threshold that has been passed in the vileness of the liberal media, but about the homosexual “culture” with which it is so closely aligned.)
In April, Scott Johnson of Powerline expressed his shock at the liberal media for a disgusting sexual insult they employed against Republicans who held the “tea parties” protesting Obama’s tax policies, and he called on the media to apologize. Unfortunately, Johnson, to use a word I almost never use, is a hypocrite of the first order.
Let’s go back to the beginning. In February, I sent a link to my entry, “A right-liberal weighs a left-liberal in the balance, and finds him wanting,” to Scott Johnson with this note:
What a shame that you are unwilling or or unable respond to criticism that challenges your basic assumptions.
He wrote back:
From: Power Line
To: LAuster
Sent: Monday, February 16, 2009 3:34.p.m.
Mr. Auster: I find your commentary on me worthless—the right wing equivalent of Andrew Sullivan’s online self-pleasuring. I am most struck by your failure to quote anything I’ve written to support your comments on me. You regularly attribute views to me that I do not have. Why you think I should take the time to deal with you or help you draw attention to your site is beyond me, but I respectfully decline.
Scott Johnson
I replied:
Self-pleasuring? What a disgusting thing to say. You’re the one who always takes instant umbrage at any criticism of yourself, and now you turn around and use low language like that. You should be ashamed of yourself. And if you have any self-respect, you’ll apologize.
As for not quoting you, I quote you in everything I write about you.
As for attributing views to you that you do not have, I am doing what an analyst of political speech does, which is to show the real tendency and content of your views, which you, as the follower and spokesman of an ideology, have never reflected about yourself. You are inside a set of assumptions, and have never looked at them from outside. Others see it. You don’t.
I sent a follow-up several hours later:
From: LAuster
To: Power Line
Sent: Monday, February 16, 2009 9:26.p.m.
Subject: To Scott
Mr. Johnson,
You are a decent person, and there is no way that you can feel good about having sent that shockingly disgusting and offensive e-mail to me, an act by which you degraded yourself far more than you harmed me. The way to put this behind us is for you to apologize.
Lawrence Auster
I thought that Johnson, when given time to think about it, would apologize, but he didn’t. I considered posting the exchange, but decided against that, at least for the time being, and put the matter out of my mind.
Then, on April 18, to my amazement, I came upon this, posted by Scott Johnson at Powerline:
An obscene insult
The star hosts of CNN and MSNBC news shows have notoriously derided the tea party demonstrations around the country with reference to the practice of teabagging (which I had never heard of before they brought it up). As John noted, both networks’ “journalists” used the rallies as an occasion for childish sexual innuendoes—in the case of MSNBC, the same obscene teabag “joke” was repeated 51 times in a 13-minute segment.
The Media Research Center detailed the teabagging references in an informative press release. The Huffington Post noted the references as well as more “jokes” in the same vein (including a video of Cooper’s jape, over which David Gergen cluelessly chortles).
While sitting in for Keith Olbermann on April 15, MSNBC’s David Shuster packed the teabagging puns into his report on the protests. Shuster is like a juvenile student who has commandeered the loudspeaker system at his high school to commit the prank of a lifetime. Maybe it was just a case of Olbermann’s writers feeding Shuster the same good stuff they usually put in Olbermann’s mouth.
Andrew Sullivan is giddy; he seems to think the phenomenon is a big ball of fun.
There is something funny going on here, if not exactly where Cooper, Maddow and Sullivan find it. Cooper is widely reputed to be homosexual. Maddow and Sullivan are of course public homosexuals. It is funny in an ironic sort of way that these folks choose to disparage the tea party protesters from somewhere inside the homosexual subculture. Why not just call the protesters girly boys and let everyone in on the joke? Or would that spoil the fun?
There is not only something funny going on here, there is a story here. These supposed journalists and their networks (or publisher, in Sullivan’s case) have rather seriously insulted the citizens who colorfully took to the streets to air respectable views in a most civil fashion. If they had any decency, Cooper et al. would apologize for their vile reference to sexual practices in the context of ordinary citizens exercising their First Amendment rights.
Via reader Jim Rice.
UPDATE: I had missed Matt Taibbi’s vulgar assault on Michelle Malkin in this context drawing on the heterosexual form of the practice.
MORE: Andrew Sullivan sheds his light on dark corners and uses me as an example of “why the GOP is losing the next generation[.]” He assures me that “that teabagging knows no bounds on sexual orientation—and the vast majority of tea-bagging is purely heterosexual.” I gladly defer to Sullivan’s expertise and note his no doubt deeply held belief “in tea-bag equality for all—gay and straight[.]” And I have no reason to doubt his sincerity. I’m sure he practices what he preaches.
I have no interest in pursuing the limits of Sullivan’s knowledge on this issue; his citation of Samantha (of “Sex and the City”) in support of his position is ambiguous at best. My point was the knowing vulgarity of the demeaning disparagement of the tea party participants by Cooper et al. On this point Sullivan clams up and exercises his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent.
I very much appreciate Dan’s comments at Gay Patriot on the issue involved here. He understands it perfectly.
PAUL adds: It’s an interesting concept: the GOP is doomed because 50-something Republican bloggers don’t know the term for what looks to be one of Andrew Sullivan’s favorite sexual practices.
On the other hand, maybe liberal cable news is doomed because the likes of Anderson Cooper and David Shuster can’t suppress the smirk that comes with their knowledge of that term.
JOHN adds: What we’re seeing here is the ascendancy of the Low-Life Left. Vulgar, ignorant, profane and abusive, it started on the internet at sites like Daily Kos, Democratic Underground and Wonkette. Discourse at sites like these abandoned all traditional norms of political conversation. Now what started on the internet has leaked into liberal cable news—in part, although not mostly, because of the participation of some of the same individuals who started out on the web. The kind of childishness that MSNBC and CNN commentators exhibited on April 15 would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. Now, it is becoming a hallmark of the Democratic Party and its supporters in the media.
I wrote to Johnson on April 28:
Mr. Johnson,
Regarding the liberal media’s dirty jokes over “teabagging” a couple of weeks ago, you wrote:
There is not only something funny going on here, there is a story here. These supposed journalists and their networks (or publisher, in Sullivan’s case) have rather seriously insulted the citizens who colorfully took to the streets to air respectable views in a most civil fashion. If they had any decency, Cooper et al. would apologize for their vile reference to sexual practices in the context of ordinary citizens exercising their First Amendment rights.
It’s funny that you should say this.
[I then quoted from our correspondence in February.]
So, in response to the ordinary give and take of political debate, you aimed at me a disgusting sexual insult. I responded not with insults but with a call to you to apologize, which you refused.
And now you make a big deal out of the liberal media’s sexual insult of Republicans and call for them to apologize.
Look at the similarity between the insult you condemned when the liberal media did it and the insult you committed against me.
I again ask for a genuine (not pro forma) retraction and apology for your disgusting comment.
I got no reply.
Think how bent out of shape Johnson must be about me, that he did not have it in him simply to apologize for his indefensible comment, even after having gone on at length about Democrats similarly misbehaving toward Republicans.
—end of initial entry—
M. Lurie writes:
I’m a huge fan of your blog, which I think is one of the best on the web. I value your rigorous critique of Darwinian theory, and I appreciate your firm and at times caustic responses to the Randians, Paleos, et al. In nearly every case, they deserve it. As I’ve written before, you were 100% right on Palin and the natalism-uber-alles mentality behind her adulation. I always like your take on the gender wars. I’ve come around to agreeing with you on many things, including your diagnosis of “right liberalism” as something quite different from true conservatism. I think it’s a tribute to you that you have such an intelligent readership, too, as evidenced by the comments seen on VFR. All this to say: I love your site, and highly esteem you as a person and as an intellectual.
Now for the “But.” Here’s the thing: I don’t know much about Scott Johnson (though I take it he’s a lot better than Charles Johnson). But I have to say you tend to come off poorly in exchanges with people like Scott, when you write things like:
“Self-pleasuring? What a disgusting thing to say. You’re the one who always takes instant umbrage at any criticism of yourself, and now you turn around and use low language like that. You should be ashamed of yourself. And if you have any self-respect, you’ll apologize.”
Look, I can’t fully explain it, don’t have the time to offer a point-by-point dissection of why I feel as I do. It’s a “gut” thing. Based on my 41-years’ experience, I just can’t see too many people issuing an apology to someone who scolds them and then informs them that the only way to salvage their reputation as a decent human being is to apologize. I just don’t see it. It’s unnecessarily alienating. Even if you’re right in your initial and subsequent criticisms of Johnson (and you likely are), allow for a little hypocrisy, I say. Just let these things go. In a lot of instances, “a soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger” (Prov. 15:1).
I don’t know if you appreciate how these kinds of exchanges come off in print, but to take one example, in your last exchange with David Frum (for whom I’ve lost a lot of respect), I actually thought he came across better than you did. He seemed more measured and less pugilistic than you—not that I’m against some heavy sparring on intellectual and political matters, obviously (I read VFR after all!), but in that case, you were putting him in a position where he being given the option of agreeing with you that he didn’t deserve to be taken seriously because of a misguided book title. If you don’t let people save some face, they’ll most often despise you rather than do what you want them to do, which is reflect on your criticisms.
Again, this is coming from someone who never visits Frum or Johnson’s site, whereas I always visits yours, so I hope you’ll understand where I’m coming from.
Anyway, please take what I’ve said here in a spirit of meekness.
LA replies:
First, thank you very much for all your kind comments, as well as for your criticisms and the thoughtful spirit in which they are given.
In the context of an intellectual/political exchange, or rather of my expression of regret that no exchange seemed possible, Johnson grossly insulted me. I did not insult him back. I said I was shocked by his insult and that he should apologize.
What should I have done? Ignored it? You seem to suggest that I should have. Or perhaps I should have insulted him as he did me, since in today’s world, gross insults are considered the norm, whereas taking offense at insults is considered weird.
In any case, I put the matter aside, until, two months later, he went on an impassioned tear about Democrats sexual insulting Republicans, where the behavior he was condemning was so close to what he had done to me that it was impossible to ignore it. It seemed to me that this was an opportunity to appeal to his conscience and decency, So I wrote to him again, called on him to apologize, and he didn’t. Only at that point did I feel it was appropriate to go public with it.
You are criticizing me for scolding him for his disgusting statement and calling on him to retract it. I’m the one who acted like a civilized person, Yet you’re telling me how badly I come off. I don’t get it.
Perhaps the reason you’re not put off by what Johnson said to me, is that in today’s culture disgusting insults are considered the norm. It’s the person who is genuinely shocked at receiving a disgusting insult who is the person who is out of step.
Your view is that I should have been cool about it. But how does one reply coolly to such an insulting thing?
One more thought. If I had simply assumed that Johnson was a lowlife. I wouldn’t have been so indignant. I would have just dismissed it. But I thought he was, whatever his flaws, a civilized man. That’s why I was truly shocked at what he said, horrified that he had used such language and taken such a low road, and I expressed that reaction honestly.
I realize that the exchange doesn’t particularly compliment me or make me look good. But I’d rather have the truth out there than keep it to myself.
Here’s the bottom line. I’m really offended by what he said. He gave me no satisfaction. So publishing it was, finally, my only recourse. 200 years ago what he said would have been cause for a duel.
Roger G. writes:
So I learned today what teabagging is. You have my eternal gratitude.
At least we can still ruck, maul, and scrum with a clear conscience.
LA replies:
Ooh, I’m sorry about that. I really am. That actually hadn’t occurred to me, since (1) the controversy and the perverted references that Scott Johnson condemns were right out there in the mainstream media at the time; and (2) I had forgotten about the actual content of the controversy and references, as I was really just focused on my issue with Johnson. When this was going on, I was not happy to learn of such a thing myself, but it really showed where the liberal media are at, in more ways than one.
This makes me have second thoughts about whether I should have posted the exchange, as I wouldn’t want VFR to be the medium through which people hear about such a thing.
I’ve added an explanation and advisory at the start of the entry.
Roger G. writes:
I’m sorry if I implied that an apology literally was necessary. Your post absolutely was not inappropriate; you were addressing a legitimate topic, in a proper manner. I guess my meaning was that, as with the Bill Clinton situation, it’s a damn shame we have to deal with these subjects in discussing issues in the public sphere.
Please don’t let this in any way affect what you post. The cost of missing your thoughts on a matter aren’t worth the benefit of remaining in ignorance. We’ll survive.
Of course, I’m just one of your sycophants. I watch for every tell tail sign, for fear that i depart from your dogma in the least little way.
Roger G. writes:
As I can testify from personal experience, when Larry Auster is made aware that he has spoken improperly to someone, he apologizes, and very sincerely. He does this even when the criticizer has called wrongly called him a vulgar name.
June 3
M. Lurie writes:
You wrote:
“Your view is that I should have been cool about it. But how does one reply coolly to such an insulting thing?”
I appreciate your response. Maybe it’s easier for me to turn the other cheek because it’s not my cheek that’s been slapped. Not that you’ve suggested this, but I leave myself open to the charge.
With that in mind, here are some thoughts:
(1) I wouldn’t have sent Johnson the link to your comments in the first place. It’s out there on the blogosphere, he can find it if he wants, or someone can draw his attention to it. He was obviously provoked by your taking the ball into his camp, partly because like most people he can’t see past the personal critique (i.e., “neocons like Scott,”) and multiple use of terms like “the neocons,” which has become such an emotionally-charged term, used most frequently by people of a very different spirit than you). So in the first place I wouldn’t have solicited a response from him using a posting of that nature. But that’s just me.
(2) However, if I HAD sent it and then received his response with the claim that your writing is (at least concerning him) a form of “self pleasuring,” I might not have been all that provoked by it, just because, given the sad state of our culture, I’ve become inured to such language. Referring to your writing as “self pleasuring” is equivalent to charging you with “intellectual masturbation” (a term I’m sure you’ve heard going way back)—that is, an exercise in something that is pointless, gratuitous, self-gratifying. In other words, “not productive” or “not mutually satisfying,” to carry on with the metaphor. Now, this is obviously subjective. Maybe I wouldn’t have placed the term on a par with the dreaded T-B because, whereas the latter comes from the degenerate world of gay culture, the concept of “intellectual masturbation” is a term I would have heard from my ultra-hetero, mainly conventional father (b. 1933). I don’t know when terms like this entered the mainstream (I’m thinking the 60s?) [LA replies: I don’t agree that “mental masturbation,” which is a common phrase I’ve heard a thousand times, is at all the the same as “your online self-pleasuring.” First, “mental masturbation” does not denote pleasure or sexual activity, but rather the idea of mental activity that does not produce anything useful. The expression “your online self-pleasuring” has an entirely different meaning and effect. Second, “mental masturbation” is usually made about third parties not present in the conversation; Johnson’s comment was directed at me personally.]
On the other hand, you wrote:
“Perhaps the reason you’re not put off by what Johnson said to me, is that in today’s culture disgusting insults are considered the norm. It’s the person who is genuinely shocked at receiving a disgusting insult who is the person who is out of step.”
Yes, you’re right. There ought to be a lot more outrage to this kind of thing. In my (perhaps lame) defense, I’m part of a thoroughly DEFILED generation. We laughed hysterically at Eddie Murphy in “Delirious,” just as a previous generation laughed hysterically at Buddy Hackett. And that’s when we weren’t sitting transfixed through porn videos or learning sentence construction via Penthouse Forum—and then acting it all out in real life. Until I encountered the Gospel of Jesus Christ, it never occurred to me that so much of my cultural atmosphere was morally defiling, personally degrading, and spiritually destructive. Thank God I did, and my outlook has radically changed as a result. But like I said above, I’ve sadly become inured to a lot of the filth that characterizes our “civilization” and often fail to see it for what it is.
Thanks for the reminder.
June 4
Zachary W. writes:
To be fair, re Steyn you have written “Neocons have taken mental onanism to undreamed of heights.” You accused Michael Savage of “intellectual onanism.”
LA replies:
I would like you to try an experiment. Put yourself in my shoes and imagine that you’re going to reply to this comment as me. Assume that I (you) am not floored by this quote of mine which you apparently think discredits my point about Johnson. Assume there is an answer which shows that my comment about neocons has no bearing on Johnson’s statement to me. What would my answer be?
Zarchary replies:
Of course I tried such an experiment before sending you the email. That’s a basic thing to do, right? I must be misreading Scott Johnson’s remark. To me, he’s saying: “Sullivan is a left-wing intellectual onanist, and you are his right-wing equivalent.” The word “self-pleasuring” might be coarser than onanism, but I don’t think by much… Anyway, I just don’t see it as even approaching “teabagging” (which is the very height of obscenity). I want to be wrong here, but I don’t see it. Is your point that one is a personal email, and the other is impersonal? Maybe there’s something there…
LA replies:
I’ve already answered this point in my reply to M. Lurie. “Mental onanism” is the same as “intellectual masturbation.” It denotes self-involved mental activity that doesn’t go anywhere, a thought process that the person thinks is interesting, but is futile. It doesn’t normally have an erotic connotation as such. I think every time I’ve ever heard the expression (and rarely used it) it was used among friends chiding each other for useless thinking and talking. Obviously it’s not a polite expression and would be insulting if used directly to a stranger, but, used in the context I’ve descsribed, it’s a pretty common expression.
Further I made the statement about “mental onanism” in the third person about unnamed “neocons” who were not even present in the discussion. This is not the same saying to an individual in a one-on-one e-mail exchange that his writings add up to a public act of erotic self indulgence on the Web, which is what Johnson was saying to and about me.
And here is what I wrote about Savage:
“I strongly believe that using emotional, abusive, insulting language as Savage does is wrong and counterproductive. It is demagoguery at worst and intellectual onanism at best.”
First, everything I’ve said about the meaning of “intellectual onanism” applies here. Second, everything I’ve said about the difference between a third-person statement made about a public figure who is not present in the conversation and a statement made directly to an individual applies here. Third, I didn’t say, quote unquote, that Savage engages in intellectual onanism. I made a general statement that for anyone to engage in the type of language that Savage engages in is “demagoguery at worst and intellectual onanism at best.” That is very far from a direct, personal insult aimed at demeaning another human being.
Zachary replies:
Well, I wasn’t trying to “zing” you by mentioning those quotes—I was genuinely curious about how you would respond. I still find your singling out of the term “self-pleasuring” to be somewhat curious, though, for two reasons. First, calling someone a masturbator is not nearly as base as calling someone a “teabagger” (the widespread use of which by the mainstream media is a clear symptom of America in its final stages of terminal decline). Secondly, Johnson’s accusing you of “self-pleasuring” didn’t stand out for me when I first read it, since it essentially matched the tenor of his entire response. “I find your commentary on me worthless”—that in itself is the response of someone who is no longer operating on an intellectual plane, and just lashing out, trying to be nasty. But, as you yourself have pointed out, it’s a common theme with a lot of the people you engage … they don’t enjoy a genuine, passionate debate, where the goal is to get to the truth of a matter. On that note, I was more struck by Johnson’s idea that you are “trying to bring attention to your site.” That told me all I need to know about where that guy is coming from. These are lightweights, Larry. They take intellectual criticism personally. It’s all about ego for them. So, they resort to trying to “pull rank” (“my site is more famous than your site, so shut up and stop bothering me”).
LA replies:
Yes, that was a remarkable thing for him to say. He knows something about me and where I’m coming from, I’ve sent him a fair number of my articles over the years, and he’s responded a few times; he’s seen me consistently go after him and his Powerline colleagues and Bush and neocons on their follies. And yet, given all my passionate intensity on these issues, what does he think I’m about? Gaining attention. If that was it, wouldn’t I be running a different kind of site?
So you’re right. Because he has no principles, except for support for Republicans, and the allure of having a line to the powerful (which I think is the real meaning of “powerline”), he can’t imagine that another person has any.
However, you’re still not understanding why I wrote back to him. I had let the matter slide, for two months. Then I saw him all worked up about the media’s insult against the tea parties. Such an insult demeaned and humiliated people for engaging in political debate. He called on the media to apologize. But just two months before, I had called on him to apologize for a demeaning insult that he delivered to me for engaging in political debate. That was the striking parallel between the two situations, giving me an opening to appeal to his stated moral principles, that led me to write to him again, in the hope that he would retract what he had said to me.
To repeat: he insulted me, I called on him to apologize, and he refused. Then a little later the media insulted the Republicans, though with a far grosser and larger scale insult, and he indignantly called on them to apologize. So I said to him that he should practice toward me the same behavior, an apology, that he was calling on the media to practice. Your literalist notion that the insult I was complaining about had to be the exact mathematical equal in grossness to the insult that he was complaining about misses the whole point—misses the basic moral similarity between the two situations.
LA continues:
You write:
“the widespread use of which by the mainstream media is a clear symptom of America in its final stages of terminal decline”
Yes. There’s no other way to see it. That people in the news media trafficked in such an unbelievably coarse and disgusting reference—a reference that I doubt anyone outside the homosexual subculture had heard of before, using it as a weapon against Republicans protesting high taxes, it bespeaks the final stages of decadence.
But guess what? It’s not the end yet. How far down a society can go and keep functioning, hasn’t been determined yet.
Zachary replies:
You write:
“Such an insult demeaned and humiliated people for engaging in political debate.”
Ok, I see the parallel now.
Out of curiosity, though, did you really think he would apologize? Unless you truly felt his response was out of character, why even bother?
“Your literalist notion that the insult I was complaining about had to be the exact mathematical equal in grossness to the insult that he was complaining about misses the whole point”
That’s funny. We need a standard unit for grossness, though… The clinton?
LA replies:
Ha hah …
I’m still laughing.
Yes, I thought there was a chance he would apologize, and that would put this matter behind us, which was what I hoped for, just as I said. And if he didn’t apologize, then the moral quality of his behavior and of his stunning hypocrisy would be made unmistakably clear.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 02, 2009 03:44 PM | Send