I am indeed sorry that I issued the challenge, as I seem to have disturbed Professor Newquists good mood. In my first post on the Klaudt case, I criticized the Clean Cut Kid, and added a challenge to the NVB:
If you want to see the low, mean, road, check out Clean Cut Kid. Chad announces the story under the heading: "Family Values." So apparently all those who disagree with Chad on social issues are discredited by one act of criminality. I suppose by that same logic if one homosexual is a child molester, all homosexuals are child molesters. The comments on Chad's post suggest that the only important thing is that the word "Republican" be firmly attached to this story. For the Clean Cut Klan, this story is just one more weapon to use against their enemies.
The Northern Valley Beacon has come down hard on bloggers who reasoned this way. Let us see if he does so now.
Here is Professor Newquist's response:
When I first looked at Chad's post and when I looked again, I saw that it was an exercise in irony. As this story broke, many alert people were struck by the irony that a legislator who worked hard to push the the abortion ban through the legislature under the banner of family values was arrested for acts contrary to those values. The irony is obvious.
Now David was right to go on and point out that Chad did not explicitly say what I attribute to him in the post above. But I did support my interpretation with reference to the comments to Chad's post, comments that Chad did nothing to correct, at least on that first post. Moreover I read pretty much everything Chad posts, so I thought I had a pretty good idea what he meant with his "family values" title. Of course Chad was being ironic; but the irony had a point: that those who preach family values don't really believe in them. Chad posts very frequently to that effect.
Anyway, it turned out that I was right and Newquist was wrong. Almost at the very moment David posted his reply to me, Chad posted another. I have already replied to this post, but I reproduce some lines again since they refute the NVB interpretation. Chad says:
Clearly this isn't a Republican issue we're dealing with. We shouldn't attempt to pin this on Klaudt's party. His party affiliation isn't really an important piece of information in this story. Klaudt's legislative agenda, however, is a piece of this story and certainly worthy to be discussed.
I really sometimes wonder if the religious right's obsession with regulating sexual activity doesn't have something to do with a deep-seeded sexual perversion that occasionally rears its ugly head in public. Maybe deep down they are just trying to regulate themselves.
I'm sure the Ol' Perfesser is going to be upset with this, as he seems to be upset with just about anything I write these days.
In the first paragraph Chad acknowledges, I think, that his post and the attached comments gave the impression that he was using this story for purely partisan purposes. So I was right about that. Then Chad goes on to accuse the religious right in general of sexual perversion, a rather more malicious charge. That this wasn't irony, but represents Chad's real opinion, is indicated by the last line above.
For David Newquist, anything the "regressive blogs" say is by definition malicious. Anything blogs on his side say, no matter how literally nasty, will always turn out to be excused by irony or some other interpretive device. But the truth is that we here at SDP have always read the NVB and CCK and all other blogs honestly, and when we make a mistake we own up to it. This is evident in the conversation between Professor Schaff and myself and Anna at Dakota Women. Anna is an honest interlocutor.
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