Blogging Buddies, or Pure "Bullshit and Lies"?

Pardon the crude title of the post, but I'm riffing off Ann Althouse, who's demonstrating how this whole Althouse/Ezra Klein controversy is both interesting and instructive

Althouse has a new post up on the brouhaha, "'Meta question. Is a tweet the equal of a blog post as cause for offense to be taken?'"

For a tweet, it's pretty normal to mention an association that pops into your head, while for a post one would want to conduct some research." Asks Ben Masel.

So Twitter is a special place for bullshit and lies?

I say to Ann, "Welcome to the blog wars," or, "welcome back," since Althouse needs no introduction (remember "Let's take a closer look at those breasts"?).

But we need some context: Some time back, in a blog post or an e-mail exchange, Ann told me how much she liked Matthew Yglesias. She said he was a real nice guy, and that she'd done Bloggingheads.tv with the guy. Yglesias was just swell. And that's fine. The problem for me is that it's one thing to be cordial in person, or during a video debate/dialog, and then turn around in outrage at the totally characteristic "bullshit and lies" from people like Ezra Klein. I don't know either of them, but as typical far-left moral relativists, they're peas in a pod. Perhaps if Klein had done Bloggingheads with Ann he wouldn't have slurred her as anti-Semitic? But it's academic really. If Yglesias had to take up sides, my money's on an alliance with Klein. For all we know, they're yapping about Althouse right now on JournoList. These folks could be eviscerating Ann in the comfort of their anonymity, and then days from now Matt could go on the next Bloggingheads episode and blow smoke up Althouse's behind.

Readers should go read the comment thread at Klein's post, "Are Ann Althouse's Commenters Anti-Semites?" It's a fairly all-star list of contributors, but "Aimai, an LGM regular, ought to give folks a flavor:

The problem with Ann's blog in general, and her commenters, is "how can you tell the dancer from the dance?" Its fucking morons all the way down. Sure, some sane people head over there to comment, and some liberals troll her comments, and some people are anti semites and some are just your typical crappy right wing racists who get off on having a woman law professor on their side and can't be bothered to see she needs to be drunk out of her mind and not very bright in order to be there.

But read the whole thread. Althouse jumps in there calling out Klein for his "unattactive weaseling." I could say the same thing about Yglesias, but I want to focus on the larger point. Why do we want to be such good buddies with hardline leftists bloggers? They hate us, they really do. They'll put on a mask in person, but they show no class in a quick Twitter post designed to deflect attention away from their real Machiavelllian inside game. I mean, if Klein's got the a source at the West Wing, who's to say JournoList doesn't get play among top White House staffers? Klein throws out the red herring of Althousian anti-Semitism, chums up the right wing waters, and even get conservative bloggers to defend him, like TigerHawk (with all due respect) in the comments to my post yesterday, "Ezra Klein Does Not Deserve to Be Treated Fairly."

So yes, it is all "bullshit and lies," and while I'm sure we can often get along with our political opponents, there's little upside to making buddies in the diabolical effluvience of left's blogospheric fever swamps.