Barrett Brown Doesn't Read Well

Barrett Brown has a new post up, entitled "Donald Douglas Answers My Questions and Then Some."

He's apparently upset that I suggested previously that he doesn't read well, and he responds:

Let us set aside the irony of someone claiming that his opponent “doesn’t read well” or “comprehend” particular brands of “dialogue” before going on to misspell a common word.

Hey, he's got me there! I really did misspell "merchandising," although it's not like I haven't addressed the point previously! See, "Blogging PNSfW; or, Now Hiring at American Power: Neocon Copy Editor!" So, yeah, it's true: I really do need that copy editor!

That said, seriously, Barrett Brown desperately needs to develop his critical reading skills. For one thing, I absolutely did not "respond" to his smear jobs. Stogie at Saber Point did. Brown writes, for example:

Having gotten into a dispute a while back with Donald Douglas of the prominent conservative blog American Power, I last week posted seven questions for Douglas regarding Robert Stacy McCain’s white supremacist activities, which Douglas, of course, does not recognize as such. Still, he has been kind enough to answer me ...

And:

Let’s take a look at how he’s managed to deal with them ...

Brown then proceeds to quote the entire set of responses to his post, "Seven Questions for Donald Douglas on the Question of R.S. McCain’s Racism." Of course, those are Stogie's responses, as I noted at the time:

Folks can read the whole essay for themselves. It's the same old worthless allegations ... In fact, I was actually going to ignore 'em. But since I had just spent the day with Robert Stacy McCain last week (and Brown's been reading my blog, suggesting that I'm "very close" with McCain), I thought I'd send the entry over to my good buddy Stogie at Saber Point. To my surprise, Stogie sent back a point-by-point rebuttal to Brown's "seven questions" (questions by the way which are themselves based in unsubstantiated assertions). So, here you go, in any case ...

And then at the end of Stogie's response, I wrote again:

Barrett Brown concluded his essay by saying he hoped that I'd "choose to answer these questions." Well, Stogie's answered them eminently well here, and I wouldn't have done so too much differently. But again I probably wouldn't have bothered to answer them at all, since Barrett Brown obviously didn't take care to address what I'd written in the first place (I've read American Renaissance, for example, and said what I thought about it already). Frankly, Brown stonewalled and mischaracterized my post, and I doubt he has the kind of decency that I'd expect in one worth engaging at a serious, substantive level altogether.

It's hard to see why Barret Brown thought that I'd responded to his seven questions, when Stogie actually had. Indeed, the very first comment at the post, from Dana at Common Sense Political Thought, took issue with Stogie's interpretation of the Old Testament. So, I'm restating the point for the record: BARRETT BROWN DOESN'T READ WELL! Perhaps Mr. Brown was so excited to nail me on misspelling "merchandising" that he frankly ejaculated prematurely dropped the ball on the big picture.

Indeed, that reminds me that I might as well restate my main contention from my previous entry, which is that Brown has "stonewalled and mischaracterized my post," and now on top of that he's calling me a "liar." That is, he quotes me as saying, that "I’ve looked through everything he’s linked," and then wrongly infers that I've read everything HE'S EVER LINKED WITH RESPECT TO ROBERT STACY MCCAIN. And thus, that allegedly makes me a liar. Actually, as anyone even vaguely familiar with blogging would know, when I say that "I’ve looked through everything he’s linked," that's an ovbvious reference to "everything" at the very post in which he attacked Robert as racist, which would be, "A Reply to Donald Douglas and a Restatement of My Offer to R.S. McCain."

Folks can read my original post if they're so bored that they've got nothing better to do. See, "A Theory* of Racist Smears and the Case of Robert Stacy McCain."

In any case, that's enough time-wasting with this True/Slant airhead. Barrett Brown has never addressed the main point of contention, which is that he's an unprincipled smear merchant who has nothing on Robert Stacy McCain which hasn't been addressed elsewhere. The question to Barrett Brown is why? Why devote an entire chapter in a book to rehashing years-old debates on Robert Stacy McCain's confederate ties. Stogie responded to those allegations perfectly well. But I'm looking for something a bit more illuminating. When I mentioned Barrett Brown's atheism, the point was to illustrate that gay rights and civil rights activists have one thing they can hang their hats on -- allegations of bigotry, racism, etc. I've already debunked the claims that McCain's racist, and Stogie's added additional commentary to cast futher light on the issues from a southern perspective.

I wouldn't spend time with Robert Stacy McCain if I thought he was a white supremacist. Whatever sins of racial insensitivity Robert's guilty of they happened before I met him. Had Robert attacked me or my family with bigoted slurs or deeply immoral racial prejudice I would have written about it by now, and repudiated them.

Perhaps Barrett "I Need to Learn How to Read" Brown might address those issues instead of beating around the bush of obfuscation, prevarication, and denial.