First, read Riehl World View for the background. Here's the original attack at The League of Ordinary Gentlemen. Basically, E.D. Kain called out Dan during the Friedersdorf dustup. He apparently flipped his wig, and regretting it, he then took down the bulk of the post a short while later.
Now I find that E.D. wrote some comments on the retraction in later entry. It turns out that E.D. was called out by a reader, "Bob," for his cowardice and irresponsiblity. That sounds about right, for as I've written previously, "rarely in my personal and political life have I encountered anyone with less integrity and credibility." The comments are intriguing from my vantage point. I have issues with E.D., and also Mark Thompson, who once cheered Hamas' rationality in rocket attacks against Israelis. But reading the comment below, I'm asking, who is this unnamed blogger who these folks "agreed we would never actually mention or link to for various reasons"?
Look Bob, no individual OG talked me into doing that. I just got the distinct impression that everyone was very uncomfortable with the post, that it was a direction nobody wanted to take the site, that it was the possible start of a feud that I had no right dragging the rest of the group into. I wrote it on a day I’d felt especially cantankerous. I wrote it largely out of anger toward not just the target of that post but toward another target who we’ve all agreed we would never actually mention or link to for various reasons (but primarily in the hopes that said blogger would stop slandering various members of the League) and I felt that it was not only unfair to the rest of the group but to the person I wrote the post about. Beyond that, I decided it was the wrong tone entirely for this blog. It went too far. I retracted within an hour or two of the post’s appearance. I’m not sure if that’s simply taboo or what, but if I had to do it all over again I’d first of all likely not write the damn post to begin with, and if I had I wouldn’t have retracted. I would have added an update with an apology for having gone too far. So I made two mistakes at once, and rest assured, it has bothered me ever since. Losing 97.8% of your respect does not help matters, believe me, as I value each and every one of our readers and commenters opinions and take that sort of thing to heart. If it had been my blog and mine alone I would not have retracted anything. As I felt this was a group effort and putting others in an uncomfortable situation was unfair to them, I did.It's an interesting explanation, but utlimately unsatisfying.
E.D. Kain, like many of "neoclassicons," is spineless. I wrote up some example here, "Liberaltarianism and Intellectual Dishonesty."
If anyone knows any high-traffic enemies of Ordinary Gentlemen (who is allegedly "slandering" them), drop me an e-mail.
