Blog Rage

Usually collegial Dean Esmay posted a rant yesterday where he wrote that Michelle Malkin, Little Green Footballs, JihadWatch and The Jawa Report are traitors. Dean's post and resultant comments contend that the aforementioned sites treat all Muslims the same and fail to recognize that there are good Muslims who are allies of the United States. He asserts that doing so means we are not embracing our allies that are Muslims, therefore, we are traitors to them.

Dean doesn't cite any specific examples, rather, his entire basis for his rant is gross generalizations of what he perceives the authors think. In doing so, he does exactly what he's accusing others of. Nonetheless, his traffic has likely spiked as Instapundit, Michelle Malkin, and others have linked to him. And there have been responses.

The general criticism is that Dean doesn't back up his accusations. Specific criticism is varied. Michelle Malkin says Dean's rant is simple traffic bait and an example of how not to argue about Islam or anything else. LGF calls it an impression of a yapping chihuahua. And The Jawa Report (Vinnie) does a bit of line-item fisking of Dean's words. Vinnie also mentions that Dean appears to spend too much time trying to impugn Christianity while neglecting to grasp the close association of terrorism to Islam.

My first thoughts on Dean's psychological ungluing were that it was an attack on me personally since I contribute regularly to The Jawa Report. Secondly, I was struck by the remarkable similarity between Dean's outburst and Bill Clinton's theatrics during the recent interview with Fox News anchor Chris Wallace. Other than seething acrimony, neither Clinton nor Dean presented a sound basis for their accusations. Nonetheless, people will turn their heads when they hear something shrill.

In summary, I see Dean Esmay getting a traffic spike while, in a Clintonesque way, he ignites dialogue about Islam.