Epilogue: The Case of the Houses That May or May Not Be Blue Inside

Last week I challenged the conservative blogger Christmas Ghost to back up her claim that I’d never pointed to any evidence of Robert Stacy McCain’s racist sentiments and activities. Simply getting this person to understand what was being asked of her – to find even a single article of mine in which I’d characterized McCain as a white supremacist without also providing the reader with links to instances of him acting all white-supremacist-y – took a considerable amount of work on my part, including but not limited to some half-a-dozen restatements of the challenge in increasingly simpler terms, the use of a metaphor regarding houses and what color they may be inside and how one might be able to find out such a thing by actually walking into one of the houses and taking a look at the fucking walls, and a bunch of cursing. Meanwhile, she noted that she is a busy corporate strategist and thus had little time to actually read those articles of mine that she’d been characterizing without having seen, presumably because she’d already spent all of her free time writing me a series of long, crazy e-mails about things she was too busy writing long, crazy e-mails to read.

I have since received yet another reply from this Christmas Ghost character in response to my challenge, and though I’d like to wrap this up as soon as possible and get back to persecuting McCain in the manner of a Maoist re-education camp commissar, as he puts it, I’m obligated to print Christmas Ghost’s response to my challenge. As it makes reference to a series of numbered points which I’d set forth in my own previous e-mail, though, I will first reproduce that most recent message of mine in order to provide some context, as the world needs context.

Let me try to explain this in a different way:

1. You claimed that no one ever links to the evidence of McCain’s racism when they accuse him of being a racist.

2. I asked you to point out an example of an article in which I have accused McCain of being a racist without also linking to evidence of his racism.

3. You said that this would be fine, but then you asked me for a link.

4. It would seem that you haven’t read my articles on McCain and say that you are to busy to “find” them, which is fine.

5. If you haven’t read my articles on McCain, then you obviously have no way of knowing that no one ever links to evidence of his racism, since I may very well have linked to evidence of his racism in the articles you didn’t read. So, you’re making a claim about something that you can’t verify.

6. Read number five again.

7. One more time.

8. Imagine I have several houses. You say to me, “Why is it that no one paints the inside their houses blue?” I reply, “Well, you can go in one of my houses and see for yourself that, in fact, the insides of all of my houses are painted blue.” You reply, “I’m too busy to go look inside these houses because I’m a corporate strategist.” Do you see how that might be silly? Here you are, claiming that none of my houses are blue on the inside, and yet you haven’t really been inside any of my houses to verify this. All you’d have to do is go into one house to see that the walls inside are blue, and the very blueness of these walls in this one house should tell you that, contrary to your claim that none of the houses are painted blue inside, at least one is. And then later I could show all the houses and you would find that they are all blue on the inside – which is to say, again, that you were not only wrong about none of them being blue on the inside, but also extra wrong insomuch as that they are all blue.

9. I’m trying to think of an even simpler way to explain this but I can’t. Anyway, the houses are my articles on Stacy McCain and blue interiors constitute links to evidence of his racism.

10. Still, let’s do it your way. Below you will find links to a couple of my articles on McCain. You will notice that each of these articles includes links to evidence that McCain is a racist. Now, if you see even one link to evidence of McCain’s racism in one of these articles in which I assert that McCain is a racist, that means you are wrong about no one ever linking to evidence of McCain’s racism in articles in which it is asserted that McCain is a racist, wouldn’t it? And if you were to see a whole bunch of links to evidence of his racism in a whole bunch of these articles, it would mean that you were very, very wrong.

http://trueslant.com/barrettbrown/2009/10/18/mccain-composes-non-defense-of-his-blatant-racism/

http://trueslant.com/barrettbrown/2009/10/17/a-wild-mccain-appears/

http://trueslant.com/barrettbrown/2009/10/13/robert-stacy-mccain-white-supremacist-weirdo/

So, there you go. Just click one of those links, take a look at one of these articles that you’ve already implicitly characterized as not containing links to evidence of McCain’s racism, and then take a look at the links to evidence of McCain’s racism. Meanwhile, I’m going to go kill myself.

Now, here is our busy corporate strategist’s reply:

Barrett,

Read number five yourself and realize that NO ONE ever reads any

of your articles.

I am not trying to be cold here, but you have obviously gravitated

towards Mad King Charles for a reason….you both used to be well

respected and now you have been diminished by your own raging egos and,

frankly,lack of talent.

Not lack of talent on your part that I know of….I haven’t read your

articles yet… but the emails leave a lot to be desired. Frankly, this

is why chuckles doesn’t have any readers anymore…the arrogance…and

you seem to have ‘caught’ it.

And I am sorry about that, but really, you asked for the cold hard truth

with your constant whining.

#6 and #7 just show what an obnoxious ass you can be…congratulations

and here I was trying to be nice.

#8, #9 and #10 just scream arrogant pompous ass….hey I may have

diagnosed your lack of readership problem.

And this?

“So, there you go. Just click one of those links, take a look at one of

> these

> articles that you’ve already implicitly characterized as not containing

> links to evidence of McCain’s racism, and then take a look at the links to

> evidence of McCain’s racism. Meanwhile, I’m going to go kill myself.”

Okay, if I were you I wouldn’t go and “kill myself” just yet….I don’t

think you want to shuffle off this mortal coil before you figure out how

to actually link something….you know, that someone can actually just

click on…..

Now I am going to “cut and paste” to read your articles and I promise I

will get back to you….but remember if you kill yourself you won’t be

able to argue with me about the content of your articles….and really is

“Charles the Nutbag” worth that?

Nahhhhh…….

Keep breathing,

Christmas Ghost

To summarize, this spectral corporate strategist hasn’t read the articles she’s denounced as not having included certain information, doesn’t seem to be embarrassed by this or even cognizant that anyone could find this to be illogical, and for some reason is under the impression that I was once “well respected.” If she does indeed get back to me as promised, I’ll post her reply here.

Meanwhile, Steve Elmore – the blogger/cartoonist who went nuts when I parodied his goofy comic and then went bananas when I posted it in my article and then transformed into an absolute fucking ice cream sundae when I declined to take seriously his several demands that I take it down – is a crazy nut. After I told him to address any further misguided legal threats to my lawyer, he told several prominent conservative bloggers that I was threatening to sue him; he now understands that he was mistaken on this, although he hasn’t bothered to make a public retraction because to admit an error is to be thrown out of the conservative blogger union. When no one came to his aid, he decided to narc me out to my editor, complaining that I’d posted my Fair Use, explicitly-marked parody of his original comic strip. Of course, the editor, being an editor, knows full well that Elmore has zero grounds to make any such demands, and thus the parody cartoon remains.

As Elmore has done such a great deal of public whining about this matter, I shall here reprint my last response to the fellow in order to better explain my position for the benefit of those concerned as well as for those who simply enjoy drama:

1. You composed a cartoon making fun of Charles Johnson, mocking him in part for his assertions that Robert Stacy McCain is a white supremacist. As I tried to explain to your incompetent associate, the evidence for McCain’s white supremacist sentiments is so extraordinarily solid that at least one fellow conservative blogger who had defended McCain not long ago has now admitted to the obvious and announced that he can no longer support him.

2. The cartoon was a hit, and McCain ran it on his site.

3. I downloaded a copy of the cartoon and re-wrote the text in order to insult McCain for his racism and you for attacking Johnson simply pointing out his racism. Either you are ignorant of the evidence against McCain or you don’t care that he posted a great number of links to the neo-Nazi website overthrow.com from Free Republic under his stupid little Confederate pen name, that he actually wrote an article for the white supremacist outlet American Renaissance, or that he just happened to be friends with the neo-Nazi who ran that site and just happened to help that neo-Nazi get stuff published in The Washington Times, or any other of the astonishing number of things that have been discovered about him. And that’s your right. You can go out of your way to defend this degenerate little Confederate-sympathizing racist who thinks it’s “natural” to view mixed marriages with revulsion and who told Alan Colmes that he didn’t know if it was racist for someone to not want to do business with a black bank teller. Have fun.

4. I e-mailed the parody version to McCain, Johnson, and yourself.

5. You kept writing me long, whiny e-mails about what a terrible, terrible tragedy it was that I changed a copy of your precious little cartoon; presumably you did this in order to prove that you really are a conservative artist.

6. Your wacky associate e-mailed me the following message:

Journalists like you give the profession a very bad name, and people are

going to remember this…all of it. People like myself will make sure of

that, and it won’t be a difficult job. I realize that since you weren’t

even aware of how crass it is to defile someone’s artwork,perhaps you

also aren’t aware of the huge backlash that is coming your way….

Perhaps you should spend a little more time worrying about your own

career and less about carrying water for a certifiable idiot.

7. At around the same time, you published the contents of our e-mail exchange in what turned out to be a hilariously misguided attempt to damage my career by pointing out that I’d, uh, made fun of you in private in retaliation for you having made fun of Charles Johnson in public.

8. I linked to your goofy blog post and published the contents of the e-mail exchange I had with that wonderfully deranged friend of yours, who had of course just announced that she was going to try to discredit me in the e-mail excerpted above. I don’t know how one goes about discrediting a political humorist, but then neither does she, apparently.

9. You wrote a bunch of unhinged jibber-jabber about Johnson and myself.

10. I posted the parody version of the cartoon in an update to my article.

11. You ordered me to take it down and made reference to what some prankster must have convinced you to be your legal rights.

12. I told you my lawyer would get in touch to address your empty demands.

13. I explained the situation to my lawyer and she laughed her ass off and advised me to just ignore you.

14. I must not have heard her correctly because I put the cartoon up several more times, lol.

15. I will not respond to you any further.

He hasn’t e-mailed me back or left any more wacky comments or anything of that nature, so presumably he’s given up on trying to do whatever it is that he and his corporate strategist friend were trying to accomplish when they warned me of my impending doom and started publishing our correspondence. With that unforeseen distraction now coming to an end, I may now proceed with my epic treatise on how to best mod Morrowind. You will not remain in the dark much longer, Dear Reader; illumination is coming. OH LORD, MY GOD – IS THERE NO HELP FOR THE WIDOW’S SON?

Fin (?)