My co-blogger, Arnold Kling, posted today about a blogger named James Wolcott. Mr. Wolcott appears to be someone who is deeply troubled by those who would use stereotypes to make their case. But because I didn't know who Mr. Wolcott was, I started exploring the web to learn more about him. It didn't take me long to find a post by Wolcott that dispels the idea that he doesn't like stereotypes.
In discussing the Cato Institute's economists' letter against the Obama "stimulus" bill, Mr. Wolcott writes:
The photo on Cato's website of Senators Jim Bunning and Roger Wicker holding up the ad as if it were an encyclical issued from Milton Friedman's crypt was irrefutable proof that nothing hits the G-spot of white-haired guys with thin lips and mean glasses quite like a dose of free-market fundamentalism first thing after coffee.
Notice the cruelty in the above. For example, "Milton Friedman's crypt" rather than "Milton Friedman's grave." Notice also the physical stereotypes: "white-haired guys with thin lips." Wolcott's stereotypes are a substitute for thought.
What, no hooked noses, beady little eyes, claw-like grasping hands? Wolcott really phoned this one in.
It's called ad hominem fallacy.
Calumny. Y'all have GREAT lips.
He just wishes he were half as readable. This is one site I go to every day, and I can't thank you enough.
This is so pathetic I'm at a loss for words. Is this really what the pro-stimulus people have sunk to? Obviously Mr Delong won't be linking to ridicule Mr. Walcott (heres to hoping I'm wrong)
"But because I didn't know who Mr. Wolcott was, I started exploring the web to learn more about him."
You really didn't have to go to the trouble. Mr. Wolcott provides a rather revealing self-portrait in the last paragraph of his op-ed piece:
“I urge these [would-be Wolverines in the right blogs] to confront their racial fears, think of Scarlet Johansson and strawberry snowflakes and the musical numbers in Rent, and join the rest of us in Matisse's dancing daisy-chain of eternal spring.”
Joining hands and dancing naked around President Obama to the tune of Jonathan Larson’s “Take Me or Leave Me” should be stimulus enough for us all.
I Mr. Wolcott would be quaking if he had to take an at bat against the 77-year-old Jim Bunning.
Ahhh. Mr Wolcott, Vanity Fair writer. My all-time favorite Wolcott quote is this wonderful gem from his blog (Sept 2004):
I root for hurricanes. When, courtesy of the Weather Channel, I see one forming in the ocean off the coast of Africa, I find myself longing for it to become big and strong--Mother Nature's fist of fury, Gaia's stern rebuke. Considering the havoc mankind has wreaked upon nature with deforesting, stripmining, and the destruction of animal habitat, it only seems fair that nature get some of its own back and teach us that there are forces greater than our own.
Snark, you made me laugh out of my chair!