Strange…I've seen that face before…

Apparently having bored of PlayStation and bacon, newfound Malkin advocate Dafydd ab Hugh suggests a conspiracy may be afoot in the Great Edwards Blogger Flap of '07.  Oh, yes.  It turns out that maybe the emails came from inside the house!!

Ah,yes, those tricky vixens of the Left!  They sent themselves those threatening emails.  It's Bloghausen by Proxy Syndrome, by golly!  Foul!  Foul ball! 

Maybe someone did (send them); it's not impossible. Maybe no one did: that's just as likely. The putative "evidence" they supply certainly doesn't tell us one way or another. And given the demonstrated penchant on the part of both women to invent straw-man attacks, demonize Republicans and the religious, and the unhealthy fascination of both women with the sexual organs… I'm simply not willing to extend them the same benefit of the doubt I give, e.g., Michelle Malkin.

(Malkin also claims to have received obscene, threatening e-mails from lefties; but in Malkin's case, since she has shown herself throughout her career to be sane, rational, and honest, even when we disagree, I believe her.)

Whoa, there!  Easy.  Easy.  Breathe.  Sorry, I guess I should have warned you that we were about to make the jump to light speed on our space trip to the icy cold wastes of Outer What the Fuckistan.  I think your nose is bleeding a little.  Here, tilt your head.  Take deep breaths.  There you go.

Doesn't reading that make you feel like someone just dumped a bucket of live spiders down your back?  If you listen close, you can almost hear a high, cold, crazy wind whistling through the stupid.

Turns out Mr. ab Hugh comes to us with a pedigree.  The excellent SFF publishing blog Making Light is run by a pair of editors in the field, Patrick and Teresa, and they appear to be reacting to the Hot Air Crowd's embrace of their new friend Dafydd with the same uneasy sinking feeling with which we would greet the news that Dan Riehl has run off to an island off the coast of New Guinea, gotten himself crowned God King Emperor, and is being worshipped as a god by the villagers as we speak.

To wit:

Dafydd ab Hugh moves on
Posted by Teresa at 04:13 PM * 121 comments

I’ve tried to write about this a couple of times since I heard the story from Michael Bérubé, but I couldn’t do it justice because it makes my brain go all woozly. Patrick couldn’t deal with it either. To heck with artful journalism. Here’s the flat telling:

Dafydd ab Hugh, sometimes science fiction writer, has become a right-wing pundit.

No, really. They think he’s brilliant. They think he knows what he’s talking about. He subs for Michelle Malkin.

(We will now pause to give veterans of the old GEnie SFRT time to quit screaming, catch their breath, and wipe off their screens.)

(Patrick, peering over my shoulder, reminds me that Dafydd is still remembered by the veterans of several online SF discussion venues for having repeatedly trashed the discourse. When Dafydd gets into an argument, which he almost always does, his sheer personal obnoxiousness can be so prodigious that, years later, people still talk about it with awe.)

Oh, my god!  You guys do know him!  Does he look like this?

 dafydd ab huge

(Why, oh, why do all the Right Wing bloggers look like refugees from a community theater production of James Dickey's "Deliverance"?) 

Back to you, Teresa!

Dafydd’s quickly gotten the hang of his new gig. He was being truthless and abusive just yesterday at Big Lizards, doing freestyle smears of Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwen—both of whom are far better writers and political analysts than he is—on utterly specious grounds:

Let’s start with Patterico, since his case is the clearest—and the least important in the grand scheme of things, relating only to the execrable Amanda Marcott of Pandagon and Melissa McEwen of Shakespeare’s Sister—neither of whom contributes much if anything to the national discourse.

This is not a line Dafydd should pursue. After all, when Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwen landed paying gigs doing blogging for the Edwards campaign, everyone who heard the news and was already acquainted with them did not immediately phone half-a-dozen friends and scream, “YOU ARE NOT GOING TO BELIEVE THIS!” and “OH MY GOD THEY THINK HE’S SMART!”

Patterico is appalled that apparently, both Marcott and McEwen actually resigned because they received (they say) “threats” and “ugly e-mails and comments.” I use the word “apparently” accurately, because in fact, we have no evidence whatsoever that they really received anything, or at least not the e-mails seemingly quoted at Firedoglake.

I have many times seen Dafydd refer to having received communications in the mail, some of which were harder to believe in than the hate mail that’s lately been aimed at Marcotte and McEwen. I don’t recall him even once starting out from the assumption that he was required to physically prove that he’d received the mail.

I certainly don’t recall him—or anyone else, ever—arguing the principle that if someone says they’ve received mail, but they don’t immediately provide convincing externally certified proof that said mail was received, you’re entitled to call them a liar and launch into general smears of their judgement and character.

I guess it was all he could think of at the time. That’s the trouble with going pro: you have to keep cranking the stuff out, even when you’re short on inspiration.

She's about got him sussed, hasn't she?

Onward.

Yes, onward, Good Lady!  I am clapping my tiny TRex forelimbs with delight! 

They use the claim as a truncheon to attack anyone who disputes any portion of what they argue: ‘here’s some of the mail I recieved from the Rethuglican hate machine — now whose side are you on?’

Fibber.

People who’ve argued with Dafydd have frequently been far more diligent, responsible, and hygienic than he has. I don’t recall a single one of them using death threats as an excuse.

(snip)

I didn’t used to think he was this bad. I was willing to believe he was such an inept thinker and debater that his wholesale slaughter of formerly interesting conversations was unintentional, and his angry splutterings the habitual ill-judged reaction of a man who was in over his head. I don’t recall Dafydd being this deliberately malign. I think it’s a learned thing he’s picked up from the context in which he now operates. I don’t think he understands that over the long run it’s going to cost him his soul. He really is kind of hapless. 

Oh, that's just great.  Of course the Malkin/Hot Air crowd may be the only people on earth who can find a niche for someone who has been deemed obnoxious and socially unacceptable by people who speak Klingon.

Figures. 

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