Not anti-Semitic, but also not very bright
So James Lileks wrote a bit of the Bleat that is either cautioning Oliver Willis to be careful about language, or making a broader point about the PC word police. Oliver referred to Paul Wolfowitz as the “the filthy Wolfowitz”, but I doubt that Willis is an anti-Semite. He’s just a sloppy and crappy writer.
Take his response to Lileks’ short screed. The first misuse of words is in the title itself. Lileks did not call Willis an anti-Semite. In fact, he never uses the word anti-Semite or even mentions that Wolfowitz is Jewish. He simply points out that Willis is using inappropriate language that could be interpreted as anti-Semitic. The title should be “James Lileks Calls Me a User of Anti-Semitic Language” or “Lileks Insinuates that I Hate Jews.”
Then Oliver says he’s “never written about Paul Wolfowitz’s religion.” But that’s simply not true. Do a search for Jew, Judaism, or Jewish on oliverwillis.com. Oliver has written plenty about Wolfowitz’s religion, he’s just never written about Judaism in reference to Wolfowitz.
Oliver says that Wolfowitz isn’t filthy because he’s Jewish, but because he “support[s] the unnecessary death of 1,500 American soldiers.” But it’s a long way from supporting the war (unnecessary or not) which caused those deaths to actually being in favor of killing fifteen hundred Americans.
All this might seem picky (especially coming from a blogger who has trouble spelling siege), and you’re right, it is. But I’m just trying to show that Oliver is perfectly capable of saying something insulting or mildly racist without ever knowing that he did. Lileks states that he doesn’t read oliverwillis.com very much, so I think he can be forgiven for assuming that the word filthy was anti-Semitic rather than just sloppy. I do read O-Dub fairly often (gotta watch those who watch the watchers, and it’s good for a laugh), and I’m pretty sure he’s not a hater. He’s just kind of dumb.
(Hat tip to INDC Journal)
Update: Every time I call someone stupid I make an idiotic spelling error in my trackbacks. Sigh.
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Oliver scored very low on the reading comprehension portion of his SAT’s.
I tend to lean to the “not too bright” theory explaining Cousin Oliver. For example, when Ollie attempts to refute the charge that he is an anti-Semite he then proceeds to call LGF “Nazi.
Not too bright.
His constant comparison of people he doesn’t like to Nazi, or just recently the Religious Right to the Taliban, shows a total lack of intellectual effort. Not only do such comparisons diminish the crimes of the real Nazi and Taliban, they make his argument look childish and foolish.
That he seems to get such “street credit” from the Left is instructive. There seems to be the thought that the Left can insult its way into a lead role. Not that the Right doesn’t do the same sometimes as well. But I think that one reason that the Right has gained so much strength in the last decade is the thought that if they articulate their ideas well the people will follow.
I think calling a leftie a Commie simply doesn’t have the same cache it used to, at least since the Berlin Wall fell. The right hasn’t necessarily chosen the high road, they just didn’t have a low road to take anymore.
But screaming Nazi at every opportunity will never go out of style.