I had no intention of jumping on the bandwagon, but I just reread his page and one entry struck me as just too damned stupid not to comment on.
WHAT ARE THE ODDS: In today’s climate in France that the burning down of the Israeli embassy was the result of an accident? About as likely as president Chirac’s suggestion that there are no anti-Semites in France.
Maybe somebody burned down the embassy on purpose. Maybe it was an accident. I don’t know. And neither does Sullivan. So with no facts at all (unless he’s got some and didn’t choose to share them with his readers), Sullivan flings out wild speculation and calls it punditry.
Yeah, I know, that’s redundant.
This is not helpful.
There are anti-Semites in France. If Chirac doesn’t think so, he’s an idiot. But for Sullivan to leap to judgment on something like this — for reasons that look suspiciously like the urge to toss off a snarky, catchy remark for the blog — just lends credence to the fools who want to call those who oppose genuine anti-Semitism conspiracy nuts.
And so next time there is a real incident that isn’t quite clear, that is in that grey area where the facts are coming to light but not yet crystalized… that next time, all the rational voices that try to convince the world that yes, there is a problem here will have just a tiny little bit less credibility.
But it made a stylin’ blog entry. Thanks Andrew.