Two liberals respond -- one smart and one useful idiot
Compare and contrast.
Oh, and one of the two respondents is Professor Deb Frisch herself.
What we ought to be hearing from bona fide liberals:
I'm late coming to the story of the psychology professor and Jeff Goldstein of Protein Wisdom, but here's my view: What Deborah Frisch wrote is inexcusable behavior for a blogger of any kind, liberal or conservative. Her comments about Jeff Goldstein's son and wife are indeed unhinged. I cannot imagine any provocation that could justify them.
If you don't like Jeff's writings, don't read them. Or read them and disagree with his arguments.
I have never heard of Deborah Fisch before today, or her blog. Whether she is a liberal blogger or not, she is not a member of any group I am aware of or want to be associated with. She speaks for herself and very poorly.
Talkleft is as liberal as they get. The Iraq war is illegal, Camp X should be taken down, Karl Rove is a danger to democracy, and so on and so forth.
Fair enough.
But to disagree with criminal defense attorney Jeralyn Merritt is not to invite death threats against your family. Even though she's a lawyer with strong views on freedom of speech (he supports the decision of the New York Times to reveal details of the Operation Swift anti-terrorist program, for example), she has no problem characterizing Deb Frisch as "unhinged" and her comments "inexcusable".
Got that? No excuses. No mealy mouthed references to what someone else might have said to justify Frisch's comments, or at least to distract criticism. No flaccid attempts to minimize the gravity of what she had done by measuring it against the perceived short attention span of her critics.
And she points out that Frisch's behaviour is wrong for both liberals and conservatives. Merritt believes, quite rightly, that there are things that are universally wrong. Frisch should not get a free pass because she took aim at a "paste eating" right winger.
Merritt has her head screwed on right. It might be filled with some silly ideas, but at least I know that in her world, the sky is blue, children are precious, and people who are wrong need to be confronted.
There are other liberals, however, who aren't as centred as Merritt. One example is Deb Frisch herself, who quite shockingly, has posted to my blog. I'll never stop being amazed at who reads my stuff:
What I said was: I wouldn't care if someone Ramseyed your kid.
Is that really the most tasteless, vulgar, rude, nasty joke ever to be posted in the bowels (i.e., comments section) of the blogosphere?
Probably not. But then I haven't ventured through the archives of your friend Robert McClelland's blog, so who knows what vile little nuggets are tucked away in there.
What you said is that the murder of the child of someone you disagreed with would not bother you:
Ooh. Two year old boy. Sounds hot. You live in Colorado, I see. Hope no one Jon-Benets your baby.
Maybe it isn't the most tasteless, vulgar, rude, nasty joke ever posted, but then this isn't a contest. You don't win a reprieve because you came in second in a race to spew bile. To give you the benefit of the doubt, though, I don't know what circles you run in. Perhaps the people you used to hang out with in the University of Arizona staff lounge routinely exchanged jokes like this one. Or maybe your friends and members of your family would think that was a particularly clever jest.
If not, though, you should consider the embarrassing effect your words have had on your former co-workers and on your family and friends. Clearly you still don't care about the effect it has had on Jeff Goldstein, or on people who happen to count themselves as Goldstein's political allies, since in your comment to me, you didn't actually apologize to him or to them.
My advice? Don't take solace in what support you are getting from the likes of Robert McClelland. You've become their useful idiot, goaded into taking this untenable stand instead of doing the right thing and offering an unreserved apology. Don't let yourself be a shield behind which they hide. Take back what you said, and force them to either retreat or stand on their own hind legs and claim you were right to say what you said, your apology notwithstanding.
That's my advice, for what it's worth. Good luck, Professor Frisch. I really hope you find your back from whatever dark place you find yourself right now.
[Gender confusion concerning Ms Merritt has been addressed. Oops.]
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Comments
Don't let yourself be a shield behind which they hide. Take back what you said, and force them to either retreat or stand on their own hind legs and claim you were right to say what you said, your apology notwithstanding.
Great offer Steve. I think Deb IS being used as a flak jacket for many who are defending her statements. If she moves, the amount of people who would get hit with the shrapnel would be incredible.
If Deb was to come out and apologized, realizing the error of her statements, then I would grudgingly accept it as someone who shot from the hip as a nervous reaction more than someone who thought out their reply. We all tend to have moments like that.
But those who stand behind her repeatedly defending these remarks after having time to read her words should not get the same reprieve.
Posted by: TrustOnlyMulder at July 11, 2006 02:05 PM
Deb arrived at PW deranged and went downhill from there.
I was present at the creation, and her only aim was to get herself banned, probably to wander off into the hinterlands of the left nutoshpere to brag about what she had done to the paste eatin' moron.
Funny thing, Jeff G. refused to cooperate with her, and answered her deranged posts with his own patented brand of snarkiness.
Watching Deb react to this was sort of like seeing a plane crash and burn, horrible yet fascinating.
There were actually people on PW urging her to go and seek help. She didn't, and now she's out of a job.
Really, I feel sorry for her.
Posted by: N. O'Brain at July 11, 2006 02:53 PM
I think she's as incapable of seeing her error as she is bereft of sense and decency. Check out the entries she has made on her blog since her extracted pseudo-apology/surrender. She's even stooped so low as to say that the impetus behind the comments was demonstrating to "the right" how offensive they are. Seriously.
Posted by: crosseyedcyclops at July 11, 2006 02:53 PM
I believe that Jeralyn Merritt is a woman, Steve. :)
Posted by: gnotalex at July 11, 2006 03:08 PM
I believe that Jeralyn Merritt is a woman, Steve. :)
Ah, sheesh...ok, it's been fixed. Sorry about that.
Posted by: Steve Janke at July 11, 2006 03:22 PM
Steve, thank you for your kind words. I agree with what you wrote about Frisch and it makes me angry that people will tar other liberals with the same brush. Criticism about another's politics can be accomplished far more by reasoned disagreement with the position taken than by a personal attack on the writer or his family.
Jeralyn
Posted by: TalkLeft at July 11, 2006 03:46 PM
For what it's worth, I've covered this lunacy as it happened in real time:
-Scroll back--
Posted by: backhoe at July 11, 2006 03:48 PM
Steve, thank you for your kind words.
Not at all.
Posted by: Steve Janke at July 11, 2006 03:55 PM
I saw the party at Protein Wisdom when Frisch became an iVerb. I got there just as things started to go all sideways and strange...
It all happened just the way Jeff G., Blackfive and others described it.
It was weirdly - obscenely - fascinating to watch Frisch self-destruct. ...and then I spent most of the weekend keeping up with the story. I've never seen anyone self-destruct in such a public fashion before.
The response from the left took almost 24 hours longer than I thought it would...but it was predictable.
Posted by: Warren at July 11, 2006 06:17 PM
The response from the left took almost 24 hours longer than I thought it would...but it was predictable.
And what response was that?
Posted by: Dr.Dawg at July 11, 2006 07:43 PM
I will risk poor bogophonic etiquette here, seeing as we have a light and entertaining topic... This is a bit heavy, so pay no real attention. It may interest one or two.
Because as LTC Dave Grossman has said, the best predictor of future conduct is past behavior. They already have attacked schools all over the world, they will attack ours. It is only a matter of time.
For more specific info on the book, I have reviewed it in detail here:
http://euphoricreality.com/2006/06/27/review-terror-at-beslan/
I have no other attachment to the book other than, as a former Army officer and concerned parent, I recognize how crucial it is for America to read it and implement the very practical preparations found within its pages.
BTW, Chechen terrorists are among the most brutal in the world. They are harsh and depraved even among themselves. They start their children young, forcing them to revel in torture at a very early age - watching their fathers torture others, and learning how to saw heads off at 11 and 12 - when our kids are playing Little League. They are hard-core Islamists and deserve no sympathy. Just some food for thought.
On CaptainsQuarters
Posted by: Redhead Infidel at July 11, 2006 09:12 AM
=========
This whole Frisch fiasco here and at Jeff*s was such a gas. One has to feel some sadness for the poor woman. TG
Posted by: TonyGuitar at July 11, 2006 11:16 PM
I googled her after her comments on July 3 (I think) to try to figure out who 'Dr Deb' was since she seemed willing to exhibit her neurotic twitches in public. I found previous bad behavior.
At first I found her apparent point-missing amusing. Later, as she go more and more round the bend I posted my belief that she was truly disturbed and needed help.
Her 'supporters' and enablers on the Left are doing the poor woman no good. I watched her unravel in real time, and it was nauseating. The term 'disgruntled postal worker' kept coming to mind, and not as a bad joke. I have known a couple of people who unraveled like that in life, and one of them did 'unexpectedly' get very, very violent.
She needs examination, medication, and help, in all probability. Exposure of this sort is obviously not improving or modifying her behavior in any great way.
Posted by: JorgXMckie at July 11, 2006 11:18 PM
"What I said was: I wouldn't care if someone Ramseyed your kid.
Is that really the most tasteless, vulgar, rude, nasty joke ever to be posted in the bowels (i.e., comments section) of the blogosphere?"
Is she for real?
As if this statement is any kind of defense for a crass and uncivilized smear at someone who disagrees with your point of view?
That is the biggest problem with Left-thinkers. When they run out of facts to support a reasoned point of view they tend to devolve to baseless, emotional outbursts that are generally expected from people at the apex of crisis; unable to control their emotional responses and subject to increasingly irrational behaviour.
The only time any reasonable person would accept a statement, such as this, is in a situation where the speaker, consumed by grief, was going through the experience. Anything else belittles the situation and removes the gravity of the weight of circumstances. A more common example is the constant comparisons made to Nazism, Facisim, the Holocaust, ect.
Just because Deb Frisch doesn't see her comment as "the most tasteless, vulgar, rude, nasty joke ever to be posted" shouldn't excuse her from making it.
It only lumps her in with some very unseemly, and generally questionable company.
She should ask herself, "Do I really want to group myself in with this ignorance?" before she makes vicious, unthoughtful comments.
Posted by: Jan Schaafsma at July 12, 2006 08:00 AM
I was there to watch it in real time, as well. Very much like a car wreck, I couldn't take my eyes off of it. Every word was hers, I swear, unless Jeff is faster than a speeding bullet.
Dr. Frisch needs to seriously reconsider her POV. As in, come back down to earth, you poor, sad, deranged woman!
Posted by: at July 12, 2006 12:25 PM
I gave myself a bit of time to digest and consider this Frisch debacle before responding.
After thinking about it and reading her comments, I have arrived at my OWN personal conclusion......
This warped individual had a moment of weakness, she was weak enough to drop her gaurd and speak what she REALLY thinks.
She revealed a truly dark and disturbed mind and should be watched VERY closely. As well, for the love of all things decent, keep her OUT of education environments where students reside to absorb knowledge.
UGH!
Posted by: Zilla at July 12, 2006 05:20 PM
 
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