Another Ed Goes West

There has been some to and fro this week on which part of the political spectrum does more in the way of hate. This was kicked off on Monday on ConHome by Matthew Barrett, in the Left Watch section. Barrett, who personifies Olbermann’s dictum (“the right exists in a perpetual state of victimhood”), attempts to paint left leaning commentators as being “Blinded by hatred”, and by inference he is the unfortunate victim.

Thus was the gauntlet thrown down, to be picked up by Don Paskini at LibCon, who managed to list ten right leaning hatemongers (one more than Barrett) after ten minutes’ consideration, which probably included time to write most of his copy. The ones he managed to miss were equally notable, as they included Quentin Letts (let’s not), Philip Davies, Liz Jones, Jeremy Clarkson, Peter Hitchens, Jon Gaunt, Kelvin McKenzie, and of course MEP and occasional Tory Dan, Dan the Oratory Man.

Much of this was not overly serious, but one of the ten fingered by the LibCon piece has decided to bite: Ed “Case” West, doyen of the bear pit that is Maily Telegraph blogland, tells that he is “truly honoured” at his inclusion, which explains why he has to do his own rebuttal, and doesn’t mean he’s at all sore, oh no.

And it does not take long for West to sell the pass: he tells that “rarely do conservatives express hatred for their opponents”. Really? Maybe Ed could have a browse through the output from some of his fellow Telegraph bloggers: Nile “Chauncey” Gardiner on Barack Obama (and anyone else in the USA not of sufficiently right leaning persuasion), James “saviour of Western civilisation” Delingpole on anyone vaguely sympathetic to the Green movement, and Cristina Odone on more or less anything.

It could be more productive than cutting and pasting four paragraphs from the New York Times, which is presumably meant to be some kind of clincher for West’s counter argument. But it’s no less wearisome than his final observation, inferring that those not of a right leaning disposition will feel “less hateful” through contact with them.

No Ed, you have it the wrong way round. The contact already happened. Contact, far from providing the solution, merely highlighted the problem. But it’s a nice try, and free from any display of victimhood. Ed must be taking on a few left leaning characteristics, after all.