Sidebar: The Word Warden is here!

Bryan White has given me the honor of being at the top of his "The Bad Blogs' Blood Bloody Bad Blogs Blogroll.” I read his long diatribe this morning with interest. He went over each of my synopses of his PolitiFact critiques, with these choice comments:

“…few of the many outstanding examples of bankrupt thinking.”

“Was that incredibly inept analysis by Street? Sure….”

“…Clearly, that's ridiculous…”

“…That's ridiculous…”

“It's nearly always fun when folks with a minimal familiarity with the descriptions and details of fallacies start playing fallacy roulette:…”

“Karen Street… missed the point.”

“Though the logic is eminently simple, the simplicity eludes Street.”

Finally: “…I chose to showcase significant flaws from each of Street's "Lil White Lies" series (save for those I've already critiqued in some manner or other) to help emphasize the pervasiveness of her mistakes. These brief critiques come nowhere close to documenting her path of error.”

That’s interesting because the purpose of my blog is to showcase significant flaws from each of White’s Grading PolitiFact series to help emphasize the pervasiveness of his mistakes. These brief critiques come nowhere close to documenting his path of error.

Of course I didn’t expect him to say: You know, I may be wrong here, or even consider what I have to say. I’m actually surprised at how inadequate and insubstantial his response was. It seems most all he has is “familiarity with the descriptions and details of fallacies.” That isn’t enough! If you have to read something over five or six times to try and figure out somebody’s point—then there’s no point, because most people won’t even do that.

I’m seriously thinking of using some of Bryan’s descriptors, like “incredibly inept analysis” “bankrupt thinking” and “ridiculous.” Disparaging a person’s work is a good option when you don’t have much else to criticize, however, so I won’t do that. Bryan has taken great offense (or I should say, got his knickers in a twist) over my “Lil White Lies” title and label, so that will remain as low as I will go.

For the record, I welcome his criticism. But nowhere does his commentary make him “right” and me “wrong.” He’s not the final authority on truth, and neither am I.