It’s A Wonderment!

The title of this post comes from a phrase often used by Cole Younger, as played by Cliff Robertson in “The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid”. It applies here to the returning visitor Geoffrey Kruse-Safford (and really, Dan Trabue as well). Here’s a guy that posts on topics that just make my head swim. Philosophy, science, the philosophy of science (or perhaps, the science of philosophy) are often topics into which he dives deeply. There’s no doubt that he is sincerely and totally fascinated with these topics, and he uses his blog to, among other things, explore and discuss these weighty things with his visitors. It’s all very impressive, if you’re into that sort of thing.

But, in a shocking twist, Geoffrey, like Dan, can’t seem to avoid missing obvious points in the opinion pieces of others. It’s really a wonderment!

Case in point: Geoffrey, like Dan, feign confusion in understanding the simple terms of my challenge, which was, once again, to visit AmericanThinker.com, select one of the many Obama related articles there, and defend BARRY against the critiques the author makes. What could be so hard to fathom in this challenge? Three simple steps. Cretins could do it.

But then he makes an attempt. You can read it and his response here. (In the comments section, you’ll find more examples of the difficulty liberals have understanding conservative commentary. Dan attacks the prose of the many fine writers there, as if he’s a journalism professor, rather than stiffening the spine and engaging in substantive rebuttal.)

Geoffrey begins by presenting the article he had chosen and immediately shows he missed the point. He thinks the article was about the religion of Obama’s father. It was not. Bear in mind, I read both the article and Geoffrey’s response to verify what I thought I saw and sure enough, he totally blew it. The article was about the left’s reaction to concerns about Muslim influence in Obama’s life. That’s the main point of the article.

In fact, there are a number of points Geoffrey made that show his lack of understanding in what I found to be an easy to read and understand piece. Here’s a few:

-He wonders as to the relevance of the faith of Obama’s father and compares it to, among other things, Nixon’s mother’s obsessive-compulsive disorder. Yet in the piece, the author shows examples of what relevance there might be. Geoffrey’s confusion is answered right in the article. To wit, what would be the perception of the Muslim world to Obama considering his Muslim connection? Yeah, to us it would seem there should be nothing about which to worry, but we are not devoted Muslims who are coming from an entirely different place.

-He accuses the author of “subtle racism” for mentioning the common practice of
omitting the race of a non-white crime suspect. Is Geoffrey saying that this doesn’t happen? Is he saying that it would never make a difference to a story? It’s certainly happened at least a few times since 9/11 that is, not mentioning that the suspect is Muslim.

Geoffrey then speaks of the middle of the article and that which has been disproved: Barry in a madrassa (perhaps not, but a Muslim school where he learned the religion), that he’s an apostate facing death (perhaps to some radicals, but this is covered in the Robert Spencer quote in the article), Barry’s Islamic middle name (Geoffrey’s right. It’s clearly Swedish), that we’re at war with Islam (Nobody says this. It’s radical Islam we fight. Big difference.)

Geoffrey ends by slamming AmericanThinker.com, which doesn’t surprise. For all his well-read background, he doesn’t display much in the way of understanding what he reads. He attacks it as a source of race baiting and religion knocking and accuses them of school yard tactics. Ironic. Typical.