Donald Douglas - An Ethical "Push-me, Pull-you"

Professor Douglas paints a very odd and contradictory picture with his recent Jeff Goldstein Knows a Thing or Two About Low-Life Leftist Scum post.

The story is thus, according to the opinion piece from FoxNews.com, to which Donald links:

Right-wing blogger Jeff Goldstein maintains a well-respected site entitled Protein Wisdom. Left-wing Deborah Frisch maintains the south(west)paw blog. She prides herself on attacking 'right-wing nuts' -- or 'wingnuts' in blogspeak -- by posting insults on their websites. (Left-wingers are referred to as 'moonbats'.)

An exchange on Protein Wisdom between Goldstein and Frisch turned so nasty that it landed in the mainstream media. On July 12, Brit Hume of FOX News reported, "Deborah Frisch escalated a foreign policy argument with blogger Jeff Goldstein last week, writing that if 'someone shot you and your 'tyke' it wouldn't slow me down one iota.' She also wrote that she hopes 'no one Jon-Benets' the child -- a reference to the brutal murder of a young Colorado girl ten years ago -- and made disturbing sexual remarks about the boy."
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On July 8, the columnist Michelle Malkin reposted some of Frisch's comments on her own blog. Other conservative sites linked to Malkin and the matter snowballed.

Malkin also nominated Frisch as "Unhinged Academic of the Year." That's because Frisch is an adjunct professor of psychology at the University of Arizona. Or, rather, she was. In backlash against her gleeful and graphic speculation about sexual contact with a 2-year-old, emails poured into the University. On July 8, Frisch 'resigned' her $32,861-a-year part-time position.

Phoenix Democrat, a blogger at Daily Kos (to whom Donald also links, but misidentifies as Markos, himself--which is pretty typical... All liberals look alike to Donald, and this isn't the first time that he's maligned the wrong one--in fact his usual MO is to just tar everyone who ever read or commented there, from Markos on down, for the "evil" words of whatever Kos blogger he's on about) continues the story:

Yet, after her apologizes, the attacks against her by anonymous conservative cowards intensified. These trolls, who are no better than white supremacists who engage in these same kinds of tactics, have flooded Debroah Frisch's blog and her former employer with online posts and E-mails that were vile and threatening.

Here are some excerpts courtesy of the (Tucson) Arizona Daily Star:

"Deborah Frisch's comments on the Web site (name of Web site deleted) created such a furor she has been lambasted on countless conservative Web sites. Her boss at the University of Arizona also received irate E-mails calling for her termination, she said.

"Alfred Kaszniak, head of the psychology department, said he has received close to 300 E-mails about the incident. 'The majority were very angry and many of them were using similar kinds of language that she is alleged to have used, accusing myself and the university of all sorts of things,' he said.

"Frisch, 44, said she quit her $32,861-a-year part time position not only because she fears for her safety, but because she regrets the UA ended up in the middle of what was intended to be a 'sick joke.'

"She had hoped by quitting her job, supporters of blogger Jeff Goldstein would stop their online attacks. If anything, she said, they've increased.

"'These people think I should be incarcerated, that I'm mentally ill or that I should be shot,' Frisch said during a telephone interview from Eugene, Oregon, where she is living now. 'This whole thing has been crazy to me. People have spent their whole weekend on this.'"

So who's the aggressor here? Yes, we can all denounce what Deborah Frisch said and did and not condone her comments. However, this incident brings to mind an incident here in Arizona when the son of the Democratic Senate candidate was arrested months ago for drugs. Shortly after that arrest, a conservative Republican State Senator, Jack Harper, lashed out not only at the Senate candidate but also at his entire family by saying on the Senate floor that there was a "culture of corruption" in that family.

So is it O.K. for conservative Republicans to attack another person's family and not the other way around?

Anyone who doesn't see the irony here--including Dr. Douglas--must be blind.

In the Frisch case we have a leftwing blogger and college professor who makes disgusting comments on a rightwing blog, and wingnuts respond by outing her up-to-then pseudononymous identity and contact her place of employment, to the tune of about 300 e-mails to her department head alone.
Outrage from Professor Donald Douglas? Zero. In point of fact, he seems to be on the opposing side, justifying what his rightwing brethren did.

In the Douglas case, we have a rightwing blogger and college professor who makes disgusting comments at a post at a leftwing blog, and when a few leftwingers respond in pretty much the same way as the rightwing bloggers above, Donald goes absolutely apeshit.

If it's wrong to hit a blogger personally or professionally for what they say on their blog--and as I've said, I believe it is--than it's wrong, no matter whose ox is being gored...

What Frisch said was absolutely reprehensible--and if anyone's wondering whether I believe what she said is worse than what he said, I do--but I don't think that that game of moral relativism is appropriate, here. Neither Professor Frisch's disgusting comment or Dr. Donald Douglas' disgusting comment warrant attacking them at their places of employment. Neither one.

For Donald to applaud one and howl like a stuck polecat about the other is just another in his long line of hypocritical "yes for me, but not for thee" mixed messages. Either it's wrong or it isn't, and Donald Douglas would do well to stop talking out of both sides of his mouth & decide what he actually stands for.