Not Arguing

Via Isaac Chotiner, Matt Continetti busts out what's rapidly becoming my least-favorite argumentative tactic. He says that in response to the Pollack/O'Hanlon op-ed, "Antiwar Democrats immediately started dancing the Iraq shuffle, in which you ignore your opponent's arguments, shift the terms of the debate, and attack his motivation and character." He then supports that contention by . . . ignoring all the counterarguments that have been offered.

It's a big, bad internet out there and it'll always be possible to find all kinds of responses to any widely discussed event. And, yes, if you deliberately ignore the more substantive responses in favor of purely focusing on the derision -- derision that will often be motivated by the fact that substantive responses are already widely circulating -- you can "prove" that nobody's grappling with the arguments easily.