The skirmishes have begun. One can hear the volleys exchange, see the smoke in the distance, and the wounded already litter their poorly chosen battlefields. Volunteers stream to the action like men assembling before the gates of Mordor for a challenge they are prepared to make... against a foe ill-equipped from ages of inbred intellectual putrefaction. One fortress is in shambles, the bastions breached and its phalanx all but abandoned but for the rancid frothing of the mortally vanquished scattered on unworthy ground. The other estate is now under siege. And it is clear that the defenders sceptors of poison are shy of sting and offer little protection from the binary ballistas that pound the walls of their ivory towers. It has begun.
Let's Roll!
The latest skirmish involves a columnist for the Minnesota Star Tribune, Nick Coleman, and the familiar fellows at Powerline. Jim Geraghty has a good summary of that action today over at KerrySpot that is a must read. See Brain Terminal for Evan Maloney's volley.
Another blow is landed by The Hammer against Los Angeles Times columnist Tim Rutten. Hugh takes note of this slip in Mr. Rutten's otherwise innocuous column regarding the passing of Susan Sontag:
Bakersfield and Boise must be like Giddings (Texas), from which the hopelessly ignorant await being plucked and powdered, donned with wig and mole, to join the entourage of the enlightened urban aristrocracy with their prestige of progressive wit and a moratorium on brains. Check out Hugh's latest Weekly Standard column on media elitism and "how it killed big media's credibility with a majority of Americans." It is Hewitt's latest cannon blast to accompany his new battering ram. Tim Rutten never saw it coming. And that is, afterall, part of the problem." To the generations of Martin Edens to come, to all those Americans who believe that you can be born in Bakersfield or Boise and still aspire to live fully the life of the mind, Susan Sontag left an example -- and this advice:
'Be serious, be passionate, wake up!' "
The shelling continues from frigates like Belmont Club and Little Green Footballs. They have been pounding the Associated Press and other rogue journalists who have abandoned humanity and the requisites of civilization for the chimera of their self-defined virtue. Also here, here, and Glenn Reynolds.
Rather was but the first rusting knight to be cut from his lame steed, and left to whimper in shameful oblivion on the banks of his Styx... as bankrupt of legacy as he is coin for ferry. Others are falling in quick succession, while some like Coleman are charging headlong into Rather's Little valley at a bull with Big Horns.
Who's next?
UPDATE: 12.29.04:23:41
The battle is joined by Captain's Quarters, Shot In The Dark, Betsy's Page, The Volokh Conspiracy, PrestoPundit, Pejmanesque, and our own Dueler to name a few. See Evangelical Outpost for an extended list of volunteer pickets swarming to assure Coleman's last stand. Stones Cry Out is picking targets of opportunity.
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