[Previous entry: "Disconnected Urbanism"] [Main Index] [Next entry: "Support Iranian Democracy"]

11/24/2003 Archived Entry: "Lileks/Salam Pax"

LILEKS IS STILL RIGHT: After the firestorm that James Lileks' "F%@# you" to Salam Pax last week provoked, today's he's explaining precisely what he meant by it:

Okay, to repeat. This was not about someone Standing Up and Dissenting. It was about the quality of the criticism. If you say that George Bush invaded Iraq because he is a bloodthirsty moron compensating for a penis the size of a sewing thimble, I’m free to conclude that you have nothing to add to the debate. If you say that the invasion was a grand mistake predicated on wretched intel and a misguided attempt to unilaterally transform regional politics, you’ve made an intelligent point, and we can argue about that. I wasn’t criticizing Pax for being critical. It was his fatuous, smirky tone and insubstantial jibes. He had the tone of a Berlin cabaret MC who’d made Gestapo jokes in private and now was famous for making Eisenhower jokes in public. He sounded like someone amusing himself by dressing down a servant.

Read on.