Why Don't Conservatives Love Conor Friedersdorf? Let Us Count the Ways

Ah, why don’t conservatives love Conor Friedersdorf? He is one of us, is he not? He even wants to help Andrew Breitbart – and even us poor little old folks here at Big Journalism. Things here would be fine with a little free counseling from Friedersdorf, who, as Features Editor, helped run website Culture 11 into the ground in record time, ” its lifespan was like one of those bugs that hatches, mates, and dies in just a few days,” wasting millions in the process. Oh, the unaccomplished Conor Friedersdorf was still in grad school in 2008. But he knows it all. I suppose the boy learns quick.

When I criticize Mr. Breitbart, or his sites Big Hollywood, Big Government and Big Journalism, part of my project is pressuring them to do better work. In fact, I’d happily provide my counsel to anyone at those sites privately and free of charge, and I think that much of the critiques I’ve published thus far are constructive.

Here is Conor Friedersdorf posting on Andrew McCarthy. Friedersdorf defends the Marxist Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), while calling McCarthy “ridiculous,” “dishonorable,” “odious” and “terrifying” as a public servant, dismissing his arguments as specious and simply slurs. He also defends the Left, while reviewing McCarthy’s book with this headline: “The Manifold Inaccuracies of Andy McCarthy’s New Book.” Why don’t conservatives love Conor Friedersdorf?

A poorly-trained NYU journalist, not long out of grad school and an incredibly weak writer, suddenly Friedersdorf is an expert on International law. But that’s not all. He’s also an expert on Honor Killings and all things Islamic. While attacking Mark Steyn, we get this from Friedersdorf. Yes, conservatives are the “media elite” in Conor’s dimly lit reading room and even more dim bulb of a mind. And if one doesn’t agree with him, he joins with the Left, feeding into the nonsense about alleged “epistemic closure,” because conservatives don’t embrace his progressive, Leftist view. Oh, wait, he’s The Atlantic’s latest false-flag conservative useful idiot. I plum forgot. Why don’t conservatives love Conor Friedersdorf?

I’ve lately been pushing the idea that within the conservative movement, a combination of epistemic closure and a willingness of media elites to mislead their audience is producing a rank-and-file with a skewed view of reality.

Illustrating the depth of Mr. Steyn’s wildly inaccurate characterization has taken quite awhile…. It’s a good test. Perhaps Mr. Steyn was just woefully mistaken about the willingness of an American newspaper to cover honor killings. Now that he and the editors at National Review know better — I’ve e-mailed this post to Kathryn Jean Lopez — will a correction be forthcoming so that their audience isn’t misled?

Sadly for Conor, it was not. Heh!

As for Libertarian Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit, he feeds into some myth that Reynolds is suddenly intemperate and accuses him of being factually inaccurate, “… bloggers are criticizing Professor Reynolds for intemperance. But I think the objectionable thing here is the obvious factual inaccuracy.”

Here, he attacks Reynolds for being corrupt due to his being pithy and too brief. Oh, wait, that’s actually Glenn’s strength.

A capable blogger like Glenn Reynolds could say in 3 paragraphs everything he communicated in that 21 minute video.

Oh, this must be some of Conor’s free counseling, meant for the most widely read political blog in the sphere. Well, it is one way to strain for attention, I suppose. Why don’t conservatives love Conor Friedersdorf?

But he (Instapundit) too often writes posts whose pithiness comes at the expense of substance, accuracy or integrity. This alternating evasiveness and passive aggression is somewhat puzzling, because… Then there are the occasional times that a Glenn Reynolds post is particularly egregious in its pandering, or wrongheaded in its substance…

According to Conor, Rush Limbaugh is a double-talking mendacious hack, a race-baiter, who obsessively trades on race. According to Conor, Rush is a “millionaire race agitator” he holds in contempt – for his dishonesty and hypocrisy. Why don’t conservatives love false-flag conservative Conor Friedersdorf on the Right?

Oh, wait – we do. We learned that when he was interviewed. “His take-downs of Mark Levin and Andrew Breitbart… have given him a major following and reputation.”

Yeah, he’s way bigger than, say, Mark Levin, this year’s top-selling conservative author. To Friedersdorf, that guy Levin’s a liar who misleads you common folks. Conor says he is harmful, among any other number of sins. But Conor is a real bad-ass in one woefully misguided blogger’s view — because he’s not afwaid to wage an all out Twitter campaign against his latest compulsion, stalking Mark Levin.

Conor Friedersdorf is my minor internet hero. I found his recent twitter campaign to persuade fans of talk radio blowhard Mark Levin that Levin should not be trusted to be somehow badass. Is this not the ballsiest tweet ever?

@LizzieViolet @MarcieDreyer@debster7301 @prismsinc I am Conor Friedersdorf. And I can prove that Mr. Levin is deliberately misleading you.

Now, seriously, did you ever read anything more pathetic than that? Oh, God! So, all that said – why don’t conservatives love Conor Friedersdorf? Is it because he’s such a badass? Or is it because he’s a false-flag conservative and such a moron, too?

I don’t know about you, but I’ll take door number two.