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Home General Devoid of Argument: Campos Attacks with Bizarre Analogy

9/25/2007 By Ben Leave a Comment

Devoid of Argument: Campos Attacks with Bizarre Analogy

Update: I’m clearly not the only one with this take on the Campos column. Check out Drunkablog’s snide comments, as well.
I’ve been mulling over what phraseology to use to describe this morning’s Paul Campos column in the Rocky Mountain News – screed, armchair psychological fantasy, scurrilous personal attack. (My sympathy for my unnamed friend, who is a law student in Prof. Campos’ class, only grows and grows.) Please note the absence of any shred of evidence or cogent argument:

But how respectable is [Bill] Kristol, really? Anyone who pays the least attention to him soon discovers that the ruling passion of Kristol’s life is to involve the United States in as many wars as possible, with as many enemies as he can find or create.

In short, Kristol thinks about war in much the same way the narrator of Lolita thought about 12-year-old girls: with a constant, obsessive, perverse longing.

What prompts this assessment? You’ll have to look somewhere else to discern the source of Prof. Campos’ profound insights into Mr. Kristol’s psyche. It doesn’t seem that he has actually read and engaged any arguments made in print by the Weekly Standard editor.

But the stunning conclusion about sums up the substance of the vapid piece, in which he favorably compares his filth-peddling neighbor to the Fox News contributor:

For my part, I’d rather give the Porn King the Presidential Medal of Freedom than shake Bill Kristol’s hand.

What’s Prof. Campos’ point? Perhaps a similar point he tried to make when he spuriously compared fellow law professor Glenn Reynolds – the Instapundit – to Ward Churchill. Tear down opponents’ arguments by making bizarre ad hominem attacks through analogies. Judging by the evidence presented, a legitimate in-person debate between Campos and Kristol would be no contest.

Surely there must be another columnist waiting in the wings that the Rocky could employ to make real, reasonable arguments in favor of the liberal worldview.

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