Rather it was to respond to the tone of the denunciations-i.e. "prick", "worse than a prick", and most notably "racist" a term which is so ill-defined that one can always discover some sense in which it is properly attributed and also so inflammatory that the mere use of epithet effectively places beyond the pale the suspect against whom the charge is being made-rightly or wrongly.
Felix Derzhinsky, the founder of the KGB, well understood this strategy: "Find me the man, and I'll find you the crime." So whether the "crime" is "racism", hidden bourgeois sympathies, "ties" to wacko elements of the far right, elitism, sexism, it is always easy to find sufficient evidence to find the suspect guilty as charged. And leftist cops will "gleefully" circulate and hype these charges the second any marginally progressive figure begins to achieve any level of mass support or public visibility. This, I argue, was one of the most important lessons of the Nader candidacy and we seem not have learned it.
Is it any surprise that alleged leftists prefer to express their "transgressive" politics in the form of monographs in defense of buggery from the august halls of the college de france rather than make an investment in public life which might actually achieve tangible results?
And for those who wonder why the left has such difficulty developing mass organizations, you might consider looking in the mirror.
John