Weird. I've never seen MP as a red baiter. I've always seen him as a red who didn't like certain reds, personality-wise or position-wise or both. I always liked Carrol's post on baiting from FemEcon which read, in part:
"Direct attack on specific communist positions — if held by the communist(s) being attacked, for of course communists are not unanimous on anything — would not be red-baiting, no matter how venomous. What is red-baiting is to attempt to discredit the messenger to avoid confronting the message."
Liked it so much, I blogged it for archival purposes the other day. :) http://blog.pulpculture.org/2006/04/03/isnt-it-nice/
In that sense, of course, Bill can't be baited since he's a red. What was baiting was suggesting that his red principles would lead him to vote for Shrubya, yes? IOW, what was baiting was suggesting that Bill's position was objectively conservative/neocon, yes? And that Bill's position couldn't be explained by something that, while sitll disagreeable to Josh, might have a more logical/rational reason than simply, "You are so fucked up you don't realize the unintended consequences of your position."
Not that this is an attack on Josh. Interesting posts to the list.
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