18 Sep 2009 Media Matters Attacks Me as “Nativist” for Criticism of Andrew Sullivan
Got attacked by Media Matters today for what I wrote here (I also cross-posted it at Newsbusters, where you can leave a comment if you like).
Media Matters regards me as “nativist” because I expressed discomfort with Andrew Sullivan involving himself extensively in U.S. domestic affairs while retaining his British citizenship and not making it clear that he has done so.
I wrote, in part:
Would a little disclaimer once in a while of the I’m-telling-you-how-to-vote-but-be-aware-if-I-ever-get-drafted-it-won’t-be-the-U.S.-Army’s-unform-I-wear variety really have gone amiss?
Because the team a writer is playing for actually is important information for a reader to know.
Media Matters didn’t mention me saying that Sullivan should include a disclaimer occasionally. It’s not as if I called for Sullivan to be deported.
Media Matters also complained that in June I quoted Mark Steynsaying that the only way to reduce health care costs is to have less of it. You see, Mark Steyn is Canadian. Unlike Sullivan, though, Steyn frequently mentions this. I’ve been reading Sullivan since the mid-1980s and I had the impression he became an American a long time ago. When Sullivan writes phrases such as “our nation’s history,” referring to the USA, is it strange that I thought so?
Anyway, my original comments are here. You can read them and decide for yourself if I’m “harken[ing] back to the good old days of Know-Nothingism and immigration quotas” and believe “Sullivan shouldn’t be trusted because he’s a ‘foreigner,'” as Media Matters says.
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