My spam filter appears to have gone rogue--and unbeknownst to me, it apparently ate two separate comments from Michael Berube over the weekend. Shame on my spam filter--which, in fairness, I have asked to eat things with multiple links, just to cut down on the porn that comes this blog's way. And thanks to himself for reproducing his comment on his blog. Here it is:

Well, I thank Ms. O'Connor for the kind (and civil!) words, and I quite agree that Ms. Neal did the right thing in that debate. But I do think a limited defense of snark is in order. I'm not of the David Denby school that says Snark is Everything That is Wrong with Today's Society Today--though I suppose that much was already clear. More important, I actually am trying to offer people a discursive mode of dealing with people like Jason Rantz. Because, you see, when someone like Rantz comes along and says, "All you need to learn about immigration law I can teach you in this one sentence: it is illegal to enter our country without permission, bypassing our laws," he's demonstrating that he's not a serious interlocutor on the subject, and doesn't merit a serious response. The good lord Moloch gave us snark for just such rhetorical occasions. Likewise, every once in a while David Horowitz says things like

radicals like Berube can't be bothered to actually read or respond rationally to anything that ruffles their progressive feathers, let alone be concerned about the fact that their entire political focus since 9/11 has been in getting our terrorist enemies off the hook.

And how should one respond to such a provocation? Well, another man might've been angry, and another man might've been hurt. And another man might try to ignore it (that never works) and still another might've done the Grover Furr-patented "Horowitz=Goebbels!!1!!" dance. Me, I've gradually decided that the way to deal with vile smears like this is to ridicule the wingnuts who utter them. (And I use the term "wingnuts" precisely as our Founding Fathers intended.) Because people like Mr. Horowitz and Mr. Rantz are chiefly trying to gin up some outrage, and too many academic leftists are all too eager to oblige them.

By contrast, when Ms. Neal shows up at a conference and decides to drop the "How Many Ward Churchills" nonsense in favor of a serious discussion of student engagement and academic standards, I'm happy to take part. Ms. Neal, smart as she is, knew perfectly well that the ACTA-pamphlet approach wasn't going to fly at the National Communication Association, and as a result, we actually did have a productive exchange--even where we disagreed (e.g., we agree that tuition costs have placed college out of reach for far too many families though we offer different reasons why). Reasonable conservative critiques of higher education (or anything else) are perfectly OK by me; Horowitzian smears and ignorant Rantzian rants aren't. Personally, I enjoy debating stuff with smart people who disagree with me--even on my blog! Mr. Drake, you're welcome to comment anytime. Feel free to stop by. And Ms. O'Connor, thanks again for the reply.

P.S. to Michael: If you won't call me "Ms.," I won't call you "Mister."