Can't Help Myself

Dear Atlantic,

I'm a long time reader of the print version, and I try never to miss an article by James Fallows. I read the online version, too, when one of my friends or colleagues links to it. Much to my shock and horror, as a result, I have come into contact with the work of Megan MacCardle and, frankly, it has cost the Magazine all its credibility with me. Perhaps it has escaped your attention that she is both an economic illiterate and a moral pygmy? Its clear from reading her fan base in the comments that her function, such as it is, is to give her readers the feeling that they can't be as stupid, venal, and corrupt as they are because the blog post that leads them is yet more stupid and venal. In that case you will not, of course, want to hear any criticism of her since at least she's pleasing the troglodytes.

But I would have expected the Magazine and its editors to take note of the fact that her blog recently condoned and, indeed, argued for the necessity, of the murder of Dr. George Tiller. This is not, despite Megan's wandering, gauzy way of phrasing her ideas, actually ok. It is not OK to legitimize or celebrate the murderous thugs who have taken over our discourse on a perfectly lawful medical procedure. Megan is ok with the murder, she says, because she thinks that "politics" was a road closed to the rabid anti-abortion forces and (she says) when politics fails individuals and groups may freely resort to murder to get their way. News to me. And, of course, directly opposite the conclusions she reachs when the question arises as to lawful protests against, say, the Iraq war.

The whole thing is rendered even funnier by the fact that a close reading of Megan's ouevre, from when she was Jane Galt until now, reveals a woman so selfish that she would abort her own grandmother if grandma got in the way of Megan's next inappropriate and expensive foray into the world of consumer goods. A woman who thinks that being made to stand in line for her iphone and having her credit checked amounts to torture? To paraphrase Jesse Ventura on Sean Hannity, another glib libertarian apparatchik, "Megan would have an abortion in a fetal heartbeat if she thought getting pregnant would cost her five seconds of income."

aimai's real name here.