Kevin Drum, the CalPundit, takes aim at fisking in this post, where he takes apart the Gettysburg Address in a line-by-line dismantling, similar to the manner in which many sites, including this one, do with leftist idiots with whom we disagree. He considers it childish, and dismisses the whole phenomenon with a condescending "knock it off".

I believe Mr. Drum has missed the wider point—dismantling idiotic columns serves a purpose beyond the obvious venting on the part of the writer; it allows others to understand why certain memes irritate them (many times, a fisking has made clear to me why I dislike a certain point of view, rather than leaving me with a vague feeling of disgust). Not everyone shares the smug, leftist worldview of the New York Times and its partisan imitators, and fisking serves as a outlet for aggrevation.

posted on October 12, 2002 01:08 PM



Comments:

He also ignores the fact that fisking is best done when a document contains a multitude of factual errors or inconsistant logic, not simply as a way of following every line with an insult.

posted by Sean Kirby on October 13, 2002 07:04 PM

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Thanks. I had forgotten the obvious.

(grin)

posted by timekeeper on October 15, 2002 08:49 PM

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