Plan B Forum

You know that the universe has gone topsy-turvy when a right-wing radical is, well, right.

Martin Bashir asked Craig Mitchell for his “reaction to the endless attempts to imply that the President of the United States is somehow sub-Christian – not a Christian.”

Mitchell replied, in part, that Obama “is not the first person who’s been President and who’s had that charge leveled against him.”

Bashir went on to demand from Mitchell what other President had been subject to accusations “that he’s a Muslim and a practicing one as such”.

But Mitchell had said no such thing.

So here’s Mitchell, on national television, being demanded to support allegations which he had never even made.

“What I said was that Presidents have had their Christianity questioned. That was the question you asked me, and that’s what I told you.”

(Emphasis added.)

Bashir “went on to explain what [he] means”. None of which was the question that he had asked Mitchell.

Sound a bit familiar?

"That thread again"?

The thread in which I defend a right-wing radical against an accusation made by a left-of-center moderate?

How many other such threads are there?

Have I somehow become notorious for defending right-wing radicals?

It occurs to me that no one here would have reason to be familiar with the conversation which I had in mind.

Some time back (1995?), four of us were returning to our hotel from some amusement park. We had been on a roller-coaster ride. I had greatly enjoyed it. I had proposed that we ride it again, but the majority view was that the line was far too long to stand in.

One of my friends asked me "So, Andrew, was that the ride of your life?" I replied "No." She complained that I was always putting down things which other people had enjoyed. I pointed out that far from putting it down, I was the one who had suggested that we ride it again.

I also pointed out -- and this is why what happened to Mitchell (described in the opening posting) resonated with me -- that she had not asked me whether I had enjoyed the ride. "The question which you asked me was 'So, Andrew, was that the ride of your life?'"

She later told me that her recollection of that conversation had been helpful in her cross-examination of witnesses.