C'mon Firebreak, C'mon

Andrew Sullivan used the vehicle of email to throttle Ernest T. Bass, ESQ but good yesterday.

I went back to the week in May '04 when the torture story broke, and took a random sample (as a social scientist, such are my habits) of Instapundit's posts/updates to compare his reaction to that of the Newsweek scandal. The Newsweek story was the subject of 22 of the 40 posts/updates, all of which expressed admonishment. In contrast, the sample of 40 posts from the Abu Ghraib weeks contained only 2 expressing admonishment of the abuse (and even there, it is qualified), while the 12 other posts/updates on the abuse scandal either: A) Attempted to minimize its moral and practical significance, or B) Tried to discredit the evidence as fake or exaggerated by anti-troop, liberal media bias.

In other words, Reynolds' treatment of the real torture story was almost indistinguishable from his treatment of the fake torture story.

To which the oft exasperating milkey-load-toaster added:

I think the emailer is being too kind. Instapundit's coverage suggests that he believes that the erroneously-sourced Newsweek story is actually more offensive and important than what happened at Abu Ghraib.

Ernest T. Bass hisself has now decided to respond:

As Mickey Kaus has noted, Andrew can be excitable. A while back he apologized to me for some of his criticisms during the election, and more recently he has apologized to his readers for his waffling and defeatism on the war last spring. Perhaps he'll apologize for this at some point in the future. But, I confess, I find the question of what Andrew thinks less pressing than I used to.

Yes, you're on the side of the angels...the Hell's Angels*...when picking between Sully, Ernest T. Bass, and Mickey "Rumored to love Goats" Kaus.


*Play on words alert.