Food fight!

Matthew Yglesias

Not Good...
... busy as I've been with the convention, I haven't been following the story of the Russian kids held hostage that's now reached its awful conclusion. Worse, even, than the reality of the crime is the knowledge that things will get worse. The situation, clearly, can only be resolved by Russian concessions on the underlying political issue in Chechnya. At the same time, in the wake of this sort of outrage there will not only be no mood for concessions, but an amply justified fear that such concessions would only encourage further attacks and a further escalation of demands. I don't see any way out for Russian policymakers nor any particularly good options for US policymakers. Partisanship and complaints about Bush's handling of counterterrorism aside, this business is a reminder not only of the horrors out there, but also that terrorism is a genuinely difficult problem -- I think we've been doing many of the wrong things lately, but no one should claim it's obvious what the right way to proceed is.

Glenn Reynolds:

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Don't worry -- there's a solution: "The situation, clearly, can only be resolved by Russian concessions on the underlying political issue in Chechnya."

Matthew Yglesias:

Incidentally
Fuck you, Glenn. The entire item I wrote was one goddamn paragraph long would it have killed you to accurately reproduce what I wrote?

Matthew Yglesias emails Glenn Reynolds:

Text not available.

Glenn Reynolds:

MORE: Matthew Yglesias emails to say that I've misquoted him above, and demands an apology. Er, except that the quote -- done via cut-and-paste, natch -- is accurate. Here it is again, cut-and-pasted, again. "The situation, clearly, can only be resolved by Russian concessions on the underlying political issue in Chechnya."

I guess that Matthew means it's out of context, or misrepresents his post. Maybe it misrepresents what he meant to say. Follow the link and decide for yourselves. But I can't figure out what Matthew could have meant that would make the statement above a misrepresentation of his meaning.

Chechnya, of course, is a mess, and there's lots of blame to go around. But the news reports are that quite a few of the terrorists in this incident were Arabs, not Chechens, and this seems to me to fit quite well into the general Al Qaeda assault on, well, everybody else -- especially after the two airliner bombings, etc. Does Matthew really think that this is something that can be negotiated away via Russian concessions to the Chechens? Judging from his email, I guess not. So why did he write the above? I guess you'll have to ask him, as his email didn't provide any guidance on what he did mean.

Matthew Yglesias:

UPDATE: Via email:

Misquote you? I cut and pasted. And it seemed like what you meant, judging by the post and your comments. If it's not what you meant, I'll happily mention that -- but it was Armed Liberal who sent me the link, and *he* certainly read it that way, too.

I'll reproduce the post in question, this time with italics for added emphasis:

ORIGINAL POST REPRODUCED

What I was saying, in case this is for some reason genuinely unclear, is that to get Chechens to stop making war on Russia requires Russia to do something to resolve the underlying grievance -- Russia's mistreatment of Chechnya. At the same time, taking steps to resolve the underlying grievance would, under the circumstances, be just the sort of appeasement that would invite further attacks. Therefore, it's not clear what the Russian government can or should do in order to prevent future massacres like this.

Glenn Reynolds:

In a later post, Yglesias writes "Fuck you, Glenn." And he still says I misrepresent him. I don't think I did -- at least, it's hard for me to figure out what he meant that would have made my (accurate) quotation misleading. And Yglesias doesn't tell us, preferring to substitute profanity for clarity, I guess.

I will note, however, that I managed to respond to Yglesias' implications that I was a Nazi who was inciting "mob violence" against the New York Times without resorting to profanity.

He Glenn! If the shoe fits...


posted by Quiddity at 9/04/2004 04:00:00 PM