Pot, Kettle

Ken Avidor has written a defiant letter to the editor. Here's an excerpt:

"The Citizen published a letter from Mark Swanson that states that I am a "false expert". Mr. Swanson is attacking the messenger instead of responding to the message. Mr. Swanson then goes on to denounce me as a "left wing author" even though Mark Olson worked very closely alongside the Green Party’s Dean Zimmermann (recently convicted of bribery) to promote PRT."
(emphasis mine)

Here, in a single paragraph, we have a microcosm of Avidor's entire hypocritical campaign: in sentence one, he condemns Mark Swanson for "attacking the messenger instead of responding to the message". In sentence two, he himself proceeds to attack Olson and Zimmermann!

I actually had to re-read this twice, because the juxtaposition of these two sentences was so unintentionally ironic that I found it hard to believe it at first. But there it is, in plain English.

In Avidor's defense, personal attacks have become so routine to him that maybe he doesn't even know he's doing it. He is, after all, the maintainer of the Bachmann "fun page", which features various tasteless Photoshop hacks, as well the Luv Pod page, which ridicules the "wacky professor" and other PRT proponents, whom he commonly refers to derisively as "gadgetbahners" and "PRTistas".

And then there is the Sheffer Lang attack page, a whole page devoted to attacking this former Taxi 2000 Chairman, who can't even defend himself because he passed away tragically three years ago. And then there is the "Ned Luddington" affair, in which he created a false identity to serve as a fake source for his attacks on Zimmermann.

So is it any wonder that a personal attack (or two) slipped into his letter condemning personal attacks? It almost feels wrong to criticize him for it, like denouncing a tiger for killing his prey. Almost.

Avidor closes his letter with the following:

I welcome an opportunity to share what I know about PRT with the citizens and voters of Sherburne County in a forum or debate.

We all know what he "knows" about PRT - he presented his whole repertoire in the comment thread copied here. After we debunked every single point, he finally gave up with his traditional cop-out rejoinder, "whatever".

Something tells me he will be presenting these same talking points to the fine folks of Sherburne County - and in person, so he can spew his disinformation unchallenged.