James B. Webb Apologizes

I've had a couple of e-mails today regarding the latest round with James B. Webb ("Blacks as Monkeys? Even When Leftists Hit Bottom, They Keep Digging"). I'm sharing them here without additional commentary. James B. Webb's apology follows. This should end the matter for now.

Commenter Gregory Koster (not of CUNY) sent me the following e-mail, published with his permission:

Dear Mr. Douglas:

I am Gregory Koster, an occasional commenter at your blog AMERICAN POWER. I am writing you privately to express sympathy at having that odious James Webb throwing tar at you. Simultaneously, I think you are caught in a no win situation. He is winning in the sense that every post you devote to him takes away from the posts that are the reason everyone should read AP. He is most unlikely to apologize to you, nor to drop this vendetta. I think you would be better off ignoring him. To be sure, he will bray loudly about your being afraid to engage him, but after all, his blog gets many fewer readers than AP has. Each time you link to him, he gets readers that make a great audience for him. The reverse is not true.

In your AP Blogger profile, you write: "Yet in friendship, you'll find no one more dignified, trustworthy, nor loyal."

Trustworthy and loyal I believe. Responding to Webb is costing you dignity. To what end? Short of violence, he's not going to stop. I don't think his psyche will allow him to stop. Best, I think, to let him go. What harm can his cawing do you, professionally, or as a blogger?

I am sure following such advice would exact a price from you, in allowing him to crow. But this price can easily be paid by concentrating on AP blogging, and considering that every time he crows or throws tar, he is under your control, and is spending time from his allotted lifespan that he won't get back. That's one way to improve this world.

To this end, I've stopped reading your posts on Webb. The moment I see his name, I go to the next entry.

As for me: I can't prove it, but I hope you'll accept that I'm just a reader who stumbled onto your blog (from one of RS McCain's links, I think) and enjoys reading all but Webb. I write solely because Webb is getting in the way of my reading. I don't know you, nor Webb. Reading this puts you under no obligation to do anything. I am grateful to you for reading.

I know you are busy, so please don't trouble to answer this.

Sincerely yours,

Gregory Koster

Another reader, who prefers to stay anonymous, was very upset today. She sent me this on Comrade Comrade Repsac3, in response to this comment at the blog (by permission):

Donald:

I can't believe that Repsac3 is still sticking his nose into this thing. It looks like the others could just stay out of it, and allow you and JBW settle things between yourselves. That's the way they operate, though ... like members of a gang, ganging up on a single individual. I guess they believe in power in numbers ... several of them against you. They are the most disgusting group of men that I have ever had the displeasure of learning about ... if, indeed, they can be called 'men.' They are more like a bunch of bullying, juvenile delinquents. I've a good mind to go to another of my screen names and comment, I'm so disgusted. If I did that, I wouldn't be posting as anonymous, and they wouldn't be able to come to my blog, via yours. I'll have to give that some thought.

Here's James B. Webb's apology. I accept it for what it is:

I'm sorry, Don. I'm sorry that you seem to take yourself and the rest of the world so seriously that you have no discernable sense of humor to speak of. I'm also sorry that you can not grasp the concept that a handicapped person could be included even tangentially in a joke about someone else without that handicapped person being the butt of the joke, nor that you can not grasp that a black person who doesn't look obviously black by most objective measurements and rarely identifies himself as such could be included in a joke about fighting a fictional monkey without that black person also being called a monkey. I like handicapped people, neoconservatives, black people and monkeys and I call many from every group friends. I'm sorry that you can't view the world without confusing several of these hominids in your blindingly righteous indignation.