This is too choice. It just doesn’t work to try to bring down the level of discourse in order to shout down the more intelligent and well-thought-out arguments of your opponents. Kevin James, a conservative radio host, was on Hardball to defend President Bush’s comments that anyone who talks with the enemy is in essence a Nazi appeaser.

He must be a smart guy. They say he used to be a federal prosecutor, but you’d never know it from this clip. He forgot to read the history of which he was speaking. Since he didn’t appear to have any knowledge about what it was that Neville Chamberlain did that made him go down in history as an “appeaser”, instead of letting it go, Matthews called him on it. Twenty-eight times he had the opportunity to explain what he was talking about.

I’m laughing too hard…

A commenter to Jonathan Kay’s Blog entry on the subject felt that not only the net effect of the incident but the intended effect was to lower the standard of discourse. That Matthews knew James was not a moving target when he invited him onto the show, demonstrated by the fact that the opening question to him was, “Why are you screaming?” That Matthews and his other guest should have taken this as an opportunity to educate listeners to James on the actual history of the topic.

But Kevin James is a big boy. If he wants to play with the big boys, he needs to know his stuff. He was more than willing to shout the same stuff over and over again, and I’m sure if he was interviewing a liberal nemesis who didn’t know what he or she was talking about, he’d proceed to belittle and humiliate them about it.

It’s not really like shooting fish in a barrel. After all, the fish didn’t volunteer to be in a barrel, and they didn’t volunteer to be fish. It’s more like showing up at an ironman competition having forgotten that you needed to train. Or even forgetting to bring your bicycle and running shoes.

“Conservatives” a/k/a neocon crackpot talking heads are having an impact on thought in this country, all right. But the impact they are having is entertaining the rest of us while giving conservatism a bad name, without any help from outsiders. Thanks for making it harder for Americans to take “conservatives” like John McCain seriously, Kevin. Obama supporters thank you.