Deb Frisch Hates Jeff Goldstein

The ultimate blogosphere narcissist became a caricature of the lengths someone consumed with identity-politics will go to demonize another who out-thinks and argues them ideologically. Frisch's mental behavior toward Jeff Goldstein is supposedly a lesson for the ages according to Wendy McElroy at Fox News. She says:

So what, beyond bad jokes, can be gleaned from the Great Blogosphere Brawl?

I return to the opening sentence of this column, "[B]logs reveal the emotions churning beneath the surface of hard news." It is not possible to understand the headlines without appreciating what drives this issue into prominence and that attitude into disrepect. The motor is often a raw unrepentant rage that takes no ideological prisoners on either side of the left-right divide.

The rabid them-or-us attitude must not be allowed to guide mainstream advocacy. It should be exposed for what it is: ugly and destructive to everyone.

You know what? Bull crap. I watched the Frish episode unfold. The woman is nuts. Her pathology runs from delusional thinking, to narcissism, to psychopathology, to mania. But even those are just psychobabble labels. (History here.)

Her attacks on Goldstein were ad hominem. She never had an argument. She wasn't funny. She didn't have a wry take. Nothing. I got the feeling, watching her come undone, that she felt entitled to personally attack Goldstein because he is male, heterosexual and a father. Because he is "traditional", he deserved her deep well of hatred. Otherwise, why attack his wife? His child?

He also is successful. He is funny. He is an educator. He is smart. In short, he is and has everything she isn't and lacks. Her obsession indicates envious rage and jealousy. When she wasn't even worthy of Jeff's scorn, the facade--thin sham that it was--fell.

She did not attack ideology so much as she attacked identity. Her life is defined by her identity. The worst form of insult would be to attack someone else's identity. So when she went for the jugular, she went at his person and what he values and she despises most (I'm assuming): his family.

I shudder at the notion that Deb Frisch represents "the left" (if she does, the left is sorrier that I ever imagined) and Jeff Goldstein "the right" and that's where their problems started. That's assuming an substantive exchange. No, Jeff Goldstein represents ideas. Deb Frish finds his ideas abhorent. And since Deb Frisch represents an identity based on feelings but no defendable ideological foundation, when a true argument starts, she has nowhere to go intellectually. So she went to the place most comfortable to her: attacking Jeff's sexuality, attacking his wife's sexuality and, worst of all and most bizarre, attacking his son's sexuality.

Deb Frisch would hate Jeff Goldstein's ideas if she understood them. What she really hates is the notion of a happily married man, with a beautiful child living the professional life she could only dream about. Jeff Goldstein is living the American dream. And that's what she despises.

Via Instapundit