Fight on the Right: Mark Levin Bad Mouths Paul Mirengoff of Powerline

Mark Levin Feeling Nasty

Mark Levin has been verbally duking it out with other conservatives who are skeptical of Christine O'Donnell.  O'Donnell is the Tea Party choice for Senator from Delaware.  She is opposed by Republican Mike Castle, the incumbent.  O'Donnell and Castle are vying for the primary battle tomorrow, when the GOP's candidate will be chosen by the voters.  The winner will then go on to the general election in November to oppose whoever the Democrat candidate is.

O'Donnell is said to be more conservative than RINO Mike Castle. Paul Mirengoff of Powerline felt that O'Donnell couldn't win, as she has been less than accurate in some of her public statements (Mirengoff says she was untruthful, not just wrong). He said:

Finally, though, we get to Delaware. There, in one of America's bluest states, the Tea Party Express and other activists are backing arch-conservative Christine O'Donnell. But there's no good case to made that O'Donnell is electable. She was trounced by Joe Biden, 65-35, last time out and she trails the Democrat running this time by about 10 percentage points.

Moreover, questions surround O'Donnell's finances. As I wrote here, I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt until I see concrete evidence of wrongdoing. But that won't stop O'Donnell from being hammered and ridiculed if she is nominated.

In addition, O'Donnell lately has displayed poor judgment and a lack of regard for the truth. She claimed in a radio interview that she had carried two of three Delaware counties in her race against Biden. Actually, she carried none. And, when asked about the Rasmussen poll showing her well behind the Democrat, she suggested that Rasmussen was fudging his results to favor the Republican establishment.

It's one thing to be strongly conservative; it's another to be paranoid.

Meanwhile, conservative lion Mark Levin endorsed O'Donnell for the seat, and did not appreciate Mirengoff's critical remarks. Levin responded:

Must be nice to sit on your ass in some law office in Washington lecturing tea party activists and others with such dripping arrogance and ignorance. We're confronting the most radical administration certainly in my lifetime, and Mirengoff blows off the grassroots movement that is doing more to bring constitutional government back to this nation than any other. No, all candidates are not perfect. That's not the nature of politics. And spewing the opposition research found on other sites, leaked in part by a party to a lawsuit involving the conservative candidate, is lazy and unfair. In fact, I notice nowhere in his superficial post does Mirengoff point out any establishment Republicans with defects, with temper issues, with Keating Five issues, etc., etc. Apparently there's one test for conservative candidates and another for establishment Republican candidates.

Mirengoff responded to Levin's attack, saying that Levin misrepresented his remarks, assigns positions to Mirengoff that the latter never voiced, and that Levin's comments were inaccurate or dishonest.  Mirengoff writes:

Levin's response consists mostly of a series of misstatements about me and misrepresentations of what I argued. The misstatements undermine his ad hominem arguments. The use of straw men undermines his more substantive ones. 

I agree with Mirengoff that Levin was dishonest and unfair in his rebuttal.  Furthermore, Levin was no gentleman, resorting to ad hominem attacks.  Frankly, Levin comes across as a mean-spirited blowhard in this disagreement.

Patterico's Pontifications read the posts I describe above and came to the same conclusion that I did:  that Mark Levin is behaving like an ass. Patterico said:

UPDATE: You know, I finally read through Levin’s Facebook post, and Paul Mirengoff’s post that Levin distorts. I am ready to jump into the war.

Levin’s post is packed with mischaracterizations. Just chock full of them. Expressed with the dripping arrogance of someone who apparently feels that, because he is better known than Mirengoff, he is entitled to say whatever he feels like about him — and the facts be damned.

I suppose caring about the facts probably makes me an inauthentic conservative in Mark Levin’s eyes. I don’t care. I’ll go with the facts, every time. Every time.

Levin replied to Patterico's post by calling him "an idiot and an ass."

Meanwhile, PPP polling shows the race between O'Donnell and Castle a dead heat.  I am not enthused about either candidate after reading the strange background of O'Donnell (she sued a conservative organization, claiming gender bias, and later dropped the suit) and Castle's less-than-conservative voting record.

However, I think I would go with O'Donnell and take my chances.  I've had it with RINOs.  Sarah Palin has endorsed O'Donnell, and even more important, Robert Stacy McCain has endorsed O'Donnell, and that counts a lot with me.

However, Mark Levin is still a prize ass for his thuggish behavior in this dispute.
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