During the 2004 presidential campaign, Charles Johnson and Little Green Footballs effectively destroyed Dan Rather’s career by the simple act of posting an animated GIF file superimposing the bogus National Guard memorandum over a duplicate that he had created in Microsoft Word. For nearly four years, reading LGF was a daily ritual for me. I appreciated Johnson’s laconic wit and biting humor, seemingly employed for conservative ends. Johnson was one of the founders of Pajamas Media and his place among the founders of the conservative blogosphere seemed secure.
Then Johnson changed.
I began to notice a creeping hostility to anyone who would question evolutionary theory. To question was to be anti-science, followed by outright attacks on religious people generally and Christians in particular. Then Johnson began to characterize various groups as fascist and to denounce anyone associating with them. His tone became angrier until his famous “break” with conservatism last fall. His commentary is now pretty much indistinguishable from the average nutroot at the Daily Kos.
Johnson has now picked a very public fight with Jim Hoft, the Gateway Pundit. Hoft has been leading the charge against Kevin Jennings, founder of the “Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network” and now Hope ‘n Change’s “safe schools czar”, who openly promotes grotesquely obscene reading materials for children as young as six. This is no slander – Hoft has carefully documented the Jennings’ reading list in nauseating detail.
In keeping with his new persona, Johnson’s characterized Hoft as “homophobic” while refusing to address Jennings’ reading list. When Hoft characterized Johnson’s attack as support for child pornography, Johnson threatened a libel suit. Hoft has refused to back down and in a blog post today recapitulated the controversy and invited Johnson to denounce Jennings’ pornographic reading list.
Hoft’s posting is worth reading and serves to illustrate the strangeness that is now Charles Johnson.
