Good News: All the Real Nazis Are Dead<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Looks like I'm good and busted, for breaking Godwin's Law. Last night, I published blog post, arguing that pundits and Americans in general would do well\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/2011\/05\/04\/good-news-all-the-real-nazis-are-dead\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Good News: All the Real Nazis Are Dead\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Looks like I'm good and busted, for breaking Godwin's Law. 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{"id":27838,"date":"2011-05-04T17:45:38","date_gmt":"2011-05-04T17:45:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/theanchoress\/?p=27838"},"modified":"2017-03-07T20:42:12","modified_gmt":"2017-03-07T20:42:12","slug":"good-news-all-the-real-nazis-are-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/2011\/05\/04\/good-news-all-the-real-nazis-are-dead\/","title":{"rendered":"Good News: All the Real Nazis Are Dead"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Looks like I\u2019m good and busted, for breaking Godwin\u2019s Law.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Last night, I published blog post,<\/strong><\/a> arguing that pundits and Americans in general would do well not to police too closely one another\u2019s gut-level reactions to bin Laden\u2019s death. It\u2019s big; people\u2019s feelings are bound to be strong, strongly mixed, or both.<\/p>\n

Titling the piece \u201cDown with Reaction Nazis,\u201d I cited among the guilty Joan Walsh; for a piece she published in Salon;<\/strong><\/a> Jim Geraghty, for his rebuttal in his National Review<\/i> blog;<\/strong><\/a> and (by way of setting up context) Leon Wieseltier, for his too-sharp criticism <\/a> of Adam Gopnik\u2019s post-9\/11 meditation, \u201cThe City and the Pillars<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Today, Mr. Geraghty has blogged in protest<\/strong><\/a> of what he considers a mis-characterization:<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll readily cede him the point. Calling someone a Nazi or any other kind ototalitarian is a big deal, and should be. I had not imagined that anyone would take the comparison literally. Mr. Geraghty\u2019s just too un-Nazi like for that. But then, that faith is always easier to come by when someone else\u2019s good name is at stake.<\/p>\n

Once, in the combox, under a Patheos article I\u2019d published, someone wrote that my bishop looked to her like a living representative of \u201cthe banality of evil.\u201d Hannah Arendt originally coined the phrase in honor of Adolf Eichmann. The poster seemed to mean it seriously, so I shot back an angry response.<\/p>\n

So, for the record, Jim Geraghty is neither a Nazi, nor a communist. (Unlike Joan Walsh, he doesn\u2019t sound like a schoolmarm, either.) And as I hope he gathered from reading my blog post, I\u2019d be the first to defend his right to pump his fist in the air over bin Laden\u2019s death. Like the legal principle goes, his right to pump his fist should only end where my nose begins.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"