ARI Clarification not Quite Enough

Last week, I blogged about James Taranto's dishonest, classless, and disappointing smear of the Ayn Rand Institute as "idiotarians" because of a press release by the ARI that questioned whether our government should be involved in relief efforts. I was glad to see that they have since issued this clarification (via Martin Lindeskog). (It also appears with the original statement here on a non-ARI site.)

I fully agree with the clarification, but though ARI still has the original op-ed here, there is no link directly to the clarification! This is a serious oversight that basically allows the original attack to go unanswered. Many BOTW readers may not have the time to hunt for the clarification or may not think to look for it. I emailed ARI with the recommendation that they add such a link. I'll update this as it unfolds. In the meantime, any interested readers can make the same request here.

So I've asked ARI whether they'll do a better job defending themselves. Now I've a question for James Taranto: will he cite Greg Ferrando as an idiotarian? (1-10: He did.) Michelle Malkin nailed him to the wall pretty well, except for the bit about the anti-capitalist pig being "selfish." Since when are natural disasters in anyone's actual self-interest? A more accurate term would be "self-centered."

-- CAV

Updates:

1-10-05: Added link to a later post.
1-17-05: Added a link to another later post.