For Crying Out Loud….

Setting aside the question of whether or not a “clerisy” exists in economic or environmental policy (although I’ve heard from a lot of people who believe that just such a “clerisy” exists in both foreign and domestic economic policy, and that it plays precisely the same role there that the “foreign policy community” does), what the hell is this supposed to mean:

Still Dan Drezner is very serious and we should be listening to him. He’s been right about so many things, and he’s got the number of that patchouli stinking Greenwald.

Really, what am I supposed to take away from that? Sure, Drezner has been wrong on plenty of things; does it therefore follow that I am never again to read his blog? Or that I can read his blog, but simply ignore the places in which he disagrees with Glenn Greenwald? If I disagree with Glenn (which I’ve certainly done in the past) and agree with Dan, should this be a moment of deep introspection, and cause me to reconsider my whatever political positions I hold? It would seem that the sensible position would be to read both and evaluate the strength of the arguments, which is, I think, what I did here. Now, if I had made an argument from authority while relying on Dan Drezner, I think there would be fair reason to critique, but I defy anyone to argue I was invoking Dan’s authority rather than quoting Dan’s blog post…