Coyne "Logic": Adultery = Bank Robbery

In his latest column, as predicted, Coyne tries to justify himself, the Star & all the condom-sniffers. Careful readers will note, however, that the whole argument rests on false equivalence between adultery and back robbery?!  Later on, after allowing there might actually be limits to the public sphere, a second equivalence, that adultery = drug addiction (alcoholism in specific case), is his justification for specific Giambrone case. So I'll go out on a limb and say, yes, I think bank robbery in one's spare time, as a very illegal and violent act, is of public interest. And further, if a sitting politician or statesman has a drug addiction that may be affecting his duties, then that may to be fair game (though an awful lot of them - Macdonald, McGee, etc. - may have been better at their jobs because of it, but that's by the by). And hey, one could make the same claim for sex addiction, if one had serious evidence. But that wasn't the G case: one girlfriend, one mistress. And I'll go further, that Lewinsky affair, while the greyest of the grey, the murkiest of the murky, may have been of public interest because we learnt that Clinton was engaged in sex acts while literally in office, in discussions, supposedly "at work". To the extent that the affair distracted him from fulfilling his duties, and given the other party actually worked a few feet away, so may have had a low-level distracting effect at all times, then that argument could be made. Given how Republicans and Starr behaved and tenor of the times, I would argue against it, but a legitimate argument could be made.

But none of these situations applied to G. No evidence of sufficient illegality. None of any effect on his duties. Nothing that indicated some great psychosis, beyond typical "politicianitis", that meant the good, pure innocent people of Toronto were being affected by his behaviour in any substantive way. Nothing. Nada. There was no public interest. As a result, this was irresponsible journalism, in which others, who should have known better, participated by whipping up the mob further, rather than restraining it.

My favourite Coyne column was the one which had the best chance of getting him lynched, when during the ice storm he informed us humble Montrealers, from the secure heights of warm, hydrated (and pure!) Toronto, that profiteering was actually an excellent thing and we should thank our lucky stars the market was working so efficiently in rationing vital goods. Had he walked into my cafe, where papers are passed around, the locals would have lynched him, honestly. But I enjoyed it, because it was the most Coynish thing ever, an absolute determination to maintain the early-19th century liberal position no matter what, to be coherent to the end. Hilarious and fantastic, in all senses.

So I think this column falls far short of that standard, whence the silly equivalences and wonky logic. And that's a disappointment, because if people expect one thing of Coyne, it's coherence. But from the outside I would guess that the hothouse of Toronto politics and society affected a lot of people's judgement on the Giambrone affair. And I think the silly logic is an expression of a guilty conscience, being so un-Coyne-like. He would have done better, as the Star and all condom-sniffers would, to simply admit he lost his head and got the matter wrong. It happens to all of us. It's OK, it's human. But to  try to post-facto justify the unjustifiable - well I don't know about the rest, but I would have thought Coyne was better than that. Better luck next time, I guess (hope).

20/12/10 20h45 : PS. It occurred to me at time, but was writing at Apple Store, and just slammed thing out, and forgot, but that un-Coyne-like column, were the ridiculous false analogies ridiculous on purpose? Was he appearing to defend position while actually, through choice of analogies, admitting error? Was it all a very clever inside joke? Was the clue that it was indeed so un-Coyne-like?  Maybe he was just being extremely subversive. He has been experimenting with subtlety recently. If so, then I say bravo! That makes more sense to me. Obviously, there has to be a reason the entire weight of the argument's architecture is perched on two pink plastic drink straws, inviting its toppling. I prefer this interpretation, as it turns a silly argument into a brilliant self-critique and apology. Maybe that's what English and all the others were doing too. They were all being crazy incoherent on purpose, as the best way to highlight their disgust with Diebel & Star, which internal media and office politics make difficult to criticise openly. If so, bravo to you all, best performance art ever! Now, the Coyne case is clearer, as his argument was so suspiciously  absurd and out of character, upon reflection. With the others it's harder to tell if they were being absurd on purpose or not, but that only makes their art even better, of course. If this was the case, though, I would counsel them to be wary of repetition, as it's hard enough to get a grip of reality as things stand. Any more of these comic illusions and the whole thing's going to end as like an Ionesco play. Yet another reason to favour serious regulation.