Y'know, it's funny. I actually started my blogging career debunking Matthew Hoy's various diatribes about Paul Krugman and the supposedly liberal media in general. I left Hoy aside, though, because I realized that it was barely worth the effort; that I had better things to do. For that reason, I stopped reading and had lost track of Hoy. So it was with no small amount of amusement that I found that Hoy was still being roasted by TBOGG, a relatively new blogger himself, for the same old misinterpreting, overreacting, and just plain propagandizing:

For that matter, it doesn't have much to do with anything except for a perceived slight to the most oppressed of all religions: Christianity.

...like Krugman, Kristof uses any opportunity to take a cheap shot at a class of people he's probably never met

Ready for the cheap shot? Here it is, in Kristof's own words:

So how can we undermine North Korean propaganda and totalitarianism? By imposing sanctions and increasing its isolation? Or by engaging it and tying it to the global economy?

The answer should be obvious, for there is no greater subversive in a Communist country than an American factory manager. People will hear stories from his housemaid's third cousin's neighbor's friend about how he has five pairs of blue jeans (!), a beer belly (!), blows his nose on tissues that he then throws away (!), and reads a Bible (!) and Playboy magazine (!!). Many a Communist will immediately begin dreaming of capitalism.

Did you catch it? Look again. Got a magnifying glass? Oh, hell...let's let Brother Hoy 'splain it all to you:

Krugman was one of the first to start it when he popularized the trend of using Attorney General John Ashcroft's name as a synonym for Bigfoot, Big Brother and Josef Stalin all wrapped up in one.

Now, I don't really count Kristof's little jab as a serious slam against Christianity -- but it's one of those little things that I think is indicative of many in the liberal media. A little jab at the Christians is OK, and maybe even the Jews (those Israelis being so pesky and all), but a similar skewering of blacks, Latinos, gays, women? I seriously doubt would have made it past the Times copy editors -- if doing it had crossed Kristof's mind in the first place.

Apparently it was Kristof's mention of a Bible that got Hoy's Deuteronomies in a twist. Blue jeans, beer, tissues, BIBLE, Playboy magazine. It used to be that Christians became martyrs by being crucified for their beliefs. These days, one little prick on the finger is all it takes for them to start screaming "Stigmata!".

You know, they just don't make martyrs like they used to.

The nicest thing about the growth of liberalism in blogdom, honestly, is the knowledge that even in one's absence, reactionary drivel will be (entertainly) dealt with.