What is It with Charles Johnson?

By Nicholas Stix

For those who haven’t heard of him, Charles Johnson is the proprietor of a once- popular, once-influential Republican blog called Little Green Footballs. Presently, Johnson is the proprietor of a popular, influential, Democratic blog called
Little Green Footballs. (See also here.)

In “LGF’s Lunacy Comes Full Circle,” at Man Sized Target, Chris Roach has done a better job of succinctly describing LGF than I ever could (see below).

A few years ago, I tried to post a comment at LGF, but I couldn’t. You had to register at the blog itself, and only during certain times. And that wasn’t one of the authorized, official registration times. Since Johnson was already purging anyone not in lockstep with him, and I was going to criticize him, he would have censored and purged me, anyway, so I didn’t bother, and stopped reading his blog.

(I’m funny that way. I tend to lose interest in blogs where I can’t comment. That’s one of many reasons why I rarely visit Michelle Malkin’s blogs, which have a similarly cult-like character. A few years ago, I wanted to post a comment at one of them, only to be informed that one could only post if one had previously registered, and “Comments registration is now closed.” Comments registration is always closed. Her gofers must privately invite cronies and cultists to register. Otherwise, her readership would die off, or otherwise wither away, through attrition.)

At least, Malkin doesn’t engage in the bizarre political switcheroos that Johnson does. She’s good on immigration, but cowardly, lazy, and dishonest on race, a combination which is, I suppose, as good as one may expect from a syndicated, Republican writer. But somewhere along the line, she went from being an important, full-time journalist to a GOP diva who occasionally does good work. See here, here, and here. But when she does good work on a topic I’m writing on, I still give her credit.)

At the time, Johnson was still very pro-Israel, pro-Iraq war, patriotic, and anti-Moslem. Now, he is, apparently, the opposite, or darned close to it. Writes Roach,

Legend in his own mind, Charles Johnson has come full circle with his blog, Little Green Footballs. It began as a fairly ordinary blog. In the wake of 9/11 it became fiercely pro-American and pro-Israel and did a great deal to collect extensive evidence of Muslim double talk, craziness, violence, and insanity, particularly in the borderlands of the Muslim World. It also did much to show the western media’s duplicity, pointing out doctored photos in the Israeli-Lebanon war of 2006 and the infamous faked memo in Dan Rather’s attempted expose of Bush’s national guard service.

Then, it started to go bad. There were many purges. Nationalists, Europeans, Christians, and others opposed to Muslim extremism were castigated for being insufficiently pure ideologically and too extreme, even though Johnson’s ideology was unclear, ever changing, and overly connected to personalities. Then people were purged simply for offending Johnson’s delicate sensibilities. He finally came out for Obama, purged even more longtime allies and commenters, and now, having come full circle with his liberal instincts, is knocking American politicians uneasy with the 9/11 Victory Mosque....

I asked Roach what he thought was up with Johnson. Is he insane; a complete and ruthless opportunist, who puts his finger to the wind and acts accordingly, his previous statements notwithstanding; or is there some third possibility I’d neglected? A third option occurred to me, and I asked Roach if Johnson had fallen in love at some point with a girl whose politics were diametrically opposed to his, and he submitted, in order to stay in her good graces?

Roach responded,

“I think he was a center left guy, jolted by Islamic attacks on 9/11, and in love with Israel, but hostile to Christianity, the historical West, and Europe, and, finally, kind of liked Obama. Plus he’s crazy.”

Works for me.