Obama v. MLK

Instapundit seems to think that Barack Obama's accomplishments eclipse, rather than validate, the life and work of Martin Luther King, Jr.

I feel a little sorry for Martin Luther King — his enormous accomplishments got less attention than they deserved because of the cult of Malcolm X, and now he’s being eclipsed by Barack Obama. Though I suppose he’d be perfectly okay with that.

What on earth does any of that mean? What are black people to do, hold ourselves back to avoid "eclipsing" those who came before us to pave the way?

I don't know what is more ridiculous: the observation itself, or the implication that I'm supposed to believe Glenn Reynolds gives a crap about the legacy of MLK.

For the record, Dr. King would be more than "okay" with Obama's victory. This moment in American history is what he lived and died for.

It was actually the whole point of all that "content of their character" stuff.

Neologism

On Thursday, Glenn Greenwald posted a commentary from University of Colorado law professor Paul Campos as part of a back-and-forth with rightwing blogger and law professor Glenn Reynolds. It began when Reynolds, proprietor of the Instapundit blog, advocated the U.S. government-sponsored assasinations of Iranian nuclear scientists.

In the course of their open exchange on this topic, Reynolds used a made up expression, "beclowned," to refer to Prof. Campos.

In response, Campos wrote the following which appeared on Greenwald's blog:

One could linger over such symptomatic features as the pompous neologism ("beclowned") deployed as a substitute for argument; the assumption that scholarly expertise can be acquired by a ten-minute Google search; the subsequent citation of "authorities" of whose existence the author was unaware ten minutes earlier; or the inevitable if rather surreal violation of Godwin's Law (we bombed the Nazis so what's wrong with assassinating Iranian civilians?).

Neologism

Main Entry: ne·ol·o·gism
Pronunciation: nE-'ä-l&-"ji-z&m
Function: noun
Etymology: French néologisme, from ne- + log- + -isme -ism
1 : a new word, usage, or expression
2 : a meaningless word coined by a psychotic

Yeah, I'd say that just about sums it up.

Point, Campos!