Helping a Tortured Soul

Skipping around Memeorandum this morning I’ve read both Ace’s post on Charles Johnson’s attack on Rush Limbaugh and Mark Steyn’s Okay, Prove You Didn’t Say It and it occurred to me that we may be missing the big picture on Mr. Johnson.

I think it is becoming obvious that Mr. Johnson’s attacks are becoming more frequent, more angry and more unhinged. I am not a psychiatrist but has it occurred to anyone the Mr. Johnson may be mentally ill? Perhaps he really heard Rush say those things in his head. I am not sure we should be criticizing someone who is suffering from paranoia and is delusional.

I have heard of mental afflictions that can cause the sufferer to imagine that there are bogeymen (racists) everywhere just as Mr. Johnson does. In addition to irrational ranting, the afflicted also often develops an unusual affection for small farm animals. Does anyone know if Mr. Johnson has suddenly taken up an interest in goats? (I did hear a rumor about an unfortunate incident with a lizard but there is no word from Mr. Johnson on whether he was really performing oral sex on a reptile or if there is some other plausible explanation)

My point is, if, as it seems, Mr. Johnson has lost his mind, we in the blogging community should show him every kindness that he would show us were circumstances reversed. We should begin by gather and reporting any incidences of bizarre or deviant behavior, no matter how far fetched. There’s no such thing as ‘too much information’ when dealing with this sort of thing. Don’t worry about fact checking. If any of the info turns out to be incorrect, Mr. Johnson can simply disprove the negative later.

And remember that immortal line from James Kirkwood, Jr.’s novel P.S. Your Cat is Dead, “Never f*ck with the insane.”