In defense of William Arkin (UPDATE)

Arkin has brought out the whetstoned best among the blogosphere. Let's face it, knowing John Kerry isn't running may have dispirited a few of us, and made us wonder whether blogging would still be fun without a poofy-haired nuance-monger to kick around. Oh, he's still around, and he's still saying and doing really abysmally stupid things, but as just another liberal Senator, some of the thrill has gone away.

Enter Washington Post columnist William Arkin. Though he lacks the poofy hair, he has continued to defend his outrageous smears against the American military. No, he can't possibly fill candidate John Kerry's handsewn Italian tassel loafers, but he's stepping up to act like a big self-important tool and take some hard hits for the team.

Whatever team he's on.

Iowahawk has another 'defense' of Arkin, and Ham and Geoff weigh in nicely as well. And Powerline critiques his especially lame non-apology:

Mercenary, of course, is an insult and pejorative, and it does not accurately describe the condition of the American soldier today. I sincerely apologize to anyone in the military who took my words literally.

Which is just an inverse take on Kerry's botched joke: if you're serving in Iraq, you probably got sent there because you lack the education to parse out my highfalutin' metaphors.

By the way, I apologize to Mr. Arkin if he takes my provocative description of him as a "self-important tool" literally. In its literal meaning, a "tool" is something useful.

(P.S. Absolutely this post title was calculated to get hits off of RSS feeders. You got a problem wid dat?)

UPDATE: Back here I predicted Hewitt was already phoning up Arkin for a flensing interview. He was, and Arkin just turned him down. Shame. But I'd be lying pretty low, too, if I had just shot myself in the feet as many time as Arkin has this week.