Tom Maguire, friend

First, it's good to know that Tom Maguire's (seemingly) reading this relatively unknown little blog.

For starters, he pointed out a typo. That's useful, right? And, in my gainfully-employed days before the Libby verdict, I had a blast working with him on this article. If you read it, and I hope you do, you'll find it fascinating and you'll notice that Tom got a lot of things spectacularly wrong. But it was a fun exercise nonetheless.

Additionally, though, he makes the following points in response to my Hillary post below:

"I concede that sexism--both latent and overt--is part of the reason she polls so low with men" Are you conceding that you yourself are sexist? Or are you graciously conceding that, despite the high-minded example of those such as yourselves, *other* men are sexist? I am quite sure it is not your place to make that concession on behalf of others. However, if you want to concede your suspicion that sexism is a factor, that would not antagonize me.

I think this point, boiled down, is "sexism only exists or can only be identified when people are willing to admit that they are sexists." Which, while hilarious, is actually nonsense.

More Tom:

"As pernicious as gender-driven antagonism is to determining who should be president, I think gender-driven camaraderie is, in its own right, harmful to answering the same question." Good point.

I AGREE!

More Tom:

For my money, MS. Franke-Ruta seems to be telling us that TAPPED has: (a) a bunch of male writers who are just average guys, with average education, average political views (and average blue-collar jobs?), and (b) a bunch of women pundits too shy to actually express their views and risk a confrontation. Cancel my subscription.

Interesting. But the point of my post is that Garance (Ms. Franke-Ruta) is, ahem, wrong. So if Tom disagrees, and is more persuaded by her argument, then I suppose, yes, he should cancel his subscription. I don't think that's the case though (see second blockquote). I, for the record, am an ardent supporter of people renewing (or beginning anew) their subscriptions to the Prospect.