When a tree doesn’t fall in the forest

A reader criticizes Josh Marshall for not decrying Nicholas Berg’s murder. Marshall responds:

You’ve just misjudged how I run the site and why I do so. I don’t write about everything I think. I don’t write just to say that X is good or Y is bad. I write when I feel I have something I can add to a discussion, and only then. I could write a post saying that I thought Berg’s execution was horrifying and awful and that I couldn’t get to sleep last night because the ugliness of the images wouldn’t leave my mind. But what would that tell you? That al Qaida is awful and that I think they’re awful too? Perhaps I simply have nothing to add. The online world has lots of vociferous me-too-ism, going on record saying in fist-clenched tones things I think we all know we all feel. That’s fine; I just don’t like doing that. Once, when I wrote nothing about a rapid series of court decisions touching on gay rights issues, one reader wrote in and attacked me mercilessly for being homophobic since clearly, he reasoned, I had judged these to be of no importance. He was wrong; and you’ve made the same misjudgment. This isn’t a publication of record. And you’re not in a position to judge what I think based on my silence.