So, I sent them a reply using the contact form on their site. Here it is:
Cherrypicking a quote from my blog about Leo Frank -- evidently to "prove" anti-semitism on my blog -- is at best misleading because the quote is lifted from its context. The context demonstrates that my blog essay, "More Sesquicentennial Slime", is not anti-semitic in any way; it is anti-Jill Howard Church and anti-the manipulation and mendacity in her editorial.I think I made my case to the objective and thoughtful. Of course, those who are determined to see a racist and an anti-semite behind every blog won't be impressed.In your rush to find (or create) anti-semitism, you had to leave out most of the paragraph in which that quote appears. How honest is that? Did you even read it? Of course, you couldn't paste the whole paragraph on your site because it clearly demonstrates that my comments were not an anti-semitic insult to Leo Frank and were not intended as such, but were made to show my contempt for Jill Howard Church's claims, and her dishonest presentation of them. Her cynical use of the Leo Frank case to smear the people of Peachtree City (by associating them with violence for their commemoration of Confederate history) is odious.
Here's the context, including the entire paragraph you intentionally truncated:
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CHURCH: There were also thousands of Jewish soldiers, but their service was conveniently forgotten once the Klan showed up (just ask Leo Frank).ME: Well, since Leo Frank has been dead since 1915, we can't exactly ask him, can we? However, perhaps you will kindly point me to any published work by Leo Frank that indicates he knew the service of Jews to the Confederacy was "conveniently forgotten" after the KKK showed. Oh, and which KKK are you talking about, by the way? There have been several "incarnations" of the Klan. If you are facetiously referring to Frank's lynching by the "Knights of Mary Phagan," that has nothing to do with Jewish service to the Confederacy, or the commemoration of it. Yes, Ms. Church, I'm being as deliberately obtuse as you are. Only I'm not being nearly as dishonest as you are.
------------------So, do you folks at Exposing and Fighting, etc., truly believe that the Frank case somehow proves that the service of Jewish soldiers to the Confederacy was "conveniently forgotten" once the Klan showed up? (The Klan "showed up," BTW, in 1865, eighteen years before Leo Frank was born.) Or that Frank had knowledge that proves it? If you believe that, I'm sure you have a reliable source to document it -- unlike Ms. Church. You can post it in the comments section of my blog. However, if you know it's not true, you're being as dishonest about it as Church is.
How is it anti-semitic to tell my readers why Leo Frank cannot prove what Church is using him, unsuccessfully, to prove? It is Ms. Church's patronizing and gratuitous inclusion of Frank in an article that had nothing to do with him, solely to smear Georgians as violent haters indifferent to the law, that you should be upset about.
Yes, my reply to her was flippant and rude, because that's what her claims deserve. But flippant and rude are not synonymous with anti-semitic.
Connie Chastain
One thing this experience does prove is that political correctness is not only pernicious to free speech rights -- it's also making succeeding generations of Americans dumber than boxes of rocks, unable to relate on any level except hyper-sensitive emotionalism.
Thanks for posting this Connie. Your loyalty and support of our southern heritage is inspiring and I like the way you don't let anybody get away with anything that is untrue.
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