I don't have a problem with the smackdown of Chelsea at all. But if you read his blog account, it is dripping with self-aggrandizement as he describes blow-by-blow how he destroyed her argument and how flabbergasted he was that "Chelsea read my tweet". The twitter exchange should have stood on its own. His recounting of the exchange on his blog reminded me of the commercial in which a fisherman describes his battle to land a huge ferocious fish, which turns out to be about the size of a sardine.
You know, there’s self-aggrandizement in FR dialogue, too. More often than not. But that’s not surprising at all.
I think he was understandably surprised—as I was—that in order to defend herself Clinton ended up defended a phrase discussing evil.
This is like an iceberg, 90% of which is below the waterline.
In the exchanges of 140 character tweets between Robin and Clinton, there's no real argument.
It's not clear what it's about.
They're just trading insults.
After Corey Robin explained his view at excruciating length, I could see that he was probably right about the use of the phrase, but just from the tweets alone, it was impossible to tell what the whole disagreement was actually about.
My takeaways:
1) Twitter is useless for serious discussion.
2) Corey Robin is obsessive, forever splitting picayune hairs, arrogant when he thinks he's right, and unwilling to admit that he may be wrong (all of which those who read his books may already have figured out).
3) There are people on the left who really hate Chelsea Clinton and her parents and wish Chelsea would just go away.