[muleboy]

Of course Mencken would sock it to conservative, religious, political and business leaders, but he was even more scathing with liberal or radical "idealists" and "crusaders." His denunciations of Puritans apply equally to the Ralph Naders and Hillary Clintons as to the Fallwells or Robertsons. Mencken knew language. He wielded it like a saber or a rapier, but not like a "surgical laser," unless Dr. Evil was working it. Striking the deepest blow and drawing blood were more important to Mencken than precision or accuracy or fairness.

I consider Mencken's insight of the nature of man rivalled only by Twain, Vidal, and Hunter Thompson. All of whom wrote well of man's inherent inadequacies when the subject turned to "virtue" and "power".

You say that HLM's denunciations apply equally across the ideological spectrum and then claim that his attacks were motivated more by malice than by reason. Do you have a specific critique in mind when you say that HLM was imprecise, inaccurate, and unfair?

[x]

You say that HLM's denunciations apply equally across the ideological spectrum and then claim that his attacks were motivated more by malice than by reason. Do you have a specific critique in mind when you say that HLM was imprecise, inaccurate, and unfair?

Surely there was more to Christianity than Mencken was willing to credit. If there had been as little in it as Mencken allowed would it have lasted two millennia?

I thought his article on Lincoln at Gettysburg didn't address the real issues of the speech, but oversimplified. But let's take the other point of view: surely there was more to the evangelical, "Jeffersonian" South than Mencken allowed in his writing on the Scopes trial. Mencken's picture of it was very scathing.

I guess it depends on what you are looking for. You won't find the balanced "on the one hand ..., on the other hand ..." in Mencken. He presents you with only one side of the story, which you can accept or reject as you choose.

On the other hand, there was a certain sympathy or complicity that entered into his obituaries on those like Bryan, Harding or Coolidge that he had savaged when alive. And that is to his credit.

The question that you raise is an excellent one. I think Mencken was more interested in expressing his own views and writing with zest than in power or coercion, hating or punishing. Therefore, he was capable of being truly scathing in some articles written in the heat of the moment, and of being more understanding and forgiving at other times. But reading some of the individual articles or those of Mencken's imitators one doesn't see this depth.

I do have to admit that Mencken was capable of fairness and accuracy, but much of what's remembered from his work is the savage satire that doesn't concede anything to the other side. Take the article that we are commenting on as an example of what's survived of Mencken.