Instant Fisking That Dares Not Speak Its Name

Dan Darling at Winds of Change provides a long and critical analysis of an article on terrorism by Jonathan Raban in the New York Review of Books. Mr. Darling insists,

This is not so much a fisking of his article (though it will likely be read as such given the depths to which I try and go in order to correct some of Mr. Raban's more idiotic statements) as it is an effort to correct misperceptions many of the and perhaps to educate those with similar concerns.

The commentary arrived on my computer before the New York Review. (Yes, I admit I'm a subscriber -- although in mitigation I take the Claremont Review of Books, too.)

And what's the difference between "an effort to correct misperceptions" and a fisking? Is it the same as the difference between a "pedodental rearrangement" and a kick in the teeth? Or between "terminating someone with extreme prejudice" and, as Tony Soprano would put it, whacking him?

Or perhaps someone will come up with a typology of fisking, say, mini-fisking, multifisking, tsunami-style fisking, and honey-fisking, just as a start. Surely we would have to include correcting-idiotic-statements-and-correcting-misperceptions-but-not-true-fisking.

And by the way, Darling has a lot of interesting things to say in his critique of Raban's piece, which is full of silliness.