Re: Lady and the Tramp

[Kestutis.Kveraga@Dartmouth.EDU (Kestutis Kveraga)]

--- You wrote:
>Let me get this straight, when you wrote:
>"For some of you, Pitino could spit on your head and tell you it's raining,
>and you'd believe him," you didn't actually mean anyone specifically.
>Rather we were supposed to read that "some of you" meant "an abstract
>amalgam of some of your views, where I've stripped out the parts that
>disagree with Pitino so that I can make the amalgam look like a ludicrous
>Pitino-worshipper - and then I don't mean what I say literally, of course,
>it's just an exaggerated insulting characterization"? As if an insult
>has to be taken literally to be insulting; it's like calling someone a 
>"motherf***er" and saying, "Hey, of course I don't mean it literally."

Let me spell it out for you, since, despite my best efforts, you did not grasp my explanation this morning:  I did not use the expression you quote literally, because 1) I don't believe it is literally true; and 2)  as I hope you are aware, it is a popular figurative expression used to describe people who are so enchanted by the object of their adulation that they tend to believe him or her over any evidence to the contrary. It's just like saying, "if King Kong was a [insert party name], he'd vote for him" .
I used the remark because as a group, they tend to believe Pitino's explanations for the failure of his team and dismiss evidence pointing to his contribution to the fiasco. Moreover, I did not call anyone any insulting names, unless you consider "Pitinoite" - a term used to describe a hard-core Pitino supporter - insulting. 

Since you seem to take particular umbrage with my paragraph generalizing the views of hard-core Pitino supporters, perhaps you could explain what it is that you're doing about the views of Pitino bashers on this list in your last night's e-mail. 

Here's what you wrote:
"There are apparently
people who think that the Celtics are 23-0, and Pitino is 0-35. He gets
blamed for every loss and yet when the Celtics were winning earlier in
the year, he had nothing to do with it. Well, I agree that together they
are 23-35, that it sucks because he has clearly not coached as well as he
did with inferior personnel two years ago (which was a superior job - he
outdid almost everyone's expectations). But there are those among us who
feel the need to pin every loss on him based on nitpicking his coaching
decisions, such as how he defended Carter's buzzer beater. I'm just 
pointing out how ridiculous that is."

Who thinks that "Celtics are 23-0, and Pitino is 0-35"? Who blames Pitino for every loss? As you say, "Why don't you name who you're actually talking about, because you seem to be talking about list members?"  For, "as far as I can tell, all the Pitino [bashers] that actively post on this list don't view him as [being guilty for every loss]".