I know that it’s a sin against my own intelligence not to follow Mark Twain’s guidance in matters such as these.
Twain said many wise things. Some of the wisest things attributed to him are now said not to have come from him at all. But I have my doubts about the doubters.
One was “Don’t wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.”
The other has been offered in two versions — either “Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference,” or “Never argue with an idiot; they will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.”
Mark Twain, or at least the mythical Mark Twain whose brilliance appears to be under attack by these niggling scholars denying him some of his best stuff, would have had one hell of a time with the “anti-war” gang on social media and elsewhere today.
Maybe that’s not quite fair. There are critics of the Iran war who have perfectly rational and valid points to make, and this column does not seek to take them on.
It’s a particular species of “anti-war” keyboard warrior with whom I quibble.
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