A POOR EFFORT. There are tropes that come up in every schoolyard political discussion. Like "You liberals say you're against tyranny, so how come you didn't like when we took out Saddam?" You can ignore them, or muster the patience to answer them briefly. Or you can do like Jonah Goldberg who, offered a T-ball shot at an ancient libertarian comeback, swings his wiffle bat wildly, trips on his shoelaces, falls on his ass and smacks himself in the crotch:

I have zero desire to launch another Corner-exhausting debate on drug legalization. I will note — since many readers still seem unaware — that I am in the minority here at NR and the magazine has officially favored an end to the drug war for a very long time. For the record, it's my view that drug legalization (note: I'm for the gradual decriminalization of pot) will create more, not fewer, moms like the one discussed below. It's also my view that the constant leap to "What about alcohol!?" is not as boffo an argument as many readers believe it to be. Saying alcohol is really bad for people and ruins lives has obvious validity, but it doesn't advance the ball very far down the field by saying that therefore other substances that ruin lives should be made legal too. I think there are very strong arguments for drug legalization. The argument that we should be consistent and ban alcohol too is not one of them in my book.

I think he must be paid by the word because this is a very long way of saying, "Aw c'mon." Also, if someone among his colleagues or family really cared about him, he would tell Goldberg that phrases like "doesn't advance the ball very far down the field," "into the weeds," "it's late" and "I have to walk Cosmo" etc. don't embellish his arguments as well as he thinks they do. He should switch to "I'm drunk" or "fuck you," which have worked very well for me.