Scott Henderson, the non-political political blogger for politician Sarah Palin's television show's web site (whew!) takes issue with my recent post, complaining that I quoted him “selectively and out of context” and adding:

… he chose to quote from my recent piece about politicians and hunting. Well, “quote” is a pretty loose use of that word. He actually quoted advantageous pieces of the post to make it say what he wanted it to say. If you read his quotations without reading the original piece, you wouldn't have even known it was about the historical relationship politicians – including Teddy Roosevelt and John Kerry - have had with hunting."

But in my post, I quoted Henderson writing: “Whatever the reason, politicians of all stripes in America like to show up in the media with rifle or shotgun in hand while in pursuit of prey.” So, yeah, I think my readers probably would know he wrote about the relationships politicians have had with hunting.

Not that it really matters. Taking something “out of context” means more than simply leaving out some surrounding material. If it didn't, everything would be “out of context.” Taking something “out of context” means that relevant context has been omitted in order to change the meaning of the passage in question. None of the “context” I supposedly left out has any bearing on the validity of my portrayal of Henderson's post. In fact, it is entirely consistent with my point, which was that in detailing politicians' efforts to appeal to voters by hunting, Henderson undermined the claim that there's nothing political about a politician using a television show to portray herself as a hunter. Maybe that's why his response fails to even allege that anything I wrote was inaccurate. He just complains that I didn't quote more of his work. Maybe I would have, had it been more interesting.

Particularly hilarious is Henderson's complaint that I used ellipses in quoting from his post, as though there's something improper about using ellipses to denote excised text. Newsflash: That's why ellipses exist!

Some friendly advice for Mr. Henderson: Next time you want to complain about being taken out of context, you might want to demonstrate that the meaning of your words has been altered rather than lashing out at properly-deployed punctuation.