Dave Weigel takes a few shots at me today, by digging up some old LGF posts (I’m getting used to this technique, from all sides): The Washington Independent » A Blast from Charles Johnson’s Past.

The posts in which I linked to Pamela Geller were from a different time, before she tipped over into non-stop craziness; one of them wishes her a happy one-year anniversary, and the other links to her coverage of the “Stand with Israel” rally in New York, and in both cases I really don’t see what I’m supposed to regret about them. People change, times change, and so do opinions; the only person who doesn’t change his or her opinions is a blind ideologue.

Weigel also links to my short positive review of one of Robert Spencer’s books. There’s some context missing in what he writes, however; at that point, Spencer was still keeping up a front of staying away from Eurofascists, posting several times at his blog that he renounced associations with groups like Vlaams Belang, and supporting me in my stance against them. He has since changed that position for the worse. I suppose I should have seen it earlier, but sometimes people conceal their true beliefs.

The only post Weigel dug up that I honestly regret was one from 2004 expressing qualified approval of Vlaams Blok (the neofascist group that morphed into Vlaams Belang), when they were banned by the Belgian government. My only excuse is ignorance; at that point I had not looked into their past, but I had looked into their adversary, the openly pro-jihad Arab European League, and thought Vlaams Blok was at least a semi-legitimate opponent. Needless to say, in the five years since that post I’ve learned otherwise.

(I should point out, though, that Weigel calls them the “Dutch party Vlaams Blok,” so apparently I’m not the only one who wasn’t well-informed. They’re Belgian, Dave.)

One more comment on this subject: this hasn’t been a sudden change at LGF. My refusal to associate with fascist groups is not new. It’s a core principle and always has been, and that’s why, when I saw the so-called “anti-jihad” bloggers starting to hook up with European neofascist groups two years ago, I could not remain silent.