"Apologist"
 "Apologist"  (word)   | |
|---|---|
| A pejorative word for a person who speaks or writes in defence of an unpopular political or social belief |
An apologist is a pejorative word for person who supports a particular political or social belief, especially an unpopular one, and speaks or writes in defence of it.[1] See also "denier".
Stephen F. Cohen wrote how:
I have been repeatedly assailed—no less in purportedly "liberal" publications—as Putin's No. 1 American "apologist," "useful idiot," "dupe," "best friend" and, perhaps a new low in immature invective, "toady." I expected to be criticized, as I was during nearly twenty years as a CBS News commentator, but not in such personal and scurrilous ways. (Something has changed in our political culture, perhaps related to the Internet.) None of these character assassins present any factual refutations of anything I have written or said. They indulge only in ad hominem slurs based on distortions and on the general premise that any American who seeks to understand Moscow's perspectives is a "Putin apologist" and thus unpatriotic. Such a premise only abets the possibility of war...Equally important, however, these kinds of neo-McCarthyites are trying to stifle democratic debate by stigmatizing us in ways that make us unwelcome on mainstream broadcasts and op-ed pages, and to policy-makers.[2]
