The spat between Matthew Yglesias and Glenn Reynolds is rather amusing.

A recap: Yglesias writes about the Russian hostage situation,

The situation, clearly, can only be resolved by Russian concessions on the underlying political issue in Chechnya. At the same time, in the wake of this sort of outrage there will not only be no mood for concessions, but an amply justified fear that such concessions would only encourage further attacks and a further escalation of demands. I don't see any way out for Russian policymakers nor any particularly good options for US policymakers. Partisanship and complaints about Bush's handling of counterterrorism aside, this business is a reminder not only of the horrors out there, but also that terrorism is a genuinely difficult problem -- I think we've been doing many of the wrong things lately, but no one should claim it's obvious what the right way to proceed is.

Reynolds interprets this, incredibly, as a call to surrender to the terrorists, paraphrasing Yglesias' post as follows:

Don't worry -- there's a solution: "The situation, clearly, can only be resolved by Russian concessions on the underlying political issue in Chechnya."

After a criticism from Yglesias, Reynolds tries to justify his idiotic interpretation:

Matthew Yglesias emails to say that I've misquoted him above, and demands an apology. Er, except that the quote -- done via cut-and-paste, natch -- is accurate. Here it is again, cut-and-pasted, again. "The situation, clearly, can only be resolved by Russian concessions on the underlying political issue in Chechnya."

I guess that Matthew means it's out of context, or misrepresents his post. Maybe it misrepresents what he meant to say...But I can't figure out what Matthew could have meant that would make the statement above a misrepresentation of his meaning...

Referring to Yglesias' rejoinder, Reynolds writes

Does that clear things up? Not to me. The only solution is concessions, which we can't make? Okay.

As they say, it is difficult to make a man understand something when he is paid not to understand it.