It's tempting to ascribe the complaints to an op-ed mentality — to critics who fall back on politics to justify their involvement with anything so suspect as the entertainment industry or so frivolous as aesthetic pleasures, and the more extreme the aesthetic (as in the case of Scorsese's movie), the more righteous the response in the name of principle.
Fifty years ago, Seymour Slive's "Rembrandt and His Critics" analyzed the strong responses to Rembrandt in the name of upholding the norms of classical decorum.
The extent of this encroachment became clear recently as many of those who had been insisting that a decisive response was needed in the name of anti-extremism blogged and tweeted their delight at a fatwa apparently issued by a previously unheard-of mufti, Muhammad Idris Usmani of the Jamia Islamia.
Here is the party's official response, put out in the name of Jonathan Ashworth MP, the shadow Cabinet Office minister: "You can't pose as the 'workers' party' when you've made working people £1,600 worse off while cutting taxes for the wealthiest.
In response to the name of his friend Jamaica Kincaid, he invented Havana and Dominica Davenport, names he used later, in a story in which one of the Davenports wore "aluminum party pants," an outfit I still try to picture.
Preliminary analysis revealed no significant difference in responses based on the name of the person depicted in the case vignette.
Many of the responses are the same too: in the name of profitability, reduce news staff and costs; shift managerial decision making from a concern with news and public service to a focus on marketing and the bottom line.
Last week Christine Lagarde of the IMF issued a warning not just against the looming downturn but against 1930s-style policy responses of protectionism and isolation in the name of the "national interest" (here it is again).
Maybe it wasn't such an unusual response for someone who had pitched in the name of his countrymen before defecting from Cuba.
"Why not take what we already agree on, in the name of expeditious response to the economic concerns raised by leaders in both parties," Mr. Daschle said, instead of holding "that piece hostage to the larger questions involving the tax cut that have been debated now for several months".
