This comes from Digby who clearly reads a lot faster than I do. Let me provide a little background. In the film Annie Hall, Woody Allen is in line to see the movie (apparently for the umpteenth time) The Sorrow and the Pity. In back of him in the line is some other New York intellectual spouting off about Fellini. Eventually he mentions Marshal McLuhan. Woody Allen and the annoying man get into an argument. Allen says that he doesn’t know anything about McLuhan and the man counters that he teaches a college course on media so his insights are valid. Then, in a bit of fantasy that is entirely typical of Allen’s films, Marshal McLuhan is produced to tell the annoying intellectual that he really doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Allen concludes, “If life were only like this!”

Here is the scene:

So Mark Waters told a Mother Jones writer, Asawin Suebsaeng, that he is wrong to mischaracterize an article:

I do feel for Mr. Waters. We’ve all been dumb and it really sucks when it happens in public. But apparently, sometimes life is like this!