So bored and slightly cranky, I surf around and go to Joe Gandleman’s blog – ‘The Moderate Voice.’ Joe is a smart guy and a good writer, even if his definition of moderate is less iconoclastic than mine.
He’s got a post up on the Edwards Bloghorrea thingie, which centers on the notion that bloggers will now be – heaven forfend – closely scrutinized if they are associated with major political campaigns. What next? Urine tests for Tour de France riders? I’m more than a bit baffled at his concern.But then I realize something interesting…part of the issue is that he views the kind of rhetoric at Pandagon and Shakespeare’s Sister as the norm. This is baseline political rhetoric. And that’s just as nuts as a meth-addled preacher announcing that he’s done with gay sex and expecting the mantle of spiritual leadership to fall neatly back on his shoulders.
Haggert needs a job in fast food or tech support, and Gandleman needs to stop reading Oliver Willis and considering him normal. There are a shedload of bloggers – right and left – who would not disgrace a political campaign. Kevin Drum? Phil Carter? Steve Smith? What have they written to compare with “Q: What if Mary had taken Plan B after the Lord filled her with his hot, white, sticky Holy Spirit…”?? Powerline, Volokh, Patterico? There’s nothing in their oeuvre that shows the level of contempt – for anyone – shown by the Edwards duo. Heck, go look in my blogroll – who (other than Defamer) does? And there are a lot of blogs in there.
So yeah, if you’re bilious, you’ll get attention and if you get attention you might get a job…but you’ll immediately be on thin ice because of what you’ve written in the past, and you won’t be free to be tough-minded and take real risks – you know, the Sam Brown “Don’t offend them with style when you can offend them with substance” kind.
And I’m genuinely puzzled that Gandleman doesn’t see that.
And as an addendum, Joe – if you read this – go police your comments section, will you? This does your site no credit:
ChuckPrez said:
February 8, 2007 at 10:20 amIn an unrelated note, I would so do Michelle Malkin.
Yup, that’s what modern political dialog is supposed to be all about, isn’t it…we’re in a war facing a bigger one and we get this crap.
Gandleman seems to make another assumption: “a firestorm, with a vetting of the bloggers’ past comments by some folks not sympathetic to the candidate.”
Namely, that anyone who might be offended by vicious attacks on Catholics and Southern Baptists is someone who would not be sympathetic to Edwards anyway. This assumption is widely and openly repeated on the lefthead blogs – the critics are all right-wingers who will never vote for Edwards, so he has nothing to lose by offending them.
The fact that Edwards is a nominal Baptist doesn’t enter into the equation. The anti-Christian leftists very frankly assume this to be political camouflage to fool the idiot voters, and they don’t hesitate to take advantage of it themselves, as McEwen does when she claims that her support of John Kerry proves that she doesn’t hate Catholics.
Have you seen Malkin’s reading of Pandagon? Outstanding.
BTW Lamont/Edwards are at the outer limits of American political discourse on the left.
On the right we have Alan Keyes.
For pottymouth bloggers, this is an unpleasant new world, especially if they want to use their blogs and blog celebrity status to further their career. You mean people actually go read what you wrote on your blog, and if it’s incendiary or wierd, they use it against you? How could it _not_ bite you? Or are blogs supposed to be both a massively important contribution to the “world conversation” (to sound like a Davosian) as well as a world where you can dismiss everything as some sort of youthful indiscretion, even if you wrote the blog entry five minutes ago?
And Edwards et al should be shocked, SHOCKED to discover that it’s people who aren’t his best political buddies digging up the dirt. After all, he would never even think of doing such a thing! And we know Hillary would never even imagine going after anyone in this fashion; after all, only those darn right-wing bloggers know how to use Google…
we’re in a war facing a bigger one and we get this crap.
This is the real issue: the number of people who simply refuse to be serious about the major challenges we face right now.
I said “major challenges we face” but by “we” I don’t just mean the US or even the West.
There are economic, technical and geopolitical changes going on that could well plunge us all, all humans, into destructive chaos for decades or centuries. It’s happened before in history, many times, in the west and in Asia both.
It’s the height of naivete and irresponsibility to believe and act as if we are somehow immune from a new Dark Age, as if civilization and ordered quiet lives just happen naturally. They don’t. The majority of humans have lived with chaos, destruction, famine, war.
But those who indulge themselves in juvenile trashtalk and trashy behavior seem to think there’s a cosmic Daddy and Mommy who will always pay the fines, spring them from jail and replace the car they’ve just figuratively totaled. They talk and act as if there are no real consequences of any importance.
They’re wrong.
I said “major challenges we face” but by “we” I don’t just mean the US or even the West.
There are economic, technical and geopolitical changes going on that could well plunge us all, all humans, into destructive chaos for decades or centuries. It’s happened before in history, many times, in the west and in Asia both.
It’s the height of naivete and irresponsibility to believe and act as if we are somehow immune from a new Dark Age, as if civilization and ordered quiet lives just happen naturally. They don’t. The majority of humans have lived with chaos, destruction, famine, war.
But those who indulge themselves in juvenile trashtalk and trashy behavior seem to think there’s a cosmic Daddy and Mommy who will always pay the fines, spring them from jail and replace the car they’ve just figuratively totaled. They talk and act as if there are no real consequences of any importance.
They’re wrong.
_There are a shedload of bloggers – right and left – who would not disgrace a political campaign._
“To disgrace a political campaign.” Now there’s a phrase I would never have thought I’d encounter.
The political calculus in keeping Marcotte and McEwan must have been wicked. Dump them and earn the unrelenting enmity of the Netroots, who really can make a difference in a low-turnout primary.
Keep them and paint a big bullseye on your back for anyone who finds their voluminous anti-mainstream-morality output offensive.
Edwards wanted to use the New Media without really understanding the New Media. He thought (if he was thinking at all) that he was dealing with a hermetic demographic. (“Here’s how we’re going to win the Geek vote…”). The problem is that the New Media isn’t a demographic (or even two demographics, one labled “nutroots” and the other labeled “wingnuts”.) The new media is media, and tends not to stay in boxes very well.
(I think Gandelman makes the same mistake [purposefully?] with his “Left Voices” and “Right Voices” schtick. Because he positions himself as an alternative to Left and Right, it’s in his interest to promote the idea that Left and Right are unreasonable and/or untrustworthy.)
Tell me one thing that they said that the right wing hasn’t said about leftie? Why no complaints about the hateful and illegal stuff mccains staff has done in the past….once again the hypocrisy of the right!
madmatt, show me one Republican candidate for national office who’s hired a right-wing flame artist as their campaign’s lead blogger.
This isn’t about which side has the least appealing adherents, it’s about which side showcases them.
the indignation because someone made fun of a fictional work is amusing…how dare you make fun of an impossible conception. give me a break. bush is rattling his sabber over iran trying to start some more shit to distract from the shit he already started…we finally have proof of what we already knew, that this guy feith was making up intelligence in order to help bush start shit…and you guys are arguing over this crap.
Someone’s learned how to spoof his IP address, I think….
Oh, you poor babies! Easily shocked, are you? I guess then you would be HORRIFIED to learn that Bill Donahue said among (among other choice tidbits) that gays have to apologize for all the damage they’ve done, and “Just imagine if a white guy is performing oral sex on a statue of Martin Luther King with an erection. Do you need to see it to know it’s ugly.”
Oh, and Mark Poling, how about Patrick Hynes, who works for John McCAin? He’s done a pretty good job as a “right-wing flame artist” over at Ankle Biting Pundit.
“Q: What if Mary had taken Plan B after the Lord filled her with his hot, white, sticky Holy Spirit…??”
What if Mary were the widow of Herod Agrippa, recently remarried to an older gentleman named Joseph? As such, and as a member of a royal family, sho could have relied on the assistance and support such a family and nsocial network would have been able to provide – including passage to Egypt to avoid the homicidal rage of the kid’s grandfather.
Now, translate Mary to an inner-city slum, no family, no support, no safety net – and a Publican-Party-decimated Social Welfare Program. Plan B seems a lot more responsible if she knows she is in no condition to care for a child as that child deserves.
Ummm, whoever you are, care to cite examples of Patrick Hynes’ writings that might be found offensive? I mean, by anyone who doesn’t think that someone who is both [A] conservative and [B] religious is inherently evil?
madmatt, show me one Republican candidate for national office who’s hired a right-wing flame artist as their campaign’s lead blogger.
Okay, Deal.
Patrick Hynes. Employed by John McCain:
http://www.newmediastrategics.com/?p=15
Hynes worked on the Ankle Biting Pundits blog, known to the rest of the world as Stateside Deferred Basement Dwelling Wingnut Asshats Who Could Fuck Up a Baked Potato Blog.
Hynes dosent seem to be a big fan of religious diversity:
http://www.anklebitingpundits.com/content/index.php?p=441
And Hynes is equally vacuous on the subject of the Constitution:
http://thebookblogger.com/compasspoints/2006/06/defending_christians.html
They’re just a tad “potty mouthed” over there, y’see….
Final graf from the first link:
An equally offensive quote from the second:
Seems to me I could agree or disagree with either of those passages (for the most part it’s “disagree” for me), but that to call them comparable to the hateful spite of Marcotte is at best disingenuous.
Unlike “DICK” Cheney or Sister Annette, Camus developed the idea of the “absurd man”, the man who is periodically conscious of the ultimate futility of life living with nuns or spoiled rich frat brats, who, true to their chosen path (except the ones with big knockers), never got none. The lingering stench and memory of this realization forms a basis for perceptions without the unjustified infusion of meaning. This notion directly opposes the idea of faith which is characteristic of most scams and religions (and even of existentialism, which Camus therefore did not fully accept). The search for truth is seen as futile, as modes of perception are constantly changing due to fluctuation of their axioms, which may be discernible as a consistent set of beliefs directly conflicting with those once thought irrefutable, so why not be greedy and souless. Drawing on numerous philosophical and literary sources, and particularly Dostoevsky (known locally as a ponce), Camus describes the historical development of absurd awareness and concludes that Sisyphus, and in turn, DICK, is the ultimate absurd hero/villian.
I agree with Mark Polling, disagreement is being conflated with insults.
I am really not Mark Polling. Honest.
Um, Frito (I may call you Frito, right?)…when Dowling or Coulter or Malkin gets brought onto a campaign as some kind of spokesman, let us all know, OK?
As long as the ‘Potty-Mouth Twins’ were bloggers, or running their own clubs of fans, the only relevant issue is their share of the degradation of public discourse.
When they get hired as spokespeople by political candidates it matters – just as it would matter if Mitt Romney hired Teg Haggard as his liason the evangelical community.
How’s that?
A.L.
#20 A. L.,
You know I was depressed about Republican chances in ’08. This thread gives me hope.
LOL
A student in priesthood is replacing the local priest at the confession. The priest left him a list of punishments for various sins. Lying is 20 Ave Maria, etc. One woman shows up and confesses she gave a blow job to a stranger. The guy looks at his list, but blow jobs are not mentionned. He leaves the confession booth and asks an altar boy, “What does the priest give for a blow job?”
– Chips and a coke, answer the boy.
Carl Gordon –
You don’t know much about Camus or Dostoevsky, but you yourself might be the next Andre Breton.
Heading downtown to watch Obama announce for the Presidency this morning. Its eight degrees outside, but Obama insisted on the location of the House Divided speech. His admirers flooded the pubs last night with dreams of a man that could unify a divided nation. But that’s not what the House Divided speech was about. It was about coming hardship and trouble and choices to be made. The nation will be made one thing or the other. These are not the hallmarks of Obama so far, but he insisted that this is the only location that his speech would make sense. I would love to hear disquieting, unpleasant truths, but I suspect will get the sacharine vision of Lincoln, the railsplitter, the father, the freer of slaves . . .
BTW/ Glen, if he mentions Dredd Scott, then we’ll know he’s embraced the pro-life message, right?
The irrefutable Carl has me questioning my earlier belief that Edwards made a mistake hiring Amanda and Melissa. But is it absurd to now also think Edwards would have done better in hiring Carl or would that be greedy and soulless in the sense that I still don’t support Edwards?
Flucuating sucks, I tell ya.
Bloggers should stick to blogging, not campaigning.
Pandagon’s or Shake’s are really popular because people think they are funny as hell. I love both of their blogs. They are great. But do they belong in a national campaign? Not so much. The blogs that are really popular are the ones that are really opinionated (profane or not). The politicians that get the most votes are the folks who are the most moderate, well modulated and non-smartassed. I don’t see how ever the twain shall meet.
I just don’t like the idea of a really interesting blogger working for a particular candidate. There is something icky about it. I end up feeling disappointed in both the blogger and the candidate.
Sorry, realize I had greatly contributed to thread drift there (#24), but for those keeping score: well spoken’, “clean” presentation, sacharine, ahistorical and no reference to Dred Scott.
Obama seems to be running against the petty, the trivial and the cynic, which I expect leaves little room for bloggers to help craft his campaign message.
I didn’t watch it, but I knew he didn’t say “Dred Scott” because I didn’t hear the dog whistle.