Here are all these things

Barrett Brown

I am the founder of the distributed think-tank Project PM and a regular inactive to Vanity Fair and Skeptical Inquirer. My work has also appeared in The Onion, National Lampoon, New York Press, D Magazine, Skeptic, McSweeney's, American Atheist, and a couple of newspapers in the U.S. and Mexico as well as a few policy journals. I'm the author of two books and serve as a consultant to various political entities and private clients.

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20 Responses

  1. E.C. Gach says:

    And I thought I was the only one who often stopped by The Corner looking for counter-arguments only to be bombarded with the most egregious jib-jab. Kudos, kudos, and more kudos.Report

  2. Koz says:

    “….when in fact he is not even capable of making a cogent written argument….”

    Yikes.

    Has it occurred to you Obama’s lack of contrition, Krauthammer’s view of gays in the military, Kurtz’ work on gay marriage in Scandinavia and Obama’s political history left-wing circles are more or less unrelated subjects? Maybe you’re not exactly the best judge of who can make a cogent written argument.Report

    • MFarmer in reply to Koz says:

      @Koz,
      So many conservatives to bash, so little time.Report

    • Barrett Brown in reply to Koz says:

      @Koz, If you look very carefully, you will find that in the first paragraph, I note that a single glance at National Review’s blog reveals all sorts of ridiculous things and express my intention to make fun of those things. Keep me posted on any further disingenuous misreadings you manage to come up with.Report

      • Jason Kuznicki in reply to Barrett Brown says:

        @Barrett Brown,

        Oh, I think you could definitely have tried harder. If you look closely enough, they are all related, along with the Freemasons, UFOs, and the Trilateral Commission.Report

      • Koz in reply to Barrett Brown says:

        I think I read you right the first time.

        You cite a bunch of random whinging against National Review as support for random whinging against National Review. Yeah, that’s persuasive.Report

        • Barrett Brown in reply to Koz says:

          @Koz, Hogw darge yogu sagy sucgh ag thging!Report

        • Barrett Brown in reply to Koz says:

          @Koz, Oops, I didn’t realize you were speaking in British English despite not being British. I’m still going to have to disagree with you that there is anything incoherent in attacking several different arguments in the space of a single written work, or that my criticisms of ridiculous and self-contradictory assertions constitute
          “whining.” How about I just admit that National Review is the greatest magazine ever and you go hit up the fishmonger?Report

        • Koz in reply to Koz says:

          It wasn’t meant to be an Anglicism. To me at least the words are slightly different. A whine is a high-pitched cry and a whinge is a persistent and otherwise generally annoying complaint.

          For example, the original post is more or less a litany of petulant complaints about this or that published at the Corner. So it seems better described as a whinge, though probably either word will do.

          There is nothing inherently incoherent about more than one argument in a single work. But that doesn’t make any of them persuasive, and it’s not clear that they are persuasive for you or
          even that you’ve thought about it. Eg, do you really dispute the idea that Obama’s increasing emotional distance from the American people is not an important factor currently hurting the Democrats? Maybe you do, frankly I doubt it. So it’s hard to see why we should blame K-Lo for pointing that out, especially in this context where was passively citing someone else’s argument blurb-style.

          Maybe if you could make or follow a coherent train of thought, you could contribute something useful to the body politic. On the other hand, you do seem to support the Democrats so the odds are stacked against you pretty good.Report

        • Jason Kuznicki in reply to Koz says:

          @Koz,

          We’re looking at a review of a blog. In the context of a review, anything that the blog takes on is fair game. If you don’t like the incoherence of talking about “Obama’s lack of contrition, Krauthammer’s view of gays in the military, Kurtz’ work on gay marriage in Scandinavia and Obama’s political history left-wing circles,” then your complaint properly speaking is not with Barrett. It’s with the Corner. Or perhaps it’s with the literary form of the blog itself.

          Good luck with that one.Report

        • Barrett Brown in reply to Koz says:

          @Koz, I appreciate you finally making some actual argument rather than throwing out such words as “petulant” and “whining” over and over again. Regarding Lopez, my argument does not hinge on Obama’s “emotional distance” from voters, on which I have no opinion, but rather the fact that Lopez – who supported a president who was famously asked if he had made any mistakes and couldn’t think of any – would try to take a swipe at Obama for not apologizing for some unspecified thing that I gather involves “emotional distance.” Also, I have never been a Democrat, have never voted for a Democrat, and have never contributed to a Democrat, although I do currently serve as advisor to a Democratic congressional candidate as a sort of hobby. I do tend to associate more with Democrats in the same sense that one picks the least ugly girl in the room.Report

        • Koz in reply to Koz says:

          “…..then your complaint properly speaking is not with Barrett. It’s with the Corner. Or perhaps it’s with the literary form of the blog itself.”

          Sure it is. It’s about the fact that Barrett wants to disparage this or that published at the Corner but has nothing to say except a general sneer.

          And compounding that, that this also discredits another author (previously published at the Corner) writing in a different place on an unrelated subject. Specifically, that Stanley Kurtz “…..is not even capable of making a cogent written argument….”(!)

          Sometimes you just have to be thankful that the other team is full of idiots.Report

        • Koz in reply to Koz says:

          “Regarding Lopez, my argument does not hinge on Obama’s “emotional distance” from voters, on which I have no opinion, but rather the fact that Lopez – who supported a president who was famously asked if he had made any mistakes and couldn’t think of any – would try to take a swipe at Obama for not apologizing for some unspecified thing that I gather involves “emotional distance.””

          Ok, what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?

          If anything, seeing the same thing happen during the Bush Administration would seem to give her more credibility on that subject than less.Report

  3. MFarmer says:

    One question I like to keep in mind, in light of what the Democrats have accomplished legislatively, is what changes would have been made by now if the establishment had been “on the level” and there had not been any resistance from the right? Yes, NRO has been critical of Obama and the progressive agenda, but just imagine what would have happened without such resistance — the left’s majority power called for strong resistance, or else radical, progressive changes would have made things much worse. I think we can all agree on this, given the conseqences we see already from what did get passed, which is definitely not insignificant.Report

    • MFarmer in reply to MFarmer says:

      @MFarmer,
      consequences, I meant.Report

    • North in reply to MFarmer says:

      @MFarmer, That’s a complicated assertion Mike. It’s equally possible that had the Republican establishment tried to pull the administration to the right through co-operation rather than their endless stonewalling that the results would have been considerably less left wing. On healthcare, for instance, Obama spent half of his first year in office trying to court some right wing collaboration. If they’d have put up a substantive offer rather than the (politically highly valuable to them) delaying and obfuscation tactics they ended up using we could easily have seen something closer, say, to the Wyden-Benette proposal enacted rather than the warmed over 1994 GOP plan of HCR that we ended up with. With total opposition they pretty much wrote themselves out of the ability to have any influence over what finally ended up being enacted and left all that work to the Blue Dogs.Report

  4. James Hanley says:

    Great first two posts, Barrett. I do wish I could write half so well.Report