Perhaps we should hire this incompetent fellow who hates us
I hadn’t noticed until just now that ABC News had decided to bring on Andrew Breitbart to provide his insight into what I am beginning to suspect to be some sort of ongoing electoral contest, but apparently they did just that, after which point Breitbart unilaterally decided that he would grace the nation with a more prominent role than that which had actually been offered. When ABC attempted to correct him, he dug in deeper. ABC has now given up and simply retracted the offer.
As of today I am offering my services as a media consultant to any outlet that would care to make use of them, totally pro bono. Here’s how it works. You, the producer of some mainstream outlet, decide to hire one of these degenerate tribalist weirdos who masquerade as truth-loving conservatives on the internet. You make the choice you will inevitably make and then come to me with the name of the particular internet tough guy to whom you have decided to give a crucial role in informing the electorate. I look at the name and begin to cry. Tears of frustration run down my face and then down to my arms, mixing in with the blood that is flowing from my veins because I am cutting myself. Then I look up at you and say, “You made me do this.” Then I collapse. Please don’t send for help because this is not a cry for attention; I am actually seeking the oblivion afforded by death, and I mean to achieve it. I can only do this once.
Seriously, though, let me run through a quick history of what happens when you try to hire these fucking people. The Washington Post thought it would be neat to bring on RedState.com contributor Ben Domenech to blog for them. I would love to see the post that Domenech wrote which prompted someone at the the Post to stop and say to himself, “This is what the country needs now.” It turned out that Domenech was a serial plagiarist. Apparently he couldn’t even write a review of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within on his own; he actually had to steal someone else’s review of some ill-conceived CGI paper tiger of a movie that had fuck all to do with the games themselves. Upon being caught, he lied about it, blaming an editor of his college paper for one such instance. He wrote a blog post ending with something like, “At least the liberals are too busy attacking me to attack America.” Finally, the evidence reached a breaking point such that even Fortress Red State’s Anti-Reality Force Field was breached and it was decided that, yes, poor Domenech had made some “mistakes,” and now let’s all quietly drop it because Ben is hurting right now, guys, so lay off. Although Domenech lost the Post offer, he was back to writing for Red State not long afterwards and has since branched out to other outlets of similar ethical caliber.
More recently, when CNN decided it needed a conservative blogger to round out its array of degenerate careerists, the producers made the natural choice of offering the job to Red State founder Erick Erickson. I don’t even know what to say about that.
In conclusion, the universe is devoid of meaning and purpose.
In my opinion, any American television station would be vastly improved by hiring any of the contributors to this blog as a political analyst.Report
I’m as annoyed as the next fellow when I turn on CNN’s election coverage and see Erick Erickson described as the “editor” of his blog, Redstate, but giving Breitbart a role in the mainstream is the best, quickest way to ruin his outsider appeal, so for that reason, I favor his hiring.Report
The above in pictorial from: http://www.thismodernworld.com/arc/2006/TMW07-05-06colorlowrescopy.jpgReport
I recommend trolling Breitbart on Twitter. Sometimes he responds in hilariously characteristic fashion.Report
The League has always been one of my favorite blogs. But every time I read Mr. Brown’s posts I have to check URL again to make sure I didn’t stumble onto the Daily Kos.Report
@Joe Carter, I feel the same way about First Things, except I often have to check the URL to see if I’m reading some sort of fascist website run by a gaggle of historically illiterate zeta males, and it always turns out that, yes, I am.Report
@Joe Carter,
You’re of the view that Erick Erickson and Ben Domenech are good representatives of conservatism in the MSM, I take it? Why do you think so?Report
@Elvis Elvisberg, Erick Erickson is a contributor to obscure cable show that no one watches. That hardly makes him a significant “representative of conservatism in the MSM.”
And Ben Domench was a blogger for the Washington Post for a few days in 2006. Is that really the most relevant example Brown could find?
And isn’t it a bit silly to whine about a blogger who plagiarized a movie review when he was in college when the Vice President of the United States plagiarized a law review article while in law school? If Domenech is to be shunned from public life, why not Biden?Report
@Joe Carter, It sounds like you are interested in a more formal debate on the subject – perhaps one in which both of us would agree to post the other’s argument on our respective venues? I can do it here or at Vanity Fair if you’d like. The important thing is that your audience will be exposed to my points and my audience will be exposed to yours. If you agree, let me know.Report
@Barrett Brown, A formal debate on what subject? Your inability to come up with a reference that is not four year out of relevance?
But if you mean a discussion about the respectability of conservative vs. liberal media, I would love to have that. You can use Erick Erickson as an example and I’ll just point to the lineup at MSNBC.Report
@Joe Carter, I’m not a liberal, and I hate MSNBC and my next book is an attack on pretty much the entirety of the mainstream media. Let us debate the merits of Jim Hoft.Report
@Joe Carter, You have again resorted to a transparent trick that’s not going to work against this crowd, which is singling out a lesser criticism I have made of your ideological ally in order to pretend that it is the whole of my case. Domenech did not just plagiarize a film review; he tried to blame an innocent person for his own misdeeds, among other things.
Meanwhile, I chose those two examples not because they are hugely prominent, but because they are examples of other conservative bloggers whom the MSM have foolishly tried to treat as ethical competent people and who have proven themselves to be nothing of the sort. This is obvious to anyone who actually cares to follow my argument.
Also, last week Jim Hoft ran a piece justifying the stomping of a female, and your commenters… better yet, I would love nothing more to discuss then in another, more prominent context. I will debate anything you like. Suffice to say for now that you have zero credibility as an arbiter of the discourse.Report
@Barrett Brown, You still seem to have missed the point. Domenech was hired to write an obscure blog for the Washington Post. He was quickly fired when it was discovered he had plagiarized some reviews when he was a freshman in college. Many people criticized him at the time—including me. But that was four years ago.
I suspect you are not as outraged by the presence of Andrew Sullivan at The Atlantic. Sullivan has lied and slandered about his opponents (mainly Sarah Palin) for years and yet he gets a pass. Why the double standard? (I mean that rhetorically. I know why: Because he will send blogs like this one a significant amount of traffic.)
This is obvious to anyone who actually cares to follow my argument.
You didn’t make an argument; you made a profanity-laced rant.
Suffice to say for now that you have zero credibility as an arbiter of the discourse.
Dude, grow up. I know you are probably a young writer struggling for relevance and think the best way to do that is to thump your chest and issue challenges. There is nothing to debate. Political discourse in this country has been debased by both conservatives and liberals. But while most people on the League recognize that and do their part to change it, you come storming in like some obscure diarist from the Daily Kos who thinks he’s making a brilliant point by dumping on Ben Domenech. (Seriously, that’s old news to those who didn’t join the interwebs last week.)Report
@Joe Carter, You have just criticized me for referencing an old story, Domenech’s plagiarism, in reference to a new incident, Breitbart’s ABC flap. A few minutes ago, you referenced an old story, Biden’s plagiarism, in reference to a new incident, my bringing up of Domenech’s plagiarism.
Please debate me. I apologize for being rude to you. I will pray to Jesus right now that you will decide to debate me.Report
@Joe Carter, As for Sullivan, you would have to point to an actual incident for me to criticize it rather than just having me take your word for it. I’m sure you’re entirely trustworthy as well as intellectually honest with yourself and would never misidentify something as something else, but I suffer from an abundance of caution.Report
@Joe Carter,
Barrett’s point is that the MSM is all too willing to choose frothing-at-the-mouth ignoramuses as go-to conservative commentators.
You can claim that the MSM is dumb and that the Vice President is a poopyhead, but that’s really neither here nor there.
If mainstream conservatism were interested in improving the quality of its thinking and discourse, we would see many conservatives decrying the oozing up of Breitbart, Domenech, and Erickson; instead, we get chants of “One of us! One of us!”, and pleading to maintain the soft bigotry of low expectations for conservative argumentation.
Perhaps you are of the view that Breitbart, Domenech, and Erickson are fine exemplars of conservative discourse. You are free to make that case.Report
Let me see if I can come up with an alternate phrasing of your complaint:
“If mainstream liberalism were interested in improving the quality of its thinking and discourse, we would see many liberalism decrying the oozing up of Barrett Brown, Dave Weigel, and Andrew Sullivan; instead, we get chants of “One of us! One of us!”, and pleading to maintain the soft bigotry of low expectations for liberal argumentation.”
Yep, that’s fitting.
Perhaps you are of the view that Breitbart, Domenech, and Erickson are fine exemplars of conservative discourse. You are free to make that case.
No, that is not my case. In case it isn’t clear let me state it plainly: Breitbart, Domenech, and Erickson aren’t exemplars of anything. Combined they don’t have that much influence. (More than I do, of course, but that isn’t saying much.) They have fewer people pay attention to them in a year than Andrew Sullivan or Keith Olbermann do in a week.
I’m not making an argument of equivalency, I’m not saying “They’re bad, we can be bad too.” No, what I’m saying is that if Brown truly cared about the quality of thinking and discourse he aim at some bigger targets—and provide examples that weren’t almost five years old.Report
@Joe Carter, I love that you have written that list sentence, as I have indeed aimed “at some bigger targets” and provided more recent examples, and have done so literally on hundreds of occasions. I also have a book coming out in which I attack Thomas Friedman, Richard Cohen, Charles Krauthammer, and others – some of the biggest targets one can name, you see. I have appeared on various programs to denounce all sorts of media figures and politicians – in fact, I went on Fox News and attacked Obama just last year, and more recently I was on Russia Today to attack the entirety of the American media (and then Putin for good measure, before they cut me off). So, based on parameters you yourself have chosen, I do truly care about the quality of thinking and discourse. I have even founded an organization to do just that – you may notice the symbol that appears here next to my name, which is our logo.
So, what’s your next move, friend?Report
@Joe Carter,
Barrett Brown, Dave Weigel, and Andrew Sullivan
But… none of those people are liberals. And liberals love to dump on Andrew Sullivan, anyway. Aside from being irrelevant, what a strange remark.
The “take on the real problem when it matters” version of ad hominem that you’re advancing works to an extent, if there’s reason to believe that the speaker has avoided making the bigger arguments. (I’ve heard that kind of argument made against, say, Glenn Reynolds, who claims to be a pro-gay rights libertarian, but never ever links to pro-gay rights articles or op-eds). But it’s not clear to me that that’s a fair criticism of Barrett Brown.Report
@Joe Carter, earlier THIS YEAR Ben Domenech was the CBS.com blogger who planted the rumor Elena Kagan was a lesbian, and then promptly went “oops! I thought she was out!” when the White House denied it. Classy.Report
Thanks for making my point. I was trying to be polite and point out that you are an embarrassment to this fine blog without actually saying that in so many words. Turns out I didn’t need to. You were apparently willing to show that you are just another frothing at the mouth partisan.Report
So, rather than offering a reasoned defence of of Breitbart, Domench, or Erickson (assuming such could be done), you reply with insults – and yes, your first post was an insult despite having a politer tone.
Everything I’ve seen of the abovenamed right-wing bloggers suggests Brown is correct in his assessment. Sometimes intelligent commentary means calling out foolishness and lies where they appear rather than pretending they constitute useful debate.Report
@Katherine, As I pointed out in my reply to Elvis, Ben Domench was a blogger for the Washington Post for a few days in 2006. To bring that up now just shows that Brown had to dig deep to find a example that fits his polemical purposes.
Also, its a an insult to intelligent commentary to imply that Brown’s screed is “intelligent commentary.” I realize that he’s probably having a bad night. But the League has tended to have higher standards than he’s exhibited in his short time here.Report
@Joe Carter, You weren’t trying to be polite, but rather making a transparent attempt to make me look bad. You are lying, priest. Think to your immortal soul.Report
@Barrett Brown, Mr. Brown, you need no help in making yourself look bad. You should have been grateful for being allowed to even comment on this stellar blog, much less be invited as a contributor. Instead, you have done everything possible to bring down the level of discourse and respectability that your peers have built up over the years.
And what does “You are lying, priest.” even mean? I’m not even Catholic.
Is this all a put-on or are you really as immature as you are coming across as?Report
@Joe Carter, It’s a historical reference; forget it. Are you going to agree to the debate, or do we need to discuss specifics first?Report
@Barrett Brown, I’m not a liberal
Really? Well, I apologize for making that assumption. Since Vanity Fair identified you as “Liberal writer Barrett Brown” I assumed that you must be, you know, liberal.
Let us debate the merits of Jim Hoft.
Jim’s a nice guy, but his style of polemics is not mine. I’m not sure we’d have enough to disagree with on that subject.
Please debate me. I apologize for being rude to you. I will pray to Jesus right now that you will decide to debate me.
Sure, why not. What would you like to debate about? How about something related to atheism? I enjoy nothing more than showing the intellectual bankruptcy of atheism.
As for Sullivan, you would have to point to an actual incident for me to criticize it rather than just having me take your word for it.
Sorry, I assumed that you would be a regular reader of Sullivan’s blog. As for an actual incident, how about claiming that a sitting governor faked a pregnancy to cover her teenage daughter.
It’s a historical reference; forget it.
Oh, what’s the reference?Report
@Joe Carter, It was a reasonable assumption for Vanity Fair (and a lot of my enemies) to make insomuch as that I am associated with issues that are somehow considered “liberal” and write for a number of outlets of that sort, but I have been one sort of anarchist or another since the age of 13 or so, although I sometimes call myself a libertarian because I am embarrassed about being an anarchist just as I am embarrassed about being an atheist, as these are impolite things to be – particularly the latter, it would seem.
I would be happy to debate you on the subject of atheism. I think I know of a fun way to begin, just to warm up – both of us would agree to post a quote on our respective venues (this one in my case; VF can probably feature the debate, and I will ask the editor about it tomorrow). I will pick a quote and you will promise to post it, and you may pick any quote and I will post it here. Perhaps the choice of quotes will provide us with material to start with, as this is a broad topic.
As for Sullivan and Palin, I do read him and have spoken to him once via e-mail, but I don’t know if he still maintains that she faked a pregnancy, although you are correct that he did make that argument and in fact obsessed over the issue. I agree that he was wrong, although I believe that he was honestly wrong – as in, he really did believe that this was the case. As for any of us being soft on Sullivan because he links to us, I would direct you to Erik Kain’s recent post on the fellow, in which I recall him being critical of him – and Kain is almost certainly the one to whom Sullivan links to the most. That won’t change just because Kain criticizes him, and that is one of the things I admire about Sullivan.Report
@Joe Carter, I enjoy nothing more than showing the intellectual bankruptcy of atheism.
Atheists are simply people who are unpersuaded that there is evidence for the existence of supernatural beings. Take it or leave it, but it’s a simple enough, perfectly intellectually defensible view.Report
Dear Everyone Contributing to this Comment Thread:
Please, please, please, go easy on the personal insults. I’m happy to have our site play host to a debate about the mainstream media, but the League is supposed to be a forum for amicable disagreement, not a shouting match.
And for the record, I think First Things’ site is generally pretty excellent, Jim Hoft notwithstanding. I can’t think of many other sites that play host to such a broad and diverse range of viewpoints.Report
@Will, Lord, that sounded preachy.Report
@Will, Thanks, Will. I apologize if my comments came across as insulting. I should have refrained from commenting on this post. Had I known the turn it was going to take, I certainly would have.Report
@Joe Carter, I don’t want to discourage you from mixing it up in the comments section. And I truly hope I’m not subjecting everyone to a tiresome lecture on internet etiquette. But I hate to see these comment threads degenerate into shouting matches.Report
@Joe Carter,
And, little patience as I have with the sort of over-partisan combativeness you’ve adopted here , I’ll always have a soft spot for the man who won the ’93 World Series.Report
Mr. Brown,
I’m not sure why it won’t let me respond to your comment above (is there a limit to the number of threads that can be created?) so I’ll reply here.
both of us would agree to post a quote on our respective venues (this one in my case; VF can probably feature the debate, and I will ask the editor about it tomorrow).
What sort of quote did you have in mind? Something from each of us or a quote from someone else (e.g., a historical figure) that represents a particular view?
Also, I’d be happy to have the discussion take place between this blog and mine at FT. No offense to VF, but I’d be more interested in what LoOG readers thought of the debate.
I will pick a quote and you will promise to post it, and you may pick any quote and I will post it here. Perhaps the choice of quotes will provide us with material to start with, as this is a broad topic.Report
@Joe Carter, Although I was thinking specifically of historical figures, any quote at all will be fine, just to get things rolling. Very well, I’ll conduct my portion from this blog rather than VF, as this might work better in terms of format anyway.
To the extent that we need advance agreement on format, perhaps we could agree to this – after the respective quote posting, we will go three rounds, with each round consisting of a post on each side, and both of us posting the entirety of the other person’s post on our respective outlets along with our own. After those three rounds, either of us may decide to honorably conclude the debate – or, if both of us agree that we would like to continue, then we can do so under agreed circumstances. Let me know if this works for you and if there is a particular day on which you’d like to start that would work best with your schedule.Report
@Barrett Brown, Sounds good. How about we start tomorrow (Thurs.). Actually, if you want to post today (Wed.) I’ll can post a response on Thursday.Report
@Joe Carter, Perhaps we should start Thursday after the bulk of the inane post-election analysis has run its dehumanizing course; I’ll not have our exchange entirely drowned out by bad commentary. We must have an audience!Report
@Barrett Brown, I’ll not have our exchange entirely drowned out by bad commentary.
Good point.
We must have an audience!
Well, I’m at an advantage there. If nothing else I have God as an audience. ; )Report
Wow, this turned ugly quickly. Not the best demonstration of this blog’s unwritten rule of attack the argument, not the person.Report
“these fucking people” don’t think much of you fucking people either.Report
I have conservative friends. I have liberal friends.
I have been telling them the same thing today:
“This too shall pass.”
Well, I’ve also talked about Hitler.Report