Commenter Archive

Comments by Robert Stacy McCain*

On “All Apologies

He preferred I use the term “quadroon.”

Wait, I thought you were an octaroon. Damn. Fooled me! I'll have to keep my DNA test kit handy next time.

On “general welfare

Thanks for the linkage, Dave. However, that post was written by my constitutionalist co-blogger, Smitty.

My own enthusiasm for the 10th amendment is notorious, if widely misunderstood. For some reason, the phrase "states' rights" has an unusual effect upon some listeners, when the phrase is delivered with a Southern accent. I do not dwell in the past, but find that liberals frequently demand that I discuss 19th-century American history . . . on their terms, of course.

On “You’re surprised?

Excuse my previous inattention. Now, however, the ignoring begins in earnest.

On “eating my vegetables

Freaking typos. I hate freaking typos.

"

Guys, it was my bad. I think that in my first contibution to this flame war, I made clear -- as clear as I make any point when I'm tired and angry -- the history of my grievance against Culture11, a grievance that preceded my knowledge Conor's involvement in that fiasco.
I've had some profitable flame exchanges with Conor during his tenure at Culture11, and was actually beginning to enjoy it, like I enjoy by anti-Greenwald rants or anti-David Brooks rants. So it was kind of a kick in the head when, after two days of covering the RNC, I realized that Culture11 was kaputski.
Brace yourselves for this: When I was your age . . .
If you're under 26, I was working as a nightclub DJ or driving a forklift or playing in rock-and-roll bands. At 26, I got a $4.50-an-hour job as a staff writer for a tiny weekly tabloid in Austell, Ga. After another 18 months of job changes, in fall 1987, I landed a job as sports editor of a twice-weekly paper in Calhoun, Ga. By June 1989, I was 29 years old, married, with a newborn daughter.
So I was closing in on 30 and considered myself doing well to make $300 a week covering prep sports in North Georgia. I was 38 years old when I was hired in November 1997 by The Washington Times.
Now, try to see all this from my perspective, will you? I don't give a hoot in hell what your SAT Verbal scores were, some of you youngersters appear mighty doggone ridiculous trying to run before you've even crawled. As someone even more grizzled than myself said in an email yesterday, self-publishing software has made it very easy to think of yourself as a writer.
Prior to the widespread availability of the Internet (mid-1990s), your choices at age 23 would have been (a) take an entry-level staff gig at a newspaper/magazine, or (b) dwell in that sleazy semi-pro twilight of doing record reviews for crappy weekly "alternative" tabloid or maybe Xeroxing your own crappy "zine."
Well, hello, Wordpress and now, without benefit of filling out an application or sending "over-the-transom" submissions to publications, you get that short feedback loop: Megan McArdle linked me! or: Did you see my exchange with Larison?
Think, dear boys, how ludicrously vain you appear to a 49-year-old who worked his way up through the trenches of local straight journalism to arrive in Washington at age 38. In short, I am insanely jealous to think what might have been if, when I was a senior in college, it might have been possible so much as to send an e-mail to a magazine editor.
So I see you young 'uns with these infinite opportunities, and doing so damned little with them, and watching you fritter away your time makes me angry at the idiotic waste of it all.
Then some dweeb like David Kuo burns through a (rumored) $1 million in venture capital in about 5 months, and the anger is redoubled. When I was 28, I worked with two fine young journalists (Jim and Dawn McFadden) neither of whom is in the business anymore, but either of whom would have been able to get a helluva lot more mileage out of $1 million than Culture11 did. A brilliant opportunity, utterly wasted, due to towering incompetence. Doesn't it break your heart to think of it?
So my incoherent and various angsts sometimes focus in on something in a way that seems irrational, because -- really -- it is irrational. This is my weakness, and you are not to blame. OK, maybe Conor, but the rest of your were mostly collateral damage. Beers at CPAC?

On “not everyone who says he’s your friend is your friend

"A tedious nothing"! Instant classic, Freddie. I owe you a beer for that one.

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