Via Oliver, I see that James Lilek stated the following:
Do you often come across the word
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James Lileks Calls Me An Anti-Semite
I don’t ever read Lilek’s site (if I want turgid prose about nothing in particular, I’ll go elsewhere), but someone alerted me to this bit
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Zing!
Oh man. James Lileks just “pwned” Oliver Willis.
And as if it were a reflex, Willis did the only sensible thing and called him a Nazi.
So, I think we can give the clearly superior wordsmith from Minnesota a no-contest win.
Oh, and if you e…
jeff
Does Oliver have pictures of you with a farm animal or little boy or something?
Even when you call him on his garbage, you still have to say “but he’s generally a good guy, we just disagree”.
Actually, he’s a bad person who associates with bad people, he’s a race-hustler, a coward, and very well an anti-Semite.
He’s tried to tar people with similar brushes for far less.
If you wanna be on the good side of David Brock’s butt-boy, go ahead, but you’re making an ass out of yourself.
Sid The Fish
>> “He’s tried to tar people with similar brushes for far less.”
Let’s see… Commenter Jeff uses the word “tar” in reference to OW. If I were willing to give him credit for advanced irony I would applaud the sophisticated humor. But no. The opening and closing homophobic references suggest he’s closer to Beavis than Baudelaire.
Isn’t language fun?
Rick
John,
Let’s just enjoy the shoe being on the other foot. See how O-chubb likes it.
Not that I’d actually, you know, go to his *site* or anything.
Cordially…
John Cole
Jeff- I agree that Oliver unfairly casts about the term bigot, racist, etc.
But to suggest the way to combat this is to unfairly and inaccurately label Oliver as an anti-Semite is just stupid.
BTW- I am unaware if Oliver has any pictures of me with my cat (or any other small animals).
Bill from INDC
Meanwhile, Cousin Oliver links to this post with a post labeling LGF as “Nazis.”
Jeff G
Fithy Nazis, Bill? Or just the regular kind?
In other news, Ollie today “argues” that the goal of the “far right” is “indistinguishable from the goals of the Taliban and Mullah Omar (another terrorist we have yet to catch). They want to replace the rule of law with the rule of their God. An intolerant God, that would have anyone not praying to their God, chained and shackled in subservience. It’s the same thing. Deal with it, kids.”
If this guy was ever reasonable, it was a good 6000 pizzas ago…
BumperStickerist
Unfortunate wording on Oliver’s part, and nothing more.
Up until Oliver reiterated his contention that Wolfowitz is a filthy human being you may have had a point.
Oliver
LGF is a bunch of Nazis. It’s pure unadulterated hate on that site.
Oh, “Bessie” says hi, John.
Jeff G
Until Charles Johson or the commenters over at LGF start stuffing lefty twaddle peddlers into ovens (very large ovens, in some cases), it would behoove you to cease comparing them to Nazis, Oliver — particularly in a thread discussing your potential for anti-semitism.
RW
Maybe there aren’t enough handkerchief heads there yet, Jeff.
Bill from INDC
It’s pure unadulterated hate on that site.
Actually, by that standard, all I ever see on your site is “pure unadulterated hate,” at least in between the Redskins posts.
“So and so is stupid,” “so and so is dumb,” so and so is an ass, a liar, a fool, a traitor, “America Taliban,” “modern mullahs” … your site is FULL of “hate.” And it’s not even really clever hate.
But it IS entertaining, Ollie.
hey would you come on our radio show to debate this?
RW
If he shows up for the debate, Bill, ask him about his post after 9/11 when he approvingly posted a link that supported invading Iraq.
Big Gay Al
Calling anyone a Nazi is not intelligent.
The word Nazi used to indicate the basest evil that could manifest itself on God’s good earth.
Now, apparently, Nazis are a dime a dozen – talk about inflation.
Having said that, LGF is the cesspool of the blogosphere, that spot in the basement where you’d pee when you were a kid.
A Hermit
“Lileks is a professional writer with a gift for words”
(chuckle, snort…)
Now that’s what I call “unfortunate wording” on your part…
Andrew
I am continuously amazed that otherwise reasonable sounding individuals actually read the drivel churned out by such obnoxious morons as Oliver.
I’m not a regular reader of LGF, although I have on occasion visited the site. The comments that I’ve seen are the very model of good taste and reason when contrasted with the absolutely vile and often deranged comments appearing in the threads at such sites as atrios.
M. Scott Eiland
Seems like Oliver has made the equivalent of Howard Cosell’s “little monkey” gaffe. The correct response to it is the same one that was correct for Cosell’s: realizing that while Oliver is obnoxious on any number of levels, he’s clearly not an anti-Semite.
BumperStickerist
Hmmmmm …. what manner of idiot would characterize a blog based on the participants in the comment threads … commentors which, to judge from what Charles posts have little-to-no bearing on what topics Charles addresses on his blog.
That would be Oliver.
Charles’s practice is the same for Protein Wisdom, Balloon Juice, INDC Journal, Wizbang, among other blogs including TalkLeft, Pandagon, Yglesias, and others. They are blogs with comment sections.
This is a distinct practice from that bastion of temperance and moderation, dKos, where blog commentors frequently drive the site. SusanG, diarists being promoted to the front page, that sort of thing.
For all the traffic generated by dKos it’s worth remembering that there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of drones coming in and out of the hive all day.
DU, being a message board, is just a clusterfuck. As is Free Republic … start a thread, go nuts, start another thread…. ah, joy.
Willis’s blog is singular in his sense of importance given his position of irrelevance. That makes for Pure.if unintentional.
Comedy.Gold
space
Oh my, this really is a d
Just Passing Through
I do not think that Oliver is antisemitic, nor do I think he is a racist. I do think that he throws out rhetoric that could easily be interpreted as such, which I believe is Lileks point. Unlike Lileks, I do not give Oliver the benefit of the doubt. Oliver paints with a very broad brush for shock value. He practices what I think of as an opportunistic bigotry.
As far as LGF goes, I don’t think the comparison with Atrios holds up. Both gentlemen run blogs where the regular commenters are moonbats – mostly for LGF, almost entirely for Atrios. Johnson posts information that takes him some time to mine from different sources. He posts a lot of very intriguing stuff and you’d be hard put to dispute him when he makes a point based on links. He READS the stuff he links to. I read him for the posts (no, really, I read Playboy for the articles), and never open his comment threads – too hard to wade through the moonbats and mine the good stuff. Atrios posts crap. Half of what he links he doesn’t read carefully enough to realize it doesn’t support his posted argument and the conclusions implicit or explicit in his posts based on those links are often laughable. He plays to a peanut gallery. I don’t open his comment threads either. They are plenty of moonbats out there, left and right. People teetering on the far edge of their particular ism. A good set of benchmarks are Free Republic on the right and Democratic Underground on the left. LGF commenters are at least distinguishable from those on FR. Atrios commenters are indistinguishable from those at DU.
BTW: Johnson does not urge his commenters to give to his favorite causes purposefuly vectored through his site like Atrios does. He certainly does not exploit them for gifts and cash in his posts the way Atrios does his.
Angus Jung
“If the word [‘filthy’] rings no bells for you, then I’m overreacting. Obviously rung no bells for the author.”
He’s calling Ollie an igoramus, not an anti-Semite. Additional support for the former charge includes the fact that Ollie thinks Lileks is making the latter charge.
King of Fools
I think it’s the “filthy” vs. “kool-aid” derby. I’m willing to give both Oliver and Bill the benefit of the doubt on both.
Unfortunately for Oliver, his refusal to give any of the same toward Bill is what has hardened many toward him. His own accusatory past makes it hard for some to be understanding now that he has wandered into the verbiage doo-doo.
Al Maviva
So Wolfowitz is a filthy, hook-nosed diplomat. I don’t have a problem with that. Maybe it’s appropriate that a guy like Wolfowitz controls all the money. His people, um, you know, wealthy diplomats, control all the money. Besides, everything the U.S. does is just meant to help out that shitty little country. I’m referring to Belgium, of course, the heart of the EU, and I’m sure Wolfowitz will do the same. If he gets tired, he can drink a special cola made out of the life juices ripped from young… um, cocoa plants. We call it Coke. Ahhh, you know. I do worry though – you know, Wolfowitz wasn’t at the WTC on 9/11 during the attacks, and I think he had advance warning. That there was a great sales going on at Sears that weekend.
Just Passing Through
Liek I said above, I do not think OW is a bigot. Juvenile, thin skinned, coarse, and shrill, but not a bigot. The inflammatory language he uses that is at issue is opportunistic – it gets him noticed for good or ill to be outraged all the time. No competent thinker would label any supporter of the WoT as filthy, nor would any competent thniker equate support for that war with responsibility for the military deaths incurred in fighting it.
We’ve all seen it in college. – a lightweight mind posing as a thinker to get entry into the Kool Kid gang. Oliver is only as important as his sitemeter convinces him he is. Playing the race card on both sides and his affronted posturing draws in the visits. Opportunistic, but not true bigotry – or at the least the opportunism disguises the depth of real feeling one way or the other.
RW
Which begs the question of why so many on the center/right are seemingly obsessed with someone that they acknowledge to be dishonest, immature, unintelligent and cowardly.
Just Passing Through
I don’t think they are obsessed. You missed my main point. Oliver is intentionally controversial – Look at ME!! – and so is noticed. He would slip below the radar as another tired hack pushing talking points if he didn’t.
Lileks put it well:
“..one of those brand-name sites I don
Marc
Here is a free clue to some of the right-wingers here. Many of us on the left have always despised the PC trend. We have had to deal with it, up close and personal, for a whole lot longer than you have. It’s taken years of effort to pound into the skulls of lefties that playing gotcha language games is not only wrong – its actively counterproductive.
Now we’re dealing with wingers who think that they’re giving us a taste of our own medicine when they toss the same crap in our direction. We didn’t like it when earnest leftists were giving us grief for calling holes in streets manhole covers, and we don’t like it when wingers invent reasons to be offended by our choice of words.
Do you want offensive? How about celebrating the senseless death of a naive and young woman under a bulldozer? I don’t even care what words you use…
space
Well said Marc. It’s one thing to find the most fringe elements amongst your opponents and try to convince average people that the fringe elements represent the mainstream views of your opponents. Useful political tactic that. But it’s another thing to actually believe your own bullshit.
BumperStickerist
Do you want offensive? How about celebrating the senseless death of a naive and young woman under a bulldozer?
Ahhh, Rachel Corrie.
Refusing to make her a martyr isn’t the same thing as ‘celebrating the senseless death’.
The lesson to be gained is that young, naive women shouldn’t place themselves in the path of large construction equipment during military operations.
Which would prevent said females from being naive in the first place, but would allow them to become old.
The other case like this involves the doofus anti-war protestor back in the 90s who laid down in front of the tracks outside a military base. I think this was in California.
The train, being you know … A TRAIN, couldn’t stop in time. The result of which was the man had his legs cut off.
Well, guess what … trains take a dman long TIME to stop and, as such, there’s a certain TIME at which the train will be unable to stop which allows the protestor TIME to pull his damn legs off the track.
So, forgive me if I don’t shed a tear that the man, as fervent as he was in his beliefs, didn’t know that trains can’t stop.
Perhaps he should have paid attention during the High School when film clips like “Death on Track 4” or “Don’t Cross Those Tracks, Jimmy!” were shown.
Rachel Corrie died a stupid useless death that was *entirely* her fault.
Martyr?
Dumbass is more like it.
BumperStickerist
How about celebrating the senseless death of a naive and young woman under a bulldozer?
The only instance of that occuring is during the film ‘Killdozer’ …
jeff
Just look at Oliver’s comments here and his casual use of the word “Nazi”.
If this tool can’t see the difference between some dopes that comment at LGF, and the vile scum that stuffed people into ovens, then yes, he’s an anti-Semite.
RW
Oliver, I saw someone state on Wizbang that you put up a post based on the old NYT story that blamed the admin for letting the weapons get looted – prior to thinking the premise out that those were the weapons that weren’t supposed to have been there – and then removed it when it the duplicity was apparent.
Were they correct? Did you pull the post? And didn’t you recently state that you don’t like calling people nazis unless they ACT like nazis?
Oliver
Ricky, its funny you admonish people from being obsessed with me when nobody’s more obsessed with me than you are. As well as simply making shit up about me supporting a war in Iraq. And to show you how retarded it is to believe anything from the Wizbang idiots, the post in question is here.
Morons.
RW
If you’re saying that you did not post a pro-Iraq invasion link on your site, you and I both know you did, Oliver.
When I become interested in a liar who I don’t feel is intelligent, can’t get a girl & who won’t make it to age 45, I’ll let you know, Oliver. Glad you insulted me?