Kevin Drum is feeling ornery, and is asking for submissions of the five worst blog posts ever (and, I suppose, the five best). Throw your nominees in the comments. Let’s see what we can come up with, and let’s do the worst first.
Five WORST:
1.) My first selection is Ann Althouse video wineblogging, but I am not sure whether to put that in my top five best post list due to the sheer joy it brought me, or the worst because of how truly awful it was. Disqualified because it looks like she sobered up and edited out most of the drinking. Damnit.
1.) John Derbyshire, reacting to the Virginia Tech shooting:
As NRO’s designated chickenhawk, let me be the one to ask: Where was the spirit of self-defense here? Setting aside the ludicrous campus ban on licensed conceals, why didn’t anyone rush the guy?
(Update- it was Michael Kelly, and was then filched by Coulter, so it does not count as a blog post. We need a new #2).
2.) Whatever post started the “objectively pro-terrorist” crap that so completely poisoned the blogosphere for, well, still. Can someone remember where that started?
2.) Either this ‘analysis’ of Terri Schaivo’s CAT scan or this B. Preston post titled the Triumph of Intentional Ignorance:
Maybe I’m all alone on this, but I find this kind of behavior despicable and unacceptable. It borders on monstrous indifference to human suffering. Terri Schiavo is starving to death right now. She does feel pain. This is not an abstraction–this is the intentional taking of a life based on the reasoning of a single judge whose flawed finding of fact several years ago put Schiavo’s life in jeopardy. That finding of fact, as to her medical condition, was definitely based on incomplete information, yet it has withstood a raft of appeals mostly because it all keeps coming back to the original flawed finding of fact and the original judge who made it. In that sense, the case is rather simple and a decent take on it can be obtained by a gaining a fairly cursory understanding of what did and did not enter into the original case. Namely, the finding that Terri Schiavo lives in a persistent vegatative state is based on a 45 minute examination by one doctor and a half hour examination by another, neither of whom ordered MRI or other tools routinely used to diagnose a PVS condition. That failure means that the diagnosis is at best incomplete and at worst may be evidence of malpractice. There is much more about Terri’s actual condition here, for anyone actually interested in the facts of this case.
In the mean time, she has done no wrong, and her husband has done much wrong, yet because of this original flawed finding of fact and a great deal of indifference to her plight, she will soon die. But these bloggers (and many others I respect, such as National Review’s John Derbyshire) are essentially saying “Don’t bother me with the facts because they’re unknowable, I don’t care if that woman dies a cruel death, but you’re wrong to intervene to save her. Of that, I am absolutely, resolutely sure. So just make it all go away.”
Well soon enough, it will all just go away because Terri Schiavo will be dead. She will have died of starvation and dehydration over the course of a few days or even weeks. She will have felt pain the entire time, and will have thus been tortured to death. Intentional ignorance of the facts pertaining to her case will also have been a contributing factor to her death.
After recognizing the triumph of Ignorance, Preston immediately went on ignorance’s payroll as one of Malkin’s chief bloggers at Hot Air.
3.) Michelle Malkin’s I Am Sam or I am not Afraid or I am John Doe post (real name- The John Doe Manifesto. Unfortunately, unlike the other great manifesto of our time, written by the Unabomber, this was not banged out on a typewriter by a recluse in a cabin in the woods, but by someone who is treated as a thinker and a celebrity by the right) A sample:
I am John Doe.
I will support law enforcement initiatives to spy on your operatives, cut off your funding, and disrupt your murderous conspiracies.
I will oppose all attempts to undermine our borders and immigration laws.
I will resist the imposition of sharia principles and sharia law in my taxi cab, my restaurant, my community pool, the halls of Congress, our national monuments, the radio and television airwaves, and all public spaces.
I will not be censored in the name of tolerance.
4.) Ann Althouse freaking out about Jessica Valenti’s breasts (not once, but multiple times)
5.) Hugh Hewitt, defending Harriet Meiers:
Does George W. Bush deserve any loyalty from his party? From pundits identified with his party? If so, how much and why not more?
Do Harriett Miers’ many accomplishments count for nothing?
Does Harriett Miers strike the commentator as a dedicated public servant?
Hugh just couldn’t quite grasp that she was Bush’s choice for the SUPREME FUCKING COURT, and not for the chairman of the Orange County GOP.
*** Update ***
And because you all are cruel bastards, pick the five worst posts I have made. 2002-2005 is a target rich environment. And I hate you all in advance.
r€nato
Kim DuToit, “The Pussification of the Western Male”
pretty much anything Adam Yoshida ever posted
gee… how do you select ‘worst blog posts’? I mean, it’s like selecting a ‘worst film’… you could point to any number of student films but do those really count? Maybe it has to be a ‘major, recognized’ blogger in order to count…
r€nato
oh, they already covered DuToit. One of these days I’ll actually follow the link before posting a comment!
r€nato
OK I have work to do so I can’t go spelunking for the worst turd-nuggets, but perhaps I can suggest where they might be found?
Pam “Atlas” Juggs
Jonah Goldberg/The Corner
Protein Wisdom (christ I wish I had time to search there, I’m sure there’s gold to be found)
Pb
For best, I nominate “Is Your Son A Computer Hacker?” (and its many user comments), by T Reginald Gibbons of Adequacy fame. For second through fifth… eh, everything else over there.
Paul L.
Nice to see from the link that Kevin Drum hates being reminded about Amanda Marcotte’s post about Duke.
Who can forget “Screw them”.
or Michael Steele “Simple Sambo”
Ugh
Glenn Reynolds for “Objectively Pro-Saddam” and similar felchings of his.
Tom Hilton
Althouse: Let’s take a closer look at those breasts. A classic.
More recently–yesterday, in fact–Luke Ford plumbed new depths of crazy wingnut prurience.
Atlass Juggs owns the vlogging category, if anyone can stand to watch any of her output.
I’d also suggest anything by Misha at Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler. The guy is truly one of the most execrable humans on the face of the planet.
ninerdave
Not to derail here, but what the hell is Paul’s obsession with the Duke case?
Ugh
Not a blog-post per se but Thomas at Redstate for saying if the entire american left were to drop dead he would order a pizza to celebrate because, um, they had the gall to point out that Ben Domenech was a plagiarist.
jc
For the BEST, it has to be the Jim Henley self-titled and one word blog called Blog.
This is the best blog because of the following 1104 responses. In every single way and manner, the variations of responses to blogging are dissected.
Many of them are hilarious as well, for example, crossing into heaven on silent paws
That’s my choice.
Z
I wish I could find that post by the guy who was whining about why there weren’t enough war-loving manly men wanting to fight in Iraq and such. Then when you looked at his bio and picture, he was this delicate little nerdy guy who liked to collect small shells.
r€nato
since I firmly believe that Jonah Goldberg has to be in the top 5 somewhere, I’ll nominate Prof. Juan Cole’s definitive takedown of Doughy Pantload for the Best Of list.
(the permalinks for specific blog posts in Cole’s archive don’t work; you’ll have to go to that link and then search for the post entitled, “Jonah Goldberg Embarrasses Himself Once Again “)
That’s just how it starts. Cole pretty much calls out Goldberg on his utter cluelessness and lack of qualifications to publicly opine about anything of significance, whatsoever.
Tom Hilton
I thought about that, but as I said, Atlas Juggs really dominates the category. Seriously: you could take any random 5 Atlas Juggs vlogs, and they would be worse than any other vlog by anybody else.
And even if you disqualified Atlas Juggs, you would still have at least two Malkin vids to contend with (the cheerleader one and the jihad rap).
Althouse is awful, but the vlogging awfulness bar is set pretty high.
Ugh
OT – Schumer and Feinstein to vote for Mukasey.
Cinderella Ferret
It took this many comments to mention “She who must be avoided at all cost?”
Ahem, Michelle Malkin. Where to start? We could throw all the titles for her posts in a hat and pick one. How could we lose? Of course her little cheerleader vlog is a treasure. C’mon guys! Does it get much better than that?
chopper
my god, that may be the dumbest discussion of all time. christ.
RSA
I’ve only seen one Pam Atlas vlog, a music video pilloried on Sadly, No! If this is representative, there’s little hope for any other contender.
Libby Spencer
Anne’s winevlog has to be disqualified. I pulled it up a few months ago and she edited out most of the drinking parts. It would only work if someone saved the original.
I might nominate a JeffG at PW classic that went on at great length speculating about what kind of laundry basket Amanda uses and how that related to her sexuality but I’m not going to go looking for it.
srv
Let’s Roll
Cinderella Ferret
Oh, he’s still upset about the split with Heather Mills.
Cinderella Ferret
RATS! I should have looked at Drum’s post first. They already have the Malkin vlog on the UPDATE list.
Tom Hilton
Looks like you and I cross-posted. Yeah, the cheerleader vid is gouge-out-your-eyeballs horrific. There’s also the jihad rap video, which I couldn’t even bring myself to watch because the initial image was so horrifying (some of you may be braver than I am).
Pb
r€nato,
Oh, that’s great–and don’t forget the non-wager wager he lost, and the establishment of Jonah Goldberg Day, when lefties donate what he won’t, to the USO!
Also deserving of some sort of nomination, the classic Delete my fucking account, Kos, by ErrinF.
Bubblegum Tate
Mark Noonan’s The Death of Science post falls into this category for me.
r€nato
can we really limit this to a Top 5? There’s an awful lot of teh suck out there in Blogtopia.
Maybe it should be culled to a list of 20 or so, and then vote for top 5…
r€nato
wasn’t that Instapundit?
googling…
Gold Star for Robot Boy
IIRC, it was more than that. This cretin was complaining that Americans held hostage in Iraq WERE NOT WILLING TO DIE; therefore, they were wimps.
Yeesh.
Yeah, that’s an excellent nominee.
r€nato
it was Ann Coulter.
Zifnab
Damnit, I can’t find the RedState post back in January of ’06 when Pelosi got sworn in and they had the giant Communist Hammer & Sickle in the background. That was the most awesomely hilarious post I ever read.
r€nato
I think James Lileks certainly must have a suckworthy entry…
Zifnab
Gag me. Schumer has something resembling a semi-balance of an excuse. He picked Mukasey and now he’s got this filial obligation to chase good money after bad. Feinstein is just a hack.
If the Democrats have any balls at all, they’ll filibuster. So I imagine Mukasey will get the nod.
RSA
You have to remember that Coulter is a plagiarist. Here’s an earlier citation, from Michael Kelly, on September 27, 2001 (he wasn’t wasting much time):
HyperIon
a stroll down memory lane.
and the Link function was screwed up then, too.
r€nato
good job, RSA.
Andrei
A top five worst for John Cole? Easy. The one where he said Darrell was arguing in “good faith” and honestly seem to believe it even after the two years of Darrell’s bullshit in these comments. (And Peter Johnson is doing a damn good Darrell impersonation if you ask me.) Although I can’t seem to find the original post for a link.
I wonder also… was Stormy, Rick and TallDave and all those other asshats arguing in good faith as well, or has Cole re-read all their drivel from days past and seen the light as well?
r€nato
Wow, RSA – Jewish World Review published both columns, both the one you cited and the later one in which Coulter nicks Kelly’s phrase.
Maybe their copy editor was distracted by Coulter’s adam’s apple and missed that one.
Bubblegum Tate
Hey, that second song she’s all pissed off about uses the Diwali riddim. That’s a good one.
I’m surprised Stalkin’ Malkin didn’t screech about legendary U.K. group Hijack, which even called itself “The Terrorist Group.” Of course, Hijack’s last album came out in 1991, but I’m sure Stalkin’ Malkin could figure out a way to blame them for the 1993 WTC bombing.
rh
The “Dread Pundit” Bluto’s entire series of posts this week re: Greenwald/Boylan were pretty unbelievably horrible.
r€nato
pick the five worst posts I have made.
too easy – and I think you’ve shown sufficient penance that it’s not right to rub your face in it any longer.
welcome to the Democratic party, John… where snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, as well as engaging in pointless kabuki theater over important principles then backing down when push comes to shove, is a way of life.
I recommend a hearty imported ale to help chase the lingering bitter aftertaste of defeat from your mouth.
RSA
I didn’t even notice. (Good catch.) Next time I need some rightwing screed, original or not, that’ll be my first stop.
Gold Star for Robot Boy
Oooh, now I remember a good (meaning bad) one.
Remember when CSM reporter Jill Carroll, held hostage in Iraq, was forced to make a pro-Islam video before her release? Now, remember how the wingers freaked out and called her all sorts of vile shit? It was a blogosphere gang rape.
Well, I don’t know who started that, but they deserve a place on this list of infamy.
Tom Hilton
No, he wasn’t…but Andrew Sullivan wasted even less time with his fifth column remark, which he spewed forth on 9/16/01. Certainly in the same spirit as “objectively pro-terrorist”, and 11 days earlier.
Pb
Zifnab,
Here it is from the web archive (and here it is today); the title was “Democrats + Socialist = Majority”.
r€nato
…of someone who’d been a hostage of terrorists known for making snuff videos of the beheading of their captives.
Do the rightards EVER pick on someone their own size? I mean, seriously… Graeme Frost, Jill Carroll… then listen to what passes for ‘humor’ on the right. Making fun of the poor, unfortunate and disadvantaged is only funny if you’re either a bully or a sociopathic bastard.
Gold Star for Robot Boy
And Bush is both.
srv
For Best, always Jim Henley:
The Barber of Beirut
Million Mom War
ninerdave
Man, talk about taking the wind out of my sails…I was just looking for your first post.
tc
My all-time fave is the classic from Mark Noonan:
“I really do urge our Democrats to step back from the edge – you are sitting in a lake of gasoline and you are playing with fire. We on our side will only put up with so much before we start to pay back with usury what we have received. If you can’t defeat Tom Delay in the electoral field, then you will simply have to accept him as Majority Leader of the United States House of Representatives – and you’d better start accepting political reality before things get really bad.
UPDATE, by Matt Margolis: Mark, what’s really sad is that the Democrats think this is a winning strategy for them in 2006 and 2008. They’ll learn the hard way how this will come back to bite them… Not even the Kossacks will be able to save them.”
Tsulagi
My first thought was Assrocket’s “George Bush is a misunderstood genius” post. Didn’t see it here, but clicked your first link and of course someone also thought of it there.
That one has to count as the most retarded, suckup post of all time.
ninerdave
Here are some others that caught my eye:
The Second Post including the original title.
ninerdave
My favorite of all…
John blows his back out opening a pickle jar.
ninerdave
John discovers K-Lo’s pad
Libby Spencer
Alright I lied. I went looking for the PW laundry basket thing. All I could find easily was this post by somebody else who ran down the kerfluffle. Unfortunately, it seems PW doesn’t have permalinks or something and all links lead to the current page so I’m not going to go digging in their archive to find it.
I did however, chance upon this classic Insty wherein he rails that Bush didn’t assassinate atomic scientists to derail Iran. I’m not sure it qualifies as his worst. I’m sure he has written more dismal posts but I’ve blocked them all out of mind.
r€nato
I look forward to the day when the Democratic party’s trouncing of the GOP at the polls has been so successful, that Cole turns into a curmudgeon of the Right again.
That’s when I’ll know we’ve won ;-)
tc
And then there’s John Cole, Oct. 23, 2003:
“This is not a quagmire, in any sense of the word. For those of you who like analogies, Iraq is to VietNam what me losing my job is to the Great Depression. Got it?”
Punchy
Paul L, how is it that you continue to come here, post as often as you do, but not put a link to BJ on your blog? Seems kinda heartless. After all, you got Malkin and Powerlie and the rest….seems like you could easily add another conservative blog like John’s….
RSA
Shoot up into the 3000s, for example, a post titled The Sovereign State of Iraq, from 2004.
John Cole
I need help. during the Schaivo affair there was some blogger out there who claimed to be knoledgeable in the medical field, and who posted a number of posts that all the wingers linked to, but was wrong about everything. for some reason I think it was blogspot site and it had the word blue in the name.
I want to say respectful of otters and amptoons nuked them, but I just can not remember.
Gus
jc, that Jim Henley blog is my all time favorite. Thank you for introducing it to me. I would also love to nominate for best any of the many Poorman Institutes Keyboard Kommando comic strips. Have we really gotten this far in comments without the Powertools Bush=genius post being mentioned for worst?
r€nato
It’s hard to choose from among his archives, but I think Jon Swift’s ‘Why Do Conservatives Like Larry Craig Seem So Gay?’ must certainly merit a nomination:
Of course, mocking closeted conservative homophobes is like shooting
your hunting partner in the facefish in a barrel lately…John Cole
And I hate all of you going through my archives. Have you no mercy?
No. Of course you don’t. Die in a fire.
Mona
Not gonna look it up again, but on any list must be John Hinderaker’s post naming George Bush as an unrecognized genius akin to Mozart or the greatest of painting artists.
Bucky
Beat me to it. Here you are:
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/011183.php#011183
Bombadil
On behalf of all of us who have ever been called an asshole and/or banned by you, I remind you that payback is a bitch. Consider this the equivalent of ten Hail Marys and ten Our Fathers.
Mona
Oops, sorry — I see that someone already nominated the Bush/genius post at Power Line. John: I think the medical authority every wingnut was linking to during Schiavo was Code Blue blog.
RSA
John’s a Democrat now. That means reciting Al-Fatihah and a surah, in Arabic.
Cols714
Oh man that Lets Roll post was really bad. Good thing I didn’t hang out here then.
rilkefan
Kelly:
Obviously I’ve been receded – what 7k is he talking about?
Bombadil
And kidding aside, I admire him for posting his invitation to find his own worst posts as well. Shows that, if nothing else, he has a remarkable sense of humor.
tc
John,
Are you sure you’re not thinking of Nobel-nominated Bill Hammesfahr, the Hannity expert:
HANNITY: Do you believe she is aware, conscious and responsive?
HAMMESFAHR: Terri is completely aware and conscious and responsive. She is like a child with cerebral palsy. We have kids in the Pinellas County school system every day that are much worse than her, that we’re educating.
…
HAMMESFAHR: Absolutely.
HANNITY: Could she talk one day?
HAMMESFAHR: Yes. She’s not in PVS, not in a coma. And the — Judge Greer ignored this.
John Cole
No. it was Code Blue blog. Check #2 in the post above. It is a tie.
Actually, I wrote a number of cringeworthy shit, but if there was really one post I wish I had never, ever written, it was the one smearing Juan Cole as anti-semitic with nothing to back up my claim, in which I then proceeded to vigorously defend my smear in the comments. Going back to it now, it is just truly fucking awful. I owe him an apology, but he probably has no fucking clue who I am.
And even worse, that was in 2006. Absolutely disgraceful. I may have said and done some other bad shit, but hands down that was me at my worst. It is just wretched to read right now.
ThymeZone
I have to recuse myself, I promised nothing negative from me.
To my knowledge, you have never made a bad post. One or two that I disagreed with, maybe.
And …. this is just priceless:
OMFG, that’s Onion material.
Bubblegum Tate
ZING!
ThymeZone
Wha ….? You guys aren’t brothers?
cleek
the Euston Manifesto is pretty fucking awful. not sure it’s a blog post, though it reads like one.
ConYank’s “Buy Me a Grill” is a classic, too.
spartikus
What..no mention of Josh Trevino’s Bottomless hatred of parents post?
Bubblegum Tate
“Is our PVS patients learning?”
Tom Hilton
Would it be in poor taste to say that there are wingnuts on the internets much worse than her, who are blogging?
Yeah, probably.
PeterJ
While this is one my favorite blogs, I probably wouldn’t have stayed long in the not so good old days. I think I started to read the blog sometime around 2004.
I started to check some of your earlier posts after you went and registered as democrat. If you’re some sort of manchurian candidate planted by Soros, then you have truly earned both the money and the virigins.
Krista
Don’t write cheques that your ass can’t cash, sweetheart.
Perry Como
Would this count?
Krista
And as far as the worst post, I do think that the “Jane Hamshers of the left” post was horrific. Not necessarily because of the post itself, but because it resulted in such a stupid, stubborn, ridiculous back-and-forth over what was really just semantics. That entire thread made me want to bang my head against a brick wall.
Tom Hilton
Speaking of TIDOS Yankee, I have a sentimental fondness for the post where he says Matt Yglesias hates America. ‘Sentimental’ because that’s the comment thread where he banned me. Ahh, good times.
John Cole
The reason he banned you was fucking PRICELESS. You all have to check that one out.
LMAO.
Dreggas
Ok OT for a minute but once again satire meets real life
Dreggas
F’ing priceless!
thehim
I’m not sure if this is exactly what the contest is looking for. This post is more of “the Apolacypse is upon us if people think this is normal”, but it probably works…
http://gto7.wordpress.com/2007/07/13/suspicious-terrorist-activity-detected-in-seattle/
srv
God, and it’s so hard also. Your search/archives are less friendly than the Rollerball Libraries.
Rick Taylor
Someone already picked up on “Let’s Roll” ( https://balloon-juice.com/?p=1386 . The question in the comments was certainly prescient:
John Cole
Why the hell couldn’t my archives get lost in the move to wordpress like everyone elses?
Tom Hilton
That one should win a special award for its tag line: “A blog for those who take Reality serious”. Yes, it says ‘serious’, not ‘seriously’.
All of which is just an excuse to post my favorite exchanges from Kiss Kiss Bang Bang:
And later:
t. jasper parnel
I like this quote from JC:
Not because it is the worst but because it shows the stupidity of assuming that tomorrow will look like today.
For the worst (or in any event most representative malkin) this is priceless.
ninerdave
eh, wouldn’t make much difference, the Internet Archive has most of your stuff starting from 2003.
Dan
He’s mentioned you in at least one blog entry – apparently people keep getting the two of you mixed up.
Then again, if he didn’t know about the post to begin with…
rawshark
Mission Accomplished.
:)
Heywood Jablomy
1) Well that woman at Sadly No desecrating the Ramones should get her just atomic cyber sand-wedgie. But don’t stare too long or your eyes (and ears) will burst into cinders.
2) Also, Family Jewels Crittenden is a trove. Here’s a graf from his foist evah movee reeview, in which he states with Wingbattian(tm) orgueil that HE HAS NOT SEEN THE MOVIE:
Why do I feel like I have a shard of popcorn stuck in my throat?
(Look, John, I figgered it out.)
Tom Hilton
How could I forget the Crazification Factor? Easily a Top 5 post.
John Cole
That isn’t the Ramones. It is the Knack.
demimondian
Oh, I’d forgotten the crazification factor. A priceless contribution to western lit.
And, Tom, congratulations for getting banned from CYHOP for a truly memorable reason. I confess that I’m glad that Sherman didn’t have the items in question — my spouse is a Southerner, and I don’t think that there’s another equivalent anywhere — but, still…priceless.
t. jasper parnel
This is very good, dealing as it does with both hopes dashed and classic literature.
Downpuppy
I was going to pick some light moments about what a fine, upstanding moderate Judge Roberts is, but
https://balloon-juice.com/?p=3726#comments
a defense of Gonzo & waterboarding, with cheap shots at Kennedy, beat it all hollow.
Heywood Jablomy
good catch. me need a editor.
guyermo
the best opening paragraph ever in a blog post
if you can’t guess where it came from, here’s the answer
John Cole
Slow down there- I wasn’t defending waterboarding in that at all (and I doubt I seriously knew what waterboarding was- I didn’t know much about torture until the Bush administration educated us all). Given the time period, I probably was shilling for Gonzo, but that post was pretty clearly just a full-frontal attack on Kennedy.
And, FWIW, since waterboarding really wasn’t in the american lexicon at the time, I still think it probably wasn’t the best idea to have, of all the Senators, Kennedy bitching about simulated drowning.
That doesn’t mean Kennedy wasn’t right about Gonzo and torture, because he surely was.
Gold Star for Robot Boy
Oh, that’s wonderful.
Dreggas
Well it was pretty darn funny, I mean can’t you see Sherman now, “My Army for a thermo-nuclear weapon!”
r€nato
indeed, heh.
I do give TIDOS Yankee credit for allowing comments from dissenters and even engaging them in debate for more than five words without resorting to name calling, but that’s pretty weak tea…
r€nato
Tom Hilton, congrats on engaging TIDOS Yankee in that comments thread. F’ing pwn3d.
He banned you for ‘genocidal hopes’! Touchy, touchy.
I really, really enjoyed your telling the truth about the Confederacy; it was an armed rebellion against the lawful government of the US, which is ordinarily referred to as ‘treason’. Nice to hear that particular spade called a spade.
My ex-father is one of those diehard Confederacy lovers; born in NC, he still calls it, ‘The War of Northern Aggression’ with a straight face.
Libby Spencer
I’ve been reading you since 03, off and on. Hell, I even blogrolled you for a while at my first blog until you totally pissed me off and I delinked you.
Oddly, I don’t want to dig in your archives and dredge up bad memories. I’d rather wallow in the bliss of your current assimilation.
sidereal
Hmm. . a couple come to mind
A Question
Wrong
Libby Spencer
I thought that was an unfortunate choice of subject matter for my former Senator as well. To this day I can’t believe his political career survived that bridge.
sidereal
See, I should have read the thread before contributing. Mine are weak sauce compared to the quality 2004-5 stuff. I got nothin.
Ted
That reminds me of that hilarious parody of the likes of Roger L. Simon (was it Michael Berube that came up with it?), “I used to consider myself a Democrat, but thanks to 9/11, I’m outraged by Chappaquiddick.”
El Cid
Did all this stuff really happen, or am I just reading about somebody’s really, really bad trip.
Because this stuff is so lunatic, it just doesn’t seem real at all. It doesn’t. It’s like nightmare tilted camera zoom in and zoom out land. This does not seem real at all.
El Cid
Oh my god. I never saw that before. I am in severe pain from how hard I am laughing at this. Ow. Oh my god.
blorp
I have a soft spot for this RedState post on the fiscal genius of GWB. I particularly like these lines:
I will suggest that President Bush understands money better than any President we have ever had. He understands it better than most economists. He understands it better than our illustrious pundits. President Bush understands money the way a financier understands money. He sees it as a force or a power that one squirts at the world to make the world change. He sees it as a weapon.
Heywood Jablomy
Atrios’ “Friedman Unit” is a finalist for sure.
Ted
Wow. Good one. The money Bush “squirts” at (certain parts of ) the world is indeed making the world change, so I guess the writer is correct.
r€nato
wow. just wow.
these guys could have fantastic careers writing satirical comedy.
Except… they’re serious.
The Commander Guy
My vote is The Onion predicting the hinderacker/powerliner “bush is genius” post back in 2001.
Don’t know if it counts but compare the two:
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28498
And
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/011183.php#011183
calipygian
His Doughy Pantload very recently had a particularly craptacular post displaying his wretched ignorance of the post World War II world – Settling Soviet Hash. So wrong on so many levels.
Translated from the original Chickenhawk into English: we should have nuked the fuck out of the Russkies when we had the chance, killing a hundred million reds in one spasm rather than out last them in the Cold War.
Asshole.
little bird
It’s amazing that so many of the biggest supporters of the war in Iraq have such a soft spot for our own country’s insurgents.
Wait, not amazing. The other one. Depressing.
vetiver
Tom “Hopeful Genocider” Hilton, I totally concur with your nomination of The Crazification Factor as a top-5 (even top-1) blog post.
I’ve read with interest (and increasing alarm) the quotes from what seems to be a shoo-in from RedState. I had a lot of money riding on Hindrocket’s encomium via delirium for place, or at least show.
However, any post that both a) argues for GWB’s acuity regarding global monetary issues, and b) uses the verb “squirts” in a laudatory description of any governmental policy whatsoever–well, I know when to fold ’em.
Unless I can find a RedState economics post that involves “splooge.”
C’mon, that’s at least a 60-40 bet.
The Other Steve
My favorite John Coleism…
Which led to Darrell’s best post ever!
John Cole
Heh. I forgot about the google search in that post.
The Other Steve
Anybody remember Online Integrity?
Oh, and my favorite… The post that brought me to Balloon-Juice and caused me to stay
Abuse of Power, the start of the lovely relationship many of us have with protein wisdom. Notice how John Cole using a standard right-wing tactic…
Of course they weren’t as portrayed. Don’t let that stop the outrage though! :-)
The Other Steve
Oh my god, that’s fucking priceless.
Sherman with nukes!
John Cole
TOS- I only vaguely remember what happened there, and the PW link does not work. Was that the one with the prof hasssling a PHD student?
The Other Steve
Yeah. It was funny watching all the outrage, especially since it was obvious people were lying about what had happened.
Punchy
Ah….yes. We pilloried you, and for good reason.
Tom Hilton
Thanks, y’all…it was one of my prouder moments.
Well, as I said: it would probably be wrong to think that…
Free At Last
I can’t believe that in the comments you used the phrase “Democrat Party”!
Anyone with a history like that should be required to perform an act of penance before being allowed into the party!
Free At Last
One of the most appalling pposts I’ve ever read at Redstate was Leon’s “The Racist Left”
TenguPhule
He reads Malkin and Confederate Pussy so we don’t have to.
Free At Last
Let me try that again:
One of the most appalling posts I’ve ever read at Redstate was Leon’s “The Racist Left”
http://www.redstate.com/story/2006/4/3/11050/55842
(you’ll have to copy and paste to read it. Sooner or later I’ll figure out how to embed links)
TenguPhule
John Cole declares his love for Dick Cheney
I think we have a winna!
JGabriel
John Cole:
It’s probably been mentioned already (I haven’t read all the preceding responses yet), but here’s a vote for the original ‘Jane Hamshers of the Left’ bomb-throwers post.
No, I’m sure it’s not the worst. But it does rank in the top 5 for stupidity.
Plus, it’d be funny. I mean, the argument that the ‘Jane Hamshers of the Left’ does not include Jane Hamsher is a classic.
(Yes, it meets Russell’s mathmatical postulate that a set shouldn’t include its own definition, but ‘Jane Hamshers of the Left’ was a linguistic and not a mathmatical construct. It was just hilariously silly. Besides another branch of set theory can be, and I believe has been, created on the opposite postulate. So, it was silly *and* wrong.)
.
JGabriel
Oh, and my vote for worst post goes to Malkin’s hate-filled, xenophobic diatribe ‘The John Does Manifesto’.
Andrei
Holy crap.
Cole said up thread:
Me on that very same post:
I think my head just assploded. I have no idea how to live my life right at this moment I think I need to go log into WoW and blow some stuff up.
(In case the comment link doesn’t work above, here’s the explicit link: https://balloon-juice.com/?p=7235#comment-189978 )
jenniebee
More recent stuff is always going to get more attention, but this Fafblog post from July 2004 still sticks with me.
sherifffruitfly
Malkin’s “defeat-o-crats” cheerleader video didn’t make it? In the immortal words of immortal Gob: COME ON!!!
Svensker
There are no words to express how much I love that line.
(Cole re Cole — I think he’d appreciate it very much if you e-mailed him an apology. He takes a lot of heat, not to mention losing jobs, for what he does. Hearing from those from whose eyes the scales have fallen — how’s that for grammatical construction — is always a balm.)
Fwiffo
Here’s the problem with Althouse. Although the onion-rings-a-metaphor-for-vaginas-and-infidelity post is horrible enough to make the list on its own, the series on breasts is so galactically stupid that it breaks the curve.
The Other Steve
Althouse problem is she needs an enema.
badly
Punchy
WTF?
Now Burger King has to remind me I’m not gettin any? Jesus H….
ImJohnGalt
Man, that link to John’s endorsement of Bush and Man-crush on Cheney hurt me to read. Kerry was fucking up Terrorist Ho’s at BCCI back when George Bush was failing at owning a baseball team.
I dunno if John still feels like Kerry would have been worse than Bush, but I’d hope that the purple-heart band-aids and his (at least then-)ignorance of Kerry’s past history of successfully prosecuting terrorist money-laundering organizations make him lose a little sleep at night.
ImJohnGalt
FWIW, there was a decent thread for why people *were* going to vote for Kerry here.
Seems to make sense to me, even now.
tc
The comments all select rightwing posts, but there are definitely some lefties worth an award or two.
Jane Hamsher’s post doing Joe Lieberman in blackface comes to mind.
Then there was the Daily Kos poster who kept sobbing with his daughter:
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a look of misery and dejection on the face of my daughter as I just did a moment ago. She just couldn’t understand why the President would be going to Iraq when so many things are wrong in this country. “Doesn’t Mr. Bush care about us anymore?” she asked pitifully.
I sat down with her on the sofa and (as calmly as I could) tried to explain to her why the President seems to be abandoning his country…
I tried to keep my voice steady, but it became increasingly difficult – the rage and feelings of helplessness were just too much. I think my daughter could tell something was wrong. I found myself at such a loss for words – nothing made any sense; nothing makes sense anymore. I finally had to admit, “Honey, I just don’t know – I don’t know what’s going on in this country anymore…”
When I finished her lower lip started to tremble and her eyes began to fill with tears, “Daddy” she said, “why are the Republicans doing this to the country?” Well, that was it for me: I finally fell apart. She just fell into my arms and we both began sobbing for several minutes.”
When caught writing the same post three different times, “CheChe” responded:
“I’m simply not going to apologize for loving and comforting my daughter.
She happens to be very concerned about the course of this country and if you want to make fun of that, well, good for you.
Bottle-feeding newborns is like forcing them to smoke cigarettes.”
Bubblegum Tate
Sounds like DoughBob LoadPants learned his history from Mark “WW II was true glory for America…except for the end, when we totally pussied out of invading Russia” Noonan.
Wow. Now that is good crazy right there.
jcricket
How do we get to 150 posts and not mention Andrew Sullivan’s
“decadent left/liberal enclaves/5th column” post? That was a true gem.
It’s even worse considering he still defends it, but has twice done a revisionist history on his own words, subtly altering the original quote to make is sound more “reasonable” (like so):
It’s also especially rich considering he lives on the coasts and is definitely part of the “decadent” enclaves (think his summer home in Provincetown isn’t used for barebacking with various partners?)
jcricket
Most of these guys get their history from John Wayne films (including the one where Wayne plays Genghis Khan – hilarious) and imagine themselves as the literary equivalent of R. Lee Ermy in pretty much every movie he’s been in.
jcricket
Do the Malkin “cheerleader” and “My Sharia” videos count as blog (vlog?) posts? Those are mind-numbingly awful.
Ron
I had to go into the Wayback Machine to get it, but no worst of list beats the virtual gangfuck of Jackie Mackie Paisley Passey after she posted her dating standards.
jcricket
I thought you were actually making up a funny set of middle names to make fun of her. But no (Sadly, No) – That’s her real name. Hi-Lar-IOUS.
Much like their heroes (O’Reilly, Savage) the right-wing blogosphere seems to simultaneously suffer from massive ego/self-importance overload and a huge persecution complex.
4jkb4ia
That Luke Ford post was slime! I have more sympathy for the people who talked Gil Student out of associating with him.
Worst Blog Post
Cinnamon Stillwell on Kesher Talk after the 2006 election saying that the Democratic candidates “pretended” to be moderates. We have seen how much liberal grandstanding has been done from this year’s class.
Serenity Now
My first selection is Ann Althouse video wineblogging … Disqualified because it looks like she sobered up and edited out most of the drinking. Damnit.
Translation: “I have trouble distinguishing reality from my delusions about people I dislike.”
Zuzu
Okay, not really a single worst post or anything, but just wondering if you have come to the conclusion that the Slow Boaters really, truly were full of crap.
https://balloon-juice.com/?p=3481
If there’s any question, happy to provide a few links as evidence that yes, they really were.
Spider97
I suggest that you head on over to The Corner, a target-rich environment for the “worst” end of the spectrum. Search for any Lopez posts, and you’ve almost certainly got a contender.
However, what stands out in my own mind is that barely literate moron telling us that the Casey/Santorum race was in play the Monday before the midterm elections:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTA3NWU1NjVmMGY1MDZiNjQwYTEyMDU3Y2RlZGI5YzM=
While the Assrocket’s tribute to the genius and mental acuity of GWB is a true standout, let’s also not forget this bit of jackassery:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTQ2NDRjYTVmMDUwYTcyNjM3MGQ0ZGM1M2NlMWNjYzA=
Again courtesy of Lopez and NRO!! The formula works, I tell you!!