Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

Fight them, without becoming them!

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Let me file that under fuck it.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

It could be worse. Vance could have said “post-menopausal sows.” Waiting for that audiotape to surface.

I was confident that someone would point it out and thought why not me.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Second rate reporter says what?

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

It’s a new day. Light all those Biden polls of young people on fire and throw away the ashes.

It’s not hopeless, and we’re not helpless.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

If West Virginia and San Francisco had a love child.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2008 / Go, Andrew

Go, Andrew

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Some of you wonder why I read Sullivan. This big giant FU to Jonah Goldberg is why:

This post seems to have struck a nerve. And not to be elitist, of course, but he means “affects” not “effects”. And the sentence, “It is hardly as if it was [sic] a novel insight of mine that the Democrats have had a problem seeming like elitists” requires a subjunctive. I think what Jonah means is that it’s ok to be part of a nepotistic, moneyed elite but not ok if you work your way up from food stamps to editor of the Harvard Law Review. Now that kind of effort is what today’s conservatives really feel contempt for.

What Andrew just said in elite speak was “Blow it out your ass, momma’s boy.”

Reader Interactions

28Comments

  3. 3.

    Conservatively Liberal

    “Blow it out your ass, momma’s boy.”

    Thank you for the translation. We non-elites have difficulty translating l33t-speak. ;)

    Ouch. That’s gonna leave a mark. Andrew did a great job of pointing out teh st00p1d, but when he has a target like Goldberg it is like shooting at the side of a barn from point-blank range.

  5. 5.

    Ted

    John, you’ve got to throw Jonah’s nickname in there somewhere. Google’s only got about 8000 hits for it so far, and it needs to get higher. Not to mention, we know from a Salon interview with the Pantload that it gets under his skin.

  6. 6.

    Nikki

    That’s a point I made at length in the very column Andrew thinks displays my inconsistency which in reality merely explains my position.

    And is clearly central to his point.

  9. 9.

    Rosali

    Mike Barnicle just said on MSNBC something like, “It’s not about race, but many American parents will wonder “How did they get into Princeton and Harvard and my kid can’t get into community college?”.

    Speaking of nepotism, I would think that Luke Russert could afford to buy a good shampoo.

  10. 10.

    Delia

    Sully’s great.

    He also picked up on Cindy McCain being sent to Georgia.

    Golly, maybe she’ll do Hillary one better and free all of South Ossetia.

  11. 11.

    Xenos

    I love how Andy mentions that the sentence requires the subjunctive, but does not state what the correct subjunctive form would be. Let the smarmy arsehole struggle a bit to remember what he should have known already…

    What is the bet that Jonah commits the exact grammar mistake in his next cutting retort? Or will he go into the realm of the comma splice or the oxford comma?

  12. 12.

    Jake

    Mike Barnicle just said on MSNBC something like, “It’s not about race, but many American parents will wonder “How did they get into Princeton and Harvard and my kid can’t get into community college?”.

    Oh the stupid, how it burns.

    Nonetheless, the white resentment meme strikes me as one of the more reasonable ones floating around.

  13. 13.

    SpotWeld

    There are those who become a member of an elite because that is the status where they can accomplish what they aspire to.

    There are those who become a member of an elite because it confers onto them a special status that removes the need for actual accomplishment.

    The members of the latter elites eventually must spend all effort in maintaining the reputation of their elite group rather than risk losing their special status.

    The member of the former group just focus on getting the job done.

    Seriously, is a marine any less of a marine if they are out of uniform?

    But if Jonah Goldberg lost his press “credentials” he’d be just another commenter on LGF.

  14. 14.

    SpotWeld

    “It’s not about race, but many American parents will wonder “How did they get into Princeton and Harvard and my kid can’t get into community college?”

    I’ll answer that. Because they fought. Because the pounded the pavement. Any college recruiter, all other things being equal, will look favorably on the candidate who is willing to put forth that extra effort. They are looking for the student who will make the most of the experience their institution has to offer. A good, but mostly disaffected student may be considered, but they’ll fall to the bottom of the pile like a poorly spelled application letter.

  15. 15.

    Ted

    Speaking of nepotism, I would think that Luke Russert could afford to buy a good shampoo.

    He’s a Russert. They’re genetically programmed to look disheveled and unkempt.

  16. 16.

    TR

    You have to have elephantitis-sized balls to have gotten where you were because your rich-and-connected mommy is plugged into the establishment and got you a pity job, and then call someone who worked his way up on his own an “elitist.”

  18. 18.

    Ned R.

    Hmm. At one point Jonah says this:

    I think conservatives have become too populist in recent years

    I…could be wrong, but I thought he was Mr. Simpsons/Star Trek fanboy.

  19. 19.

    Notorious P.A.T.

    is hardly as if it was a novel insight of mine that the Democrats have had a problem seeming like elitists

    If you’re going to copy ideas from other people, at least copy ones that aren’t as dumb as a brick.

  20. 20.

    Notorious P.A.T.

    There are those who become a member of an elite because that is the status where they can accomplish what they aspire to.

    To expand on that thought, there’s a difference between being “elite” and “elitist”. Obviously Obama is elite (Harvard law review, presidential nomination, etc) but no an elitist. Of course, people like Jonah are so jaw-droppingly stupid they can’t tell the two apart.

  21. 21.

    Koz

    Obviously Obama is elite (Harvard law review, presidential nomination, etc)……..

    Really? Obama seems like a nice person and a compelling speaker if he doesn’t have to think on his feet. Otherwise, there’s very little elite about him.

  22. 22.

    Koz

    But if Jonah Goldberg lost his press “credentials” he’d be just another commenter on LGF.

    Nepotism has been with us since the dawn of time, but most of these jibes against Jonah are just cheap. Jonah built NRO into a substantial franchise on his own talent. Media-wise, he’s a much bigger deal than his mother.

  23. 23.

    Adolphus

    To expand on that thought, there’s a difference between being “elite” and “elitist”. Obviously Obama is elite (Harvard law review, presidential nomination, etc) but no an elitist. Of course, people like Jonah are so jaw-droppingly stupid they can’t tell the two apart.

    I would argue that he knows the difference but chooses to gloss over the fact when he can pick up on a meme to portray a Dem candidate in an unfavorable light.

    You have to have elephantitis-sized balls to have gotten where you were because your rich-and-connected mommy…”

    A little OT but they have a specimen of an Elephantiasis-scrotum at the National Museum of Medicine and Health at Walter Reed. Check it out some time.

  24. 24.

    Koz

    I would argue that he knows the difference but chooses to gloss over the fact when he can pick up on a meme to portray a Dem candidate in an unfavorable light.

    I dunno. It looks to me like the D’s are losing this election, at least at the Presidential level. So people want to know why.

    Jonah used the word elitist. I personally don’t think it quite fits, but it’s close. There’s something about Obama that he shares with Kerry, Dukakis, and Adlai Stevenson. Guess what they all have in common? They all lost, and I suspect Obama will too.

    Whether you call it elitism or aloofness or condescension, you gotta give it a name? Otherwise we could just pretend that Kerry won.

  25. 25.

    jake

    See you guys are operating with a standard dictionary. You need The Big Book o’ Neo-Con Words. In that book, “Elite” means anyone who has something they shouldn’t have because they are of the wrong class, race, gender or political party.

  28. 28.

    David Hunt

    To expand on that thought, there’s a difference between being “elite” and “elitist”. Obviously Obama is elite (Harvard law review, presidential nomination, etc) but no an elitist. Of course, people like Jonah are so jaw-droppingly stupid they can’t tell the two apart.

    Fortunately for him, he doesn’t have to tell them apart in a political context. The politician have handy elitism codings after their names to tell him whether they are Real salt-of-the-earth everymen or Demonic Elitists. Didn’t you get the memo meme.

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