Namely, she doesn’t understand the independence and libertarian nature of blogging.
This is just a weird and odd response to a rather trivial post, and I think we are all obligated to spend our time filling the comments here trashing the Third Way.
Why? Because we can, and no suit will tell us otherwise.
*** Update ***
Also at OTB, this post by Dave Schuler, in which he comes to the following conclusion:
And that’s when it struck me: the blogosphere is full of jerks.
And, without further comment, I present the greatest Penny Arcade ever. What else needs to be said?
*** Update #2 ***
Drexel Dems are aware of all internet traditions. Do we define this as a LOLCAP?
*** Update #3 ***
Damage Control for the Damage Control.
Just so we are clear, every thought here posted under my name is mine and mine alone. Unless you think it is really stupid, in which case, blame Tim.
wvng
The Third Way sounds like scientology, only stupider.
/trashing
Comrade Jake
I caught that first thing this morning and thought WTF?
I’m not sure how much time we need to spend on it though, since judging by the comments over at Matt’s blog the residents are not impressed.
CREE-PEE.
Keith
I guess he’s never heard of Bob Novak and/or Glenn Beck. The point being is that the entire world is full of jerks; the blogosphere is just a sampling of the world, not their refuge.
Church Lady
Well, I’ll be the first to admit I have absolutely no idea what The Third Way is. As to the rest, this blog is an excellent reflection of what Dave Schuler posits. As I read the descriptions of types, certain individuals came to mind, especially the angry ones, whose automatic response to everyone else always seems to be "fuck you".
cleek
MY’s blog has the strangest group of commentors… aside from the obvious trolls, there are a large number of regulars who apparently live to tell MY how stupid he is every chance they get. but half the time, they’re flat out wrong; the other half they’re just nitpicking. but they’re always there. it’s really odd.
that Jennifer Palmieri post would’ve been the end of my association with CAP. no fucking way could i have stayed on after that.
Reverend Dennis
@Church Lady:
Fuck you.
The Moar You Know
Also, cocks. (Because I can).
The response from Ms. Palmieri shows a real control freak at work.
Oh, for fuck’s sakes. I know they’re your sponsors, John, so I’ve always kept my mouth shut about the Pajamas TV ads. I guess I expect Reynolds and Our Lady of The Countertops. I’m not surprised to see Michael Steele. But Joe the Plumber? Is that what it’s come to for these folks, that they are so out of ideas that somebody finds Joe the Fucking Plumber worth one second of airtime?
The Republican Party died a long time ago, but man, the corpse is really starting to stink up the joint.
Church Lady
@ Reverend Dennis:
I rest my case. :)
The Management
I would just like to say, that we here at Balloon Juice appreciate the blogging that John does. We also have a very good relationship with Bob Corker, Think Progress and the Third Way and have partnered with them on many occasions. We wish to make it clear that comments made by John do not reflect the opinion of the Balloon Juice management, or that of our affiliate partners.
Thank You
– The Management
Napoleon
My theory is that they are a Jewish Neocon leaning fringe (a la Jamie K. from The New Republic, in fact I would not be surprised if one of them was Jamie’s sockpuppet). My impression is that Matt Y. has driven them nuts with his critic of the NeoCons and the far right in Israel and that he comes close to being target number one for them.
r€nato
I usually avert my eyes from those PJTV banner ads but Moar made me take a look to see it for myself.
Holy shit. Joe the fucking Plumber? Nothing says, ‘full of suck’ more than pimping Joe the fucking Plumber.
Even people who loves themselves some Sarah Palin wish Joe the fucking Plumber would die in a fire. Seriously, I’m not kidding.
libarbarian
Being a Fuckwad is an artform like any other.
Some of us work very hard at being Fuckwads.
John Cole
You can say what you want about PJ Media, but they have never once told me what to put on my website.
Compare that to CAP.
r€nato
and some are born that way, like Atanarjuat.
r€nato
John, I didn’t mean YOU were pimping Joe the fucking Plumber, I meant PJTV. I’m well aware you don’t necessarily approve or disapprove of the ads just because they are running here.
I got over your association with PJ Media long ago. In fact several times in my career I’ve taken money (sometimes quite a bit) from people whose politics (and even personality) I despised.
I dealt with that inner conflict by donating to the Democratic party, Democratic candidates or progressive causes every time they sent me a check for work I had performed.
By the way… Blade Runner: The Final Cut? MUCH better than the original version.
Laura W
2+3 = cats is a slap in the face to dogs everywhere.
wrye
I’m not sure what’s wierder – Palmieri’s seizure of the blog, or MY’s complete non-acknowledgement of it. The commentariat over there is having a field day, with nothing to go on. Although a fair case can be made that MY never reads his comments anyway. I’m not sure if an elephant is in the room or a shoe’s about to drop, but either way, it’s really strange to see.
JR -- Bryan, TX
I don’t know enough about the Third Way to have any real reason to trash them.
But has that stopped me before? Heck, no — I hate them!
The Other Steve
This is a slap in the face to anal retentive bosses everywhere!
The Moar You Know
@John Cole: And don’t get me wrong in spite of my bitching about that plug-ugly subhuman retard on the sidebar – I am pretty fucking happy about Pajamas’ sponsorship of your blog here precisely because they don’t indulge in the kind of bullshit that Matt is avoiding dealing with today.
I took a drive around the comments section over there, not something I’ve really done in a while. The commentariat is FUCKING PISSED about Palmieri’s idiot posting and they are bringing pitchforks and torches to every thread. What is tragic is Matt’s non-response; he is throwing up a fuckton of postings to try to get his idiot management’s posting off the front page as fast as possible. I don’t blame him, but the well has been poisoned now – he’s going to have to leave if he wants to keep any audience or credibility.
Comrade Stuck
This is such profundity it boggles me small brain. The Funhousers are also scratching heads, or the bloody neck stumps where they used to be.
The Other Steve
Matt always throws a fuckton of postings up. He’s prolific. Probably averages at least 10 postings a day.
But yes, he’s ignoring the issue. I’m spamming every post with my message from The Management. :-)
James Joyner
I don’t think that’s true at all. He’s had plenty of audience for years and I don’t see why he should lose any because the people who pay him have inserted a stupid disclaimer. Ditto his credibility; one isn’t obligated to fall on every sword.
The Moar You Know
Uh-oh.
Well. For starters, he’s going to have to delete every post made since last night, more or less. And then he needs to find his balls.
The Moar You Know
@The Other Steve: Where do you find the time?
And that shit is funny, do continue.
canuckistani
Shitcock!
HAHAHAHA!
Another blow struck for internet incivility.
John Cole
@James Joyner: Yeah, I don’t see this as a hit to Matt’s credibility whatsoever. Like you, I have been reading Matt since he had 100 page views a day, and he won’t change.
Palmieri does have him in a bind right now, but Matt shouldn’t have to address it. She should.
Zifnab
Ah, the "Third Way". When all you can see is black and white, best to take the middle road of giant sell-out pussy. :-p
Has anyone given Schuler his obligatory "WELCUM 2 TEH INTERNETZ!" post yet?
Johnny Pez
@r€nato:
Some are born fuckwads, some achieve it, and some have fuckwaditude thrust upon them.
Napoleon
From TNR:
Jennifer Palmieri, a senior Center for American Progress official and veteran of John Edwards’s 2004 presidential campaign, is under consideration for the top public affairs job at the Pentagon
wingnuts to iraq
well, this is just as pathetic as bitching about Warren, so its par for the course.
The blogosphere is pretty useless these days.
wingnuts to iraq
@The Other Steve: Oh! Aren’t you so noble, and high-minded, and know about not compromising integrity.
No, you’re just a pathetic piece of holier-than-thou shitcock.
jenniebee
If it wasn’t for the blogosphere, where would we pass along great youtube finds like Dance Off with the Star Wars Stars 2008? And what about the best craigslist car listing ever? If it wasn’t for blogs, how would I be aware of all internet traditions?
In a world without the blogosphere, I think the survivors would envy the dead.
cleek
Palin wins "conservative of the year"!
conservatism is doomed.
giggle.
Napoleon
@cleek:
Awesome – I so hope she is the ’12 Rep nominee. The Republicans will spend the next 30 years in the desert.
LanceThruster
Hey! I resemble that remark!
passerby
Here are the paragraphs Shuler wrote before and after the jerk comment:
Finally, there’s the jerk, the individual who contributes nothing positive to the common objective but is always ready with a put-down for those who are trying to accomplish something.
And that’s when it struck me: the blogosphere is full of jerks.
We all have our off days, all of us can be jerks from time to time. But some of us take special delight in it. Some of us seem to want nothing more than to ensure that everybody else has a bad day. That happy few will never make a positive suggestion, never contribute a considered opinion, or do much more than hurl insults and question the unknowable motives of other people.
His "the blogoshere is full of jerks" should read "the world is full of jerks". And I like that he includes himself by using "us". He seems to expect this of people and he should, it’s a given. How to censor, filter, prohibit or otherwise control the participation of anyone/everyone and still consider yourself a proponent of free speech is a tight rope (or slippery slope) to walk.
As for Palmieri, she hasn’t yet caught onto the notion that controlling the message went out with the advent of the blogoshere. Control freaks need to stick to websites where posts are not subjected to comments. (I wish I could comment on Sully’s Dish site.) Another option for her is to stick her fingers in her ears and go "La La La La La La, I cant hear you, La La La La".
I try not to be a jerk and for me, the best way to deal with a jerk is to ignore a jerk. But, I accept the existence of jerks in this world because they’re not going away any time soon.
Napoleon
MY just put up a new post taking Third Way to task about their agenda.
John
I think this is giving Yglesias too much credit. He’s very smart, but he’s pretty much what Socrates warned us about – he has no real awareness of the limits of his own knowledge, so he says stupid things with great authority a fair amount of the time. He also tends to say the same stupid things with the same great authority over and over again.
I like Matt’s blog, and I agree with him probably 75% of the time. But he can be very, very annoying.
There are some of those. There’s also a fair number of people whose disagreements with Matt appear to focus on transit issues. And there’s the people who are irritated with his views on education. And don’t get me started on the stuff he’s said about the auto industry, which is the worst kind of uninformed econ 101 boosterism.
There’s plenty of reason to disagree with Matt Yglesias besides a zionist conspiracy (although certainly his views on Israel/Palestine do irritate zionists).
Comrade Peter J
I keep misreading it as The Third Wave.
Cyrus
At first I thought people were overreacting to what Palmieri did. Sure, her disclaimer looks toadying and it raises questions about what interest she and/or TAP has in the Third Way. But it didn’t seem dishonest or anything; she identified herself in the post, and Yglesias did criticize the Third Way a few posts before. So, fine, toadying is bad, but worth 545 critical comments?
But a little googling makes it look like she actually deleted a post of Yglesias’. Did she? If so, yeah, that’s Orwellian like everyone has been saying. What did it say? I haven’t been able to find it in Google’s cache of the page or anything.
passerby
This seems to be the job description of a pundit. Name any high profile pundit, George Will, Ben Stein, Pat Buchannan, Mrs. Alan Greenspan, Cokie Roberts, etc., ect. and we can see this is what they all do. They may claim their "authority" by virtue of some inside connections/information but, it only enables them to spin or frame issues to accommodate some agenda or perpetuate mass ignorance.
This goes on not only in politics, but, also in science and medicine too.
About 10 years ago it dawned on me that just because someone speaks with authority doesn’t mean they are an authority. This realization helped get me off the hook of being intimidated by academicians who smugly saunter around, erroneously claiming superior knowledge.
Any time I disagreed with their notions, I was immediately shouted down as being either a trouble maker or a kook. (On the intertubes, "troll" is the default epithet).
The blogoshpere is calling them on their bullshit. (And thanks for the forum, John.)
ps: I got no problem with being called a trouble maker.
PanAmerican
The upshot:
Matt will land on his feet somewhere else.
Palmieri just sunk her chances at DoD.
The temporary boss run amok is a time honored comedy classic.
Comrade Stuck
This is not surprising at all. Now that dems have power the various components of the left blogosphere are lining up to kiss the appropriate arses, and keep the squeaky wheel greased. Though while it’s not surprising, it is disconcerting that it reaches into a blog that exists, or used to, to stir the pot with independent thinking. A lot of us happen to agree with Matt about the so called "Third Way" movement. It has always sounded too much like Republican Light to me.
Speaking for Moderate Me.
The Moar You Know
shitcock
Aristides
Really? Socrates had someone like Yglesias in mind?
I honestly don’t what it is about Yglesias that drives people crazy. Given that the intertubes are chock full of prominent people with blogs who possess only the stupidest and most ill-informed of opinions, what is it that makes people insane about a guy who generally knows what he’s talking about? And every time the poor guy puts up a graph, a legion of anti-Yglesias-graph-making-skills commentators pop up to lament the continuing horror of Yglesias’ graphs. I can’t even understand that…or that there are people who regularly read a blog they don’t like.
MikeL
For a few months I was part of a WoW guild called GIFT – the name came from Gabe’s Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory.
I was a hardcore raiding guild, before I burned out on hardcore raiding.
jmbl
3d way sux
Fencedude
I enjoy Yglesia’s blog, but he really needs to figure out that most of the country is not NYC or the Washington Metro Area, and that the transit issues there are not the same as the transit issues in less urban areas.
Also his comentariat is hilarious. They really can’t stand him.
Shinobi
You’ve got it all wrong John. Her posting underscores just how deeply she is aware of all internet tradishuns.
But this is good news for the Third Way, I’d never heard of them before this.
Hyperion
@PanAmerican:
you overestimate the power of the tubes IMO.
D-Chance.
Here’s what I suggest: rather than using the comments threads of blogs as a place to vent, vent on your own blog. Don’t exploit the anonymity of comments. Never write anything in a comments thread other than on your own blog that you wouldn’t want your mother, spouse, or significant other to read. Try to be a good listener and understand the other guy’s point of view.
That would eliminate about 90% of the mindless drivel posted in the comments section of this website.
Also, doesn’t the above passage, alone, qualify Outside The Beltway for a "monitor and mock" listing on the right-hand sidebar?
Crusty Dem
Jumping in late, I’ve been an irregular commenter at Matt’s blog for awhile now (through at least 4 locations), and he does get a pretty strange commenteriat. I think a small part of it was the diversity of opinions, a larger part may have been that Matt doesn’t really interact with comments at all (I always doubted he regularly read them, and his posts today are consistent with that), and the greatest part being that, while Matt is a smart guy, his analysis is not great. He’s got a little Friedman in him, in that he can bring up an interesting point, twist it a bit, and come up with something which sounds (on the surface) credible, but is almost completely wrong… That said, I’ve enjoyed reading him because he does cover a diverse range of topics in an interesting way.
This whole business with the Palmieri is complete bullshit, and his late and weak response to it does not sit well with me. I assumed he’d be out by the end of today, and his writing suggests that he thought it was fine. Weird stuff…
BethanyAnne
"We have found a flack! A flack! Burn her!!"
"Bring her forward"
…
"How do you know she is a flack?"
"Well, she turned him into a shill!"
"A shill?"
"…I got better…"
heh. This is sooo gonna land in moderation purgatory :-) Hope I ended all the links right.
/off to dinner