DougJ pointed out that that Jane Hamsher attacked Dave Weigel over a post Weigel wrote about Hamsher making common cause with Tea Party activists to kill HCR.
In her attack, Jane made a number of charges against Weigel. Some were objections to attribution of quotes or the amount of time Weigel waited for a response from Hamsher before he posted. Based on these Weigel went back and made clarifications as needed, but the bulk of Hamsher’s response was a fact-free an attack on Weigel’s integrity.
Too bad for Jane that Weigel taped the conversation with the Tea Party activist. And that conversation shows that Hamsher is working with wing-nuts to Kill The Bill:
Here is the relevant part of my conversation with Serkes. I was recording the rally, so I have audio to back up this transcript.
SERKES: They’re saying that there’s some serious arm-twisting, and their words were union thuggery.
ME: Who’s the they?
SERKES: The progressive side. A progressive source told me that there was serious union thuggery going on this weekend.
ME: Is this the Firedoglake folks?
SERKES: It’s Jane. You’re figured it out.
ME: I’m not new at this.
SERKES: She said they were after Altmire this weekend. Yeah, because Jane and I last talked Saturday.
Somehow, I am not surprised that somebody who would work with Grover Norquist to promote the idea that poor people getting loans caused the financial meltdown would work with Dick Armey’s AstroTurf TeaBaggers to try and kill HCR.
If the news about Kucinich turns out to be true, we can expect Red Queen Jane to be calling for his head by noon. (Update: As DougJ pointed out, the Red Queen is already calling for his head)
We need to pass HCR because it will make Jane and Grover cry.
Make your calls this week! (House Switchboard: 202-224-3121. Guide for first-timers here).
Let’s get this done.
Cheers
dengre
gbear
I hope Grover cries enough to drown himself.
lamh31
Ya know, i get that the initial article attributed more to Jane than the transit, but you can still get the gist based on the new update, and this Weigel dude apologized to Jane for the incorrect wording, but he can stand by his story.
He only reported what he heard from the tea-baggers. isn’t no personal attacks were made against jane, and yet her response to him was personal, and downright vicious. She escalated what could have been just a simple misunderstanding (for which the guy submitted an update).
She called the guy a “smear-monger”. Ah…harsh much Jane.
That is my main problem with Jane at this point.
arguingwithsignposts
The moment Hamsher signed a letter with Grover f**king Norquist, I wrote her off. TBogg should move off that network. That’s like sleeping with Adolf Hitler in my book, and yes, I’m Godwining early on this one.
NobodySpecial
Like I said in the earlier thread, the thing I didn’t like about Weigel is that he gave her exactly 16 minutes to comment on the story before running with it. At 3 o’clock on a workday?
Was this story really so important that he had to publish it that quickly? REALLY?
She may be wrong, but that doesn’t make him a good journalist.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
Hanoi Jane’s just having a hissy fit because Dave W. had the temerity to out her as the ratfucker she is.
freelancer
@arguingwithsignposts:
Agreed, Ackerman should be bolting too, especially seeing as how both he and Weigel are mainstays at the Independent.
oscarbob
Was there a defining moment when Jane became unable to see the forest for the trees? I used to read her stuff all the time. She now seems as divorced from reality
and reason as the far right. Was there a catalyst that I missed?
El Cid
Serkes in a follow up denied that “union thuggery” was Hamsher’s term, so what we have is basically a report that Serkes talked to Hamsher and Hamsher reported that there was “arm twisting” and that Pelosi and the Democrats nearly had the votes to pass the bill.
This is not a defense of Hamsher or what she / FDL has or has not been doing in general. Just that this particular report tells us next to nothing.
gbear
@arguingwithsignposts:
TBogg should move off just to go back to unregistered comments again. His comment threads used to be a riot, but at FDL they’re a snore.
Is Phoenix Woman still posting over there?
edit: link to TBogg’s pre-fdl blog: http://tbogg.blogspot.com/
WereBear
@arguingwithsignposts: Tbogg is the only reason I go there any more. There was a time when Jane’s stridency and demanding nature was an asset. And the blog featured Marcy Wheeler’s excellent reporting on the Libby trial, for instance, that actually garnered some respect for blogs, back in the day.
The unbendingness was not a factor then.
Dennis G.
@NobodySpecial:
It was a scoop of sorts and she is plugged in player. I think he could have and should have given her more time, but it is news that a self-identified “progressive” is working with the TeaBaggers. All in all, he has a lot more integrity on all levels than Ms. Hamsher (IMHO).
Cheers
Martin
@oscarbob: The primary battle is when I noticed it.
Corner Stone
@arguingwithsignposts: God damn. Post number 3?
Mike Kay
RAHM! RAHM! RAHM! RAHM!
Corner Stone
@Dennis G.:
Pimping this nonsense does a lot for your credibility as well.
schrodinger's cat
@WereBear: Thanks for responding to my kitteh question, on the open thread. I am trying to reintroduce the kittehs as if they were strangers and the progress has been slow.
ETA: Sorry about interrupting the conversation about Jane. I have no idea who she is, I have seen here on TV a couple of times, that’s all.
arguingwithsignposts
@Corner Stone: sometimes, that’s the way we roll. :)
Dennis G.
@oscarbob:
I think the moment came when people did not do what she wanted them to do in the manner that she wanted to have things done. I think it is about control. Perhaps it is a Hollywood producer thing that I do not understand. I think if you cross her, she attacks and that it is increasingly easy to cross her. Tragic perhaps, but that does not excuse getting in bed with Norquist or actively working to kill HCR for another generation.
Mike Kay
YES! WE! CAN!
YES! WE! CAN!
YES! WE! CAN!
YES! WE! CAN!
YES! WE! CAN!
wmd
@WereBear:
Marcy still writes some very good material at FDL.
Jane is getting frantic because her campaign for the public option didn’t pan out due to
betrayalpragmatism of the progressive block.She doesn’t like it when people don’t buy into her worldview.
On the other thread someone asked about Christy. There’s an archive of her material at FDL… her lupus is keeping her from being active.
Corner Stone
@Mike Kay: You’re an interesting character. How old were you when 9/11 happened?
If I may be so bold. Which I shall.
bystander
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
FIREDOGPILE!!
Um, I mean ‘FireDog pile’ as in ‘dat dog done did shit on de floor’. “Union thuggery”? WTF is it with the ‘thug’ word lately? I have never heard the word used more than since Obama won the election.
Coinkydink? Naaah…
Corner Stone
@wmd:
Yes. Pragmatism.
AB
I’ve kinda just been glossing over the Jane Hamsher saga but at this point like what the heck is going on.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
Fixed that for him.
Corner Stone
@AB:
She’s pure evil you know. And more powerful than a car Chip Foose has built for Overhaulin’
Rick Taylor
Ugh, do we really need to go here? Another post about the same thing adding nothing really does feel like a pile on.
__
None of it matters. She wrote a big post on her blog talking about how she and governor Norquist were getting together to call on Ralph Emanuel to resign. After that I don’t need to know anything about how friendly she’s being with tea partier’s or what words she used; that’s so far off the deep end nothing much else matters.
bystander
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-:
So people like Nate Silver, Markos, and the rest of that group of about 50 other thinkers, bloggers, insiders and outsiders are all kapos and quislings? Good to know. Thanks.
ellie
I just can’t get over a progressive teaming up with Grover Norquist. I am still flummoxed. All I can say is What The Fuck? What else can you say?
Nellcote
Weigel does god’s work interacting and reporting on wingnuts/baggers. I often fear for his sanity in having to spend so much time with them.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@bystander:
You are going to make John Cole cry.
El Cid
The Malkinite monkey brigades aren’t satisfied with going after that leukemia-suffering lady whose inability to keep affording insurance story was told by Obama.
The TeaTards find other apparent illness-sufferers to scream at in public and on camera:
Is there a particular side of Columbus to which Parkinson’s sufferers are supposed to go to get all the soshulized care, just not that part? Is this the side of town where they string up odd lookin’ outsiders with a rope around the neck?
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@bystander: If they’re standing with Grover Norquist, yes they are.
Double-ditto points for those that stand with Grover agianst signature Democratic legislation.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
Re registering to leave the democratic party is looking more like a winner every day. Grover Norquist is the gooey substance on my boot heel. no thanky you very much.
What will the little libtard children say in 60 years?
Mary
You know, a loud minority of us have been certain that she was a ratfucker since about mid-December with her crazy call to join the teabaggers, followed up by her letter with Norquist calling for Rahm Emanuel’s head, and on and on ad nauseum, but this is great. Weigel busted her dead to rights and caught her lying to boot I hope Weigel follows up with interview requests for Jane, and her pals, Kos, Greenwald, Uygur and Huffington to get more details on this. Oh, and her ex-partner, Howie Klein, who intimated that she was doing it for money.
You were right about Hamsher all along, Dennis. I’m not surprised. You are, after all, an expert in corruption scandals.
billmon
I’ve a bit out of circulation for awhile, and somehow I missed the part where Jane Hamsher descended into bat-shit insanity and hired herself out as a right-wing stooge. Can anybody explain to me what happened?
Jon H
@bystander: “Numerous good Democrats co-sign letter with Grover Norquist”
The key word there is ‘numerous’. Just like with urine and excrement, the key is dilution. When you have Norquist in with a dozen other signatories from across the spectrum, it’s not as bad because it’s less likely that the whole effort is a conservative ratfuck.
When it’s *just* Norquist and Jane, it just makes Jane look like Norquist’s stooge. And you have to wonder, was she not able to get anyone else on the left to sign on, and if not, why is that?
Midnight Marauder
@bystander:
I’m not even sure what you’re trying to point out by posting that link. It’s not anywhere near remotely comparable to the initial letter Jane and Grover Fucking Norquist put out calling for an investigation of the president’s chief of staff. It’s about fucking having Question Time on a regular basis, for crying out loud! Not accusing President Obama’s “right hand man” of being a corrupt tool who was orchestrating cover-ups left and right from 1600 Pennsylvania.
Really, if you were trying to prove a point with that, it’s a fucking absurd one.
Comrade Kevin
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal): I don’t know about this particular instance, but “SEIU thugs” was practically a mantra for a lot of the teabagger types for a while.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@bystander: ‘Bipartisanship is date rape.’
I’ll just let that quote stand right there.
Comrade Kevin
@Jon H: I’m sure Glenn picked that phrase “good Democrats” on purpose. It’s quite obviously a reference to the “good German”.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@billmon: It seemed to me the straw broke right around the time Harry Reid promised to deliver a public option and subsequently pratfalled across the Senate chamber. Though others have noted this seems to go back earlier than that. The line was well and truly crossed when she decided to make common cause with Drowned Baby Norquist and the Teabaggers.
Jon H
@Comrade Kevin: “I’m sure Glenn picked that phrase “good Democrats” on purpose. It’s quite obviously a reference to the “good German”.”
Maybe, but it’s about instituting a UK-style “Question Time”. Seems pretty innocuous.
He might have been sincere, to distinguish the good ones from the crappy blue dog types, who would normally be expected to sign something with Norquist. (ie, the Ben Nelsons).
freelancer
@billmon:
Good to see you, btw. Miss your writing.
billmon
From passionate public option supporter to teabagger ally?
Now that’s fucked up.
Mary
@Comrade Kevin: Speaking of SEIU thugs, when Jane was starting to go all corrupt ratfucker, someone got her in with Ben Smith at Politico. He interviewed her about what a fabulous progressive she was, how awful the healthcare bill was and how awful the President was. As part of establishing her creds, she actually name-dropped in the Ben Smith interview that she had dated Andy Stern, the head of SEIU. Who does something like that?
Mike Kay
@Mary: What did Howie say?
Dennis G.
@bystander:
Not actually true.
There were some letters that Norquist signed where he joined another organization’s effort on this or that issue. Some of these Hamsher signed as well.
But the Norquist/Hamsher letter about Rahm was only signed by the two of them and that letter was all about Windnut fantasies that poor people getting loans caused the financial meltdown and that Rahm used money from Fannie and Freddie to steal the 2006 and 2008 elections for Democrats. That is the letter from the crazy store that Jane bought with her signature and the only other signer to that letter was Grover. She climb on to support his agenda and that is why it was and is a problem.
Cheers
NobodySpecial
@Dennis G.:
Except that, no, it wasn’t news, because she’d already done her thing with Norquist.
And no, this doesn’t speak to ‘integrity’. Quite the opposite, were it not a ‘hippie’ being punched.
wmd
@Corner Stone:
FDL is doing a service in pointing out what would be a better HCR bill, what got left out, etc. Obama meeting with Billy Tauzin early… Bad stuff.
Insuring 30,000,000 people is a good thing pragmatically. We are making progress with this flawed HCR bill.
FDL is off base thinking a fall back bill can pass if this fails. 60 votes for ending exclusion of pre-existing conditions? Why would any Republican Senator vote for this?
Svensker
@billmon:
Miss. Your. Stuff.
bystander
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
No, I don’t think so. What I’m understanding is people like their world in black and white. I don’t know why they ever invented color TVs, ya know? It’s just easier if the lines delimiting who is on whose team is very precise. And, some folk are, apparently, willing to demonize another person for any transgression. And, the transgression is generalized to include every single thing about the individual who has transgressed for time immemorial. If there is anyone more on the Balloon Juice Team than Nate Silver, I haven’t found that person. To characterize him as a kapo or quisling – even in jest – for a one-off alliance with Norquist strikes me as illiberal.
So Hamsher signed a letter with Norquist. Whoopee! Or, something. Actually, I thought that letter had a point. So, I don’t care who signed it with her.
Mike Kay
@billmon:
She’s been calling for Rahm’s resignation since December. At that time, she issued a letter with Grover alleging Rahm was involved in criminal activity when he was a director of Freddie Mac back in 2000/2001, calling for a congressional investigation.
About the same time, the Senate version of HCR passed with didn’t include a public option.
Since then she’s been trying to kill the bill, including appearing of Fixxed News.
She somehow become fascinated and enamored of the teaparty “protesters” and has called for a united front with teabaggers to kill the bill (only she won’t call them teabaggers, she calls them “libertarians”) . At this time, people started to refer to her and her actions as Firebaggers.
Mary
@Mike Kay: This is where Howie intimated she was doing it for money. http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2010/01/theres-better-way-to-fight-corporatism.html
And the reason you know that Howie is talking about Jane is from the Ben Smith interview, where Smith asked about the litigation between Jane and Howie. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1209/30131.html
Ho hum, it’s probably time to start looking at the most recent FEC filings for all those PACs.
Dennis G.
@NobodySpecial:
Yes, her solo alliance with Norquist was/is old news. The new bit was/is that she is working with TeaBaggers on Whipping the defeat of HCR. There are a lot of folks who believe that Ms Hamsher is a progressive activist. She is not and this story is more evidence of that fact. While it is not news to me that she is a poser, there are some folks who would still be surprised to learn that information.
Cheers
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@billmon: Sign me up with the We Miss You crowd. You were one of the first I read religiously and still one of the best.
tripletee
@billmon:
I’ve been on radio silence for a while too. Don’t really care about Hamsher, but after reading one of the earlier threads, I am curious about what happened to Just Some Fuckhead. Has anyone ever seen them in the same room together?
bystander
@bystander: And, as I think about it, the story goes that Norquist asked to sign the letter… but, I might not have that part of the story straight.
NobodySpecial
@Dennis G.:
Still doesn’t give a pass to 16 minutes for response time, again, on a working weekday during business hours.
I don’t care if he is doing the lord’s work, that’s still scummy journalism, and to pretend it isn’t because you don’t like his target is pretty shitty.
billmon
It would be interesting to hear whether all this is just pure rationalization, or whether Jane actually has any kind of plan in her head for what she’s trying to accomplish here — as in, first we kill this bill, and then we continue to work on building grassroots support for the public option, so that in the next Congress we can push for a better bill.
Of course it would still be absurd — realistically, if this bill goes down the next window of opportunity for meaningful health care reform would probably be 2016, or more likely 2020 (and that’s being pretty Pollyannish).God knows if the existing disfunctional mess of a system could stagger on that long without bankrupting the country.
But it would at least mean that Jane’s sanity hasn’t been completely swallowed up by her own ego.
Mary
@bystander: No. Her story is that she asked him to sign the letter so people would notice it. And that she knew him casually having met him and his lovely wife at an ACLU event, I think. You know, so know one would think there might be a paid ratfucking operation going on. And, of course, a lobby group was started to get rid of Rahm and they started running advertisements and raising money off of it.
Mike Kay
@billmon:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/12/24/1102/0693
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/12/22/15718/084
She has also threaten to primay Bernie Sanders and Al Franken for voting for HCR
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/12/23/818602/-I-dont-know-Jane…but-I-know-Bernie-and-I-dont-think-she-should-be-calling-him-out
She has also called for the resignation of Lynn Woolsey and has threaten to primary any house member who votes for HCR.
Svensker
@billmon:
Sadly, no.
G’night all.
Mike Kay
@billmon:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/12/24/1102/0693
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/12/22/15718/084
Mike Kay
@billmon:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/12/24/1102/0693
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/12/22/15718/084
She has also threaten to primay Bernie Sanders and Al Franken for voting for HCR
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/12/23/818602/-I-dont-know-Jane…but-I-know-Bernie-and-I-dont-think-she-should-be-calling-him-out
Mike Kay
@billmon:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/12/24/1102/0693
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/12/22/15718/084
She has also threaten to primary Bernie Sanders and Al Franken for voting for HCR
Comrade Kevin
@billmon: I would like to think so, too, but I have no idea. Her behaviour is not particularly reassuring.
bystander
@Mike Kay:
If I might add something?
The alliance with some libertarians was in relation to the Senate’s bill including the mandate but excluding the public option. Jane, early on, drew a line in the sand on the public option. The Democrats said they could do that, and Jane – recognizing it was the most liberal part of the bill – started right out getting various Democrats on the record and marshalled resources to hold them to it.
The libertarian element objected to the entire project, but some were able to make common cause on the issue of a mandate without a public option, and agreed to fight the bill as unacceptable in that regard. Eg;
There is some real confusion about who is, and isn’t, a tea bagger at this point. A lot of Ron Paul’s supporters have little in common with the Beck-Bachmann iteration and are quite willing to say so.
Jon H
@NobodySpecial: “Still doesn’t give a pass to 16 minutes for response time, again, on a working weekday during business hours.”
It’s Internet disease… you start expecting everyone to be immediately accessible via twitter, facebook, email, MMS, etc, at all times, because a bunch of your peeps and coworkers are that responsive.
bystander
@billmon:
PTirebiter
@Jon H:
Not that she could have, but she didn’t care to. Her “plan” was to borrow some of Grover’s media pull to collectively garner some high visibility airtime for her crusade. Guess who got the fuzzy end of the lollipop on that land swap?
arguingwithsignposts
@bystander:
No, she didn’t just sign the letter, she crowed about it. It’s Grover F**KING Norquist! She might as well sign a letter with Dick F**KING Cheney. You don’t sleep with the enemy. period.
bystander
@arguingwithsignposts:
Generally, I don’t… argue with sign posts, that is. But, can you document that assertion? The crowing part?
NobodySpecial
@Jon H:
Yep, but it still makes him a shitty journalist.
CaseyL
Hello, billmon! We miss you!
When did Hamsher go nuts?
She’s been nuts for a while, or at least the site has. I stopped commenting there a few years ago, when the comment section became a Hamsher personality cult and no one was allowed to disagree with whatever she was saying. But I kept subscribing, to support Marcy Wheeler’s work, until the Norquist alliance (when I canceled my subscription) and the vicious, mendacious anti-Obama push poll (which had me wanting to drop-kick Hamsher to the moon).
When I’m feeling charitable, I think the recurrence of her cancer made her crazy.
But mostly I think she’s always had serious issues, bad judgment, and a hair trigger temper, and many of us (including me) didn’t notice, because we were all enraged at the same people for the same reasons.
Mike Kay
@billmon:
The Ego has not landed
http://snipurl.com/uvrah
She’s called for the resignation of Lynn Woolsey, has threaten to primary every member of the progressive caucus and she now refers to Obama and supporters of HCR as “Jonestown”.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-hamsher/house-democrats-flee-obam_b_499525.html
Mike Kay
@Mary: Thanks Mary!
Midnight Marauder
@bystander:
How about the title of the fucking link you posted up here:
Doesn’t sound like someone shying away from bravado right there.
Edit: And here’s a fun project. Let’s tally up just how many resignations/primaries (I’m talking specific ones) Jane Hamsher has called for in the past year. I can think of five in a nanosecond.
arguingwithsignposts
@bystander: I will *not* go to her front page, but you can do your own search. She posted about it, and IIRC, there was a petition, so yeah, crowing. Grover F**KING Norquist.
Ailuridae
@billmon:
I’m a fan as well. You should post here more often
Usual caveat that I hope Doug or Tim or John or Anne can confirm its him.
Cat Lady
Great name for a band.
Mary
@bystander: Jane drew lots of lines in the sand. She had unusually large list of reasons to kill the health care bill, which she trotted out one after the other.
Let’s not forget the attack on the excise tax where she tried to ruin Jonathan Gruber. That particular campaign was extremely sophisticated and resembled the ATR campaigns that Grover Norquist has been running for decades. Jon Walker, Dave Dayan, Glenn Greenwald and Marcy Wheeler all pitched in.
Another line she drew was on reproductive rights. She’s running that campaign right now. She started it after her other gambits failed.
Another favorite of mine was the campaign against “corporatism.” That campaign was to draw the Democrats away from the president. It was also a theme of the Dick Armey-backed teabaggers. Hence, the call for progressives to join with the teabaggers and throw Obama and the rest of the Democratic incumbents running the place out.
billmon
@bystander:
Re: Hamsher and the “fallback plan”
From the WSJ article she linked to:
Mr. Emanuel argued that it wasn’t feasible to pass a comprehensive bill and counseled a lesser version, according to several people familiar with the conversations.
So now she’s on Rahm’s side?
I read Politico’s profile of her and and I can’t say I disagree with many of her specific beefs. The AIG bonuses WERE a freaking disaster, and the “veal pen” IS way too deep in bed with the corporate Democrats. And Obama DID double cross the left on the public option (although if you couldn’t see that one coming, you weren’t paying attention.)
But I fail to understand the logic that says climbing in bed with a bunch of right-wing nutjobs is the way to pull the party back to the left — just as I’m a little bemused by the idea that killing this HCR bill would clear the way for a better HCR bill.
Does Hamsher really believe the GOP would drop its scorched earth tactics and allow a smaller bill to be brought to a vote in the Senate? Or that the usual right-wing Dems wouldn’t think up new reasons to oppose it, or emasculate it even further? Is she really that naive?
Hate to go all Godwin here, but in the ‘early 30s there was a faction in the German Communist Party that thought the right strategy for defanging the Nazis was to try to form an alliance with the more populist, working-class elements in the party (i.e. the kind of people who took the “Socialist” in “National Socialist” seriously.) This was touted as the “Red-Brown alliance”
It didn’t work out so well.
PTirebiter
@bystander:
You make her sound far more measured and reasonable than she actually was.
Some Democrats said they could, as many others said they couldn’t. The President cautioned against drawing lines in the sand, Hamsher flipped him the bird, early and often. Not passing the bill will likely hamstring the rest of Obama’s agenda and real opportunities will be gone, and the door to some real crap will remain open. She’s currently smearing Obama as anti-choice. If Hamsher really believes, as she now says, that HCR is the biggest threat to women’s reproductive rights in our lifetime, she hasn’t considered having yet another young Scalia sitting on the court. It’s a genuine shame, but she’s lost it.
Mnemosyne
@bystander:
Really? You think that the Bush administration investigated Emanuel three times without finding anything untoward in his actions at Fannie Mae but there’s totally got to be some substance to the accusations if Grover Norquist thinks so?
billmon
For some reason my comments are being held for moderation now (maybe because I was using a phony email address. This one has the real one.) So ta ta to all for now.
Anne Laurie
@schrodinger’s cat: I have a feeling the problem your cats are having might not be that bad an analogy for the problems Jane Hamsher is now having with the rest of the “progressive” blogosphere, actually…
hamletta
Hey, Billmon!
Weren’t you the People’s Front when it came to electing John Kerry?
That was nothing compared to passing something resembling universal health care.
This shit-and-banana sandwich is what we’ve got, and Jane Hamsher has been trying to fuck it up because it’s not “progressive” enough.
And she’s been engaging with unmitigated cads like Grover Norquist because, well I can’t imagine why. I guess the bill wasn’t progressive enough for her liking, so she made a deal with the devil to kill it.
It’s a bunch of purity troll bullshit.
But in the meantime, we at least have the chance to stop some people from dying for lack of health care.
And she wants to kill it.
Anne Laurie
@billmon:
You have been sorely missed, not least with regards to the ongoing global financial fustercluck. For links to the early days of the “Jane Hamsher starts a working partnership with Grover Norquist”, you can click on “Firebagger” in the Balloon Juice Lexicon. Dreadful word for a dreadful concept.
Mary
@billmon: It was a thrill to see you on John’s blog. You were such an excellent blogger, back in the day. Hope you’re enjoying whatever you’re doing.
gwangung
Could I say that I REALLY despise the term “hippie punching” when it’s applied to most of the intramural fighting on health care reform? The battle isn’t over goals and strategies; it’s over tactics, which is as far from hippie punching as you can get (and a whole lot more mundane and less aggrandizing).
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Mary: I recognize the name, but can’t place billmon’s former blog. ?
Mary
@gwangung: I think the term “hippie punching” is a whole lot less self-aggrandizing than the smug arrogation of the term “dirty fucking hippie (DFH)” to designate oneself as more progressive than thou.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@gwangung: I could be wrong, but seems like it was first introduced by disappointed progressives. And I agree with hating the term, only because it is inaccurate and not related to my definition of hippies. Braining idiots would work better, I think.
bystander
@billmon:
Yes, yes, and sure. I’m not all that inclined to carry Jane’s water for her. She can do that herself. But I will give her credit where it’s due. Although I’m more of a Greenwald-ite than Hamsher-ite, I respect Jane’s no-holds barred defense of the public option for this reason, if no other. I respect the lady’s willingness to go to the mat, take off the gloves and fight for what she believes.
I’m also less and less inclined to see the political world in terms of right and left, and certainly not in terms of Democrats and Republicans. As Atrios has said, Our discourse is so stupid. And, part of why I believe it’s so stupid is the language for the discourse has been so corrupted that words mean whatever the heck any speaker wants them to mean.
Pragmatically speaking, I tend to align with the Democrats, but that doesn’t mean I’m without principles. Greenwald wrote this:
And, frankly, I agree. Jane staked out the public option on principle and has fought with every tool she can get her hands on to defend it. Good for her. Two ways of looking at that. She’s making the Democrats vulnerable, or she’s laying down great cover. I choose to think she’s doing her damnedest to lay down cover. Obviously, others feel differently.
Lisa
@hamletta:
Purity Troll is my new favorite phrase ever.
bystander
@bystander:
Sorry. That last link to Greenwald didn’t go precisely where I wanted it to. Corrected link here.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@bystander: I do respect courage to fight for ones beliefs. But I am also a firm believer that often discretion is the better part of valor. And there is too much at stake with HCR for making hay with the other side, as they have zero good intentions.
In fact it’s Unforgivable, and hard to figure how Norquist lends any possibility to finding a path to anything progressive, or not evil for that matter. It looks like what it is. Desperation and lashing out with rage in liew of using gray matter and entirely not helpful for our side in any way shape or size.
Mary
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: It was the Whiskey Bar, if I recall. Billmon was an incredibly gifted, bitingly funny writer who dealt with a lot of very complex issues of war, finance, politics and geopolitics. Probably the best writer in the blogosphere that I ever read. I was actually heartbroken when he shut his blog down.
Oh. And John Cole is as good as Billmon in his best posts.
bystander
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
re: discretion is the better part of valor
My sainted mother would agree with you. Now, can you convince the “loyal opposition” to play by those rules, too?
hamletta
@Mary: DFH was coined to refer to those of us who objected to the Iraq invasion, all the millions all over the world.
Couldn’t have been because the claims of Iraq’s threatiness were bullshit, we must have all been Dirty Fuckin’ Hippies.
Do try to keep up, dear.
Mary
@bystander: Good God, man. You sound like Hamsher’s publicist. If Hamsher is so principled as you say, why does she keep getting caught lying, spinning and smearing people’s character? She apparently had the same problems in Hollywood.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@bystander:
There is nothing loyal about the opposition which is why progs who saddle up with them are out of their minds. My remark was directed at the Jane Hamsher wing of the dem caucus and specifically their dubious tactics.
Mary
@hamletta: Thank you for proving my case in regard to smug self-aggrandizement. I love it when that happens.
hamletta
@Mary: You’re probably giving John more credit than even he would claim.
Billmon, whoever he is, has been to Davos. He’s on The People’s side, but still.
He knows about lots of scary world finance stuff that would make John, and most of us, shit our pants.
bystander
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
Also, re: And there is too much at stake with HCR for making hay with the other side, as they have zero good intentions.
I’m not sure the health insurance legislation as it is currently conceived, is going to be equal to this.
And, on that depressing note, I have to say Good Night. Thanks for the exchange. ‘Til next time…
hamletta
@Mary: What? I’m smug because I was right?
Hate that for me.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@hamletta:
When Cole is on, no one in the blogosphere can cut through the bullshit with snarkly precision like he can. It is one reason I hang around here waiting for those un wonky, but spot on diatribes on the how the bullshit all fits together, especially from the winger side.
Billmon just sounds like a different specialty.
theturtlemoves
@hamletta:
What, now? So, when people used that phrase back in the sixties, they were time travelers from the land of 2001 where we all had personal jetpacks and flying cars? Time traveling hippies? That kicks ass.
Mary
@hamletta: John has serious analytical skills across a broad range of issues, including finance. He’s also very funny. That’s probably why Billmon is drawn to his blog.
It’s also probably why Greenwald, who is a seriously good analyst, comes over here to engage with John when they get into it.
I also think John’s writing has both compassion and vulnerability, which are also appealing.
But you’re right. I doubt that John would take credit for being on the same level as Billmon. And my perception may be distorted by the fact that Billmon isn’t blogging anymore and that makes it harder to compare.
Corner Stone
@Mary:
You mean that time she was sued? That time, right?
baldheadeddork
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
His blog was called The Whiskey Bar.
The Wayback Machine has several hundred days of the blog archived here. It’s not surprising that the writing holds up so well, but it is refreshing to dive in to it again.
(And personally, I think he’s just picked up a new nom de guerre and is the voice behind Calculated Risk.)
Mary
@baldheadeddork: Really? I never went to Calculated Risk because I thought it would be too boring and technical. It must be great.
Mary
@Corner Stone: There is more to it than that but I have to go to bed. Anyway, I know you’re a Janester. I’m sure there will be another time to get into it. I doubt people are finished writing about this latest incident, given that she stirs up so much passion, both positive and negative.
PTirebiter
@bystander:
I guess when you’ve drawn a principled line in the sand, you’re free to borrow tools from the “ends justify the means” shed. Let’s not forget, Jane Hamsher has staked her claim using house money. She only stands to suffer in the abstract for her principled stand.
PTirebiter
@bystander – forgive my apparent inability to edit, I’m sure you can decipher my point.
Maikeru48
I think it’s hilarious that the guy who used to be one of Perfesser Glenn’s BFFs over at Pajamas Media is attacking Jane Hamsher for sleeping with the enemy, because she co-signed a letter with Norquist. You’ve been a Democrat for, what, 2 years now?
Anyway, have your fun piling on Hamsher and the rest of the progressives who oppose this bill. You’ll get your huge corporate welfare scheme passed, and your hubris will be repaid over the next few election cycles by those of us who resent being forced to do business with your friends in the murder-by-spreadsheet private insurance industry.
CalD
@Lisa: Mine too.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@Maikeru48:
Keep laughing, it’s all you’ve got left. Laugh like the manic progressive you are. While you’re at it, give your Uncle Grover a big hug while laughing your ass off like a hyena, I’m sure he will laugh out loud with you.
Sorry, I meant at you.
Maybe you can get Uncle Grover to let you play with his rubber ducky when he puts you in the tub.
Dick Hertz
But wouldn’t it be great if the populist momentum of the teabaggers, most of whom appear to be ignorant dupes easily manipulated by corporate propaganda, could be redirected towards the targets they should, in truth, be directed against? Are we so cool we can reject these people, who are in truth our relatives, friends, and family in many cases because they can’t resist peer pressure and propaganda?
Why did Weigel decide, in his wisdom, to stick it to Hamsher by single sourcing a spurious quote and selling it with a defamatory headline? No matter how you slice it that was Drudge flavored journalism. Is it acceptable when you have personal animus against your target to manufacture a dolchstosslegende to smear them in the press? Is Kucinich a Quisling because he works with Ron Paul to audit the Fed? Hamsher holds no elected office nor position of responsibility beyond demanding what she wants. Should she be lynched for political incorrectness?
Is it because Hamsher is the last one fighting when everyone else seems to be so desperate for some kind of resolution, no matter how paltry and deformed, in order to declare victory and move on? The Outlaw Jane Hamsher?
I’m disappointed in Weigel and I’m disappointed in the seemingly vast number of people who want to abuse Jane Hamsher for what is really a failure of the Obama administration and the Democratic Party and no one else.
the farmer
#117 Maikeru48: I think it’s hilarious…
Me too. I think it’s hilarious that Hamsher’s new Teabugger BFF rolled her under the wingnut bus (oh snap! – quelle surprise!) right in front of Weigel and then lied to crazy Jane about what was actaully said. And now crazy Jane is off on another one of her venonmous spitting sprees because Weigel reported the incident (complete with audio of “kill the bill” BFF rolling over crazy Jane). Hamsher is her own worst natural born thuglette.
I’m sure she’ll will write another tell-all book when this is all over. No doubt she will again cast herself as some sort of babe-in-the-woods innocent betrayed and victimized by all manner of malicious conspiritors and sons of whores. Maybe Quentin Tarantino will make a movie about it.
Pass the microwave popcorn.
*
Sharl
FYI, the interviewee in question showed up at the end of comments to that FDL site linked to above. She basically apologized to Jane Hamsher, and took responsibility for poor wording of her responses to Weigel.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@Sharl:
“poor wording of her response” my ass. I have read and listened to her “poor wording” and Dave was far too kind in letting her backtrack when she DID say that it was Jane who had said what Dave originally claimed. Calamity Jane got tossed under the bus and then her ‘friend’ came to her ‘rescue’ once there was no doubt about who said what.
Great buddies that Jane pals around with, eh? Her ‘friend’ only backtracked because she had to save her ‘alliance’ with Jane. I can’t wait for Uncle Grover to tell Calamity Jane that he wants to give her a bath.
Jane can sure choose her friends. You know people by the company they keep.
lacywood
The hate that JH has displayed over time and her recent tanrums just tend to confirm that a few on the left have the same underlying problems as so many on the right. Just recall her Ann Coulter-like hate for the Clintons.
Tom65
“Calamity Jane” doesn’t cover it anymore; “Petulant Jane” works better.
whitewidow
It would be nice to acknowledge that Serkes withdrew the quote. She admitted that Jane did not use the phrase “union thuggery”. So Serkes lied to Weigel.
Even if you don’t agree with Jane making common cause where teabaggers might agree with progressives (and I agree that no progressive should ever work with Norquist), it was wrong of Weigel to run that as a direct quote without getting a response from Jane. Especially since it turned out to be false.
Jane could and should have posted her response without the insults, but it was a little slimy to attribute that quote to Jane without confirmation, especially now that Serkes has admitted she’s a liar.
We condemn bad journalism when it hurts those we agree with. It’s disturbing to see how quickly a pass is given when the same tactics hurt someone we disagree with.
John Cole
@billmon: That is the problem for me- I agree with most of her specific beefs. There should be a public option. The AIG stuff is outrageous, and on and on. I agree with her on most everything.
I just don’t understand what she is accomplishing torching everything.
John Cole
@Maikeru48: You are aware that there are now six people posting here?
PanAmerican
shorter Billmon:
Ah Goddamnit man, the Doobie Brothers broke up, shit! When did that happen?
You probably want to avoid the Great Orange Satan.
Fuck the merits of her pet issues. There’s still no basis to justify her behaviors. She’s a tool.
Her whinging about the “veal pen” come in a neat ethical wrapper but are driven by price point rather than any real concern about nosing up to power. See the alliance with Norquist ffs.
crack
What do you expect from the Jane Hamsher’s of the left?
Corner Stone
@Mary:
I’m not a Jane-anything. What I am is anti-lying hack, which is why I call you out on your bullshit when you try to schmear it around.
Your behavior is consistently dishonest and none of your shit ever sticks but it doesn’t seem to stop you from spreading thick and wide.
You’re just fucking brutal.
serge
Interesting thread. I love Jane Hamsher, yet I too don’t understand her desire to destroy what cannot be resuscitated for another decade or so. By then the damage to individuals will be incalculable.
And Billmon came back, if only for a while. I kept the Whiskey Bar site bookmarked for a couple of years, and I’d check in from time to time only to get the intertubes’ “he ain’t here right now” screen. Nice to hear from you, hope you’re well.
Sharl
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal): Thanks for the response. I never have heard the audio*, which is something I should have made clear, i.e., I was simply paraphrasing what the interviewee said, not concurring with it.
*If anyone is aware of what may cause total loss of audio from a Macbook Air, I’d appreciate a hint. Initially I could get the audio working again with a warm or cold restart of the laptop, but that doesn’t seem to work any longer. And I don’t know if it’s related, but videos (e.g., YouTube) will start and run for a few seconds, then just freeze. My mad Google skillz haven’t helped me in figuring this one out, and I’d love to avoid paying out the ass at the Apple Store for a repair.