Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

In my day, never was longer.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

“Cheese and Kraken paired together for the appetizer trial.”

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

with the Kraken taking a plea, the Cheese stands alone.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

This blog will pay for itself.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

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

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

People are complicated. Love is not.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

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66Comments

  1. 1.

    Persia

    This comment is also pretty sweet:

    The difference between the “real reporters” and people like Ezra, Greg and others, is that “real reporters” talk to sources in DC or, occasionally, NY and report what they say. Because they depend on access, they can’t report the results of any fact-checking (lest they embarass a source who fabricates), and so they don’t do any fact-checking, and the end result is that they really don’t know all that much about the stuff they are supposedly reporting on. And as a result they are mostly interested in horserace and to some extent process, not substance, which makes them seem shallow to people interested in the substance of issues. These are the main reasons why they come under so much criticism, at least from the Left.

    Ezra especially and Greg as well provide real value added, because they ANALYZE the results of their own, and other people’s, reporting. They set it in a larger context of a problem or set of issues that need attention, and they fact-check and report the results of their fact-checking. That’s why they are so much better to read–one learns much more from, for instance, on issues like health care or fin reg or most anything they write about. A lot of the others are stenographers, glorified gossips or hacks.

  2. 2.

    Martin

    Yes, I think the WaPo mess illustrates quite clearly that some media outlets have fully substituted PR for journalism. They can’t die quickly enough.

  3. 3.

    beltane

    Now Greg will never be invited to one of Sally Quinn’s soirees. Oh well, he wouldn’t have fit in with the DC cocktail party circuit anyway. Too smart, not the proper breeding, didn’t go to the right college, not willing to kiss the feet of his betters.

  5. 5.

    catclub

    From Sargent:
    “While the authors of these blogs are open about preferring one outcome or another in politics, they aren’t simply driven by a desire for one party to succeed at all costs. Rather, they are rooting for particular policy outcomes or are, by their own lights, pushing to elevate the discourse.”

    I wish he had stopped at the first sentence.
    Next he will have to say that these bloggers are the moral equivalent of sparkly unicorn ponies.

    I still agree with the overall message to read them if they add value to the discussion of their topic.

  7. 7.

    beltane

    @Martin: I grew up reading the NYT religiously. Now the only time I give them a glance is when they’ve committed some particularly egregious offense against journalistic ethics. The Washington Post is an open joke. These papers could die tomorrow and lots of us really wouldn’t notice.

  9. 9.

    Josh

    Mizner, that’s an awesome piece; it really exposes the Bourbons (Combrayans? I don’t know what the best analogy for these insular aristocrats is) in the MSM. Thanks for linking it.

  10. 10.

    beltane

    Sullivan has been disappointing. While he defends Weigel, he doesn’t go after Jeffrey Goldberg with the fervor one would expect. He does, however, have a new and overly lengthy post about Sarah & Trig Palin.

  11. 11.

    J sub D

    Because they depend on access, they can’t report the results of any fact-checking (lest they embarass a source who fabricates), and so they don’t do any fact-checking, and the end result is that they really don’t know all that much about the stuff they are supposedly reporting on. And as a result they are mostly interested in horserace and to some extent process, not substance, which makes them seem shallow to people interested in the substance of issues. These are the main reasons why they come under so much criticism, at least from the Left.

    Read almost any local paper and you can see “reporters” parroting whatever the police spokesperson puts out as if it were fact. Continued access is more important than getting to the heart of the matter.

    Dead tree and broadcast media, heal thyself.

  13. 13.

    LarsThorwald

    Lookit, I live in this town, and I have friends who are in mainstream journalism who work for the Post. There is clearly a divide, but I think it is incorrect to think of the people we all know Greg is talking about as “Villagers.” The term “Villagers” suggests that everyone in the beltway has this thick haze of conventional wisdom that fogs over their ability to discern truth and spin and fact and fantasy. Because there are clearly people inside the beltway to whom that does not apply, and most of them are independent journalists or bloggers or new media types or what have you.

    My friends at the Post — both beat reporters — call the two groups the Adult Table and the Kids’ Table. Those at the adult table are the ones going to Bradlee-Quinn soirees, or the better invites to embassy functions, or the plum spot at the press conference, or the best desks in the newsroom. The Adult Table has grown fat and lazy and instead of reporting, they digest conventional wosdom and peddle what they chew up, and it disgusts real reporters. Worse are the folks at the Adult Table who think they are lean and hungry reporters, because they think they are getting the real scoop and the good stuff, when really they are just taking other peoples’ word for what’s true, and they get misled by sources. All the time.

    The Adult Table hates the Kids’ Table. My friends have an annual party called the “Kids’ Table Party,” and there are some really good reporters there, and some really good beers. And at these parties they sort of complain about how staid their elder, “better respected” colleagues have become, and how with every breath they mock the Kids’ Table, when deep down they know the Kids’ Table is where the good reporting comes from. Also, they incessantly mock the Post op-ed page, which is a joke in and of itself.

    I guess the point is, even though Greg is clearly at the Kids’ table from the establishment reporters’ point of view, what good, young reporters the Post has left gets it.

    This isn’t about “old media” against “new media,” not entirely. This is about the lazy versus the hungry.

    And everyone in this fucking town knows it.

  14. 14.

    Midnight Marauder

    @beltane:

    Sullivan has been disappointing. While he defends Weigel, he doesn’t go after Jeffrey Goldberg with the fervor one would expect.

    Au contraire. Sullivan’s response is exactly what you would expect from a member of The Atlantic cabal. Even TNC’s comments on the matter were rather tepid and mealy-mouthed.

  15. 15.

    Warren Terra

    Ezra Klein’s follow-up post on the subject, which cites the linked Sargent post as one of its inspirations, is also worth a read. The first couple of paragraphs are:

    In my household, we have a rule about arguments: Once you’ve moved from arguing about the initial point of dispute to arguing about things said during the argument, the discussion has outlived its purpose. I’m reminded of that rule with some of the debates that have sprung out of the Weigel leak, including the one that Greg Sargent references here, in which a couple of Washington Post writers shielded themselves behind anonymity and criticized the company’s bloggers — myself included — on Jeffrey Goldberg’s blog.
    __
    There’s a delicious irony to seeing reporters pontificate about the importance of journalistic standards while refusing to reveal their names, but let’s leave that alone for a second. That’s arguing about the argument. There’s an actual point lurking in these criticisms that gets to the core of my work and that’s worth explaining to both my anonymous newsroom critics and my readers.

    ETA: if you somehow missed it but are nonetheless reading this comment, scroll two comments up and read Lars Thorwald’s excellent comment.

  16. 16.

    cleek

    i’m still waiting to care about the Weigle affair.

    WaPo is a fucking joke = old news. wake me up when they stop publishing neo-cons. then we can talk about their power-worship and establishment-fellating problems.

  17. 17.

    eemom

    if anyone is interested and wants to go there, Weigel has a “Mea Sorta Culpa” piece up at that Big Government place.

  18. 18.

    MarkJ

    Wonder if Goldberg’s anonymous source sent him an email. If so he’s a rank hypocrit for not telling us who it is because nothing is private online.

  19. 19.

    eemom

    also Goldberg fires back at Greenwald. Invites him to Iraq to visit some Kurds. Pass the popcorn, plz.

  20. 20.

    MoeLarryAndJesus

    When I think of great journalism I think of Orwell’s “Homage to Catalonia” and Mencken’s dispatches from Dayton, TN during the Scopes Monkey Trial. These were not neutral writers. It’s the main reason their work is still worth reading all these years later.

    The dickheads running the WaPo these days are not journalists, they’re just lazy adspace salesmen. They should sell the operation to Craigslist so we could refer to it as CraPo.

  21. 21.

    fucen tarmal

    shorter: the media loves them some media.

    stanley mcchrystal “resigns”, ok….

    dave weigel “resigns”, all hell breaks loose, investigations are called for, leaks are alledged, secret cabal conspiracies are projected….

  23. 23.

    frankdawg

    @cleek:

    No, this is wrong. The Times & Whore Post set the agenda for what is acceptable news. Drudge can flash as many flashy lights as he wants but it is not news to the average American until certain sources say it is. ABC, NBC & CBS can do it but for whatever reason they tend to wait until Times or Post has told them it is news.

    All of you that have commented about friends not knowing what “X” was about while the net is aflame with it have seen this truth in action.

    The wingnuts understand this & that it is critical in order to get to the vast middle you have to control those two papers even though “nobody reads them, they are dieing”

    The anal cyst is only good for firing up the base, the real tool of controlling the message is controlling those two papers.

  24. 24.

    El Cruzado

    @eemom: And god are the comments on that piece from another planet or what…

    I know I don’t expose myself to hardcore rightists often and probably that’s par for the site but seriously. Spent yesterday afternoon at a barbecue attended mostly by national security types (long story) and while I wouldn’t agree with them on much they were more than willing to debate and see the other side’s points.

  26. 26.

    El Cid

    I like the widespread assumption that no matter how shitty your work is, how deceptive, how weak, how utterly devoid of real professional standards, if you’re called a ‘journalist’ by either your billion dollar media employer or other kiss-ass peers, then, by god, you’re a damn professional journalist.

  27. 27.

    General Egali Tarian Stuck

    The Times & Whore Post set the agenda for what is acceptable news

    Yes, but that was pre Comedy Central. The internet and digital media as a whole is going through some major readjustments with attendant hurt fee fees and bruised egos of the old guard.

    I am more concerned with todays SCOTUS ruling striking down Chicago’s gun control laws, with unusual sweeping language that seems to question the government’s right to have any right to control firearms in this country at all.

  30. 30.

    Keith G

    @david mizner:

    You are so right. In recognition of the just passed Pride Week, I love it when one of my gay brethren summons forth some righteous-pissy-anger. And Glen does it like no other.

  31. 31.

    john b

    @LarsThorwald:
    that’s really interesting. a little peek into the DC press crowd that you don’t often see i suppose. would be nice if someone could write about it first-hand (from either but preferably both “tables”)

  32. 32.

    arguingwithsignposts

    Weigel writes about the episode on … wait for it … bigjournalism.
    Included is this gem:

    So I assumed they thought Hugh Hewitt was “buffoonish.” I said Gingrich had a “screwed-up tenture” because Republicans I admired, like Sen. Tom Coburn (R, Ok.) and Dick Armey, had serious problems with how Gingrich ran the House.

    I lost all respect for Weigel right there.

  33. 33.

    Warren Terra

    @cleek:
    Weigel isn’t that important, but this is a teaching moment. He was doing a good job in an underserved beat, reporting on activity within the conservative movement – but he was intemperate on a supposedly closed forum, so he was mau-mau’ed out of a job. Meanwhile, any number of stenographers and mediocrities lazily reporting in the style of “Shape of the earth: opinions differ” still have their jobs, as do people who are dishonest or insulting in their public work for the Washington Post but presumably nice people in private.

    Weigel is a well-connected, talented young man; he has a strong portfolio and I haven’t seen anything saying that he’s unwell. I’m sure he’ll land on his feet. But our society is extremely poorly served by the media environment that this episode exemplifies so well, and I’m uncertain how our society is going to land at the end of the slow-motion self-destruction it’s seemingly been undergoing for as long as I can recall.

  34. 34.

    BC

    @El Cid: There you go again with your fancy facts and stuff. How can a self-respecting journalist, toilet trained and having good table manners, expect to get a break if someone is going to do all that fact-checking, huh? Huh?

  35. 35.

    licensed to kill time

    __

    I said Gingrich had a “screwed-up tenture”

    What’s a tenture? Does Newt need boner pills for that?

  37. 37.

    geg6

    @Midnight Marauder:

    I have lost any respect I had for TNC throughout this and his repeated explanations for why Weigel was wrong and why he’s avoiding discussing Goldberg (not even mealy mouthed there; he basically gives him a blowjob). And his new resolution to never be angry or say anything that could be perceived as angry for any reason whatsoever is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard or read.

    There are good reasons to be angry and sound angry at times. To state ahead of time that you would never do such a thing or to condemn it under any circumstances (which seems to be what he’s advocating) is a sign I really don’t need to read anything he has to say about anything other than maybe his Civil War reading. People who won’t or can’t get angry when that is the proper response aren’t people I respect. Those people are doormats and I have no need of doormats in my life at this late date.

  38. 38.

    El Cruzado

    @eemom: I’d say it’s more that, as people who actually work IN that world (rather than wanking about semi-fictional representations of it in front of a computer), they were good enough professionals to be able to look at it from different perspectives when confronted about it.

  40. 40.

    Redshirt

    Regardless, these clowns only have 5-10 more years to run these scams. Look for it to get worse as they all try and suck as much cash out of the ship before it goes down.

  41. 41.

    Napoleon

    All I can say is I hope the archive system that Klien had for Journolist was such that he can track who was page viewing the pages that Dave W’s quotes were taken from and he confronts that person.

  42. 42.

    carlos the dwarf

    Anyone else see this: http://live.washingtonpost.com/media-backtalk-06-21-10.html

    My favorite:
    Q: One thing about bloggers is that they don’t seem human. George Will will write a column about the evils of blue jeans or Sally Quinn will write about her son’s wedding.

    Bloggers are ALL about politics all the time. While politics might be personal, they remain suprisingly focused on politics. I think we forget that David Weigel has rent to pay and that getting fired isn’t the best career path nor is it good for his finances.

    Everybody seems so focused on Mr. Weigel’s politics. I just hope he’s doing okay financially.

    A: He says he’s received a number of job offers, so I think he’ll stay off the unemployment rolls.

    But not all bloggers write about politics all the time. Many often stray into culture, media and the world of ideas. Sometimes even sports.

  43. 43.

    frosty

    @LarsThorwald: Interesting comment.

    It reminds me of nothing so much as “All the President’s Men” (the book not the movie) where you have these two hungry guys on the Metro desk, sneered at by National, who beat the pants off of them on Watergate.

  44. 44.

    matoko_chan

    The problem is that a half century of memetic selection for voters too dumb to understand ToE and basic cell biology, too stupid to vote in their own economic interest, and too frightened of their own limitations to attempt to study and learn has resulted in a lower IQ conservative constituency.
    And they know it, and they are super-touchy about it.
    That is why there are different rules for “conservative pundits”, and why Weigel was required to give welfare epics (ie not crit them) to conservative memes and personages.

  45. 45.

    IM

    Re: Anger
    To be never angry is moral and intellectual bankruptcy.

    My favourite quote:

    Wer über gewisse Dinge nicht den Verstand verliert, hat keinen zu verlieren. (Lessing)

    Who doesn’t loses his reason about certain things, has no reason to lose.

  46. 46.

    David in NY

    @carlos the dwarf:

    Bloggers are ALL about politics all the time

    The guy who said that never read this blog. Animals, food, gardening, soccer, politics, sometimes in that order.

  47. 47.

    Midnight Marauder

    @geg6:

    I have lost any respect I had for TNC throughout this and his repeated explanations for why Weigel was wrong and why he’s avoiding discussing Goldberg (not even mealy mouthed there; he basically gives him a blowjob). And his new resolution to never be angry or say anything that could be perceived as angry for any reason whatsoever is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard or read.

    Where I was really shocked by the fealty TNC showed to Goldberg was in this statement from his first post on the issue:

    “It makes me crazy when I see these guys referred to as reporters. They’re anything but. And they hurt the newspaper when they claim to be reporters.”
    __
    “Ezra Klein is a talented guy, but he’s just an absolute partisan. If this is where journalism has to go, so be it, but I don’t want to go there.”

    __
    I’m assuming Jeff at least partially endorses this view-point, as he puts these quotes out there without much comment.

    You can only assume that Goldberg endorses the quotes he cites from a conversation he had with alike-minded friend, which he posted on his own blog, under a post titled “An Unhappy Day At The Washington Post,” which was ostensibly all about how “the sad truth is that the Washington Post, in its general desperation for page views, now hires people who came up in journalism without much adult supervision, and without the proper amount of toilet-training”?! Are you fucking kidding me?! And even then, your assumption is that he “at least partially endorses this view-point”?! Goldberg, LITERALLY, writes to conclude his post that TNC cites:

    But it is also proof that some people at the Post (where I worked, briefly, 20 years ago) still know the difference between acceptable behavior and unacceptable behavior, and that maybe this episode will lead to the reimposition of some level of standards.

    Just absolutely stunning levels of diffidence from TNC.

  48. 48.

    Sentient Puddle

    @carlos the dwarf: Has that dumbass read a blog in his/her entire life? My god, I’m having trouble thinking of any political blog I read where the blogger doesn’t go off topic every so often.

  49. 49.

    LarsThorwald

    The bottom line is that Woodward & Bernstein — great reporting that they did — fucking ruined real journalism.

  50. 50.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    For me, its just the irony. Goldberg is a shill for the Israeli government. He wouldn’t know a journalistic standard if it smacked him in the butt.

  51. 51.

    burnspbesq

    @eemom:

    Speaking of your buddy Glenn, didja notice that he finally got around to weighing in on the Humanitarian Law Project case today? Wonder how long it will be before he can set aside his silly vendettas and get around to writing about the three major Con Law cases (McDonald, Christian Legal Society, and PCAOB) that were handed down today?

    In the meantime, I guess we’ll just have to rely on actual Con Law scholars at Balkinization and other similar blogs for analysis.

    FWIW, I read Christian Legal Society over lunch, and tp my amazement it increased my already ample loathing for Alito. Dipshit, you work for an appellate court – you decide cases based on the record you get from the District Court, and if the lawyers for the side you favor agreed to stipulate facts that had the effect of giving the case away, that is just Too Fucking Bad.

  52. 52.

    burnspbesq

    More re Christian Legal Society:

    How scary is it that a case that the Ninth Circuit thought was only worth a one-paragraph, per curiam opinion ends up 5-4 at the Supremes?

  53. 53.

    Joseph Nobles

    Dangalang. That was some well-placed unloading.

    I like Greenwald’s takedown, too, but I think it falls prey, as a lot of Greenwald’s intensity does, to what Ezra described in this way:

    Once you’ve moved from arguing about the initial point of dispute to arguing about things said during the argument, the discussion has outlived its purpose.

    Greenwald, bless him, lives for the meta.

    @LarsThorwald:

    the lazy versus the hungry

    And that phrase should be a new category.

  54. 54.

    Jenn

    @Midnight Marauder:

    On the other hand, it was the pushback by TNC and Fallows that caused Goldberg to realize that he was wrong, and to outright state that he was wrong. All of the aggressive screeds by Greenwald and DougJ et al, however much of them might be true, would never have had the same effect; they so rarely do. When people are attacked, even when with cause (and perhaps even ESPECIALLY when with cause), it is all too human to erect the defensive posture rather than a listening and humble one.

    As TNC says, sometimes we need to say “Fuck Pat Robertson.” There are times when it is a necessary thing to yell out the truth, no holds barred. But for most of the time, I think it’s a beautiful thing to strive to view the whole of a person, and not just the parts you hate. Or like, for that matter.

    Also, for those criticizing TNC’s posts on the Weigel-Goldberg affair, were you reading the comment section as well?

  56. 56.

    Pete

    I notice the word “Thiessen” hasn’t cropped up in this debate over partisan WaPo people.

    JUST FUCKING SAYING

  57. 57.

    burnspbesq

    @Pete:

    Thiessen is dead here. We officially sat Balloon Juice Shiva for him a while back. Sorry you missed it. It was quite a touching ceremony.

  58. 58.

    Midnight Marauder

    @Jenn:

    On the other hand, it was the pushback by TNC and Fallows that caused Goldberg to realize that he was wrong, and to outright state that he was wrong. All of the aggressive screeds by Greenwald and DougJ et al, however much of them might be true, would never have had the same effect; they so rarely do. When people are attacked, even when with cause (and perhaps even ESPECIALLY when with cause), it is all too human to erect the defensive posture rather than a listening and humble one.

    Certainly, and on that point, I will concede that both TNC and Fallows are in a better position to affect a change in Goldberg’s perspective on the matter than someone like Gleen Greenwald or DougJ. That said, I think it’s a bit naive for someone like TNC to be caught off-guard when he declares the following about Jeffrey Goldberg, the media professional:

    But professionally, I have great respect for him as a reporter.

    Now, that’s a pretty clear statement about the work that Jeffrey Goldberg has done, and I have to say, I find it egregiously nonsensical. There’s no ambiguity about how he feels regarding the man’s professional work. Now, either we haven’t been reading the same Jeffrey Goldberg over the years, or I need to reevaluate how exactly Coates sees the world. I don’t think that position is accurate or even really all that defensible, considering that Goldberg is still actively working to prove the point that he is, in fact, utterly terrible at his alleged “profession.”

    This was how TNC first defended his position on having “great respect” for Goldberg as a journalist, in reference to Goldberg’s shameless shilling for the Iraq War:

    I think people who are great at anything sometimes fuck up. And I think, in that particular case, that was big one. I just don’t think it should mark his entire body of work, which, in my opinion holds up really well. [Emphasis added]

    Now, I think that statement, on its face, is fucking farcical. Anyone who can really look at Jeffrey Goldberg’s body of journalistic work and say that the rest of it “holds up really well” when compared to his “reporting” on the Iraq War, is immediately suspect. If I remember correctly, Goldberg still maintains that there was a connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda! Are you going to tell me that is the markings of a great journalist whose entire body of work “holds up really well?”

    As TNC says, sometimes we need to say “Fuck Pat Robertson.” There are times when it is a necessary thing to yell out the truth, no holds barred. But for most of the time, I think it’s a beautiful thing to strive to view the whole of a person, and not just the parts you hate. Or like, for that matter.

    With that in mind, a few quick words on my own approach to this matter. A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of having dinner with James Fallows, along with a few other Atlantic folks. Fallows offered some really wise words on how to criticize people in print, the gist of it being, “Speak to those you would criticize as though they were standing right there.”
    __
    That’s a high standard, but one I’ve generally tried to maintain. My sense of my role here is as follows: I’m not here to try to humiliate people I disagree with. That goes as much for Jeff Goldberg, who is my friend, as it goes for Bob McDonnell, who is not.

    I see. So instead, in this case, you fluff their journalistic record so as to avoid having to comment in a substantial manner on their actual history of behavior.

    All in the name of friendship, of course.

  59. 59.

    HyperIon

    This whole affair puts me in mind of something that happened to me in high school. It turned out that some of my friends were members of a really cool (in their opinion) “secret club”. But nobody told me about it and obviously did not invite me to join. When I found out about this group, I ended up thinking less of these friends but I never wanted to join the club…because it seemed that much of the coolness derived from being secretly a member. Oh, well.

    Does anybody think the journolist is anything except a mechanism for feeling superior to all the folks who aren’t members? Do they have a clubhouse and their own handshake?

  61. 61.

    bago

    And journalists are supposed to like transparency.

    That is how young Ezra inserts the knife.

    The setup was “let’s set that aside for now” with respect to his anonymous detractors. Finishing the piece with that sentence is a sublime resolution of that dangling observation.

  62. 62.

    henqiguai

    @HyperIon (#59):

    Does anybody think the journolist is anything except a mechanism for feeling superior to all the folks who aren’t members? Do they have a clubhouse and their own handshake?

    Every profession has its little klatches and groups. As a techno-dweeb, there are those such groups wherein we get together to discuss things pertinent to our profession as well as corporate politics and just general bitching. It only improves our technical worth. Why shouldn’t wordsmiths do the same ? Since this incident presented, I’ve been reading all sorts of condemnations of Weigel and others participating in off-the-record bitch sessions. That’s just idiotic. Are they not allowed off-the-record human contact and interaction like everyone else ?

  64. 64.

    Anne Laurie

    @geg6:

    There are good reasons to be angry and sound angry at times. To state ahead of time that you would never do such a thing or to condemn it under any circumstances (which seems to be what he’s advocating) is a sign I really don’t need to read anything he has to say about anything other than maybe his Civil War reading. People who won’t or can’t get angry when that is the proper response aren’t people I respect. Those people are doormats and I have no need of doormats in my life at this late date.

    To be fair, TNC (like President Obama) has to deal with the ‘Angry Black Man’ stereotype; if he is read as being the least bit intemperate, his enemies will do their best to convince the idiots that TNC is one of them dangerous scary neeegroes who can’t be trusted.

    Also, TNC — unlike most of his Atlantic fellows! — permits comments from his readers. And his commentors are quite capable of calling Jeffrey Goldberg out. It could be argued it’s more effective when TNC says ‘Goldberg is a nice guy in person, but I think he’s wrong about this’ and TNC’s regulars go Full Metal WTF on Goldberg’s bad faith, rather than TNC calling Goldberg… what he is… and having his commentors do the ‘now, now, I hear he loves dogs and has always been nice to his office ladies’ walkback.

  65. 65.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Nellcote: That was fast!

    @Anne Laurie: And, yeah, that. I wasn’t happy with TNC’s post, but I loved what the commenters had to say. I dunno. Expecting TNC to shiv Goldberg isn’t very realistic, methinks. Still, TNC coulda come much stronger with the condemnation while still not being an asshole about it.

    @david mizner: I gotta say…this reminds me why I used to read GG on a regular basis. That was so nice, I need a cigarette. I like Sargent’s response, too, but GG’s post just hits the emotional spot. Plus, he’s outta control with the links! Gotta love that.

  66. 66.

    sparky

    late as usual to this thread but there is a future disappointment lurking in this, IMO. look at the reason for claiming the bloggers are “real” reporters–in both cases the information Sargent invokes in his favor are political points distributed by the Ds. whatever else they may be, those items are most assuredly not facts uncovered by reporting. in both cases someone in the D organization decided to distribute this info in just this manner. the sick joke of it that these examples are classic examples of what so many people complain about in this blog–sucking up in return for being able to claim to be the first with information that is either drivel or will be made public anyway. hardly the stuff of investigative reporting.

    i don’t know what Sargent was thinking, but he managed to do exactly the opposite of what he purports to do. in a few paragraphs he managed what i thought unpossible: he suggests that there’s no difference between Ezra Klein and Erik Erickson.

    dumb dumb dumb.

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