Since noon on February 16, Megan McArdle has written six posts, four of them questioning the authenticity of the (Koch-connected) Heartland memos and/or attacking the leaker personally, and one attacking the Democratic party for focusing on David Koch. Her husband works for the Koch-funded Reason magazine where he was recently a Koch fellow.
At what point does this start to bother McArdle’s colleagues — Fallows, Coates, etc. — and online buddies — Yglesais, Drum, etc.? Is this whole thing an even bigger circle jerk than I imagined?
Violet
If you didn’t imagine the whole thing was a circle jerk and the folks you named were Villagers, Jr., then yes, it’s much bigger than you imagined.
Comrade Dread
Yes. SATSQ
cathyx
What a loyal wife she is.
kindness
If I was at Megan’s Dinner table I’d say Fuck You over and over.
Would get kicked out. Wouldn’t care. Told Megan to fuck herself.
Kevin
She has a new Koch post up, and this time, she puts a disclaimer…must have seen this post:
Full disclosure: my husband once had a fellowship with the Charles G. Koch foundation, and works for Reason Magazine, which has been a recipient of funds from Koch charitable organizations. We also sometimes use Vanity Fair paper napkins and Dixie brand paper products, which are owned by the Kochs.
Citizen_X
@kindness: I’d tell her to bring me the motherfucking pink Himalayan salt.
Modulo Myself
Forget about her liberal colleagues. You would think that the last thing any sane and cynical GOP operative would want is the insane inferiority complex of the right being summoned for display each time the Obama campaign sends out an email.
Imagine in September if Obama is sounding centrist by mentioning money in politics and whoever the GOP has is spouting off about enemy lists and disinformation campaigns.
Citizen_X
@Kevin:
Aha ha ha! Because identifying possible conflicts of interest is for whiny liberal pussies.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
Yes, and somehow your reports make it sound interesting, Dougj!
Brachiator
It takes a Village to support a hack pundit.
Violet
The fact that her online buddies/pundit friends haven’t said anything about her Koch-sucking says a lot more about them than her. She’s predictable and at least she’s got something of a reason (her husband works for them, defending him). That’s no excuse for her crappy writing and “analysis” and The Atlantic should still be held accountable for giving her a job and a platform, but at least you pretty much know what you’re going to get with her. But the others…they are chickenshits for not calling her out on this Koch stuff.
Loyalty in the Village counts for a lot more than exposing the truth.
srv
She’s playing the long game, Peggy Noonan is getting old, and you can’t have too many billionaire friends.
Maybe the NYT’s can afford a new calculator for her.
Michael
Fallows is actually not really a “villager” IMO and a pretty honest & decent guy, as well as being really freakin smart. He wrote a book about the problems of the MSM political coverage…15 years ago.
That being said, I don’t know if he’d want to play Ombudsman for the Atlantic.
Svensker
Oooh, hit a nerve, eh? Ha ha ha.
Comrade Mary
Gosh, what a cute parallel disclaimer. Why, buying popular consumer products produced by evil fuckers is just the same as working directly for evil fuckers.
Steve
And yet every single post doing the dirty work of climate deniers contains the disclaimer that she totally believes climate change is real and caused by humans! Her wingnut commentors are like “how can you believe that stuff?” and honestly, it’s a good question. It’s not clear how she could actually agree with liberals on anything because it’s obvious she thinks liberals are the most dishonest, uncivil, despicable people imaginable.
No one thinks that you’re just being contrarian when you write a post the size of War and Piece analyzing the one supposedly fake Heartland document amidst all the undeniably real ones. Readership capture is the nicest explanation for what she does.
Susan of Texas
She has a new Koch post up, and this time, she puts a disclaimer…must have seen this post:
Look at the comments.
goethean
Full disclosure: I also drink water from sources poisoned by industries violating various environmental standards.
BGinCHI
The people who should be worried are the Kochs and the climate change deniers. If they are counting on the like of McMegan to defend them, they’re fucked.
You’d think money could buy you quality.
barath
The double standard here is appalling. Scientists are going off on him – holding him to a “higher” standard without realizing that science itself is under attack and they need to circle the wagons. (In addition to the usual media types like McCardle and the NYT’s terrible Revkin.)
uptown
@Kevin:
“once” meaning those years from the long ago past of 2009-2010.
Michael
People are calling the author of this book a villager?
Seebach
McNulty from the Wire gives his opinion:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAZZdL1qhk8
Steve
@Michael: Fallows took his colleague Robert Wright to the woodshed over an awful Jeremy Lin post and I think they might actually be friends. But overall, I think Fallows probably thinks his time is better spent calling out the Iran warmongers than calling out Megan McArdle and I’m not sure he’s wrong. Still, it would be pretty funny one of these days if she made a post and every other Atlantic blogger simultaneously ripped it apart.
taylormattd
fap —> fap —> fap —> fap
srv
The least The Atlantic could do is endow a position and call it the “Koch Ombudsman”
brad
They haven’t found a problem with a full decade worth of far worse useful errors and passive aggressive wingnuttia, so no, they’ll continue to go to her dinner parties and let her kiss their asses in case they can be of any use to her career.
Speaking of passive aggressive… I’m still miffed about calling a brief exchange about how to receive an important thinker in a more important modern context a “bashing”.
(I’m the one being passive aggressive, to be clear.)
Michael
@Steve: I would pay good money to see that.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Kevin:
WTF?!
I couldn’t tell you what brand of paper napkins we use in my house if my life depended on it. Whatever was cheapest in the store 2 weeks ago, most likely. Not counting the extra ones we pulled out of the dispenser at Wendy’s last week and then didn’t use so we took them home to use rather than just throwing them away (because you can’t put them back for sanitary reasons).
This raises some disturbing questions. Does she have a cult-like devotion to some particular brand of paper napkin? The Pink Himalayan Salt of paper napkins as it were? Or does she have some MittRomney-esque ability to scan a square inch of napkin and discern the brand?
Keith G
Maybe they feel that there are other things more deserving of their attention.
Have you asked them?
Seebach
“Another career in the balance. Everybody stays friends, everybody gets paid, and everybody’s got a fucking future.”
Aet
Thank _god_, I thought I was going crazy.
I used to really enjoy reading The Atlantic. TNC was usually great.
But no one will say anything about McArdle and her massive ongoing, staggering lack of journalistic ethics, and that’s something special even these days. A high-school newspaper editor would have told her to shut up around the fourth article. Honestly, plagarism would be a step up at this point.
Steve
What I really want to know is what Ezra will have to say about Sullivan’s post criticizing DougJ for attacking McArdle.
EconWatcher
That disclosure may be the worst thing I’ve ever read from her. She’s snearing while belatedly owning up to an obvious conflict of interest. She seems like she would be a very unpleasant person to know.
Aet
@28, she’s making the argument that she’s impartial, because the livelihoods of family members have exactly the same impact as her choice of disposable napkin.
300baud
Doug, I think you’re being too harsh. Koch addiction is a terrible tragedy. You have to remember that a lot of the time you’re not talking to the person, you’re talking to the disease.
Keith G
@Violet:
And what might that be saying?
Steve
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: I’m pretty sure it is her idea of a joke. Here, let me explain the joke: The idea that I might defend the Kochs because my husband works for a Koch-funded magazine and used to collect a Koch fellowship is as silly as the idea that might defend the Kochs because I use Dixie cups around the house. It’s okay if you forget to laugh.
Emma
May I suggest a simple solution? Don’t read the Atlantic. Any of it. And/or any of those morons you’ve mentioned. Page clicks are their oxygen. Turn off the spigot
Susan of Texas
“once” meaning those years from the long ago past of 2009-2010.
McArdle started by given a very deceptive disclaimer, the same one she gave in a Heartland post–that her husband had had a Koch fellowship. She did not say that he was hired by Reason afterwards and works there today. I pointed that out in the comments and she went on the attack. I believe she ended up denying the Koches three times before the cock crows. I hope it doesn’t affect her good standing with them.
Steve
@Emma: In my opinion, Fallows and TNC are completely indispensable bloggers, and people.
cmorenc
@DougJarvus Green-Ellis:
I doubt it’s because they approve whatsoever of her idiocy, and if any of them are participating in any villager circle-jerks, it has nothing to do with her involvement. The real bottom line is probably that yes, her continued presence is quite a bother to them, but none of them thinks it’s worth making the stink of resigning from the club At Atlantic or the Village to protest her continued presence there.
The better question is: what the Hell kind of leverage does McArdle have over the chef editor, the publisher, and/or board of the Atlantic to insure her continued prominent position there? Certainly women can deservedly make it to the top of their profession these days without sleeping with anyone, but nevertheless I cannot help wonder whether in McArdle’s case this is part of the explanation, because it certainly cannot be due to the quality of her observation, thought or writing. Or does she know some terrible secret she’s holding hostage about someone important there? How in the Hell does she manage to keep her position there? At least Sarah Palin brings in enough eager eyeballs over at Fox to justify keeping such a dumbshit regularly on the air.
Violet
@Keith G:
As I said in the very same post you quoted:
So, at the risk of repeating myself, it says that they are chickenshits and that they are more concerned with loyalty than with exposing the truth.
pseudonymous in nc
@Kevin:
That should be in [petulant pout] tags.
Tonal Crow
@Emma:
Yes. I cancelled my Atlantic subscription 2 years ago largely because of McArdle. GOP her and the horse she rode in on. And the thieves and murderers she whitewashes.
Elizabelle
Speaking of circle jerks: found this wedding announcement in the NY Times. Look out for stupid, generation 4.0:
Young wingnuts in love.
Wedding was at the Ritz Carlton. Not that that’s elite, or anything.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/fashion/weddings/anne-kristol-matthew-continetti-weddings.html?ref=style
(PS: the groom’s parents are both government employees.)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@pseudonymous in nc: / passive aggressive condescending sarcastic pout /
wrb
@Michael:
I believe he once wrote that The Atlantic prohibited writer-on-writer action within the house.
Elizabelle
@Tonal Crow:
But then you’d miss Ta Nehisi Coates and James Fallows.
I’ve bookmarked TNC. Always worth checking in on.
The rest of The Atlantic? Forgeddum.
ETA: Ah. Missed Steve’s comment at 40.
dadanarchist
Koch Fellow needs to go in the lexicon.
pseudonymous in nc
@cmorenc:
She is a made woman, and nothing must be allowed to get in the way of her inevitable ascent to a WaPo op-ed spot.
And I return every “come back to the Atlantic” subscription solicitation with “fire Megan McArdle first” written on the card.
Violet
@cmorenc:
It’s amazing how some people keep their jobs. I once worked for an individual who broke employment law, insulted women, people of color and the disabled, and ran through an entire year’s budget in less than half a year and managed to weasel more money out of their boss. No one liked this person and this person was regularly laughed at in larger meetings of the department. Absolutely no one I worked with could figure out how this person kept their job. They best we could figure is that they had something on their boss.
Amazingly when there was a management reorg and suddenly this person’s boss was reassigned, this person was removed. So yeah, I think there can be something to the “they have something on their boss” analysis.
Keith G
@Violet: So Viola is easily able to know with certainty and without hesitation call TNC, Fallows et al chicken shits.
My, my, my….How positively teabagger-esque of you.
I fear the enemy is indeed us.
Jon
Let me explain how this works:
(1) Someone stars a blog or gets a degree or gets notoriety.
(2) Gets hired at some political publication.
(3) Meets colleagues.
(4) Ends up socializing with colleagues and
(5) Cannot maintain dissonance of wicked and stupid ideas of person they share yuks and good times with.
(6) Apologize for them all the time.
This is the “intellectual” debate in these publications. Circle jerk? Putting it mildly. More like a huge orgy where everyone is pleasuring others instead of just themselves.
Steve
@Elizabelle: It’s okay to agree with me! It happens rarely, but I can cope.
Jon
@kindness: DC;TMTFH
Amir Khalid
@Emma:
That’s a bit harsh on Ta-Nehisi Coates and James Fallows, I think. They might be subject to The Atlantic’s no-friendly-fire house rule, but they’re still pretty valuable writers on the whole.
Cermet
So, before I post, I must give my disclaimer – I breath air polluted by Hg from the Kock suckers power plants.
trollhattan
“Gun for Hire”
For perhaps the first time evah, I’m defending guns against this unfair comparison to McMegan. Flaming hot lead would have more value than anything emanating from the kitchen appliance goddess.
cathyx
I think they are vying for the Prize in Civility in Public Life that David Brooks recently won with Mark Shields.
Persia
@Michael: Yeah, Fallows and Coates seem like ‘don’t shit where you eat’ kind of guys, and I can respect that. Can’t speak for the rest of the blogosphere/Village/whatever catchphrase we’re using today.
kindness
I was reading the comments at Megans new POS post and Oh My God does she come off like a troll in her own freaking blog. She answers so may posts by snippy little ‘So What’ answers. I knew she had screws loose, but I hadn’t realized she had the depth of a puddle.
trollhattan
@Elizabelle:
Dear lord, how am I supposed to sleep after learning of that truly unholy union?
maya
Notice she didn’t mention Angel Soft since she would have had to disclose wiping her ass with Koch Industries.
El Tiburon
Sometimes you iz a funny mutherfucker. Don’t rock the boat, baby. Don’t rock the boat.
Also, too, can I haz Koch money?
You Don't Say
@Keith G: Yes, Sweeping Generalizations R Us.
Clark Stooksbury
The Kochs favor gay marriage! The Kochs favor gay marriage! The Kochs favor gay marriage! The Kochs favor gay marriage! The Kochs favor gay marriage! The Kochs favor gay marriage!
trollhattan
@Amir Khalid:
I once wondered what the Atlantic rules of disengagement might be, back when Sully would “Heh, Indeedy, read the whole thing” McMegan posts. Then he did same from his new gig and, while it didn’t really tell us about The Atlantic’s madcap fratricide rules, it finished off Sully for good.
Martin
@cmorenc:
Nothing. It’s an online site. Success is measured in page views and click-through rates. DougJ and Tom alone probably are enough to secure her continued employment because online, viewing something is functionally equivalent to agreeing with something.
All of the sturm und drang in McArlde’s comment section is money. It’s as simple as that.
Jennifer
BTW, someone in comments over at TBogg’s christened McMegan as “Blenderella.”
Which is how I’m gonna refer to her from here on out.
Keith G
@Keith G: And sorry for the mistype….Did not mean Viola.
Elizabelle
@trollhattan:
What finally stopped me from reading Sully’s blog is that it takes too damn long to load, with all the Daily Beast related crap.
Missing all that Ron Paul manlove.
(And the occasional good stuff. I guess.)
Violet
@Keith G:
Who’s Viola?
In this regard, I think her circle of pundit friends are chickenshits. In others they most certainly are not. But this lack of backbone with regard to what is an obvious conflict of interest by McMegan should be called out for what it is. It’s notable that the only people who are doing the calling out are people who are not in her social or professional circle. Those in her circle should be calling her out, but they’re not. Why not? Are they afraid they won’t be invited to the next poisonous-counter-top, pink Himalayan salt dinner party? She’s written four posts about it, so it’s not like it’s a one-off, more-easily-ignored post.
And it’s not like this is the first time something like this has happened. McMegan fluffs Koch-related issues on a regular basis without publishing any kind of disclaimers. So it’s not like it’s a surprise that this is happening now. They’ve had plenty of previous examples of it. They don’t call her out. Only out-of-the-Village writers seem to call McMegan on anything she says or does. Village loyalty seems to trump all.
pragmatism
@cmorenc:
i know that’s a typo but it works. in her dreams she is a chef editor.
also, blenderella is $
PTirebiter
I agree. They do far more good than she does harm. She gets hers in spades on an almost daily basis, no need to pile on.
Violet
@Keith G:
That’s okay. I wondered who you were talking about, though.
MBunge
I can give the other folks at the Atlantic and even her blogosphere buddies a break for not calling Blenderella out in public. But are TNC and Fallows bitching to whomever is the boss of the Atlantic site that her crap makes them all look bad? Do Drum and Yglesias give her any shit in private for this stuff?
Mike
beltane
@Elizabelle: “The Persecution of Sarah Palin: How the Elite Media Tried to Bring Down a Rising Star”
Funny, we don’t hear too much about that “rising star” anymore. I think the Sarah Palin phenomenon was more like a glowing cigarette butt tossed out the window of someone’s pickup truck than anything to do with rising stars. No need for our elite media to do anything but watch as the little butt burnt herself out.
Violet
@Jennifer:
Blenderella is a keeper. Excellent.
Rafer Janders
Have you seen her defense of herself in the comments to her Koch posting?
I didn’t donate my time to “the Kochs”; I donated it to the Institute for Humane Studies, an organization whose goals I support. Is anyone who donates time or money to an organization to which George Soros donates also “tied to Soros”? Does that donation somehow constitute getting “paid by” George Soros?….I have met Charles Koch twice, for about a minute each time. I don’t think I have never met David Koch. I receive no personal income from the Kochs, nor, to my knowledge, from any institution with which they are affiliated. I believe that David Koch is still a donor to the Reason Foundation, but I do not know that to be the case, and what I write is certainly not affected by that–except to the extent that the tedious disclosures mean that I spend somewhat less time making fun of the hilarious conspiracy-mongering than I otherwise would. The Kochs had nothing to do with my support of IHS, which predates my learning of their existence.
The parsing is ridiculous. She “receives no personal income from the Kochs” apart, of course, from the income from her husband’s job….
Omnes Omnibus
@Rafer Janders: Maybe they have separate checking accounts.
/snark
You Don't Say
DougJ, you’re more sanctimonious than Santorum.
smintheus
Fallows, Atlantic and co. refused to condemn Jeffrey Goldberg for his islamophobic rush to judgment in regard to the Oslo killings…even though Fallows condemned Jennifer Rubin harshly for exactly that. When I asked Fallows why he was giving Goldberg a pass for what was a truly vile post, he couldn’t give me a coherent explanation.
I went on to prove (all of this is at Flapola from July/August 2010) that Goldberg had gone back and doctored his original post to make himself look less obnoxiously wrong, but covered his tracks by failing to acknowledge his initial edits. And when Goldberg realized that his covert rewriting of his post been exposed he published the most bizarre and dishonest “explanation” anybody had ever seen. Goldberg promised to get to the bottom of what happened, then never did. Instead, I got to the bottom of it by turning up archived evidence of how he had doctored his post.
But from Fallows, Atlantic and co., any criticisms of Goldberg or even a demand he come clean? Nope, just more crickets.
Atlantic should have dumped Goldberg over this triple scandal (vile rush to judgment; covert doctoring of vile post; lying about what he’d done when confronted with evidence of doctoring). Instead, nothing happened.
pseudonymous in nc
Methinks the blender doth protest too much.
And the wingnut-welfare gangbang of Reason, Mercatus, the Bill of Rights Institute and the IHS is pretty fucking obvious. If you’re that kind of libertarian, you can find a Koch to suck for life.
Rafer Janders
God, I need a brain bleach after reading through the comments there….
wrb
@smintheus:
Yep, that was the one I was remembering, that resulted in Fallows writing that The Atlantic’s rules prohibited friendly fire.
Rafer Janders
@Omnes Omnibus:
But it’s fungible! The money’s all fungible!
DanielX
Never. This has been another edition of simple answers to simple questions.
Jennifer
@Rafer Janders: Good point.
I bet some Koch money ended up going into that hideous kitchen remuddle they did.
Omnes Omnibus
@Rafer Janders: No,
abortionladypart doctoring money is fungible. Pink Himalayan salt money is not. Do try to keep up, old boy.Edited for accuracy.
TooManyJens
OT, but I think somebody needs to go rescue Cole:
https://twitter.com/#!/Johngcole/statuses/173194595272892416
Brachiator
@Rafer Janders:
Yes, as in, uh, community property, Megan.
DanielX
Yes, McArdle is a Koch-sucking dipshit intellectual lightweight, no matter how many degrees she has and where they’re from. This is not news. And yes, she will go on doing what she does regardless of intellectual integrity or consistency or accuracy because this is her rice bowl; it’s her job and it pays pretty well judging by the cost of her kitchen appliances. Nice work if you can get it.
If you’re not used to it by now, get used to it because she is not going to suddenly see the light no matter how much snark is aimed at her. I could put up with a large ration of shit myself if I was paid like she is. She’s paid for writing pseudo-libertarian horseshit and propaganda. Unlike some libertarians, she’s too polite to come right out and say “I got mine, fuck you”.
Bobby Thomson
Never. SATSQ.
ETA: So simple that I was beaten to it -at- by the local Googleplex.
DonBoy
By the way, to the most important thing at issue here: Vanity Fair napkins really are the best paper napkins, Koch-related or not.
cathyx
@TooManyJens: Doesn’t his laptop have a battery?
smintheus
@wrb: Fallows wrote a post in which he tried to minimize the issue, suggesting it was absurd for me to charge that he had shown a double standard toward Rubin and Goldberg. He did this partly by linking my charges against Goldberg to several other unrelated complaints he had seen, each of the others being baseless or obviously ridiculous. Fallows also neglected to link to my postings or identify me; he didn’t even describe accurately what Goldberg had written or mention evidence that he’d doctored his post.
It was an intellectually dishonest apologia, and I had a lower opinion of him as a result.
dlnelson
She is nothing more than a woman of the night, masking it in politics. It has to be hard to twist and turn every thought in your head to fit the argument. It is what rush etc, do everyday. They project what they are doing, and say the Libs are doing it. It is really hard to keep up. You can always remember the truth, but when you are lying, it is hard to remember all the lies. These folks are crazy. But, they are bankrolled by a bunch of billionaires. I see through it. dn
chrismealy
They’ve got to keep their options open.
bemused
@Elizabelle:
For once, I’d like to read a story of an offspring of the elite conservative crowd breaking loose and running off with someone entirely unacceptable in their eyes, a liberal free spirit type. That doesn’t seem to ever happen.
Omnes Omnibus
@TooManyJens: Tunch has obviously made his first move.
uptown
@Susan of Texas:
I would say she went off the rails. She just couldn’t give you an honest answer or debate.
cathyx
@bemused: Didn’t the son of Robbins of Baskin and Robbins Ice Cream do that?
Omnes Omnibus
@uptown: I just went and looked, but the comment thread is unreadable in FF because 669 nested reply comments really torques the place up.
gocart mozart
Don’t mean to be a pedant, but the correct term is Koch-Sucker
bemused
@cathyx:
I have no idea. I was thinking more of conservatives with think tanks, media, government and so on…they all seem to intermarry.
Brachiator
@bemused:
Yes, outside the PBS Masterpiece show, Downton Abbey, it is very rare.
srv
Someone just stopped in traffic and yelled “Anyone ever told you that you look like Kiefer Sutherland?”
That would be a no. But with the proper funding, plastic surgery, two years on the beard and training, perhaps I could be sent by the BJ Stike Force to undermine MM?
uptown
@Omnes Omnibus:
It gets worse…you have to wait for the page to finish loading, then click on “more comments” at the bottom of the page.
cathyx
@cathyx: Well, it’s very sad that we’re having trouble coming up with examples of anyone, liberal or conservative.
Omnes Omnibus
@uptown: I am not willing to invest that much time or energy in the project.
bemused
@cathyx:
Sad and boring. They need some new blood to shake things up a little.
cathyx
I don’t know what happened, I was responding to bemused. @bemused: Well, it’s very sad that we’re having trouble coming up with examples of anyone, liberal or conservative.
Omnes Omnibus
@cathyx: The thing is that some child of famous parents who gets a job as a suburban school teacher and marries an accountant isn’t going to get his or her own Wikipedia page. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen; one is just less likely to hear about it.
MobiusKlein
Why does a pundit (such as Drum, who isn’t that much of a McArdle fanboi anyway) have to denounce her on cue? What is the last time he referenced her anyway?
ETA: Feb 1st – and was disagreeing with her. Not sure what you’re trying to prove here.
The Pale Scot
Wow, the stupidity in the comments is breath taking.
The Dangerman
It isn’t a huge circle jerk; there’s someone in the middle standing on their head. It’s a Mobius jerk.
Omnes Omnibus
@MobiusKlein: So you are saying that pointing and laughing is probably the best approach?
fasteddie9318
I love the blogs there at the Atlantic, you know? Everything is feels right there. The blogs entries are all the right length, not too long so you don’t want to read them but not so short that it looks like the writer didn’t do any work on it. And the design of the website, I love that, it’s just right, the colors and how the words look and the fonts. I love the bloggers themselves, sure the big ones like Megan and James and Jeffrey, but also the little bloggers scattered in between, like Conor and Marc and Richard. You know when I was a kid you could have given me a single sentence out of any blog post and I could have told you who wrote it. I can’t do it now because of all the foreigners who blog nowadays, but I can still do it with the bloggers at the Atlantic.
Anne Laurie
@cmorenc:
Said it before, will no doubt say it again: Megan McArdle is the Atlantic’s Clarence Thomas. Her real job is to be aggressively, assertively wrong about everything from simple arithmetic to anthropogenic climate change. Her presence on the masthead allows the Glibertarian boyz to claim that (a) they are not at all sexist, because look! they let a girl be the ‘B&E’ specialist, but (b) that girl sure is lousy at business & economics, which proves that those wimmen people just aren’t ready for Serious Important Reasoned responsibilities.
cathyx
@Anne Laurie: I hope she gets well paid for that role. How embarrassing.
MobiusKlein
@Omnes Omnibus: Saying that BallonJuice is participating in the circle jerk by forming a posse to put down other pundits for not putting down other pundits the way they should be.
Way
Too
Fucking
Meta.
Billy Beane
Sigh….
DougJarvus Green-Ellis
Sigh….
Do you really have to ask? Really? Are you that clueless about the media, and how you are manipulated every single day???
I don’t know or give a flying fuck who McArdle is but according to you she is tied to Koch in undeniable ways so HELLOOOO!!! Perhaps a sledge hammer with the words KOCHSUCKER engraved in the handle slammed onto your head will help you understand?
Downpuppy
@fasteddie9318: Nice start, but I’m right sure that Clive Crook is milk fed ve.. – err, Brit.
Does Megan really not understand that the Kochs are not being attacked, just used as emblematic of cartoonish evil? Hard to say. She is devious, yet stoopid.
Southern Beale
@Kevin:
OMG did she really write that? Clearly this circle jerk has, um, splattered her nice little shoes or she wouldn’t have bothered to be sarcastic in her “disclaimer.” I’m thinking her gastritis has broken her calculator a few too many times. Her credibility is laughable and it’s not just Balloon Juice front pagers who have noticed.
I bet she’s gone in a year.
MikeJ
@Southern Beale:
Probably to CNN.
Violet
@MobiusKlein:
Not really. It’s more a recognition that our pundit class is covering their own asses rather than doing their jobs. And then calling them on it.
The thing about The Village is that they can drive narratives. They can decide something’s an issue, probably half the time after receiving talking points from some think tank, and drive it for days. Even when they’re completely wrong, they have a platform. People talk about what they talk about because they’re paid to say things in a “respectable” venue, like, in McMegan’s case, The Atlantic.
And they use that venue as a springboard. The other day I turned on the radio in the car, NPR was the station that was on, and it turned out McMegan was blathering away about something. How’d she get that gig? Probably because she’s considered “respectable” because she writes for The Atlantic, at least that’s the part of her bio they mentioned at the end.
So when you’ve got a gig writing about stuff, you should try to get it right. And you should do it ethically. McMegan misses on both counts. And none of her fellow pundits in the Village or Junior Village seem to think it’s notable to mention it. Why not? Do they not care about accuracy and ethics? Is there some “no calling out our own” rule among pundits? I get that maybe her fellow Atlantic bloggers are prohibited from saying anything, but is anyone else?
Our pundits should be doing better. A lot better.
Elie
@Violet:
I hear and agree with most of what you say. That said, I don’t know about you, but I don’t make my work decisions (to stay or go), based on my colleague’s conflict of interest on something like this. Yeah, if it was something that completely impacted my credibility and honesty, then yes. Otherwise, you note it and take care of your own ethics and other issues. Last I looked, most of us do not work for blemish free, upright organizations. If you are anywhere in American business, you know the dirty underwear of our employers. Yeah, if it reaches a certain level of magnitude or import, we might act… but mostly we note and move on. What, you think one of these folks would quit to make a point on Megan McArdles conflicts. They probably figure that most of the smart readers already see her “issues”.
Violet
@Southern Beale:
I’d take that bet, with the caveat that if she is gone from The Atlantic, she leaves for another high profile gig. McMegan is now a pundit on NPR and MSNBC. She’s going nowhere from the punditocracy.
Southern Beale
@Elie:
This certainly qualifies as that. When you’re a journalist, your name and your publication’s integrity are all you have. If your name appears in a rag like the National Enquirer, then it hurts your career. Some people don’t care about that but folks working for publications like The Atlantic certainly do. If your name is in a magazine where coworkers are ethically suspect, produce sloppy and error filled work, or have plagiarized their work, it hurts the whole publication. And everyone writing for that publication gets splattered with that same mud.
Violet
@Elie:
I don’t think people should quit their jobs to make a point about McMegan. But I do think that people in her pundit circle, those who are paid to comment on politics and economics and so forth, should strive to be honest and ethical. When it’s clear that a fellow pundit is not doing so, then pointing that out is not exactly going too far.
trollhattan
@Violet:
She may have reached that rarefied plateau from which people fall up. Basically because she can breathe and operate a computer (I know, I know, assumes facts not in evidence) she’ll always have a paid gig.
Worthy people are worthy.
Violet
@Southern Beale:
Exactly.
Violet
@trollhattan:
She cannot fail, she can only be failed?
dww44
@DonBoy:I agree with you, but my daughter turned us on to cloth napkins. Picks them up real cheap (all cotton) and her 4 young kids get a napkin in the morning and generally use for all 3 meals, or both meals when they are in school.
Daughter doesn’t use any paper towels either, which I confess, is a difficult adjustment. I like my paper towels. There are times when a paper towel is the only thing that will do.
Clark Stooksbury
@Anne Laurie: I think that the Atlantic, which I used to subscribe to, is just a shitty magazine and McMegan fits right in.
pseudonymous in nc
@Violet:
I’ll second that. Her trajectory points at the WaPo op-ed pages (since Chunky Bobo already has the NYT slot) and I’ve long felt that she’s fucking unstoppable unless she has a Damascene conversion and recants her entire online output.
Omnes Omnibus
@Susan of Texas:
@pseudonymous in nc: Peter and Paul. Interesting.
Barry
@BGinCHI: “The people who should be worried are the Kochs and the climate change deniers. If they are counting on the like of McMegan to defend them, they’re fucked.
You’d think money could buy you quality.”
They don’t need quality; they need quantity.
Mary G
I think the powers that be at the Atlantic feel like they need one token female and are too lazy to go look for another one. Also that they make it a requirement of employment for everyone else to lay off Megan.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mary G: I think she has pictures of someone with Mickey Kaus’s goat.
You Don't Say
@Violet: Last I looked NYT, WaPp and the New Republic still exist. I’ve worked at both magazines and newspapers and one part of it I have always appreciated is my work speaks for itself and no one else’s work is a reflection on me unless I edited them.
It’s not Fallows, TNC, et al., job to babysit McArdle or to refute or condone everything their fellow bloggers, reporters write. As someone else said above, I’d rather have Fallows writing about the march to war with Iran.
To write off a fine journalist like Fallows, who wrote about the absolute chaos that was the invasion of Iraq, for example, or TNC who is one of the few original thinkers out there is wrong.
Elie
@Violet:
Oh, believe me, I agree. That said, in the world I work in, folks don’t wade in for much more egregious stuff… folks seem to accept a lot of “wrong” and avoid making any stances that put themselves at ANY risk…Truly, don’t know the field you work in, or the work environments that you are used to, but I compare MY corporate workplace experience to the African plains where herds of Wildebeasts chew their cuds and look on while the lions or hyenas cut their herdmates out and then tear them to pieces.
If folks won’t step up to say something then, there is no way they will find the character to assert themselves in anything less.
We are obedient supporters of the status quo — generally afraid of standing up for fear of losing livelihoods and reputations amongst the community that “counts”. Ya know — got bills to pay and children to put through school…
Raven
I’ve been reading ya’ll rant about this person for a couple of years and I still don’t give a rats ass.
300baud
@You Don’t Say:
I think that kind of mental compartmentalization is a convenient device for the people on the inside, but I don’t think you even fully live that yourself.
I just ran across the bio of some guy who’s a Fox News science journalist. He could be Einstein and Feynman with a twist of lime, but I’ll never know because I’m not going to read his stuff. He starts with a credibility deficit because of who he works for and with. Do you really read each new link to a new Fox journalist with a fresh heart and a forgiving eye?
Sure, TNC is a fine writer, but I trust him in spite of being a colleague of McMegan’s. Her incompetence hurts everybody she works with.
Elie
@Elie:
And let me add, the other point is who wants to be the “corrector” of your colleagues? If someone is effing up — especially someone with public exposure such as a writer on your staff, aren’t you better off letting outsiders and readers tear them up rather than playing police person? Really, its a difficult thing that you expect, even as I agree that the organization should be mindful of the quality of its written products… its not as clear cut that the role of colleagues should be to police each other’s work for correctness and honesty…
Merp
“I think she has pictures of someone with Mickey Kaus’s goat”
That is pretty fucking funny
SiubhanDuinne
@The Dangerman:
FTFY
Joel
@Michael: Fallows is also getting up there in years and frankly, dealing with this crap is tiring. The kind of flak that wingnuts can generate is deafening. It takes serious balls and energy to take it.
Larkspur
@You Don’t Say:
I agree. As much as I dislike McMegan, I am not willing to let her get in my way when I want to read Fallows or Coates. Their competence puts her incompetence to shame. So is she ashamed? Of course not, and neither are her Atlantic overlords, because look at the huge number of comments to each and every post she produces. But all I feel inclined to do is not add to her numbers. It’s all very tiresome.
Also, Candace Gingrich-Jones is not an offspring, and is in fact only a half-sibling of one of the noisome elite, but she is married to Rebecca Jones, and she does play rugby. So I’m thinking she counts.
kindness
We can all tolerate people who are worthless hacks but I think what we all expect is a certain level of honesty for someone in an organization to stand up and admit brazen dishonesty. That’s what’s expected if you want to develop or keep any integrity. They don’t have to drag Blenderella out and whip her, just admit her facts aren’t once in a while.
Omnes Omnibus
@Larkspur:
What position? It does matter.
Larkspur
@Omnes Omnibus: Hooker. Is that good or bad, or maybe just cool?
You Don't Say
@300baud: Fox is an extreme example. Its run by a long-time Republican operative and to survive one has to tow the party line.
Do you hold Krauthammer or Rubin against Ezra Klein or E.J. Dionne? Brooks against Krugman or Timothy Egan?
Little Boots
Megan be silly.
Fallows and Coates be fairly serious.
that is all.
Omnes Omnibus
@Larkspur: I am impressed. I’ve hooked in some sevens matches back in the day. Not where I want to spend my time on the pitch. I started as a wing and moved to flanker as I got older.
Little Boots
@Omnes Omnibus:
enough with the dirty talk.
piratedan
McArdle does what she’s supposed to… people visit to disagree with her (see Cowherd: ESPN) and generate traffic. Just like those R holey rollers, whether she believes what she spouts is academic but that’s secondary to the purpose that she serves, driving traffic. She a candle to all those folks that follow along with XKCD in that famous strip where peeople post because there’s someone who’s “wrong on the internet”.
Little Boots
@piratedan:
this is true.
it’s pathetic, that she wants that role, but it’s true, and I suspect she gets that.
Larkspur
@Omnes Omnibus: So I guess those t-shirts that say “Give Blood, Play Rugby” are for real. I am impressed by her too, and you as well. I grew up in a lower-middle class, pre-Title 9 world, and I am absolutely terrified at the idea of playing team sports. Running I can do. I can run till the cows come home, and then I can outrun the cows*, but team stuff, no way.
*This is not actually true. Also it is a BtVS reference.
Larkspur
@You Don’t Say: Excellent point.
TooManyJens
@Larkspur: Huh. I’d have guessed outrunning the cows would be a Bone reference.
Omnes Omnibus
@Larkspur: Rugby is really the only team sport I’ve done. X-C, track, skiing, a bit of fencing – all individual sports. Rugby was a good counterpoint to those.
Larkspur
@TooManyJens: BtVS, Season 5, Intervention:
But I will investigate this Bone thing.
Larkspur
@Omnes Omnibus: Lately I’ve been doing some house and pet-sitting jobs for families who are off to watch their daughters participating in skiing, basketball, and volleyball events. Last night I stayed with two adorable poodles so that their person could go to Sacramento to watch her grand-daughter play basketball. Grand-daughter has a full basketball college scholarship. This just makes me so happy.
Omnes Omnibus
@Larkspur: Generational thing. I was born in 1964 and a lot of girl I grew up with played sports. My mom’s generation just didn’t. My brother has a boy and girl; both are equally athletic and both have fairly equal opportunities to participate.
Mnemosyne
@Larkspur:
Fun fact I found out on “American Masters” — apparently Louisa May Alcott was a runner.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: The Alcotts were an interesting bunch.
cthulhu
@wrb:
This is a bigger issue. It is fine if TNC and Fallows choose to ignore McBargle but it is a different thing entirely if they are prohibited from going after her. How is that a policy that hones to classic journalistic ideals?
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Dad Alcott was seriously effed up, and probably bisexual to boot, so he alternately loved and resented his family. Some of the stuff in the episode sounded like it was from The Mosquito Coast.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: Dude invented recess. It buys him some slack.
pseudonymous in nc
@piratedan:
But she’s also got a gang of (male, Reason demographic) sycophants that have been oohing at her every utterance for a decade. She’s more than just a paid troll.
Omnes Omnibus
@pseudonymous in nc: Nah, she’s still pretty much a paid troll; it just says something about a person who would be the lackey of an obvious paid troll. Those guys love her because she is a moderately attractive woman who is also a Randroid. It makes them feel like they have a chance with a women, someday, somewhere.
Larkspur
@Mnemosyne: That is very cool. Here’s another fun fact: I volunteer each year at the Dipsea race, which is a 7.1 mile cross-country race that’s been going on since 1905. Have women participated?
Tamalpa Runners website
So the fact that Louisa May ran? Very cool. Had she only “hiked” – also cool. Also? I am not fond of churches.
Joey Maloney
With apologies to J.B.S. Haldane, the circle jerk is not only bigger than you imagine, it’s bigger than you can imagine.
Mnemosyne
@Larkspur:
As OO alluded to, Alcott’s parents (especially her father) were very progressive thinkers and were very much in favor of physical exercise for everyone. The family was close friends with Thoreau and Emerson, so that tells you what circles they traveled in. The website for the movie is here.
Ruckus
@Violet:
We used to say there must be pictures/video of some barnyard animals engaged in species to species procreation exercises. No one could think of any other excuse.
Rococo
“Megan be silly.
Fallows and Coates be fairly serious.
that is all.”
T and Fallows be fat like Jackie Gleason
The rest be Art Carney
The glibbers love Pink Salt
Like the kids love Barney
She love Koch
Koch pays she
And shorty Suderman
Is her favorite MC.
(with apologies to The Phifer).
Little Boots
@Rococo:
yeah, that’s what I meant to say.
ChrisNYC
Well, somebody’s gotta pay for that $3000 Hollandaise machine! What the hell else do you want her to do with her steamed salmon?
300baud
@You Don’t Say:
So it seems like you agree with the principle: the reputation of the organization and the reputation of the writers aren’t independent.
I don’t take the Post seriously, so I can’t answer the first one usefully. Krugman had an independent voice before he was at the Times. But as to the rest of the Times columnists, yes. They all get a bump from it being the NYT, especially from their investigative reporting and their reporters who have deep domain knowledge (e.g., Morgenson, Nocera, Greenhouse). They all lose some from their fellow opinion writers. Dowd, Friedman, Chunky Bobo, Skinny Bobo. And Keller, honestly.
brantl
I just thought that it was truth in advertising to call him a “Koch Fellow” even if they don’t know how to spell. But then, they like to fit in…..
MikeJake
Krugman has actually started referring to Brooks by name on his blog when he refutes something that Bobo wrote, which he used to not do.
Corey
Why do people think McArdle makes anything like “a lot” of money? I mean, yeah, it’s probably more than most. But I remember Yglesias enviously writing about Mickey Kaus’ $80k salary at Salon, which makes me think that the pay of an A-list blogger is probably quite a bit lower than that.
Susan of Texas
Because of Megan McArdle. She told her readers that she and her husband make around $300,000. per year when she was complaining about taxes.
Lex
I waded into the comments on one of those posts, which I have never done with a McMegan column before. I will never do it again. Dear God, it was one big Sargasso Sea of Derp. The failures of fact, logic, and understanding of science generally and climate science in particular were amazing. I particularly enjoyed the orders I got to “link to a source,” as if one link could encompass 30,000+ studies carried out over decades, many of them independently confirming earlier findings.