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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Alex Pareene is indispensable

Alex Pareene is indispensable

by Freddie deBoer|  April 26, 20126:37 pm| 29 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

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Forgive me for not having much of substance to say beyond the fact that Alex Pareene has become one of the best. There aren’t a lot of online writers whose work I genuinely look forward to, but Pareene is definitely one of them. And he’s transitioned to Salon without losing any of his cool, which is remarkable. (While I love Salon, it has often been subject to a certain, shall we say, contagious dorkiness.)

Take today’s consideration of Tucker Carlson. It’s funny, ruthlessly critical, thorough, and most importantly, fair— it achieves scalding criticism that is nevertheless well-mannered. That’s a lesson I would give to any young writers out there. If you want to make a name for yourself, you should recognize that opinion writing is a sea of hyperbole. You can distinguish yourself with restraint. Like here:

His politics were undisguised, but his work was honest, and sometimes pretty funny. Carlson seemed to subscribe to a form of conservatism — moneyed and cheerfully elitist, the sort practiced by people for whom policy journals actually matter — that was gradually going out of favor in the Republican Party but that is always welcome in the “liberal media.”

Perceptive, and no less critical for being quietly observed.

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Reader Interactions

29Comments

  1. 1.

    Joseph Nobles

    April 26, 2012 at 6:42 pm

    Jesus God! When did Salon decide to use the Obama campaign’s much maligned and quickly dropped AttackWatch web design?

  2. 2.

    srv

    April 26, 2012 at 6:45 pm

    You know who else was undisguised and honest?

  3. 3.

    Alexandra

    April 26, 2012 at 6:46 pm

    Thank you for using sentence-case with Pareene’s name, Freddie. ;)

  4. 4.

    j

    April 26, 2012 at 6:46 pm

    Tucker has been fired from every media outlet his father coerced into hiring him, including PBS. Now he has a wingnut welfare vanity hobby blog and he is supposed to be “somebody” with something to say?

    Give me a break. The guy was born into money and got a foil spoon shoved into his smirking mouth by way of Swanson’s TV dinners.

    He is a 40 something man child.

  5. 5.

    Teddy's Person

    April 26, 2012 at 6:51 pm

    Pareene also published an e-book on the Marquis de Mittens called The Rude Guide to Mitt. As the title suggests, I don’t think he’s aiming to be as balanced as this piece on Tucker, but based on the excerpt on Salon, it’s pretty funny.

  6. 6.

    ChrisNYC

    April 26, 2012 at 6:56 pm

    Interesting that Pareene throws out a long explanation for Tucker Carlson and his regrettable career and somehow misses/avoids/fails to fold in the facts he recites at the outset — from a prominent GOP family and dad was a media executive. Rather than some terrible wasting of TC’s beautiful mind is it possible that Tucker got where he was (Wonky article writer at Heritage! The Atlantic! The National Review!) for some OTHER reason than his blazing talent?

  7. 7.

    Alex

    April 26, 2012 at 6:58 pm

    This is a gem:

    The more you’re on TV, the dumber you get, to paraphrase “Repo Man.”

  8. 8.

    BGinCHI

    April 26, 2012 at 6:59 pm

    How was Tucker Carlson’s work honest?

    Oh, he means “honest” in terms of beltway media standards, which is like saying that dog shit is food.

    Just because you can eat it doesn’t mean that you should.

  9. 9.

    gaz

    April 26, 2012 at 7:09 pm

    Alex Pareene is “indispensable”?

    Don’t get me wrong, he’s done some fine work, but I don’t think he rises to the level of indispensable. If he retired tomorrow, I wouldn’t notice. If Paul Krugman, Charles Pierce, or TBogg did, I sure would.

    Pareene is middling to good. Not trying to bash the man, but words mean things.

  10. 10.

    WereBear

    April 26, 2012 at 7:17 pm

    Why is anyone wasting bandwidth on Tucker Carlson, the poster boy for nepotism?

    Now, this picture of my sleeping kitten collection; it will soothe a troubled soul and make a human being smile.

  11. 11.

    Gus

    April 26, 2012 at 7:20 pm

    @j: Yeah, I kind of agree. I can’t think of a time when I didn’t want to punch this preppy, smirking bow tie wearing prick in the mouth.

  12. 12.

    Sal

    April 26, 2012 at 7:38 pm

    This is boring, you are boring me.

  13. 13.

    Dave

    April 26, 2012 at 7:39 pm

    I was just thinking the same thing about Pareene, Freddie. Good call.

  14. 14.

    RalfW

    April 26, 2012 at 7:40 pm

    Semi-OT, Boehner today (via TPM). I edited his comment to remove just one key word to get at the truth:

    “But the problem with this issue is that we’re operating in a very hostile political environment and to deal with a very difficult issue like this I think it would be difficult at best.”

  15. 15.

    BethanyAnne

    April 26, 2012 at 7:47 pm

    @WereBear: D’aaawwww. //scritch-scritch//

  16. 16.

    Anya

    April 26, 2012 at 7:52 pm

    Pareene’s been on the Tucker Carlson beat for a long time, but my all time best Pareene is at his best when he’s pissed off at Maureen Dowd.

  17. 17.

    gaz

    April 26, 2012 at 7:58 pm

    @WereBear: The rightmost kitty looks like my maine coon. is this kitty a maine coon as well? I so love them. I think they are my favorite breed of cat, although I adore all kittehs!

  18. 18.

    WereBear

    April 26, 2012 at 8:12 pm

    @gaz: He’s certainly a Maine Coon mix; only 16 pounds. The looks, the little trilly voice; the cuddly personality.

    The breed is certainly one of my favorites. I also wound up with something of an Ocicat; our foundling Tristan, who is endlessly charming.

    It is a good article about Tucker Carlson; though I refuse to believe he was ever respectable. Little snit in a bow tie, thinking style is more important than substance. He exudes unearned privilege and satisfied snottiness.

    And no matter what happens, his car won’t be repo’d, he won’t contemplate beans for dinner yet again, and he won’t lose a second of sleep over any of his lies. In a just world, he would be given a mud hut in a spasm of generosity.

  19. 19.

    JoyfulA

    April 26, 2012 at 8:21 pm

    And Tucker’s brother’s first name is Buckley?

  20. 20.

    gaz

    April 26, 2012 at 8:25 pm

    @WereBear: ZOMG those Ocicat’s are cool looking…

    In a just world, he would be given a mud hut in a spasm of generosity.

    And my friends that actually do live in mud-huts (yeah I do have a few- CRAZY, right?) would be swimming in his pool instead of coming up here every few years just so they can contemplate eating period.

    It’s a fucked up world we live in. Serapia for example, is illiterate, impoverished and basically fucked. She’s not only demonstrably smarter than Tucker, she contributes more than he ever will. She digs clams.

  21. 21.

    Ruckus

    April 26, 2012 at 8:36 pm

    Carlson is the kind of rich kid who the family says has to “work” at something, anything to at least look respectable. And it can’t be the family business because they don’t want to have to spend all their time saving his ass or keeping the business from failing due to his incompetence. He has to make it on his own(with a little help of course). Look how well that worked out.

  22. 22.

    Liberty60

    April 26, 2012 at 8:58 pm

    His parents named him Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson.

    Holy fuck, that explains a lot.

  23. 23.

    The Tragically Flip

    April 26, 2012 at 9:22 pm

    I quite enjoy how Sadly, No! just calls him Fucker Carlson and leaves it at that.

  24. 24.

    MoZeu

    April 26, 2012 at 9:38 pm

    Way more words than Fucker Carlson deserves to have written about him.

  25. 25.

    sophronia

    April 26, 2012 at 10:53 pm

    @MoZeu: Seriously. Does Tucker Carlson sit around writing articles about the whys and wherefores of Richard Klein? No? Then why does a talented liberal like Pareene have to spend precious time and energy on the life of this smug media know-nothing?

    I will never understand the liberal compulsion to create these pointless media process stories rather than writing about things that are actually meaningful and important.

  26. 26.

    SarahT

    April 26, 2012 at 11:56 pm

    Even though I disagree with him this time (Tucker Carlson shouldn’t be welcome anywhere except an open sewer), in general, Alex Pareene, YAY ! Love his tumblr, too :

    http://pareene.tumblr.com/

  27. 27.

    Shane in Utah

    April 27, 2012 at 2:29 am

    Yawn. I’ll take the sputtering outrage of a half-drunk John Cole or the searing, caustic turns of phrase of Charlie Pierce over neutered restraint any day. The time for restraint, if ever, was January 2009; dem days done gone…

    (Judging only from the excerpted quotation; I’ve never heard of Pareene, and I haven’t read Salon in years…)

  28. 28.

    El Cid

    April 27, 2012 at 8:12 am

    Tucker Carlson always struck me as a frat-boy prick; like some of his other like-minded types in the media, he improved for a short time during Katrina, maybe shaken out of his little disgusting puddle of right wing anti-Clinton administration Gingrichite sneering. But after that, the few times I’ve seen him have been in the same mode, with that pathetic addition of the Dennis Miller “I Need Work From You Right Wing Crazies” desperation.

  29. 29.

    Death Panel Truck

    April 27, 2012 at 12:05 pm

    Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson?

    Floyd the Barber is spinning in his grave.

    And Swanson? His mother’s family was responsible for those shitty TV dinners and the nastiest pot pies on Earth? Explains a lot.

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