If your head doesn’t hurt by the end of this, there is something wrong with you. The “swatting” style incidents are still horrible, but overall, it seems like this basically boils down to a lot of really self-important and obnoxious people who karmically and comically deserve each other. And if it keeps Malkin off Graeme Frost’s front porch, all the better.
*** Update ***
Right link is up now.
superking
This is the dumbest controversy on the face of the planet because all of these people are nobodies. Never heard of any of them until about two weeks ago.
I don’t condone any of the alleged behavior, especially Swatting.
Trentrunner
Nope. Not gettin out of the goddamn boat.
Dave
My take from that is that the right-wing of American politics is made up of fragile flowers who are crazier than a sack of wet cats. But as long as they focus on their own…who should I be rooting for here?
schrodinger's cat
What or who is a Kimberlin and how does it concern me?
Big Wayne
John,
Did you really mean to link to that old Weigel post? Or were you intending to link to the new article posted today at Salon, by Alex Pareen?:
Brett Kimberlin versus right-wing bloggers
schrodinger's cat
@Dave: Cats are far saner than any wingnut please not to malign the kittehs.
Gin & Tonic
If you actually care about this shit, you need your head examined.
Warren Terra
I was hoping the Weigel post would explain the whole weird mishegas to me, or at least that it would try and I would quit after reading a third of it. Because this whole thing is weird, and is pulsating with frenetic energies and perfervid emotions, and all that makes me a bit curious about it.
Instead, Weigel’s post (of six weeks ago) is little more than a warning not to be caught dipping your toe into an effort to comprehend the affair, lest its participants perpetrate their patented brand of obsessive psychopathy on you. Iin Weigel’s case, a polite response to a request that he write about the matter apparently triggered an avalanche of incomprehensible emails and tweets, eventually cc’d to his editors.
Heck, there was a post on LGM that did little more than say the dispatching of keyed-up armed police officers to the house of someone you don’t like is a definite no-no, and several of the participants in the affair waded into the comments section to hurl accusations in all directions.
beltane
There is nothing I wanted to know about Kimberlin (who?) and his saga (what?). I read the linked story and still don’t care about these people I’ve never heard of doing things that make no sense to me.
Martin
I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, and I think I’m better off that way.
Corner Store Operator
Basically what I take out of this is that I am surprised and happy we have at least one insane person on our side using dirty tricks against the right.
tulip
I’m so confused. Whaaat? I hadn’t heard about any of this and the linked article doesn’t clarify anything.
Ash Can
I read the link and still don’t know WTF anyone’s talking about. I understand the concept of “swatting” and I agree it’s reprehensible and that anyone engaging in it should be duly punished. However, after reading prior pieces (at least one of which may have been here) on this kerfluffle, I don’t know how much of this “saga” is even true. Given the propensity of so many of the people involved to make shit up early and often, the entire fucking thing sounds completely bogus to me. However, if this keeps the right-wing ninnies occupied for a little while and gets their minds off of spreading nastiness and disinformation for the time being, it’s OK by me.
scav
No idea if I want to wade through still more nonsense, although I owe it and @Warren Terra my thanks for a grand new word: perfervid.
Alexandra
I didn’t know, honestly didn’t really want to know… but clicked the damn link anyway.
The power of Tunch compelled me.
Comrade Dread
I have no idea who these people are and I think I’m okay with that.
Another Halocene Human
@Big Wayne: Good rundown. Thanks for the link.
MikeJ
@Ash Can:
Even the word “swatting is bogus. IIRCC, the person who had the police falsely and maliciously sent to his (or her, I don’t remember) didn’t have the SWAT team sent, just normal cops.
Even when they have the truth on their side they *still* have to lie about it.
Mattminus
I’m not sure that “swatting” isn’t mostly fictional or a false flag operation.
The cynic in me thinks that being the victim of this vile leftist tactic might help to bump a d rate conservobloggers hit count.
NonyNony
@Big Wayne:
I’m gonna go with the assumption that John meant to give us the Pareen link, because that Weigel post is almost 2 months old and embedded in the Pareen link.
Three thoughts about that Alex Pareen story:
1.) I think I now understand what all of this Kimberlin stuff is about. And it is stupid.
2.) If the right-wing bloggers on the internets want to waste their lives tilting at the Kimberlin windmill, I think I’m fine with that.
3.) I feel stupider for having read all the way to the end of that Pareen piece (not Pareen’s fault).
Jerry
I’m just happy that this wasn’t about planking or owling.
Dave
@schrodinger’s cat: Fair point. Even wet cats are saner than these folk.
I wonder if reading this is what it feels like to be insane. Nothing makes any sense and even though it’s written in English it feels like you’re reading hieroglyphs.
whitehorse
That article is nothing – if you really want to get a good head hurt, tour on over to “Aaron Worthings” blog for the several thousand word description of the fantastic light-shove fest in the courthouse hallway– complete with frame by frame videotape analysis.
I guess we can all agree that calling the SWAT team to people’s houses isn’t cool, but beyond that there is plenty of crazy in this saga to go around.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
My take is that the Right sees Kimberlin is their liberal example that both sides do it for O’Keefe and company. The problem is no one but them cares about something that’s ancient political history so the conservatives are throwing a tantrum.
Maude
@Dave:
Republican Party Platform.
kindness
John you have either WAY too much time on your hands or you have a link that is incorrect.
You state you have the correct link up now so I’m thinking this is a story about a guy in prison with a story.
That being the case, enjoy. Sorry but I have things to do & this ain’t one of ’em.
Morbo
Well, that was… completely unhelpful in clearing up any of this.
Nutella
What I don’t understand is these fake calls to 911: Don’t the police get VERY upset about that kind of false report? And then track down and arrest the bogus caller?
Or are these imaginary ‘SWATtings’?
MikeJ
@Jerry:
If the WaPO writes about a fad it’s already over.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Martin: If you feel that way do not, I repeat do not, go to Popehat.* I have yet to read the Salon piece, and should probably skip it.
*Due to long, close to real time summaries, along with some peripheral participation by the blog. The entire saga is a prescription for a headache whatever your political persuasion.
Ash Can
OK, this time I read the link that Big Wayne posted @ #5 (I agree that it was probably the one John meant to post), and, by the time my head started hurting too much to read any further, I was able to figure out that whatever this schmuck Kimberlin had done, he was 1) a whack job, and 2) was The Left (TM) personified for these right-wing half-wits. Most importantly, it’s obvious they all deserve each other. I hope they spend many, many dreary, litigious years together.
(Edited to fix grammar fail)
Cluttered Mind
I have to say Alex Pareene did a great public service by documenting all of this and putting it in a way that non-crazy people could understand. So much of the story behind this Kimberlin BS has been filtered through crazy people that I honestly had no idea what was actually going on until I read that article. My conclusion is the same as Cole’s, they deserve each other and if it keeps the crazy people fighting other crazy people instead of unleashing the crazy on the rest of us, then I’m all for it.
Peregrinus
@scav:
You know you kinda owe Marty Peretz for that word too, right?
Linda Featheringill
I thought swatting was introduced to the world by Breitbart who claimed he was swatted. Actually, a couple of uniforms showed up at his door and asked some questions.
I seriously doubt if you can instigate a SWAT attack with an anonymous phone call. But the police might investigate complaints of sounds of violence, etc.
Nobody seems to know who called the cops on the Breitbarts. However, if he was throwing one of his famous temper tantrums, it might have sounded like something terrible was going on and a mere passerby might have become concerned and called the police.
That’s my version, anyway. And it’s probably about as good as any other story.
danimal
Read the Pareen link. I’ll summarize so you don’t have to waste 10 minutes of your life.
There are assholes in the right blogosphere.
There are assholes in the left blogoshpere.
Sometimes the assholes smear each other with wild accusations. In reality, they are all full of crap.
Seriously, don’t waste the time.
Catsy
I couldn’t help it. As I started reading the stupid, my eyes started glazing over, and the further I got into it, the more I skimmed.
The upshot of this seems to be: a has-been liberal nobody added more shitty, illegal things to the list of shitty, illegal things he’s done. And because there is an overwhelming imbalance in the (vast) number of right-wing thug examples versus the (tiny) number of left-wing thugs, the wingnuts are seizing on this like drowning rats to rotten driftwood to draw a false equivalence.
Dave S.
I ran into this saga about the time McCain announced his going into hiding, and it was perfectly muddy then as now. Seems to me that the countertop brigade/Red State Trike Force went after this guy not expecting any pushback (and why would they?) but quickly learned otherwise.
Without getting out of the boat any further, has there been any substantiation of the “SWATing” incidents? I only saw Patterico’s assertion but AFAIK we’re being asked to take him at his word. McCain’s ostentatious “I’m going into hiding now, nope can’t see me, I’m gone” flight from danger does not quite pass the smell test, meanwhile.
Delusional narcissists fighting is like a car accident – you don’t want to stop and look real close but you can’t not gawk as you drive by.
feebog
Wow, the Pareen article is proof positive that a lot of people on either side of the political spectrum have way too much time on their hands.
Hart Williams
Dumb though it is, how come all the Tea Party caucus and a few others besides signed on to a letter to the Attorney General to pressure him to investigate this “menace”?
Or, could it be that this is just the calisthenics portion of a planned smothering of media in the heart of the campaign?
Utterly unremarked in Parene’s piece is the biggest part of the iceberg: the Twitzkrieg™ that attended the original blogswarm. The top righties were holding a bloody twitterthon, hyping *each new addition* to the swarm.
The internet has bypassed the blogosphere, and the main thrust of this coordination is to a) manipulate the Memeorandum page to make whatever ginned up horseshit they mutually decide on a “story the biased MSM can’t ignore.” (Thus far, the Kimberlin saga has been a huge flop) and b) dominate all conversation ABOUT that story with their pre-fabricated “spin.”
Hell, that’s the whole GOP strategy for this election. Don’t pay attention to their objective, pay attention to their tactics.
The only spam in Romney’s America will be the spam you’re eating instead of real food.
Legalize
As far as I can tell, he’s a purported lefty. And the wingnuts have collectively decided to hate him because someone told them to. That about it?
Morbo
Thanks for the update, much more informative. I think I’ll just go over here, away from the internet for a while.
Hart Williams
Shorter: Mr. Parene, You’ll find the forest over there, behind those trees.
Bubblegum Tate
Yup, these nitwits all deserve each other.
I was interested to learn that Ali Akbar, who runs my favorite jerkwater burgh wingnut blog, is a convicted criminal, though.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
it makes more sense if you think of the right wing blogosphere as one giant balloon juice.
sharl
One minor criticism of Alex Pareene’s otherwise fine treatment of this pathetic story…
The skeevy creature who goes by the blog-nym ‘Patterico’ posted a kinda-sorta “refinement” to his original account of that supposed swatting incident, that I wished Pareene had included:
Hmm, not quite so dramatic as he had originally led everyone to believe…
I can no longer get into Salon for commenting using my original login info, otherwise I would have noted it there.
twiffer
yeah, i couldn’t even make it half-way through that. is there some compelling reason anyone should care about it?
kc
The “swatting” style incidents are still horrible,
If they even happened, or happened in the way that Frey and Erickson claim. I don’t find either of them to be particularly credible. Besides which, as Pareene points out, there is NO evidence, ZERO, ZIP, NADA linking Kimberlin to those incidents.
kc
People, what is this “both sides do it” horseshit? You’ve got ONE left wing asshole who hardly anyone on the left has even heard of versus a whole shitpile of fairly prominent hysterical right wing assholes half of whom have their fat white faces on TV all the time.
Whatever else you take away from this, “Oh, there are assholes on both sides” is the wrong lesson.
EJ
This is the lamest hip-hop feud ever.
Recall
Ok, so I googled this Brett Kimberlin and I found this WIkipedia page:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speedway_bombings
Why isn’t this guy still in jail?
TenguPhule
Murder-suicide.
Joey Maloney
I’m just pleased that all the time I spent, when I lived in Indiana back in the 70s and 80s, giving a shit about Brett Kimberlin is finally paying off.
handy
Swatting sounds kind of kinky. I would think wingnuts would totes dig it.
Nancy Irving
There’s something hilariously poetic-justicey about right-wing nuts finally taking on someone who’s at least as crazy as they are.
Gus
I already know everything I want to know about the Kimberlin saga, which is nothing.