James Fallows just rips Niall Ferguson to shreds. This is a thing of beauty.
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James Fallows just rips Niall Ferguson to shreds. This is a thing of beauty.
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schrodinger's cat
Ferguson is a liar, he lies with such conviction, that Romney could take lessons from him.
Villago Delenda Est
Niall Ferguson is a vile sack of shit.
That is all.
Hunter Gathers
If anything, Tina Brown’s enjoying the uptick in page views for her online vanity project today.
Fucking logic, how does it work?
Alex S.
I hate Niall Ferguson with a fiery passion. How someone like that can be a Harvard professor is beyond me. He must have gotten the slot of the token conservative.
pseudonymous in nc
Quoth Fallows:
In truth, he chose the US over Britain because he very much likes wealth and prestige, gets paid a lot of money to shill for the American right, and is able to retain a nominal position in academia while outsourcing the hard work to grad students in return for helping them up the career ladder.
An Oxford professor would be expected to do more history and less politics; wingnut welfare isn’t anywhere near as lucrative in the UK; also, his ex-wife and kids need to be kept in the manner to which they were accustomed.
MattF
Conservatives just have to decide whether or not they’re going to be honest. It’s an easy choice for some, a hard choice for others. I get the bad feeling that the choice was easy for Ferguson.
lamh35
POTUS taking questions at Press Briefing. I can’t see presser at work and can’t get on twitter unless I used my Iphone and that’s a no-no in the lab. Anyone watching?
PeakVT
Dear England,
Please stop sending us Tory hacks.
Kisses, that crazy place across the pond.
Soonergrunt
If only he had done this on behalf of The Atlantic in regards to McMegan McBechamelMaker a couple of years ago.
Oh, well. I’ll take what I can get.
...now I try to be amused
Fallows:
Ferguson, of all people, should appreciate the advantages of limited war, considering that limited war had been very good for Britain.
celticdragonchick
Niall’s next writing assignment is to show us how the next presidential race will be Condy versus Hillary…since he has shown how good he is at being Dick Morris with an accent.
Roger Moore
@schrodinger’s cat:
The only way “liar”, “conviction”, and “Mitt Romney” are likely to go together involves a court of law.
Face
It doesn’t appear to be a legitimate article….too many pregnant pauses.
Jack Bauer
I’ve had it with these right wing British Tories, they can’t get away with peddling that shit at home so they come here where the audience for it is bigger. Fallows did an excellent job of reminding this guy of who he’s supposed to be. And what a fact is.
jwb
@lamh35: In nuce: Swipe at Akins, swipes at Romney on tax returns and whining, situation in Syria is mayhem.
Paul in KY
@Alex S.: I think it is the name ‘Niall’. Sounds so Oakshottian & all that.
Yutsano
@celticdragonchick: You just gave PUMAs everywhere massive stiffies.
PeakVT
Krugman weighs in. And another take on Ferguson.
Hopefully the Newsweak article will be the tipping point on Ferguson’s undeserved reputation. I’m not holding my breath, of course.
schrodinger's cat
@Paul in KY: Is Oakeshottian code for pretentious?
Quaker in a Basement
The Fallows article is 100 percent snerk-worthy!
schrodinger's cat
BTW what does Sully think? Isn’t he buddies with Mr Ferguson.
Violet
@lamh35: I watched. Seemed pretty good. Several questions about Romney’s taxes. Obama said “the American people expect it” wrt releasing several years.
He did say, “I’m not asking him for details of his medical records…although we customarily release those too.” Not sure if I got that verbatim, but that was the gist. Reporters laughed. Seemed like a mini-gaffe to me, in that when it comes time for medical records, now Romney has cover if he doesn’t want to release them. But maybe it’s rope-a-dope or something.
Roger Moore
@PeakVT:
I get the impression that we’re getting their worst, furthest right wing Tory hacks because the US is willing to tolerate mainstream politics that’s much further to the right than Britain. If Ferguson were still in the UK, he’d find his home with the BNP, not the Tories.
Punchy
Congrats, Johnnie.
FlipYrWhig
Niall Ferguson is becoming, or has long since become, a kind of high-rent Victor Davis Hanson.
Joel
Ferguson is a goddamn embarrassment. Once upon a time, being such an inveterate liar was enough to end your career. Ah, for the good old days.
Joel
Ferguson is a goddamn embarrassment. Once upon a time, being such an inveterate liar was enough to end your career. Ah, for the good old days.
PZ
@PeakVT: And Niall responded-
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2012/08/more-lies-from-niall-ferguson.html
Seriously-if you’re a right wing hack, is it even possible for you to loose your job saying stupid shit?
Yutsano
@PeakVT: Pfft. He has a sinecure at Hahvahd. He has nothing to concern himself with regarding reputation. After all he’s not the only douchebag there.
Mike E
Love the reference to EO Wilson, who would not only destroy Niall tête-à-tête through cogent argument, but hand to hand as well, despite being his senior by 35 years. Ants, indeed.
FlipYrWhig
@schrodinger’s cat:
From Sullivan himself.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
If NewsWeek hadn’t already become a pale shadow of The Huffington Post (and I don’t say that to be mean, in this case the truth has a mean bias) this would be a stain on their reputation. Add Tina Brown to the list of those who have turned a British accent and an OxBridge pedigree into a long-term, lucrative grift.
I went to Wiki to see if Brown were in fact an embarrassment to the dreaming spires, and I found this. If you were writing a parody, your editor would probably say you were going too far with it:
Evans divorced his wife in 1978 and on August 20, 1981 Evans and Brown were married at Grey Gardens, the East Hampton, New York, home of then The Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee and Sally Quinn.[
Violet
Also, President said if they got word that chemical weapons were in play in Syria, that was a line they wouldn’t allow to be crossed and that everyone in the area had been told. I guess that means he’d send in the US military?
Wasn’t a long press availability, but it’ll shut up the whining that he hasn’t appeared in front of the press in months.
RE: Aiken, a couple of people on after the President’s press briefing said they thought the fact that Aiken said he wasn’t dropping out didn’t mean anything since Cornyn had made it clear he should drop out.
Anton Sirius
@schrodinger’s cat:
First Sully will have a knee-jerk reaction.
He won’t get around to actually thinking about it until next Wednesday or so.
Calouste
@PeakVT:
England, dumping their crazies in America since 1620.
Joel
@schrodinger’s cat: His response is titled “Fisking Ferguson I”
Is our Sullivan learning?
FlipYrWhig
@Calouste: Puritan crazies since 1620, Anglicans since 1607.
patroclus
Thankfully, Niall Ferguson has Oakeshott in the Widener for succor!
The prophet Nostradumbass
@PeakVT: Niall Ferguson is not English.
SatanicPanic
Leave Stuart Varney alooooone
catclub
@Violet: “RE: Aiken,”
It is Akin. I think there was a highly respected Vermonter named Aiken.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Christ on a cracker. Our failed media experiment, Volume the I’velostcounth
PeakVT
@The prophet Nostradumbass: He was a prof at Camford (in that order) before coming here.
Paul in KY
@schrodinger’s cat: Could be. I also thought it was ‘Contrarian Englodweeb’. There can be multiple meanings!
Roger Moore
@Violet:
You want to make a bet about that?
The prophet Nostradumbass
@PeakVT: So? He’s Scottish.
ET
I hurt for NF because he is so is so completely clueless that he won’t feel the smackdown.
geg6
Nice and elegantly done, Mr. Fallows. I especially like his challenge to this fraud’s students.
geg6
@Hunter Gathers:
Who’s clicking on it? It sure isn’t me. But I’m happy to give James Fallows the clicks for his evisceration of the fraud that is Niall Ferguson.
Mnemosyne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
And in conveying that, ToddAkin was fucking wrong. It is not true. It goes against all known science and scientific fact.
I would be embarrassed for this guy from Politico for defending an incorrect fact so publicly if I didn’t know that he couldn’t care less that Akin was wrong.
Ed in NJ
Newsweek is really covering all the bases. First the Romney is a wimp cover and now this re: Obama.
I’m sure the right wing retards will continue to claim that Newsweek is a useless rag that nobody reads anymore as a result of this latest cover.
PeakVT
@The prophet Nostradumbass: Go have a cup of coffee and try again.
Bobby Thomson
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: WTF? I don’t think anyone failed to see his point. The shorter from Catanese doesn’t make it any better. Remind me why Politico is taken seriously?
pseudonymous in nc
I’ve always wanted to know why Fergie spent just a year at NYU before heading off to Haaahvaaahd. Blame Larry fucking Summers, apparently.
Dave
Sullivan may be finally having his “come to Jesus” moment. He rips Niall a new one and ends with this:
Gregory
Grest googly moogly, Ferguson dinging Obama for the lousy job picture in 2008 — yes, they *year before he took office* is bad enough. But can’t Newsweek afford editors?! And if so, can they do basic math?
Kristin
What is frustrating to me is that people will read this in Newsweek and believe it. The fact checking failure is spectacular. Or deliberate.
geg6
@pseudonymous in nc:
Jeebus. Is there no disaster afflicting this country that doesn’t, somehow, land on his desk and get even more fucked up than it was?
He’s the Dem’s Bill Kristol, I swear.
ira-NY
Good stuff!
Harvard is not what it used to be.
Older_Wiser
Even Andrew Sullivan, a self-admitted Tory, is dismayed by Ferguson’s piece: http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/08/fisking.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+andrewsullivan%2FrApM+%28The+Daily+Dish%29
As in 2008, they are on the opposite sides of the election.
LanceThruster
@PeakVT:
That reminds me of this joke —
Boy hears his father singing “I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now”
Boy asks, “Daddy, where is her ‘now’?”
Napoleon
I like Drum’s take:
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/08/niall-ferguson-finally-renders-me-speechless
Villago Delenda Est
@Gregory:
They were using McMegan’s famous calculator.
Downpuppy
I think Ferguson will be gone from the Beast by September 4th.
That’s the date Megan McArdle arrives there, so not a major upgrade.
celticdragonchick
@Yutsano:
I did not need that mental image… :(
celticdragonchick
@Older_Wiser:
Sully pretty much rips Niall apart…and that was just part one. Ouch.
Violet
@catclub: Sorry. I know someone with the last name Aiken, so I think I typed it out of habit.
@Roger Moore: Sure. I didn’t say it wouldn’t stop the press whining. But they can’t say he hasn’t appeared in front of them in months, when he did so today. They can whine about how long he was there, how many questions he took, which reporters he took questions from, the subject of the questions, his answers, the color of his suit, etc., etc. But as to whether or not he’s actually taken questions from the press in several months, their whining about that specific issue will die down for a week or so.
MikeJ
@PeakVT:
And I’ve frozen my ass off in Tesco’s machine room. Doesn’t make me a box of fish sticks.
SatanicPanic
@Napoleon: Niall’s rebuttal of Krugman is a joke.
Raven
@celticdragonchick: Fuck all these Limey shitheads.
JPL
OT… Sorry if this has been mentioned but TPM is saying that Akin is going to withdraw from the senate race.
no mention of Newsweeks correction though.
Valdivia
@JPL:
coming from RedState and Grennell (the guy Romney fired for being gay) apparently not from the office of the guy himself.
Roger Moore
@SatanicPanic:
Yeah, calling him a dishonest right wing hack is an insult to dishonest right wing hacks. There needs to be a new term to describe this level of distortion and dishonesty.
GregB
And we have Tony Perkins warning Scott Brown to watch his mouth for calling on Captain Honest Rape to step down.
Please, more of this lunacy it may be clarifying to some.
Violet
@JPL: I wonder how that’s going to work. The forced birthers are supporting Akin. They aren’t going to like it if he’s forced out.
jwb
@JPL: Ha, ha, ha. On Twitter there seems to be rather a lot of confusion as to whether Akins will withdraw. It’s only a matter of time, I think, but he sounds like he might be stubborn enough to trip the Tuesday deadline.
EconWatcher
@jwb:
The announcements that he’s withdrawing are probably intended to force his withdrawal, no?
Nellcote
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Politico fired their AA reporter for true statement saying Rmoney was most comfortable talking to white men. Will this by Catanese require any action by Politico?
Yutsano
@Valdivia: Oh please oh please oh please stay in. Please be a stubborn ass for once in your life!
Chris
@PZ:
Well… no. That’s the entire point of wingnut welfare. As long as the stupidity you uttered was in line with orthodox conservative thought, you’re good.
Dork
@Violet: You mean, if his candidacy is…….aborted?
Mudge
Ferguson should know better than to tangle with an old China hand. Sadly Ferguson’s article will be driven by Cokie’s Rule..it doesn’t matter if it’s true, it’s out there.
Anya
Ferguson didn’t leave the U.K., the U.K. left him. Even the Tories kept their distance. They didn’t want to be stuck defending his outdated views. There’s so the matter of the new Mrs. Ferguson.
ChrisNYC
How sad. Yet another day where Romney’s exciting idea on the economy (“I will GROW jobs!”) is drowned out. Bet they’re wishing they had actually campaigned for the last year of the campaign. Too risky though.
ETA – OT and PS I despise N. Ferguson
Rob in CT
Newsweek’s defense is, get this, they don’t have fact checkers.
Because fact-checkers make Right Wing assholes cry, I guess.
? Martin
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Politico, eh. Anyone else surprised? No. Okay.
And Akin is certain to go after this. Obama’s all in on making Akin the poster child of the GOP position on women’s rights. They’re already pointing out that Akin and Ryan are on the same page wrt to abortion rights. The GOP needs to shut this down right now – and jettisoning Akin won’t accomplish that, but it’s a start.
Valdivia
@? Martin:
I think it is important to keep the ball rolling on the forcible rape thing. Now in the spotlight Ryan should be pushed hard on this.
PeakVT
@MikeJ: Apparently you froze your brain in there. Try thawing it out, and then find where I said Ferguson is English.
Ash Can
Fallows calls Harvard the world’s greatest university in his piece, and that’s understandable since he’s an alum. It’s certainly a dandy school, but world’s best? With this crap going on? I don’t think so.
JPL
@? Martin: Don’t forget that Ryan was teamed up with Akin to redefine rape. Whether or not Akin stays in the race or not Ryan has supported him in the past.
Is Niall here illegally? Enquiring minds want to know.
pseudonymous in nc
@Anya:
And the fact that the former Mrs Ferguson is even more well-connected in Tory political and journalism circles.
Valdivia
@Yutsano:
I think, as I saw on Twitter, that GOP should carry his candidacy to term. :)
PurpleGirl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
…Grey Gardens, the East Hampton, New York, home of then The Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee and Sally Quinn.
That’s very interesting because Grey Gardens is/was the home of Edith Bouvier Beale, a cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy. Ms. Beale and her mother were featured in a movie about them and the house made by the Maysles brothers. Ben Bradlee and Sally Quinn may have home in the Hamptons, but it wasn’t Grey Gardens.
Violet
@Valdivia: Since Ryan and Akin co-sponsored at least one (several?) forced birther bills, it’s going to be pretty easy to tie them together. Now, will Dems continue, even if Akin drops out? I hope they hammer it home today to get people making the connection.
Catsy
@? Martin:
It’s yet another delightful opportunity to drive a hard wedge between the forced-birth right-wing extremists on one side and the rest of the country on the other.
And like so many other opportunities, it’s a problem that exists solely because the 27%ers who constitute the Republican base are so radically out of touch with the rest of the country–and think otherwise.
Ash Can
@Nellcote: If Catanese were black, his office would be cleaned out, vacuumed, and have someone else’s name on it by now. Or maybe the folks at Politico don’t care about misogynistic stuff because, heck, women aren’t people and don’t figure into their readership.
Violet
@PurpleGirl:
Sure it is:
PeakVT
Aiken may have already decided to drop out. MO Juicers should consider calling the MO GOP asking him to stay in.
JPL
OT.. TPM now saying Mitt is asking him to leave. Of course that was with a promise of a cabinet position. (teehee)
Someone needs to ask Paul Ryan what exactly is forcible rape.
PurpleGirl
@Violet: Ah, I did not know that. Thank you.
Bobby Thomson
@GregB: Just kabuki theater to make brown look moderate. There’s no way Perkins can hurt brown (other than by praising him), nor will he try.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
Says the guy who is not even a citizen of this country, unless he’s admitting voter fraud.
Ash Can
Damn, I hope Akin stays in. I want him tied around the neck of the GOP. I want him to become the face of the GOP on the issue of women’s rights and welfare.
JPL
OT.. new tpm Akin twitter
Can we close our borders to tories.. ugh
Valdivia
@Violet:
I hope he stays and I hope they frame this as not just the idiocy about pregnancy but about categories of rape, as Obama did today in the presser. Because the rape category thing is a great thing to nail Ryan with since as you pointed out he co-sponsored that bill
? Martin
As much fun as it would be for Akin to stay in the race (which I agree), having him drop out guarantees that we hold MO-Sen without any spending needed, which was a completely lost cause. That basically prevents the GOP from retaking the Senate. That’s huge. That’s worth a LOT.
Ash Can
@Valdivia: It’s no wonder Romney wants him to go away, then. I hope Akin tells him to piss up a rope.
Hoodie
@Dave: Sullivan never really comes to Jesus. He just can’t bring himself to the reality that Ferguson is a lying, disingenuous sack of shit who has made a racket of giving respectability to Republican inanity because it gets him attention and status. I guess it’s because he’s a “friend.”
Sullivan is maddening in this way. He earlier wrote a piece on Ryan stating:
He then proceeds to document facts that show what a lying, opportunistic hack Ryan really is, i.e., Ryan well knows what he is selling is utter bullshit and is far from the idealistic young kid Sullivan initially makes him out to be. I guess it’s because Ryan has such fantastic abs.
Then, to top off his idiotic inconsistency, he shits out this gem:
I
Yea, let’s move Medicare to premium supports if the ACA shows premium supports fail for a healthier population. Ryan is not necessarily right; Ryan, like all swindlers, creates a false choice, and Sullivan swallows it hook, line and sinker.
peach flavored shampoo
He aint dropping out. First rule of TeaTardom: piss off liberals at every opp.
The louder libs and progs scream, the more likely he is to stick around. Christ, what if he actually wins in November?
Litlebritdifrnt
Listening to Hannity right now, apparently he is going to have Aikin on to explain what he meant.
JC
But you know what, he got his lying piece as the COVER STORY on Newsweek.
Prove him wrong, rip his facts to shreds, who will pay attention?
For Ferguson, it is still, “Mission Accomplished”.
The only way it could be Mission Unaccomplished, if next week, Newsweek would say, ON THE COVER, “We Apologize, Last Week’s Cover Story is Completely Wrong”.
I don’t see that happening – though maybe we can start a campaign?
pseudonymous in nc
@? Martin:
Huh? The deadline for withdrawal is tomorrow, and if the GOP replaces Akin with Generic Republican, Generic Republican beats McCaskill.
Ash Can
@? Martin: That’s a good consolation point, if that’s what happens. As long as it throws the race into sufficient turmoil on the GOP side, with split votes, write-ins, ratfucking etc., I agree it would be worth it.
burnspbesq
@PeakVT:
They stuck us with Ferguson, we’re sticking them with Greenwald. Seems like a roughly even trade.
Valdivia
@? Martin:
How would that happen? If Akin drops out they can name some vanilla looking wingnut and still win the seat no?
jwb
@EconWatcher: The GOP is definitely going to try to force it—they never wanted him in the first place—but Akin looks like a stubborn cuss; he probably figures that if he holds out until tomorrow (at which point it becomes considerably harder to replace him) and his poll numbers remain adequate (quick polling shows that he is still ahead) that the money will have to come back to him. He may well be proven right if he doesn’t continue to shed voters (although I think he will).
Punchy
No offense, but you’re flat-wrong here. MO is solidly red, and the only way it goes blue is…I dont really know. I dont think there is a way for Clare to win this, despite Akin’s mess.
mechwarrior online
Brad Delong has called for him to be fired and for his position as a professor at Harvard to be reviewed. Sullivan has joined the dog pile as well.
Mike E
@peach flavored shampoo: He sez he’s not a quitter. Also, he knows how weak McCaskill is in Krazytown, MO
Quaker in a Basement
Shorter Ferguson: Yeah, I wasn’t blaming Obama for causing the 2008 job losses. I was blaming him for taking too long to clean up the mess.
Violet
@? Martin: Don’t understand your thinking. How would another Republican in place of Akin mean that Claire wins? National GOP would probably rush in to spend money to defeat her.
jwb
@Martin: How so? If Akin drops out today, the GOP can run another candidate and with a nice fat check from the Koch brothers be up and running in a couple of days.
Ash Can
@Punchy: How did McCaskill win in the first place? (And I’m not trying to be snotty or anything; I’m really asking.)
Roger Moore
@Violet:
Having him drop out after Tuesday causes the Republicans no end of headache. That’s the goal.
GregB
@Violet:
A not half bad HBO drama about this odd couple was done a few years ago starring Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore.
Link.
catclub
@Ash Can: Did she first win in 2006? First of two wave elections.
Litlebritdifrnt
Akin basically telling Hannity everything he said was wrong and he has apologized for it. Oh and the reason he is calling Hannity is to confirm that he will NOT be dropping out of the race.
Raven
Phyllis Diller RIP.
PeakVT
@peach flavored shampoo: If somebody like Aiken wins then the Dems will have lost the Senate and presidency already. He’d just be salt in the wound.
piratedan
echoing the sentiments that he needs to bring this candidacy to term…. after all, he was out there “interacting” amongst the reporters and media just asking for it with this salacious behavior of “vote for me, I know what you want and I’m gonna give it to you”. Seems to me that if you’re gonna go ahead and put yourself out there, you should have to deal with the consequences of your behavior.
scav
He could just be going for a last minute surge in small donations and then dropping out at the last minute tomorrow. Cake + Eat.
Violet
@Roger Moore: Yeah, but that’s not what Martin was saying, was it? I thought he meant Akin dropping out now (before Tues) meant Claire would win. I don’t see it that way. After Tuesday is something else entirely.
RyMaN600
@Kristin:
It’s deliberate:
Raven
Diller and Groucho
Litlebritdifrnt
Hannity pounding on Akin, telling him he is putting the whole race in jeopardy, even Missouri for Romney/Ryan.
Bobby Thomson
@PeakVT: Nope. Akin wins before Brown and Macaca, among others. Missouri is playing catchup with Mississippi.
Violet
@Litlebritdifrnt: Ha, that’s funny! How’s Akin responding?
Raven
@Litlebritdifrnt: Well, not ALL Limey’s!
flukebucket
@scav: Agreed. I would be willing to bet that tens of thousands of people will give up their Chick-Fil-A lunch for one day in order to donate to the loon.
Raven
@Litlebritdifrnt: How can you listen to that whiney sumbitch?
flukebucket
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Aren’t Akin and Ryan kind of joined at the hip anyway? Even if Akin quits the damage to Ryan cannot be undone can it?
Raven
@flukebucket: He’s stuck in Ryan’s butt like a two dogs fucking if that’s what you mean?
Roger Moore
@RyMaN600:
So now we’re just left with the question of what happens if/when they fail to live up to that expectation and submit obviously false material. Is Newsweek/The Beast actually going to punish Ferguson in any way, or will they continue to let him publish obvious falsehoods without consequences? If they don’t fire him for this, it should tell everyone exactly what they need to know about their journalistic standards.
JPL
@Raven: Who cares how.. the updates are fun.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Violet:
He is standing firm, seems like he is just ignoring what Hannity is saying.
@Raven:
I was hoping when you said that you meant to add “present company excepted” :)
JPL
@Litlebritdifrnt: Is it Obama’s fault yet?
Litlebritdifrnt
@Raven:
Know thine enemy.
@flukebucket:
Oh sure the dems are going to be able to hang the “forcible rape” thing around Ryan’s neck now, Akin gave them that, that was what they were talking about on MJ this morning.
peach flavored shampoo
That doesn’t sound very Fair and Balanced.
El Cid
@RyMaN600:
Thus, a recipe for business failure: They have no value added.
Ferguson’s writings or similar such can be obtained directly from writers’ websites or blogs.
If Newsweek openly states that it adds no value other than simply being one among many locations to find these words, one form of which being printed and mailed with lots of advertisements and another form of which is online with its own type of ads, what’s the incentive for me to spend any money doing business with Newsweek?
What’s the value added? What’s the business model?
Violet
@Litlebritdifrnt: That’s so great to hear. Come on, Akin! Stick to your guns! Tie the Republicans and Ryan/Romney to the crazy that truly is the GOP!
Calouste
@jwb:
The primary was a 3 way race in which Akin got 36% and the other two 30 and 29%. There will be a fight, probably dirty, between the other two for who gets nominated as the replacement.
El Cid
@JPL: It’s just part of “both sides” making this the low-down meanest campaign in history.
Raven
@Litlebritdifrnt: Indeed I did!
pseudonymous in nc
@Ash Can:
It was a tight race (50/47) in a good year (2006) for Dems in general.
Litlebritdifrnt
@JPL:
Give him time I am sure Hannity will find a way to blame him.
Downpuppy
@Roger Moore: Saying they rely on writers to get it right sounds a lot like Niall is canned, no? Otherwise they’re saying they have no reason to exist & we have no reason to read them.
On second thought, they’re saying that part even if Ferguson has been fired. And I see El Cid got there first.
El Cid
@Downpuppy: Same thing as I’m saying — but they have to justify themselves as a business, too: what reason are they giving us to read their material (thus justifying their advertisers’ purchases with them) and in particular to subscribe or otherwise directly profit them?
If journalists just quote what politicians say without any real evaluation of claims and counter-checks and the like, and if publications simply publish what ideologues write without any review or approval whatsoever, what do they offer more than a politician’s PR on his or her website or than a similar piece written on a blog or any other location?
Joel
@? Martin: Disagree. I think MO is conservative enough that they could paradrop a candidate and still beat McCaskill. I would rather take our chances against Akin.
Joel
@? Martin: Disagree. I think MO is conservative enough that they could paradrop a candidate and still beat McCaskill. I would rather take our chances against Akin.
gogol's wife
@Raven:
Fabulous!
I’m so embarrassed that I once quoted Ferguson approvingly in a book I wrote. It was his book on the Rothschilds, which seemed good to me at the time. Maybe he was a real historian back then.
different-church-lady
@Gregory:
Of course they can’t; they’re giving all their money to Tina Brown instead.
flukebucket
@Raven: LOL! My God, I have to get back to work after that one. Thanks.
raven
@flukebucket: Throw a bucket of water on them before you do!
Chris T.
@RyMaN600: Man… someone should write a Newsleak article about how the moon is made of green cheese, raw sewage is good to drink, and so on.
Litlebritdifrnt
Poor old Ed Rendell, he is busily throwing facts at Hannity and they just go “swoosh” right over Hannity’s head.
Dennis SGMM
The standards for a faculty position at Harvard seem to have slipped badly.
kay
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Hannity is dumb as a rock. Don’t Republicans have someone smarter to force the duly elected Tea Party candidate to resign?
Violet
@kay: They’re trying. But they can’t MAKE him resign, can they? He hasn’t breached ethics or whatever would be a reason they could force him off the ticket. He won the primary fair and square. They can only “encourage” him. He doesn’t seem to want to go.
SatanicPanic
@peach flavored shampoo:
It’s not unlikely. Rand Paul is a US Senator, so pretty much any old dumbass can get elected.
Roger Moore
@El Cid:
They’re an aggregator. They go out and find the most engaging writers and put them all in one place so you don’t have to go looking for them yourself. That may not be of much value to anyone who knows how to operate a feed reader, but to people who have always counted on a publisher somewhere to do that for them, it has some potential value. Of course it has much less value without having actual editors and fact checkers and all that other journalistic stuff, but what do you expect for the price you’re paying?
ThresherK
@RyMaN600: In all seriousness, are we to trust what Politico tells us about Newsweek?
The laws of probability state that the intersection of the former getting a correct answer from the latter, and relaying it truthfully, approaches zero.
To put it more bluntly, if you’re trapped in a burning building and a Newsweeker and a Politicoer tell you “this way out”, you’re done for.
Downpuppy
@Dennis SGMM: Compared to when John Mack was there?
Mnemosyne
@gogol’s wife:
There are quite a few right-wingers who are pretty good historians as long as they stick to actual history. It’s when they start trying to evaluate current events that they run off the rails.
raven
Here’s a hot one he must have gotten from Guliani:
“He later invoked 9/11 to explain his pro-life views, saying the first responders didn’t ask for identification of those they saved because all lives are important.
“They don’t check their ID to see whether they’re important or not, they just take them to safety and run back for more,” he said. “They, by their lives, speak as Americans of what we think about the value of human beings and how much respect we hold people with.”
El Cid
@Roger Moore: Google News is an aggregator. So is Yahoo News. So is the Huffington Post. So is Memeorandum. So are a lot of peoples’ blogs.
That Newsweek’s best argument for its worth to the consumer as a business would be that they gather together particular writers — most of whom have work available elsewhere — would be a truly weak business model indeed.
This isn’t the model for all publications. There are all sorts of publications which are quite popular and widely read and not as large as Newsweek (certainly at its historical heights) and likely a smaller budget, but they insist on the quality of the subject matters discussed by authors seeking to publish in their pages / site.
Think if science magazines did this, and not just for every article but over time. ‘Yeah, well, we don’t check out the articles or their basic claims, and we don’t really aim to do something if it is shown to be nonsense even after it happens,’ who will subscribe?
So maybe for some people, Newsweek‘s function (if it so claimed) as filter-free ‘aggregator’ is worthwhile, but the number of people who will need this intermediary to find the writers that they do or may like will dwindle quickly.
Penus
Playing devils’ advocate here…where were the falsehoods in the Ferguson piece? (I’m coming back to this thread after doing other things and might not be remembering something completely, obviously wrong. If so, it was an honest mistake born of a newborn baby and a workday that started at 7 a.m.)
Don’t get me wrong, I found it completely disingenuous. It was a terrible piece where he contradicted his own argument repeatedly. But he didn’t mess up actual facts, as far as I can see (again, could be forgetting stuff). He distorted them and cherry-picked date ranges that reflect poorly on Obama while ignoring facts that make him look good, but I don’t know that there were any out-and-out lies.
pseudonymous in nc
@gogol’s wife:
That was around the time he was heading towards the exit. He managed to persuade the Rothschilds to open up their private archive to him (or, more precisely, him and his collection of undergrad and graduate researchers) and as a result, it draws upon a lot of unseen primary material.
I’d say The Pity of War, his shitty revisionist book on the Great War, marks the point at which he stopped doing history and decided to go with rah-rah-empire for big advances from Murdoch.
Napoleon
@Penus:
They have been covered at something like a dozen other blogs at this point. Check Delong, Krugman, Drum, Fallows and Sullivan as a start.
bondirotta
The timing here is perfect. One week for the Tampa freak fest. GOP thought they would slide Paul Ryan under the media radar and nobody would dig into his abortion views.
Now even US journalists will be forced into dig into the whole “forcible rape” craziness. Abortion is going to be the theme for the entire pre-convention week.
So sweet.
scav
Ahh, so Newsweek ⇒ Newswiki.
Amir Khalid
@RyMaN600:
That statement amounts to a public confession: “We at Newsweek have abdicated an important part of our responsibility as journalists: to ensure that what we publish is the truth, without lies or evasions or slant. Because some of our writers, such as
Harvard professorcelebrity intellectual Niall Ferguson, are too big to be fact checked or edited.”Napoleon
@Napoleon:
PS, my favorite is Drum’s recounting of his reply to Krugman on why just counting the expenditures in the ACA and not the revenue was OK to do in support of his contention that Obama reneged on his promise not to run up the deficit with the ACA.
kay
@Violet:
They can’t force him to do anything. He won.
This whole “rape”exception theory is nonsense anyway. Rape is a serious crime. If it goes to trial it’s going to be months and months, and what if there isn’t a conviction? No abortion for you!
What’s the plan here? Special abortion-rape-exception hearings? Is an accusation of rape enough? THAT’S a nightmare of unintended consequences, dontcha think? Or do we wait for charges filed?
I have never had any idea how these people plan on administering this “exception”. By the time we convict the rapist the pregnancy is either very advanced or actually over. It’s just more bullshit from the most impractical, fanciful people in the world, modern Republicans.
I’m almost grateful to him. Maybe people will start thinking about how nothing anti-abortion people say makes any sense.
Penus
@Napoleon:
Honestly, I read those this morning but my brain is broken right now. I’m being lazy, but was wondering if there was any smoking-gun blatant fact that was a complete lie. The stuff I’m remembering is just things like Ferguson citing unemployment dating back to 2008 (while not actually getting the numbers wrong) and mentioning the expensive parts of ACA while leaving out the money-saving parts.
And oh yeah, not mentioning what’s-his-name, that dude that was hanging out in Pakistan.
Cap'n Magic
@celticdragonchick: Yep-the bear was loaded for bear, and tore him into little Niall-burgers.
dance around in your bones
@Raven: Haha – thanks for that.
You know, she really wasn’t unattractive, she just had a rather large schnoz for her face.
The penciled eyebrows were a bit much, but rather like fastening an onion to one’s belt, it was the style at the time.
RyMaN600
@El Cid:
They have no interest in “adding value” if it involves paying anybody to do anything.
It’s the default mentality of any publicly traded company nowadays: Find some way to make money hand-over-fist and post record profits in the coming quarter, all other business objectives be damned. If they could go web-only overnight and become an automated editorial aggregator dependent on obnoxious banner ads while cutting 90% of their workforce, they’d do so in a heartbeat.
If they can’t recognize that a major, historic news magazine should have a goddamn fact checking department, they don’t deserve to have a reader base.
Oh look, Newsweek actually IS going web-only in the near future! But I’m sure printing complete garbage had nothing to do with it. Good thing they got rid of those expensive fact checkers! I’m sure that’ll turn them around!
Cap'n Magic
@El Cid: That also impinges on Sully as well, since they share the same parent.
So now he’s part of the problem. Oh, goodie.
rlrr
@dance around in your bones:
If only rich men would ride around in Zeppelins, dropping coins on people like in the old days…
gelfling545
@Calouste: Yes, just another case of them sending their n’er-do-wells of to the colonies.
? Martin
@pseudonymous in nc:
Ah, indeed. I did get the timing wrong.
I’m not certain that generic Republican beats Claire, though. If it was a name that MO voters were familiar with, that’d be a different matter. But Akin was that guy. The other contenders aren’t from what I can tell.
Napoleon
@Penus:
Those are lies in my book. I don’t see how anyone could conclude otherwise (especially with the whopper about the ACA). Just because he maybe cherrypicking doesn’t make it something other then a lie.
kay
@Violet:
I can’t wait for the “prove you’re pregnant by a family member” abortion+
-permission hearings. Those will be memorable events for the girl-victims.
There aren’t going to be any rape exceptions if they outlaw abortions, and these pathological liars damn well know it. They have to lie about it or people would see them as monsters, but there’s no way to administer this imaginary “exception”.
? Martin
@RyMaN600:
Welcome to Mitt Romney’s America. That’s all he’s ever done – and any company that did add value got bought out, leveraged, equity extracted and tossed into the trash.
? Martin
@kay:
Of course. The proof is that they’re systematically shutting down clinics so that even if you do count as an exception, there won’t be anyone around to do the procedure.
chuck butcher
I thought I’d play with the Akin/Ryan press raped analogy a bit…
Evergreen (formerly Betsy, forever ago)
A tenured professor of history at my undergraduate alma mater has written a cover story for Daily Beast/Newsweek that is so careless and unconvincing that I wonder how he will presume to sit in judgment of the next set of student papers he has to grade.
Silly James Fallows. Niall Ferguson doesn’t grade his own papers.
John D
@Penus: When his defense to Krugman’s shredding his article is to say “I specifically said ‘the insurance provisions’…”, he is arguing in bad faith and hoping the rubes would not notice. THAT is the falsehood.
His entire thesis is that Obama broke his campaign pledge of revenue neutrality for the ACA, quotes the 1.2 trillion number and says “See! He broke his promise!”, when the reality is that the ACA will save money, the promise was not broken, and Niall *KNOWS THIS*.
dance around in your bones
@rlrr: Or tossing tuppence out the sides of their carriage to that amusing – though filthy and hungry – mob.
Whilst breathing through a perfumed hanky.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
May Niall Ferguson choke on a bag of salted dicks, outside the vicinity of anyone who knows how to perform the Heimlich maneuver.
Comrade Mary
@El Cid: Yep. Lazy, useless fuckers whose only holding of value is the rapidly diminishing power of the Newsweek brand, which appeals only to the olds.
jaleh
I thought Newsweek was bought by Jane Harman’s husband for one dollar? I guess they published this piece of sh…to get some traffic, and they got it.
B
@Kristin:
Newsweek admitted that they have no fact checkers. They rely on the columnist to be factual. Yikes!