Not my most successful effort at getting a dumb ass answer, but the “ironic” part at the end is a nice touch.
BOTH SIDES DO IT
Q. With this issue, as with ALL issues, both sides are wrong. The truth is in the middle ALWAYS, on all issues. I don’t even check anymore what the issue is before I tell my wife “both sides are wrong, extremist, the truth is somewhere in between.” Why can’t more people realize this obvious fact, that the truth is always in the middle?
– December 05, 2012 1:17 PM Permalink
A.
BRAD HIRSCHFIELD :
I hear you, and would make one small adjustment to your process. Listen to BOTH sides because the truth is often NOT in teh middle per se, but may be an amalgam of views from both sides. In other words, the solution is not always to split the difference, as much as it is to learn form both sides and create a third alternative. You may see that as a too fine distinction, but I assure you it is not.
“Extreme” positions can actually be correct, but it is rare that when one takes all of the extremes of one camp, and ignores all those of the other, that a wise response will be found. On the other hand, discounting a position simply because it comes from either the far-raight or far-left, robs us of alternatives which may actually be needed.
As to why people find all of this so difficult, it is because we are trained from very early on to confuse purety of thought with wisdom and sophistication, stuborness with loyalty, and adaptation with weakness. The last is particulalry ironic given that we are only here because our ability to adapt.
– December 05, 2012 1:49 PM
Update. Win, if I do say so myself.
Q. WHAT WOULD DAVID BRODER THINK?
As I watch these fiscal talks unfold, I wonder what David Broder would say about it if he were alive? If He’s looking down on us from heaven, what do you think he might be thinking? That he spent his whole life praising bipartisan moderation, and now look at the mess we’re in.
– December 05, 2012 1:20 PM PermalinkA.
BRAD HIRSCHFIELD :
What a beautiful and powerful image to evoke. David Broder indeed. Thank you, especially from me personally, as he is one of my role models.
If it’s any comfort, I think he would be not only disturbed, but sagely sanguin. He would caution us to combine outrage about what is going on in both parties, but also remind us that we are a great nation populated with good people, and that we have every reason to believe that however bumpy the road, we will travel the road to a better place.
– December 05, 2012 1:57 PM
Wag
Un-f*cking believalbe in its total believablity.
SFAW
What you started to write, but corrected in midstream I bet.
Alex S.
So true, the middle way leads to liberation.
some guy
Rabbi Schmuck is an idiot.
Ted & Hellen
Sounds pretty reasonable to me, especially the first phrase. And he does say “but it is rare that…” (clearly implying that it DOES happen) and we are in one of those “rare” periods of history, so…uh, what’s your point exactly?
This really is how you spend your days, isn’t it?
You are the first to ban alleged “trolls” here on BJ, but you spend a great deal of time trolling the entire Internet.
Revealing to say the least.
Wag
@Alex S.:
So true, the middle way leads to
liberationlibationFTFY
Let’s start drinking.
Maude
The far raight is crazier than a S house rat. How does it help to listen to them?
PsiFighter37
The fact he couldn’t figure out you were trolling is sad. I could smell that kind of trollishness if I was in the middle of a toxic wasteland.
Such is our revered MSM. /sigh
Zyla
The fact that he couldn’t see the BLATANT TROLL right in front of him is deeply depressing.
Also props for the post title.
Hoodie
Ok, fess up, who did this?
Wag
I bet this question from the Q+A is from Doug, as well.
Excellent work!
Edit
…and the reply is priceless, as well
“What a beautiful and powerful image to evoke. David Broder indeed. Thank you, especially from me personally, as he is one of my role models.
If it’s any comfort, I think he would be not only disturbed, but sagely sanguin. He would caution us to combine outrage about what is going on in both parties, but also remind us that we are a great nation populated with good people, and that we have every reason to believe that however bumpy the road, we will travel the road to a better place.”
Edit again-
I see @10 beat me to it.
Francisco The Man
TEH TRUTH IS IN TEH MIDDLE!
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Ted & Hellen: I see you know nothing of internet traditions, or of the history of this blog, especially as it relates to Doug.
Scott S.
The media bubble is thick as hell if they can’t yet tell that to the rest of the world, David Broder is remembered only as a cautionary tale…
Betty Cracker
LMAO! I salute you, sir! Well played.
Keith G
WTF?
That is the type of answer I would expect from Rabbi Hirschfield. He politely told the questioner to expand his thinking…in other words…”Dude, you aren’t doing this right. Think about it this way.”
Sometimes I feel B-J seems to be tip-toeing of on the edge becoming a lame parody of a lefty blog.
Lee
FYI there is an AMA at Reddit for the NYT Washingtin chief going on now.
Corner Stone
Somebody tell me where Tip O’Neill is buried so I can make sure to piss on his fucking grave.
I swear the next cocksucker on TV that invokes the Reagan-O’Neill corollary is getting marked for first at the guillotines when the time comes.
Fuck you Tip O’Neill, fuck you right up your stupid fucking ass.
Southern Beale
Along those lines, our dumbass Tea Party is rallying against the state setting up a health insurance exchange at the capitol as I type this. Literally, they cannot let dust settle on the Tricorn hats.
Anyway, I wondered if they realized if the state does not set up an exchange the Feds will do it? Don’t they know that? Wouldn’t they rather have the state do it than that Mooooslim usurper Obummer? States rights and all? Isn’t that what they’ve been rallying about? No?
Sigh.
Corner Stone
@Keith G:
Sometimes? SOMETIMES?!
Cassidy
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
You could have stopped right there.
Gin & Tonic
@Corner Stone: He’s in the Congressional Cemetery in Washington. Sounds like you could get a lot done if you went there with a full bladder.
Chris
We already did that. It’s called modern liberalism.
Seriously. The whole point of modern American liberalism was that it tried to take the good and bad from the two sides of the socialist/capitalist divide (wealth creation AND a humane society where all benefit from it), while excising the bad traits associated with it (capitalist inequality, socialist authoritarianism).
Right now, we have one party that believes in being pragmatic and taking whatever ideas will work (as you just saw again when they passed a modified version of a Heritage Foundation health insurance reform plan, since anything more wasn’t going to pass) regardless of the source, and one party that… that… Well, it’s hard to say, actually.
You want to be a pragmatist who cares about the ideas rather than their origin and wants to create a “third way” between two extremes? Good for you, you’re a Democrat. Now shut up and vote.
Ted & Hellen
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Wrong.
I’ve been around BJ for eight years and am well aware of DougJ’s pathetic Internet wide trolling. Also too the fact that he finds it high-larious to troll BJ under various nyms.
The fact that BJers think this is clever somehow, added to the fact that DougJ is a very thin skinned, ban-happy poster here; goes a long way toward explaining certain BJ hive mind pathologies.
Ted & Hellen
@Corner Stone:
Please.
This is a center/right, Nixon Republican blog on its most left leaning days.
Joel
I love the smell of napalm in the morning…
Joel
“Sometimes I feel B-J seems to be tip-toeing of on the edge becoming a lame parody of a lefty blog.”
Well, no one’s making you stay here, right?
Chris
So, seriously, who’s DougJ? I’ve been told that he trolls various blogs including his own under assumed nyms, but never paid much attention to it. Who on this website has he been (in the last year or two)?
PsiFighter37
Okay, if he got fooled after THAT comment, he’s a real fool.
I guess Alexandra whatshername isn’t around to flirtatiously troll?
DougJ
@Ted & Hellen:
Wait…are you Spatula or are you a parody troll?
SatanicPanic
@Chris: No kidding. For better or worse, the Democratic Party is remarkably devoid of ideology. You have to be pretty obtuse not to see that.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Southern Beale: If they understood the law, they wouldn’t be out there.
Villago Delenda Est
This is good news! Hirschfield can now die the slow, painful death that Broder deserved, since Broder is one of his role models.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@DougJ: T&H is way too holier-than-thou for Spatula.
Davis X. Machina
@Corner Stone:
After all, he is the man responsible for the US invasion of Nicaragua, and the ’82-86 Nicaraguan War, and the tens of thousands of American casualties in that fiasco. That and killing off Social Security
Chyron HR
@Ted & Hellen:
This is totally different from delivering a heaping helping of left-wing truth under various nyms, which is the duty of all true progressives.
Cassidy
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): They’re the same. Someone has been trolling as “spatula” and tedbeatshellen asked who was using his old name.
kdaug
I happen to be eating soup right now. Good soup, with lots of garlic and ginger.
HA! I know what you’re thinking – but nope, didn’t spit it out.
“sagely sanguin”
Wishing this spoon was a fork.
danimal
@Keith G:
If at first you don’t succeed…
1badbaba3
DougJ, I think you’ve been made. The inclusion of “teh” in his response is the tell. I think I see your problem of late. True centrists like you must be exceedingly rare, so you are way too easy to spot. I mean Bobo doesn’t read the WaPo, does he?
Perhaps you should troll from one of the fringes, for a change. I’m sure Spats could help you out with that from either side.
Corner Stone
@Davis X. Machina:
Exactly. Hate that fucking guy.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Cassidy: Good to know.
Baud
I don’t understand how Broder could be both disturbed and sanguin. If you’re sanguin, why would you be disturbed?
Warren Terra
You, sir, have achieved Poetry. The fact that HIRSCHFIELD was attempting to achieve Poetry only makes your achievement the greater.
kdaug
@DougJ: It’s m_c post-lithium.
tbunny
@Ted & Hellen:
Hirschfield’s comment is just as inane as DougJ’s. That’s what’s remarkable. Hirschfield’s sophisticated quibble is that it’s not the middle per se that holds all truth but some kind of triangulated position in between the two. In practice however Hirschfield’s procedure is indistinguishable from endlessly elevating a “middle” and holding that such a middle is always best.
bfr
I want to learn more about ‘teh purety.’ Where can I subscribe?
Mike in NC
You can start posting as ‘Sagely Sanguine DougJ’ immediately!
Cassidy
@kdaug: Let’s not disparage m_c to that degree. She had her issues and was a little casual with bigoted language, but she wasn’t nearly as obnoxious.
Jade Jordan
David Broder is certainly not looking down on us. He is gazing lovingly upward and seeing our A** cracks.
Lurking Canadian
I think you can retire now. The Broder-in-heaven post and reply might someday be equalled, but it will never be exceeded.
Yutsano
@Betty Cracker: That is indeed a thing of beauty. Although I think Herr Rabbi makes it easy.
SatanicPanic
That second one’s a keeper!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Sweet jumping jesus. I pretty much read all political journalism with the idea that they’re all Little Broders in the back of my mind, but… “beautiful and powerful”? Does the lad know David Broder’s penultimate column was a call on Obama to not only turn the government over to the losing candidate of the previous election, but that said losing candidate was the war-mongering nitwit who wanted to put Sarah Palin a heartbeat away from the presidency? Of course, he probably does.
ETA: David Broder in “Heaven”. Explaining to all the dead of the Iraq War that it really is all too bad that they were killed for no reason, but they must understand that there was bipartisan support for the war, so their deaths were quite justified in the minds of all serious and reasonable people.
RP
Is it really that hard to type “the”?
RP
What’s sad is that his response to “Both sides do it” is one of his better ones.
I don’t understand why this guy is talking about the fiscal cliff in the first place. Isn’t he supposed to talk about morality and ethics or something? Why is he opining on politics and economic issues that he obviously knows nothing about?
Corner Stone
@RP:
It brings up the curious possibility that he was spoofing the spoofer.
Legalize
Proto-punk David Broder.
SiubhanDuinne
@Chris:
S
There’s not enough bandwidth in the entirety of the Intertubes to list them.
EconWatcher
You have a tough job, trying to replicate your triumph with the “Burkean centrist” email to Sullivan. But keep trying!
Svensker
Dear DougJ,
You are my hero.
Sincerely, Svensker
Also, too, Hirschfield is right. Let’s take the age of the earth: One side says 6,000 years. The other side says 4.5 billion. Hirschfield’s Law of the Sacred Middle gives us 2,250,003,000 years as the agreed upon age of the earth. Let’s get those textbooks updated, folks.
Keith
So on one hand, you have a side thinking Broder is looking down at us from heaven. The other position would be that he’s looking up at us from hell. Split the difference, and it means that David Broder is buried in a hole doing nothing.
Woodrowfan
if Broder were alive today? He be pounding on the coffin lid screaming “LET ME OUT!”
Lex
@Ted & Hellen:
Actually, it goes a long way toward explaining just how idiotic our media are, and I feel perfectly comfortable saying that despite, or because of, having taken a paycheck from it for a quarter-century during my misspent youth.
(I’m now misspending middle age, too. It’s kind of fun.)
jibeaux
Sagely Sanguin needs to be the full legal name of whatever pet lands in Cole’s house next.
jibeaux
Sagely Sanguin [sic] needs to be the full legal name of whatever pet lands in Cole’s house next.
SFAW
DougJ –
Maybe I’m being a heretic, but, seriously, what’s your fucking point with all the trolling of people like Hirschfield? I can understand Sully, to some extent, because he’s so full of himself/shit. Maybe Hirschfield is too – never read him before this thread – but busting someone’s balls because he’s Broderian, just to show how fucking cool/smart/snarky/hip/dickish you are? Seems like there are about 8 billion more important things in this world, some of which you might actually have a positive impact on.
Which is not to say I think T&H has it right – his time would be better spent working on his art, than trying to tell us all how we’re to the right of Nixon, etc. Nixon? Yah, right. When I want to read insightful/intelligent commentary, few can match T&H’s wit and wisdom. His wisdom is exceeded only by Jonah Glodberg or Jeff Jacoby (a/k/a “Older Jonah”).
RP
@Corner Stone: I don’t think so. I’ve read previous chats and he does it all the time. (although I guess it’s possible that it’s some sort of ongoing meta joke. But that seems unlikely.)
Bill Murray
@Svensker: wrong. It gives 5,196,152.423 years. and it’s sky baklava not sky cake
RP
Jeez…lighten up, Francis.
Felonius Monk
David in NY
@Corner Stone: I don’t get this Reagan-O’Neill crap. I don’t watch TV, so I don’t know the CW very well, but my memory of the situation in about ’82 was that what happened when Reagan got together with O’Neill, was that Reagan (and the Republicans) ate his lunch. That is, they agreed to “compromise,” then O’Neill kept his end of the bargain, Reagan and the R’s Senate didn’t.
But it was a long time ago.
nastybrutishntall
I think that Broderism arises out of the inability to recognize one’s own participation in the banality of evil.
You’re an idealistic journalist, you graduate from the best programs, you get the good job at the big news organization, you meet the important people who, even if you don’t agree with their positions, are nice enough, with a sense of humor, and quite human. So these people whom you have cocktails with become people you don’t want to embarrass or criticize too harshly without overwhelming evidence, institutional support, and faith in one’s own professional security.
In other words, never. And this doesn’t make you a bad person. Or any worse than all the rest.
Just not better.
LanceThruster
@Corner Stone:
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us? (formerly MarkJ)
@Svensker: Ur doing it wrong. One idea is that the earth is 6,000 years old, because the Bible says so. The other extreme says it’s 4.5 billion years old, it’s what science says.
We must borrow ideas from both sides to come up with the true answer. The truth is that the earth is 4.5 billion years old, but was in a completely different location in the galaxy, billions of light years from here. Around 6,000 years ago, a mysterious force, call it God, pushed it into a wormhole where it was instantaneously positioned exactly where it is now relative to the Sun, providing the perfect climate for life. So, both sides have a point, but neither is completely right.
Culture of Truth
What a beautiful and powerful image to evoke. David Broder indeed. Thank you, especially from me personally, as he is one of my role models.
NSFW
Comrade Mary
@Baud: “Sanguin” doesn’t mean “sanguine”. It means “bloody penguin”, which is a pretty damn disturbing image, if you ask me.
Grumpy Code Monkey
Disturbed, but wisely and cheerfully optimistic about it? What the fuck?
…okay, who broke block quotes?
Ted & Hellen
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
DO try to keep up, child.
I WAS Spatula until DougJ pulled on of his sensitive feefee pouty pants routines and banned me without regard to the clearly defined parameters of Cole’s banning policy.
So…as he always does because he has some integrity, Cole restored my commenting privileges under another nym. This has happened many times. It’s some kind of a weird dance DougJ and JC do.
As for who has recently been commenting under my old nym Spatula, I do not know. Though naturally I suspect Doug Tender Fee Fees J.
MTiffany
Put down the blunt DougJ, and back away from that blotter…
SFAW
@Comrade Mary:
OK, I take it all back, Doug – if your trolling can produce a response like this, it was worth it.
You’re still being a dick, of course, but at least we get some benefit from it.
raven
@Joel: Every time you talk to it it hangs around more.
General Stuck
While the truth is usually not in the middle. The votes often are.
Ted & Hellen
@Svensker:
Which would be awesome and snarky except that’s not what he said at all. Get a new brain.
gene108
@David in NY:
O’Neil behaved the way normal Congressmen would’ve done to a President in the opposing party.
Since the President was elected by all the people, they let the President set the agenda and negotiate with the President on how the agenda should be implemented.
“Old School” Republicans thought like this in 1993, which is why the Heritage Foundation churned out what would eventually be the blueprint for “RomneyCare” in Massachusetts and Obamacare, the opposition party opposed by bringing alternatives to the President’s agenda.
From 1993 onwards Congressional Republicans stood that idea on its head and decided they could drive the national agenda, irrespective of whatever mandate an elected President is supposed to have. If the President wasn’t onboard with the Republican agenda, they’d just flat out oppose whatever he proposed.
Killjoy
@Baud: The truth would lie somewhere in the middle, as always.
Thomas F
Doug, something about the all-caps headlines in the WaPo Q/A’s puts me in stiches. Thanks for making my humpday that much easier.
les
@Ted & Hellen:
When you went to Dick School, did you major in humorless?
Taylormattd
Holy fuck, that last exchange makes me want to kill myself.
scav
First, Many would be at least slightly disturbed if they were sprinkled with sage, or perhaps they’d first have to be slighly disturbed in order to stand around patiently, let alone sanguinly, while being sprinkled with the bloody sage.
Second, ponder the life status of the famous boxed cat under his broderesque conditions.
Cassidy
@raven: I keep waiting for just Hellen to come and tell us Ted walked in front of a bus.
Ted & Hellen
@SFAW:
Cute how you wanted so badly, and did!, call DougJ the dick he is, but were quick to back off any perceived alliance with the dreaded Ted & Hellen, who has so much influence as a front pager on this blog, so as to retain your seat at the table next to the table at which the cool kids sit.
Well done.
SFAW
@les:
Actually, he had to CREATE that major, because of his breaking new ground in the field.
shortstop
Dougie, you fucking crack me up.
Ted & Hellen
@SFAW:
Of course you do…
Cassidy
Awww…SFAW has his own little stalker. Bring the chickens in at night. You don’t want your poultry to be “tenderized”.
Corner Stone
@RP:
Good God. Why?
Liberty60
@Svensker:
No, read Hirschfield carefully.
Sometimes the Truth is an amalgam of the two extremist positions.
For instance, the formless void may be 4.5 billion years old, however the waters parted from the firmament only 6,000 years ago.
So really, both sides are right, in their own way.
This is the sort of intellectual sophistication that most bloggers don’t understand, and only Beltway commentators can grasp.
SFAW
@Ted & Hellen:
Amusing how much you flatter yourself. Others, with less insecurity or cluelessness, might have seen the comment as being backhanded snark.
And, in the real world, unlike in T&HWorld! !, a person can have the same view as some (unnamed) clueless fuck about one or more issues, without it being an “alliance.” But that’s kind of an advanced concept, apparently, so I ain’t expecting you to get it.
I’m also not expecting you to get over yourself any time before the meteor hits, either. Thanks for reinforcing my assessment.
Culture of Truth
Sanguin” doesn’t mean “sanguine”. It means “bloody penguin”, which is a pretty damn disturbing image, if you ask me.
The controvery was well covered in Holy Penguin, Bloody Penguin, soon to be a movie with Tom Hanks directed by Opie.
JPL
@SFAW: It brings us pleasure and I’m jealous of his skills.
SFAW
@Cassidy:
I appreciate the warning, it hadn’t occurred to me. On the other hand, we got fishers, foxes, and coyotes ’round hyar, so chickens don’t last too long if you don’t bring them in.
But does this mean we now have to say “Keep tenderizing that chicken”? Instead of the original?
Cassidy
@SFAW: Thought I’d change it up a bit.
SFAW
@JPL:
That doesn’t make you a bad person, though.
Gravenstone
@RP: Yse it is.
eyelessgame
“If it’s any comfort, I think he would be not only disturbed, but sagely sanguin. He would caution us to combine outrage about what is going on in both parties, but also remind us that we are a great nation populated with good people, and that we have every reason to believe that however bumpy the road, we will travel the road to a better place.”
That’s straight out of Cold Reading 101 – to sound like you’re saying something profound by combining opposing traits. “You hate hard work, but you’re willing to do it when needed. You are quick to form opinions, but always open to revising them when you find they’re wrong.”
It’s obvious enough that I wonder if he was subtly trolling you back.
Culture of Truth
He would caution us to combine outrage about what is going on in both parties, but also remind us
Combine our outrages into one big OUTRAGE?
TooManyJens
@Culture of Truth: An Outrage Voltron, if you will.
Gah, that reply pissed me off. Fuck this “both parties” false equivalence bullshit.
grandpa john
@Keith: Perfect; Located exactly where he should be doing what he was most capable of doing.
Cervantes
@Gin & Tonic: Actually, Tip is buried in Harwich Port on Cape Cod. There is a cenotaph for him at the Congressional Cemetery in DC.
shortstop
I think we may be giving Mr. Hirschfield too much credit when we wonder if he was trolling back. First, he’s never shown much perspicacity so far. Second, I doubt he would construct answers to target one cynical reader rather than play to the hordes of Village pablum-consuming citizens who make up his usual audience.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
Let’s see – communism and fascism are extreme opposites. Communists believe in political repression and government ownership of capital. Fascists believe in political repression and capital ownership of government.
So we can meet in the middle and take their point of agreement as good, right?
steve
Did anyone see Adam Gopnick, in a New Yoker last year, thoroughly destroy Tom Friedman? Here’s an excerpt. No linky available, though if you want, you can all probly find it by going through your public library website. It’s from the Sept 12, 2011 issue. Here’s the relevant excerpt:
__
Svensker
@Liberty60:
Thank you. I see the era of my ways, now.
jamick6000
haha amazing. Favorite part that (I don’t think) anyone has brought up: “If He’s looking down on us from heaven, what do you think he might be thinking?”
I love the capital H in He referring to Broder. He is the God of bipartisan centrists.
RP
@Corner Stone: Because they were linked here. I swear!
Corner Stone
@shortstop:
But the perfect answer does both. And only one, if suitably trolled, would recognize it. The others would sip their mocha grande no fat triple shot with cinnamon latte for $11 and nod their heads slightly.
shortstop
@Corner Stone: Certainly. Do you think Hirschfield has it in him?
SFAW
@Corner Stone:
Half-caf or full-caf?
Corner Stone
@shortstop: I don’t know. But it’s far more entertaining to consider the possibility.
Anne Laurie
Sorry, DougJ — I think you & Hirschfeld are now trolling each other, which is kind of the working definition of “pointless”. But, hey: Your time, your entertainment!
slag
I wonder how many DougJ trollposts it would have taken here to get Broder sanguinely sagely disturbed? Sanguinely disturbedly saged?
DougJ, your mission is left undone. Science demands answers to the question of how many different combinations deceased David Broder can find for cheerful optimism, distracted anxiety, and wisdom/herbal essence.
ruemara
I’m still stuck on the misspelling of “sanguine” for “sanguin” meaning, blood red cloth. Of course, I do find Broderism to be a red flag to me, so perhaps it’s just meta.
khead
I, for one, welcome our new troll, T&H.
Omnes Omnibus
@Culture of Truth: Opus is directing penguin snuff films now?
DougJ
@jamick6000:
Glad someone caught that touch!
feebog
Let’s remember that this post is just one day after 38 -assholes- Republicans voted to block a treaty encouraging all nations to treat the disabled with dignity and respect. Dougs point, once again and always is that MSM and the Villagers just cannot get past the “both sides do it” meme. Bullshit. Both sides do not do it. Both sides do not stick up for the wealthy while shitting on those without a voice.
Omnes Omnibus
@DougJ: Frankly, I have always been partial to your harangue against long division. The very bizarreness of it appeals to my sense of whimsy.
shortstop
@jamick6000: I missed that! Fantastic.
SFAW
@feebog:
And thank FSM that DougJ is here to point that out, because none of us here has ever heard that before.
Well, not more than 83 gazillion times before, but when DougJ does it, he somehow manages to make it fresh and new.
kbsuttle
Jesus. What a masterful effort. I’ve been reading and loving this site for years, but have just kind of lurked and enjoyed but never engaged. You sir, with this post, have broken the inertia. Here it is, my one and only comment at Balloon Juice ever: This was fucking genius. Your best trolling effort so far, and the Broder follow up . . . for the win, indeed. Amazing what people will say when they don’t know they’re being ruthlessly, ruthlessly mocked.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@steve: Great article. Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Em Aych
@SFAW:
Why troll those guys? Because it’s a hilarious way to point out how much damage they’re causing. Hirschfeld and other Broderians are viewed by many as valid sources of info about the budget debate. The Republican side right now is unambiguously and categorically wrong. This needs to be called out clearly until they reform.
The question to ask is: what wrong would the Republicans have to commit before someone like Hirschfeld would finally call them out? What would have to happen before he’d stop having his fictional Broder cry tears from heaven? I’d bet there is none. I bet they could keep marching in the direction they’re in, and they’d never be called out.
This is a huge, huge weakness in our national discourse. There is no penalty from the press for unilaterally engaging in destructive behavior. It encourages the sociopaths among us (like those running the Romney campaign) to lie as blatantly as he did–because they know they can get away with it.
Also: it’s hilarious to make fun of someone who is so arrogant as to put words in a dead man’s mouth.
SFAW
@Em Aych:
I think there’s a difference between “calling them out”, and trolling them as Doug does. The former is (theoretically) designed to get them to change their behavior, the latter is to show BJ readers just how fucking smart/ironic/cutesy DougJ can be, and look-at-how-stupid-my-latest-MSM/Broderian-target-is.
Yes, Doug, we all know the “both sides do it” meme results from laziness, fear, some combination of the two, or possibly some additional motive. We’ve known it for years, we’ve laughed (ruefully) about it for years, and so forth and so on. But after awhile, the schtick gets really fucking old.
Hirschfield’s a FSM-
goddam religion columnist, he’s not a Bobo, or Douchehat, or Friedman. Maybe Doug will troll a movie reviewer next? This whole trolling-the-quasi-pundits things is starting to remind me of “Glory Days”.You and I have different criteria for what’s hilarious, obviously.
Thomas F
@SFAW: Do you see any evidence — whatsoever — that the media zeitgest has taken DougJ’s crusade to heart? Until then, I say the more juvenile trolling of self-satisfied media blowhards, the better.
Ted & Hellen
Em Aych = DougJ?
Just sayin…
ranchandsyrup
Damn you doug for earworming Alanis for me.
SFAW
@Thomas F:
No. Why would they? It’s not as if DougJ has any following outside of these four walls (so to speak).
@Thomas F:
Why? Seriously, why? It’s just another form of narcissism. Maybe not initially, but after the 3,271st time it is. Now, I like busting balls as much as the next person, and I’ve trolled some Reichtard sites in the past, but as I’ve advanced closer to dotage (if not there already, of course), I’ve realized that not everyone needs to have their (literal or figurative) balls busted, even if they may deserve it. And doing the “Hey look at me! Look at who I trolled! A third-stringer for the Topeka Times-Picayune! Woohoo!” thing to excess – as Doug has done – gets old.
ETA: And, yes, I realize you may have been trolling me. But trolling or not, I figured you deserved a serious answer.
A moocher
@eyelessgame: I think so too…it was a artful, chin-stroking counter-troll. Because nobody could be that staggeringly drooly of an idjit.
redshirt
@A moocher: If it was a counter troll, it was cunning and subtle. Powerful troll-fu. But since this can be recognized, it can also be counter-counter trolled. And so on and such possibly to infinity, where, I like to believe, lives The Troll of All Trolls, The Trolliest, or, as others refer to this force, “God”.
JPK
Excellent, esp. the Broder!
pattonbt
@Ted & Hellen: This is like the least ban-happy place on the net. You have to cross some pretty far lines to get banned here. Generally trollery far from being enough.
Notice you are still here, case closed.
Tony the WonderHorse
David Broder is dead?
Humble Lurker
@Ted & Hellen:
Huh. I don’t consider banning someone who defends pedophiles to be thin-skinned, but hey, that’s me.
hep kitty
Let’s see now. Like it or not, I have been listening to the other side for 12 years now. I didn’t like what I heard. I don’t like what I’m hearing. They have been wrong on virtually everything and practically destroyed this country.
So I’m somewhat justifiably perplexed by this notion, or rather insistence, that I’m supposed to listen to, much less consider, anything they have to say whatsoever within the remainder of my years on earth.
That is unless they get down on their knees, beg our forigiveness and turn over all the loot they stole from us, then I might reconsider. Also, I am not averse to a few minutes in a “quiet room” with a baseball bat.
libarbarian
What a crock.
Once one of two parties has decided that their relationship is a zero-sum game … it starts being a zero-sum game.
The GOP made that decision and now that’s exactly what the game is.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
Once one of two parties has decided that their relationship is a zero-sum game … it starts being a zero-sum game.
Assuming, of course, both parties are playing the same game.
The Republicans, for example, may be playing the “feather my nest with wingnut welfare” game while teh Democrats think they’re playing politics.