Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

Also, are you sure you want people to rate your comments?

Fucking consultants! (of the political variety)

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Is trump is trying to break black America over his knee? signs point to ‘yes’.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

the 10% who apparently lack object permanence

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Those who are easily outraged are easily manipulated.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

This fight is for everything.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, door #2)

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you do not.

You are here: Home / Justice / LGBTQ Rights / Gay Rights are Human Rights / This Makes No Sense to Me

Reader Interactions

234Comments

  1. 1.

    JPL

    According to American Prospect, Ezra did not read his homophobic articles. Also, too, Ezra doesn’t know what the google is.

  3. 3.

    Thomas F

    What makes no sense is why Ezra Klein is qualified to read a news wire, much less contextualize it for the hoi polloi. The man is in serious running, right behind Colin Powell, as one of the most overrated mediocrities of the past century.

  5. 5.

    ranchandsyrup

    How’s Ezra gonna play this? So far he’s trotted out the “I want diversity in opinions” angle. Which, as I related earlier, is like saying that Jenny McCarthy provides a diversity of opinion about vaccinations.

    He may go full GG and tell everyone that they’re too dumb/obot/evil to understand the brilliance. Was reading earlier how EK thinks he’s post-politics (posited as a newish characteristic of the center left) and then seems confused when Paul Ryan plays him after EK goes to lengths to prop him up.

  8. 8.

    Keith G

    It’s kinda of like the soon-to-be President Obama inviting noted homophobe Rick Warren to be one of the public faces of his inaugural – which is one of the most important messaging days for a new president.

    Actually, its not like that since the Obama decision was much, much worse for many of us who trust and respect the President.

    Sometime you just have to suck it up and see how it plays out.

  10. 10.

    lamh36

    I have always thought of Ezra as one of those book smart people who just doens’t have any common sense. My sister is like that, she is really smart, yet she’s always caught off guard by the most mundane and common things that other people just never fall prey too.

    I mean, if you hire someone to write stuff, wouldn’t common sense tell you to, IDK, make sure you’ve read as much of what they’ve written before hiring them?

  11. 11.

    yoohoocthulhu

    @Thomas F:

    What makes no sense is why Ezra Klein is qualified to read a news wire, much less contextualize it for the hoi polloi.

    Umm, he’s sort of already been doing that with WonkBlog. Granted, Vox will cover more topics.

  12. 12.

    John Weiss

    What’s all the fuss? Who gives a crap who Mr. Klein hires? Who gives a crap about the opinions of a gay anti-gay? Confused, I think; I know I was when I was 23.

  14. 14.

    schrodinger's cat

    BTW I never got all the Ezra hype. His breathless reporting on the ACA website roll-out, was quite Broderian. He is very much the both sides do it, CW peddling, Beltway reporter.

  15. 15.

    Elizabelle

    Did Jan Brewer decline to run again because she’s Ezra Klein’s still not disclosed recent hire?

  16. 16.

    Anne Laurie

    … Says the man who gave Erik Kane the keys here!

    I think Gabriel Arana at the American Prospect said it best:

    Arana wrote that the problem with hiring Ambrosino wasn’t that his views offend some in the gay community, “it’s that Ambrosino’s quick rise to notoriety—and now, his ticket aboard the profession’s hottest new upstart—is an object lesson in the way new media equates click-bait contrarianism with serious thought, and gives hacks a platform in the name of ideological balance.”

  17. 17.

    p.a.

    Klein reminds me of the joke about the ACLU defending the Nazi Party’s right to burn down ACLU headquarters.

  19. 19.

    Hunter Gathers

    Ezra was afraid that he might look up from his Iphone while reading The Note and not see a DudeBro.

  23. 23.

    burnspbesq

    @p.a.:

    Klein reminds me of the joke about the ACLU defending the Nazi Party’s right to burn down ACLU headquarters.

    That’s not a joke, shit-for-brans. It is the very essence of what the ACLU is about.

    I’m going to give Ezra the benefit of the doubt, and assume that the Master Plan is to set this jackalope up to fail gloriously, and we will then be rid of him.

  27. 27.

    Anne Laurie

    @PaulW:

    Must have bribed the interviewers with donuts and lattes

    Not hipster enuf. Is ‘cronuts‘ still The Thing, or have the fedora’d beardies moved on to an even more twee sweetie?….

    (aagh. From the link: “a new milk-filled chocolate chip cookie shot glass creation” at SXSW!)

  31. 31.

    Corner Stone

    @ranchandsyrup:

    He may go full GG and tell everyone that they’re too dumb/obot/evil to understand the brilliance.

    Could you explain what this means?

  34. 34.

    lahke

    I figured that it’s the liberal version of Hannity hiring Colmes–setting yourself up for easy wins in the debates.

  35. 35.

    Keith G

    @ranchandsyrup: I only know of his work through second hand info, so I will be curious to see what his writ from Ezra is and what editorial guidance/limits he is given. If he lives down to his reputation, that’s too bad for all, especially Ezra,

  36. 36.

    JR

    Ambrosino is a graduate of Jerry Falwell’s Liberty “University.”

    Let me repeat that: Ambrosino is a graduate of Jerry Falwell’s Liberty “University.”

    WTF? Regardless of anything else, how can anyone take a graduate of a fake university seriously? Going to Falwell’s fundamentalist churchy conjob should be disqualifying in itself.

    So, once again, Ambrosino is a graduate of Jerry Falwell’s Liberty “University.” Right now Vox sounds like it’ll be a low rent version of Politico. Who aspires to that?

  37. 37.

    Violet

    I told you the Vox site is the New Village. The intro video gave it all away. Contrived hipster vibe. Same old conventional wisdom. Blech.

  42. 42.

    Corner Stone

    Ezra’s going to eject this guy just as fast as John Edwards did for his “internet advance team” when he ran for president.

  43. 43.

    ranchandsyrup

    @Corner Stone: Glenn responds to criticism and pushback in those ways. Not always though. Your mileage does vary. I try not to hold it against the points he’s trying to make. Sometimes even successfully.

  45. 45.

    geg6

    @JR:

    Not only is he a graduate of Liberty Non-university, but he has written glowingly about how totally awesome and funny and fatherly and super cool Jerry Falwell was and that we feminazis and lie-berals are total doody heads for not cutting the wonderful Dr. Falwell any breaks.

    ETA: One of the pieces of evidence he uses to show how super cool Falwell was was that the sainted reverend used to wear an electric blue afro wig for laughs. Highlarious! Such high jinks!

  46. 46.

    Corner Stone

    @ranchandsyrup: Bullshit. There is nothing here in Ezra’s hire that you can even begin to bring Greenwald into unless you’re predisposed to just get your hate on.
    That was a stupid fucking comment.

  48. 48.

    LT

    If he un-hires him – betch $10 he does – it makes a lot of sense. A LOT more people know about Ezra’s new thing today than before this.

    P.S. I don’t even think that’s necessarily a bad thing. I just don’t care that much. All I really care about is the fact that arthritis appears to be taking over my body. So fuck you. Whoever you are.

  51. 51.

    DougJ

    @lamh36:

    There’s a weird lack of overlap between various types of intelligence. None of my colleagues can keep up with me in a conversation, though many are much more accomplished intellectually, and I can’t keep up with my uncle who barely graduated from high school and can’t add one digit numbers.

  54. 54.

    Heliopause

    @Keith G:

    What I find most frustrating is when I first become aware of something like this. I had no idea who this individual was until I ran into a few posts on liberal blogs today, which generally either paraphrased what he supposedly has written or excerpted a couple of paragraphs.

    Was he fairly paraphrased or quoted in context? No idea.

    Assuming he was, was he self-evidently wrong, or are there arguments for and against his position? Bloggers tend to go for the former rather than the latter.

    Assuming he’s wrong, were these couple of quotes one or two-offs? Does he generally write well and insightfully, and these were just a couple of turds he crapped out, or is he just consistently full of shit? Again, no idea.

    When something like this crops up I have this very bizarre thing that I do. If I want to get to the bottom of it I go back to original sources and read full context. I know, pretty radical. The frustration stems from the fact that some fucking thing like this crops up almost every day, so many of them I simply have to drop and move on.

  56. 56.

    Baud

    @DougJ:

    There’s a weird lack of overlap between various types of intelligence.

    Why do you think that’s weird?

  57. 57.

    Corner Stone

    @DougJ:

    None of my colleagues can keep up with me in a conversation

    To be fair, almost no one else has the etched in glass memory of song titles of the last 80 years rambling through their brainpans.

  59. 59.

    geg6

    @DougJ:

    Oh god, that is so fucking depressing. I thought once those old Village idiots died off or shuffled off to Martha’s Vineyard to retire that maybe some people like Josh Marshall would become more prominent in our national conversations, but it looks like the ones who will be there will be the least interesting, most glibertarian spewers of the Juicebox Mafia. I’m doomed to end my life still avoiding links to Matty Y’s horrid spelling and clueless privilege and Ezra Klein’s desperate Villager wannabe flailings. It makes me want to just get it over with now.

  60. 60.

    geg6

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    Undoubtedly. Her book came and went without any splash at all and is currently littering the remainder bins, so I’m sure she needs something to fill in the time between playing with her Vitamix and admiring her collection of colored salt.

  64. 64.

    NotMax

    Too much – way, way too much – of the so-called New Media views having a flavor of the month as opposed to a flavor of the week as long-term strategic thinking, outmoded and antique in the post-modern ‘now is too slow, can’t we move on faster?’ environment. And editors? Lumbering dinosaurs who slow the mad dash.

    Clickbait is fine, so long as it a tool and not a purpose, a means and not an end. It is a design in icing with which to sell the cake. Problem is that the ‘news cycle’ is made up of more and more icing and less and less cake.

  65. 65.

    Cassidy

    Media personality who has risen to came being a young villager creates website to continue doing the same…what’s hard to understand? Jesus, most of these people would perform sex acts for money to stay in the club.

  72. 72.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    OT, I’m betting the South Carolina Tea Party will not be amused by Lindsey Graham’s hot mike exchange with John Kerry

    “Hey John, good job. Let me know what I can do to help you with [House Speaker John] Boehner,” Graham said.

  73. 73.

    ? Martin

    So, Ezra goes and looks for a conservative voice and everyone is pissed because the guy is a dick. Is there some alternative that we’re unaware of?

  77. 77.

    geg6

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    I am ordering the Ann Taylor in magenta. The shooz I will take much more time and deliberation because I absolutely love shooz and shoo shopping. Quite unlike my feelings on dress shopping.

  78. 78.

    Keith G

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Yup, I think that comment nails it. This is about clickbait. Ezra is a whore, like all Villager scum.

    What, no tumbrels?

    As far as: “This is about clickbait. Ezra is a whore,”

    Maybe it is. There are very few free lunches. Ezra has a boss. Maybe he does have certain targets to meet to keep his perch. And like a literal whore (isn’t this a sort of misogynistic term ready for retirement?) maybe he has to reach out to some he would rather not.

    I donno. All this is speculation.

  83. 83.

    Narcissus

    @MikeJ: This should be the part that people focus on, not this dude’s self-hatred or whatever. It’s all patronage and nepotism in the Village.

  92. 92.

    Pogonip

    @geg6: What’s the occasion?

    I have weird-shaped feet so I hate shoes, shoe shopping, and every damned shoe manufacturer in China. Also the foot doctor has sentenced me to sensible shoes. Wear sensible shoes for 9 years and see how tired of them you get. I was not even a shoe freak but at this point I’d even wear Sarah Palin’s tastefully restrained red fvck-me shoes if I could. (By the way, do any other female politicians wear hooker shoes? I can’t think of any.)

  97. 97.

    Pogonip

    @Pogonip: Sorry about calling them hooker shoes, Keith G. I hadn’t got to your remark when I typed mine. Let’s refer to them as “entrepreneurial shoes,” instead.

  100. 100.

    Keith G

    @Pogonip:

    (By the way, do any other female politicians wear hooker shoes? I can’t think of any.)

    Possibly Kristin M. Davis.

    Edit: No…No skin off my whatever. I was just wondering. So many phrases have been “red-lined” (rightfully so in most cases), that I find it interesting that that one keeps on being used.

  102. 102.

    Schlemizel

    @Howard Beale IV:

    Anti-sully? That would require that he always took the right side of the argument, always supported the humane position & defaulted to the best in humanity and then 6 months to a year later, when it no longer mattered to anyone would admit he was wrong and the racist, pointless-war mongering, anti-human assholes were correct all along & he was misunderstood or misled.

    Such a human is not possible, the hypocrisy would cause a human to collapse under the shear weigt of being that big an asshole.

  103. 103.

    Anoniminous

    @kc:

    I hadn’t. But then I don’t follow the ups and downs of Teh Mediums so that says nothing.

  104. 104.

    A Humble Lurker

    @Keith G:
    I missed the part where Obama gave the guy a job to continuously provide speeches or written words or what have you. Link?

  105. 105.

    Cervantes

    @Pogonip:

    (By the way, do any other female politicians wear hooker shoes? I can’t think of any.)

    I saw Golda Meir’s shoe-rack once. You can cross her off your list.

  106. 106.

    max

    This Makes No Sense to Me

    They liked the band’s first record better.

    max
    [‘Before they sold out.’]

  108. 108.

    Cervantes

    @A Humble Lurker:

    I missed the part where Obama gave the guy a job to continuously provide speeches or written words or what have you. Link?

    You missed that part and you also missed these parts: “kinda of like” and “its not like that.”

    Someone else here has the Foolish Literalism covered. Maybe find yourself another angle?

  110. 110.

    Amir Khalid

    @Pogonip:
    Aside from that Filipina lady, who might not count since she wasn’t an officeholder herself, I think Sarah Palin is the only politician, male or female, whose shoes anyone gave a damn about.

  115. 115.

    mclaren

    America, now an oligarchy, follows the familiar pattern — to rise in power and prestige and wealth, you must increasingly make more authoritarian bigoted noises. If Ezra Klein becomes successful enough, soon he’ll have to start screaming for the invasion of middle eastern countries, the imprisonment of poor people for the “crime” of lacking income, and eventually, if Klein gets into the truly stratsopheric upper reaches of wealth and power, he’ll have to start pounding the table and shouting for labor unions to be disbanded, for gays to be killed in the streets, for “feminazis” to be lobotomized, and for university professors to get run out American colleges and chipped like dogs and used to test dangerous experimental drugs.

  116. 116.

    Keith G

    @A Humble Lurker: No he did worse. He is the President – was about to be the President. Just giving Warren time at the podium on that day was worth years of blog posts that get thousands of views.

    The good news is that the Republic survived Rick Warren and it will survive whatever the hell his name is, but don’t conflate the power of Presidential recognition with the power of a website that isn’t even up yet.

    Good grief.

  118. 118.

    J.Ty

    I won’t link, but Sully’s predictably happy about this development, and has some really impressive leaps of logic from bloggers writing “maybe not hire this asshole” to his conclusion that liberals are the *real* bigoted speech police!

    Not like those conservatives and their Free Speech Zones, no siree.

  120. 120.

    Amir Khalid

    @schrodinger’s cat:
    Don’t know about studio aerobics. But when I was a runner, I had more than one pair of (cheap*) shoes at a time, just to rotate them and spread out the wear. Of course, this was back when sports footwear was not absurdly expensive like it is now.

    *Well, cheap-ish.

  121. 121.

    Suffern ACE

    So the hiring of the gay one went well. Did anyone bother to read the black one’s articles before hiring him or her?

  122. 122.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @geg6: You are in a vaguely mother of the bride/groom role, right? Don’t let them trap you in the dowdy middle aged shit. Just look good, but not like you are trying to overshadow the bride or the actual mother thereof and you should be fine.

  123. 123.

    Corner Stone

    @ranchandsyrup: Why wouldn’t you just say, “I wonder if Ezra’s going to pushback on criticism of this hire?”
    How you got to where you got is really ridiculous.

  127. 127.

    geg6

    @Pogonip:

    My John’s daughter is getting married in August. Shopping for special guest/sort of step-mother-of-the-bride dress is horrific, without even getting into being weirdly shaped, apparently. Because no dresses ever fit me off the rack. Why women’s dresses aren’t all sold like men’s suits are: with alterations as a given, at least when buying better labels. I don’t really know many women who are the same size on the top as the bottom.

  130. 130.

    J.Ty

    This what’s his face guy’s gotta be trolling. A 23-year-old wrote this?

    …The current landscape of queer politics is growing increasingly hostile. We no longer prize intellectual conversation, preferring instead to dismiss our opponents in 140-character feats of rhetoric. We routinely scour the private lives and social media accounts of our political opponents in the hopes of demonizing them as archaic, unthinking, and bigoted…

    It’s like it came from a particularly well-programed Markov model trained on a bunch of David Brooks columns.

    And I guess we’re just pretending the Upton Sinclair gubernatorial campaign happened not almost 100 years ago but, like, last week, now.

  132. 132.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Pogonip:

    (By the way, do any other female politicians wear hooker shoes? I can’t think of any.)

    Condi, maybe? (Not sure if she qualifies as a “politician.”) (Also not sure if they were “hooker shoes.” But Imelda Marcos is long dead, so you takes what you gets.)

  134. 134.

    Anne Laurie

    @Pogonip:

    I have weird-shaped feet so I hate shoes, shoe shopping, and every damned shoe manufacturer in China. Also the foot doctor has sentenced me to sensible shoes. Wear sensible shoes for 9 years and see how tired of them you get. I was not even a shoe freak but at this point I’d even wear Sarah Palin’s tastefully restrained red fvck-me shoes if I could.

    “Sensible”, defined how? Just ‘no heels, no pointy toes’, or do you need them to fit orthotics?

    I’m in category one — with the additional complication that I have really fat insteps (flat soles, high sole-to-top-of-arch ratio) so mostly what I can wear are ‘ballet flats’ and mary janes. (Even when Dansko finally came out with wide widths, their shoes don’t fit my insteps.) But the Cuteness factor has really improved in the last decade or so… one of the few advantages of having the early Baby Boomers right ahead of me in the age cohort! I like Maryland Square and FootSmart for standards, but if you’re in a browsing mood, even 6pm.com can be a good source for impulse buys (like a pair of willow-green suede low-heel pumps with bronze buckle trim). And all three companies, like most these days, have excellent return policies just in case…

  136. 136.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @J.Ty:

    And I guess we’re just pretending the Upton Sinclair gubernatorial campaign happened not almost 100 years ago but, like, last week, now.

    Upton Sinclair was involved in queer politics?

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    But are they hooker boots?

    The tan suede chelsea boots are a little whorish, I guess.

  137. 137.

    GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)

    Too late to /thread, I’m sure but Klein is a fucking bonehead.

  138. 138.

    mclaren

    @J.Ty:

    It’s like it came from a particularly well-programed Markov model trained on a bunch of David Brooks columns.

    You, sir, have just described America’s mainstream media.

  139. 139.

    J.Ty

    @Omnes Omnibus: I was thinking of the last part I quoted: “We routinely scour the private lives and social media accounts of our political opponents in the hopes of demonizing them as archaic, unthinking, and bigoted,” which he offers up as a new phenomenon ‘cuz mean qweerz and Twitter.

    ETA: Obviously Sinclair didn’t have any social media accounts, but countertop inspections are not new.

  142. 142.

    kindness

    Hiring a self-loathing gay man makes sense if all you want is click-bait. Controversial columns are click-bait. If Vox had no advertising it would be a different crew.

  144. 144.

    J.Ty

    @Omnes Omnibus: Also, as far as I know, as an active Socialist in the 30’s he may very well have been involved in the pre-Mattachine era of secret queer organizing at least peripherally.

  145. 145.

    GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)

    @Keith G:

    Actually, its not like that since the Obama decision was much, much worse for many of us who trust and respect the President.

    You have repeatedly demonstrated that you are not one of these.

  146. 146.

    ranchandsyrup

    @Corner Stone: fair enough. That Ezra and Glenn are similarly situated in their new projects with hiring writers that brought it together for me. Glenn has a penchant for those types of responses. One man’s reasonable inferences are another man’s “douche”.
    Your lens is fascinating.

  147. 147.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @J.Ty:

    pre-Mattachine era

    To the google machine with me, stat.

    ETA: One learns something every day.

  149. 149.

    Keith G

    @GHayduke (formerly lojasmo): That’s just nonsensical.

    I trust him as much as one should trust another human being who happens to make a living being a politician in modern America. The President did not spring fully formed from the head of Zeus, therefore a degree of mortal skepticism is always in order. That is a very American outlook.

    Because I do not embrace him with religious fervor, you think that I do not, in balance, appreciate his service?

    edited

  150. 150.

    Mandalay

    @Thomas F:

    right behind Colin Powell, as one of the most overrated mediocrities of the past century

    Maybe, but there are many things far more unkind to say about Colin Powell. His mediocrity wouldn’t even appear on a top ten list.

  153. 153.

    Xantar

    @Keith G:

    Oh get the fuck over yourself. A little speech by Rick Warren which nobody remembers today is a massive betrayal of Obama’s base? A speech which never once mentioned anything about gay rights? When the history of gay rights is written, do you think anybody is seriously going to focus on that? Or do you think they’ll look at, say, the repeal of DADT, the overturning of DOMA, the extension of rights to same-sex partners of federal employees, and dozens of other little advances which had real impacts on real people? Do you derive your nutrition from symbolism? Because that’s the only way I can explain how you could otherwise think there’s any kind of equivalence here.

  158. 158.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Cervantes: Okay, the Nazis should be just as free as anyone else to burn down the house. Will that do? I believe I have brokered an adequate compromise.

  160. 160.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    @Pogonip:

    I have come to love Jambu shoes, especially their sandals. And Merrells are good, too. It took me a while to figure out that if I have narrow heels, I need size N or AA.

    Also, I have at least five pairs of shoes just for bicycling (three pairs of casual sneakers, two pairs of work-appropriate sandals).

  161. 161.

    Cervantes

    @Keith G:

    the power of Presidential recognition

    But are you certain that being up there with Barack Hussein Obama was a net plus for Warren?

    I’m not sure it was.

  162. 162.

    Corner Stone

    @ranchandsyrup:

    Your lens is fascinating.

    My lens? My lens is fascinating?
    Did you really just see what you did here? You brought Greenwald into an Ezra reaction.
    I did not do that. I didn’t say, “You know who else hated it when people asked him about questionable hires? HITLER! That’s who! Hitler hated it!”
    Go fuck yourself, you fucking weasel.

  163. 163.

    Keith G

    @Xantar: You are daft or just letting emotions lead to a (willful?) misread. I never said anything about “a massive betrayal of Obama’s base”; even though if you check contemporary news, there were misapprehensions among some Democrats.

    When the history of gay rights is written, do you think anybody is seriously going to focus on that?

    Thank you for making my point, even if you did so by misrepresenting what I typed.

    No one knows how the Ezra Klein project is going to pan out until after it has had a chance to get its footing and do whatever it is going to do. Just like on that day when many noted that objectionable choice by the soon to be President, there was no way to judge the outcome of his efforts.

    Again, thanks much.

  166. 166.

    Mandalay

    @Keith G:

    I never said anything about “a massive betrayal of Obama’s base”

    Of course you didn’t, not even remotely, but the Association of Disingenuous Strawman Manufacturers still have to do their dirty work.

  167. 167.

    Xantar

    @Keith G:

    The difference is Warren made one short little speech at Obama’s inauguration whereas Ezra has hired someone who is going to be continuously writing for his publication (at least for a little while) and implicitly representing Vox. And you think the former has such humongous symbolic significance that it’s equivalent to the latter. Actually no, you said it’s worse.

    I admit I misread your tone in the original post. I’ll own up to that. I did indeed let emotions run away from me. I still stand by my original point: your comparison was asinine.

  168. 168.

    Cervantes

    @Corner Stone: He and the wife just had a new baby. He’s probably still sleep-deprived.

    The antipathy towards Greenwald is dull, I’ll concede that.

  170. 170.

    Corner Stone

    If anyone can tell me how bringing Anne Boleyn into this thread makes sense, I’m willing to listen.

  171. 171.

    Cervantes

    @Xantar:

    The difference is Warren made one short little speech at Obama’s inauguration whereas Ezra has hired someone who is going to be continuously writing for his publication (at least for a little while) and implicitly representing Vox. And you think the former has such humongous symbolic significance that it’s equivalent to the latter. Actually no, you said it’s worse.

    That’s one difference. I can think of two others that are relevant. I bet you can, too.

    I admit I misread your tone in the original post, but I still stand by my main point: your comparison is asinine.

    Admitting mistakes is an art form that I’ve had to perfect for myself over the years. Seems to me you’re pretty good at it yourself already — but would you like some tips?

  172. 172.

    Keith G

    @Cervantes: What are the metrics? Books sold? Dollars banked? As it turned out, the erstwhile pastor had issues brewing closer to home that would disrupt any evaluation we might try.

    In Jan 2009, he was adamantly against extending civil right to gays. That’s what he preached, that’s what he said he believed due to scripture. He, like Saul/Paul, has had a conversion. Good for him.

  173. 173.

    Cervantes

    @Corner Stone:

    If anyone can tell me how bringing Anne Boleyn into this thread makes sense, I’m willing to listen.

    Given the title of the thread, methinks you’ve answered your own question.

  174. 174.

    Corner Stone

    @Xantar:

    And you think the former has such humongous symbolic significance that it’s equivalent to the latter. Actually no, you said it’s worse.

    Just to make sure I am clear. Giving the invocation for the inauguration of the POTUS is *less* notable than being hired by Ezra Klein?

  176. 176.

    gian

    @burnspbesq:

    they defend arson as political speech? fuck I had no idea, can you point to a case where they defended actually burning buildings versus talking about it?

    that to me is a big distinction with them. they’re cool with Nazis talking about turning on the showers and firing up the ovens, but not cool with actually you know doing it.

  179. 179.

    ranchandsyrup

    @Cervantes: I think that GG doesn’t do his message any favors with his tactics. I’ve come to appreciate what he’s saying considerably more than I used to. Part of my reluctance at first stemmed from that. I can separate the two better now. I didn’t bring up the merits of his argument here.

    @Corner Stone: you were evasive, pretending that I was asking about Ezra above. Because Glenn does do that stuff. So save all of the bluster.

  181. 181.

    Xantar

    @Corner Stone:

    We knew even back in 2009 that whatever Rick Warren said at the invocation, it wasn’t going to have any effect on Obama’s actual policies. We didn’t know what Obama was going to actually do with LGBT rights, and I’ll be the first to say I didn’t think he would do very much. But whatever his policies were going to be, we knew Rick Warren wasn’t going to have anything to do with it.

    And we also knew that Rick Warren wasn’t even going to talk about gay rights or anything else that could be seen as politically controversial.

    Meanwhile, Ezra Klein has hired Ambrosino to write articles, and we have a pretty good idea what those articles are going to be. As notable as the invocation for the President’s inauguration? No, of course not. But in terms of an actual impact? Well, Ambrosino is going to be putting out real content, and unlike the case with Rick Warren, it’s going to have Klein’s implicit approval.

  182. 182.

    Corner Stone

    @ranchandsyrup: If you can give me one…ONE…part of this issue that is relevant to Greenwald…I would really appreciate it.
    If you’d like to tell us all how Greenwald would react to criticism that he hired an anti-gay gay writer? Please proceed.

  183. 183.

    Cervantes

    @ranchandsyrup: I understand. I guess I must not have as clear a sense of his “tactics” as you do. (Frankly, I have other fish to fry.)

    How’s the little one? And the two of you? (Not actually sleep-deprived, I fervently hope.)

  184. 184.

    Corner Stone

    @Xantar:

    As notable as the invocation for the President’s inauguration? No, of course not. But in terms of an actual impact? Well, Ambrosino is going to be putting out real content, and unlike the case with Rick Warren, it’s going to have Klein’s implicit approval.

    I’m, uhh..I’m just going to leave this here.
    Thanks

  185. 185.

    Keith G

    @Cervantes: My thoughts ended about 3 glasses of Cabernet ago, food or no. The good news is that’s it’s bed time. The bad news is 4:00 AM CDT is not far enough away.

  186. 186.

    Cervantes

    @Corner Stone:

    If you’d like to tell us all how Greenwald would react to criticism that he hired an anti-gay gay writer?

    Let me guess: “He [would] go full GG and tell everyone that they’re too dumb/obot/evil to understand the brilliance”?

    (I’m trying to help. Really, I am.)

  189. 189.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Corner Stone: Pfft, that’s easy.

    How do you think Ezra Klein is going to react to this? Back down, or cut off his wife’s head, the way Henry VIII would, knowing that he’d be giving rise to his own female successor?

  194. 194.

    Corner Stone

    @ranchandsyrup: No. You did not.
    You wondered whether Ezra would bitch out to the max like Greenwald does on a daily basis.
    It was stupid then, it’s stupid now and it will be stupid tomorrow.
    Bitcoins to cronuts that Ezra will not start claiming obots are attacking his hiring choices, or communications. Ezra is not going to start telling us all that he hired homophobic gay writers during the Bush era, so there’s no change from him now hiring gay self-hating haters during the Obama presidency.

    This isn’t going to change. You made a stupid fucking comment.

  196. 196.

    Corner Stone

    @FlipYrWhig: Given the hipsterdouche intro video for Vox? I hope someone does come in and start cleaning out hipster douchebags. Every single person in that video deserves a serious, non-sexual spanking.

  199. 199.

    Cervantes

    @MikeJ: Nonchalantly.

    @kc: I had not, either, and I really can’t see why that had to change. Happily, I’ll have forgotten all about him by tomorrow.

  203. 203.

    danielx

    @Thomas F:

    Yup.

    Come to think of it, worrying about who Ezra Klein hires and what they write would clearly seem to fall under the heading of blogospheric navel-gazing. Personally I’m a lot more concerned about the sudden surplus of cat fur. Well, cat hairs, to be technical – it’s cat fur when it’s still attached to the cat.

  208. 208.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Bobby Thomson: It was beyond my control.

    @Jane2: Do people actually buy shoes online? Depending on the brand and style, I can vary from an 8 to a 9 1/2 and a narrow to medium width. My baseline size is a 9 narrow, but it is a starting point.

  209. 209.

    Jane2

    @Omnes Omnibus: If one is a shoe pro, yes…as long as you know your brands and shoe size, it’s reliable. And even if you don’t….I’ve bought some incredible European shoes by width/length, and knowing which brands are narrower in general, ie Italian. It’s an art.

  210. 210.

    Steeplejack

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I could see buying replacement shoes on line, i.e., another pair of the exact make and size that I had previously bought in meatspace.

  212. 212.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Jane2: I have found that, even within brands, things vary. For example with most Cole-Haan shoes, I am a 8 1/2 medium, I am occasionally a 9 narrow. I don’t buy online* but I am very picky about the way my shoes fit.

    * Like Steep said, replacing an exact shoe is fine.

  213. 213.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Constance: Without trying to be too arrogant, I think that I am quite knowledgeable, but part of the fun of this website is come across something new – and someone usually provides it everyday. The commentariat is quite erudite and the erudition is fucking broad as hell.

  214. 214.

    Jane2

    @Omnes Omnibus: Cole-Haan is no longer consistent in its sizing so I don’t buy them online. However, I could order a Merrell 8M anytime, anywhere and they fit….same with Bruno Magli. I also try on various brands when I’m shopping so that I know for sure that a certain brand won’t fit, ever.

  215. 215.

    Constance

    @Jane2:
    What European shoes? Can you give me links? I wear a Narrow with a Quad heel (even narrower) and the only shoes I’ve ever owned that were perfect were Italian shoes I bought at Macys (about 3,000 years ago. Macys no longer has anything more narrow than a medium).

  216. 216.

    Constance

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    I love BJ because I’m always learning, learning, learning but sometimes I start to develop feelings of inadequacy, ignorance, total worthlessness, etc. And then I remind myself that with as many thousands of commentors as prowl BJ I’m lucky to have the opportunities to keep learning, learning, learning. and then the fucking trolls remind me that I’m really a pretty decent human being after all. Even if I have to look up homophile.

  217. 217.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Jane2: Sounds like you are just more willing to take a chance on a shoe fitting than I am.

    @Constance: Disturbingly, I believe that Givenchy has very narrow heels. My ex was shoe obsessed with a size 5, wide toe, narrow heel. I learned things about women’s shoes. DSW actually can have a reasonable stock of Givenchy shoes. Yust wait until they hit clearance unless you have a very common size. They also do really nice ties.

  218. 218.

    Gex

    So wait now. Glenn Greenwald and Rick Warren are teaming up with the Nazis to burn down Imelda Marcos’ shoe closet? This is one weird thread.

  219. 219.

    Constance

    @Omnes Omnibus: @Omnes Omnibus:
    I love BJ because I’m always learning, learning, learning but sometimes I start to develop feelings of inadequacy, ignorance, total worthlessness, etc. And then I remind myself that with as many thousands of commentors as prowl BJ I’m lucky to have the opportunities to keep learning, learning, learning. and then the fucking trolls remind me that I’m really a pretty decent human being after all. Even if I have to look up homophile.

  222. 222.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Constance: Some people know about yarn or quantum theory. Me, I was once told that the mark of a person with a good liberal arts education is that he or she can make one sensible remark at a cocktail party about any topic. I aspire to that.

  223. 223.

    Constance

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    Thanks! I just bookmarked the DSW site. I owned one pair of 2 and 1/2 inch heels which I tried to wear to the Oscar party I attended recently. Did not make it across the bedroom before realizing this was a tragedy I did not want anyone to observe. Almost as bad as the party I attended 14 years ago when my 1960s makeup techniques created hilarity among the rest of the guests. So I wore my Danskos and hid behind the flashier guests for the group photo.

  228. 228.

    NorthLeft12

    @burnspbesq: Not sure if you are deliberately being wrong here or just ignorant. Like the original “joke” teller.

    The ACLU, and CCLA here in Canada, is very specific about defending free speech and human rights. What they don’t do is defend violence or speech that promotes violent actions against others.

    Not sure how people cannot understand that. It is so simple, and so verifiable that I have to think that any contrary explanation [like your joke] is a willful attempt to slander and misrepresent these fine and necessary organizations.

  229. 229.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Xantar: Thank you Xantar. I didn’t want to waste time responding to KeithG. It’s obvious where President Obama’s heart is when it comes to gay rights given all he has done to actually further them. Sometimes it’s good to just roll your eyes at idiot comments and keep it moving.

  231. 231.

    Kevin

    I just hope no one buys the “I’ve never read any of his work” defense. Yeah, a guy responsible for a brand new multi-million dollar news site…doesn’t take the time to read the work of the people he is in charge of hiring. That sounds so likely, so…wonky! (I think wonk is the worst term around nowadays. It’s really what the kewl kids like to think of themselves, but it’s just pretentious).

    Anyway, given Ezra’s love for Paul Ryan, his constant “both sides do it”, this should shock no one. He’s playing the game. You think he wants to be the next Krugman? Nope, he wants to be the next Brooks, the next Friedman.

  232. 232.

    Xecky Gilchrist

    Yeah, it *doesn’t* make sense just to drop a link and call it a blog post.

  233. 233.

    Joey Giraud

    @NorthLeft12:

    This site is, among other things, largely about the “willful attempt to slander” various public figures.

    Note the nasty exchange about Greenwald. Corner Stone is a bit touchy because Greenwald receives all kinds of slander here, and CS respects Greenwald’s work.

    As do I.

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