Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We still have time to mess this up!

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Americans barely caring about Afghanistan is so last month.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

This fight is for everything.

Infrastructure week. at last.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

People are complicated. Love is not.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

“But what about the lurkers?”

“More of this”, i said to the dog.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

No one could have predicted…

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

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Reader Interactions

121Comments

  8. 8.

    DougJ

    I used to read a nerdy baseball blog where “You know who else (achieved some statistical milestone)?” meant “Bert Blyleven”.

  10. 10.

    Thomas F

    What is most impressive about Digby is that she has reliably issued withering criticisms of the current administration’s monumental failures in the arena of social policy and national security. Lest it be overlooked.

  11. 11.

    cokane

    much as sullivan is a myopic idiot about policy, science, and general reality, he’s pretty business savvy about the blogging/publishing thing.

  17. 17.

    patrick II

    Salon has an article “Blow up the Times Op-Ed page” asserting the NYTIMES should fire Friedman, Brooks and Dowd.
    So, who would I replace them with? Billmon (if I could talk him/her out of semi-retirement), Digby and Chris Hayes (who actually writes better than his MSNBC show). All of them eloquent and with something both rational and insightful to say and able to handle the short form.
    Those would be my choices, but admittedly I am not particularly well read, so any other suggestions?

  20. 20.

    Betty Cracker

    For coining the phrase “the Villagers” alone, Digby has done a great service. It got under the skin of “the Villagers,” not that that particular bit of ref-working has appreciably changed their tone. Still, I take satisfaction from their noticing and being disturbed by it.

  23. 23.

    patrick II

    @Eric U.:

    I understand that they have already hired Ta-Nehisi or he would have been at the top of my list. I don’t know how often he writes there though, I think as just a “guest columnist”, so I would move him to full-time.

  27. 27.

    Roger Moore

    @ranchandsyrup:
    Tris Speaker, Ty Cobb, and Eddie Collins only won one MVP apiece. Nap Lajoie, Honus Wagner, and Pete Alexander were shut out. The guy who stands out in that group of early HOFers is Walter Johnson, who somehow managed to wrangle two MVPs.

  28. 28.

    John O

    @Punchy:

    I used to read Digby all the time, and even met her once, but she’s so good it started to depress me so I stopped. Google, “What Digby Said.”

    She’s just another powerful small voice shouting into the wilderness with eloquence and passion and skill.

  34. 34.

    WaterGirl

    It appears that they make better choices in the even numbered years than they do in the odd numbered years.

    Edit:
    Hmm. Maybe my sample size was too small. Three years. Now I have to take it back because of Marcy Wheeler, or maybe I just need a new formula that works for Marcy, Digby and Coates.

  35. 35.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @vtr: There is Charles Blow, who is generally right about things, though to call his style dry is almost an understatement.

    Pretty mild. I thought MoDo benefitted from faint damnation, but I suppose Pareene has been over that ground before

  37. 37.

    David in NY

    @Quicksand: “Digby gave up fifty home runs in a season?”

    she’s got a hell of a fastball, but if they connect … BOOM!

    Seriously, I’d say the inside slider that always sneaks over the plate is her regular pitch.

  38. 38.

    Kevin

    Much deserved. Her continued vigilance about social security cuts has been invaluable to mobilizing people against it.

    It does get depressing, but I’m glad there is someone there keeping watch, making sure people are held accountable. As powerless as we all are, enough people screaming seems to stop some things once in awhile.

  39. 39.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @patrick II:

    I agree, mostly, with Pareene’s critiques in the Salon piece, but I feel impelled to note that Frank Bruni had a really good takedown of Jenny McCarthy, America’s Anti-Vaxxer, a few days ago. I know, I’m surprised, too. For the most part, I’ve stopped reading the NYT Opinion pages, and wouldn’t have seen the Bruni column only that someone put a link on Facebook. Worth the read, and some of the comments are great.

    On topic: Congratulations to Digby! I’m not sure I had realized that she came up with the term “Villagers.”

  40. 40.

    David in NY

    @ranchandsyrup:

    Walter was that good.

    I remember browsing his stats a few decades ago and thinking, “Oh my God!” So long ago we spelled it all out. And as I recall he was just as good after the advent of the Ruth-ball as before (but my memory does play tricks these days). Anyway, you could look it up.

  42. 42.

    David in NY

    @SiubhanDuinne: yeah, I always thought “Villagers” belonged to Atrios, but he has always credited Digby. Indeed, I believe that “What Digby said” is his.

  43. 43.

    Glocksman

    If the NYT editorial page were the Harry Potter universe, Friedman would be Gilderoy Lockhart, Dowd would be Hermoine Granger at her most annoying know-it-all stage, and Brooks would be Percy Weasley while working for Fudge.

    You could assemble an editorial page made up of random names from the NYC telephone directory and get better, more insightful and accurate columns than you currently could from the unholy trio.

  44. 44.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    Loved your piece on “the other Brooks” and the accompanying photo of the One-Percenter Kittehs.

    @David in NY:

    I always thought those were just internet memes. But I suppose every internet meme has to start with someone, somewhere.

  45. 45.

    patrick II

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    That was a good takedown of McCarthy. I think the second part of what Bruni wrote was the more important since I have some sympathy for hysterical mothers of sick children but have no sympathy for those who gave her a platform to spread her dangerous lies.

  46. 46.

    David in NY

    On general blogging, Josh Marshall continues to be an ass. My latest example is a significant omission in his description of the rise of lefty blogging as a response to people’s feeling they weren’t alone in views generally not expressed elsewhere. Here’s Marshall:

    If you go back to the coalescence of the “netroots” movement within the Democratic party (not a good name for it) there’s something broadly similar afoot. You can trace this from the Democrats reaction to the impeachment crisis in ’98 and ’99, through the outrage at the contested 2000 election, nursed along by grassroots web-based communities, picked up by the Dean Movement and in some ways reaching fruition in the 2006 landslide election and the 2008 Obama campaign (though the Obama world was always very arms length from many elements of this community). There were a lot of different strains in what I’m drawing together here. A number of people who didn’t want much to do with each other. But here too we have relatively isolated people finding communities and media sources that in essence tell them, “No, you’re not the only who feels this way. A lot of other people do to. And you can connect up with them. And then you can do things together.”

    Note the gap between the year 2000 and the “Dean movement.” Whatever was going on there? And what was the “Dean movement” about, anyway? Wonder if Josh remembers, or if not, why he’s choosing to forget?

  47. 47.

    El Tiburon

    Digby is also a HUGE Glenn Greenwald fan. As is John Cole. But Charles Johnson hates Greenwald.

    Therefore, BJ commenters = Charles Johnson.

    Yeah, I got Greenwald in there.

    Suck it, haters.

  55. 55.

    taylormattd

    @Punchy: Digby is the most favorite lefty blogger of all time, if we use a time machine and head back to 2006 or something.

  57. 57.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Glocksman: Dowd would be Hermoine Granger

    Unfair! To Hermione. If Peggy Noonan didn’t have the Dolores Umbrage thing sewn up tight, MoDo would be in the running.

  61. 61.

    Mike E

    @MomSense: Right on the nose.

    eta @Belafon: I didn’t think it was possible, but apparently it can be done, what he did there.

  63. 63.

    Soprano2

    Good for Digby, that’s fantastic. I knew her when she was posting on the “Brill’s Content” message boards, her posts stood out even then. I posted on a private board with her for awhile after Brill’s closed down, but eventually she got too busy for that. I don’t have enough time to read her often anymore, sadly.

  65. 65.

    Roger Moore

    @David in NY:

    And as I recall he was just as good after the advent of the Ruth-ball as before (but my memory does play tricks these days).

    Your memory is playing tricks on you. He hurt his arm halfway through the 1920 season and took a few years to get his fastball back. Even then, he didn’t have the stamina he had before the injury, and his strikeout rate wasn’t the same. He was very good in 1924-25 (hence the 1924 MVP) but not otherworldly the way he was in 1912-13.

  66. 66.

    burnspbesq

    @patrick II:

    Why replace them? Why not leave those positions vacant?

    If you feel you must fill those positions, how about Bethany MacLean and Marty Lederman?

  68. 68.

    burnspbesq

    @El Tiburon:

    Digby is also a HUGE Glenn Greenwald fan

    We all have our blind spots. Digby is pretty uneducated on Con Law, and is therefore susceptible to being hoodwinked by a loud mouthed charlatan.

  70. 70.

    Kristin

    I have gotten kind of tired of her Eeyore shtick (and some of her defenses of Greenwald are weird), but, overall, she’s brilliant, so good for her.

  71. 71.

    Kristin

    I have gotten kind of tired of her Eeyore shtick (and some of her defenses of Greenwald are weird), but, overall, she’s brilliant, so good for her.

  72. 72.

    Chyron HR

    @El Tiburon:

    Has it ever occurred to you that no matter how fanatically you police the comments here, you can’t stop people from blaspheming against The Great Greenwald in their hearts? Kind of makes your life’s work pointless, don’t you think?

  73. 73.

    Kristin

    @Chyron HR: These are the same people who keep screaming, “BUT IT’S NOT ABOUT GREENWALD.” I find that hilarious. It’s obviously very much about Greenwald for them.

  74. 74.

    David in NY

    @Roger Moore: I was thinking of the years (’24-’25) the Senators were in the series, but you’re right, he was never so overpowering after 1920. But the game had changed, too. He won 33 games one year in the ‘teens and didn’t even lead the league in wins.

    When Bob Gibson had stats like his for a couple of years (’66-’68), they lowered the mound to fix that.

  75. 75.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Kristin: It’s the Eeyore schtick that drove me away too. I have no problem with coherent criticisms of Obama, but Digby– back when I was still reading her regularly– could never acknowledge any good that Obama had done, or any of the real limits on his actions due to political realities or Constitutional restraints.

  79. 79.

    Thomas F

    @AxelFoley: Not what I meant at all. What I meant is that she did not suddenly abandon her progressive scruples on January 20, 2009.

  80. 80.

    Kevin

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Why do you need a cheerleader? What she does is far more valuable. Although I have seen her acknowledge the good he has done, the fact is, the world has so many problems, we need people speaking out about them.

    How many blogs will keep Obama in check about his plans to cut social security? Digby is constantly on that beat, and it’s a good thing that there are people like her on it. So to her I say keep on doing what you are doing. The world doesn’t need more cheerleaders. Last one started a pointless war in Iraq.

  82. 82.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Kevin: Why do you need a cheerleader?

    I don’t. But I prefer to read political writing by people who acknowledge reality.

  83. 83.

    geg6

    Great news about Digby. I don’t read her much any more, but she was one of the first lefty bloggers I found back in the dark days of the dawn of the C+ Augustus era. And I’ll always be grateful to her for coming up with The Village. I use the term all the time and even low info friends of mine get it right away with a very small amount of explanation. She’s way too Debbie Downer for me now, mostly because she’s a Greenwald hysteric and she can’t shake the pony brigade’s conspiracy theory about how Obama is secretly plotting to dismantle Social Security. But she’s done good work on other issues, especially the overuse of tasers, and goes down in my own personal Hall of Fame for the Villager framing alone.

  84. 84.

    Kevin

    @AxelFoley: Yeah, a total one trick pony. Social security, civil rights, war and peace, equality (economic, racial, gender).

    Are some of you so hurt by any criticism of Obama that you can’t see the value in an intelligent, bull dog of a critic who will always fight to push the window to the left?

  85. 85.

    Kevin

    @SatanicPanic: I think so. He offered cuts to chained CPI multiple times, and it was Boehners stubbornness that stopped it from happening. He even said that it is still on the table (after taking it off the table, he made sure to say it is still there for the taking).

  86. 86.

    Kevin

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: How does she not acknowledge reality? I find that she is one of the only people who is. Maybe you don’t see it, but she has given him his due for passing health care, for lilly leadbeater, for supporting gay marriage. But those things are easy. It’s the stuff she focuses on daily that is so needed, the “reality” that all too many don’t acknowledge.

    Digby is no firebagger, but she is also no cheerleader. And I think that’s much needed.

  88. 88.

    eldorado

    digby is fantastic and we are all very lucky to have her on our side. @Kay as well. they both write with clarity and conviction.

  89. 89.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Kevin: You have swallowed the Digby line (that there’s surely a stab in the back coming) and the Digby rationale for maintaining that line (that constantly yelling about how there’s surely a stab in the back coming is precisely how to avoid getting stabbed in the back). The one perfectly validates and reinforces the other. Of course, if neither is true, it’s just a bunch of shouting and moping and moping and shouting, but, you know, I guess some people like that, and give out prizes for it.

  91. 91.

    patrick II

    @FlipYrWhig:

    FOX has certainly pushed the window to the right by asserting far right positions. Is it a one way window? And Digby certainly isn’t as far to the left as FOX is to the right, or maybe it doesn’t seem as far because its nearer to where I am.

  93. 93.

    Elizabelle

    @Kevin:

    [Digby] has given [Obama] his due for passing health care, for lilly leadbeater, for supporting gay marriage. But those things are easy.

    Excuse me? You is familiar with our congress o Teatards?

  94. 94.

    Kevin

    @different-church-lady:

    ?Word salad? Are you denying that Obama has offered cuts in chained CPI calculations multiple times in budget deals? Do you really want to go on the record with that?

    Or are you saying that changes in the CPI formula aren’t cuts to social security? Again, would you like to go on the record with that?

    Yeah…I’m done with this debate, some of you are just sad.

  95. 95.

    FlipYrWhig

    @patrick II: No blog could possibly have the influence Fox News has. I don’t think any wingnut blog has done anything to move “the window” rightward, and I don’t think any liberal blog has done anything to move it leftwards. At best, blogs keep up a sense of solidarity among people who are already likeminded. I happen to think that harping on doom and dolchstosse is antithetical to that sense of solidarity, but most liberal-to-left blogs fall prey to it anyway. Like the scorpion said to the frog, it’s our nature.

  96. 96.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Kevin: I understand why you enjoy Digby so much.

    ETA: Being hung up on chained CPI is like being hung up on the individual mandate. Both suck in isolation. Good thing they’re not in isolation, then, but parts of larger and more comprehensive proposals. Not that you’d know that from a reading habit devoted to feeling so good about feeling so bad.

  98. 98.

    Thlayli

    @Kevin:

    Are you going to deny that Obama never offered up chained CPI by itself? Are you going to deny that it was always paired with tax increases, which is why Boehner never went for it?

    Do you want to go on record with that?

    You want to talk about sad, look in the mirror.

  99. 99.

    Kevin

    @Thlayli:

    So I’m supposed to say taking money away from old poor people is totally fine as long as rich people pay higher taxes? Yeah, sorry, no.

  100. 100.

    different-church-lady

    @Kevin: There’s no such thing as “cuts in chained CPI”.

    Chained CPI was proposed as an alternative way of calculating increases in Social Security. Some people feel that is equivalent to a cut. But it is not a cut IN (or to) chained CPI, it is chained CPI itself.

    Your word salad makes it appear that you have a superficial understanding of an issue you feel quite passionate about.

    (ETA: edited for clarity)

  101. 101.

    Thomas F

    “Acknowledging reality” increasingly means “couching every criticism in a way that reflects positively on Obama.” That Digby seems too much like Eeyore to people in the BJ commentariat simply signifies that she’s told it straight since the beginning. Too many in this crowd demand unwavering clapping for the Administration.

  102. 102.

    different-church-lady

    @Thomas F: The line between criticism and kneecapping is thin. Some people don’t show the slightest interest in walking it.

  104. 104.

    dmbeaster

    @phantomist:

    You know who else gave up 50 home runs in a season?

    Interesting stat when you think about it, since there are many capable of performing that feat, but only he was given the chance for some reason.

  106. 106.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Thomas F: that’s the Greenwald logic too. All critics are beyond reproach because they’re critics, and criticizing the critics can only be out of mindless adoration for the critics’ targets. Or, to put it another way, boo harder. It shifts the “Overton window.”

  107. 107.

    dmbeaster

    I am in agreement that Digby’s point of view and writing style can be depressing, but there is not much wrong with the substance of what she says, and she says it well. Obama is fairly moderate on the political spectrum — there are many things for which he falls short if you have a left point of view. Digby points that out regularly on many issues.

    Examples are austerity and Social Security during the 2010-2012 years (which to some extent had to do with their re-election strategy), anything regarding by Rahm, anything having to do with treasury and Geitner (and the non-prosecution of anyone in the banking world), the national security issues, the non-prosecution of all of the Iraq war crimes (which is going to bite us again some day, just as lackluster responses to past Republican lawbreaking results in rinse, repeat), treatment of whistleblowers, and a few other items. There is plenty there meriting at least a raised eyebrow, no matter what good has been done elsewhere by Obama.

  108. 108.

    J R in WV

    @Amir Khalid:

    Please Amir, it is no big thing, they will un-moderate you in just a little while. In the meantime, enjoy your temporary minor martyrdom!

    I’ve been moderated many times, and I’m white bread (well, really corn bread) as they come in middle America!

  109. 109.

    Kristin

    Just to be clear, I was not talking about Digby’s take on Obama as being her “Eeyore shtick.” She has always been Eeyore, even when Bush was president. It’s always, “but nothing will ever get done to fix this and we are doomed forever.” I’m not concerned about her criticisms of Obama. Just the way she generally presents as pessimistic and doom and gloom.

    Yes, reality is pretty doom and gloom, but something about the way she presents is too depressing.

  110. 110.

    The Fat Kate Middleton

    @patrick II: I’m a little surprised no one’s put up Charlie Pierce for the NYT. That could rev up the comments section …

    @schrodinger’s cat: I love it. Uriah Heep is perfect. And I too enjoyed your most recent blog entry.

  111. 111.

    Spinoza Is My Co-pilot

    Digby was one of my favorite and regular (daily even, for a while) blog-reads during the darkest years of W’s misbegotten reign.

    But, like Kristin, I also eventually got tired of the Eeyore tone (I called it that very thing, too) and then later the over-the-top Obama-bashing, where she gave him little credit for anything and didn’t seem to realize he hadn’t been elected king.

    Sure, there was often substance to both the pessimistic tone and the Obama critiques, but both just went too far for me and I stopped reading her blog.

    Balloon Juice became my primary political blog-read, and has remained so for some time.

    I’ll still always remember Hullaballoo very fondly, though.

    Good for Digby on the award.

  113. 113.

    mai naem mobile

    @Spinoza Is My Co-pilot: i’m another one who couldn’t handle digbys negativity.I think she’s a really talented writer but I just cannot handle this every day the world’s going to hell. I’m guessing she didn’t have anything positive to say even during Obama’s 1st inauguration.

  114. 114.

    mai naem mobile

    @Thomas F: its not continuous applause for the admin. It’s the difference between the left and right. The right accomplishes a small step and celebrates the small step and builds on it. The left bitches about how enough was not done and beats each other up for reaching the goal right now!

  118. 118.

    different-church-lady

    @Kristin: In one of the few lucid moments over at Daily Kos since, say, 2010, what you are describing was termed “the pornography of despair”. The person who coined the term advised people not to succumb to it.

    Instead a lot of people decided to spray it down with a hose and wallow in it.

  119. 119.

    Kevin

    @Ripley:

    Don’t know if I would say none. It was the blogs that put pressure to stop the nomination of Larry Summers. That seemed to piss Obama the hell off, but he listened.

    And it was the blogs that put pressure on congressmen and senators to oppose any cuts to social security. Maybe this pressure doesn’t work…but i think it has had some effect.

    you can complain about tone and negativity, but Digby is always beating the drum for a good reason. If people aren’t beating the drum loudly, other people won’t call or write their representatives, and maybe they just go along and pass whatever turd sandwich they feel will get some “bipartisan” votes.

  120. 120.

    Socoolsofresh

    It is so surprising to see that regular commenters here don’t read Digby anymore because they find her too negative on Obama! I love reading how they try to rationalize by calling her Eeyore, rather than admitting that they are just a tribalist cheerleader.

  121. 121.

    steve

    @mai naem mobile: Digby’s dissatisfaction with Obama started long before the inauguration. During the 2008 campaign, Digby was harshly critical of Obama’s campaigning skills and complained endlessly that he was blowing the election. She often mocked the rosy-eyed optimists who thought Obama would cruise to an easy win over McCain. When he did just that, Digby smugly announced that she was going to spend the next four years holding his feet to the fire. I stopped reading shortly after that.

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