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Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Our messy unity will be our strength.

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

Rupert, come get your orange boy, you petrified old dinosaur turd.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

We will not go back.

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

You cannot love your country only when you win.

Radicalized white males who support Trump are pitching a tent in the abyss.

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

In my day, never was longer.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

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You are here: Home / I know what it’s like to be dead

I know what it’s like to be dead

by DougJ|  June 2, 20143:29 pm| 116 Comments

This post is in: Blogospheric Navel-Gazing

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If Politico says you’re losing:

Blogs — defined as “an eclectic, scattered” reverse-chronological journal, “covering everything from foreign policy to TV to religion,” often in the first-person — are all but dead. Sullivan is the last of the Mohicans, which is a testament to his success. He was there in the beginning, and he’ll probably be there to turn the lights out after everyone has left.

I haven’t read Sullivan much in a couple years, but I do get most of my political news from something bloglike — this place, SteveM, Atrios, Salon politics, or Taegan Goddard.

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Reader Interactions

116Comments

  1. 1.

    feebog

    June 2, 2014 at 3:31 pm

    I see someone let Dylan out of the nursery again.

  2. 2.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    June 2, 2014 at 3:32 pm

    I haven’t read Sullivan much in a couple years

    Who are you and what have you done with DougJ?

  3. 3.

    Mustang Bobby

    June 2, 2014 at 3:32 pm

    To quote the immortal Harry Truman: “I feel like the guy who woke up in a coffin. He said to himself, ‘If I’m alive, what am I doing here, and if I’m dead, why do I have to take a piss?'”

  4. 4.

    PaulB

    June 2, 2014 at 3:32 pm

    Figures that this is from Politico, whose sole measure of success seems to be page hits.

  5. 5.

    Hunter Gathers

    June 2, 2014 at 3:32 pm

    Peter Fonda, is that you?

  6. 6.

    BGinCHI

    June 2, 2014 at 3:33 pm

    I thought Politico was a blog for assholes who suck up to authority.

    No?

  7. 7.

    Morzer (0th of His PseudoName and Founder of the Walter Sobchak Peacekeepers)

    June 2, 2014 at 3:34 pm

    Blogs are all but dead?

    To that I say:

    You may write me down in history.
    With your bitter twisted lies.
    You may trod me down in the very dirt.
    And still like the dust I’ll rise

  8. 8.

    Suffern ACE

    June 2, 2014 at 3:35 pm

    Meh. If the blogosphere disappears, I’ll just go back to mimeographed Zines. I miss the smell of the fluid anyway.

  9. 9.

    Suffern ACE

    June 2, 2014 at 3:37 pm

    @BGinCHI: It is an actual honest to goodness newspaper. Its really only available in Washington and is hard to tell apart from those magazines that the Armstrongians used to give away, but they are a newspaper.

  10. 10.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    June 2, 2014 at 3:41 pm

    @Suffern ACE: I print out Balloon Juice to read it*; that makes it a newspaper too, right?

    *Yes, I do pencil in my comments and then transcribe them. Doesn’t everyone?

  11. 11.

    BGinCHI

    June 2, 2014 at 3:41 pm

    @Suffern ACE: See, I learned something from a blog right there.

  12. 12.

    BGinCHI

    June 2, 2014 at 3:42 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): You would not believe how many drafts my comments go through.

  13. 13.

    Morzer (0th of His PseudoName and Founder of the Walter Sobchak Peacekeepers)

    June 2, 2014 at 3:43 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):

    Well I use a quill pen, just like the Founding Fathers. Originalism in action, baby!

  14. 14.

    Morzer (0th of His PseudoName and Founder of the Walter Sobchak Peacekeepers)

    June 2, 2014 at 3:43 pm

    @BGinCHI:

    With all those drafts, you must save a fortune on air-conditioning.

  15. 15.

    Suffern ACE

    June 2, 2014 at 3:44 pm

    @BGinCHI: So future Suffern ACE scholars will have something to publish and discuss, I save my drafts and marginal notes.

  16. 16.

    mtiffany

    June 2, 2014 at 3:45 pm

    Bullshitico? Are they still fellating John McCain or have they outgrown their necrophiliac phase?

  17. 17.

    BGinCHI

    June 2, 2014 at 3:46 pm

    @Morzer (0th of His PseudoName and Founder of the Walter Sobchak Peacekeepers): Stay out of Malibu, Morzer.

  18. 18.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    June 2, 2014 at 3:46 pm

    @BGinCHI: I’ve heard that peer review is a bitch. Luckily, I work in a field that doesn’t bother with it.

  19. 19.

    ericblair

    June 2, 2014 at 3:48 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):

    *Yes, I do pencil in my comments and then transcribe them. Doesn’t everyone?

    I have the office girl do it for me. It’s much more Mad Men that way.

  20. 20.

    Morzer (0th of His PseudoName and Founder of the Walter Sobchak Peacekeepers)

    June 2, 2014 at 3:48 pm

    @BGinCHI:

    Fucking fascist!

  21. 21.

    scav

    June 2, 2014 at 3:49 pm

    For some reason my doodled gold-leaf illuminations and gargoyle marginalia never appear correctly. Flying Manta rays and out of focus cats keep getting swapped in. FuckithTheeWordManualPress

  22. 22.

    low-tech cyclist

    June 2, 2014 at 3:50 pm

    I’ve never understood why anyone bothers with Sullivan anymore. At one time, he, like Glenn Reynolds, was one of those voices that you felt like you had to respond to. Now he’s just someone who’s somewhere in between Kinsley and Brooks in terms of both ideology and intellectual clarity.

    He isn’t making me feel like I’ve never been born; he’s making me try to find out what price I have to pay to get out of going through all these things twice.

  23. 23.

    Anoniminous

    June 2, 2014 at 3:52 pm

    @Morzer (0th of His PseudoName and Founder of the Walter Sobchak Peacekeepers):

    Clay tablets and a reed stick for me.

    (And you cannot BELIEVE how hard it is to get clay tablets crammed into a computer and out the Internets port.)

  24. 24.

    Ruckus

    June 2, 2014 at 3:52 pm

    Blogs are dead? In what, the last 2 minutes they all just up and died?

    That’s a pretty big FYWP

  25. 25.

    LAC

    June 2, 2014 at 3:52 pm

    If politico says you are dead, kick open that morgue drawer, take off that toe tag. You got a lot of living to do!!

    Jaysus, when did the beltway punditry turn over their collective intelligence to tiger beat on the Potomac?

  26. 26.

    Morzer (0th of His PseudoName and Founder of the Walter Sobchak Peacekeepers)

    June 2, 2014 at 3:53 pm

    @low-tech cyclist:

    I’ve never understood why anyone bothers with Sullivan anymore.

    I think it’s a new sport called pretzel yoga. The aim of the game is to see how far Sullivan can twist himself into knots and curlicues without snapping at the joints.

  27. 27.

    kindness

    June 2, 2014 at 3:54 pm

    I won’t bet on Sully. If he keeps going like he has been lately a bunch of us who have tossed him money will stop. Kinda like NPR in that respect. If you publish bullshit don’t expect me to pay for it.

  28. 28.

    Morzer (0th of His PseudoName and Founder of the Walter Sobchak Peacekeepers)

    June 2, 2014 at 3:55 pm

    @Anoniminous:

    Doesn’t Hamooreabbi’s Law state that you can double the number of characters on a clay tablet every two years?

  29. 29.

    Ruckus

    June 2, 2014 at 3:55 pm

    @Morzer (0th of His PseudoName and Founder of the Walter Sobchak Peacekeepers):

    I’m waiting to see him cram hisself into a one cubic foot plastic box. That would be worth at least 50 cents for the ticket.

  30. 30.

    Morzer (0th of His PseudoName and Founder of the Walter Sobchak Peacekeepers)

    June 2, 2014 at 3:57 pm

    @Ruckus:

    I wonder if a group of people agreed to buy blog subscriptions whether he might actually go for it. Could be a Kickstarter project here….

  31. 31.

    ranchandsyrup

    June 2, 2014 at 3:58 pm

    Eat several dicks, Dylan Byers. TNC doesn’t need race as his “niche” to write about.

  32. 32.

    Face

    June 2, 2014 at 3:59 pm

    but I do get most of my political news from something bloglike — this place

    I’m beginning to see your problem.

  33. 33.

    Anoniminous

    June 2, 2014 at 3:59 pm

    @Morzer (0th of His PseudoName and Founder of the Walter Sobchak Peacekeepers):

    yes but the limits are being reached due the physical limitation of miniaturization of yak poop.

    ETA: and speaking of yak poop, it’s MEETING TIME! (bleech)

  34. 34.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    June 2, 2014 at 4:00 pm

    @DougJ: Since you are writing about TigerBeat on the Potomac, would it have been better to get a lyric from “He Said, She Said“* than “She Said, She Said?”

    *I had to google to find this piece of dreck.

  35. 35.

    dedc79

    June 2, 2014 at 4:00 pm

    That’s what she said (she said)

  36. 36.

    ranchandsyrup

    June 2, 2014 at 4:00 pm

    Do you want to hate baseball? Watch this crapfest on CSPAN.

  37. 37.

    Ruckus

    June 2, 2014 at 4:02 pm

    @Morzer (0th of His PseudoName and Founder of the Walter Sobchak Peacekeepers):
    He is pretty much a political whore and has proven that on more than one occasion so I’d give it a score of 20 on the possibility scale of 100. Only real issue is what the penalty might be if he doesn’t succeed. For all the knots he’s tied himself into over the years I still don’t think he’d fit.
    ETA Maybe the penalty could be that if he doesn’t fit, all those who contributed would be able to assist him. And then sit on the lid.

  38. 38.

    BGinCHI

    June 2, 2014 at 4:02 pm

    @ranchandsyrup: What is Byers’s niche? Being spectacularly wrong?

  39. 39.

    Morzer (0th of His PseudoName and Founder of the Walter Sobchak Peacekeepers)

    June 2, 2014 at 4:03 pm

    @Ruckus:

    Maybe if we beat him into shape using the Craphammer of Doom…..

  40. 40.

    BGinCHI

    June 2, 2014 at 4:04 pm

    @ranchandsyrup: Did you watch the hockey last night? Jesus wept.

  41. 41.

    Amir Khalid

    June 2, 2014 at 4:04 pm

    So Dylan Byers is saying that Andrew Sullivan doesn’t attract as many readers as he used to, so he doesn’t influence people like he used to. I’m wondering, when was Sully (or for that matter, any blogger) ever a big-deal influence?

  42. 42.

    gussie

    June 2, 2014 at 4:05 pm

    No Digby?

  43. 43.

    Ruckus

    June 2, 2014 at 4:05 pm

    @Amir Khalid:
    Let’s not bring truth into this little drama. That would be too unkind.

  44. 44.

    hoodie

    June 2, 2014 at 4:06 pm

    I suspect a lot of people stopped visiting Sullivan when he went independent and tried to set up a subscription based model. I used to read Sullivan more when he didn’t have a paywall because he could have some trivially interesting things from time to time, but none of that shit was worth paying for. That has less to do with him being a blogger and more to do with him being a dilettante and generally sucking as a analyst. The narrow definition of “blog” in that article is bizarre.

  45. 45.

    Suffern ACE

    June 2, 2014 at 4:06 pm

    @Amir Khalid: I believe the President mentioned Sullivan as one of the bloggers he read every day. Not certain how influential that makes him. Less so than David Brooks who gets invited over for chats?

  46. 46.

    ranchandsyrup

    June 2, 2014 at 4:07 pm

    @BGinCHI: He reports “on the media”. such a smarmy bastard.

    Did not watch the hockey last night, lamentably. Got stuck watching Frozen with the kids and had it DVRed but my buddies kept texting me with updates so it was spoilt. Feel bad for the blackhawks.

  47. 47.

    Betty Cracker

    June 2, 2014 at 4:07 pm

    @ranchandsyrup: Thank you. What a load of sour grapes from that worthless hack.

  48. 48.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    June 2, 2014 at 4:10 pm

    @Amir Khalid: He was a go to read for a good number of people for quite a while. Conservative who want to appear tolerant (ha!) and liberals who have a hankering for a sensible conservative with whom to have a conversation. I’ve never seen the appeal myself. “The Bell Curve” and the whole fifth columnists thing did him in for me. Plus, I am around his age and spent time as an undergrad in Britain. I remember the young Thatcherites of the era and thought they were rather awful.

  49. 49.

    Suffern ACE

    June 2, 2014 at 4:11 pm

    I’m going to guess that blogs aren’t growing, and the age where the individual blogger could gain opinion celebrity may be over. The pipeline may be dry for independent bloggers.

  50. 50.

    Shakezula

    June 2, 2014 at 4:11 pm

    @Suffern ACE: I haven’t seen a print version in over a year so their announcement that Blog is Dead has me LOLing.

  51. 51.

    BGinCHI

    June 2, 2014 at 4:12 pm

    @ranchandsyrup: Hawks played well but LA is a damn good team. They deserved it and will crush the Rangers.

    How was Frozen? Need to rent and watch with the nipper.

  52. 52.

    max

    June 2, 2014 at 4:14 pm

    Sullivan is the last of the Mohicans, which is a testament to his success. He was there in the beginning, and he’ll probably be there to turn the lights out after everyone has left.

    The usual gatekeepers didn’t like blogs in the beginning (because ‘left-wing nuts’), they didn’t like them in the middle (because they lied) and they don’t like them now – because it’s not under the control of the usual gatekeepers. They prefer their media corporate and beholden to the rich people. And the Republican party base barely understands all this newfangled shit, and the corporate media is the ‘moderate Northeastern Republican’ base. (Which makes them ‘liberals’ in neo-Confederate land and conservative in the Yankee context.)

    Wait until the next Republican gets into the White House and see what happens then.

    max
    [‘Probably won’t be called blogging, but whatever it is, it’ll be the same goddamn thing.’]

  53. 53.

    ranchandsyrup

    June 2, 2014 at 4:16 pm

    @BGinCHI: the movie was better than i thought it would be. previous exposure was my daughter singing the infernal Let it Go song over and over.

    Unless Lundqvist stands on his head, the kings should win.

  54. 54.

    jl

    June 2, 2014 at 4:16 pm

    Even if what Politico says is true, to the extent that it makes any sense at all (and not much in my opinion), it is no problem for Balloon-Juice, which has always capitalized on the positives of zombie existence, and eliminate the negatives.

  55. 55.

    Baud

    June 2, 2014 at 4:17 pm

    Nobody reads blogs anymore. They’re too crowded.

  56. 56.

    Barney

    June 2, 2014 at 4:19 pm

    Since Charles Pierce, the finest political writer today (with all due respect to Balloon Juice FPers) writes in blog form, I can only conclude that the “Tiger Beat on the Potomac” and “Things in Politico that Make Me Want to Guzzle Antifreeze, Part Infinity” gags are really getting to the Politico stenographers.

  57. 57.

    dedc79

    June 2, 2014 at 4:21 pm

    @BGinCHI: Don’t count the Rangers out just yet. They’re a strong road team, they have a great (if not the best) goalie, their talent is spread out across four lines, they’re not dependent on any particular indivdiuals to get all their goals, and they are playing their best hockey.

    That’s not to underestimate LA – they’re a great team who have already beaten three teams who were favorites to make it to the finals.

    I just think this talk about LA rolling in 4 or 5 is a bit much.

  58. 58.

    Morzer (0th of His PseudoName and Founder of the Walter Sobchak Peacekeepers)

    June 2, 2014 at 4:22 pm

    I wonder whether the truth is that blogs have eaten up a good deal of traditional journalism, so that much of the new journalism now looks like an aggregation of blogs. It might look like blogs dying, if you wanted to believe that story, but in fact it’s probably the reverse of the truth.

  59. 59.

    Seanly

    June 2, 2014 at 4:22 pm

    Blogs being dead seems to be just as baseless & fact-free of an assertion as when I say that I am the sexiest man alive.

    They say the following to close the article:

    The truth is, people want breaking news from well-sourced reporters or smart analysis from experts who know what they’re talking about. Sensibility is cheap.

    LOL, I trust liberal blogs to give me that more than CBS, ABC, NYT, etc etc combined.

  60. 60.

    Turgidson

    June 2, 2014 at 4:23 pm

    @Morzer (0th of His PseudoName and Founder of the Walter Sobchak Peacekeepers):

    Just wait until he has to figure out his justification for endorsing whatever rancid hairball the GOP primaries cough up over Hillary. Because he’s going to do it. It will be his most stunning achievement of intellectual dishonesty and cluelessness. And that’s saying quite a lot.

  61. 61.

    taylormattd

    June 2, 2014 at 4:24 pm

    The best is that the word “blogs” is in the URL of that Politico link.

  62. 62.

    scav

    June 2, 2014 at 4:25 pm

    @Suffern ACE: pipeline dry? so they’ll have to work for recognition in a crowded field and changed conditions rather like banal existence in however many more apparently dead fields? Shut down The movies! We’re in the late teens and things are getting fossilized! 1920s Hollywood consolidation spells permanent doom! The independent movie pipeline is dry! I swear, the stereotypical product life cycle curve is as dangerous in the hands of an MBA as . . .

  63. 63.

    Samuel Knight

    June 2, 2014 at 4:26 pm

    Better headline would be:

    Bloggers who Politico would read are all but dead, because people finally figured out their BS artists.

    The Kinsley debacle really underscored how much the pseudo liberal TNR gang such as Lane, Sulllivan, Peretz were just a page echo of straight-line conservative opinion spinners such as Will, Krauthammer, Samuelson et all. They all love to come up with ridiculous arguments, string together random facts, and sound officious while they opnine. But in the end they really don’t seem to add much clarity to much of anything.

    Thus, not too suprising that people aren’t bothering to read them anymore.

    Balloon Juice, Digby, Atrois well that’s another story.

  64. 64.

    Mike in NC

    June 2, 2014 at 4:27 pm

    Sullivan is the last of the Mohicans, which is a testament to his success.

    For some reason I thought about Sullivan while driving back from the city today, where I dropped close to $1000 on a set of new tires, routine car maintenance, and a half a case of wine from Trader Joe’s. Last saw Sully on TV about a year ago. So long as he retains just a hint of his English accent, the Villagers will extol him as a Very Serious Person.

  65. 65.

    Morzer (0th of His PseudoName and Founder of the Walter Sobchak Peacekeepers)

    June 2, 2014 at 4:27 pm

    @Turgidson:

    Sully has the unusual distinction of being on both sides of the Reform Conservativism Ponzi scheme. He is both fraudster and mark – and apparently quite unaware that he is playing either role.

  66. 66.

    David Koch

    June 2, 2014 at 4:29 pm

    This is the same site who said Nate Silver was wrong, the Bain attacks weren’t working, and Romney was winning.

    HA!

  67. 67.

    Elizabelle

    June 2, 2014 at 4:36 pm

    @ranchandsyrup:

    Thank you. Gratuitous slam by Byers, who does not have TN Coates’ thinking, let alone writing, ability.

    Who says blogs are dead?

    Soonergrunt’s essay on Bergdahl’s release is smarter than anything I have seen in the bloviating WaPost or (from what I hear) on TV/cable. And you could not accomplish it in 140 characters, or words.

    Good quality blogs, with interesting, well-reasoned posts, are not dead or even comatose.

    ASullivan’s problem is that his fare ranges from truly interesting and provocative essays and links, (and he can be extremely good and incisive when he’s “on”), and the occasional drivel because he — like Bobo Brooks — refuses to follow his observations to their logical conclusion, as cognitive dissonance prevents him from changing long-held views.

    It is why we mock him, on occasion.

    The paywall is kind of secondary. If his quality was not so uneven, one would not worry about throwing $20 at him. (And I still might, one of these days.)

    ALSO: SULLIVAN’S BLOG IS TOO SLOW TO LOAD. And not easy to maneuver to earlier material and blogposts.

    That stops me in my tracks sometimes. Maybe it does others.

  68. 68.

    SatanicPanic

    June 2, 2014 at 4:38 pm

    @Morzer (0th of His PseudoName and Founder of the Walter Sobchak Peacekeepers): Yes, traditional outlets co-opted the style and then hired away a lot of the big names. Blogging is not dead at all.

  69. 69.

    ranchandsyrup

    June 2, 2014 at 4:38 pm

    @Elizabelle: Byers is still hurting from his “TNC and Melissa Harris Perry are not public intellectuals” idiocy.

  70. 70.

    Suffern ACE

    June 2, 2014 at 4:40 pm

    @Seanly: Sensibility most certainly isn’t cheap. Less expensive than hiring a news anchor, but those pundits that the news organizations run are certainly not cheap.

  71. 71.

    Walker

    June 2, 2014 at 4:44 pm

    That definition of a blog includes Gawker and Buzzfeed. Both of which get more traffic than Politico.

  72. 72.

    am

    June 2, 2014 at 4:47 pm

    I dare anyone to find a better example in the field of the completely-unprincipled, will-say-anything-to-generate-inbounds style that dominates ‘new media’ than this. Politico is like the unholy love child of Gawker and Washington Post OpEd page.

  73. 73.

    DougJ

    June 2, 2014 at 4:48 pm

    @Walker:

    I think Gawker and Buzzfeed have some kind of journalistic value, unlike Politico.

  74. 74.

    Morzer (0th of His PseudoName and Founder of the Walter Sobchak Peacekeepers)

    June 2, 2014 at 4:48 pm

    @am:

    It’s the lovechild of Fred Hiatt’s mind and David Brooks’ soul.

  75. 75.

    DougJ

    June 2, 2014 at 4:49 pm

    @Samuel Knight:

    The Kinsley debacle really underscored how much the pseudo liberal TNR gang such as Lane, Sulllivan, Peretz were just a page echo of straight-line conservative opinion spinners such as Will, Krauthammer, Samuelson et all. They all love to come up with ridiculous arguments, string together random facts, and sound officious while they opnine. But in the end they really don’t seem to add much clarity to much of anything.

    Yup.

  76. 76.

    jl

    June 2, 2014 at 4:49 pm

    @Walker:

    ” That definition of a blog includes Gawker and Buzzfeed. Both of which get more traffic than Politico. ”

    But do Gawker and Buzzfeed win the morning? That is all that counts.

  77. 77.

    Morzer (0th of His PseudoName and Founder of the Walter Sobchak Peacekeepers)

    June 2, 2014 at 4:53 pm

    @Samuel Knight:

    Sullivan’s schtick has never been about being any sort of liberal. He’s always been More Truly Conservative Than Thou.

  78. 78.

    jl

    June 2, 2014 at 4:53 pm

    @DougJ: Main difference is that Will, Krauthammer, Samuelson, et al, don’t spend waste as much time as TNR and Slate do typing things that look like arguments. Will, Krauthammer, Samuelson, et al, just say stuff. But sadly, at lot of truth in in the comparison.

    There are a few exceptions at TNR and Slate, but you really need your BS detector calibrated when you read anything there.

  79. 79.

    scav

    June 2, 2014 at 4:55 pm

    @jl: Well, looky who announces who and what wins the hypothesized and copyrighted morning! Napoleon crowns himself and Cheney finds the best man for the job. Everybody (of the Right Sort) gets a morning!

  80. 80.

    Shakezula

    June 2, 2014 at 4:57 pm

    @BGinCHI: I substituted a dance class of 8 year olds and they assured me the movie would change my life. I nearly died of The Cutes. (And I do intend to watch it.)

  81. 81.

    Belafon

    June 2, 2014 at 5:03 pm

    @BGinCHI: It was pretty good. The one bad thing Disney did was force the movie into a 90ish minute block. It could have been a really good 2-2.5 hour movie.

  82. 82.

    gogol's wife

    June 2, 2014 at 5:04 pm

    @Seanly:

    My husband and I were eating lunch in a restaurant that had giant TVs over the tables tuned to CNN. There was no sound, thank God, but just the sight of Wolf Blitzer and Jake Tapper above a chyron saying, “Is soldier a deserter?” made me almost lose said lunch. How anyone can watch that stuff is beyond me.

  83. 83.

    Betsy

    June 2, 2014 at 5:04 pm

    It seems obvious that Politico is just saying “blogs are dead” to try show that is why Sullivan is losing ground. Like Sullivan is some kind of mainstay, as if he will last as long as anyone possibly can in this “dying” field. Vain and frankly obvious attempt to shore his weak arse up.

  84. 84.

    Betsy

    June 2, 2014 at 5:09 pm

    What I find hilarious about all the “housetrained” conservatives — Brooks, Sullivan — is that they throw around all the vocabulary and phrases that signal

    cosmopolitan
    tolerant
    open-minded
    forward-looking

    — you can have your art, your gay, your literature, your fine wines, your good table manners —

    but at the end of the piece, no matter how much toleration-sounding blather they utter, they still neverthless end up embracing the same unfounded unproven has-been racist-originating America-hating far-right lunacy theories and practices as Bill Kristol or George Fwill would.

    — and eat your shit sandwich, too!!

  85. 85.

    David Koch

    June 2, 2014 at 5:14 pm

    Politico co-founders John Harris and Jim VandeHei in The New Republic both offered some praise of Silver’s work, but Harris said the New York Times’ resident polling guru “gets up on his high horse quite a lot on different topics.” VandeHei said that some of Silver’s “stuff goes on and on” and argued that he uses “numbers to prove stuff that I don’t think can be proved by numbers alone.” ~ June 18, 2013

    They said that 8 months after an election that blew up in their faces and made Nate into an icon, and yet, like Wile E Coyote, they were still trying to blow up math and quant.

  86. 86.

    Jewish Steel

    June 2, 2014 at 5:14 pm

    On the occasion of their 10th anniversary, LGM is reporting their traffic is increasing.

    So there you go.

  87. 87.

    Morzer (0th of His PseudoName and Founder of the Walter Sobchak Peacekeepers)

    June 2, 2014 at 5:18 pm

    @Jewish Steel:

    I’ll come quietly, officer. I confess to 7,500 charges of making paid visits to view their blog over a 3 month period.

  88. 88.

    piratedan

    June 2, 2014 at 5:19 pm

    just because people stopped going to the same spot to find the same shit going on perpetuating the same bullshit arguments for the same bullshit reasons is no reason to think that blogs are dead. It’s a good case to make for the vibrancy of Conservative thought and policy being dead, but blogs, not so much.

  89. 89.

    Mary G

    June 2, 2014 at 5:22 pm

    I know I’m in the minority here, but I like Sully and am a founding subscriber. It is so nice to go to a site that has lovely white space without any ads or commenters saying stupid things (present company included, of course).

    He makes me crazy and I say I’m going to stop reading him all the time, but I always go back. One thing he does that I admire is change his mind and admit when he’s wrong. There are always ‘dissent of the day’ emails printed from readers who tell him he has his head up his ass again. He has really flagellated himself for being a cheerleader for the Iraq war. There were some amazing stories from women who had had late term abortions after George Tiller was killed that just made me cry.

    ETA: and Dylan Byers has never been right about anything. He is second only to Dick Morris for lousy predictions.

  90. 90.

    Samuel Knight

    June 2, 2014 at 5:26 pm

    Nice quote on “we hate Nate Silver” . Funny they claimed he went on and on, but his posts and analyses during the campaign were actually pretty clear and to-the-point. Wang of course was the real one who had a legitimate gripe – just as good, but didn’t have the Times platform.

    But the continuing fury of the spoiled Washington press corps at anyone who polnts out how fairly useless they are continues to be a sight to behold.

  91. 91.

    Betsy

    June 2, 2014 at 5:39 pm

    @piratedan: you nailed it.

    Slate (ugh) had a less-slate-pitchy-than-average article today about why the Right is such a refuge for grifters and narcissists. The article was full of examples making your point

    Although the article was titled “Why the Right is such a Refuge for Crazy Grifters” it never did actually state a reason.

    If anyone here sees where they actually said why, please point it out.

    Slate-lame.

  92. 92.

    Schlemizel

    June 2, 2014 at 5:40 pm

    @Turgidson:

    [The] most stunning achievement of intellectual dishonesty and cluelessness

    That should be Sully’s motto. He displays all the trappings of intellectualism but has never been anything but a vapid, empty gong rung for the GOP. I do not understand how he got the reputation of someone worth reading.

  93. 93.

    Betsy

    June 2, 2014 at 5:43 pm

    @Mary G: Well, right, those are great points, but he’s still an apologist for the Republican Party.

    He will hoo you and hah you about all these liberal ideas but at the end of the day, he won’t support electing the people or take the positions that will get us those results.

    But people on the left who want to feel open-minded will say, Well, I like to read Sully, I like to read Brooks.

  94. 94.

    ralphb

    June 2, 2014 at 5:46 pm

    @Samuel Knight: Speaking of Sam Wang, he’s kind of open for business now.

    http://election.princeton.edu/2014/05/27/democrats-currently-ahead-for-senate-control-but-for-how-long/

  95. 95.

    Schlemizel

    June 2, 2014 at 5:50 pm

    @Mary G:

    I admire is change his mind and admit when he’s wrong.

    BULLSHIT!

    As has been pointed out repeatedly here, Sully ‘changes’ his mind after he has been publicly humiliated for being spectacularly wrong and running out of stupid BS arguments. It is ALWAYS after the topic has moved on & his impact has all been on the side of gooperism. Once it no longer matters than, yeah, he admits he was misunderstood or didn’t state his point well or some other BS excuse for his shitty, bullshit support of the GOP/Brooks/Will position. He is intellectually dishonest and you know he is lying because he is so consistent in his “thinking”.

  96. 96.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    June 2, 2014 at 5:52 pm

    Being an Old, I can remember predictions of the death of:
    Movies
    Radio
    Television
    The GOP
    The Democratic Party
    Rock and Roll
    PC Games
    Soul
    Rap
    Video Games
    Personal Computers
    Land Line Phones
    Automobiles
    Print newspapers
    Nightly news
    Racism
    etc

  97. 97.

    SatanicPanic

    June 2, 2014 at 5:55 pm

    @Betsy: Slate sucks, but I’ve been going there for Jamie Bouille lately. That guy is great.

  98. 98.

    Villago Delenda Est

    June 2, 2014 at 5:56 pm

    They’re whistling past the graveyard, the utter scum of Politico are.

  99. 99.

    Morzer (0th of His PseudoName and Founder of the Walter Sobchak Peacekeepers)

    June 2, 2014 at 5:57 pm

    @Betsy:

    Why the Republican Party Attracts Provocateurs, Faux Martyrs, and Grifters.

    http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/05/republican_leadership_conference_the_gop_s_speakers_lineup_is_a_problem.html

  100. 100.

    Mike E

    June 2, 2014 at 6:00 pm

    @Hunter Gathers: I said, “No no no, you’re wrong”.

  101. 101.

    Anne Laurie

    June 2, 2014 at 6:02 pm

    @Suffern ACE:

    If the blogosphere disappears, I’ll just go back to mimeographed Zines. I miss the smell of the fluid anyway.

    Tyro! It’s the ditto machines that use that fragrant fluid to imprint colored letters from the master. Mimeo machines used ink, which didn’t smell like much, but was a stone bitch for getting everywhere but through the waxy masters onto the paper. (Anybody else here remember twilltone? Like thick newsprint, only not so archival.)

    Unless you’re thinking of the alcohol-based correction fluid (corflu) that was used to melt typos back into the master. Sniffing corflu could definitely make you light-headed…

  102. 102.

    Mandalay

    June 2, 2014 at 6:05 pm

    I haven’t read Sullivan much in a couple years

    Understandable, but I can’t help looking (in a car crash kind of way).

    He’s just created a poll inviting his readers to vote on which of a gazllion listed questions he should answer. He is pompous, egotistical, and completely lacking in self-awareness. So he has to be worth reading now and again.

  103. 103.

    chopper

    June 2, 2014 at 6:08 pm

    @Morzer (0th of His PseudoName and Founder of the Walter Sobchak Peacekeepers):

    Well I use a quill pen, just like the Founding Fathers. Originalism in action, baby!

    i use a dictaphone.

    (really? i use my finger like everyone else!)

  104. 104.

    Mike E

    June 2, 2014 at 6:09 pm

    @Higgs Boson’s Mate: Icebergs will probably be gone before any on your list winks out, sadly.

  105. 105.

    Jewish Steel

    June 2, 2014 at 6:10 pm

    @Morzer (0th of His PseudoName and Founder of the Walter Sobchak Peacekeepers): I might have suspected! There was something nouveau blog riche about you.

  106. 106.

    Morzer (0th of His PseudoName and Founder of the Walter Sobchak Peacekeepers)

    June 2, 2014 at 6:12 pm

    @Jewish Steel:

    Yeah, my and my peeps, we have this little crib in a hood named Davos……

  107. 107.

    Matt McIrvin

    June 2, 2014 at 6:13 pm

    Several years ago the buzzphrase was “content is dead.” All I could think in response was “o;iquwerj;zcnkjsdf/l cawo ‘io weo;n jkS zs ,awefoqu2390’3aoijzf knƒ∂ g,Ω∂≥lr32 I;2 U9-.”

  108. 108.

    Morzer (0th of His PseudoName and Founder of the Walter Sobchak Peacekeepers)

    June 2, 2014 at 6:17 pm

    @chopper:

    Well I source all my quills from well-cooked conservative geese, so there!

  109. 109.

    Ruckus

    June 2, 2014 at 6:20 pm

    @Mary G:
    I see that @Schlemizel: got there first but I have to say the same thing. Sully does change his mind. But only after having a large enough audience beat him around the head and shoulders with his stupidity. It’s like the paper that has a completely false headline one day and three days later, after everyone in the known world has seen it, retracts the story on page 35 in 3 point type at the bottom of a completely unrelated story. He does it so often and in exactly the same style that I’d bet he knows exactly what he is doing. He knows it’s bullshit, he writes it anyway, hoping that no on will notice. Then when it’s obvious to anyone that’s been dead for over a year that he’s wrong, he sort of changes his mind, until next time. When he does it all over again. He is a waste of useless pixels.

  110. 110.

    Morzer (0th of His PseudoName and Founder of the Walter Sobchak Peacekeepers)

    June 2, 2014 at 6:28 pm

    @Ruckus:

    “The beatings will continue until moral reasoning improves”.

  111. 111.

    NotMax

    June 2, 2014 at 6:28 pm

    @Higgs Boson’s Mate

    Yes and yes.

    Vaudeville, however, is dead.

    Ditto (pun peripherally intended) the hectograph.

    And as of last week, so is World Book & News.

    @Anne Laurie

    That spirit fluid was some powerful stuff, but would make one more woozy than high.

    Also yes when it came to mimeograph machines. It was nearly the case that one would discover ink-stained digits from merely being in the same room with one, much less operating it.

  112. 112.

    Ruckus

    June 2, 2014 at 7:09 pm

    @Morzer (0th of His PseudoName and Founder of the Walter Sobchak Peacekeepers):
    That’s why I sit in the corner, whimpering very quietly in the dark.

  113. 113.

    Bill Arnold

    June 2, 2014 at 7:19 pm

    @Higgs Boson’s Mate:

    Being an Old, I can remember predictions of the death of:

    Also being an old, the 20 year old scifi novel Steel Beach (J. Varley) mocked the whole “death of” genre well with its first sentence:

    “In five years, the p%n*s will be obsolete”, said the salesman.

    Also, Moore’s law, the death of which has been predicted as imminent for decades. (Latest mumblings are atoms, tunneling. Cutthroat capitalism will find a way, probably, if there is one.)

  114. 114.

    Fred Fnord

    June 2, 2014 at 7:59 pm

    @scav: That would be “fuck’st thou”.

  115. 115.

    Morzer (0th of His PseudoName and Founder of the Walter Sobchak Peacekeepers)

    June 2, 2014 at 8:16 pm

    @Fred Fnord:

    “Fuck thou thine selfe, Worde Presse”

  116. 116.

    another Holocene human

    June 2, 2014 at 10:06 pm

    @Jewish Steel: Unfortunately most of that was me reloading a thousand times daily because Sadly, No! got even more depressing, I think sad is more accurate now and some of the best commenters went to LGM.

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