by Edward _
The only thing more pathetic than hiding behind one’s family as an excuse for taking down your website and disappearing from the scene when you’re exposed as an alleged whore is to relaunch your site as if you hadn’t tucked your tail between your legs and scampered away in disgrace in the first place. This has got to be the most laughable comeback attempt since Liza Minelli’s one-woman show on Broadway:
I’m baaaaaaack! If you thought I was going to slink away – then you don’t know much about me. Someone still has to battle the Left and now that I’ve emerged from the crucible, I’m stronger than before.
Despite all the pleas from the Left to go over to the ‘dark side’ and expose the ‘corrupt Bush administration’ simply isn’t going to happen. My faith and my ideology are rock solid.
Still, the last few weeks have been difficult for my family and my associates. To them I offer my apology and gratitude for their support.
In regard to the allegations about my personal life, I have been advised by my attorneys not to comment on any of the details pending the outcome of any possible legal action I might pursue. Therefore, I won’t be discussing any of that stuff here.
Legal action he might pursue? I’d be a bit more concerned about legal action the authorities might pursue if I were you Jeff.
More seriously, though, Sullivan gets this wholly wrong:
I haven’t written about it because I agree completely with Glenn. The substantive case against Gannon is trivial…
That’s simply wishful thinking. A GOP plant in the White House Press Corp who the Press Secretary and even the President turn to for softball questions is trivial? Why even pretend then? Why not just stage the whole thing and put an "Infotainment" disclaimer across the bottom of the screen. The President called on him. You can’t tell me that happens randomly.
And, while I"m ranting, Gannon’s totally tasteless attempt to exploit our sense of loss over the suicide of Hunter S. Thompson with the title "Fear and Loathing in the Press Room" only serves to drive home the stark difference between a real writer and a hustling hack. As Russell Cobb pointed out:
The death of Thompson represents the passing from the Age of Gonzo to the Age of Gannon. Once again, scriveners are questioning our assumptions about truth and reality in journalism. Only this time, it’s not so fun.
Gannon is hopelessly self-absorbed. I’ve known a lot of self-promoters like him in the workplace, and they get old really fast. They also tend to go down in flames eventually.
Gannon is a makeover away from being the Tiny Tim of this generation.
“I have been advised by my attorneys not to comment on any of the details pending the outcome of any possible legal action I might pursue. ”
Classic.
“Get back! I have a lawyer! I know how to use this thing!”
“In regard to the allegations about my personal life, I have been advised by my attorneys not to comment on any of the details pending the outcome of any possible legal action I might pursue. Therefore, I won’t be discussing any of that stuff here.
Legal action he might pursue?”
Take the seeming weakness and turn it on its head. Take an opponent’s strength and make it the point of attack.
If you have had the creepy experience you have felt this before, you have sensed the slithering reptilian presence of Rove, Karl on the ground below you. Below you waiting to drag you down within him into the ooze below primordial.
FTG as in Fuck Those Guys. Sorry for the profanity. If I had some kryptonite or some antifanity to fight these dragons of doom, I’d pull it out.
The hope of the criminal when caught is that his flaying struggle will force his release. You, dark winged one, must not relent when you hold the snake in your considerable and worthy talons. Fight on in The Fight That Must Be Won, for if this one is lost then all is lost.
Good job. Give yourself a well deserved pat on the back. Then get back to work.
Since I’m the person who quoted profanity last night, I might not be the best person to say this, but: the posting rules forbid profanity.
They can’t fess up tho. How likely do you think it is that someone below the president can override security procedures?
It would be like having a licence to assasinate the president.
What I don’t understand, is why hasn’t whomever okayed access to Gannon, simply been dropped from the administration? This is what is grating. Clearly letting Gannon into the press room, as often as he was, someone knew what was going on. By “okaying” it, that person dropped the ball, and it should cost them their job. It’s the fact that this hasn’t happened, that keeps up the mystery. (“Well, this guy messed up, and made us look horrible. The guy who kept letting Gannon in to the room, and allowed Bush to call on him, has been let go.”)
There is one good thing about this though – it (hopefully?) will make it harder and harder for right-wing bloggers, etc, to get up on their high horse about similar hyocrisy on the side of the left. (Unless of course, right-wing people continue in the fine tradition of It’s OK If You Are a Republican).
Why hasn’t there been any accountability for this, incredibly stupid vetting that occurred here?
It would be like having a licence to assasinate the president.
Gannon…Jeff Gannon. (007 theme music in the background with a slide show of webpage photos)
And we cut to see M speaking to our man, “Jeff, do it for the Queen!”
The possibilities are endless.
Got too excited, sorry about that.
Lo Siento mucho. No mas de las palabras malas. Madre de diablo.
De nada. HaKol B’seder. (Or however one normally spells it when writing in a Roman script.)
Mais oui. Bien sur.
Coffee, pajalusta
heuvos con cerebros
No quisiera mas del arbusto ahora mismo.
“…when you’re exposed as an alleged whore….”
I could be wrong, but it seems to me that you can be alleged to be a whore, and you can be exposed as a whore, and you can be exposed as an alleged whore, but that each of those is a different thing than the others. Just noting.
Who in the Sam Jehosaphat are Gannon’s ‘family’ that he keeps referring to? Does he have a wife and kids? I would doubt it given his very public proclivities, but I have been wrong before.
Help here…..
“I would doubt it given his very public proclivities”
Not meaning to offend, but I get confused as to the proper way to think about gay issues. I mean, can you be gay, and keep a wife and kids on the side as a tax shelter? AG Kline of Kansas needs to crack down on this tax avoidance by demanding proof of regular connubial relations from all married couples in the state.
The Washington Times used to be agressive with these types of stories.
SEX AND THE CAPITAL
JC: What I don’t understand, is why hasn’t whomever okayed access to Gannon, simply been dropped from the administration? This is what is grating
Because whoever did, is too senior to be dropped from the administration. That’s the conclusion I’m drawing. As with whoever-it-was who gave Valerie Plame’s identity as a covert agent to the press, it’s clearly someone whom Bush can’t afford to simply get rid of.
What I don’t understand, is why hasn’t whomever okayed access to Gannon, simply been dropped from the administration?
Accountability? In this administration? You do remember the part where George Tenet and Paul Bremer both received Presidential Medals of Freedom, right? And the part where Donald Rumsfeld is still SoD?
(note I didn’t mean Gannon would have a licence to kill. The person with the authority to overide secret service procedure would., funny though)
Where are all the conservatives hiding?
I always liked Liza Minnelli.
rhc: Does he have a wife and kids? I would doubt it given his very public proclivities, but I have been wrong before.
Well, his chosen market as a prostitute should not be assumed to be identical to his personal proclivities. He may be completely heterosexual, for all I know: all I know is his advertising.
Hiding? Who’s hiding?
Edward, not sure what you mean by “GOP plant”. Who do you think planted him? Not being snarky, just haven’t been keeping up with this story.
Slarti: If he’s not a GOP plant, it’s even worse. It means that someone got repeat and continual access to the White House and the President for, what three years, under a false identity. This included being given documents relating to the Plame case. In the current pseucurity-conscious climate, surely that indicates incompetence rather than simple corruption.
In fact, it’s rather hard to come out of this without these guys looking like someone really dropped the ball here. If he wasn’t a plant, security at the White House is ridiculous. If he was a plant, why pick a gay prostitute? This is one of those issues that makes the people involved look bad however you spin it.
Or, at least, it would if it got 10% of the coverage that Monica got.
Are you saying that his security clearance was granted without knowledge of his given name? I’d want to see some evidence that this is true.
Again, I’m going to want to see evidence. I know he said he saw a memo, but the memo he said he saw and the real memo came from very different places. In any case, if he’s a GOP plant he’s not to be believed, now is he?
Que lastima! Que verguenza!
Slartibartfast.
Go here, http://americablog.blogspot.com/ and get up to date.
wow, even WhirrledNutsDialy is running a “WTF?” piece about JimJeff.
errr…
wow, even WhirrledNutsDialy is running a “WTF?” piece about JimJeff.
and yet i still don’t hear the foaming and moaning moralizers decrying the horrible stench of moral decay that permeates the Bush White House.
i mean, come on guys, if SpongeBob is a threat to the hearts and souls of America’s precious children…
I could be wrong, but it seems to me that you can be alleged to be a whore, and you can be exposed as a whore, and you can be exposed as an alleged whore, but that each of those is a different thing than the others. Just noting.
Yeah, I struggled with that myself. I think the best way to phrase it might be, “alleged to be a whore,” but that doesn’t seem to credit the evidence enough. Unless someone else created websites with Gannon’s pictures in them (and I guess that’s possible but it raises the questions of why he posed for those pictures and who had access to them), it would seem he was solicitating.
What slays me about Reynolds’ emphasis on the mean old left’s delight in the irony here is the fact that he can’t seem to appreciate the irony here. I mean, come on! If it were the other way around he’d be covering it 24/7 and hooting and hollering about morality and family values and what have you. Most on the left are simply bemused.
Of course when Gannon comes out swinging with nonsense like “So feared by the Left it had to take me down” he deserves to be mocked.
postit, unless you’ve got specific links that address my questions, that’s a non-answer.
By the way, none of this ought to be construed as defense of Gannon/Guckert. Not my job, not interested, and if in fact he was part of some VRWC attempt to lob softballs at the President…let the chips fall where they may. Just, I’m not seeing any of these daffy claims being substantiated by much other than possible-therefore-true.
Just, I’m not seeing any of these daffy claims being substantiated by much other than possible-therefore-true.
The Ameriblog guy has built a rather convincing case, Slarti. From the fact the Gannon was able to gain access even before his “news agency” was in operation to the fact that he was repeatedly seen by journalists with much more experience to be privvy to information he most likely had to be handed by someone rather high up, he’s got “plant” written all over him. Yes, it might still all be explained away, but if it walks like a duck…
Which ‘daffy claims’, Slarti?
The CIA memo? But it was Gannon himself who boasted about seeing the CIA memo. Now, he could certainly be lying. But he’s the source of that ‘daffy’ claim, not us.
The lack of vetting? I’m not sure how this qualifies as a ‘daffy’ claim. Unless you’re saying Gannon was properly vetted, by FBI and/or Secret Service? In which case: wow. Gannon was a potential blackmail target, and the SS/FBA allowed him to be within shouting/shooting range of the President? How do you explain that one?
Really, Slarti: what are the daffy claims?
I’m not seeing any of these daffy claims being substantiated by much other than possible-therefore-true.
I’m assuming that the “daffy claims” are the following
-The Secret Service did not know who Gannon was before letting him in
-He saw the secret documentation relating to Plame.
Given the things that have turned up about Guckert/Gannon’s background, it is probably safe to say that even if the Secret Service had known who he was, he was not given a full background check, as I think the possibility of blackmailing him through revelation of his homosexual activities would have immediately made him suspect. The argument that the Secret Service did not know who he was is not that they let someone wander in off the street to ask questions, it is that his attendance was obviously okayed by someone higher up without the requisite checks. To turn that into a daffy claim that the SS didn’t know this guy from Adam is a bit much. What people are saying is that the SS did not exercise due diligence, which is can throw into relief the current prosecution of Abu Ali.
Did he see the secret documents relating to Plame? I think it is still a felony to reveal that someone is an undercover CIA agent regardless how that information is passed. The timing makes it relatively clear (I think) that Guckert/Gannon had sources that gave him this information. Remember that one of the defenses of Novak and others was that this information was ‘common knowledge’. The fact that a gay prostitute got that information as well sorta blows that defense out of the water.
If there are any other ‘daffy claims’, I hope you can let us know what exactly the content of those claims are so we can find some information.
Slartibatfast – “possible-therefore-true.”
read Probable-therefore-true.
Just about anything is ‘possible’ but the evidence amassed to date coupled with Gannon/Guckerts non-denial denials and WH silence speaks volumes. At the very least, if Gannon/Guckert is indeed a self decribed ‘loose cannon’ he has exposed a huge security problem in the WH press office. If, as is more likely, he was a WH plant or at a minimum he was enabled by someone in the WH press office then this is huge scandal coming on the heels as it does of proven WH attempts at propaganda using journalists aka Armstrong Williams et al.
You really out to start at
http://americablog.blogspot.com/
because they have led the original investigation of this story. You are not going to get anything but obfuscation and distraction from the usual RW sources.
And finally a story to gladden everyones hearts.
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/index.php?p=129
“Remember that one of the defenses of Novak and others was that this information was ‘common knowledge’. The fact that a gay prostitute got that information as well sorta blows that defense out of the water.”
If even fake journalists knew about it, maybe everybody did…
You are not going to get anything but obfuscation and distraction from the usual RW sources.
True, but one needs to watch the speed of light spinning that is taking place. Here’s Powerline (via a 2/24 DCMedia girl post, if you really want to go to Powerline, go via there)
You can’t make this stuff up.
Slarti (and everyone else),
In terms of the allegation of the Plame document, I agree that this is in all probability a non-story. It’s been pointed out by David Corn that Gannon’s mention of the Plame document is almost exactly the same phrasing as the Wall Street Journal’s phrasing a week earlier.
Here is the link
But that is different than how Gannon was allowed access. It is inconceivable, to me at least, that someone didn’t drop the ball in vetting.
“You can’t make this stuff up.”
Apparently they can! It would seem nothing can be allowed to puncture the bubble of their alternate reality.
As conservative columnist Bruce Bartlett wrote: “If Gannon was using an alias, White House staff had to be involved in maintaining his cover”.
JC – “It’s been pointed out by David Corn that Gannon’s mention of the Plame document is almost exactly the same phrasing as the Wall Street Journal’s phrasing a week earlier.”
But JC, Gannon/Guckert has explicitly NOT used the argument (that he got the info regarding the now proven ‘fake’ memo from the WSJ) in any of his recent self serving ‘interviews’ which logically is what you would expect him or his handlers to do.
So why isn’t he relying on that defence? most probably because he didn’t read about it in the WSJ and neither did he tell that to the FBI when interviewed about it. Most likely he was told the information by the same individual/group responsible for the fake memo and distributing it amongst the press.
Either he gave the FBI a name or declined to reveal sources but apparently he isn’t able to rely on the “I saw it in the WSJ” article because he didn’t and thats not what he told the FBI which would leave him open to perjury if he did.
“and if in fact he was part of some VRWC attempt to lob softballs at the President…let the chips fall where they may”
“Lob softballs” is confirmed. I’ll leave the “VRWC” part to others.
I did a google to see if I could find a list of Gannon’s questions. Here’s what I came up with in addition to the “out of touch with reality” remark:
midway my googling I found out that daily kos has an archive of Gannon’s question.
Gannon is not a biased reporter. Seymour Hersh is a biased reporter. I’m to some extent a biased reporter. Gannon’s a propagandist. The right-of-center media is one big exercise in blurring the lines between truth and propaganda. And now, with the GOP controlling the whole federal government with the partial exception of the courts, it’s pro-government propaganda. Some of which the administration actually finances or does special favors for (as, apparently, in Gannon’s case), some of which it doesn’t.
And the rest of the paid media will not point out its inaccuracy. So it works like a charm. See this post by Slacktivist:
Dan Froomkin’s take is that what’s most appalling is how often McLellan calls on Gannon.
I have to say I don’t quite get this story. So maybe there’s a sex scandal involved, someone in the Bush Administration who had an affair with Gannon and let him in.
Yeah, shocking, someone pass the smelling salts, but until or unless this is proven, it’s a little hard to get too excited about it. And suppose it is proven. It has almost nothing to do with why I dislike the Bush Administration so much. I half-expect sordid sex scandals to pop up in almost every administration. Now if we can show that person A had an affair with Gannon and that something illegal was done and that people in the Bush Administration knew it and covered it up, then you’re going somewhere. I still don’t like it–it’s getting Al Capone with tax evasion. If Americans turn against the Bush Administration, I’m hoping it’s for the right reasons–the torture scandal, for one.
As for the softball questions, isn’t that what Fox News is for? So what if an actual whore is used instead? We’re back to sex making this a scandal. For that matter, the NYT hasn’t exactly been Seymour Hersh-like in its willingness to play the alleged traditional watchdog role of the press. At least with Gannon and Fox you know you don’t have to take them seriously.
Are you saying that his security clearance was granted without knowledge of his given name? I’d want to see some evidence that this is true.
What we’re saying is that Guckert either a) fooled those doing his background check for two years, or b) had a patron with influence in the WH.
Evidence for it being either one scenario or the other is incontrovertible. Married journalists who use their maiden names professionally are /required/ by the WH to use their married names. Guckert’s legal name is a matter of record, as is his use of his assumed name in the WH for two years.
The name issue aside, there is the prostitution angle. Personally, I think it’s irrelevant to his career as a journalist. Where it becomes relevant is when he must submit to a background check. Even a cursory investigation would turn up his ownership of domains on which were posted nude pictures advertising his services as an escort. Even assuming he was not deemed a security risk, why would the WH grant access to someone when there exists strong evidence that they are engaged in an ongoing criminal activity? (Yes, I realize there’s a snarky straight line to that, but I’m being serious)
I realize you’re trying to be reasonably fair and skeptical here, but this at minimum signifies profound incompetence in WH security, and more likely indicates that Guckert had a patron with influence inside the WH.
Donald Johnson: As for the softball questions, isn’t that what Fox News is for? So what if an actual whore is used instead?
Does Fox News ask questions like:
Because that, like the quotes Katherine posted above, is a textbook example of shilling. He might as well have stepped up and testified that Dr. McClellan’s Miracle Snake Oil Elixir healed his gout.
These aren’t just softball questions. Gannon is walking the ball to home plate and giving the Bush administration a piggy-back ride around the bases. I have a pretty low opinion of Fox, but this sort of thing makes them almost look respectable.
And the prostitution part is just poetic.
What is a reporter’s job?
Is it a reporter’s job to make the Administration look good?
Is it a reporter’s job to defend the Administration?
If the answers to the above questions are “yes,” then what’s the difference between a reporter and a WH Press Secretary? Why even bother having reporters in the WH, when all we’d need are handouts from the WH press office?
This story is not about Jeff Gannon or bloggers or sex or the rights of reporters privacy. The crux of this story is the public’s basic ‘right to know’, in the light of repeated attempts at coercion/co-option of the 4th estate by this WH and various RW propagandists.
At what point do we/the media say enough is enough?
The country needs an independent media if we are to function as a democracy.
I was going to talk about the politics of personal destruction or how the MSM is comprised primary of liberals. But given the general venom spewed so far
this is the proper medicine.
[Via Real Clear Politics]
Here is some more tom foolery
Passing thought too bad Gannon isn’t Muslim then we would have a hat trick.
“Gannon’s only offense is that he may be gay.”
Kinda thought tax delinquency was a crime. Anyway, the story isn’t about “Gannon” per se – nothing against him, the man has to put food on his family after all – but about the WH’s desperation to get a hired voice into the press corps.
Timmy’s rant is proof enough for me that we are onto something here.
Timmy’s rant hardly, but if you believe you are on to someone, please carry on.
I welcome a full review of WH press corp and those in the press corp who aren’t journalist. In fact why not start with Helen and go from there.
but all their other charges against him fall apart after three seconds of scrutiny. Gannon’s only offense is that he may be gay.
Good God. Is this for real?
Or did someone make it up to make right-wingers look bad?
I have to ask Timmy, your hattrick comment, gay, Muslim and???? what is the third?
Republican?
Anyway, “trifecta” would be more topical.
Timmy, I’m surprised. Since you call this “proper medicine”, am I to take it that you endorse the view that any criticism of a gay person is, ipso facto, homophobic? Because you surely must realize that in addition to sidestepping the very valid criticisms of Gannon, Coulter offered no evidence in support of the homophobia charge whatsoever.
(And this is assuming Gannon even is gay, which hasn’t been established AFAIK.)
I had no idea who first said Timmy’s quote, but when I clicked on the link? Oh dear.
Is it possible that some mean person who really doesn’t like right-wingers made up Ann Coulter in order to make the right look bad? Poisonous venom is one thing, but her spew about the “liberal” reaction to Gannon is, well, just plain ill-informed.
(Oh, and her website seems to be doing something odd to my browser.)
Timmy, just a word of advice: if you’re trying to guilt trip liberals for our supposed hatemongering it is better NOT to quote someone who publicly says we are all traitors and advocates the murder of journalists.
Likewise, if you’re trying to guilt trip liberals for our supposed homophobia it is better NOT to quote someone who accused Bill Clinton of “attempting to turn the U.S. armed forces into a homosexual focus group” and said that the boy scouts’ exclusion of gay scoutmasters was justified because “perhaps gay scout leaders just really liked camping. But it was also possible that gay men who wanted to lead troops of adolescent boys into the woods were up to no good.”
if you’re trying to guilt trip liberals
I love this Gannon gig but Katherine when you all start acting like Coulter. Well she is the perfect tonic for what apparently ails ya all.
Edward, that would be “conservative”, politically speaking that is. 🙂
Is Timmy’s mass accusation that we are all “acting like Ann Coulter” sufficiently insulting for him to be banned at last?
To be honest, I find it too off-the-wall funny – it’s kind of like someone snarling “You’re all acting like SpongeBob SquarePants!” out of the blue, with no foreshadowing or lead-in or explanation why… it might be meant to be insulting, but the only sane response is a snicker.
OTOH, there is no doubt that Ann Coulter is a hateful person who writes ill-informed screeds full of bigotry and lies, and comparing Katherine or Edward or indeed (I think) any of the commenters on this thread to her, is indeed insulting.
Perhaps we could just continue to discuss Gannon? Timmy’s attempt to compare Katherine and Edward to Ann Coulter seems to be a bit of a threadjack.
Now that Tacitus is back, can we …
Btw, lots of good stuff here on the Bush administration’s ongoing quest to delegitimize the very act of journalism.
Now that Tacitus is back, can we …
Speaking of which, word has it Tacitus might be on the NBC Nightly News a few minutes from now in a segment on blogging.
“..Tacitus might be on the NBC Nightly News a few minutes from now in a segment on blogging.
Tacticus, Assrocket, can’t we get someone on the box with a mainstream perspective?
If you had put it to a vote I would have voted to spare Timmy for his entertainment value over allowing the hatefull Redstate in the backdoor.
Anyway, the story isn’t about “Gannon” per se – nothing against him, the man has to put food on his family after all – but about the WH’s desperation to get a hired voice into the press corps.
Aha!
I just worked out why they pushed him back into the spotlight.
My faith in their ability to manipulate the media has been restored. Well done, Karl.
Anyway, the story isn’t about “Gannon” per se – nothing against him, the man has to put food on his family after all – but about the WH’s desperation to get a hired voice into the press corps.
No, it’s about delegitimizing the press corps.
postit, “hatefull” isn’t vaguely civil.
McDuff, do tell.
praktike, do you mean that they expected him to be outed to drag the general tone down?
No, it’s about delegitimizing the press corps.
Firing squad in the form of a circle, those self inflicted wounds must be very painful.
Slarti: There’s a decent-enough summary of Gannon’s shenanigans at Salon. [Lacking subscription, a day pass is most ironically required.] Ameriblog’s still got the best breaking coverage if you’re into following this closely.
“hatefull” isn’t vaguely civil.
Neither is Redstate, and the posting rules (generally) address how we treat other ObWi commentors, not our descriptions of the general tone at other sites on the net. I have no problem whatsoever accurately describing the tone at Redstate, Powerline, or LGF–in respectively increasing degrees of nastiness–as hateful. Drop in on any of the threads about torture, f’rex, and you’ll see a few lone voices of priciple and reason drowned out by a sea of inhumanity with whom I’m ashamed to share a common nationality. Calling this sort of thing “hateful” is being charitable.
Now, if that’s how postit was characterizing Tacitus himself (as opposed to the community whence he comes), then I’m right there with you.
I used the word ‘hatefull’ to describe redstate as has been accurately divined, thankfully no one can read my mind and divine what I think of tacitus.
And if anyone had been paying attention you would have noticed Jes calling coulterbitch a ‘hatefull person’ not 4 posts up from mine.
Yes, but as far as I know, Ann Coulter does not comment here. Long may this state of affairs endure.
(And the copy editor in me says: it’s ‘hateful’.)
(Down, copy editor!)
Sorry to have misread you, postit, carry on.
Hilzoy, you are right on the spelling.
Regarding the other point I’m not so sure. Are you saying that if Charles Johnson posted here we would not be able to call LGF hateful? Perhaps we need input from the rules committee?
A gentleman and a scholar – rilkefan.
praktike, do you mean that they expected him to be outed to drag the general tone down?
No, I mean that “Talon News” was allowed to participate because the GOP wants to destroy the press. See the Jay Rosen piece I linked to above, which will explain all.
If George W. Bush himself came here to comment, I would do my utmost to restrict my criticisms of him purely to those I could support with evidence while avoiding ad hominem attacks.
Which, I suppose, is easy enough to say given the rich and fertile fields of evidence that exist to support my low opinions of Mr. Bush.
Note that while I’m perhaps more likely than others to read something as metonymy, it’s probably best to be as clear as possible when using strong terms.
The general idea is that we get to express ourselves in any way we want (consistent with the other posting rules) about public figures, but not about fellow commenters. We do, of course, get to say all sorts of things about fellow commenters’ arguments (though usually it’s taken to be good form to supply evidence and so forth); just not about them. (Sort of the argument version of ‘hate the sin, love the sinner’.) I think the ‘don’t slam commenters’ part takes precedence over the ‘it’s OK to slam public figures’ part, since not being rude to someone’s virtual face (to my mind) takes precedence over — well, whatever. But since so few public figures have seen fit to grace us with their presence, the ObWi Collective Mind has not made itself up on this point.
Calling LGF hateful would be fine, since LGF is not a person. (I hope. Now I’ll have nightmares.)
Speaking of Gannon, Pharyngula has a whole post on the evolution of the penis. It’s interesting. (Seriously.) In it I learned that most (male) birds have no penis, which was news to me, and I thought, really?, and googled, and found the following news story, which you should only click on if you are not going to be disturbed by the idea of a duck that weighs half a pound and yet is, well, um, let’s just say that its version of the organ in question is over twice as long as Jeff Gannon says his is. And corkscrew-shaped. With a brush on the end.
“Our best guess is that the birds use [the long penis] as a kind of lasso,” McCracken said. “The males have to chase the females, and even during copulation the females are trying to escape.”
You have been warned.
Error: the duck weighs a pound. But still.
And about which rule takes precedence: I meant, but did not say: in case of a conflict caused by a public figure commenting here.
Once again, The Poor Man manages to couch priceless wisdom in a package nearly impossible to read whilst taking a sip of anything whatsoever.
“Our best guess is that the birds use [the long penis] as a kind of lasso,” McCracken said. “The males have to chase the females, and even during copulation the females are trying to escape.”
There is a joke in here somewhere, a joke about Navy cadets or frat boys that is begging to be birthed, phoenix-like, from the ashes of my good sense and taste. But for the moment, I think I’ll simply leave the source quote to speak for itself.
Why are you willing to take Guckert’s word on this? Has anyone else actually seen this CIA memo? I’ve heard various bloggers state that this wasn’t, in fact, a CIA memo that mentioned Plame, and anyone who’d actually seen it couldn’t have possibly mistaken it for one.
Cite? Required to use their married names, where? As far as I can tell, the claim is that Guckert obtained a clearance under a false name. My question was, do you claim that those clearing him didn’t know what his given name was? So far, I haven’t gotten an answer on this either way. I could change my name tomorrow to Caesar Augustus and still get a Top Secret clearance, that I can guarantee you. Or I could just start calling myself Caesar Augustus, and still get the same clearance. If the claim is that he got a press pass (which, let’s be clear, is different from a clearance) under an assumed name, I’m not going to dispute that.
So, to clear things up, above: the daffy claims bit referred to the Gannon-outed-Plame fist-pumping I’m seeing around blogdom. The clearance thing I think is slightly daffy but might turn less daffy once the language is straightened out. Oh, and the fact that David Corn has pretty much dismissed the Plame angle actually makes me feel that it’s slightly more probable that Guckert was involved.
“Because whoever did, is too senior to be dropped from the administration.”
I’m skipping ahead, and commenting before reading all the comments (which I likely will if I comment on this thread again, but otherwise no promises), so I assume others have mentioned the reported contact the man had with Karl Rove, as well as his reportedly being invited to invitation-only White House parties, which was apparently not a given for “day-pass” reporters (I’ve not confirmed any of this, please note).
Slarti said: “Are you saying that his security clearance was granted without knowledge of his given name? I’d want to see some evidence that this is true.”
I assume someone has already explained the difference between a “real” press pass to the WH, which does involve a months-long security check, and a day-pass, which as much reported, no matter that it’s a “day pass” granted every day for years, apparently involves an extremely cursory, at best, security glance; that the man was granted access to the WH on this basis is presumably unlikely to be a coincidence.
Whoops, completely forgot the bit I was primarily intending to comment on. Edward said: “What slays me about Reynolds’ emphasis on the mean old left’s delight in the irony here is the fact that he can’t seem to appreciate the irony here. I mean, come on! If it were the other way around he’d be covering it 24/7 and hooting and hollering about morality and family values and what have you. Most on the left are simply bemused.”
I have a great many problems with an endless number of things Glenn has said in the past year and a half, getting on more, and with a lot of approaches and attitudes in recent times, but as somone who was reading him back in 2001, and who was like most liberal bloggers in the year following in finding him largely a sensible centrist-libertarian type, I have to say that this characterization of him is beyond wrong: it’s silly. It’s clearly ignorant. We can both agree on quite a lot of criticisms and disagreements with an endless number of Glenn’s comments and characterizations — his characterizations of Democrats in general, among the most obvious — but whatever Glenn Reynolds’ faults, being a supporter of “family values” and “morality,” has absolutely never been one of them. This is utter nonsense, and, frankly, you owe him a public apologiy here for saying it.
Reynolds has never — in my limited view, at least, been anything other than a dogged critic of the Christian Right, and the “family values” type, and has spoken up endlessly in support of porn, gay rights, sexual libertinism in general, and similar standard-libertarian-type topics.
Tosh, but you’ve engaged in an appalling and unfounded stereotype here, Edward, entirely assuming, with no foundation whatever, that because his opinions on X, Y, and Z are thus (Irag, Bush, Democrats, say), that his opinion on A and B must be those of, I dunno, one of the Powerline guys, or Orrin Judd, or somesuch.
(This is not dissimilar to the way some lefty bloggers have taken to claiming that Jeff Jarvis is a conservative Republican, pretty much only because he supported the Iraq war and defends related causes, despite having written at considerable length about his voting for John Kerry.)
Magorn in a diary on daily kos hit the nail on the head for me:
Score one for the MSM a great editorial in the Detroit Free Press (whose domain name, ironically enough, is Freep.com.) http://www.freep.com/voices/editorials/eguckert23e_20050223.htm
asks a question that might really have some traction.
_________________
How is it that an administration that screened thousands of people for attendance at Bush campaign rallies repeatedly let a fake reporter into the sanctorum of the White House pressroom under a false name? Who was running that background check?
How could a president who declares that national security is his prime concern be so ill served for nearly two years by his own security detail?
What is the public to make of the fact that legitimate protesters are kept far away from President George W. Bush while an illegitimate “journalist” who’s really working for a Republican propaganda mill is repeatedly allowed into the White House pressroom and regularly called upon by the president and the president’s press secretary to ask questions?
_________________
Diaries :: Magorn’s diary ::
To me, Rove’s creation of an impenetrable bubble around the president, to shield him from ever having to listen to dissenting opinion or a different point of view is the real scandal of the past three years. This editorial shows great insight in tying the two threads together. Gannon was really nothing more than an extension of all those “ordinary citizens” Rove used to round up at “Ask President Bush” events. You may recall those fine upstanding citizens asked such penetrating questions as “Thank you for your Leadership” “Why are we safer today than ever before?” and “Does your opponent REALLY eat babies and worship the dark lord?” (okay I might have made the last one up-maybe).
Apparently, Bush Co. decided their boy also needed that kind of help in the press room. Since they couldn’t get away with handing out all the press passes to local committee chairmen, they did the next best thing and brought in “Chip Rightwingenstien” to shill for them. Its a reflection of how tight and recursive the bubble has gotten, that Rove et al really believed this would work. The con men are starting to fall for their own patter.
The reason all this matters is because the The presidency is such an awesome responsibility that no president has been unchanged by its weight. Look at the differences in Bill Clinton between his first and second term, Or George HW Bush or even Ronald Regan (pre Alzheimer’s). They all grew into the job, became more thoughtful, and gained gravitas. The pressure of being the president helped them to become “presidential”, their politics became more practical, less dogmatic, and more in tune with the possibilities and limitations of their position. They learned from both successes and failures to be more humble and deliberate about their decision making. Most of them were physically, emotionally, and mentally drained when they left office.
But not Our Boy W. He sails along from Potemkin Village to Potemkin Village and never sees the reality hiding behind the cardboard façade. Thus he never has to question himself or his policies even when they are disastrous failures. Reports of his personal habits in the White House indicate he more concerned with his intensive daily workouts (hmm is the recovering addict seeking a replacement high with endorphins?) and maintaining his 9 pm bedtime, than he is abut the increasingly dangerous state of world affairs. He `s so constantly told everything is right, good and perfect, that he’s nearly impervious to opposing points of view.
As a Washington Post Story of a few week ago reported; Even when Colin Powell’s tried to burst the bubble in one of his last meetings with the president he failed.
“According to Chas Freeman, former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia and head of the independent Middle East Policy Council, Mr. Bush recently asked Mr. Powell for his view on the progress of the war. ‘We’re losing,’ Mr. Powell was quoted as saying. Mr. Freeman said Mr. Bush then asked the secretary of state to leave.”
Without truth slipping under that bubble there can be no reflection, and without reflection, Mr. Bush’s personal “accountability Moment” might never come
hilzoy, it’s not just some odd duck:
The Swan and Leda
The god swoops down upon her from behind.
It was that or waddle to the attack.
The bright wings batter her down on her back.
He does what she’s not done with her own kind:
Swans have, unlike most birds, external genitals.
He spreads, with webbed reptilian feet, her thighs,
Upon her senseless lips his senseless beak,
His neck snaked round her neck. His eyes
Are elsewhere – they forsee perhaps the roles
The girls who soon will hatch will play:
Adultery justifying murder and war crimes
By barbarians considered heroes to this day –
Having more imagination than those of our times,
And an above-average publicist in their pay.
Reynolds has never — in my limited view, at least, been anything other than a dogged critic of the Christian Right, and the “family values” type, and has spoken up endlessly in support of porn, gay rights, sexual libertinism in general, and similar standard-libertarian-type topics.
Gary
Doesn’t “dogged” imply a regular series of postings rather than simply suggesting that gun ownership represents diversity? Any other 2005 postings concerning gay rights only seem to occur when he feels like he is being dragged into a fight.
I’ve never been a constant reader of Reynolds, but it appears to me that these liberal values are simply window dressing. I’m not saying he has to believe exactly what I believe, but when the “liberal” values don’t seem to excite the same kind of passion that the “conservative” arguments do, it suggests a position of rhetorical convenience rather than of true conviction.
“Doesn’t ‘dogged’ imply a regular series of postings rather than simply suggesting that gun ownership represents diversity?”
Quite. I recall dozens and dozens, typically at least a few per week. Since his archives are there, I could go and start picking off examples, but I’m not inclined to do so when it’s simple truth.
“Any other 2005 postings….”
Without requoting myself, was something about the time frames I specified unclear?
There have been claims that Reynolds’s positions have shifted greatly with the political winds. Edward may for all I know be correct – of course, arguing counterfactuals is inherently risky.
in my limited view, at least, been anything other than a dogged critic of the Christian Right (emph mine)
It’s the ‘anything other’ that I disagree with, which implies timelessness, and, given that you feel an apology is owed, what Glenn is at this point in time rather than what GR was in the blogosphere’s infancy is the question, I would think.
Any number of people have shifted positions (the old “9-11 changed everything” meme) but the best have been honest as to why they have shifted and how they have shifted. But since both of us are arguing from an reflected image of Reynolds rather than from his actual oeuvre, I think that we will have to find someone willing to work through Instapundit’s output and report. Any volunteers?
“I don’t wanna be anything other than what I’ve been tryin’ to be lately.”
On Gannon:
it just occurred to me that there’s an entirely different approach liberal weblogs could take to this. Rather (or in addition to) demanding press coverage that we know won’t be very good, or an investigation we know we won’t get, why don’t liberal bloggers start sending in applications for White House press room day passes? There are three possible outcomes:
1) the applications are denied, proving our point.
2) a few of the applications are granted, but McLellan doesn’t call on the blogger, again proving our point.
3) (least likely by far) the applications are granted and we get the chance to ask real questions. (We would have to prepare substantive, hard questions very carefully) How cool would that be?
Much as I would love the chance to ask some specific questions about extraordinary rendition, I cannot do this, as it would jeopardize my job offer for next year & I’m nowhere near D.C. But there must be no shortage of liberal bloggers who live within a short trip of D.C. who have done better journalism than Guckert, could use their real names, and who are…let’s just see better equipped to pass a background check. So how do you apply for a day pass? Someone besides me must have thought of this, right?
Yes, someone has. The highlights are that Scott McLellan is on record as stating to Howie Kurtz:
And the instructions for applying for a day pass:
“The information returned from the large metropolitan daily’s Washington bureau confirmed what I suspected all along: Anyone seeking a White House press pass must write, on official letterhead, to Jeff’s friend Scottie.
Here’s the address:
Scott McClellan
Assistant to the President/Press Secretary
Office of the Press Secretary
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Northwest
Room #WH/1/WW
Washington, D.C. 20500
Now, it seems to me that one could use a much simpler address and that a letter sent to Mr. McClellan at the White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue would probably get there. It is, after all, a fairly well known place. And this is the administration that says it wants to simplify things and get government off our backs.
However, since this is also the administration that is dropping government on our heads, probably best to use the long form.
In your letter, on your official letterhead, include name, address, Social Security number, date of birth, and news affiliation.”
I wonder how official the official letterhead has to be? Probably including our mascot would be a very bad idea.
Much as I would love the chance to ask some specific questions about extraordinary rendition, I cannot do this, as it would jeopardize my job offer for next year
Couldn’t you just use a false name? How about Kitty Obwoui? Speak with a french accent and say you are just in town for the day. ;^)
‘We’re losing,’ Mr. Powell was quoted as saying.
But with stories like this Mr. Powell might be wrong in his overall geopolitical analysis. Again it is still early in the game though.
Katherine, I couldn’t agree with you more (must have read Corn’s piece on the overall situation) but then again if you look at the makeup of the WH Press Corp the activists are already there, take Helen Thomas for example, who isn’t a shy ducky at all.
This is utter nonsense, and, frankly, you owe him a public apologiy here for saying it.
Gary,
I’ll agree it’s possibly nonsense, but a public apology? For my opinion? It was conjecture, yes, but it wasn’t ad hominem. You read him differently. Fine, say so, but stop short of insulting me for offering my reading. We’re risking becoming a blogosphere of spinster nannies around here.
I find Reynolds consistenly mocking of the left and soft on the right. It’s my opinion that Glenn would be much harder on Gannon were he of the left. The “morals” or “family values” bit might not be his approach to the critique, but I’m confident it would be a harsher critque. Furthermore, for you to insist he deserves an apology for such conjecture (as if anyone who defends morality or family values has been libeled), now that’s “silly.”
As much as you’re entitled to defend Reynolds as ferverently as you do, I’m entitled to conclude he’s not being totally objective in his assessment of the left’s response to Gannon. Yes, perhaps he wouldn’t play the morality card, but for you to focus on that like it’s defamation of character is very bizarre to me.
Yeah, but Helen Thomas is a columnist, no? She’s not been a straight news reporter for a while now…
Oh, and the question of Helen Thomas’ biases is irrelevant to the real issue at hand: it’s not about whether there are biased reporters in the WH Press Corps. It’s about whether one of those biased reporters, having got in based on his affiliations with a phony news organization that was a front for a GOP activist group, was used by the Press Secretary as a way of evading real questions from real reporters. And it looks very much like the answer to that question is yes.
Helen Thomas’ biases is irrelevant to the real issue at hand
Actually, as you pointed that Helen is no longer a journalist, why does she have a WH press pass. The real issue remains who should be included or excluded from the WH press corp.
The other open question what is a “real reporter”.
Actually, as you pointed that Helen is no longer a journalist, why does she have a WH press pass.
Nobody said that Helen is no longer a journalist, and you know it. Mark said that she hasn’t been a straight news reporter for a while, but instead works as a columnist. Columnists are journalists, and many of them do investigative reporting.
I’ll take “yet another attempt at derailing criticism against Republicans” for $500, Alex.
Edward
ferverently
Damn! Fervent + reverent? A real hot kind of reverence?(><)v
Should Helen Thomas have a WH press pass, given her current position writing as an opinion columnist?
BTW, journalists (as do lawyers, doctors, teachers et al) move into many lines of work including press secretaries for politicians. They then sometimes moveon to become pundits (see Sunday morning TV shows).
Alex, I take liberal irrelevancy for $200.
Should Helen Thomas have a WH press pass, given her current position writing as an opinion columnist?
Feel free to make the case, should you have one.
Should Helen Thomas have a WH press pass, given her current position writing as an opinion columnist?
Who’s keeping score for TtWD’s rhetorical questions on this thread?
Pause for comedy, in the Clueless Conservative Columnist category:
Courtesy of Atrios, it seems that Doug Schmitz (wingnut columnist for the Michigan News) is in high dudgeon over the mean ol’ lefties stories about Gannon. In the course of his screed, he says, “But these same leftist reporters never said a word when New York Times reporter and Bush-hater Adam Nagourney posted, in his “personal diary” on his Web site, false allegations about Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman.”
Why is this funny? Why is this absolutely priceless?
“Ad Nag” – the personal diary web site Schmitz referred to – is a spoof site. Spoof as in, not really a personal site, not really a personal diary, not really Nagourney.
Oh, and elsewhere in Schmitz’s “Look! I’m a Moron!” column is a reference to Carl Cameron – you know, the Carl Cameron who ‘accidentally’ posted an article on Foxnews.com calling Kerry a metrosexual, complete with fake quotes about manicures; the Carl Cameron who said the reason he couldn’t talk about Israel’s connection with the 9/11 attacks was because the information was ‘classified’ and he’d be committing career suicide? Yeah: that Carl Cameron, who Schmitz calls “one of the best White House correspondents in Washington.”
This, of course, isn’t the first time a conservative newsie found a fake group, decided it was real, and wrote an article attacking Democrats based on the fake group. Fox News – them again! – found “Communists for Kerry” and quoted them as hoping to elect “Comrade Kerry,” thus hinting that Kerry was a Communist himself. Fox later had to reverse itself, after a long and arduous fact-check process (which consisted of clicking on the Communists for Kerry website) revealed that Communists for Kerry was a spoof site put up by…. Bush supporters!
Well, no wonder conservatives can’t get what the fuss over Gannon is about. Conservative newsies make up stuff all the time, get fooled by other people making up stuff quite frequently, and keep selling Administration misinformation long after its pull date.
When they say Gannon’s just as much a journalist as they are, they’re really really not kidding.
Jes, I keep asking but no one answers.
CaseyL, I was thinking of TANG as compared to SF 180, as a really good example of the MSM.
“Jes, I keep asking but no one answers.”
You keep a-knockin’, but you can’t come in.
Come back tomorrow night try it again.
Jes, I keep asking but no one answers.
That’s because it’s a rhetorical question. No one ever answers rhetorical questions.
No one ever answers rhetorical questions.
Well I can thing of one.
If a knock three times, does that work rilkedude.
Sorry, TtWD, it’s twice on the pipe.
Timmy: Well I can thing of one.
?
As Anarch has already said: if you have a case to make against Helen Thomas having a press pass, do make it. If you have only rhetorical questions to ask, don’t keep pushing for answers. When you persistently bring up Helen Thomas in threads about Jeff Gannon, without actually being able to say anything about her, it does look as if you are trying to elliptically say that you think a respected journalist like Helen Thomas is somehow on the level of Gannon/Gucker, without – for whatever reason – wanting to come out and say so.
Is this the impression you want to give? Not a rhetorical question, Timmy: I’m actually interested in the answer.
Actually, Helen doesn’t belong as she is no longer a reporter, rather she is a columnist; she also fails to ask articulate questions and is blinded by her own personal ideology. But only the first issue is relevant to why she shouldn’t be a member of the WH press corp the balance was solely for effect.
So your litmus test for WH reporters is? Not a rhetorical question by any means.
Perhaps this explains Timmy’s Helen Thomas fixation,
http://www.anncoulter.com/cgi-local/printer_friendly.cgi?article=43
Quote :
“Press passes can’t be that hard to come by if the White House allows that old Arab Helen Thomas to sit within yards of the president.”
I think Helen reinforces media stereotypes and thus, while she doesn’t belong, she certainly helps the current Admin everytime she asks a question.
But my favorite Thomas, remains Marlo.
I believe journalists are equivalent to “used car salesman” in the admiration department.
postit: Perhaps this explains Timmy’s Helen Thomas fixation
Probably. Perhaps Timmy is Ann Coulter?
Naw, I liked Harry Truman; I belonged to the Scoop Jackson Wing of the Democratic Party before I became an independent and; I look awful in short shirts and blonde isn’t my color.
Naw
That’s your story. All we can see of you is your mind, and your mind does seem to resemble Ann Coulter’s. Especially where this Jeff Gannon story is concerned.
“I look awful in short shirts and blonde isn’t my color.”
Sounds like Ann to me!
p.s. OT, can someone point me to a handy link for embedding links/text, bolding, italics etc. I used to know how to do it but I’ve forgotten.
HTML Quick Reference Guide.
Thanks Gromit.
Jes, if anything your slate link backs TtWD…
I still don’t see how Helen Thomas has anything to do with Gannon. Regardless of what you think of her or her right to be in the room, it is still the case that Gannon was clearly writing for a fake news outfit that was the press arm of a GOP activist organization and was devoted to little more than regurgitating GOP press releases (cf. their, um, lack of continued existence after Gannon’s charade got exposed).
I’m going to take a wild guess and say that it’s not normal practice to give someone a day pass (with the much less stringent requirements thereby entailed) every day for _two years_. Why did they do this for Gannon? Because he didn’t have the credentials to get a hard pass (you know, like qualifying for a Congressional press pass, which he failed to do). Because he was a Potemkin reporter.
So tell me, Timmy. Can you think of a legitimate reason why the WH would make a practice of allowing a Potemkin _reporter_ into WH press briefings, and _then_ call on said Potemkin reporter for softball questions when things were getting a little rough for Scott McClellan?
Am I the only one who is aware of the fact that Gannon is a serial plagiarist?
Are serial plagiarists real journalists?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Jes, if anything your slate link backs TtWD…
What, that Helen Thomas is comparable to Gannon/Guckert? In what way does it do that?
Who’s he been plagiarizing from (besides the WH Public Affairs Office)?
I still don’t see how Helen Thomas has anything to do with Gannon
Well no surprise there.
What, that Helen Thomas is comparable to Gannon/Guckert? In what way does it do that?
Back to back rhetorical questions, is that a record or what.
Yes, well, since you haven’t condescended to actually _explain_ how Thomas and Gannon are joined at the hip, it wouldn’t be a surprise, would it. There’s a difference between giving the Administration a PR boost because you ask a stupid question (or one that people think is stupid) and giving the Administration a PR boost because you toss them a slo-pitch softball.
And JFTR, I wasn’t asking a rhetorical question just now, and I’m going to risk a Karnak and say that Jesurgislac wasn’t asking a rhetorical question either. It’s not a rhetorical question just because of the question mark at the end. And as you’ve just proven, you don’t need a question mark to make it a rhetorical question, either).
I have to ask: why is Timmy allowed to post here? Maybe I’m wrong but I’ve never seen him make a real contribution to a discussion. Even in the sense of having an argument. His specialty seems to be innuendo. I imagine that trying to engage him is agravating for those who do it. Personally I find it kind of agravating to read. Anyway if he has to be allowed to post I would consider it a personal favor if no one were to respond to his innuendo.
I have asked that question before in varying forms, Frank, and given that he still posts here, I can only surmise that the staff feel he contributes something of worth to the ObWi community. I’ll be the first to admit I fail to see what that is, but it’s their call to make.
Jes, seems to me that Slate thinks she now asks [or then asked] agenda-driven, adversarial-for-adversity’s-sake, non-information-seeking questions. Otoh, I wouldn’t bet my life on Shafer’s reporting. Still, here’s by far the nicest thing he has to say about her:
… a substantive point TtWD might have made himself if he did that kind of thing…
questions that other critical journalists in the press corps might want to pose.
Shafer makes it sound as if the “other critical journalists” were somehow being forcibly restrained from asking those same questions.
Sorry I haven’t been keeping up the TtWD Rhetorical Question Watch™, but the previous record is 13 and I don’t think we’ve approached that yet.
The definitive statement about Timmy is here
(emph in the original)
I have to ask: why is Timmy allowed to post here?
Simply to bring some sanity to the conversation, which is necessary to expand your horizons.
Um. I don’t want to sound too catty here, but to expand someone’s horizons usually takes more substance than a series of rhetorical questions. (I note that I asked you a serious, non-rhetorical question several hours ago to which you have not yet responded).
I note that I asked you a serious, non-rhetorical question
Well I either missed it or I didn’t find it serious. If the question had anything to do with Gannon, I wouldn’t find it serious.
Well. I’m glad that you’re at least interested in reasoned discussion and debate, then.
Well. I’m glad that you’re at least interested in reasoned discussion and debate, then.
All depends upon the subject.
Jay Rosen is excellent on Gannon. It’s long, but if you want to understand why I find this and the Eason Jordan thing and the Armstrong Williams and Maggie Gallagher thing to be part of one larger and unbelievably disturbing story, please read it. Rosen explains what I have been trying to say more clearly, more thoroughly, and in more neutral terms than I have been able to use.
I would really like to ask the right-of-center posters here with whom I share some basic principles to read this piece, and ask them: do you think it is accurate? If not, why not? If so, are you comfortable with it? Do you see why I am not, and would not be even if it were a Democratic president trying this?
Katherine, see above, praktike at February 26, 2005 06:22 PM. Great minds etc.
What I don’t understand about the Rosen thesis is why the press has been so meek in reaction.
Oops.
As to why the press has been so meek: Stockholm syndrome?
Seriously, I don’t know.
With the TV networks, my guess is this: you know how every successful original series inspires a half dozen cheap and increasingly embarrassing knockoffs, even though they almost invariably flopped? (I’m talking about before reality TV). Something like that must be going on at CNN and MSNBC. MSNBC, in particular–their marketing strategy is simply inexplicable to me. They flounder about aiming for the teeny tiny niche between Fox and CNN–as far as both ideology and ratio of schlock trial coverage to real news–their ratings get worse and worse, and it just never occurs to them that there might be an audience for a network that was (GASP!) to the left of CNN, or (GASP!) actually tried to do some original reporting. I mean, you’d think the Daily Show or Fahrenheit 9/11 or the parade of anti-Bush bestsellers could clue them in, but no.
With the newspapers, it’s interesting. Some of the reporters clearly get it, and some clearly do not–compare Dan Froomkin & Dana Millbank to Howie Kurtz. Kurtz aside, the Washington Post is improving, to the point where except for the Op-Ed page I think it’s better than the New York Times. (Bill Keller is a champion “even the liberal” so this is not surprising). But most political coverage is still more or less useless, and they still go around quoting administration sources giving the administration anonymously, and studiously attending the gaggles when they’d break more stories by reading and mooching from the British, Canadian, Israeli and Australian press.
I don’t have a real good sense of whether the problem is coming from the business side, the editors, or the individual reporters. I suspect that they’ve so internalized the laziness-as-objectivity pattern that there’s a newspaper-wide sense that defending yourself, or just saying “screw it” and writing your own story regardless of how Karl Rove or Brett Bozell feels about it, would be somehow improper. “Should we exist? Experts differ.”
Knight Ridder and the Christian Science Monitor are bright, shining exceptions to this.
Rilkefan: Jes, seems to me that Slate thinks she now asks [or then asked] agenda-driven, adversarial-for-adversity’s-sake, non-information-seeking questions.
Sure. That’s the kind of criticism journalists who are biased in one direction expect to get from journalists who are biased in another direction. 😉 But that still doesn’t make her anything like Gannon/Guckert.
Helen Thomas has forty-five years as a journalist reporting the White House behind her. Gannon/Guckert has… what? He was paid for a couple of years by GOPUSA to be a face for TalonNews, which was GOPUSA’s public “we’re not just Republican Party shills” website. Apart from that, he worked as a prostitute. Yet TtWD’s rhetorical questions suggest that he thinks they’re on the same level – though he doesn’t actually want to come out and state his opinions openly.
Well. I’m glad that [TtWD’s] at least interested in reasoned discussion and debate, then.
You couldn’t prove it by his participation at ObWings.
From the column by Jay Rosen that Katherine linked to above:
Similarly, Timmy the Wonder Dog is “replacement blogger”. He’s not really participating here. I say this not because his political views are opposed to mine, but because he will not come out, state his views openly, and discuss them.
In theory it would help not to respond when he comments. In practice, I’ve noticed in other blogs where regular trolls show up and regular commenters try to ignore them, it doesn’t help because non-regulars don’t know not to respond.
Last year sometime I defined a working definition of a troll for the modern day blog. It used to be someone who stated something deliberately controversial, but these days one person’s taken-for-granted fact (“Bush lied about WMD in Iraq”) is another person’s deliberate controversy. So my working definition of a troll is someone who won’t attempt to defend/debate their opinions – who shows up only to make statements, and never debates them. And that’s very much Timmy.
Thanks for the replies guys. Well I’m glad I’m not the only one to feel that way.
I state my views openly and discuss them all the time. You just don’t like my methods, fair enough, some where an “open society” and rhetoric fit but I’m short for time.
On the MSM in general, they have lost their monopoly and previous well respected journalist have been found to be wanting in their analysis (Uncle Walt immediately comes to mind).
Gannon is simply a poor effort (when Coulter can take you to task, enough said) to create a scandal which isn’t there, an effort to move away from Eason (the scandal there wasn’t Eason’s comment but the failure of the MSM to cover it, as one way or the other it was a news story) or maybe not discuss Bush’s trip to Europe. I’m not sure which don’t really care.
That is, Gannon was an effort to change the subject by the left wing. I just thought somebody should point it out to you in order to help you stop flying around in circles. Apparently, I was successful as you focused on something else.
Timmy: I state my views openly and discuss them all the time. You just don’t like my methods, fair enough
Nope. I do not recognise your methods. To me, and to many others, you look as if you’re trolling when you drop in a one-line rhetorical question and repeat.
Gannon is simply a poor effort (when Coulter can take you to task, enough said) to create a scandal which isn’t there
When Ann Coulter can take me to task, I’ll pay attention. When Ann Coulter does her usual ill-informed rant of the kind you linked to and quoted, there’s no reason to pay attention.
That is, Gannon was an effort to change the subject by the left wing.
Huh? Now you’re claiming that Gannon/Guckert was a left-wing plant? Got any evidence for this?
I enjoy exchanging views with people who don’t ignore facts and who don’t repeatedly drag in irrelevancies.
I don’t enjoy exchanging views with people who derail threads, use talking points to evade the subject, or whose starting point is a willful misinterpretation of facts.
I ignore those people. IMO, they’re not looking for a conversation. They’re looking for attention.
You old Arab, Jes.
Edward said of GR: “If it were the other way around he’d be covering it 24/7 and hooting and hollering about morality and family values and what have you. Most on the left are simply bemused.”
“…but a public apology? For my opinion? It was conjecture, yes, but it wasn’t ad hominem.”
You’re saying that phrasing it as “conjecture” (which it wasn’t — use of future tense doesn’t dictate implied probability — your phrasing was absolute in its prediction; there was no modifier such as “might” or “could,” but instead the word “would” is inherently implicit in its absence; but never mind) means one doesn’t owe an apology? Oh, wow.
“Were Edward to run into people he’s offended by, he’d cleverly steal something from them, punch one person out, spit on him, and make up lies about him on the Internet.”
So you have no objection if I post that about you on my blog, right? It might be nonsense, and completely untrue based upon your past record, but that’s okay, since it’s just “conjecture,” so there’s no way I’m going to apologize to you.
And I can say any untruth about you, no matter how insulting and offensive, so long as I phrase it in future tense!
“If Edward [Hilzoy/Sebastian/Slarti] was/were to post a response to this, [s]he’d viciously lie, and avoid a direct response, while making up vile imprecations about my mother.”
This is fine with you? (Why am I bothering to ask?: the standard is that we declare!)
That’s quite a standard. I suggest reconsideration.
Nicholas Lemman has some useful observations on the press’s failure to defend itself:
“To make things worse, newspapers and the network evening-news shows are losing their audiences at an alarming rate, while openly ideological, anti-mainstream-media, quasi-news programs like Rush Limbaugh’s radio show have huge followings. The kind of ebullient confidence that Ben Bradlee displayed has, in most places, been superseded by an elaborately polite, pained respect toward anybody who takes issue with press coverage.”
“Conservatives are relativists when it comes to the press. In their view, nothing is neutral: there is no disinterested version of the news; everything reflects politics and relationships to power and cultural perspective. [sound like anyone we know?–K] If mainstream journalists find it annoying that conservatives think of them as unalterably hostile, they find it just as annoying that liberals think of them as the friend who keeps letting them down. Mainstream journalists want to think that the public is aware of—and respects—the boundaries that separate real journalism from entertainment, and opinion, and propaganda, and marketing.”
Note the assumption in this line: “they find it just as annoying that liberals think of them as the friend who keeps letting them down.” The assumption is that they are our friends because they are catering to our biases, and letting us down by not catering to our biases enough. But it is equally possibly that we think a functioning democracy needs an independent press, and they are letting us down by not doing their jobs.
And look how Keller describes liberal complaints about the press:
“Bill Keller wrote, in an e-mail, “There is a significant liberal antipathy toward the, pardon the expression, mainstream press. . . . Liberals perceive us, or claim to perceive us, as lapdogs of the Bush Administration, instigators of the war in Iraq, sellouts to big business and panderers to red-state prejudices. Some of this is probably disingenuous—calculated Mau-Mauing.””
compared to how he describes conservative complaints:
” “Conservatives feel estranged because they feel excluded. They do not always see themselves portrayed in the mainstream press as three-dimensional humans, and they don’t see their ideas taken seriously or treated respectfully. This is something I’ve long felt we should correct, not to pander to red-state readers but because it’s bad journalism to caricature anyone with reductionist portraits and crude shorthand. . . . Portraying conservatives fairly does not mean equal time for creationism. But it does mean, for example, writing about abortion in a way that does justice to the deep moral qualms most Americans have about it. It means trying to understand the thinking of people who regard gay marriage as unacceptable, who worry that gun controls represent an encroachment on their civil liberties.””
That’s Keller for you, and that’s why the Washington Post is now a better newspaper than the New York Times. It’s even more blatant on TV:
Neal Shapiro, the president of NBC News, whose variegated domain includes cable television, and even blogs, plainly felt that the nightly news broadcast needs to have its red-state credentials in order. He said of NBC’s new anchor, Brian Williams, “He’s a great journalist, a great reporter. Having said that, he’s a huge nascar fan, has been since his father took him to the track when he was a kid. He cares a lot about his faith. He wants to take the broadcast on the road a lot. He was on the road the whole week before the inauguration. Brian does get it. He once did a story on Cabela’s”—the superstore chain for hunters. “A lot of the people in the newsroom said, ‘Gee I didn’t know about that.’ But he did. And many of our bureaus did. We’re not just the Northeast Corridor.” One doesn’t get the sense that Shapiro worries about the possibility that NBC’s anchor might be out of touch with the values and concerns of residents on the Upper West Side.
It makes me furious. It’s like we don’t exist–even though most of our complaints are the complaints that the Columbia Jorunalism Reivew makes daily, while their complaints are….from earlier in the same article:
During a day I spent there last month, Ann Marie Lipinski, the Tribune’s editor-in-chief, handed me a copy of a large, ostentatiously grand, and dignified color photograph of President Reagan’s funeral service that the paper had run, showing President Bush speaking from the pulpit of the Washington National Cathedral to a big audience. She asked me if I could figure out what someone might find objectionable about it; I tried for a minute and gave up. “Think!” Lipinski said. “Keep trying. You’re not being paranoid enough here.” I thought some more, and I still couldn’t figure it out. “So, Don Wycliff, our public editor”—whose job is to deal directly with reader complaints—“received five phone calls saying that the Arab sitting in the front row”—indeed, there was a man in a burnous visible in the audience—“is sitting with his legs crossed so that his foot is pointing at Bush, which is a sign of disrespect in the Middle East. These readers interpreted the photo to mean that the Tribune is anti-Bush. Do you know any editor who, upon seeing that picture, in a million years—I mean, look at that picture!….A few days before my visit, the Tribune’s Sunday magazine had published a memoir by a woman who had been unable to get health insurance because she suffers from depression. Lipinski walked across her office to her desk and played back a voice-mail message she had received in response to the story. A woman’s voice said, “I’m really quite disgusted with the article on the uninsured. I think it’s very socialistic. Health care is not a right in this country. We are not Sweden and we are not Canada. I do not like these heart-tugging stories about people who don’t have health care. . . . Are you a socialist? . . . I do not appreciate these insipid little stories that say, ‘Oh, this poor person who doesn’t have health care.’ . . . I know friends and family who are really upset with the leftist tendencies of your coverage.” At this point, the voice-mail system timed out; it sounded as if the woman would gladly have kept going.
I want them to cover the Arar case and extraordinary rendition; they want them not to run a picture where one member of the audience might not be showing Bush proper homage, or to write stories about people who don’t have health care because that’s socialist. But there complaints are “because they feel excluded” and mine are “mau-mauing”. It’s infuriating. And so, so contrary to their self-interest that all sorts of inappropriate analogies come to mind–Stockholm Syndrome, battered wife syndrome, Neville Chamberlain. They are alienating their real audience–their actual subscribers; the big dailies are in the deep blue big cities–in the vain hope that they can win over Rush Limbaugh listeners.
Even Lemann falls into this trap at the end:
“Journalism that is inquisitive and intellectually honest, that surprises and unsettles, didn’t always exist. There is no law saying that it must exist forever, and there are political and business interests that would be better off if it didn’t exist and that have worked hard to undermine it. This is what journalists in the mainstream media are starting to worry about: what if people don’t believe in us, don’t want us, anymore?”
Some people do. But as I said above, it’s like we don’t exist. It doesn’t even occur to CNN or MSNBC that they could try to appeal to liberals–and that they could try to do so by committing actual journalism rather than finding the left wing equivalent of Joe Scarborough. I mean, I know we lost the election but there are 47 million people who voted for Kerry in this country, and MSNBC’s pulling about 500,000 TOPS with this “son of Fox News” routine. They’re getting beat by any number of print outlets.
I would like to send every newspaper editor, TV news director, and ombudsman or public editor in America a copy of Abraham Lincoln’s Cooper Union speech a few days back:
Even though the southern people will not so much as listen to us, let us calmly consider their demands, and yield to them if, in our deliberate view of our duty, we possibly can. Judging by all they say and do, and by the subject and nature of their controversy with us, let us determine, if we can, what will satisfy them.
Will they be satisfied if the Territories be unconditionally surrendered to them? We know they will not. In all their present complaints against us, the Territories are scarcely mentioned. Invasions and insurrections are the rage now. Will it satisfy them, if, in the future, we have nothing to do with invasions and insurrections? We know it will not. We so know, because we know we never had anything to do with invasions and insurrections; and yet this total abstaining does not exempt us from the charge and the denunciation.
The question recurs, what will satisfy them? Simply this: We must not only let them alone, but we must somehow, convince them that we do let them alone. This, we know by experience, is no easy task. We have been so trying to convince them from the very beginning of our organization, but with no success. In all our platforms and speeches we have constantly protested our purpose to let them alone; but this has had no tendency to convince them. Alike unavailing to convince them, is the fact that they have never detected a man of us in any attempt to disturb them.
These natural, and apparently adequate means all failing, what will convince them? This, and this only: cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right. And this must be done thoroughly – done in acts as well as in words. Silence will not be tolerated – we must place ourselves avowedly with them. Senator Douglas’ new sedition law must be enacted and enforced, suppressing all declarations that slavery is wrong, whether made in politics, in presses, in pulpits, or in private. We must arrest and return their fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must pull down our Free State constitutions. The whole atmosphere must be disinfected from all taint of opposition to slavery, before they will cease to believe that all their troubles proceed from us.
You’re saying that phrasing it as “conjecture” (which it wasn’t — use of future tense doesn’t dictate implied probability — your phrasing was absolute in its prediction; there was no modifier such as “might” or “could,” but instead the word “would” is inherently implicit in its absence; but never mind)
Gary,
I’m rather disappointed in your grasp of that sentence, grammatically speaking. It is not in the future tense, it is wholly in the present conditional tense, within a Type 2 Conditional sentence. See this explanation if you’re unclear about it.
The “absence” you assert is also incorrect. The contraction “he’d” is widely understood by English speakers to be a combination of “he” and “would.”
“Would,” being as conditional as “could” or “might” in this structure does serve to tell anyone who understands how it’s used that my sentence was indeed meant to connote conjecture.
As for your suggested statements, they are not morally parallel. Stealing and spitting on people would most certainly be viewed as less moral than talking about family values.
As I believe I’ve made clear, but for the record, again, I’ve read Glenn Reynolds successively less and less frequently over the past two years; I’ve found our views on politics, more than not, have wildly diverged and I’ve not respected his approaches on many topics.
But since the question came up, okay, I’ll do a quick look at some recent statements on “family values” type topics, via use of the “search” function on his blog.
GAY MARRIAGE, ABORTION, STEM CELLS, I disagree with him on all of these. Republicans seem to be applauding, Dems remaining seated. Capt. Ed notes: “He spent ten minutes, by my watch, on Social Security. He spent thirty seconds on the……
HEH. UPDATE: And bravo for Barney Frank..
BILL BENNETT thinks that Bush’s victory was all about traditional values, which to him apparently means opposition to gay marriage. Well, to me, the election was about the war. But if victory has a thousand fathers, it also produces a……
BOIFROMTROY HAS MULTIPLE POSTS ON “MORAL VALUES” and exit polling. I have to confess that this bit is my favorite: “me and my gay husband will NEVER get an abortion!” One of his commenters has an important observation, too:
BUSH ON CIVIL UNIONS: President Bush said today that he favors civil unions for gays, or at least that he doesn’t agree with the Republican Party platform that opposes them. This is news to me. How can he be in favor of civil unions and also back the Federal Marriage Amendment? He can’t, at least not consistently. The FMA would ban civil unions as well as gay marriage. This is a flip I’ll take, as long as he doesn’t flop back on it.
I support gay marriage, of course, though I’d be lying if I said it was as important to me as it is to, say, Andrew Sullivan. […] I think that gay marriage is good for everyone. Marriage is a good thing, and I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be just as good a thing for gay people as for straight people. Judging from the gay couples I know, it would be a good thing — and I’m entirely at a loss to understand why people think gay marriage somehow undermines straight marriage.
JAMIE KIRCHICK observes that Republicans need to come to terms with gay rights. Yes, they do…….
I TOLD YOU SO: The Federal Marriage Amendment failed miserably yesterday, and there’s reason to believe that it’s backfiring on its sponsors. It was a dumb idea, and it was never going to go anywhere. Meanwhile, Josh Claybourn explains why,……
…I should note that the original post of mine leading to the term idiotarian specifically mentioned Falwell and Robertson.
YEAH, ME TOO: Stephen Green writes: I’m a Falwell-tweaking, gay-marriage supporting, drug legalizing, pro-abortion, pro-immigration, anti-trade barrier, wary-of-organized-religion kind of conservative. You know, one of those conservatives.
Note: GR asserts he is not a “conservative,” and there seem to be few definitions which would contradict this.
JERRY FALWELL may be a prototype Idiotarian, but Clayton Cramer explains how his dumb comments can cause deaths in India. Hey, nobody said idiocy was harmless.
Etc., etc., endless etc.
These quotes are all within the past few months; feel free to examine these links for context. Feel free to come back with one quarter as many quotes of Reynolds being a pro-“family values” bigot.
Or, you know, refuse to apologize for tarring someone for one of the faults they don’t seem to possess.
I can come up with these quotes almost ad infinitum; it really takes little time at all.
(Note, by the way, that Glenn seems to believe that a random set of dots at the end of a sentence is appropriate punctuation, so there’s something you can…. ;-))
And I hope you know, Edward, that if someone did post the sort of statement about you that I put forth above, and I saw it and had a minute, I’d be on them to apologize in precisely the same way.
Ya wanna crack on Reynold’s distortions of Democratic positions, or general shilling for a lot of Bush positions, or any number of other accurate criticisms, be my guest. But claiming he supports “family values” or is anti-gay is an unsupportable untruth.
Generally speaking, speaking untruths about someone that would reasonably be held against a person is, I think, A Bad Thing To Do. Don’t you agree?
More or less, so do I.
Could be; since I’ve not said a word about the topic, this is completely irrelevant.
“The ‘morals’ or ‘family values’ bit might not be his approach to the critique….”
However, you stated absolutely that it was and would be.
No, Edward, because you’ve “libeled” Glenn Reynolds. That’s not silly (and it’s likely not technically “libel,” either, but that’s not the standard we hold people to, is it?).
now that’s “silly.”
I’ve not said a word about Gannon, so this is as relevant in responding to what I said as would be conclusions about Reynold’s opinions on birds or mathematics.
Than you can’t legimitely assert he would. That’s my point. My sole point. A not unimportant point. It’s untrue. It tars someone with an attitude, opinion, and beliefs, that both you and I and innumerable others hold to be reprehensible and disgusting. Do we not?
“…but for you to focus on that like it’s defamation of character is very bizarre to me.”
So you think well of people “hooting and hollering about morality and family values and what have you”? You think well of homophobes and bigots and the Dobsons/Falwells/Phelps ilk? You’d not be offended in the slightest if I described you on my blog, with absolutely equal accuracy as predictably going to be “hooting and hollering about morality and family values and what have you” in response to an issue? It would be “bizarre” if I objected when someone else made this statement about you?
Gary,
Let’s cut to the chase here. I projected a family value rant onto Reynold’s critique of a hypothetical left version of Gannon. You, a somewhat self-declared expert on Reynolds, disagree that he would respond to the hypothetical with that approach. But rather than state simply that you’d be surprised if Reynolds’ approach would form that approach (and ending this civilly…albeit the precedents you cite are more convincing than my conjecture based on his continual mocking of the left) you resort to an attack against me, including words like “ignorant,” “silly,” and “appalling” (much worse than anything I used to describe Reynolds) and rather offensively demand an apology, something that is really Reynold’s alone to demand, I might add.
You don’t think he would go there. Fine. Say so without insulting me. There’s a world of difference between asserting someone is a moralist and family-value-oriented thinker and the kinds of actions you’re suggesting are parallel to make your point. If you have to work that hard to make it, perhaps you’ve over-reacted.
“…a somewhat self-declared expert on Reynolds….”
I don’t see where you get that from “Reynolds has never — in my limited view, at least….” and “…was something about the time frames I specified unclear?” and “As I believe I’ve made clear, but for the record, again, I’ve read Glenn Reynolds successively less and less frequently over the past two years….”
Please explain, if you would be so kind.
“…rather offensively demand an apology, something that is really Reynold’s alone to demand, I might add.”
I didn’t “demand” anything; I said, typo included, “you owe him a public apologiy here for saying it.” Those are “offensive” words? You’re free to disagree, but if you feel that simply declaring an opinion that someone owes someone an apology is offensive, can you explain why?
I’m fairly sure you’re not declaring your Popehood, and that you were speaking ex cathedra, after all.
Obviously, it’s up to you whether to agree that your characterization of Reynolds was baseless or not, and whether or not you believe that accusing someone of implicitly being a bigot — which I, for one, take “hooting and hollering” for “family values” to be, and if you don’t think “hooting and hollering about morality and family values and what have you” is something to be condemned — can you please explain what your point in saying this in regard to Reynolds was? Praise?
“… you resort to an attack against me.”
It’s an “attack” on you to observe that you have made an accusation with no factual basis? And to say that a statement that you have completely failed to support is “ignorant” and “silly”? Dear me.
Would you apply these standards to President Bush and Tom deLay?
You feel that “Tosh, but you’ve engaged in an appalling and unfounded stereotype here, Edward, entirely assuming, with no foundation whatever, that because his opinions on X, Y, and Z are thus (Irag, Bush, Democrats, say), that his opinion on A and B must be those of, I dunno, one of the Powerline guys, or Orrin Judd, or somesuch” is a personal attack on you? I regret that you feel that this is a personal attack, which is not at all my intention, but if there is any error whatever in what I said, feel free to refute it and point out said error. Where’s the falsity in what I said? And if it’s true, where’s the offense?
Edward, you’ve failed to answer any of my comparative questions. Need I repeat them?
I’ve given evidence of Reynolds’ record of holding the complete opposite of the opinions you attributed to him. You’ve more or less, as I read your responses, obliquely admitted that you “might” actually have had no basis in fact for your words, but — I speculate — it’s possible that because it’s embarassing to admit error under pressure, you are, it appears, reluctant to simply directly state that, oops, you really shouldn’t have assumed that because Reynolds believes A that he must believe B. This follows our now historic dynamic on this sort of thing, which is too bad.
That’s just “conjecture,” of course, so you can’t possibly be offended, and I have no possible reason to withdraw that: right? Wrong?
If you feel that it’s fine to stand by an assertion that someone holds opinions you and I both agree are worthy of condemnation when said assertion turns out to be in error, okay, you could try to defend that, problematic though it might be. (This appears to be your course so far.)
If you feel that you want to stand by your characterization of Reynolds, fine, give your supporting quotes, please?
If you want to withdraw your characterization of Reynolds, there’s really nothing at all to be embarrassed in saying some variant of “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have made such a generalization about Reynolds, rather than some other rightish bloggers I can name.”
(Trying to claim that anything that is “conjecture” can’t possibly be offensive or something to apologize for, now, that’s embarrasing; sorry, but it is.)
Or you could declare that you’re offended to have your words challenged, and not deal with what you said at all.
However, the last is less than directly addressing the points made to you.
I remain very sorry you feel any of this is a “personal attack.” But, with respect, as a blogger you are reponsible for your words, and having them politely challenged is not a personal attack. It is, at worst, an argument.
However, if you’d like to explain why what I’ve said is a “personal attack” on you, but what you said about Glenn Reynolds is not a “personal attack” on him, by all means, I’ll read that with interest.
And let me be completely clear in addressing this: “Say so without insulting me.”
Where did I insult you? Is saying you’ve said something that is “ignorant,” “silly,” and “appalling” something that personally insults you? Bothersome, to be sure, but that’s not the same thing.
“Ignorant”: either your words were factually based, and you can supply the factual basis, or not. Feel free to make the argument, or not.
“Silly”: either it’s silly to state something false, or not. I stand by my right to call a statement, a “conjecture,” that is false, “silly.” Feel free to explain why this is an illegitimate insult.
“Appalling”: I was appalled, just as I would be if someone made a similarly untrue “conjecture” about you. Make the case as you wish that I’m insulting you by stating the fact that I was appalled.
Since I have no desire to insult you, I will, of course, read what you have to say carefully, if you wish to continue to maintain that I have insulted you, which is to say, if you feel that you have a reasonable complaint with me. I will assuredly apologize to you if I’m at all convinced that these were un-called-for personal insults, rather than legitimate characterizations that are unpleasant to hear.
Gary, fwiw it seems to me you ought to have started out with, “Edward, I think you’re wrong because blah”. Then Edward should probably have said, “Yep, strike my foo:bar PM.” And that would have been sufficient. If he hadn’t replied as above, you ought to have said, “Too bad, I think this is unfair to Glenn” and let it pass. Instead you started off very aggressively given the context, and the ensuing thousand words haven’t been as useful as they might have been either.
I conjecture that Edward likes Paul Klee.
Finally, Gary, note that you started off with “silly” and “ignorant” before you even heard Edward‘s reply to your objection. This is in my view unfair and on the road to uncivil.
It is “the ensuing thousand words” in these types of exchanges (and Gary and I have had ’em before) that makes them wholly unenjoyable in the end. Gary, let me suggest that the mountain of questions you throw out, only to then badger one for not answering (and sometimes incorrectly), doesn’t advance understanding. For example, in your penultimate comment, you note:
Edward, you’ve failed to answer any of my comparative questions.
But that’s not true. I addressed one directly with this statement:
Stealing and spitting on people would most certainly be viewed as less moral than talking about family values.
Yes, it was a dismissal and not an answer, but why answer something that’s irrelevant in this context?
But that’s not even the point. No one is under an obligation to answer every question you offer. There are only so many hours in the day. By suggesting I’ve “failed” to answer them (a highly passive-aggressive statement) you’re only making matters worse, and understanding suffers.
Rilkefan nails it: “you ought to have started out with, “Edward, I think you’re wrong because blah”. Then Edward should probably have said, “Yep, strike my foo:bar PM.” And that would have been sufficient.
Besides, until you acknowledge you were wrong about the future tense, I feel no need to conceed anything. ;-p
Dunno, I think BirdDog took a lot of flack for saying things that others thought were counterfactual. Farber’s got a point in his objections; I read Reynolds fairly regularly, and it’s dead-on accurate to say that Edward’s comments WRT Reynolds reflect ignorance in its dictionary meaning (as opposed to connotations it’s gained through misuse).
His comments might have applied to other pundits, but not Reynolds. So, poor choice of analogy, and ignorance rather than, say, stupidity. If you’re jumping to the conclusion that Gary’s being insulting, you just haven’t been paying attention to 99% of what’s shifted out of Gary’s keyboard.
Slarti,
It’s the way he chose to disagree, not the disagreement. I’ve admitted that his evidence is more convincing than my conjecture.
Rilkefan said:
I will readily agree that my written approaches in argument are frequently lacking in the social grace that a person with greater talents in that area is likely to apply.
However, it’s difficult for me to understand that pre-pending “I think” to a statement makes a crucial difference in giving offense; if my words aren’t evidently a product of “my” “thinking,” whose thinking is it taken to be?
If it will help, I’ll repost my comment with “I think” as the first two words; will that make the difference you suggest?
And please note that my first two responses to Edward, at 10:34 p.m., and 10:47 p.m., weren’t in the least “strong,” and neither was his response. If he hadn’t followed up with the completely gratuitous, and factually wrong, statement that :
I wouldn’t have been objecting to that statement “strongly.” I rest on the question of are there any facts that support Edward’s words?
That’s a very simple question. If there are, I apologize to him. If not, then in my view, he made a false statement about someone with no basis, and in my view that calls for an apology. When people make false statements about someone that brings that person into disrepute, I’m appalled. I could be silent about that, but I choose not to be.
I don’t choose my reactions or responses based on anyone’s politics, or “side.”
I thank you for your perspective.
“Finally, Gary, note that you started off with ‘silly’ and ‘ignorant’ before you even heard Edward’s reply to your objection.”
Yes, I did. If his reply (any of them so far) gave any reason for me to withdraw those characterizations, I most surely would have done so, and apologized. I continue to be so willing. I posted my response to his words because they were a response to his words, and I had (apparently good, until someone refutes them) reasons to believe I was correct, not because I dove in to start an argument.
If I was not correct, my argument falls down, and I will apologize to Edward. I can repeat that as many times as necessary.
“This is in my view unfair and on the road to uncivil.”
I would completely agree with you if I held to such characterizations when I was wrong. As it happens, my view is that when someone unfairly characterizes a person, and maintains such a characterization in the face of evidence that it is incorrect, they are being unfair and uncivil.
As soon as it is remotely clear to me that I am maintaining an unfair or incorrect characterization of Edward’s words (emphasis mine, obviously) — or that I have made an unfair or incorrect characterization of Edward — I shall, as I have said, hastily apologize to him.
What Edward chooses to do in the face of an accusation that he has unfairly and incorrectly characterized someone else — the person, not his words — is, of course, up to him.
It’s not as if I spontaneously got up yesterday and decided to look for an opportunity to beat up on Edward, you know. If he didn’t want a prolonged discussion of what he said, he could have cut it off with his first response; he continues to be able to do so whenever he so chooses. I’ll be very pleased to make my next comment on this thread “good job, Edward! Thanks, and sorry for the bother.”
Gary, briefly, I don’t think one should proceed in a manner which will require an apology in case one happens to be wrong. I always write with an awareness that I’m imperfect and that on occasion my firmly-held beliefs will turn out to be false. Seems to me that your comment in question is not founded on the above principles.
Even if I happened to have access to eternal truth, I wouldn’t take that as a license to speak uncivilly to those unfortunates who disagree with me.
“Edward, you’ve failed to answer any of my comparative questions.
But that’s not true. I addressed one directly with this statement….”
I apologize, and restate: you’ve failed to answer any of the other comparative questions I made. Need I repeat them?
“No one is under an obligation to answer every question you offer.”
Obviously.
“…in these types of exchanges (and Gary and I have had ’em before) that makes them wholly unenjoyable in the end.”
Indeed. Best to make a quick affirmation of agreement of error, and be done with it, I’d think, but I can’t help it if you think differently, and if — this is just conjecture, you know — defensiveness is your primary reaction and your primary response.
“By suggesting I’ve “failed” to answer them (a highly passive-aggressive statement) you’re only making matters worse….”
I’ll gladly adopt a different usage if you suggest a convincingly reasonable alternative; do you prefer “you’ve not answered my questions,” then? Please, make a suggestion.
“Besides, until you acknowledge you were wrong about the future tense, I feel no need to conceed anything.”
I was careless in my discussion of tense, and less than accurate; my apologies for that.
“Gary, briefly, I don’t think one should proceed in a manner which will require an apology in case one happens to be wrong.”
If I feel any doubt about my grasp of facts in a discussion, I proceed in the same way. In those circumstances, I agree. As a rule, if I’m not comfortable that I’m saying something with a strong, demonstrable, factual basis, I try to qualify it and make that overtly clear.
If I feel no doubt, and believe there is little ground for doubtt, which is comparatively rare in proportion to the number of statements I read, I will simply say what I think with due confidence. I’m perfectly willing to accept the “embarrassment” of error and the dreadful humiliation of apologizing. On occasion, of course, that’s what’s called for.
I seem to have a reasonable track record on that — on the proportions of my flat declarations, and the number of times I must apologize for serious error — so far as I can tell, and people are welcome to bring my lack of attention to my attention — so I’m comfortable with this policy.
“I always write with an awareness that I’m imperfect and that on occasion my firmly-held beliefs will turn out to be false.”
As do I. I also try to maintain the best self-awareness I can manage as to when my statements of what I believe to be likely fact, as opposed to likely subjectivity, are actually correctly fact, and not mere subjective opinion.
“Seems to me that your comment in question is not founded on the above principles.”
See above.
“Even if I happened to have access to eternal truth, I wouldn’t take that as a license to speak uncivilly to those unfortunates who disagree with me.”
As a rule, I certainly like to think that I make serious efforts to do the same, and I’m, of course, aware that a certain amount of the time I will fail. I try to do my best to apologize in said cases. I also read feed-back, and try to learn from it, though I’m also quite imperfect in that, as well. However, if the general proportion of erroneous-statements-I-need-to-apologize-for rose significantly in comparison to the number of statements I make, as indicated by feed-back, I like to think I’d notice, and respond accordingly.
Imperfectly as that will be. And retaining the right to subjectively call an untrue statement “silly” and to say that I’m “appalled” when I am. If that’s uncivil, sobeit, but I’d rather people didn’t make silly statements in my presence. It’s not as if they’re not free to call my own statements “silly” and state their level of appallment.
In other words, we may need to agree to disagree that this is unduely “uncivil.” As a rule, I strive to abide by civility in regard to anyone I think deserves it, and I try to presume that people I don’t know deserve it, although on occasion I go wrong.
I believe Edward deserves civility. What I don’t believe is that saying someone said a silly — or ignorant — thing is inherently uncivil. (I don’t believe that my opinion on this is Universal Truth that everyone must adopt, either.)
May I gratuitously say, by the way, that I also think the following — “I’m perfectly willing to accept the ’embarrassment’ of error and the dreadful humiliation of apologizing. On occasion, of course, that’s what’s called for” — is a fairly key thing to learn to be comfortable with to engage in the most productive sort of discussion, online or elsewhere?
It’s just a suggestion, of course, and I apologize if anyone is offended that I make it.
“a fairly key thing to learn to be comfortable with to engage in the most productive sort of discussion, online or elsewhere?”
I submit that the above exchange is an example of that method proving unproductive. Also suggest you check out the Philosoraptor link I pointed out late in the “Hatred is a poison” thread below.
Wow that was some longwinded discussion. Remind me never to engage Gary Farber my tendonitis couldn’t handle it. As an antidote here is a new poor man column about PropaGannon http://thepoorman.net/gl/article.php?story=20050228085421718
“…that method proving unproductive.”
Um, what do you suggest is a preferable alternative to learning to become reasonably comfortable with admitting error and apologizing for it? Why is that unproductive? How is this discussion an example of it being unproductive?
It appears that I am completely not understanding what you’re saying here. I’d say “sorry about that,” but if that’s “unproductive,” I could instead accuse you of being offensive to me, if that’s better. (But I very much doubt that’s what you’re saying, and I’d be being untruthful, as well.)
“Also suggest you check out the Philosoraptor link I pointed out late in the ‘Hatred is a poison’ thread below.”
A quick look shows that there are 101 comments on that thread, and you seem to have made something like at least 15 of them; I’ll be happy to check out a link you suggest, if you would either link to your comment, or give the link here. Please forgive me that I’m unenthused about scanning through 101 comments to try to figure out what you are referring to.
Took me all of five seconds to find, Gary. Did you search the page for “Philosoraptor”?
There’s an interesting question here apart from questions about GR’s most deeply held (or not) beliefs. Perhaps Slart, who has been reading Instapundit steadily could address. The question is does his formula post (link followed by a short statement ambigious enough that one can’t nail down exactly what he stands for) promote or discourage reflective thought? (I will leave aside the question of whether GR is responsible for it or not) A second question is does his linking policies present the full side of the story?
The conclusion that I draw is that the Instapundit format is simply a way to mask any beliefs and avoid taking a stance on issues. There seems to be a niche for conservatives who hold a few ‘liberal’ opinions. The aim seems to be like the crazy uncle at the family reunion whose a bit eccentric, but he’s family. This way, the RW ability to consider themselves as in the minority and under siege is never threatened, while also allowing an out for the acceptance of people like Woods or Malkin or Coulter ad nauseum.
For example, the GR last link Gary posted (from 2002(!)) isn’t simply a tweaking of Falwell, especially if one reads the whole thing. It’s a surprisingly long post for Instapundit and here is the rest, given in the classic fisking format:
Clayton Cramer, that stalwart of the left. It’s also interesting that GR uses Idiotarian to describe Falwell. Either Glenn is being totally clueless or this is a signal that of course, he knows that there are idiotarians, but if you really like Falwell, he’s not really one of them.
Volokh is a bit more reasoned, but no one is going to mistake him for a leftist. While I, like Gary, have not followed Reynolds closely, when I have gone over there and clicked through and followed links, I have always fallen down the rabbit-hole of RW sites.
One should also note how this reveals who GR’s readers are and how GR defends himself. As I mentioned earlier, I believe that GR uses these issues as a cover and this ‘hey the Right does bad things too’ line is one more log on the fire.
Rather than ‘I stand by what I wrote’, it’s ‘hey, but everyone else thinks the same way I do, and anyway, I don’t feel as strongly about it as they do’. If you suggest that GR is a ‘dogged critic of the Christian right’, you are defending basically defending a bait and switch.
Another two conservatives agree with me, how can I be wrong? And hey, I’m a moderate!
This self-styled moderacy is precisely the notion that Bush (mis)uses. At some point, one can wonder if GR is a ‘dogged’ defender of anything other than his desire to place himself outside (but not too far outside) the extreme right, but not really complain much. Ed has the stones to state his opinion. You can disagree with it, but to make this a pissing contest about Reynolds being libeled misses the point entirely. And you are very careful not to take up anything that Reynolds says or thinks. You just don’t want Edward casting any aspersions on Glenn.
And the ‘Hey (or should be ‘heh’?) I’m just linking and I don’t take any of this seriously’ really needs to be called out. For example, in the Gannon post, GR has the following update
The link is to this, which, if you follow it, takes you to a rabbit hole of RW posts about left wing whining about Gannon. Because GR never states what he thinks about these links, he can, at any time, say ‘hey, I’m just linking’. Rewarding that kind of behavior rather than taking up Edward on a discussion of it seems, well, bizarre.
There is an interesting discussion implicit about what exactly GR’s views actually are. There’s also an interesting discussion as to how much silence stands for (or can or should stand for) statement. This Totten post hints at the problem, that Reynolds represents some honest appraisal of what is going on in the country.
But for a line in a comment to a post to be libelous, well, I don’t see it. At some point, you are defined by the company (or perhaps the links) you keep. Since we are doing the bible thang lately, Matt 7:20.
Okay, I’ve now read that thread and said Philosoraptor post.
“And especially when you know that, if you do concede the point, you will not be seen as the honest inquirer that you are, but, rather as the intellectually inferior loser of a verbal battle for supremacy.”
This is precisely what I suggested it’s helpful for the best sort of discussion for people to try to learn to get over. At least, it’s surely what I was trying to say.
There’s nothing wrong with making an error, or saying something that’s erroneous; there’s something wrong with sticking to it in the face of evidence. People would be better off trying to get comfortable with the first, and trying to get uncomfortable with the latter.
My own responses:
“The question is does his formula post (link followed by a short statement ambigious enough that one can’t nail down exactly what he stands for) promote or discourage reflective thought?”
It’s not the best format, by any means; it’s not the worst, either.
“A second question is does his linking policies present the full side of the story?”
Of course not. But, on the other hand, how many bloggers can we cite who typically present “the full side of the story” when they post, and who are they?
My opinion is that the substance of what GR says, presents, and links to, is a better source of discussion and probable accurate observation of his worth or lack thereof than his format, but I don’t feel strongly about that. And, yes, at the very least I think it’s hard to avoid the, ah, very strong feeling that Glenn has, in the past couple of years, more and more frequently seemed disengenous. But without being a mind-reader, one really can’t know what’s deliberate, and what’s sincerely a different interpretation.
“The conclusion that I draw is that the Instapundit format is simply a way to mask any beliefs and avoid taking a stance on issues.”
It seems possible, and it’s part of the reason I don’t read Glenn very often these days, but it also seems difficult to prove, save perhaps in isolated cases. In general, I prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt where I can, wherever they lie on the political spectrum.
“There seems to be a niche for conservatives who hold a few ‘liberal’ opinions.”
My own wish is that there be a far bigger niche than there appears to be for people who aren’t determined to put views in boxes. Particularly when only two or three boxes seem to be on offer.
Incidentally, is there a definition of “conservative” that Glenn Reynolds fits into? If so, what is it, please?
It should be obvious that, say, being pro a particular war, or hawkish in general, doesn’t make one a “conservative.” Neither does voting for or generally supporting George W. Bush. Many conservatives clearly do those things, but doing those things is entirely insufficient to make anyone a conservative by any philosophical/political definition I’m presently aware of (okay, that aren’t idiotic).
I kinda think signing up for and tending to espouse some sort of conservative political philosophy, however inconsistently, is required, although sacrificing one’s first-born to Russell Kirk, or William F. Buckley, is not.
Ditto, voting for or supporting John Kerry, or opposing the Iraq invasion, doesn’t make anyone a “liberal,” or “left-winger.” Generally adhering to a liberal political philosophy does make one a “liberal.”
“I think,” that is, in case anyone is unclear on that.
Maybe he’s not conservative, but anyone who is mainly “outraged by the outrage” over torture–and that IS an accurate descriptor of Reynolds, so don’t even start–is sure as hell not libertarian. I’d say “socially liberal but extremely partisan Republican” but what I really want to say is much less complimentary.
“Either Glenn is being totally clueless or this is a signal that of course, he knows that there are idiotarians, but if you really like Falwell, he’s not really one of them.”
Um, what? I have absolutely no idea what you mean, nor what you appear to think is objectionable about the post you quote. Can you unpack it a bit, please?
“And you are very careful not to take up anything that Reynolds says or thinks. You just don’t want Edward casting any aspersions on Glenn.”
Which words in “Ya wanna crack on Reynold’s distortions of Democratic positions, or general shilling for a lot of Bush positions, or any number of other accurate criticisms, be my guest” seem unclear?
But without being a mind-reader, one really can’t know what’s deliberate, and what’s sincerely a different interpretation.
Perhaps, but this seems to be a way to evade the consequences of one’s words, especially in the case we have here. At some point, a person’s silence is a response. There is also the statistical analysis. How many posts a year for Instapundit? How many of those are dealing with issues that you claim he is ‘dogged’ about? I personally think that we give people the benefit of the doubt when we engage them in discussion and give them an opportunity to state their views. As far as I know, there is no forum to engage Glenn, Thus, Edward’s musings are to the point.
My own wish is that there be a far bigger niche than there appears to be for people who aren’t determined to put views in boxes.
I hope you are not trying to assert that I have 2 or 3 boxes for opinions. I purposely put ‘liberal’ in quotation marks precisely because of that. I think it would be a liberal position to be truely pro-life, opposing both the death penalty and abortion, but it might also entail opposing IVF and quite possible cloning and might even include being a vegan. That some of those points are ‘conservative’ points does not mean that if one holds them, they are conservative.
Gary, you don’t actually read the entire post before you start commenting, do you?
“Rewarding that kind of behavior rather than taking up Edward on a discussion of it seems, well, bizarre.”
I disagree that defending someone against an untrue statement about him is “rewarding” him, or is relevant in any way, to any other behavior on his part. I completely disagree with any suggestion that because someone is wrong about Thing A that they shouldn’t be defended about Thing B. I completely disagree with any notion that people are Entirely Wrong or Entirely Right. I completely disagree that I or anyone is obligated to “take up a discussion” I or they haven’t the slightest interest in.
By the way, it’s clearly pretty “bizarre” that you’ve not taken up any of the many posts I’ve made on my own blog in the past few days. Except, no, wait, it’s not at all bizarre.
Katherine, if you can find anywhere I’ve put a label on Reynolds, including “libertarian,” please call it to my attention. Equally, if anyone can find any statement I’ve ever made anywhere, at any time, suggesting in the remotest, slightest, possible, way that Glenn Reynolds doesn’t deserve to be criticized, please let me know.
(Is there some way I can take note of managing to typo one’s own name that is amusing and utterly inoffensive?; sometimes I wonder if it’s possible to say anything that won’t possibly offend someone.)
Frank: Wow that was some longwinded discussion. Remind me never to engage Gary Farber my tendonitis couldn’t handle it.
I tend to get a headache. 😉
As an antidote here is a new poor man column about PropaGannon
Thanks for the link.
Yes, exactly. I am beginning to understand how it is that so many intelligent people are so ill-informed in America: they think they’re paying attention to the news, and all they’re getting is Bush administration propaganda.
How did we get from Gannon to a handbag fight over Glenn Reynolds honor?
Truly amazing what motivates some people.
“Perhaps, but this seems to be a way to evade the consequences of one’s words, especially in the case we have here.”
It can be, as I already said. As I’ve said, I’ve more and more frequently had that sort of reaction to Glenn in the last couple of years. Was I unclear?
“As far as I know, there is no forum to engage Glenn….
I think it’s called “the World Wide Web.” There’s also e-mail, though that’s, of course, not a public form of engagement unless one posts the correspondence in public.
“I hope you are not trying to assert that I have 2 or 3 boxes for opinions.”
No. I couldn’t possibly know what boxes you do or don’t have.
“Gary, you don’t actually read the entire post before you start commenting, do you?”
Depends. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I never post a response without reading an entire comment, so I’m unclear what your point is, unless you were asking for clarification on that. What’s it matter how I make notes? Wait, do we need to show our work on the test? No one told me! (There isn’t going to be math, is there?!?)
“Truly amazing what motivates some people.”
Defending someone, on a particular point, with whom one has innumerable political differences with, certainly is unfathomable, isn’t it? We should just let any falsehoods about anyone we disagree with pass, because that way we can take down bad people. Basically, people we disagree with are evil, so we must never correct any false statements made about them. We must never let down Our Side.
Also, I’m a right-wing conservative. The truth is out. Anyone who reads my blog knows. Gosh, I never have a harsh word for Mr. Bush or his policies or hirelings. I never advocate for Democratic or liberal causes. I have no history, I have no past, I have no record.
And here, I never disagree with, or criticize, or take issue with, or challenge, Sebastian, nor Slarti, nor did I with Moe. No sirree! I’m just a party-minded hack, prepared to prostitute myself for my Right-Wing Side.
Damn. My false front has been exposed! I’m a member of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy! It’s amazing!
Or, maybe, sad.
My point is that you have extracted fragments from a single post and addressed them in three different ones. Keeps you out of trouble, but it is not the way of reasoned discussion.
The crux of the matter seems to be this. You feel that an ‘untrue statement’ has been made against Reynolds. Rilkefan and I first suggested that your statement that he is a ‘dogged critic of the Christian Right’ is not necessarily a true statement, but we (fortunately or unfortunately) didn’t come straight out and say it, so you apparently missed our point. Then we discuss what Reynolds had or has not said, what he does or does not mean. I would suggest that what Edward said is not an untrue statement and you are trying to frame it as ‘Entirely Wrong or Entirely Right’. Which, if I read you correctly, you think is a bad thing. If you believe that Edward has no justification for arguing that Instapundit may not be truly arguing from the bottom of his heart on some of these opinions is fine. But claiming that Edward is ignorant because of this is uncivil and the massive amount of verbiage will not change that.
postit: How did we get from Gannon to a handbag fight over Glenn Reynolds honor?
I guess at least we’re not having a handbag fight over Gannon/Guckert’s honor. Could be worse… 😉 I’m still enjoying The Poor Man’s posts on Gannon/Guckert, but these are good too.
“My point is that you have extracted fragments from a single post and addressed them in three different ones.”
And I’m also criticized for going on too long.
“Keeps you out of trouble, but it is not the way of reasoned discussion.”
I don’t see how it either keeps me out of trouble or prevents or interferes with reasoned discussion, I’m afraid.
“But claiming that Edward is ignorant because of this is uncivil and the massive amount of verbiage will not change that.”
I claimed that Edward was ignorant of Glenn Reynolds’ opinions about family values and gay rights. If he’d like to support his case with quotes from his considerable familiarity with Reynolds’ oeuvre, my mind-control powers and wielding of verbiage will, I fear, fail to stop him, and my assertion shall be undone. If Edward would like to even claim that he’s reasonably familiar with Reynolds’ opinions on the the topics, he has yet to do so.
Shall I know start giving the endless list of topics I’m ignorant of, or would that be uncivil towards myself?
Incidently, what do you and rilkefan and anyone else think of Edward’s implicit suggestion that so long as a statement is phrased as “conjecture,” no one can possible criticize it as erroneous or offensive, or apparently, at all? (Which I don’t for a second believe Edward believes; I expect that that defense was, essentially, desperation; but that’s, of course, simply conjecture on my part.)
(I must admit, this “it’s only conjecture” thing is quite terribly convenient and tempting, but, you know, there’s a difference between making fun of the idea that this is actually a defensible stance to take, and actually making such a claim.)
Does Reynolds, in fact, have a history of “hooting and hollering about morality and family values and what have you”? Is that a complicated question?
I don’t have a dog in this Instapundit squabble so i won’t comment, but getting back to the thread,
Gannon hits the big time!
Last one for me. Stop misquoting, Gary. Edward did not say that Reynolds has a history of hooting and hollering, he said this:
If it were the other way around he’d be covering it 24/7 and hooting and hollering about morality and family values and what have you.
As Rilkefan pointed out, this is a counterfactual and always fraught with difficulty when one discusses it. While the word count for Reynolds on Ward Churchill and Gannon are about the same, one can simply compare the stance taken and use that as evidence.
I can’t speak for Rilkefan, but I thought that here, a rather bright line is drawn between public figures (of which I think Reynolds can be classified) and participants in the discussion. Edward is a participant in the discussion and you started out by calling him silly and ignorant (or just called his statements silly and ignorant, while the man himself is a paragon of un-silliness and non-ignorance. Whatever). Where I come from, that’s uncivil.
You seem to take any ‘conjecture’ as being out of bounds. Taking into account Edward’s personal opinions and background and the pattern and style of GR’s postings, his conjecture is understandable. However, you are more willing to grant Reynolds some slack as to his political views than to someone who is discussing this with you at this very moment. Whatever.
There were an infinite number of ways to express that with a smidgen of social grace. Here’s a couple
-I don’t think you are being fair to Reynolds here…
-I’m not sure where you have gotten your impression of Reynolds, but mine is…
-I understand that you have a personal stake in this, but Reynolds shouldn’t be classified with the Christian Right…
I could conjecture that your long posts are merely to distract attention from the fact that you can’t admit that you overstepped in your attack on Edward, but that’s, of course, simply conjecture on my part. People reading this thread can decide whether they agree or disagree. Over and out.
Now you’re claiming that Gannon/Guckert was a left-wing plant?
No the effort to discredit Gannon was a left wing effort to change the subject and thus create a scandal. The problem with the effort is you end up creating a scenario which you would struggle with if it was actually implemented.
Katherine btw makes an excellent point that the MSM struggles to defend itself. This situation simply reflects that the MSM isn’t comfortable with being questioned. With the lost of their (the MSM’s) monopoly, the institution(s) should be prepared for more not less questions on a whole host of issues.
Jesus Hillary Clinton. If this spat between Gary and Edward drags on any longer, someone’s going to write slash fiction about it.
Gary, my reading of the Philosoraptor post was that the aggressive stance was unproductive. Agreed, everyone could be borderline rude (or over-the-border and apology when forced to) and just get over being wrong and having to watch the other guy do his end-zone dance, but the other option – that people be civil – seems more in line with Moe‘s legacy and my view of how best to arrange human discourse. No disrespect intended, of course – I suspect you know what works best for you. As things stand though I find it easier to engage e.g. the notoriously-grating-on-liberals TtWD than you. (Jes, if you’re listening – I might have said some of this to you.)
Getting back to the subject, this pretty much says it all.
“Stop misquoting, Gary.”
Beg pardon, but cutting-and-pasting someone’s words is most certainly not “misquoting” someone.
If you wish to argue that Edward was making a “conjecture” about Reynolds’ future basis with no foundation in Reynolds’ past, feel free. If you wish to argue that it’s fine to make a “conjecture” about someone’s future basis without any basis in their past behavior, feel free. If you wish to argue that Edward had a sound foundation in making a “conjecture” on Reynolds’ behavior based upon Reynolds’ past statements on the subject, feel free. If you wish to argue that I was wrong in working under the notion that Edward, in making his “conjecture” about GR, would need to have a belief that Reynolds’ past statements that justified his “conjecture,” feel free. If you feel that somehow I took Edward’s words out of context, feel free. If ya got another alternative, feel free.
But please don’t accuse me of “mis-quoting” someone by cutting and pasting their words. The most, it seems to me, you might argue is that somehow I took Edward out of context, and thus was unfair in what I quoted; is that what you’re saying?
You’re not saying that you object to my asking “Does Reynolds, in fact, have a history of ‘hooting and hollering about morality and family values and what have you’?” because it’s fine to make such a “conjecture” when there is no such history, are you? I’m sorry, I simply don’t understand what your objection is, or how the question is somehow “misquoting” Edward, or taking him unfairly out of context, or what. Do feel free to try to explain, or not, as you wish.
“You seem to take any ‘conjecture’ as being out of bounds.”
Of course not: just those that seem to have no foundation in fact, and that are reasonable grounds for people to think ill of the conjecturee.
“While the word count for Reynolds on Ward Churchill and Gannon are about the same, one can simply compare the stance taken and use that as evidence.”
I dunno what that means, I’m afraid — possibly because I’ve not read a word of Reynolds on either topic. I have no idea what Churchill has to do with “family values,” and I continue to decline to express an opinion about Gannon, while not knowing anything about what Reynolds has had to say about Gannon, while continuing to maintain no particular interest. I’m interesting in finding out what you meant, though, so of course I’ll read anything you say that explains what you meant.
“Taking into account Edward’s personal opinions and background and the pattern and style of GR’s postings, his conjecture is understandable.”
That may be, but, again, what grounds are there for it having any factual basis? If this can’t be offered, it might be “understandable,” but it would it be reasonable?
“However, you are more willing to grant Reynolds some slack as to his political views than to someone who is discussing this with you at this very moment.”
I completely fail to understand how whether or not, say, I called Reynolds on the phone, or wrote him an e-mail, about this, say, has to do with anything (I think his track record of responding to e-mails I’ve ever sent him is probably somewhere about a remarkable 95%, though). I fail to understand how Edward or Reynolds is more or less of a “public figure” than the other one. In my universe, we’re all posting on the web and responding to each other, and we’re all “participants” in a web of ongoing, on-and-off-again, discussion. Edward posts on the web, and from time to time, I tell him what I think of what he said; Glenn Reynolds posts on the web, and from time to time, I tell him what I think of what he said. The difference escapes me. I understand that everyone has their own perception of this sort of thing, of course; but that’s mine. I don’t think of this particular blog, of the innumerable blogs I read, as existing in some sort of vacuum. YMMV.
I’m perfectly prepared to believe that the reason for any and all of my lack of understandings here and previously are because of my being dense or ignorant about any given matter.
“There were an infinite number of ways to express that with a smidgen of social grace. Here’s a couple….”
Yes, those are more graceful; thank you for offering them.
I can also offer a wide variety of statements by Edward that would have been more graceful, and to which I therefore would have had nothing to say in response to. If you don’t agree he could have been more graceful, and correct, in his “conjecture,” do you stand by it? Or is it just me who could have been more graceful in this discussion? (I’m agreeing I could have been more graceful, as I’ve said all along; it’s unfortunately rare that a more graceful restating of what I say is not possible or reasonable.)
“I could conjecture that […] but that’s, of course, simply conjecture on my part.”
Straightfoward question: do you agree or disagree that saying something is merely a “conjecture,” or phrasing it as a “conjecture,” immunizes a statement from all possible offense? (Rather obviously, I don’t agree at all.)
“Stop misquoting, Gary.”
Beg pardon, but cutting-and-pasting someone’s words is most certainly not “misquoting” someone.
There are, possibly, more graceful responses than issuing such an instruction, by the way.
If you wish to argue that Edward was making a “conjecture” about Reynolds’ future basis with no foundation in Reynolds’ past, feel free. If you wish to argue that it’s fine to make a “conjecture” about someone’s future basis without any basis in their past behavior, feel free. If you wish to argue that Edward had a sound foundation in making a “conjecture” on Reynolds’ behavior based upon Reynolds’ past statements on the subject, feel free. If you wish to argue that I was wrong in working under the notion that Edward, in making his “conjecture” about GR, would need to have a belief that Reynolds’ past statements that justified his “conjecture,” feel free. If you feel that somehow I took Edward’s words out of context, feel free. If ya got another alternative, feel free.
But please don’t accuse me of “mis-quoting” someone by cutting and pasting their words. The most, it seems to me, you might argue is that somehow I took Edward out of context, and thus was unfair in what I quoted; is that what you’re saying?
You’re not saying that you object to my asking “Does Reynolds, in fact, have a history of ‘hooting and hollering about morality and family values and what have you’?” because it’s fine to make such a “conjecture” when there is no such history, are you? I’m sorry, I simply don’t understand what your objection is, or how the question is somehow “misquoting” Edward, or taking him unfairly out of context, or what. Do feel free to try to explain, or not, as you wish.
“You seem to take any ‘conjecture’ as being out of bounds.”
Of course not: just those that seem to have no foundation in fact, and that are reasonable grounds for people to think ill of the conjecturee.
“While the word count for Reynolds on Ward Churchill and Gannon are about the same, one can simply compare the stance taken and use that as evidence.”
I dunno what that means, I’m afraid — possibly because I’ve not read a word of Reynolds on either topic. I have no idea what Churchill has to do with “family values,” and I continue to decline to express an opinion about Gannon, while not knowing anything about what Reynolds has had to say about Gannon, while continuing to maintain no particular interest. I’m interesting in finding out what you meant, though, so of course I’ll read anything you say that explains what you meant.
“Taking into account Edward’s personal opinions and background and the pattern and style of GR’s postings, his conjecture is understandable.”
That may be, but, again, what grounds are there for it having any factual basis? If this can’t be offered, it might be “understandable,” but it would it be reasonable?
“However, you are more willing to grant Reynolds some slack as to his political views than to someone who is discussing this with you at this very moment.”
I completely fail to understand how whether or not, say, I called Reynolds on the phone, or wrote him an e-mail, about this, say, has to do with anything (I think his track record of responding to e-mails I’ve ever sent him is probably somewhere about a remarkable 95%, though). I fail to understand how Edward or Reynolds is more or less of a “public figure” than the other one. In my universe, we’re all posting on the web and responding to each other, and we’re all “participants” in a web of ongoing, on-and-off-again, discussion. Edward posts on the web, and from time to time, I tell him what I think of what he said; Glenn Reynolds posts on the web, and from time to time, I tell him what I think of what he said. The difference escapes me. I understand that everyone has their own perception of this sort of thing, of course; but that’s mine. I don’t think of this particular blog, of the innumerable blogs I read, as existing in some sort of vacuum. YMMV.
I’m perfectly prepared to believe that the reason for any and all of my lack of understandings here and previously are because of my being dense or ignorant about any given matter.
“There were an infinite number of ways to express that with a smidgen of social grace. Here’s a couple….”
Yes, those are more graceful; thank you for offering them.
I can also offer a wide variety of statements by Edward that would have been more graceful, and to which I therefore would have had nothing to say in response to. If you don’t agree he could have been more graceful, and correct, in his “conjecture,” do you stand by it? Or is it just me who could have been more graceful in this discussion? (I’m agreeing I could have been more graceful, as I’ve said all along; it’s unfortunately rare that a more graceful restating of what I say is not possible or reasonable.)
“I could conjecture that […] but that’s, of course, simply conjecture on my part.”
Straightfoward question: do you agree or disagree that saying something is merely a “conjecture,” or phrasing it as a “conjecture,” immunizes a statement from all possible offense? (Rather obviously, I don’t agree at all.)
“Stop misquoting, Gary.”
Beg pardon, but cutting-and-pasting someone’s words is most certainly not “misquoting” someone.
If you wish to argue that Edward was making a “conjecture” about Reynolds’ future basis with no foundation in Reynolds’ past, feel free. If you wish to argue that it’s fine to make a “conjecture” about someone’s future basis without any basis in their past behavior, feel free. If you wish to argue that Edward had a sound foundation in making a “conjecture” on Reynolds’ behavior based upon Reynolds’ past statements on the subject, feel free. If you wish to argue that I was wrong in working under the notion that Edward, in making his “conjecture” about GR, would need to have a belief that Reynolds’ past statements that justified his “conjecture,” feel free. If you feel that somehow I took Edward’s words out of context, feel free. If ya got another alternative, feel free.
But please don’t accuse me of “mis-quoting” someone by cutting and pasting their words. The most, it seems to me, you might argue is that somehow I took Edward out of context, and thus was unfair in what I quoted; is that what you’re saying?
You’re not saying that you object to my asking “Does Reynolds, in fact, have a history of ‘hooting and hollering about morality and family values and what have you’?” because it’s fine to make such a “conjecture” when there is no such history, are you? I’m sorry, I simply don’t understand what your objection is, or how the question is somehow “misquoting” Edward, or taking him unfairly out of context, or what. Do feel free to try to explain, or not, as you wish.
“You seem to take any ‘conjecture’ as being out of bounds.”
Of course not: just those that seem to have no foundation in fact, and that are reasonable grounds for people to think ill of the conjecturee.
“While the word count for Reynolds on Ward Churchill and Gannon are about the same, one can simply compare the stance taken and use that as evidence.”
I dunno what that means, I’m afraid — possibly because I’ve not read a word of Reynolds on either topic. I have no idea what Churchill has to do with “family values,” and I continue to decline to express an opinion about Gannon, while not knowing anything about what Reynolds has had to say about Gannon, while continuing to maintain no particular interest. I’m interesting in finding out what you meant, though, so of course I’ll read anything you say that explains what you meant.
“Taking into account Edward’s personal opinions and background and the pattern and style of GR’s postings, his conjecture is understandable.”
That may be, but, again, what grounds are there for it having any factual basis? If this can’t be offered, it might be “understandable,” but it would it be reasonable?
“However, you are more willing to grant Reynolds some slack as to his political views than to someone who is discussing this with you at this very moment.”
I completely fail to understand how whether or not, say, I called Reynolds on the phone, or wrote him an e-mail, about this, say, has to do with anything (I think his track record of responding to e-mails I’ve ever sent him is probably somewhere about a remarkable 95%, though). I fail to understand how Edward or Reynolds is more or less of a “public figure” than the other one. In my universe, we’re all posting on the web and responding to each other, and we’re all “participants” in a web of ongoing, on-and-off-again, discussion. Edward posts on the web, and from time to time, I tell him what I think of what he said; Glenn Reynolds posts on the web, and from time to time, I tell him what I think of what he said. The difference escapes me. I understand that everyone has their own perception of this sort of thing, of course; but that’s mine. I don’t think of this particular blog, of the innumerable blogs I read, as existing in some sort of vacuum. YMMV.
I’m perfectly prepared to believe that the reason for any and all of my lack of understandings here and previously are because of my being dense or ignorant about any given matter.
“There were an infinite number of ways to express that with a smidgen of social grace. Here’s a couple….”
Yes, those are more graceful; thank you for offering them.
I can also offer a wide variety of statements by Edward that would have been more graceful, and to which I therefore would have had nothing to say in response to. If you don’t agree he could have been more graceful, and correct, in his “conjecture,” do you stand by it? Or is it just me who could have been more graceful in this discussion? (I’m agreeing I could have been more graceful, as I’ve said all along; it’s unfortunately rare that a more graceful restating of what I say is not possible or reasonable.)
“I could conjecture that […] but that’s, of course, simply conjecture on my part.”
Straightforward question: do you agree or disagree that saying something is merely a “conjecture,” or phrasing it as a “conjecture,” immunizes a statement from all possible offense? (Rather obviously, I don’t agree at all.)
I’m seeing three posts by Gary subsequent to TtWD‘s last on this thread under Recent Comments, but not under the thread itself. Curious.
But I see them on preview – triplicates. Maybe the space-time continuum has ruptured.
So what did we learn Timmy?
That the White House Correspondents Association was not responsible for credentialing Gannon/Guckert and doesn’t want to take on the responsibility of deciding who should or shouldn’t be credentialed.
I think that pretty much says it all, as far as credentialing goes anyway.
Jesus Hillary Clinton. If this spat between Gary and Edward drags on any longer, someone’s going to write slash fiction about it.
You owe me a new keyboard, Catsy.
But since I’m already damned…
“Slowly, Gary unwrapped Edward’s verbiage, peeling it back layer by layer to reveal the soft, malleable meaning within. ‘You can be exposed as an alleged whore, too,’ he criticized…”
Many thanks Jesurgislac (may I call you Jes? I’m having trouble spelling your handle.) I added http://www.plaidder.com/ and
http://nashuaadvocate.blogspot.com/
to my favorites. I dunno how I missed plaid adder for so long and the nashua advocate had a bunch of Gannon stuff that AmericaBlog had missed I think.
Frank: Many thanks Jesurgislac (may I call you Jes? I’m having trouble spelling your handle.)
Sure. I realised shortly after inventing Jesurgislac that I was going to have to be unoffended when it got misspelled or contracted. 😉
Anarch: “Slowly, Gary unwrapped Edward’s verbiage, peeling it back layer by layer to reveal the soft, malleable meaning within. ‘You can be exposed as an alleged whore, too,’ he criticized…”
“I’m going to conjecture you,” Edward said, eyes widening as he took in the size of Gary’s response. “I’m going to counterfactual you and conjecture you until you hoot’n’holler.”
So what did we learn Timmy?
I doubt that you learned anything which isn’t all that surprising. But if you read the article, journalists don’t want litmus test even if they are dictated by the left.
You win Gary.
You always had a point, but your ungenerous way of making it just ruffled my feathers and made me stubborn about it.
From the evidence presented it’s clear that I was wrong about my conjecture about Reynolds and should not have offered it. It was lazy on my part and should not have been posted. If either Professor Reynolds or any of his supporters were offended by the comment, I apologize.
Part of the problem with the Gannon/Guckert scandal is deciphering exactly what access G/G had.
I was looking at the Nashua Advocate link Frank supplied
http://nashuaadvocate.blogspot.com/
and the one thing that seems clear is that G/G lies a lot. (Understandably, given what his other professional career is.) He claims to have been connected with the Plame Affair, but that seems to have been a lie. His function appears to have been to sit in the press room pretending to be a journalist, and lob quotes from Bush administration press-releases at McClellan to give McClellan a break from answering actual questions.
All we actually know is that a man whose resume up until two years ago appears to have consisted entirely of looking good in quasi-military uniforms somehow got a White House day pass, and kept on getting it, for two years. Either no one at the White House bothered to look into his background, or having done so and discovered that he was working as a military-style prostitute and had no journalistic experience, they weren’t bothered about it.
As someone upthread said, it’s astonishing that the person responsible for this (let’s call it a slip-up?) hasn’t been named and sacked. If it was a mistake, it was a humungous mistake: if it was deliberate, and they figured no one would ever find out about Gannon/Guckert’s background, it was a stupid mistake.
As I said, I think the only plausible reason that this hasn’t happened is the same reason why the person who betrayed Plame’s covert identity hasn’t been sacked: whoever it was is too senior in the administration to have to take responsibility for their actions.
“You win Gary” Edward ejaculated.
The End.
(PS Let us now return to discussing Gannon/Guckert?)
I agree, let’s return to this issue.
The link Timmy posted suggests there is no scandal here. That hardline partisan hacks regularly get called on by the administration and we the public should just accept that this is how it works and be at peace with it. When the President, who appears at precious few press conferences as it is, calls on someone with all the journalistic professionalism of a salt lick…the President we know who doesn’t like to be asked tough questions, we’re supposed to accept that we the public are being well informed by our Commander in Chief and nothing here is wrong.
Sorry folks, but Guckert’s a useless hack and McClellan should make every effort to mock him as such if there’s no way to keep his ilk out of the Press Corp. Or McClellan should bow and make curtain calls after each press conference.
“Hack” isn’t the word I’d use, because it invites comparisons to real journalists of arguable levels of skill or bias. Something more like “hired performer”, is more like it. What strikes me as the interesting/embarassing/shameful thing about G/G (is everyone else mentally pronouncing that Gigi?) is that he was serving a different function than anyone else in the room — everyone else was there asking questions so that they would have something to write about, as a service to their readers. G/G didn’t have any significant readership (none, in fact, when he was first given a pass) — he was there asking questions to provide a service to the administration.
If that were fully disclosed — that the WH press corps consists of a number of reporters, and a number of sort of assistant administration spokespersons, feeding useful questions to McClellan — there’d be nothing dishonest about it. I would think it was undignified and syncophantic, but so are lots of other things. G/G’s misrepresentation of his role, and the administration’s collusion therein, are what strike me as news.
(BTW, Edward, kudos on your graceful handling of your spat with GF. While I think GF was substatively right, and you were therefore right to back down, I have very rarely seen someone with the grace and good sense to admit error after the discussion had gotten snippy, which it certainly had. It’s that sort of thing that makes me like reading the comments here.)
LizardBreath: G/G’s misrepresentation of his role, and the administration’s collusion therein, are what strike me as news.
Nor is it the first time it’s happened – though the two other times it’s been revealed that someone who was supposed to be an independent journalist was in fact a hired flunky, the person hired had some prior background in journalism before they took the job of shilling for the Bush administration without telling anyone.
What makes G/G stand out is that he had no background at all in journalism – not even, as far as anyone knows, that of an amateur. He was simply a hired performer, with no more apparent interest in politics than an actor playing Hamlet would need to have in Danish history.
The question is: Who picked him? Did G/G himself just decide he fancied being a White House journalist and McClellan discovered he could be relied on just to parrot Bush administration quotes in lieu of questions? Or did someone decide it would be useful to have a puppet in the White House press room and look round for one? Either way, did they miss G/G’s other career, or did they decide it didn’t matter?
(is everyone else mentally pronouncing that Gigi?)
Well, I am now! 😉
This is fun, from Howard Kurtz’s review of Ari Fleischer’s book in today’s WaPo:
Fleischer had questioned whether Jeff Gannon, the conservative reporter who turned out to have an X-rated past, worked for a real news outlet before agreeing to call on him. But there are plenty of oddballs in residence, the former spokesman says. He cites radio host Lester Kinsolving, who asked such questions as: “Does President Bush believe that his predecessor President Jefferson was a child-molesting rapist or not?”
“The briefing room has a long tradition of being home to colorful characters of the left and right,” Fleischer says. “It’d be easier on the press secretary if those characters were gone. But I don’t think that’s the right thing to do.”
Ah, the old “everybody does it” defense. Harley would be proud.
Either way, did they miss G/G’s other career, or did they decide it didn’t matter?
This is pure speculation at this point, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the answer never comes out, but I can’t imagine that they missed the other career — it’s not as if it were concealed in any significant sense. Whoever it was that orchestrated G/G’s hiring must have been either a client or a social friend, who just figured that his history would never come out.
Ah, the old “everybody does it” defense. Harley would be proud.
Isn’t that Ken’s schtick?
Yeah — I meant proud as in “proud that Fleischer fulfilled expectations by resorting to the EDI defense”
I doubt you will learn anything either Timmy, so feel free to ignore the link.
For everyone else here’s a link to another site wasting an inordinate amount of time on this non-scandal digging up some pretty unconvincing links between a certain whitehouse press reporter the GOP propaganda machine and the Thune senate campaign in S Dakota.
Jeff Gannon Contradicts Himself and the White House in Obscure Internet Postings From 2004 and Before
“You win Gary.”
I win my own Gary? Cool! When I was very young, I always wanted another!
Seriously, much as it may seem otherwise, I really don’t care about “winning.” Okay, I’m human, so I’m not indifferent, bu that’s not, at least, my primary goal or motivation; I do care about the points I make in an argument, about making them, and if I think they’re worth making and arguing for, obviously I care if people I respect (which includes Liberal Japonicus and Rilkefan!) do or do not believe in their validity, and I care about my learning from an argument/discussion, and finding out if I’m wrong, and I care about people I respect doing the right thing.
“If either Professor Reynolds or any of his supporters were offended by the comment, I apologize.”
That’s very gracious of you, Edward, and that sort of thing greatly heightens my respect for you. Well said.
So, now people can return to the fictionalization of our narrative, knowing that Edward is truly a Big Man.
I apologize for my ungenerous, ungracious, and aggressive approach in this, as in too many other things I write. That tendency is most certainly one of my greatest failings.
Hugs? I’ll bat my eyelashes at you.
Hugs?
Of course. To totally mangle Wilde, There’s nothing as satisfying as an opponent with an admirable intellect.
Supporters? Which sort of dangly bit are you implying that our friend Reynolds most strongly resembles, here?
Supporters? Which sort of dangly bit are you implying that our friend Reynolds most strongly resembles, here?
Insofar as Glenn has no problem erecting fallacious arguments and standing up for the indefensible, I submit that he is metaphorically as !dangly as could be.
Which sort of dangly bit are you implying that our friend Reynolds most strongly resembles, here?
Catsy’s response is infinitely more classy than mine would have been…
I lived in England for three years, where “supporters” is synomymous with “fans” (at least in sports-speak) and it’s one of those words that stuck with me.
I in no way meant to imply Reynolds is aptronymically related to our current Vice President.
“…is aptronymically related….”
I actually know what that means, but according to Google, this is only the second usage of that word on the entire Web.
“Results 1 – 1 of 1 for aptronymically.”
“Farber” means “dyer” in German, which doesn’t particularly work as an aptronym for me. I give color to the ideas I present?
I’d have thought it meant “one who colors”, but given cultural references, one never knows. Probably back when names derived from occupations, there weren’t too many professional cartoonists.
When I see a painting like this I get emotionally…well, you know.
Not to pick up any glue from the remains of the horse, but I just noticed this from today. (And, no, I didn’t drop a line to GR about this discussion.)
but according to Google, this is only the second usage of that word on the entire Web.
My, the trails we blaze here on ObWi.
Thank goodness that’s all over. I was getting worried someone was on the verge of requesting a Memorial Gary Farber/Edward Slash Fiction Thread.
Oh, and I’ve seen it before, a long time back, but here Katherine misspells her name. Why is this? Is she afeared of the ObWings cookies (and she ought to be in the know, so what do they *do*?) or does she post under an additional name here?
I’m betting she’s also Jesurgislac.
Ah, no, got it – she’s also Aaron Sorkin. This was a bit of a giveaway. Much too rousing and rhetorical, even for a lawyer.
“I’m betting she’s also Jesurgislac.”
Timmy. She drinks this formula, and….
I’m betting she’s also Jesurgislac.
I’m terribly flattered!
But I bet Katherine isn’t…
Okay, Gary, can you compensate for the threadjack by writing one of your lucid and lengthy comments on the actual thread topic, which is Gannon/Guckert?
“Okay, Gary, can you compensate for the threadjack by writing one of your lucid and lengthy comments on the actual thread topic, which is Gannon/Guckert?”
Respectfully, Jon Stewart had an answer to this sort of thing. The word “monkey” was used.
I respectfully submit my own blogging on my own blog, as well as comments on other topics, here, as “compensation,” and if that is insufficient, alas, it is.
ARRGHH! So you began posting to a thread you had absolutely no interest in… I hate that.
Powers-that-be, perhaps this thread should be closed at this point.
Frank: So you began posting to a thread you had absolutely no interest in… I hate that.
Me too. I mean, not that the Gary/Edward slash show wasn’t entertaining in itself, but effectively Gary took a thread on Gannon and turned it into an all-about-Glenn-Reynolds show.
(Thus showing Timmy the Wonder Dog, who attempted several times to turn the thread into a discussion on Helen Thomas or Ann Coulter, how a master of the art of threadjack does it.)
Actually based on the level of interest I think there should be a new Gannon thread at the top of the page. 🙂
I second that motion.
Fine, consider this thread “one for the history books.”