Taranto at WSJ’s Best of the Web:
“Left-wing blogger Amanda Marcotte of the vociferously anti-war web site Pandagon has been named by the John Edwards campaign as their new blogmaster,” reports the Blogger News Network:
The extent of Ms. Marcotte’s responsibilities at the Edwards site, and the nature of the political operations she will be undertaking as a member of the Edwards campaign, have not yet been detailed publicly.
Here is a Marcotte blog entry from just last week:
Naturally, my flight out of Atlanta has been delayed. Let’s hope it takes off when they say it will so I don’t miss my connecting flight home.
In the meantime, I’ve been sort of casually listening to CNN blaring throughout the waiting area and good [obscene progressive participle] god is that channel pure evil. For awhile, I had to listen to how the poor dear lacrosse players at Duke are being persecuted just because they held someone down and [obscene past-tense verb] her against her will--not rape, of course, because the charges have been thrown out. Can’t a few white boys sexually assault a black woman anymore without people getting all wound up about it? So unfair.
At the very least, this is potentially libelous, given that the lacrosse players–although still charged with sexual assault (but not rape)–haven’t actually been convicted of anything. It is also, shall we say, rather intemperate in tone, and one wonders if Edwards knew just what kind of blogger he was hiring here
.
When will these vituperative wingnuts just leave the poor girl alone? What? Has she done something criminal?!
Give this chick enough rope and she’ll hang herself.
Pass the popcorn!
At some point a staffer on the Edwards campaign, if not Mrs Edwards herself, is going to take Amanda in for a makeover and help her buy a new ‘campaign’ wardrobe.
The difference between the before and after pictures will be staggering. Though Amanda’s blogging will have the same bilious quality.
I’m not saying we’ll end up with Jill at Feministe to objectify … but the impending event shouldn’t pass unnoticed.
–
Funyons! Get your Funyons here! Funyons!
(Quickly putting on other hat): Hey, I got a WSJ link! I rule.
There has gotta be a special at the Moonbat Store.
I’ve never gotten a Taranto link.
These people, they fear me.
Holy shit, Robert! You do!
Any chance that you can start a feature called Kerfuffle Watch for morons like me, who really enjoy this kind of thing?
Dan, In order to “get” Marcotte’s rant, you need to grasp the fact that Marcotte was, herself, RAPED by the lacrosse players.
It was a vicarious rape.
And, to the feministas, figurative, vicarious rape is a fate worse than being tossed into a Pihrana-infested river in Guinea.
After all, America IS a “rape-tolerant society.” And, as Marcotte’s scars attest, virtual, vicarious rape is the type least noticed, and thus, the most-tolerated.
She’s another victim, right?
This is Instant Karma.
Enjoy it, Mandy. Lord knows you’ve earned it.
Any chance that you can start a feature called Kerfuffle Watch for morons like me, who really enjoy this kind of thing?
I’m sorry. I don’t read suggestions from people who haven’t been linked in the WSJ.
Of course, if you were to come over to the dark side that is BNN, then you by association would have been linked in the WSJ, and your ideas would become worthy of consideration. You could even start a “Kerfuffle Watch” column and start raking in those big blogging dollars.
Well, uh.
I guess he candirus must have hurt, steve.
I empathize.
Actually, kerfuffle watch is a brilliant idea. I’m glad I thought of it.
Robert,
Thanks. When I get kicked off of this site, because I’m not Jeff enough, I’ll consider that an invite.
And I’ll have deserved it.
Check out this bit from Edwards new blogrrl #2:
It is almost charming in its naivete.
I was wrong. I shouldn’t have called you pussy whipped, Amanda. I would vote against the resolution if it came up again.
It is almost charming in its naivete.
I know.progressive liberals are like that. It’s like there exists a whole separate society of chimps, that can vote.
You need to start a pool. How long before she says something that gets her fire?
I put the over/under at 60 days.
Naw. I’ve got 35 days, Jay. I’ll take the under.
I can only hope you’re wrong, Dan. 35 days of this would by like having just the one night with Audrey Hepburn. Great fun, but too short.
Holy Cow–the WSJ is stalking Amanda.
Holy Cow–campaign operatives are contacting an obscure lefty to pick her brain about obtaining her support. How come I haven’t made up a story about Mitt Romney calling me? (All the cool kids soon will be.)
Holy Cow–that was one transparent reference to Hillary not wanting to admit she was wrong.
Holy Cow–Edwards voted for the AUMF, too. But he says that was a “mistake” because the polls tell him to. Nothing to see here–move along.
Holy Cow–it’s almost spring training and I miss Harry Caray.
The thing is, I think a mole from Hillary’s campaign convinced Edwards to hire this raving lunatic.
And don’t tell me that’s too far out, ‘cause there ain’t nuthin’ too far out for either one of the Clintons.
This decision by the Edwards campaign was suicidal! Amanda is going to become the center of a raging controversy, and too many people are going to read her blog, and find out what she’s really about.
Sorry, but flyover country isn’t going to like this.
I, myself, love it…
I don’t actually believe that Hillary was behind this, but her thighs have to be soaked after hearing this announcement.
TLD,
Can the Undead really commit suicide? I ask from merely theoretical interest.
Best,
D
furriskey,
I’m with you there, but all the American graduate-school-educated women tell me that Audrey was anorexic, and that I’m a ghoul.
Bitches.
Overweight bitches.
Nah, what’s being missed here is that Edwards is a stone loser, and hence had no choice but to hire a K-list lefty vitriolblogger. I guarandamntee that Amanda was far, far, far from the first person to receive an offer.
Is this strafing campaign just revenge for the Ben Domenech blowup?
cynn–
Who?
Best.
Dan
Hooooooooo-ly cowwwwwww!!!
By the way, what does a blogmaster do? Is she the gatekeeper of the site? Content provider? Designer? Could it be that the Edwards people brought her on board for some expertise she has?
I’m avenging Scooter Libby, cynn. Whose team are you on again?
Such as dogmatic smug sanctimony laced with profanity? SCORE!
The blogmaster masters the blog.
Duh.
OMG – TEH WINGNUTS R SWIFTBOATING TEH AMANDA! W/ STRAFING!
She has a lucky hat, you know.
It looks like a merkin.
That’s very Zen, Dan.
Yeah, North Carolina is going to loooove Amanda:
Mel Brooks couldn’t have come up with this stuff. DNA? Does Not Agree.
Wow. Pablo, that bit you quoted contains at least one assertion of fact that’s been disproven already. The nurse who made the examination found no evidence of forcible rape.
The supposed comments are also in dispute.
Got to wonder how much fun and money the lacrosse players could get with all the defamation suits that are lining themselves up.
Re: Earlier questions on what the good people of North Carolina will think – they will, in fact, cheer. Duke is considered by most true North Carolinians to be a blight upon the great North State, a pustulent blister filled with transplanted New Jersey-ites and French communist literature deconstructivists, all planted on a campus with phoney-old buildings that don’t quite measure up to the genuine old classy buildings at Chapel Hill. It’s perceived as the kind of place where the alleged rape and racial slurs – atrocious things if true – would nevertheless have been among the better things that could be said about Dook, Dooke, Dyuk, or Dookie University. If you pay attention to the vituperative basketball hatred, you’ll get some hints of the cultural clash between Duke and the rest of the state.
The general impression among my friends from around there is, ‘shame about the lynch mob, it’s a typical Durham embarrassment and about what we’d expect from that disaster of a city… but getting exposed as a pack of irrational angry kneejerk leftists couldn’t happen to a nicer university.
“Her part of the country”: North Carolina.
“to be used and abused by white men”: John Edwards.
Connect dots. I think the dotmaker has some explaining/backpedaling/soul-searching/recognizing of the dangers of idiotic, misinformed blanket statements to do.
But there again, here we are stalking her with her own words. And that is just not fair.
I don’t know much about this Amanda and I am no fan of Edwards. However, what’s happening here is sadly familiar. What’s so funny about the term “strafing?” That’s exactly what happened to Domenech, and I think he was brutalized.
Disagree with someone all you want, fine; maliciously dredging an identifiable person through the unforgiving internet is just bad form, in my opinion. If you want her ass canned, contact Edwards directly. I’m sure he’s open to suggestions.
So quoting what someone wrote is now considered “malicious”? When that person has just taken a job in communicating for a politician? And the writings are political?
cynn ,
That’s why in these parts , Dan gets referred to as THE VITUPERATOR . It is a nasty business , but he gets to wear cool shades on the job .
…. And to think I almost got my Masters at Duke.
cynn
the quotes from Amanda is not something she wrote ten or more years ago…but last week.
Either the Edwards camp is amazingly incompetent or they see nothing wrong with Mandy’s vagina supremacy stance.
Rob Crawford: Apparently one needs to be prepared for the blowback. I think Amanda drags in enough of the true believers to make her a positive gamble.
Not to mention the four guys who did fuck her close enough to the time in question to be identifiable by DNA, but weren’t privileged white Duke lacrosse players. And the fact that she now can’t remember whether she was raped or not…
Mandy is right about one thing though:
It’s not about rape, though.
What was that over again? A movie review, wasn’t it? Lifting quotes, accusing people of rape, it’s all the same, right?
I don’t care whether or not Marcotte gets canned, to be honest with you.
But I saw people over on Edwards’ site who were unfamiliar with the blogosphere, and who were about to be aligned—without their knowledge—to one of the nastiest, most hateful people on the internet.
I simply pointed out to them they were blowing kisses at someone whose views were likely to cheapen the political discourse.
Did I forget smearing an entire region of the country with racist, sexist bile? And that it’s where your new rich, white boss hails from? I believe I did.
I wonder how many black girls Edwards has raped. Ya think Amanda knows? I bet she’d guess for you if you got her liquored up.
“Blogmaster?” Is that the word?
No wonder people have been looking at me funny when I tell them I’m a masterblogger.
Pablo, what I am talking about is the shallow and ugly attempt to destroy someone’s reputation over the sterile internet.
And Jeff, seriously, are you that cavalier, given what you’ve been through, about the implications of openly slamming someone online? You must know the implications are huge. Wouldn’t have happened 10 years ago.
Besides, what’s it all to you in the long run?
I think being prepared to be held accountable for your assertions is a more rhetorically neutral way to say that.
True believers in what? Do you really think her True Believers are going to be an asset in a national campaign? She isn’t going to be a big fish in a little blogosphere anymore, she just turned pro. They use hard balls up there.
I think you have pablo confused with this, cynn:
</blockquote>Natalia, do you know the details of the case? If so, why do you think a women enthusiastically jumped into a sexual situation with men making slavery jokes at her? Furthermore, what is your theory on why she supposedly looooooved having sex with guys holding her facedown on the bathroom floor? There’s no “if†they behaved in a disrespectful manner. We have conclusive evidence that happened.
And Jeff, seriously, are you that cavalier, given what you’ve been through, about the implications of openly slamming someone online?<blockquote>
I think it’s time for you to just go away.
By using their own shallow and ugly words.
Quite a universe you live in there, cynn. Glad I live in this one.
Repeating what people say and believe is not destroying their reputation, it is revealing it. Go over to Pandagon and look around a bit cynn, Marcotte is a vicous, nasty little demogogue, she is only reaping what she has sown.
B Moe, as I said before, I don’t know much about this lady. What attracted my attention was the concerted effort to destroy her. I swear to God, I will donate $50 to my local Humane Society if anyone can recall the Ben Domenech affair.
And then tell me this isn’t some payback. Otherwise, you righties have just stole the lefty playbook. And we want an acknowlegement, at least.
Edwards at this point, according to the “experts”, has just about 0% chance of getting the nod. All the attention is on Clinton and Obama. Could this all be a ploy? Bring a shit-thrower on board, get some positive lefty blog-support and controversy and then publicly throw her overboard? If managed carefully this could work out well for Edwards.
He gets nutroots-support, increased attention (any attention, even negative is better than being ignored), and “Sister Souljah moment” to help him with the moderates all in one swoop.
Or he and his staff could be idiots… Who knows?
Then as I just said, and I mean this as a friend, go to Pandagon and look around a bit, because right now you are sounding rather foolish.
Excuse me while I go bang my head against the wall a few times.
You don’t know Mandy…yet you are quite adament in declaring the reposting of her own writings an effort to destroy her.
To coin a phrase .. What.The.Fuck?
I agree that she’s an inarticulate kook. Actionable? No.
Re-posting her stuff is legitimate use. But it seems that some folks are pushing it.
For what it’s worth…
I’ve already gotten spam offering finest quality replica kerfluffle watches.
How dare you even compare the two situations.
While you are over at Marcotte’s place, do a search for my name. But you’ll have to open the search up to “pasty” and variations of my name wherein individual letters are replaced by asterisks. Try Goldbag or Goldfuck too, while you’re there.
Then come back and tell me about slamming someone online.
I think you’ll see that my way of “slamming” Marcotte—putting her words on the Edwards campaign site and asking if the positions represented by them match the positions of the Edwards campaign— is a lot different than how Amanda treats me. While she is slamming me. Online.
I say this again, so that everyone hears it: it is the height of audacity to compare attacking Marcotte for her political views with the attacks by a certain nutty professor that continue to be launched against me and my family.
That you made the connection so that you could show off your moral outrage, cynn, is utterly reprehensible, and suggests to me that you have been seduced by moral relativism of the most pernicious sort.
And no, I don’t want or need a reply.
I always thought of the young Ben Domenech as a puppy…
cynn:
I remember the Ben affair.
Short possibly mutilated version: just as he was about to get a blog position with the WaPo, some moonbats took seriously some satire he had written ten or so years ago, and pitched a hissy fit until the WaPo dumped him.
Trying to compare her with him is like trying to compare John Dillinger with the embezzler from Monty Python that embezzled a single penny.
I was comparing this Amanda fury to the Ben Domenech situtation, not Crazy Lady in any respect, Mr. Haughty Hot Head. But nobody bothered to follow up or even acknowlege that Mr. Domenech even existed. But he was so important back in the day!
This speaks to your obsession with self. The fact that you have erased from your collective memory one of your own who was driven away by lefty excoriation speaks many words. Jeff, climb down from the pedestal, enjoy a happy birthday, and realize that others beside you have been the subject of a poisonous internet attact.
I think it’s ironic that Molly Ivins will never collect a social security check.
OH MY G-D CYNN IS TRYING TO SWIFTBOAT TEH GOLDSTEIN!
Zzzz…
If Marcotte’s Edwards blogging is anything like her coverage of the Duke non-rape case, we’re in for a good time.
And by that coverage, I mean this: My Liberalism Says You’re Guilty Of Rape
Cynn, you need some sort of help. Spiritual, psychological or just in basic comprehension, I’m not sure which. Maybe all three.
Amanda Marcotte is an aggressively offensive, libellous and dishonest blogger whose public statements do not accord with those of the politician she is now being paid to present on- line.
Her treatment of Jeff Goldstein, who is an intelligent, thoughtful and articulate puncturer of dishonest poseurs, has been and continues to be beneath contempt.
You have tried to ‘defend’ her, not because you know anything about her or her works, which you demonstrably do not, but simply in order to take a few cheap shots at Jeff. Or “Mr High and Haughty” to you, apparently.
Jeff is a tolerant and polite man. I am not.
You are a bore, a hypocrite and an imbecile. Be so good as to take yourself off.
I was comparing this Amanda fury to the Ben Domenech situtation, not Crazy Lady in any respect, Mr. Haughty Hot Head.
Oh, yeah? Then what the hell was this, that Jeff just quoted?
And Jeff, seriously, are you that cavalier, given what you’ve been through, about the implications of openly slamming someone online?
How the hell does this relate to Ben Domenech? What did his problems have to do with Jeff?
You know, sometimes it’s OK to realize you’re stepping on it, and just clam up. Really.
By the way, I DEMAND recognition for my Collins-style prescience here:
31st January. Ha.
“Masters”? Smells like male domination to me.
Hey, take it all; not worth the struggle anymore.
It’s a case of projection confession
Not just a taste of projection confession
Hall and Oates
Whoa oh here she comes
Hey, by being a blogmaster, hasn’t she joined the Patriarchy, and shouldn’t she then be pilloried and flogged (if not actually burned at the stake) as a traitor to the Womyn’s Cause?
Sure would make great TV, I’m thinkin’…
SB: century22
I’m ahead of my time.
No one here even mentioned the Domenech case until you brought it up. And now it was some kind of plot on our part for payback?
We’re either very good at conspiracy or you are just an idiot spouting idiocies.
I vote the latter. I’m not saying the former isn’t true (because feeding your paranoia is kind of fun), but in this case–I still vote the latter.
Cynn —
Ben is a friend of mine. He worked at Regnery and we were in negotiations for a book deal when his troubles hit.
He got caught plagiarizing some lines here and there in college movie reviews, I think it was.
I posted on it a couple of times, here and here.
Ben and I still have contact through email. He is a very bright young man with a bright future. He is still very close with everyone over at redstate.org. So no, he hasn’t been thrown under the bus or forgotten by his friends. He has simply stepped out of the limelight until the time comes for him to re-enter the public sphere.
And when he does, I’ll be there to welcome him.
It’s a world of hopes and a world of fears
Sounds like the old dark-side threat tactic for sure, suspiciously like the one the Islamofascists are currently using on the Jews.
Best of luck to Ben, and he was treated so badly that I cried for him, even though I didn’t agree with anything he said. That was my clumsy point, that the internet is reality for many, and we need to be mindful.
I agree with you on that, cynn.
But don’t waste your compassion on Marcotte. Trust me.
I just spent some time re-reading those threads I linked on Domenech. I earlier downplayed the magnitude of his plagiarism (my memory is a bit fuzzy—I spent more time fending off the braying Atriots than I did reading NRO), so for that I apologize.
Still, I am happy, looking back, with what I wrote. People need to remember just how quickly it all happened. I was sure Ben would admit his mistakes and apologize. He did. And his life moved on.
But what struck me was the viciousness of those comments—and how they reminded me, once again, why Marcotte and her like should be shamed by the mainstream political establishments.
That more and more Dems are embracing these folks—it’s all about fundraising, when all is said and done—is as disturbing as it is cynical.
I’ll tell you what it is to me in the long run. I don’t want my country having politicians having to hire bloggers as a form of hush money, to keep themselves from being slandered and stalked by the Mike Starks of the world.
I don’t want aggressively offensive, libellous and dishonest bloggers* to be rewarded and legitimated.
and he was treated so badly that I cried for him, even though I didn’t agree with anything he said. That was my clumsy point, that the internet is reality for many, and we need to be mindful.
Are you che che’s daughter?
But yes, the internet can treat people badly, and I don’t want one of the worst players rewarded by a possible PRESIDENT. It seems that would be an incentive to future bad behavior.
some would use the word “real” word, legitimized.
Well, if you read through the last few posts, you will see Jeff apologising for having been a bit rough on someione who is still a friend of his.
But you won’t see cynn apologising for any of the offensive slurs she has perpetrated on this post, and I bet you a pound to a pinch of pigshit that no Humane charity is going to see her 50 bucks, either, despite Finrod Felagund’s effort of memory.
cynn,
By quoting from her posts on the internet? Please.
Or were you talking about what she’s done to the Duke 3, Jeff and just about anyone else with a penis and/or a divergent opinion?
Er, I don’t think that’s what happened. I, for one, just didn’t think the two situations were analogous.
To leap from “no one responded to this point” to “you’ve all erased him from history like Stalin with Trotsky” is a stunningly broad jump. Maybe you could compete in the Olympics.
Hogwash, H-O-G-W-A-S-H. Hogwash.
I could swear to God that at 8:00 PM by the pw clock I posted the following on this very thread:
And as I scroll up right now, I can still see it! One of us is on drugs or something.
Another difference in the two scenarios is that it took some real digging, a real investigative effort to match lines from Ben’s movie reviews to the places he lifted them from. That level of concern over the fact that a guy starts blogging for WaPo is pretty creepy.
By contrast, you can go to Pandagon and point at just about anything Amanda has ever written and get a good idea of just what sort of sociopath she is, and she’s now writing for a man who hopes to be President, and ostensibly would like us all to vote for him. You don’t have to hunt for it, she constructs it in neon and powers it with the fury of a thousand demented suns. It’s impossible to pay any attention to her whatsoever and not notice it. That is who she is and that is what she does.
Very, very different.
I think she’s gone. But she might be under the bed.
There is one salient point that should be made.
Let’s just pretend that Jeff gets a call from John McCain’s campaign, asking him to be the “blogmaster” for the Senators online community. (Jeff, please, no hurling, it’s just pretend.) Jeff decides that despite his past excoriation of McCain/Feingold and some other issues related to the Senator, he takes the gig and announces he’s moving to Arizona.
After posting some lightweight pablum (albeit with the Goldstein vibe) about the future of our country, John McCain, blah, blah, blech, we all sit back and wait for the response.
What happens next?
Let’s take an over under on how many cock slapping, paste eating, carpet bombing, brown people hating, originalist pimping comments get splashed across the poor Senator’s web page by keening, frothing moonbats who have demonstrably stalked Jeff over the years. Great googly moogly you’d need to network about five Crays to keep up with teh outrage.
Cynn’s point is that this is a bad thing for anyone. Perhaps so but it is the way of the political world. If it is her contention that we “right wingers” need to be held to a higher standard than the moonbattery, that has already been demonstrated in the tone and scholarship of Jeff’s posts at Edward’s site. If it is her contention that the higher standard shoudl be to eschew commenting at all? Not so much.
There is an enormous difference in credibility between dredging up parsed ten year old entertainment reviews from the college days of a writer who is merely one of several contributors and confronting the Blogatrix responsible for the style and substance of a presidential canididates weblog with writings that she has freely posted only a few weeks ago! These represent completely legitimate inquiries as to the resolution of Marcottes published writings and how this jives with the “message” of the Edward’s “locomotive.”
All of this may make cynn feel icky but she needs to spend some time at Pandagon and read the style and substance of the posts Marcotte has spewed forth on that bully pulpit. Perhaps then cynn will appreciate the world of difference and understand, however sadly, that politics is a dirty business often filled with dirty people.
Welcome to the zoo, Amanda, but you may not like all of the food you are fed.
When, oh when, will you wingnuts realize that you cannot take exception to anything written or spoken by a normal mainstream American like Ms. Marcotte.
I swear, there ought to be a law about that. Or a camp to put you fascist haters in before you destroy our democracy and create a dictatorship.
If Mandy was going to take her new gig seriously and at least pretend to be more thoughtful and rational about Duke case
perish the thought
she now compares the Duke lacrosse players to OJ
-Mel Brooks
Oh, I don’t know. Could it be evidence?
Not saying this is the case, but one way to prevent the more vitriolic from aiming their venom at you is to hire them. If Edwards was worried about Mandy, who is popular/infamous enough to be known in the sphere, then trying to bring her into his camp could be a smart move.
The real question is will her inevitable smack talking hurt the Edwards campaign? I’d be curious to know if the Hamsher blackface incident hurt Lamont.
Darleen, wow! I mean, she’s trying to say, if I’ve read it right, does she mean…
Wow!
That just might be the most incoherant, incomprehensible, mind numbingly obtuse piece of commentary I have ever read in any forum.
And she works for Edwards.
heh
Of course it is possible that my genitals have made me too moronic to analyse deeply felt, powerful cyber feminist social justice laments.
Nice comment in looneyland: