Wuzzadem John sends me this email:
I’ve always thought of John Cole as sort of a female version of Mandy – only with 90% less profanity – but after seeing this thread and the ensuing comments I have a much lower opinion of him.
http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=7874
That’s truly disgusting – and I’m not exactly the Mayor of Tactville.
Just so you don’t have to go over there, here’s the post:
Imagine my surprise when I got home to learn that Anna Nicole Smith had died, and this is apparently so memorable that MSNBC has chosen to cancel their broadcasting and do Anna stories non-stop.
I can not be alone in my observation that it is rather humorous that the person who most likely will rescue two feminists from public scrutiny is a stripper/turned Playmate who graduated into a full-fledged celebrity drunk, an addict and alcoholic through and through, as well as a terrible mother.
Only in America.
You’ve got a weird sense of humor, John. Of course, we all know that there’s no such thing as a feminist alcoholic exhibitionist. Except for Ted Kennedy.
Fuck off, man. I guess, to put it as I seem to recall somebody else did somewhere, you’ve arrived. How does it feel? I’ll make an attempt to imagine your surprise, if you’ll try and imagine our disgust. Deal?
Hey, there are some other really groovy, compassionate lefty comments to be had here. Bon fucking appetit!
Yep, the lady with big tits dies, and she’s to blame for society’s fascination with celebs, when they could be tuning in to really important stuff, like the Libby trial. You know what? Maybe society’s not so dumb. Maybe the story about the dead lady with big tits conveys more information than the MSM’s coverage of presumably serious issues. Maybe those people really are compassionate. But what the heck, blame it on Anna Nicole if your message isn’t getting out, even if, as a side effect, a couple of really nice women get to keep their jobs because the media’s attention’s attracted elsewhere. That Anna Nicole. Such a sellout, compared to Marcotte and McEwan. Marrying that old bastard cuz she knew he’d kick off soon. Drinking herself to death despite the kind attentions of the media.
****
update: Jeff’s take on this here.
I’ve always thought of John Cole as sort of a female version of Mandy
I’ve recently thought of John Cole as the straight version of Andrew Sullivan. But I don’t find this particular post so horrifying. What am I missing?
The horrifying thing is that he thinks it’s funny that a dead alcoholic despised victim of the Patriarchy has saved a couple of morons who don’t have alcoholism as an excuse for their idiocy, apparently.
I think this guy has it about right. Though I might add that Anna Nicole – the legend – might end up being surprisingly durable.
You’re right, happyfeet. She probably will end up being surprisingly dirigible.
I guess I’m with MayBee – the Amanda-Anna nexus – I don’t get that – Amanda has been spayed or neutered – she’s just a bot now, from what I can tell. I don’t see how Blandy can maintain Mandy’s fan base, and she doesn’t exactly have a platform for making new fans.
Anna Nicole, on the other hand, has a story to tell.
Look, happyfeet . . . these guys are blaming the lady with the tits for our culture’s fascination with ladies with tits and other celebs. Is there something wrong with that? You may not like her, though heaven knows there are a lot of other, better places to park your animus. But why the disdain?
And on the other hand, what kind of moral contortionism does it take to make culture heroes out of Marcotte and McEwan?
I mean, it’s not like they’ve even got great racks, for crying out loud.
Oh – sorry D – I gotcha – Cole’s post is kind of subtle if you have no idea of where Cole is coming from in terms of where his Amanda-sympathies would lie. I don’t read him. I think because there’s something vaguely nauseating about “balloon juice” – I haven’t the slightest idea what that means but I would definitely want to wash my hands if I ever got any on me.
John Cole doesn’t like Amanda.
I’m not seeing how he’s blaming Anna for the media’s fascination with her. I read him to be saying that Amanda and her bigoted posts and public castration of Edwards really should be the news. Amanda’s perversely lucky that it would be Anna Nicole (who Amanda would theoretically despise) that saves her.
If that is what he’s saying, MayBee, then I owe him an apology. I read it differently from the way you do.
So, John–if you mean what MayBee says, please consider this an apology. If you mean what I think you do, bite my corpse.
Look down his website the past few days, Dan. I think you’ll see posts of his that are highly critical of Amanda, and not-at-all sad about her troubles.
I’m confused. Maybe we could file this under Performance Art?
Performance art? Yeah, pretty much. The artful performance of an idiot blogger singing his cluelessness at fever pitch. The hard work put in his falsetto was apparent.
MayBee at 10:42 was dead-on accurate. Too bad DD doesn’t have near the same level of reading comprehension. Might make his posts better.
Who is DD? And does a figurative dirigible crash or float? Who is the referent for ‘John’ – Wuzzadem John or John Cole. I want to believe.
I adore Dan’s instinct to be protective of Anna Nicole, btw.
I think if we had the press/internet/entertainment industry then that we have now, we would find that Norma Jean was much more Anna Nicole than Marilyn Monroe.
“Who is DD?†Oops, my bad. For some reason the post reminded me of a guy named Dan in school who had a high-pitched falsetto kind of voice. He preferred to be called DD. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Most of us sort of left the guy alone to entertain himself.
MayBee – I think more and more, we can in many ways each have the press/internet/entertainment industry we choose to have, so I would not be surprised if Anna Nicole resisted being disposed of as readily as some people seem to be suspecting she will be.
Perfect topic for PW.
Cole’s verbiage is certainly loaded. Freudian, or just plain weak? Hard to decide.
Anna Nicole ‘saving’ ‘feminists’? Why do they need saving? If they are feminists can’t they stand on their own feet? Can’t they deal with a little ‘public scrutiny?’ Is it really just scrutiny? What are they being saved from? Maybe something more serious like an unmasking?
Feminist is such a generic term these days. Who isn’t a feminist? Misogynists? Are they merely not mysogynists or shouldn’t their blend of stridency, coupled with the overt anti-religious bigotry, deserve a slightly more descriptive terminology?
Maybe Cole doesn’t like Marcotte, maybe he sees something deeper about the inherently corrective nature of society that revels in the banal. But I sure can’t tell from the statement he made.
Forget about balloon guy – I get your point here. Reading through the Think Progress comments it really is creepy how threatened the left is by anything which appears to shake the momentum of the constant, lulling drumbeat of negativity that a good many of them seem to have become dependent on.
Making sense of this stuff is well above my paygrade. Creepy is all I got.
This I get. Balloon guy lacks any awareness that only an astoundingly disconnected elitist would characterize Anna Nicole this way at this time. Most people comprehend the grandiosity of her shamelessness on a level so basic it requires little if any comment. It’s archetypal. And uh, yeah. I kinda do think balloon guy is “alone in my observation that it is rather humorous that…”
I read John as saying that ANS’s death takes the spotlight off of the Marcotte story, the irony being that ANS is to ‘feminists’ what Marcotte is to most other humans.
I realize the situation is muddied a bit by the fact that Cole called Marcotte and McEwan “qualified” and gave Edwards kudos for his “bravery” in keeping on the Axis of Ova (I thought John was completely wrong both to give Edwards credit for being so onstentatiously slippery and insincere, and to suggest that Marcotte is qualified for anything other than the Sexist Hyperbole Olympics), but here I think he’s only really commenting on the media overkill of ANS’s death, and how it is this fascination that has (ironically) given Marcotte and McEwan some breathing room.
Again, I don’t think he is right in that assessment—most of the heat on them was coming from blogs, and blogs can pause to do ANS retrospectives and STILL find time to pillory the erstwhile feminists now playing gopher to the patriarchy.
Similarly, I don’t think he covers himself in glory by setting Marcotte and McEwan up against ANS as geniune feminists to Smith’s bimbo—but I don’t think that statement was as terribly loaded as you seem to think it was, Dan.
I think Cole thinks one tempest in a teapot has replaced another, and that the protagonist of the second was the ostensible opposite of the protagonists in the first. He sees simple irony, but only because he accepts Marcotte and McEwans’ self-labeling—and only because he doesn’t think the rightwing smear machine should have made a big deal out of the Marcotte hire in the first place.
So he is wrong on a number of points, but I don’t think he was comparing Marcotte favorably to ANS, either.
I could be wrong though. And if I am, then yeah, he’s a bit tone deaf. It’s no secret that I’ve poked fun at ANS in the past; but I find her far less hateful than I do Marcotte. I mean, at least ANS only poisoned herself. Not only that, but she was committed to it.
Whereas Amanda? Well, you get the idea.
Mother Estrogen can only have been saved if she was under some sort of attack.
Most writers don’t view being quoted verbatim as an attack. But with this one it’s a smear.
Screw ‘em.
Not quite sure I’d go that far. Look at what happened and is happening to her offspring.
Otherwise, however, I agree in general.
Here you go, Dan. Cole responded. Which gives his commenters license to go after me, of course.
Incidentally, Kevin K from catch.com is over there, taking shots at you and Pablo. He, you might remember, is the guy who suggested I breast fed my son.
I assumed he thought me a woman so I offered to bat him in the temple with my joint to prove otherwise. He still hasn’t responded—except to go running to his pals at SN!, who fought back with an “Adlerian” analysis of my internet comments.
Glad to see he’s found a home on a conservative site.
Anyway, I wonder what an “Adlerian” analysis of someone who seems to fetishize fart sniffing might yield?
Watching John Cole over the last year has been like watching the Stockholm syndrome take over a victim. He used to criticize the craziness of his commenters, lately I’ve seen him threatening to ban his one remaining conservative.
You know what would be interesting? To compare the treatment of Anna Nicole Smith and Hunter S Thompson. Sure, he could write. But she could vamp. They were both famous messes, but I think their obvious addictions were viewed in very different way. Why, do you think?
What would we say if ANS wanted her ashes shot out of a cannon?
I think it is fun to scan the lefty sites and see them all bemoaning the worshipping of “celebrity”, and how hollow and talentless they are, in between the posts about Obama, Hillary and Edwards.
Oh, you delicate flowrer, Jeff. However will you withstand the vicious shots at your character? I will list every nasty comment directed at you:
OMG. How will you handle it? Shall we gather together, hold hands, and sing ‘We Shall Overcome?”
Giveme a break, petunia.
John —
More happy than ever I defended you!
By the way, did you direct that tough talk at me from your recumbent bike?
Pedal, boy! Faster, faster!
Oh, and incidentally, you missed this comment:
And this one:
I can see how that might happen, though, their being the first and last comments in the thread.
Perhaps the recumbent bike was going backward at the time and you just, you know, missed those for the undulation.
Meanwhile, looks like Mona’s found another home from which to lob her attacks my way. Here, she uses Dan’s post as a jumping off point.
Typical stuff—John Cole is now “sensible” (meaning he agrees more with her than me on certain issues), while I’m a slavering nastry rightwing deathmerchant who tars my opponents with the traitor label.
I’m also incoherent, meaning I guess, that my posts are illogical. Either that, or she has trouble reading them through her fifty layers of hairshirt, which have gotten so impressively bulky and uncomfortable that they now cover her eyes.
Jeff-
I was teasing you. And btw- I would argue that accusing me of Stockholm syndrome and the whatnot is even more offensive than whatever piddling names my commenters might hurl.
And guess what- I don’t care what your folks say about me! My mom still loves me!
Nice verb choice.
You only don’t care because you’re heavily medicated, John.
It’s too early in the morning for me to take Ketamine, so I’m a bit touchy.
If you read the thread, John, you’ll see that most of the commenters were pretty sanguine about the whole thing, and even, gasp, defended you on some things. Myself, I agree with the view that Dan shot from the hip on this one.
Wonder if Mona would change her tune about Cole if she knew we were chatting away on IM, friendly as can be. Does his non-hostile contact with an incoherent deathmerchant make him less sensible?
There must be a handbook for this kind of thing. If not, I nominate Mona to write it. Rules of Etiquette for Determining Guilt by Association—One Concerned Bloggers Big Book of Determining Authentic Concern.
Maybe Greenwald can write the forward and Russ Feingold can read it on the floor of the Senate.
Yar. I am still not quite sure what to make of his post, and the update, to be honest.
I am hardly defending Amanda (the other woman I don’t even know), and I hardly think it is a slap at the dignity of Anna Nicole to point out the obvious. Now I am hardly one to go on and on about parenting skills, but I might suggest one dead son from an overdose in your bedroom and a 5 month old motherless daughter with an as of now unknown father is hardly indicative of what most of us would call ‘good’ parenting skills.
She was a tragic case, and I feel sorry for her, but she was what she was and there is no wrong in pointing it out.
And Jeff, I will IM sojmething hateful to you so I retain my left-wing street cred.
John–
I misunderstood your posture toward the Pwn3dagon 2, and as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I’m an egregious ass, especially when, as you correctly surmised, I’ve been drinking. But I really am upset by the way that the onus gets shifted off of the media and onto the dead woman.
I do take back the “fuck you” thing.
Could you IM me something hateful, too?
She can no longer fix herself, nor ask that she be fixed, it is now beyond her capability. Which means it is up to the living to ask that she be granted redemption for the wreck of a life she lived. If you happen to be the religous sort that is.
If not, then have at her. The pile of stones is to your left.
No thanks, Defense Guy. I didn’t pay much attention to her in life and won’t in death. I certainly won’t smear her for her sins. As you implied, I’ll leave that to others. She had her cross to bear and I’ve got to deal with mine.
Life’s too short and too sweet to deal in smug sanctimony over a helpless person.
That is sound, Defense Guy.
I may be wrong but my asumption was that ‘balloon juice’ must be a reference to beestings, which as the brighter of Cole’s commenters will know is the first milk of a mammal after parturition. Strange name for someone who would like to sneer at Jeff for being a home-parent.
“Balloon juice” means “hot air.” Notice the logo on the right hand side, and the slogan of “Hot Air and Ill-Informed Banter.” It’s supposed to be amusingly self-depreciating.
Ah.
I only meant that as satire and never meant to offend you. Your right to agree with the commenters you once found depraved is a central right, and I’m sorry if you took my comment the wrong way.
Seriously, I can see that you’ve changed, John Cole, for whatever reason. Maybe “Stockholm Syndrome” was unfair, but Jeff can tell you that I’m an idiot and not really worth paying attention to. Just remember I also defended you here.
Mr. Cole–methinks that the fake once was a conservative and now deletes most non crazed liberal posts lady doth protest too much. You don’t care, yet you monitor and rejoin. Its like those commenters who expound at great length about how they think a particular topic is beneath their notice, yet somehow they wind up being the first to post a comment. Jeff, Mr. Cole does have a smidgen of a point though–you do seem a tad sensitive to percieved criticism unlike every other human being! I suspected that Cole’s initial comment might be more satrical than malevolent. Now that I’m done righting all thats wrong with the world, I’m going to go to another thread and IGNORE ALPHIE!
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