Step 1; take an idiotic position contrary to what a big dog, genuinely important blogger such as, oh, say Glenn Greenwald, is arguing.
For example, the post I blame the media.
Step 2; be highly dismissive of the intellect of a bestselling author and highly trained professional whose public standing is several dozen times higher than your own.*
For a guy who works in the media, he doesn't know much about his profession, either.
Step 3; say something stupid.
... I already gave you the link. Pick your poison.
Step 4; show why your own argument is bullshit while denigrating your own profession. (Optional)
It's all very well to say that journalists should cover the more serious stories, and bloggers like Glenn Greenwald, and maybe occasionally me, make such complaints all the time. But even really successful bloggers on things like economic and foreign policy have fewer daily readers than a struggling local paper in a moderately sized midwestern city. Now imagine those readers evenly distributed across a nation of 300 million, and then ask yourself why their concerns do not headline every paper. As well to wonder why they aren't all carrying stories on fire response times in the Syracuse, NY area.
Step 5; insult the intelligence of the entire country to explain why Greenwald is right in the literal sense but wrong because everyone is stupider than the media elite.
Obviously, I think John Yoo's adventures are a matter of slightly greater national importance. (As indeed do our nation's media, who--aside from the Syracuse Post-Standard--ran virtually no coverage of the topic over the last month.) But voters can't do much about John Yoo now, other than choose a different type of president. Maybe they should do that by eagerly scanning Obama and Clinton and McCain's platforms--though I am at a loss to think how one might have divined a John Yoo from the anodyne folia of the Bush 2000 campaign. As far as anyone can tell, however, this is not how voters decide. Believe me, nearly every journalist in DC wants to write in-depth stories on foreign policy questions, and nearly every editor in the nation would dearly love to sell them. If there were a millions-deep wellspring of interest in the topic, some enterprising publication would already have tapped it dry.
Step 6; pray Greenwald links to you for laughs, giving you a cheap spike in traffic.
See also Althouse, Ann. (who I am not.)
*- Those who wish to see any irony in this statement can kiss my black ass.
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11 comments:
As Lady Lucy notes in the comments, when Megan writes that "Greenwald complains that Barack Obama's various pecadillos [sic] are covered more than John Yoo [sic] because journalists are a bunch of arrogant lightweights", she in effect calls Yoo's torture memos a "peccadillo."
"But voters can't do much about John Yoo now, other than choose a different type of president."
Are there any bounds to her cynicism? God God! She thinks that a president can do anything he wants until he's voted out of office. What a fucking douche.
She also seems to forget that John Yoo is teaching at UCLA--he has nothing to do with the fucking Bush administration anymore--but dumbfuck Megan doesn't even remember her moronic post 4 hours ago where she argues with herself about whether John Yoo deserves tenure--at UCLA. Dumb fucking cunt.
She thinks that a president can do anything he wants until he's voted out of office.
Unfortunately, this goddamn country has been proving her right (on this point, anyway) for about the last seven years.
"This is not because journalists are insulated from their readers. It is because readers buy more papers with headlines about Jamie Lynn Spears than they do with headlines about Alphonso Jackson or John Yoo, since as I think I just mentioned, they have never heard of either person."
Oh dear God, where to start. Megan being patronizing to teh stupidz wat luv ta gozzip insted of de importantz. I don't think I've ever said the name "Jamie Lynn Spears" out loud. Megan mentioned her twice in one day on her blog.
At the Atlantic Monthly.
And people say Americans don't get irony.
UC Berkeley, not UCLA
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/04/08/exceptionalism/index.html
tehehe
Hahaha... you said it couldn't be done! Megan's stupidity did catch the eye of Greenwald. Oh happy days indeed. Her vacation did little to slow her tailspin dive to the rank of her fellow alliteratively initialed blogger Michelle Malkin. Megan is officially done; what could be left? A shoutout from Krugman?
Now she's got a response up to Greenwald. Check out this classic:
"Because the only reason that one could possibly disagree with Glenn Greenwald about anything is that WE JUST DIDN'T UNDERSTAND HIM!!!!!!!! OMG!!!!!"
She's got some nerve, considering "you misunderstood my point" is pretty much her standard-issue response to anyone who disagrees with her. At least she usually doesn't write it like the blog of a twelve-year-old on MySpace.
It's really sad to see her this out of her league. If she weren't such a jerk, I'd start feeling sorry for her.
Remember, Britney herself was on the cover of the actual Atlantic this month. Spears Nation has conquered us all.
You gotta love Megan. As far as I can tell she has no training or background in journalism, but decides to pick a fight with Glenn Greenwald over US press coverage of the Bush administration's crimes--a subject Greenwald has just written a fucking book about.
Undeterred by her obvious ignorance of the subject, Megan now claims that she has more knowledge than Greenwald about the way the press determines what stories to cover and which stories to ignore. Megan's a genius and Greenwald's a hack, like all those who disagree with her.
She obviously has no idea what she's talking about--and I hope Greenwald keeps after her until she shuts the fuck up.
Megan does not know the meaning of the words "shut the fuck up." At best we can hope he goes after her until she calls him mean for pointing out how incredibly stupid she is.
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