Young Conor Friedersdorf, Washington Media Village utility player, substitute typist & seasonal fill-in, analyzes Robot From The Future Glenn Reynolds, wherein we are expected to swallow this:
People like reading Instapundit! He brightens the days of so many office workers. I am not being flip. That is truly significant. So are the digital camera recommendations, the links to great Radley Balko and Megan McArdle stories ...Well, one must stop there, mustn't one?
Especially when Friedersdorf's main complaint w/ Reynolds is summed up by this:
So many posts either pander to or coddle the movement conservative’s ideological preconceptions — so you have controversial plank X in the Tea Party platform, and Professor Reynolds signals his agreement with it, almost always without any argument about why it is correct. Other times he actually disagrees with plank X, something he’ll occasionally make known, but very seldom does he actually argue against plank X, or try to change anyone’s mind about it. Instead he’ll note that while he happens to be against plank X, other people who are against it are silly or annoying or hypocritical or ham-handed in their advocacy or approaching things in the wrong way or are the subject of a really funny Mark Steyn one-liner.which could as easily be directed at Ms. McArdle as at Prof. Reynolds. (Except for the "funny Mark Steyn one-liner," because that's an oxymoron; & I don't remember McArdle ever linking to M.S.)
First spotted at Balloon Juice, as if that should make any fucking difference to anyone at all, ever.
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20 comments:
I recently discovered TRUE/SLANT and I'm a lesser man for it.
Wow, I didn't realize that this site still exists. What a curious and cowardly species of person who labors on in obscurity for years on end ranting against a blogger who, FYI, no one is forcing you to read! The unwillingness to do so under your own name speaks volumes.
Conor is right!
HOW DARE you post under these false premises, and such as!
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First spotted at Balloon Juice, as if that should make any fucking difference to anyone at all, ever.
Citations, man! These things are important!
I always love it when something speaks volumes. It makes me feel like the guy in the Maxell ad.
Oh, goodness, someone who uses his own name has commented here. All of us are impressed by his bravery.
Tell us, Conor, if we (there are three of us currently participating here, by the way) used names like: "Dan Ingram," "Michael Horton," or "Louise Hudson" (assembled from six separate names in today's L. A. Times) would you be impressed w/ our intestinal fortitude simply because you were dense enough to think those were our "legal" names, as opposed to ones that are more obviously made up? (And what makes you think "M. Bouffant" isn't my name?)
Not typing under one's legal name is called self-defense, especially when dealing w/ the reactionary elements we so often take on here.
Maybe Conor, like Instapundit, is just less against torture [McArdle] than he’d otherwise be because Andrew Sullivan [Fire Megan McArdle] annoys him. (Can't strike through here, pardon us.)
Incidentally, we've been at this for two yrs. & change ("Yrs. on end?" Depends, we suppose.) & haven't really been "laboring on in obscurity."
No, no one forces us to read Asymmetrical Information, or anything the hell else, including TRUE/SLANT. But it is our duty, as citizens of This Great Nation Of Ours™, to be informed.
And our rants are as much against the entire Wash. Media Village, &, specifically, The Atlantic, as a microcosm of the changes (not for the good) occurring in our nation & its media environment.
But thanks for your comment, Conor. Who's forcing you to read Professor Robot, anyway? You don't recognize any of faults you pointed out in the Professor's work in your own passive-aggressive reply here?
Tsk, tsk.
P. S.: Conor, don't you have anything to type at Balloon Juice, where they are discussing the actual substance of your item?
Actually, the only reason I cited BJ was to be sure no one would got the impression that I was being forced to read T/S, or would ever even encounter it.
Ah, I love the ones who we force to comment about how no one forces us to comment.
Hell, we might add that none of us seem to be able to force ourselves to read McA. lately. What does it say about her that she is so awful we can't even stand looking for something over which to abuse her?
You could always try Dave Broder's latest dreck, M.B.
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Not actively seeking abuse!
(None of the kewl mocker dudes even bovver wiv 'im any more, anyway.)
Doesn't Matt Taibbi blog on True/Slant?
If Friedersdorf (whew, that's a mouthful) hadn't spent 2/3's of that article kissing Glenn Reynold's ass, I guess I would have found it more persuasive. The funny thing is, he was harsh enough, and accurate enough, that he may as well have gone all the way and called Reynold's out for the world-class douchebag he is. Alas, that's not how one gets big blogger gigs, I suppose.
Mr. Friedersdorf would prefer that he and his fellow wanna-bes were able to lie, obfuscate and deceive without anyone fighting back. We're just supposed to sit there and say nothing while our "betters" soak up pathetic wingnut welfare and tell the masses that dying in the streets is good for them because the free market self-corrects and therefore we live in the best of all possible worlds.
You harm us, we fight back. If you can't take criticism then quit.
Of course I speak only for myself and not the gentlemen at this site.
There are gentlemen at this site?
Gentlemen here are news to me, at least. It's mostly curious & cowardly specimens.
And more than happy to have Susan speak for me in this case, if not every case.
My gentleness extends so far as to prevent me from mentioning my balls TWICE in the same sentence if women are present.
Sometimes.
Oh, thank you, thank you, Conor for informing us that nobody is forcing us to read Megan McArdle! I've finally learned that the man in black with a gun to my head threatening to shoot me if I didn't was just a figment of my imagination. FYI.
Thank you, also, for predictably calling out critics as cowardly/having no life/being worrisomely obsessed, etc. The only thing you forgot was to accuse us of typing this from our mom's basement in our pajamas.
Actually, some of us happen to care very, very much about the state of contemporary journalism. When someone as ill-informed, self-obsessed, and pretentious as Megan McArdle is given a prominent platform to spout her ignorant opinions, it matters to me a great deal. I rely on the media to keep me informed on local and world affairs, and when someone like Megan, who is consistently writing on matters for which she knows nothing about, she is spreading what, FYI, is known as "information disease." It is dangerous. People once had a reason to be able to trust what they read in the Atlantic. In McArdle's case, you can't. She botches her writing so often, it's absurd that she's paid for it. Hell, most of the time she can't even spell or edit correctly. This matters. It MATTERS.
I'd also like to thank you for showing what an arrogant prick you are for assuming that just because YOU didn't realize that this site still existed means that it's obscure. Right. Just because you are not aware of something or read or know about it, it must be irrelevant. How full of yourself can you be?
Finally, speaking of cowardly, I'm pretty sure I'm talking to myself here, since I doubt you'll have the balls to come back to see how others have responded to your drive-by comment. But in case you do, please take note that just because the upward trajectory of your career depends on kissing the ass of the likes of Instaperv and McArdle, doesn't mean it is so for the rest of us. We are going to keep calling bullshit when we see it, and it doesn't matter if we call ourselves Steve or Joe or Sue while we are doing it. Why don't any of you, for once, have the guts to look criticism in the face and respond to it, rather than dismiss it all by convincing yourselves that anyone who doesn't worship you without question is simply pathetic? Because you know what that is? PATHETIC.
Just because you are not aware of something or read or know about it, it must be irrelevant. How full of yourself can you be?
To be fair, holding this mindset is a prerequisite to being given the keys to McArdle's blog.
Also, Conor, it just so happens that Spencer is indeed my own name.
Conor?
Considering the crap you've published under your name, and the fact you've clearly got a google alert set up for your name, I wouldn't be so proud about using it in public.
And I'm not in print or secretly someone Megan knows, so what does it matter if I use my full name? I take issue with the public work of a paid pundit. I'm not invading her privacy, you dork.
I'm not sure how "privacy" applies to someone whose job consists of posting her wedding plans, pimping her Amazon links, and cross-promoting with her boytoys, while pretending the whole steaming heap is economic analysis.
Although, in a sense, it IS a model of where our economy is headed.
It doesn't help that Mr. Friedersdorf can't criticise Glenn Reynolds without giving him a tongue bath to prevent nasty repercussions that might damage his career.
Not exactly a Profile in Courage.
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