Sunday, March 14, 2004
Scum Alert
This is a re-edited version of a post accidentally posted to the blog before it was finished.
One measure of the depth and breadth of right-wing scum-sucking - how many individuals, columns, news sources, and institutions could the title of this post apply to? It's in the thousands, right?
The particular scum referred to here bubbled up in The Washington Times; it's a poll that, among other questions, asked 800 Americans to give their opinion on which of the two presidential candidates would our terrorist enemies like to see win the coming election. The pollsters aren't well known, and the nuttiness of the question suggests some bias, as do the even nuttier results - 60 percent picking Kerry as the Osama choice for Prez, only 25% picking Bush for that role, even though a majority of the 800 polled picked Kerry as the candidate they're aiming at this point in time to vote for. But don't make the mistake of thinking that nutty partisanship will keep this poll from popping up all over the rightwing media infrastructure.
Unless, of course, someone were to do some actual journalism, and the rest of the what skippy. that lovable bush kangaroo, has happily named "blogtopia" were to make something of a fuss about just how down and dirty idiotic is this particular cheap shot.
Well, the indispensible Billmon at the ever popular Whiskey Bar has done the journalism part. He's even got some email addresses up where thoughts about the poll can be addressed to those who perpetrated it. As always at Whiskey Bar, the comment thread is worth reading too.
As Jon Husband comments there: "Every day it gets harder to believe that all this is happening." Too true. But believe it we must.
As scum-sucking goes, this one is pretty feeble, more laughable than poisonous. Scum-sucking of a more serious order is the subject of this first-rate bit of journalism by the ever-remarkable Hesiod of the factually-named Counterspin Central.
It seems that the Republicans and their surrogates are taking aim at the circumstances of the breakup of John Kerry's first marriage to Julia Thorne, which was complicated by the fact that Kerry is Catholic, and for the marriage to be officially dissolved some years after it had ceased to function in order that he could marry his current wife, Theresa, Senator Kerry had to seek an annulment from the Catholic Church. What the rightwing mud brigade, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, and quite probably the recently inducted honorary mud member, Mickey Kaus, to name but a few, would clearly like to be able to do is graft onto Kerry's marital history, a "Newt" problem, i.e., Gingrich's history of breaking the unhappy news to his first two wives of his departure from those marriages in order to marry someone else (he left wife # 1 for wife #2 and wife #2 for wife #3, his current so far wife) in the most ungentlemanly of circumstances.
Read Hesiod and arm yourselves with the truth against what will be an unceasing barrage of such scum-sucking.
Looking on the brighter side, being a lefty/liberal/Democrat who wants to defeat George W. Bush in November feels a whole lot different in 2004 than it did in 2000, doesn't it? Not so lonely, not so frustrating, not so maddening (in the sense of feeling that your own sanity is at risk), and with a growing sense of optimism that this is doable, and who can deny that this difference is, in part, the work of the blogosphere, at least its left hemisphere, which, according to Jeff Jarvis, James Wolcott celebrates with his usual wit and style in his April Vanity Fair column, not available online; according to Jarvis, the "raison de column" is Wolcott's sense that the left is "hot," but the right is not. From Jim's lips to God's ear.
Jarvis has copious quotes from the column, though not enough to keep you from running out at your first opportunity to purchase a copy of the magazine, dreadful though it is, except for Wolcott, who almost single-handedly justifies its existence, and its editor's increasingly angry response to the Bush presidency. (I'd hate the magazine less if it didn't stink up one's whole abode with those noxious perfumed enclosures, and the damn Table Of Contents wasn't so hard to find, and have you ever tried to find the page number of a continued article?)
What I'm wondering, and am working on a post about, is how, with just a bit more organizing of blogtopia itself, how much more could we get it to work for our side.
To Be Continued.
One measure of the depth and breadth of right-wing scum-sucking - how many individuals, columns, news sources, and institutions could the title of this post apply to? It's in the thousands, right?
The particular scum referred to here bubbled up in The Washington Times; it's a poll that, among other questions, asked 800 Americans to give their opinion on which of the two presidential candidates would our terrorist enemies like to see win the coming election. The pollsters aren't well known, and the nuttiness of the question suggests some bias, as do the even nuttier results - 60 percent picking Kerry as the Osama choice for Prez, only 25% picking Bush for that role, even though a majority of the 800 polled picked Kerry as the candidate they're aiming at this point in time to vote for. But don't make the mistake of thinking that nutty partisanship will keep this poll from popping up all over the rightwing media infrastructure.
Unless, of course, someone were to do some actual journalism, and the rest of the what skippy. that lovable bush kangaroo, has happily named "blogtopia" were to make something of a fuss about just how down and dirty idiotic is this particular cheap shot.
Well, the indispensible Billmon at the ever popular Whiskey Bar has done the journalism part. He's even got some email addresses up where thoughts about the poll can be addressed to those who perpetrated it. As always at Whiskey Bar, the comment thread is worth reading too.
As Jon Husband comments there: "Every day it gets harder to believe that all this is happening." Too true. But believe it we must.
As scum-sucking goes, this one is pretty feeble, more laughable than poisonous. Scum-sucking of a more serious order is the subject of this first-rate bit of journalism by the ever-remarkable Hesiod of the factually-named Counterspin Central.
It seems that the Republicans and their surrogates are taking aim at the circumstances of the breakup of John Kerry's first marriage to Julia Thorne, which was complicated by the fact that Kerry is Catholic, and for the marriage to be officially dissolved some years after it had ceased to function in order that he could marry his current wife, Theresa, Senator Kerry had to seek an annulment from the Catholic Church. What the rightwing mud brigade, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, and quite probably the recently inducted honorary mud member, Mickey Kaus, to name but a few, would clearly like to be able to do is graft onto Kerry's marital history, a "Newt" problem, i.e., Gingrich's history of breaking the unhappy news to his first two wives of his departure from those marriages in order to marry someone else (he left wife # 1 for wife #2 and wife #2 for wife #3, his current so far wife) in the most ungentlemanly of circumstances.
Read Hesiod and arm yourselves with the truth against what will be an unceasing barrage of such scum-sucking.
Looking on the brighter side, being a lefty/liberal/Democrat who wants to defeat George W. Bush in November feels a whole lot different in 2004 than it did in 2000, doesn't it? Not so lonely, not so frustrating, not so maddening (in the sense of feeling that your own sanity is at risk), and with a growing sense of optimism that this is doable, and who can deny that this difference is, in part, the work of the blogosphere, at least its left hemisphere, which, according to Jeff Jarvis, James Wolcott celebrates with his usual wit and style in his April Vanity Fair column, not available online; according to Jarvis, the "raison de column" is Wolcott's sense that the left is "hot," but the right is not. From Jim's lips to God's ear.
Jarvis has copious quotes from the column, though not enough to keep you from running out at your first opportunity to purchase a copy of the magazine, dreadful though it is, except for Wolcott, who almost single-handedly justifies its existence, and its editor's increasingly angry response to the Bush presidency. (I'd hate the magazine less if it didn't stink up one's whole abode with those noxious perfumed enclosures, and the damn Table Of Contents wasn't so hard to find, and have you ever tried to find the page number of a continued article?)
What I'm wondering, and am working on a post about, is how, with just a bit more organizing of blogtopia itself, how much more could we get it to work for our side.
To Be Continued.
