Leftyblogger Smart
By Mitch Berg
I used to make a concerted effort to read leftyblogs. I did it for the same reason that I read things like Mein Kampf or The Turner Diaries or Steal This Book – to know what the enemy believes, what motives him/her, to get an insight into how they think.
Lately? Not so much. Reading most leftybloggers is like listening to 14-year-olds argue.
Jane Hamsher – from “Firedoglake”, which, since the demise of “Pandagon” has been the “Norwegianity” of the national leftyblog scene – walks out onto rhetorical thin ice and starts doing a Dutch clog dance:
Take, for example, supermodels. When you meet them you’re usually struck with the impression that something’s not quite right about them, and after a while it dawns on you that you’ve never met anyone quite this stupid who is so convinced that every word they utter is dripping with peerless insight…
[Really, Jane? You meet a lot of supermodels?]
Chris Rock has a whole routine about “model smart,” which basically means being smart enough not to walk out in the middle of traffic and get hit by a car. Which pretty much sums it up.
Er…indeed.
Let’s take a step back. After the ’72 election, Pauline Kael is famously (and probably apocryphally) supposed to have exclaimed “How could Nixon have won? Nobody I know voted for him!”
Apocryphal as that may have been, there’s a teaching moment there; someone whose entire world revolves around one region, social circle or professional clacque might just lack the perspective to comment coherently outside that circle. It’s why Appalachian junk dealers are illiterate about nouvelle cuisine, and why Pauline Kael didn’t know any Nixon voters.
And, I suspect, it might explain a lot – somewhat ironically, as it happens – about Ms. Hamsher:
Rush Limbaugh has a self-awareness problem.
It’s one you commonly see in celebrities — they form their self-image based on what those around them think, but those people are frequently responding to some combination of factors that may have nothing at all to do with who they are.
It explains a lot about the likes of Arianna Huffington and Alec Baldwin and Sean Penn, to be sure…
Anyway, now we have Rush Limbaugh. He’s been putting out the message on behalf of the GOP to millions of the AM radio faithful so long he thinks he’s one of them, a “man of the people,” or as he likes to say, “part of the Cape Girardeau [Missouri]-Middle America axis.”
But Rush is no such thing. Unless his audience is composed of a lot more people making $35 million a year than I’m aware of, he’s an ugly weld spot between the corporatists and the rank-and-file within the party.
Let’s mark that idea – “Limbaugh is out of touch with the rank and file of the GOP” – for later use. File it under “Jane Hamsher drops Acid” if you’d like – that, or show me that there are enough “corporatists” – as in, 20-odd-million – to make Limbaugh the biggest name in radio.
Hamsher invokes the “Sista Soulja” moment the Hucker is trying to create with Limbaugh:
Huckabee knows that audience rather better than Rush does, at least the Southern contingent, and given the fact that the GOP has become largely a regional party, that’s a significant portion of Rush’s base.
That brings up a couple of interesting questions:
- Does Huckabee “know” southern conservatives? Given that he’s basically a pro-life, pro-NRA nannystater – basically Bill Clinton with some ethics? (My guess: exactly as well as he needs to to win elections in famously-schizophrenic Arkansas)
- Do Republicans know exactly how right Hamsher is about that “regional party” thing? (The GOP is a regional party; it represents the “region” west of the Hudson, east of the Sierra Madre, and outside of Chicago).
- How does Limbaugh manage to dominate political radio, what with his audience being only “corporatists” and all?
- Does Jane Hamsher know more conservatives than Rush Limbaugh knows liberals? (I’d suspect not just “no”, but “hell no”).
Back to Hamsher:
Which is why Huck’s attack-by-proxie [sic] (“a DC based Huckabee ally”) is so spot-on, and amusing:
“Honestly, because Rush doesn’t think for himself. That’s not necessarily a slap because he’s not paid to be a thinker—he’s an entertainer. I can’t remember the last time that he has veered from the talking points from the DC/Manhattan chattering class. If they were praising Huckabee, he would be too.”
Chicken and egg, Ms. Hamsher. If Huckabee were a conservative, you bet they’d be praising him!
But he’s not.
Rush rebounded by basically calling Huckabee a stupid hick:
He called the attacks “Clintonian” and accused Huckabee’s campaign of “trying to dumb down conservatism in order to get it to conform with his record.”Given the region’s cultural persecution complex — not exactly a wise move.
Help me, here: “conservatism” and “dumb” are southern-specific?
Who’s insulting southern culture?
More importantly – does Jane Hamsher think she’s equipped to serve as a cultural arbiter?
Exhibit A:
As a veteran spewer of right-wing talking points, Rush thinks he’s well aware of what’s going on here, and capable of combatting it with his usual armaments. He retorts by projecting onto Huckabee motivations that legislate the game he perceives himself as playing:
“Armaments?” “Legislate?” And what the hell does that last sentence mean, anyway?
“What was somewhat stunning about all this is that NO ONE in the GOP field, including advisers and staff, could possibly misread my 19-plus-year career the way Gov. Huckabee’s D.C. supporter did,” Limbaugh said. “Whoever said those things was essentially repeating the Democrat mantra of all these years: that I am just an entertainer, not an independent thinker, part of the Wall Street/D.C. axis. If it was someone on Gov. Huckabee’s staff or support team, it was just silly, uninformed and thus curious.”
Yeah except it isn’t a left/right PR game this time around, Rush. You’re taking arrows in the back.
Really?
An unnamed Hucker supporter took a specious – and just-plain-dumb – dig at Limbaugh; he/she wrote a rhetorical check that reality just won’t cash.
To wit:
Rush is betting that his listeners will see him as “part of the Cape Girardeau [Missouri]-Middle America axis.” The GOP elite have told him to take down Huckabee, and his ego is so engorged with money and seven years of right wing hegemony he thinks he can win that battle. He doesn’t see the weld spot preparing to crack.
Could someone please send me a nickel for every time the left has said Limbaugh was “out of touch” with Republicans, or that his support was all built on sand?
That’s just…model smart.
And Jane Hamsher thinks some (anonymous) Huckabee staffer speaks for the GOP rank and file, nationwide, more than the one person who, along with Ronald Reagan, made conservatism a genuine mass movement? A man who goes on the air daily and by the end of the day has reached 20 million people – 19,990,000 of whom likely will be back the next day?
That’s just…leftyblogger smart.
PS: Anyone who uses the word “pwn” in a sentence, for any reason, should – as a matter of non-partisan defense of American culture – be excoriated.
Bad leftyblogger. Bad. No rice cake for you.
December 27th, 2007 at 1:42 pm
Limbaugh is a lot closer to the GOP rank & file than Huckabee is.
Say, isn’t there an SITD frequent commenter who claims the GOP is the party of racists party and christers? I wonder what he thinks of the Republican establishment’s rejection of Ron Paul & Huckabee.
December 27th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
The reference to Kael fits perfectly with Jane Hamsfist.
December 27th, 2007 at 2:46 pm
“Reading most leftybloggers is like listening to 14-year-olds argue.”
Heh, I tuned into Wisc Public Radio one afternoon while out on the road….the show, hosted by a UW-Whitewater college professor (what a surprise) went like this:
Caller 1. Bush is an idiot. I hate him.
Caller 2. I hate him more.
Caller 3. He should be in prison. And I hate him. And I hate Cheney.
Caller 4. I hate him more then all of you. And I hate Cheney more then everyone combined.
(the above was an embelishment of the actual quotes, but it’s pretty much what they were saying)
For the record. Then local programming on KUWS out of Superior came on, and it was very good.
December 27th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
> Caller 1. Bush is an idiot. I hate him.
> Caller 2. I hate him more.
> Caller 3. He should be in prison. And I hate him. And I hate Cheney.
> Caller 4. I hate him more then all of you. And I hate Cheney more then everyone combined.
Heh! I bet they were all Shrillary-lovers.
Hate is all those sicko lefties have.
/jc
December 27th, 2007 at 3:18 pm
pb must be on vacation…along with bitchieclown. Perhaps, together, holding hands and sliping pina coladas. There’s a mental picture for everyone.
December 27th, 2007 at 4:25 pm
There’s a mental picture for everyone.
http://tinyurl.com/34wlje
December 27th, 2007 at 4:34 pm
I have to point out that she pulled “part of the Cape Girardeau [Missouri]-Middle America axis.” directly from between her butt cheeks.
I don’t believe he ever uttered the phrase.
December 27th, 2007 at 5:00 pm
The phrase doesn’t sound out of character; I won’t say I’ve heard it (because I catch Limbaugh maybe once every four months these days), but it rings a tiny bell.
December 27th, 2007 at 5:04 pm
Mitch said: “Really, Jane? You meet a lot of supermodels”
Before taking up bloging Jane Hamsher was a successfull Hollywood movie producer
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0359100.
She not only meet lots of supermodels, they probably offered to sleep with her.
Kermit: “I don’t believe he ever uttered the phrase” Wrong again. Do you people ever check even the most basic of facts?
http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZjU0YTljMTZkNzU4YjhlMzc1Y2UyNmUzNmJjYTIzYTA=
December 27th, 2007 at 5:05 pm
It could be recent. I used to catch his show quite often and never heard it.
December 27th, 2007 at 5:14 pm
Do you people ever check even the most basic of facts?
Like “operating in small groups” in counterinsurgency warfare is a “recipe for disaster”? Those kind of facts?
OK, RickDFL; I plead guilty to not being familiar with Jane Hamsher’s pedigree. But I will say that if her writing, logic and tone is an example of what it takes to make it in Hollywood, I’m not very impressed. She’s, er, not that bright.
December 27th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
Where “I plead guilty to not being familiar” = “have no earthly reason to care”.
December 27th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
And lest anyone miss it; Rick yaps about Kermit and my “fact”oid checking, while Jane “the Successful Producer” Hamsher declares an anonymous DC-area Huckabee supporter the palimpsest of GOP opinion.
You just keep a set of folding goalposts in your pocket, don’t you, Rick?
December 27th, 2007 at 5:22 pm
a successfull Hollywood movie producer
She went from being a PA to a “producer” in two years, spent maybe nine in the biz, and disappears…
…to do what?
Before taking up bloging
Ah. So she was a “successfull” producer, but now she’s a shriekblogger.
I don’t know (or care) much about her career, but it looks like she landed a low-level producer gig on “Natural Born Killers” (one of the most overrated movies ever), and then spent a decade wringing it for all it was worth.
Nothing wrong with that, of course; life changes. But I’d say her “I was a Hollywood Producer” cred is stretched to the limit, and her shelf-life with “supermodels” is probably hanging around 11:59.
Don’t know, of course. Just reading between the lines.
One thing I do know; she’s a crap blogger.
December 27th, 2007 at 6:03 pm
The more I read Hamsher’s screed, the less I’m impressed with her ability to think.
Huckabee knows that audience rather better than Rush does, at least the Southern contingent, and given the fact that the GOP has become largely a regional party, that’s a significant portion of Rush’s base.
Here’s a map of the counties Bush won in 2004:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/vote2004/countymap.htm
Rush rebounded by basically calling Huckabee a stupid hick:
He called the attacks “Clintonian” and accused Huckabee’s campaign of “trying to dumb down conservatism in order to get it to conform with his record.”
So now ‘Clintonian’ means ‘stupid hick’? Love that word ‘basically’, used here like this: ‘When Hillary clinton says ‘It takes a village to raise a child’ she’s basically saying that strangers do a better job of raising a child than the parents will do’.
It’s worthwhile to note that Huckabee polls as the choice of less than 25% of the 600 likely Republicans polled in IA. Limbaugh’s national audience is around 20 million.
Huckabee is soft on crime, soft on immigration, and he’s a nanny stater. He doesn’t represent the GOP rank-and-file anymore than Lieberman represents rank-and-file Democrats.
December 27th, 2007 at 6:13 pm
Mitch-
Hemsher also produced 2001’s From Hell. Don’t know if you’ve seen it, but it spends two hours exploring the intriguing possibility that Jack the Ripper was . . . wait for . . . a white guy driven insane by the sexually repressive culture of Victorian Britain!
December 27th, 2007 at 6:15 pm
Rick should check timestamps. While he was busy “getting me” I was having what we adults call a “discussion” in which I admitted to not monitoring Rush Limbaugh’s every utterance. Up until 2006 I listened quite regularly, and that phrase never occurred.
I suspect had I made some claim to the contrary Rick would have jumped on the pathetic “mind-numbed robot” meme.
December 27th, 2007 at 6:17 pm
“You just keep a set of folding goalposts in your pocket, don’t you, Rick?”
No, I just don’t care who wins the Rush v Huck fight. But I do care that were wrong on the facts yet again.
To wit:
“it looks like she landed a low-level producer gig on “Natural Born Killers”
Not so much
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Hamsher
“At USC, she became friends with Don Murphy, and the two were able to secure an option, with a loan from Hamsher’s mother, on Natural Born Killers. Killers screenwriter Quentin Tarantino was still an unknown at the time”
Jane was one of the three Producers of NBK, hardly low level. She had one co-producer, two associate producers, and two executive producers under her.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110632/fullcredits
Whether Rush or the Huck campaign is out of touch with GOP voters, I will leave to GOP voters.
December 27th, 2007 at 6:23 pm
Kermit:
Instead of depending on what you may or may not remember was said when you may or may not have been listening to Rush, just try Google. But I suppose checking facts would take all the fun out of things for you.
December 27th, 2007 at 7:00 pm
Well Rick, if it was all that important I just might. Amazingly enough, it isn’t. Go figure.
But then I am a member of that Plymouth (Minnesota) – Middle America axis, and can afford to disregard irrelevancy.
December 27th, 2007 at 7:18 pm
What’s the point of this fact-checking, rickDFL?
Hamsher’s quote of Limbaugh,
Is missing a lot of context. Don’t you think Hamsher should have mentioned the irony in that Limbaugh was criticized as a Wall Street-NY-Washington inside power broker by an anonymous Huckabee supporter ‘based in DC’ and by Huckabee’s campaign manager, Washington GOP insider Ed Rollins?
December 27th, 2007 at 7:20 pm
Good God Kermit — I went to Plymouth Junior High, ’73-’75.
December 27th, 2007 at 7:21 pm
Wayzata, Class of ’77.
December 27th, 2007 at 10:00 pm
I’ve been to a few open swim nights at PJH when I was in Boy Scouts. You’ll get a kick out of this, Terry. Several years ago the braintrust at ISD 281 decided that the current K-6/7-9/10-12 division of elementary/jr high/sr high wasn’t working. So they decided to make Armstrong and Cooper even more overcrowded than what they already were, and switched it to K-5/6-8/9-12. In that switch they also decided to rename Plymouth and Sandburg “Junior High” to “Middle School” (altho curiously the Sr Highs were not renamed “Upper School.”).
Yes, Virginia, there really is a Plymouth Middle School. And the acronym is used widely in school district literature.
(OT…you’re both a bit younger than I pictured you to be)
December 27th, 2007 at 10:07 pm
Well I only know one supermodel and she’s pretty damn smart. I accept that the rest of them might be dumb as a fence post. As far as the rest of it, thinking Limbaugh is out of touch with Republicans is just nuts. For the conservative wing of the Republican party (which I am a part of) it is the shared beliefs that we have in common. We don’t call around to see what our beliefs are to make sure we are on the same page. When and if Rush becomes out of touch it will because the base of the party has abandoned their core beliefs. I will be shocked if Huck gets the nomination. And if so, then you can say Rush has lost touch with the Republican party. Something you can also then say about me and millions of others.
December 27th, 2007 at 11:53 pm
Kermit:
“Well Rick, if it was all that important I just might. Amazingly enough, it isn’t. Go figure”
I am having trouble keeping this straight. Whether Rush used the phrase “part of the Cape Girardeau [Missouri]-Middle America axis” was important when you wanted to accuse Hamsher of incorrectly attributing the quote to Rush. Now it is not important. Did it become unimportant before or after I showed that you were wrong and Hamsher was right?
December 27th, 2007 at 11:58 pm
Jesus, Rick, keep up. It’s not important in the context of the larger point of Mitch’s post. Mmmkay?
December 28th, 2007 at 12:16 am
Yossarian:
First, it is hard to deal with the larger context when people get basic facts wrong.
Second, whether Mitch / Rush or Huck / Hamsher is right will get decided in the next couple weeks in Iowa and New Hampshire. Mitch says Rush’s huge audience means he must be right. Jame and the latest polling say otherwise. I am perfectly willing to leave this one to GOP voters.
December 28th, 2007 at 12:55 am
, it is hard to deal with the larger context when people get basic facts wrong.
TRANSLATION: “If I can bog the discussion down in pointless minutiae, my flub on the main point will go unnoticed”.
I’m good at interpreting.
December 28th, 2007 at 12:57 am
Did it become unimportant before or after I showed that you were wrong and Hamsher was right?
Whatever Rush said, Hamsher is wrong. The anonymous Huckster is talking out his ass. Rush knows Republicans.
It’s really fairly simple.
December 28th, 2007 at 7:45 am
It became unimportant seconds after it was originally written. It only became important when anal-retentive Rick’s eyes grew large one second before he shouted Eureka! I’ve caught one of them!
How is a toss-off observation elevated to the level of “basic fact”?
December 28th, 2007 at 9:08 am
When someone needs a diversion from an argument they can’t win.
December 28th, 2007 at 11:41 pm
Hey Rick,
How come you left this pertinent detail out about Jane Hamsher:
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/2006/08/joe_lieberman_blackfaced_jane_hamscher_redfaced/
And AC continually asserts that the Republicans are the party of racism.
She did apologize for it
http://firedoglake.com/2006/08/02/about-that-graphic/
after she took a cyberspace beating.
December 29th, 2007 at 10:06 am
I knew I remembered her name for some reason.
I also see where she referred to Joe Lieberaman’s volunteers as “Lieberman Youth”.
Jane Hamsher is a very, very loathsome little girl.
Still wanna defend that piece of demi-female shit, Rick?
Rick?
December 30th, 2007 at 10:55 am
“that piece of demi-female shit”
Well I am glad the Republican civility police are on the case.
As an example of Christian charity this holiday season I will assume you did not read to the bottom of the Wiki article I cited on Jane:
“Hamsher was diagnosed with breast cancer for the third time in December 2006 at the age of 47.[7] In January 2007 she successfully underwent surgery”.
Stay classy in 2008.
December 30th, 2007 at 11:48 am
And you stay self-righteous, and feel free to keep bringing completely irrelevant context into arguments!
Which, if you read back through this thread, is all you’ve done. You’ve never answered the main point, you’ve bogged the thread down in tedious minutiae, and now you’ve gone and added a really stupid insult.
I had, naturally, no idea about Hamsher’s health history; I’m a blogger, not a stalker. I wish Ms. Hamsher all the best in her continuing health battles. But she’s still a hack blogger.
I ragged endlessly on Molly Ivins, but didn’t do an end-zone happy dance when she died of cancer.
I’d ask if Rick sees the distinction, but he’d probably niggle about my choice of fonts.
Rick, even for you, your last comment was niggling, petty and dumb.
December 30th, 2007 at 9:11 pm
Stay classy in 2008.
Oh yeah, Hamsher’s blatantly racist Lieberman post was the epitome of class.
You got your ass carved like a Christmas spiral-sliced ham, and you know it, rick.
December 30th, 2007 at 11:23 pm
Well, to be fair to Rick – it’s more than likely he doesn’t know it.
December 31st, 2007 at 6:44 am
Oh, he knows it, Mitch. That’s why he posted that “Last Act of Defiance” comment.
December 31st, 2007 at 9:07 am
Mitch:
“You’ve never answered the main point”. Well you do not think Huck will do well because Rush says so and Rush is way popular. Maybe or maybe not. It is not a complicated argument. I don’t have anything to add as I have said. Iowa voters will give us the answer.
You thought it was important to raise doubt about Hamsher’s first-hand experience with supermodels. I proved otherwise.
When called on it, you thought it was important to denigrate her producing credits. I proved otherwise.
Then when someone else wanted to call Hamsher uncivil, you felt the need to call her a “piece of demi-female shit”, which I would not call anyone, let alone a breast cancer survivor.
If someone “bogged the thread down in tedious minutiae”, don’t blame me.
December 31st, 2007 at 9:19 am
Paul:
From Hamsher’s post it is clear she does not like Joe Lieberman and it is clear she does not like minstrels. But it is hard to see how the post means she thinks black people are inferior.
December 31st, 2007 at 11:31 am
You thought it was important to raise doubt about Hamsher’s first-hand experience with supermodels.
“Important”? Hardly. It was at most an off-handed aside, of no importance whatsoever in the larger point that you’re struggling so hard to avoid.
And by the way, you “proved” nothing, merely inferred that since she was “in Hollywood”, she was banging B-list tarts, which is incredibly sexist if you (hahahaha) think about it. Oh, it’s possible, even plausible, but neither dispositive nor – I stress this – anything I remotely care about.
don’t blame me.
OK, I won’t “blame” you. But it’s pretty much what you did.
And while, as I noted, I had no idea about her health history, I’ll credit Hamsher for not (apparently) hiding behind it. If only you could give her the same credit; saying “don’t criticize her blogging because she’s a breast cancer survivor” is incredibly paternalistic and sexist.
I will root for her to beat her illness, but I think she’s a loathsome excuse for a blogger, breast cancer or not.
But it is hard to see how the post means she thinks black people are inferior.
Quit being obtuse. Invoking blackface – the “Stepin Fetchit” archetype of the obsequious, beaten-down black man, so ashamed of his skin that he has to pretend to be a white guy pretending to be black – is generally regarded as a corrosively racist act.
Either you’re being obtuse beyond parody, or you’re monumentally ignorant.
December 31st, 2007 at 6:20 pm
But it is hard to see how the post means she thinks black people are inferior.
Yeah, right. This from the guy who thinks that Don Imus’ “nappy-headed hos” greatly harmed the Rutgers women’s basketbal team.
Imagine, if you will, a right-wing blogger photoshopping any sitting Democrat US Senator…or US Represenative in blackface because that blogger simply doesn’t like that individual.
Do you think the general reaction from the Left would be “From *so-and-so’s* post it is clear he/she does not like Joe Lieberman and it is clear he/she does not like minstrels. But it is hard to see how the post means he/she thinks black people are inferior?”
Not a chance. The perpetually outraged would still be screaming incoherently.
Mitch gave an either/or. I think you are both monumentally obtuse and ignorant.
December 31st, 2007 at 8:31 pm
Mitch:
“It was at most an off-handed aside, of no importance whatsoever in the larger point that you’re struggling so hard to avoid.”
OK from now on could you find some textual device, like say italics, to separate the important stuff from the parts of this blog where you are just making it up as you go.
“saying “don’t criticize her blogging because she’s a breast cancer survivor” is incredibly paternalistic and sexist”
I was taught you do not use quotation marks, unless someone actually wrote or said the words inside the quotation marks. That is not even a rough paraphrase of anything I said. Feel free to go after Hamsher’s blogging all you want, she is tough as nails and can take it. But you should not expect anyone to take you seriously if you accuse her of being uncivil with one breath and then with the very next breath call her a “piece of demi-female shit”. [Note those quotation marks are around words you actually wrote].
“Invoking blackface – the “Stepin Fetchit” archetype of the obsequious, beaten-down black man”
See this is where, the above textual device would be a big help.
‘Stepin Fetchit’ was a character, but not one who appeared in blackface as far as I can tell. Blackface is part of the minstrel tradition.
Since the whole ‘blackface’ issue is a tangent unrelated to your main point, I will just note that neither you nor Paul offered any interpretation of Hamsher’s photo which would imply she thought black people were accurately portrayed by the minstrel tradition.
December 31st, 2007 at 8:59 pm
Thanks for proving the last sentence of my previous comment, Rick.
January 1st, 2008 at 12:37 am
I think he likes to prove it on a weekly basis.
I wonder if CliffClavenDFL already taken?
“If you were to go back in history and take every president, you’ll find that the numerical value of each letter in their name was equally divisible into the year in which they were elected. By my calculations, our next president has to be named Yellnick McWawa.”
January 4th, 2008 at 3:02 am
Just for the record. The Huck wins the Iowa caucus.