The WaPo on the Nutroots®
The Washington Post has a hilarious (and intentionally so, in my view) article by David Finkel about the Angry Left (or, as we call it around here, the Nutroots®):
In the angry life of Maryscott O’Connor, the rage begins as soon as she opens her eyes and realizes that her president is still George W. Bush. The sun has yet to rise and her family is asleep, but no matter; as soon as the realization kicks in, O’Connor, 37, is out of bed and heading toward her computer.
Out there, awaiting her building fury: the Angry Left, where O’Connor’s reputation is as one of the angriest of all. “One long, sustained scream” is how she describes the writing she does for various Web logs, as she wonders what she should scream about this day.
She smokes a cigarette. Should it be about Bush, whom she considers “malevolent,” a “sociopath” and “the Antichrist”? She smokes another cigarette. Should it be about Vice President Cheney, whom she thinks of as “Satan,” or about Karl Rove, “the devil”? Should it be about the “evil” Republican Party, or the “weaselly, capitulating, self-aggrandizing, self-serving” Democrats, or the Catholic Church, for which she says “I have a special place in my heart . . . a burning, sizzling, putrescent place where the guilty suffer the tortures of the damned”?
It’s an astonishing portrait of mental distress, and it immediately brings up the word ‘unhinged’.
It’s also a timely reminder of why the Nutroots® can’t win elections: it’s a truism that anger is not a positive emotion. Read the whole thing…
UPDATE 2:28 p.m.: Further hilarity ensues when you realize that Maryscott is proud of the piece…
It seems like a bit of a cheapshot by the Post, doesn’t it? The clear implication is that lefty blogs are all written by unhinged, angry loons. But it would be just as easy find a few wingnut bloggers and do the exact same piece. It seems to me that the same spectrum of styles and personalities populates the righty blogosphere.
In fact, this WaPo piece strikes me as a condescending attack on the blogosphere in general, portraying us as a bunch of lunatics in bathrobes whose opinions no one should really care about. The clear implication is that if you want sane, informed opinion, you best stick with the MSM. Mainstream journalist never want to admit that many bloggers are professionals with jobs who, while perhaps not journalistically trained, are accomplished in whatever their primary career is. I would think all bloggers should find this piece offensive.
Well, Anonymous, it’s true that I perhaps take more joy than you would find tasteful out of this, but let’s face it, Maryscott O’Connor deserves every bit of ridicule she receives. She truly is the epitome of everything that is wrong with blogging.
Having said that, it’s quite true that you could find similarly ‘unhinged’ individuals on the right (and you wouldn’t have to look very far, I’ll admit).
Hey, bloggers smack down the MSM all the time (myself included), so turnabout is a little bit of fair play…
[...] Decision ‘08 [...]
Mark, fair enough. I’m not saying certain people don’t deserve ridicule. What bothers me, though, is the way this piece singles out a particular blogger and implies that she’s somehow representative of what is to found in the blogosphere, particularly the left blogosphere. If the Post did a series of such profiles and hers was just one of many, that would be different. But this article is sort of like the Bill O’Reilly show. You find some easy target and smack ‘em around a bit. It’s entertaining, but it’s like shooting fish in barrel. It’s seems sort of petty and unprofessional.
You’re right that bloggers (right and left) heap a lot of unfair abuse on the MSM, but stories like this aren’t going to smooth anything over.
True enough…it’s easy to find something to be outraged over, I’ll grant you – (and I play that game sometimes myself, though I hope less so as time goes by)…
Hmm, too bad Malkin can’t be similarly profiled.
We’re not all wingnuts. I both voted for Bush in 2000 and initially supported the Iraq invasion in 2003.
I’m still at a loss to understand how, in the face of an overwhelming body of evidence, you and the other kool-aid drinkers can still believe a thing the Administration says. Yeah, I’m sure you all are buying the “Clinton appointee” BS meme that RushAddict is flailing about.
Perhaps she represents the extreme view of the so-called liberal Left, but since everyone who doesn’t kowtow to Bush is a liberal, you’d be well-served to figure out that, in fact, there are plenty of pissed off people out here. Or don’t, I frankly don’t care, as long as you and your views and thrown out on your asses in 2008.
v, if you think I’m a Kool Aid drinker, you’re showing your own lack of knowledge about my blog…thanks for coming by and sharing your ignorant viewpoint, it really reflects well on you…
Ignorant Viewpoint Seconded:
I completely second the ideas in v’s post.
To refer to them as an “ignorant viewpoint” is a very telling example of the insularity which you often betray.
As with the generals on the subject of Donald Rumsfeld, we ought to be challenging ARROGANCE where it so plainly exists.
Well… Mark, you’re attracting the trolls like honey does flies (or something like that…)
v and Buddy B.,
Before you rush to judge a blogger, you might want read a wider sampling of his posts. Mark is hardly a “Kool-Aid drinker”. I wouldn’t regularly read this blog if he was.
“I both voted for Bush in 2000 and initially supported the Iraq invasion in 2003.”
Classic bait and switch routine here – you’d think the Troll could’ve come up with something a little more original – similar to the classic “The War is a disaster, and Bush is a Nazi – but I support the troops!”
“Ignorant Viewpoint Seconded.”
Takes one to know one, wouldn’t it?
Hey, thanks for the kind words, guys – let me point out to v and Buddy that ignorant is not a synonym for stupid – but then again, if the shoe fits…
A Troll is someone who has not been brainwashed by the local dialect of Groupspeak.
If you don’t like fresh air, don’t keep the windows open.
Open your mind Buddy. Maybe we are the fresh air and you are the stale air. My windows are always open especially when it is cold outside. It’s all a matter of perspective.
A Troll is someone who has not been brainwashed by the local dialect of Groupspeak.
If you don’t like fresh air, don’t keep the windows open.
Then please ask the hosts of lefty blogs to stop deleting my polite, but obviously alien to them point of view in the comments.
The story succeeded in one thing; it made me feel great sympathy for Maryscott O’Connor. If you read a story like that about yourself and wind up being happy with the result, you’ve got some problems.
I think Ms. O’Connor was singled out because of traffic as well as the Platonic perfection of her lunacy. Could you find calls for similar demented actions on the Right? Sure. What are their stats like? Also, on “open windows” there is no comparison in terms of respect for free speach between the two polls of the spectrum. Lefties WILL NOT allow dissent from the Right. Can’t… um, tolerate it. Like lactose, it raises their phlegm and bile but they can never generate any reasoned rebuke. Well, they can’t pollute their eyes with any dissenting view; anyone not a hardened Lefty is racist, homophobic, war-mongering yada ad infinitem. Anyone asking for simple historical support for the dire assertions of our Liberal Superiors receives nothing but hate, hate, hate in return. Truly, this is a pathetic gaggle and yes, Ms O’Connor is an able example.
Oh, and did someone ask for a profile like this on Malkin? If you really think you will find anything remotely comparable to this woman’s ravings on Michelles site, it proves you have never read same, only the mischaracterizations of it from her enemies. Notice, I don’t say “critics”. And if such a thing were possible, certainly the WaPo or NYT would have made a stab at it.
Do you clowns ever actually LISTEN to the garbage you feed each other? It’s small. It’s mean. It’s self-centered. It needs leavening. Listen. Break out of the formulae. Drop the talking points and the Dogma. You’re singing to the choir and the sounds are more off key than you are able to know, from your diminished perspective. Go to Law School and learn the virtues of the Pros and the Cons. Take a course in Socratic dialectic. Then again, maybe Sophistry is all you dream for and quite enough to fit your worldly ambition.
Buddy, projection is a subject you might benefit from studying…
Buddy, thy name is arrogance. Talk about self-centered, I suggest you look in the mirror. It’s saddening that you have decided to reply in the manner, which you did. The discussion on this blog site is quite well mannered and all legitimate views are encouraged and respected. Many on the left do post here and have good arguments. Referring to the commentators, as “clowns” will not win you respect for your comments. Wow, such intellect. Socrates would be pleased.
It is too bad that you do not seem to have the ability to think outside your own little world and from your comment we do not appear to meet your esteemed intelligence. Since you portray yourself as an “intellectual”, I would assume that you understand people do think differently. Unfortunately, you appear to have little if any respect or tolerance for opposing viewpoints. I also suggest you look up the word “liberal”. It does not apply to you.
Buddy’s boilerplate has no bearing on what is being discussed. Why do I get the feeling he has a macro set up to produce that bilge in response to whatever vexes him so. And I have been to law school, jackass. Have you?
You were all correct !
It WAS boiler plate. (My mind is so encrusted.)
It WAS projection.
I apologize, sincerely, for my rudeness.
Carry on.
Buddy