Decision ‘08

Rating The Blog Scandals

Fun post by Allahpundit at Hot Air putting the ‘Greenwald sock puppet scandal’ in perspective. Allahpundit’s bottom line?

Fun and gratifying but without a scalp, a victory dance, or malevolent weirdness a la Michelle [Malkin]’s stalkers, there’s just not enough meat on the bone…in the end it’s just a tad too provincial. Although if Greenwald posts the blueprints to Patterico’s house or something, this one could take off like a rocket. 2.5.

Rathergate gets the perfect 10, and the Eason Jordan affair gets a 7. Of the latter, Allahpundit remarks:

Blog triumphalism quotient: Sky high coming only four months after Rathergate. Alas, it would be the right’s last great blog scandal.

Indeed, the triumphalism was everywhere - including here. I wrote a piece saying the rules had changed, and the unlikely result was that I was quoted (but not linked to!) in the New York Times…

2 Responses to “Rating The Blog Scandals”

1 docweasel Says:
July 26th, 2006 at 5:13 am
One point about this “scandal” is that Greenwald has been touted by Kos and others as some kind of super-intellectual, insightful and highly articulate star of the nutroots. Just a short perusal of
http://www.dailykos.com/tag/Glenn%20Greenwald
and you can see the approval and kudos heaped on this guy.

This entire fake identity-to-pump-up-your-own-arguments thing is an old trope of internet forums, and from my experience the people who use them have not only psychological problems, but sociopathic leanings as well. It speaks of intense paranoia, alienation from actual real people and a desperate need of approval and hysterical reaction to criticism.

And if nothing else, from now on everyone in the rightosphere can easily dismiss this nutbag by referring to him as “sockpuppetfarmer Glenn Greenwald” everytime they have to debunk his rantings.
2 Fargus Says:
July 26th, 2006 at 6:43 am
Because tossing out an ad hominem attack is always easier than actually responding to an argument. Good show, docweasel. You live up to your name.