Humping the Shark

Ana Marie Cox makes a funny:

A colleague has demanded the McHugh lab reports from the Clinton folks; I suspect they're filed right next to the Rose Law Firm records.

Ah. A "Clinton scandals" joke about Hillary. Bet Joe Klein just about bust a gut laughing. Welcome to Punditland snark. Gah.

"Swampland" promises to leave no cliche unturned in its quest to uncover the superficiality behind the smarm.

ADDING, well, especially with this, Cox really does seem to have articulated in her post an essential truth of Clinton Punditsmirk:

HRC's people are very eager to point out that, you know, REALLY: THEY DID NOT CANCEL THE PRESS CONFERENCE BECAUSE OF OBAMA. No, THIS IS THE TRUTH: Rep. McHugh was sick. And he's a Republican, which means they sort of needed him if they were going to do the anti-war dance that was rumored to take place at today's canceled event.

Also, the dog ate their Iraq report.

Just kidding: What's sad about the Clinton camp's spinning is that is probably true. Just also very, very lucky.

Yes, even when Hillary tells the truth, she's "spinning." Didn't take Cox long to achieve Klein-like levels of Heatherdom, did it.

 

Comments

[Septic Tank]

Poor AMC. She must be so bored. She was hired to play a character that got tired long ago, and she's not even allowed to use its filthy mouth and crack those ass baby funnies they all like so much up in bluestocking DC. Funny thing is, going by some of her early, not-Wonkette stuff, I got the impression there was actually a brain in there. Wasted like Hitchens it is.

[JeffC]

Usually for these people, truth is inconvenient. That's why its such a surprise for them when the truth is convenient.

[pseudonymous in nc]

Her career in a sentence: "From Suck to ass-fucking to just plain sucking."

[NTodd]

I wish she'd get back to writing about assfucking. She was so dreamy back then.

[John Emerson]

I always wondered why she of all people ended up being promoted from the blogs to the serious media. Especially because she's supposed to represent liberals there. It would be churlish and sexist to suggest hanky-panky, of course. (But just out of impartial curiosity, who is it that you have to blow to make it at Time?)

[RT]

John, I think the answer to your question is that of all the people with at least some nominal connection with the lefty blogsphere, she could be most reliably counted on to avoid serious criticism of the right wing, or the way the media caters to it.

So they get to *claim* to have balance, without actually having any.

[sal the barber]

and if michael moore had invented the internets instead of al gore, the internets would be fat.

[Derek Jeter]

And I don't think blowing is what made AMC a hit at the Times.

[Thom]

Having recently spent five weeks hunting for a platypus in NSW (while not doing forty million other things relating to in-laws and drinking) - can you tell me the significance of the photo? Pretty please?

[Eli]

It sounds like she thinks Hillary is almost disappointed when the truth makes lying unnecessary.

I'm not a Hillary fan (or an Obama fan, for that matter - they might as well be the same person), and I don't think she's particularly honest, but lying is nearly as satisfying or recreational for her as it is for the Republicans or their pundits, who even lie when they don't need to.

Bush in particular gives me a similar vibe to those rich, smarmy, obviously guilty defendants in crime dramas, the ones who all but say, "Yeah, we *all* know I did it, but you'll never be able to prove it."

[expatjourno]

John, you have to blow someone who worked for the Washington Post and New York magazine and who now works for Congressional Quarterly. Like Cox's husband Chris Lehmann. You also have to have a good body, run around in skimpy tank tops and be female.

[BushYouth]

Come on. Hitlery hasn't opened her mouth or stood for anything in a long time. She has the same shimmering political qualities as Joe Leiberman. She deserves to be mocked as she bravely stands up and requests more troops for the great U.S. colonial adventures.

[Thers]

I always wondered why she of all people ended up being promoted from the blogs to the serious media.

She's light, breezy, telegenic, and willing to say the right things to the right people. She & Joe Klein -- happy together!

[Thers]

Having recently spent five weeks hunting for a platypus in NSW (while not doing forty million other things relating to in-laws and drinking) - can you tell me the significance of the photo? Pretty please?

That's a mother duck who chose to lay her eggs in our strawberry patch last summer.

[captain goto]

re:

"...she could be most reliably counted on to avoid serious criticism of the right wing, or the way the media caters to it."

and

"She's light, breezy, telegenic, and willing to say the right things to the right people."

Shorter John, Thers:
Be willing to tell rich and powerful people what they want to hear, and you can't help but go far.

See, e.g., http://tinyurl.com/yacyws

"The Iraq Gamble:
At the pundits' table, the losing bet still takes the pot" at radaronline.com.

[Y.G. Brown]

You know what's great fun? Taking a serious criticism of blather like Cox's and turning it into a series of retarded blowjob comments. Classy, John and expat!

Nicely done. Be prepared for the out-of-context cherry picking to show that the entire left blogosphere is sexist. I can hear Ann Althouse's footsteps as I type this. Such comments aren't funny, they aren't helpful, and they undermine the credibility of those who participate here and elsewhere. I'm usually not part of the civility police or a concern troll, but this is just moronic. Joe Klein halter top jokes? Now those would be funny.

Given all of that, Cox was never insightful but she used to be funny. Now she's just trying to fit in and be a jackass like Joe Klein, David Broder, and other "distinguished" journalists who get to know to the very best cocktail parties.

[thom Little]

Ohshit
I can not believe that I thought that was a platypus. But if you look quickly....

Thanks for the response.

[captain goto]

Y.G.,

If you want to bitch about cheap sexual content in political commentary, I suggest you take it up with Ms. Cox...

...as for giving the wingnuts and bedwetting MSM types ammo to bash the blogs, or not, those clowns could manufacture outrage over *anything*, and frequently do. See, e.g., the repetetive e-mail blatherings of a wingnut friend of mine re: childrearing, lawyers, etc. etc.

[Eli]

Joe Klein halter top jokes? Now those would be funny.

Actually, I'm pretty sure that anything which caused people to picture Joe Klein in a halter top could legitimately be classified as a war crime.

[Thers]

I do actually think YG has a point (and I said as much on the thread at that Time trainwreck). I'm not sure John or expat crossed any lines here. (I think it would be pretty naive to say that looks don't play a part in whom major news organizations hire, and anyway, I'm utterly foulmouthed so I don't usually give other people static). So I'd say, it's fair to discuss or wonder about how the sexism in news organizations operates, but some care is in order as we do so. I don't care to slag off AMC as a person (hell, I'd sell out in a minute, maybe); it's the vapidity and danger of the insider pundit mindset she's gleefully putting on like a party hat that pisses me off.

[Thers]

Of course, that said, cap'n goto has a point; I don't really care what Althouse "thinks," or Klein either, for that matter. If something is sexist (not saying anything here is, I'm being judicial), it's wrong because it's sexist, not because it gives a dink like Althouse an opening.

[Thers]

And of course I did make an AMC buttfucking joke a few posts down, so my moral authority, as usual, is bupkis. Thank Christ. The last thing I need is "moral authority"...

[Mr.Murder]

Heatherdomme.

Fixed yer typo,

-Preznit Gimme Boo-deee

[ohiomeister]

The other funny thing is that it looks like HRC is actually swamping Obama with her foreign policy speech rather than the other way around, which is what all the pundits thought would happen. It may have even been more pronounced if it happened yesterday.

[calling all toasters]

Crap. Just when I had Mark Halperin pencilled in as the Stupidest Little Bitch in D.C., she comes back into my life....

[GOPhuckYourself]

I never figured it out. I thought her blog sucked back in the day, just as I think her "punditry" sucks today.

[Joe]

oh my god that bitch is stupid. perfect fit for Time.

[Ripley]

But just out of impartial curiosity, who is it that you have to blow to make it at Time?

Rich Lowry. "Mmmm, yeah... you're winning!" (rimshots available at additional charge)

Having read The Cluetrain Manifesto, in hardcover, I can say with some level of certainty that these MSM/power-Media types just don't get the internets.

'Oooh, we started a blog! We're hep cats, now! Here's our carefully distilled opinion, via some young upstarts who are totally Rad! And potentially Boffo!'

So, we get the same fucking dreck the stuffed shirts would say but now it's gnarly and tubular, except for the part where it's not and mostly sucks. Oh, how the ditzy have fallen...

[Y.G. Brown]

I don't want to dwell further on the "let us stare at our navels and gnash our teeth whilst pondering the definition of sexism" tangent, other than to clarify my initial "bitching."

Foul language isn't sexist. Buttfucking jokes about a woman who made a living making buttfucking jokes isn't inherently sexist. Commentary acknowledging that physical appearance plays a role in how people are treated isn't sexist.

Cox is a hack, a one-trick "the girl who makes dirty political jokes" pony who has been elevated to national prominence in Time Magazine precisely because she is willing to be vapid and snide. With so much fodder available, resorting to "she musta gave a blowjob" comments is unoriginal and dumb, it's sexist, and it is what I'd expect from a Hannidater.

I shall now stop pissing in the punch.

[pseudonymous in nc]

Given all of that, Cox was never insightful but she used to be funny.

Oh, I dunno: she wasn't the most acute of Suck.com's staff, but The Antic Muse wasn't bad.

My speculation is that her short-lived attempts at 'serious journalism' (American Prospect, Mother Jones, Chronicle of Higher Ed) pretty much convinced her that she needed an act to succeed, and she's not dropping that act.

I think there's a wider issue here. Obviously, mainstream reporters follow blogs. And now they're doing blogs, along with people who've arrived in the office through the blog route.

So you get this belief, perhaps derived from Wonkette, itself a quasi-blog in its commercial basis, that all you need is snark and snide to make something 'bloggy'.

In short, the blogification of old media takes entirely the wrong characteristics that draw people to blogs. Ripley's right: they think that the dress makes the form, and they don't even get that right.

Even NRO's Moron Junction is more organic an online creation than painful things like Swampland and the NYT blog.

[John Emerson]

I'm not one of the people who makes sexist jokes about Condoleeza Ruce, but this is the assfucking lady we're talking about. Comeone.

Where I come from, "Who do you have to blow to get anywhere in this business?" is what you always say, regardless of your gender or anyone else's, if you think that there's some kind of favoritism at work.

And it's a pretty reasonable question to ask here -- especially if taken somewhat metaphorically, with due allowances for the possibility of assfucking instead, or even some kind of nonsexual corruption. Cox is fun, but she doesn't belong on a serious newsmagazine.

[Thers]

Cox is fun, but she doesn't belong on a serious newsmagazine.

Hmmm. A case could actually be made that the fact that she and Klein have ended up blogging together is in fact the closing of a perfect circle.

[boy spanking]

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