Marinating in the Swamp

I read the new Time online magazine blog because it keeps me off the streets. More specifically, it keeps me from reading that HotSoup thing. See, I have a job, and kids, and diverse other interests, like enjoying bacon and calling Ann Althouse a dink. HotSoup is a whole ocean of stupid. Swampland is by contrast merely a puddle of dumb. It's far more manageable for the busy irresponsible incivil liberal snarkblogger-on-the-go, like me. Very handy, really.

The Big Fun is of course the Joe Klein stuff, now that AMCo(x) {honk! honk!} can't talk about buttfucking anymore. This, I'm sure, you will find especially choice: Joe cracking the whip, instructing the rabble about what he will and will not consider worthy of his attention. The substance of the issue in play is interesting -- that violence in Iraq has for the past few years diminished in the winter months, so if that cycle reasserts itself, the Bushites will likely claim some of the same sort of disingenuous "victory" that they always have, and that wanker pundits like JK will probably fall for it because they're clueless dipshits.

Which is a reasonable assumption. But let's examine instead Klein's febrile response to his anonymous interlocutor's closing comments, because shriek! they are Incivil. The unnamed emailer ends his remarks by saying

Of course the naive and unserious pundits will buy it hook, line, and sinker. You don't have to thank me for giving you a head's up Joe, just go tell some guy without legs you are sorry for being an enabler.

Got that? Cutting, sure. But unfair? You decide. Anyway, let's look at Joe's response:

As for the dopey denoument--Henceforth, any and all ad hominem "pundit scum" arguments will be automatically ignored. You want to argue substance, fine. You want to make an onanistic fool of yourself, you have my sympathy but not my attention.

Huh. On a blog, he says this. Seems like someone's impaled himself on Irma's injection. Or else, the cut worm whines at the plow.

Listen, you useless cobag. We don't give a flying fuck what you consider worthy of your attention. No. You are now subject to our attention, and we find you wanting, you poisonous little toad.

Klein doesn't quite get that he's been tested, and that he failed. He should have been out in the streets with the dirty fucking hippies back in '02, but he wasn't. Hell, if you don't like stupid chants and giant puppets, and I'm no big fan myself, fair enough, he should have fucking STOOD UP and put his ass where it fucking belonged, and said NO to this retarded war in unweaselly terms. You know why I was out on the streets at those freaking ANSWER marches, run by a group I still want to piss on? Because NOBODY ELSE WAS FUCKING DOING OR SAYING ANYTHING, that's why.

The anger and, yeah, the venom of the guy who gave Klein the willies is real, and yes, that IS an issue. That guy has far more credibility in my eyes, and in those of the blogosphere, and of the AMERICAN PEOPLE, than does Joe fucking death-enabler amoral Klein, and that fact is Right and Good and Proper and even Patriotic.

Let me cop to a charge. Folks on the Left are often accused of trying to destroy certain people's reputations.

Yep. Anything I can do to make people like Joe Klein an unemployable hack laughingstock, I'll do, gladly. Why? Something about the not getting people killed for insane delusions, maybe.

Why do we read your blog, Joe?

We come to bury you, not praise you, because the evil your words does lives on, you hopeless prick. 

Comments

[flory]

I won't click on his blog for the same reason I won't pay for the magazine. I refuse to give them my custom. Or permit them to believe that I find their efforts at all worthy of my attention.

[John Emerson]

Do Googlebombs still work? A Klein "Pundit Scum" Googlebamb might be fun.

[SteveNS]

That's worthy of a round of applause.

Hell, standing O.

[geor3ge]

Fan-fucking-tastic rant.

[themann1086]

Why bother linking to Pundit Scum? The way I see it, we should just let Pundit Scum fester in the swamp, boosting the egos of the other Pundit Scum.

[Duckman GR]

Amen, brother, amen.

People are just going to have to get that we're not going to be all commity and politeness, we're going to be rude and direct and, yes, out to get the unredeemable.

Deal with it!

[Carl Nyberg]

I'm for withdrawing troops from Iraq.

And so a challenge to Mr. Klein. Can he honestly say the following?

"Even though I disagree with withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq, I am hoping that withdrawal succeeds in calming down Baghdad."

[The Kenosha Kid]

You lost me at Seems like someone's impaled himself on Irma's injection. Or else, the cut worm whines at the plow.

[Outlandish Josh]

Word. I have the very same feelings inre: ANSWER.

[R. Manhammer]

I get the worm thing. Joe-bitch is the worm, and he was cut by the plow, the truthfulness contained within the comment he quoted. That said, Irma's injection sailed loftily above my head.

Oh, and Joe Klein is an asshole.

[JT Davis]

What's a cobag?

[David Ehrenstein]

I'll click on his blog when his head's on the end of a pole,where it belongs!

[Daphne Chyprious]

Yea! Via a link from Atrios, and on the basis of this one entry, I've just added you to my "favorites" list - a highly discriminating affair, which translates into high praise from me. Also registered just to tell you so. Now I'm going to check out your homepage.

[Kevin Hayden]

Remembering the Luce family's foundation of Time Magazine, I learned not to rely on its editorial judgments long before I learned what a cox is, or what's on the other side of my torso.

I never called it a 'klein' before, but you're correct that its smell places it in that approximate vicinity.

Just remember to bring three-ply should you ever feel compelled to read him again. The better to avoid the spread of e coli and the delusional fevers that accompany it.

[anonymous]

Clare Booth Luce herself led an honest jfk investigator, Gaeton Fonzi, on a wild goose chase to run the clock out during the Blakey cover up

Luce Press - the entire Time Life empire- i hope we get to see it fall cuz this is what it's been for

[steve ex-expat]

We generally had our marches coinciding with the ANSWER marches for the same reason. No one else was organizing them. I have little interest the group and I doubt many of the people marching with us even knew who ANSWER was, but at least ANSWER put themselves out there. I was always disappointed that some of the bigger bloggers didn't try to organize something. And the Democrats... Forget about it.

[bbbustard]

Truly excellent Mr Thers - I hesitated to march under the ANSWER banner as well, and had friends who refused to march because of them. Marches would have been significantly larger if there'd been some other organizers out there. Support lasted as long as it did because of killers like Klein.

[spencer]

What's a cobag?

Short for "colostomy bag."

[grendelkhan]

Unfortunately, the links in these comments have rel="nofollow" set, so they won't have any Googlebombing effects. Hopefully someone else will take up the Pundit Scum banner.