Friday, July 23, 2010

Tales of Kid Journolist

While I'm still not entirely convinced that the exposure of the Journolist is a game changer, some of what we're learning is quite interesting.

First, there's the important matter -- that there was apparently a direct connection to the Obama campaign. Jim Lindgren at Volokh has the skinny:

One question that has arisen in the last week is how closely JournoList members, not only discussed how to shape the news to advance the fortunes of Barack Obama, but coordinated with the Obama campaign. Jared Bernstein’s position as an unpaid adviser and surrogate shows that there was at least one direct link between JournoList and the Obama campaign.

Bernstein’s serving on the Economic Advisory Panel of the CBO is less worrisome, though it appears to violate Ezra Klein’s first rule for JournoList:

At the beginning, I set two rules for the membership. The first was the easy one: No one who worked for the government in any capacity could join.

It would appear that Bernstein’s presence on the list violated Klein’s first rule, since he met the test of working “for the government in any capacity.”

Rules are for suckers, of course, especially when you have to carry the message to the benighted masses.

The second piece is more amusing, though it shouldn't surprise anyone: even lefties don't have a lot of use for Keith Olbermann. The ever-quotable Spencer Ackerman sums up the mood:

The Washington Independent’s Spencer Ackerman said a brutal parody of Olbermann reflected his true nature. “I hate both Ben Affleck and Saturday Night Live, but this should end all debate about the merits of Olbermann,” he said, linking to the parody.

The good news for Olbermann is that Ackerman didn't advocate throwing him through a plate glass window. Then again, others weren't so sure:

Salon’s Rebecca Traister agreed Olbermann regularly displayed his contempt for women. “Olbermann has a terrible record of going out of his way to talk about young, attractive women he believes to be stupid in grotesquely dismissive and oversexualized terms.”

Traister had written the same thing in her columns for Salon, for instance calling Olbermann out when he “felt free to call [Paris] Hilton a slut on air and speculate about whether anyone had ever ejaculated in her face.”

Blogger Lindsay Beyerstein said maybe the time was now to take down Olbermann. “When we liberals were fighting for political survival after 9/11, it was important to be disciplined and to pick our internal battles very carefully. Now that the Democrats are in charge and progressivism is ascendent, we can afford to demand more from our leaders.

“We can certainly afford to smack down Keith Olbermann when he spouts misogynist garbage,” she said.

Not that anyone other than Ben Affleck really did smack down Olbermann, of course. But that's another post.

6 comments:

Night Writer said...

Kid Journolist
(with apologies to Becker and Fagin, and only a few words changed)

While the music played you worked by laptop light
Those nights with Dave and Ezra
You were the best in town
Was it chance you crossed the your views with the news
You turned it on the world
That's when you turned the world around.
Did you feel like Jesus?
Did you realize
That you were a champion in their eyes?
On Fox the stuff was laced with kerosene
But yours was "kitchen clean"
Everyone stopped to stare at your electronic oracle
Every A-List had your number on the wall
You must have had it all
You'd curse Limbaugh on a dare
And know you weren't alone.
Could you live forever?
Could you see the day
Could you feel your whole world fall apart and fade away?

CHORUS:
Get along, get along Kid JournoList
Get along Kid JournoList

Now your patrons have all left you in the red
Your objectiveness dead
This life can be very strange
All those smug elites who used to make the face
They've joined the human race
Some things will never change
Son you were mistaken
You are obsolete
Look at all the red ink on the street

CHORUS

Clean this mess up else we'll all end up in hell
Those pundits and the polls
Just get them all out of here
Is there gas in the car
Yes, there's gas in the car
I think the people down the hall
Know you for what you are

Careful what you carry
'Cause the man is wise
You've been exposed like Oz in their eyes

CHORUS

Mr. D said...

Bravo, NW! Outstanding! What is it about the Age of Obama that calls to mind Steely Dan lyrics, by the way?

Night Writer said...

Is it because we can't buy a thrill?

my name is Amanda said...

There are your socially liberal males who do turn out to be sexist pigs, notably Bill Maher, who I still like nonetheless. I lost some respect for Keith Olbermann when I discovered a couple years ago that he was dating a 23-year old. When you're 48 years old and only a 23 or 22-year old will do, IMO that's a pretty big statement about your attitude toward women.

I don't think there will be much uncovering of conspiracy theories in this Journolist story.

Anonymous said...

"I lost some respect for Keith Olbermann..."

What do you do with a statement like that?

my name is Amanda said...

Not sure if I'm prepared to give an instructional on what to do with statements "like" that (what is that statement like? I'm curious!), but since I am the writer of that particular statement, I do feel qualified to suggest ways to react to it.

1. Share your thoughts on the topic.
Or
2. Ignore it.

;)