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Charles Johnson is making threats about going after Michelle Malkin. He says he's got lots of stuff to use against her.And I'm mentioned, too. With "friends" like these, who needs James Wolcott? Is there someone -- anyone -- who can stop this madness? As previously noted, I ignored the dustup between LGF, Geller and Robert Spencer for months, hoping it would fade into insignificance. It was only because of Johnson's continued ax-grinding against them that I mentioned it in November, and it was only because he went after Ann Coulter in February that I began paying more attention.
Charles Johnson seems determined to travel the same road that took David Brock from being a famous investigative reporter to being the hack-in-chief at Media Matters. It saddens me.
UPDATE: A commenter asks about context: When did Malkin link me? My blog is occasionally linked on the "Buzzworthy" headline feed in the right sidebar at Malkin's site. Johnson is apparently referring to my earlier post about Geller showing up on "Buzzworthy."
Of course, Malkin has more important things to do than get in the middle of an intramural dispute like this, preferring to train her fire on the Left. Which is what I would rather do as well. Michelle did allow Goldstein and Patterico to air their grievances at Hot Air, but she has, so far as I can tell, avoided the Johnson/Geller/Spencer feud.
The fact that Johnson is threatening to drag Malkin into it suggests, I think, how severe Johnson's alienation has become -- and causes me to regret that I ignored this rift as long as I did. I have an unusual talent for conciliation: Once I get involved, the feuding parties usually realize that they hate me worse than they hate each other. Problem solved by the Universal Scapegoat: When In Doubt, Blame Stacy.
UPDATE II: Or blame Donald Douglas:
I keep seeing notes at various blogs from former LGF commenters who've been banned.It's the "urge to purge," the atavistic impulse of coalition-building by a process of subtraction.
UPDATE III: The Reichstag Fire? Once you transgress Godwin's Law, there's no going back.
And McCain!
ReplyDeleteI was just about to put a post up on this!
Will update you...
What are you talking about? Can we have a link to Michelle's link to you? And her link to Robert Spenser? There is no context at AtlasShrugs.
ReplyDeleteSee, "The Madness of King Charles".
ReplyDeleteCJ seems to think the only way to increase his "fame" is to tear down other conservatives. He's just a sad shadow of his former self...
ReplyDeleteCharles Johnson continues his slide into irrelevancy. I never link to him anymore.
ReplyDeleteHey, thanks for the shout-out, RS!
ReplyDeleteBTW, I have a good screenshot of the offending comment, which includes the URL, as well as the gravatar is the real Charles Johnson's.
He also makes more disparaging remarks about you in comment 53
R.S. McCain is associated with Pat Buchanan, and writes for the racist European journal Takimag.
Teach, my friend Richard Spencer has graciously permitted me -- nay, paid me -- to write a semi-regular column at Taki's about love, sex and romance. I've also written there about the Culture11 debacle, and have recently been granted posting privileges at their blog, The Sniper's Tower. You can examine my writings there and see if you find anything like "European racism."
ReplyDeleteGenerally speaking, when white people start pointing the finger at other white people and screaming "RAAAAACISM," the person you ought to scrutinize is not the accused, but the accuser.
I've never learned to goose-step and I don't look good in brown shirts.
Yup, I've read several of your articles, and it looks like Charles is Moonbarking up the wrong tree. I really do not know what his problem is, but, it is getting old, and got ugly months ago.
ReplyDeletePS: just to make sure, you know that the bold part came from Charles' comment, right? Don't want you thinking I wrote that.
Hello Mr. McCain,
ReplyDeleteA couple of things.
1. No idiot is worth going to jail for assault charges over.
2. Charles Johnson is his own worst enemy at this point. If he goes after Malkin, he will lose any shred of credibility he ever had in the Conservative Blogsphere. There is a hell of a lot more people that like HER, than there is, that like HIM. So, If he does what he says he is going to do. He won't last long at all.
3. Taki's Magazine racist?!?!?! HA! That's FUNNY! *snort*
Anyhow, best thing to do with Johnson is this, let him hang himself...with his own damn rope.
Be well sir!
-Paleo Pat
Man, LGF.
ReplyDeleteIt's like watching an aging Babe Ruth attack his own team, right in the middle of a game.
Sad.
I have never found Pam Geller to be an advocate of anything extreme unless you consider patriotic libertarian values to be extreme. Her most recent response to all of this is one of the most reasonable I've read anywhere.
ReplyDeleteI don't visit LGF anymore and stopped some weeks ago when creationism became every other post. But if he's taking potshots at Michelle Malkin now all I can do is shake my head. That's a serious case of derangement going on there.
One important rule for a successful feud is to not shoot yourself.
Stacy McCain's writings are not creepy and racist, but being published in Takimag opens to accusations for the simple reason of lying down with dogs, not complaining about fleas. Unfair, maybe, but that's life.
ReplyDeleteIt's fun sometimes to mix it up with firebrands and outlier-thinkers, but there is a cost to credibility and civil discourse.
You know, the world is wacky enough, and the leftists sufficiently egregious, that we can make our points without rubbing shoulders all the time with hysterics, creeps, and those who excel mostly at offending those who are not already on our side.
I registered as a member at LGF in late 2001 or early 2002. I was one of Charles' earliest advertisers so I can say that I financially supported CJ and LGF. Charles has posted things I've written on the home page of his blog.
ReplyDeleteI happen to agree with him about getting into bed with Euro racists and Pam Geller has always struck me as about one turn of the tuning peg beyond high strung (though she does have a nice rack). I think the universe is simultaneously 6,000 and 15 billion years old (depending on where you're standing, looking forward from the big bang or back to it) because of time dilation - so I have no dog in his fight against creationism.
So I really shouldn't have a problem with CJ but he's clearly got some obsessions and a thin skin.
However, after posting thousands of comments on LGF, I find myself banned because I politely suggested to CJ that he was not the final arbiter of what is ethical. When I sent him an email saying that as a long time user and one time advertiser common courtesy demanded that he give me an explanation, it went unanswered.
There are virtually no users on LGF left from 2002-2003. CJ has turned the site into an echo chamber with a few sycophantic folks who verbally backslap him, attack his critics, and report back to him about comments on other blogs.
Former LGF users have reported that using LGF's feature to rate posts and comments have led to bannings for rating down CJ's favored positions. Other users claim to have been banned for daring to criticize CJ on other blogs.
I like the guy, share many of his interests and think he's done a yeoman's job fighting the jihadis, but I think he's gone off the deep end, doesn't know who his friends are and find this all very sad.
What I left over at Cold Fury, Mike Hendrix's place:
ReplyDeleteI read LGF for a long time. Then finally made it into registration. It took CJ 30 minutes to take umbrage at a comment and ban me. 30 minutes. What a maroon. If a blog cannot allow dissent and honest discussion and LGF/CJ cannot, they need to do something other than run a blog. What I like about the blogs is I can put my crackpot ideas out there and get good, reasoned feedback. I have been a commenter at Kim & Connie Du Toit's now closed blogs for a long time. We disagreed but always in reasoned discourse. Not so at LGF. It is an echo chamber.
For the same reason, I do not read Malkin's blogs, Michelle Malkin or Hot Air. Neither allow open comments and are run as echo chambers for the annointed. That is just un-American.