Wednesday, June 3, 2009

'Hate-F***Gate': Fire Them All

Over at NTCNews, we have a daily editorial called "300 Words Or Less," the idea being to address a timely topic in the specified length. Today's entry addresses the media scandal known as "HateF***Gate":
Obscene insults and raw hatred are not new in the online world. What made Guy Cimbalo's article about "hate-f***" fantasies so shocking was that it was published by Playboy.
Did no one in the editorial process at Playboy.com think twice before hitting the "publish" button on an article that said of Rep. Michelle Bachmann, "Chemical castration has begun to look appealing"?
Cimbalo's article required someone to build multiple Web pages, someone to find, crop and embed photos, someone to write headlines and captions -- hours of paid labor during which various editors had the chance to say, "Hey, wait a minute. Maybe this isn't a good idea." . . .
Please read the whole thing. We hope that our blogger friends will find NTCNews a useful resource, It's a work in progress, so have patience if you haven't been blogrolled yet.

Frequent Commenter Smitty (who has been known to wear bowties, alas) and Jimmie Bise Jr. of Sundries Shack are my partners in this latest insane project. Of the site's inspiration, Jimmie says:
Tucker made a big mistake in calling out the HuffPo before his site was anywhere close to being live. Three weeks is an eternity in the blogosphere and, by the time his site finally does make it to the masses, all the buzz will be gone.
I won't tell you which one of my partners described the Underpants Gnome business plan of NTCNews:
  1. Post a metric ass-load of brief news pointers.
  2. ? ? ? ?
  3. Profit!
Don't try this at home kids. These men are professional bloggers. We're already showing up occasionally in the Memeorandum feed and being linked by Fisherville Mike, So It Goes In Shreveport and No Sheeples Here, among others.

If you want to be a guest contributor to the "300 Words or Less" series, please e-mail Smitty or e-mail Jimmie. Remember (a) the subject must be timely, (b) it must include linkage to articles and blogs about the topic, (c) your entry will be competing for publication against other offerings, and (d) it must be 300 words or less, including the title and you signature. (Try composing it as a Word document, which automatically counts the words.)

As payment for your contribution, you'll have your choice of three lucrative options:
  • 100% of the cash value of the traffic generated by your entry, not to exceed $1 (one U.S. dollar);
  • Reciprocral linkage to your blog at The Other McCain and NTCNews.com; or
  • One cold beverage, if you are ever able to catch me, Smitty or Jimmie in a bar with cash in our pockets. (Good luck.)
What a deal, huh? At any rate, even if you don't decide to take us up on this offer, we invite you to visit NTCNews, where we strive to prove daily that you have to be a rich preppy to aggregate the news.

And please hit the tip jar, so I can afford to buy one of those spiffy bowties like all the smart pundits wear.

UPDATE: Smart pundits? Dan Collins:
Stacy McCain is quite right . . .
And speaking of inspiration, I owe a lot to Protein Wisdom for their slogan: "Because not just anybody can summarize the news." Ironic implications, you see.

Tucker Carlson seems to believe that you have to be a rich famous TV pundit to summarize the news. I hate that kind of stuck-up attitude. A little story:

At CPAC 2006, I was engaged in my usual CPAC activity -- schmoozing like a mofo -- when I decided to take a smoke break. So I go outside, light up, and start talking to this guy with a beard who was puffing Marlboro Reds.

He looked familiar. Kind of like . . . an Ewok.

At that point in time, I had very little idea of just how big Ace of Spades was in the blogsophere, and didn't know the guy from Adam's housecat.

Which is the point. You can be huge in the blogosphere and yet be an obscure nobody compared to the famous TV pundits. And that's OK, but the problem is when the famous TV pundits get the idea that you actually are nobody.

In Tucker Carlson's mind, Ace of Spades and Jeff Goldstein are zilch compared to the 26-year-old assistant producer at Fox News, because the 26-year-old can schedule him on TV -- so we all can admire Tucker's wisdom and good looks -- and Ace and Jeff can't do that.

Yeah, well, Ace and Jeff are all right with me. You know who else is all right with me? Carol at No Sheeples Here. Because she lets me steal her cool Photoshops:

UPDATE II: Speaking of obscure people I met at CPAC 2006, Little Miss Attila says, "Fire them all? Works for me."

OK, let's talk obscurity and fame. All acolytes of The Rules (or, as Jimmie calls them, "The Million Hit Squad") know Little Miss Attila as She Who Must Be Linked, the Kharma Queen of the Blogosphere. She's like the blog-fu temple goddess. If your traffic is sucking, just ask yourself, "When was the last time I linked Little Miss Attila?"

Two days after I met Attila at CPAC 2006, Ann Coulter gave the speech destined to be known to history as The Raghead Heard 'Round the World. And somebody on Bloggers Row decided to circulate a petition denouncing Ann. (Which even Ace signed, having succumbed to the fever of civic-virtue Joiny McJoinerism that was apparently pandemic on Bloggers Row that year.)

Well, I'm sort of Coulter Fanboy No. 1. Don't judge me.

Having done a stint as a humor columnist for The Rome News-Tribune -- after Lewis Grizzard died, my Menshevik editor, Pierre Rene-Noth, decided I should try my hand at the Bubba McGrits schtick -- I know how hard it is to be consistently funny.

If a columnist can give three good laughs in 700 words, that's success. Four good laughs per column, that's national syndication. Five laughs in a column and you are a newsprint Vishnu: I Am Become Death, Destroyer of Worlds.

Coulter is funny, and if you've never tried to be funny in print, you've got no idea how hard that is. It's like stand-up comedy. Next time you're watching some brick-wall third-stringer doing a routine on cable TV and thinking to yourself, "Ah, he's not so funny. Anybody could do that," how's about you take a stroll down to the next open-mike night and try it yourself, asshole.

So I leapt to Coulter's defense after the "raghead" comment, and one of the people I leapt on -- figuratively, no matter what any gossip tries to tell you -- was Little Miss Attila. She had put up a post slamming Ann and so, with all the vitriolic ad hominem I could muster, I told Attila to get herself a nice hot cup of STFU. Hulk Hogan never slammed Andre the Giant so hard. Meghan McCain never slammed tequila shots so hard. Matt Sanchez never . . .

I regret slamming Attila like that. But it's out there somewhere on the Internet, and you can't retrieve those pixels once you hit the "publish post" button. But Attila has forgiven me, and this is one of the reasons (certainly not the only reason) she's the Kharma Queen of the 'Sphere.

One of these days, Attila will write a post called "Ann Coulter Is Da Bomb," admitting that her 2006 anti-Ann posts were wrong. At which point, she'll begin knocking down Instalanches like she knocks down vodka martinis. And then we'll all be grateful we're on her blogroll.

Er . . . not that we weren't already grateful.

22 comments:

  1. I do like the (your new) site.

    I would snark that planned sites like Tucker's don't work, but Huffington Post, if I recall, started that way. Big hoopla and announcements. I don't know if the difference is that Arianna had so many "connections" that there was no way it was going to fail.

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  2. Carin:
    Arianna had several advantages. First, the Left was tired of watching Drudge kick their ass. Second, she knew lots of celebrities who were looking for a place to post their opinions. Third, she hired Andrew Breitbart.

    Well, Andrew is a friend of mine, and he's a friend to Tucker Carlson. But I could never afford to hire Andrew, so we'll have to go low budget. C'est la vie!

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  3. It's only fair for you to steal my photoshops since I freely steal your posts. This bowtie-wearin' sheepleherder is a proud member of the RSM La Blogga Nostra.

    "Big Sexy" is no angry inch and the speedo pic proves it. I light up a ciggie every time I look at it, the pic that is. Forgive me Mrs. McCain.

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  4. Oh, great, Carol. Another comment I'll never hear the end of. Please now post a comment in which you describe yourself as 73 years old, weighing 400 pounds and suffering from some hideously disfiguring disease. To which Mrs. Other McCain will reply, "Yeah, but I remember your last girlfriend before you met me . . ."

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  5. Guy Cimbalo is not a very bright individual, but he's extra stupid for including Elisabeth Hasselbeck, who has a husband who's a 6-foot-2 former NFL quarterback. I'm sure Tim would like a word with him, or two.

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  6. This post, like those that preceded it, is full of ad hominems. However, unlike the previous posts, you have ventured into the realm of bare-naked assertions, many of which you could never substantiate. Of course, it’s a free world and you’re free to say whatever you want, but I just don’t get the open animosity towards Tucker Carlson. Sure, he may lay the biggest egg in the history of the blogosphere, but this remains to be seen and is a separate issue from your unrelenting personal insults.

    Therefore, as much as this is none of my business (and it is none of my business), I’m really curious why you hold TC in such contempt.

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  7. I’m really curious why you hold TC in such contempt.


    I hold him in contempt? Can you not discern even between cause and effect? Between chicken and egg?

    The man has purposefully insulted me and about a thousand other bloggers who've been doing this for months, if not indeed years. Like we don't know nothin' about aggregatin' no news.

    I've been doing aggregation since before Al Gore invented the Internet. When someone insults me, as has TC, I don't get mad. Getting mad is for losers. But don't insult me and then pretend that you didn't mean to insult me.

    In the famous words of The Outlaw Josey Wales: "Don't piss down my back and tell me it's rainin'."

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  8. I’m really curious why you hold TC in such contempt.


    Wait a minute, Anonymous, I just had another thought.

    Suppose you were a brickmason. A master at your craft, laid a zillion bricks over the course of many, many years.

    Now, suppose you were laying bricks at a job site, building a multi-million-dollar home in a swanky neighborhood you could never afford to live in. At the mansion next door lives some rich young fellow who ain't a brickmason. One afternoon, you're working toward the end of a 12-hour day, and you hear a car drive up next door. The neighbor just got home from whatever job he does where he can afford to live in that mansion.

    The neighbor decides to come pay a visit, to see the site where you've been sweating for hours laying those bricks. And in his $900 suit and $300 shoes, he commences to tell you that you're doing it all wrong. "Why, that brick is not straight! . . . And look, your uh . . . your cement or concrete or whatever, it's not the proper consistency . . ." Yadda, yadda.

    Y'know something? You don't say a word. But as that fellow finishes lecturing you and walks away, maybe your trowel "slips" a little by accident. And that fellow will be home talking to his wife, and he'll turn around and she'll say, "Honey, what's that on your suit?"

    Do I make myself clear?

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  9. Quick correction: the petition in question was not a response to the "raghead" remark. It was in response to the "faggot" remark. I helped to edit that letter of protest, too. And I still stand by it. (I'm not hyper-sensitive about these things, either: unlike Ace, I NEVER had a problem, for example, with Rush's "I hope he fails" statement.)

    And the rationale Ann came up with to justify her use of the word: "I used it correctly--as a schoolyard taunt. He [the Gray's Anatomy dude] used it incorrectly"--does not hold water, because when she used the word she appeared to be defending Whatshisface for having used it, as she LATER put it, "incorrectly."

    I stand by my actions. I cannot speak for Ace, but I would like to point out that his co-blogging stable includes at least one gay patriot, so I can see why he might have felt that Ann was pushing the envelope. And I cannot speak for the other bloggers who participated in that bit of pushback against Queen Ann.

    I love Rush, and embrace his contributions without reservation. Ann also labors in the vineyards, day after day, and I acknowledge that. She is a plus for the movement. But I have not always agreed with her words or her tactics, and I have no shame about that.

    I'm not going to co-sign her use of the word "faggot" any more than I'm going to co-sign your use of the word "whore."

    And we shall have to agree to disagree on those two--related--issues.

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  10. One more, now that I've finished that segment of your post: you already made it up to me!--you bought me a beer the next year! (After I slammed Queen Ann for the "raghead" remark, which I'd do again--my sister is Syrian Orthodox, and to me, that is a fighting word.)

    And don't worry: imagine the pushback I get from my readers when I publicly squabble with Queen Ann. (Who appears to have seen my "anti-'faggot'" post the following year, since she announced on TV that the blogger "I am a Little Girl in a Pink Party Dress" had denounced her, and that it had been "very hurtful." Yeah: short chicks are easy marks. I was so devastated to have my blog-handle satirized by Ms. "I Have Legs Right Up to My Neck and Would You Like to See Them".)

    But your point about comedy is fundamentally correct, and it cuts to the heart of the matter: as a matter of fact, that is one of the criticisms I hear about Ann among bloggers: "She's a stand-up comedian, but she just won't admit that that's what she is."

    And I know stand up is hard: I've watched my husband do it. (That would be the husband who likes Ann a bit more than I do, as do 95% of my readers/blog-colleagues.)

    We can all get along. Even those of us who are on the Goldstein side of the Rush "I hope he fails" controversy, rather than the Patterico/Ace of Spades side.

    The point is: we disagree about minor tactical matters, but still need to get past that crap so that we can continue to push for our overall strategic objectives.

    I'd like to say "the same organization signs our paychecks," but of course there aren't any freakin' paychecks at this moment, which creates, um, a little bit of stress for most of us . . .

    Which we should try not to take out on each other, of course.

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  11. Response to 03:04:00 PM

    Okay. Here’re a few thoughts: You strike me as a pretty tough nut, or, to mix my metaphors, you have the hide of a rhino. At least that’s my first impression of you from reading your About page, as well as some of your posts. And I state this observation in order to make another observation, i.e. I think you’re stretching the definition of “insult” a tad much so that you can take offense where I seriously doubt he ever intended to offend. Moreover, I would like to see where he affirmed that you or any other conservative blogger “don’t know nothin’ about aggregatin’ no news,” because I think that’s a deliberate misrepresentation designed to facilitate a strawman. Regardless, I think that the offense you feel is inconsistent with your bio, at least as you’ve written it, and just to be straight, I am drop-dead certain that, despite your interpretation of events, TC never insulted you with the intent of personally hurting you and cutting you down.

    I think that, at the most, he took a play from Donald Trump’s playbook instead of Ace’s. (I recently learned of Ace of Spades HQ and I think it’s one of the best blogs out there — primarily due to the strength of Ace’s laser-sharp insight and his powerful wit.) From what I have gathered, Ace has grown his blog over the years by grunting out one good post after another, day after day, and in this respect Ace is a self-made blogging success. TC has chosen to take a short-cut approach to blogging, for reasons we may never know, but I suspect that advertising probably has something to do with it. It’s just a guess.

    One last thought, for what it’s worth. The most successful bloggers out there are the creative writers who don’t need to rip into others and who don’t waste bandwidth by ripping into others. You’re a good writer with a fantastic résumé. I’m not sure that you gain a whole lot, if anything at all, by ripping into TC.

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  12. Response to 03:04:00 PM

    Okay. Here’re a few thoughts: You strike me as a pretty tough nut, or, to mix my metaphors, you have the hide of a rhino. At least that’s my first impression of you from reading your About page, as well as some of your posts. And I state this observation in order to make another observation, i.e. I think you’re stretching the definition of “insult” a tad much so that you can take offense where I seriously doubt he ever intended to offend. Moreover, I would like to see where he affirmed that you or any other conservative blogger “don’t know nothin’ about aggregatin’ no news,” because I think that’s a deliberate misrepresentation designed to facilitate a strawman. Regardless, I think that the offense you feel is inconsistent with your bio, at least as you’ve written it, and just to be straight, I am drop-dead certain that, despite your interpretation of events, TC never insulted you with the intent of personally hurting you and cutting you down.

    I think that, at the most, he took a play from Donald Trump’s playbook instead of Ace’s. (I recently learned of Ace of Spades HQ and I think it’s one of the best blogs out there — primarily due to the strength of Ace’s laser-sharp insight and his powerful wit.) From what I have gathered, Ace has grown his blog over the years by grunting out one good post after another, day after day, and in this respect Ace is a self-made blogging success. TC has chosen to take a short-cut approach to blogging, for reasons we may never know, but I suspect that advertising probably has something to do with it. It’s just a guess.

    One last thought, for what it’s worth. The most successful bloggers out there are the creative writers who don’t need to rip into others and who don’t waste bandwidth by ripping into others. You’re a good writer with a fantastic résumé. I’m not sure that you gain a whole lot, if anything at all, by ripping into TC.

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  13. Response to 04:00:00

    “Do I make myself clear?”

    Well, maybe.

    If this is some sort of extended metaphor or an analogy where you’re the mason and TC is the spoiled brat, then the lead character is reversed because, if I’m not mistaken, you’re the one who has been hectoring TC about how blogging is supposed to be done and how he’s going to fail miserably for the many reasons you’ve identified — all based upon your one or two years of experience. To be sure, I haven’t read one blog post written by TC where he took you or any other blogger to task for not knowing what they’re doing. As noted, this charge falls at your feet. At least, that’s how I understood your story.

    Please forgive me if I have misunderstood you and, if so, please pen me another vignette with a little less allegorical fantasy and a little more factual truth.

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  14. Following orders and saving your bacon, sir. I am 400 years old and weigh 73 pounds. No disfiguring disease. My beauty has been ravaged by time. Remember that I’m 400 years old. Like a Yoda I am. To Mrs. McCain I say, I only see men who wear Speedos that ARE NOT striped.

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  15. Response to 05:22 p.m.

    Oh, the joys of anonymity . . . Funny how everybody knows every fucking thing when they're anonymous, eh?

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  16. That’s another ad hominem and my name is Charles Thomas; I just don’t know how to work all the options in your combox, except the Anon, because I don’t own any kind of account.

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  17. Hey, Stace--maybe he just didn't have time to put a profile together.

    Someone needs a beer. Badly.

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  18. A google profile is one of the easiest things to do..

    Yet the one person who hasn't figured it out yet is criticizing the people who do.

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  19. 300 words or *fewer*: speak English or die, dummy. And as comical as this promises to be, don't expect links.

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  20. Dave C,

    I understand that you’re trying to impeach my credibility, however I don’t understand how the mechanics of a Google profile relate to the substance of my opinion.

    CT

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  21. SM:

    If you really think so little of anonymity, then perhaps you should remove the option from your combox — unless, that is, you prefer keeping the option alive to justify your ad homs.

    Charles T.

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  22. 10 women were savagely attacked.

    A law-suit is maybe the best way to restore their honour.
    They could perhaps do it together.

    ReplyDelete