Posted on 07/24/2010 12:10:12 PM PDT by Qbert
The current Journolist controversy that has the blogosphere heaving sparks and Washington even more self-absorbed than usual is weak tea -- a tempest in Barbie's teacup.
At least as concerns the so-called conspiracy itself.
As a larger lesson about the way we search and destroy each other in the political/media world, there may be something darker brewing.
For the millions who have no idea what I'm talking about, a brief history: Journolist was an e-mail list (Internetspeak for watering hole) where liberal-leaning journalists gathered to kvetch.
Started by prodigal blogger Ezra Klein for a few friends, it grew in numbers and popularity, attracting a few mainstream luminaries (Joe Klein of Time magazine) along the way. But mostly it was a consortium of far lesser-known folks (academics, mid- to low-level producers, etc.) who enjoyed the camaraderie of the like-minded.
In the conservative world, we call such people Fox News. (Just kidding, guys, but really.)
Today, Ezra Klein is a ripened 26-year-old Washington Post blogger -- hired as a known liberal -- who makes trenchant observations about health care and other complicated policy issues. Klein is young, in other words, and could be seen as relatively inexperienced in the world of which he has precipitously become a pretty high-level moving part. Today he is best known -- in certain quarters -- for his role in creating Journolist, which is being characterized as the locus of left-wing conspiracy.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Or do we resign ourselves to the new reality -- that no one is ever to be trusted -- and keep our thoughts to ourselves? The answer implied by the events here described suggests a country in which few of us would want to live."
I hate to break this to you, Ms. Pseudo-con, but Tea Partiers- all of them- were slandered for alleged "raaaaacist" *public* statements, statements which have never been proven, despite a $100,000 reward. And I'm supposed to shed tears because your liberal allies on JournoList get caught with their hands in the cookie jar gleefully celebrating in private that they would rather watch a fellow human being die than do anything to save his life? (Interesting that Ms. Parker doesn't address that issue- it must be one of those things she agrees with...that she doesn't want to publicly admit...)
No surprise that Ms. Parker lands firmly on the side of the Ruling Class.
What a bitch. In the conservative world we call it Fox News.
I remember what the press did to Palin.
media watchdogs watching the media.. and the media not liking those words published.. gotta love that..
Ms. Parker shared her hatred for Palin more than the Dems. She is a worthless piece of crap.
SO, she noticed it too.
JOURN-O(bama)-LIST
AKA Jews For Obama. Non-Jews allowed only by authorization of Klein.
Yes it does, Miss Parker.
It shows a destructive 'gotchya' mentality on the part of the JournoList members.
You ignorant female-anatomy.
Conservative blogger Jen Rubin at Commentary artfully noted, “The angry white men and the hate-filled political marionettes aren’t on talk radio. They’re on Journolist.”
Good point. When the media will smear anyone they don't like based on comments their targets might not even have made themselves one can't expect the comments of media types to be exempt from the same scrutiny.
There's no "privacy" for online communications for people they didn't like, so how can they possibly claim that their own comments are exempt from exposure and examination?
Was Carlson right to "out" the private comments of people who, for the most part, have no significant power?
My jaw dropped the floor when I read that. If you are a producer for NPR, you certainly do have some input on what the "news" is and your private hatreds expressed on a public Internet forum certainly are themselves fair game for criticism.
In the meantime, we have to ask ourselves: Are we better off never having the ability to speak offhandedly among friends, to say in private what we could never say in public, to think aloud and uncensored?
Never write what you can say, never say when you can nod, never nod when you can wink ...
Parker doesn't address the reason why this became public. The listserv showed the pack mentality of the media and their working together to take on their chosen targets. That certainly should have been made public.
Apparently there are just enough people who want to believe this lie -- or are stupid enough to fall for it -- that it merits publication in the Washington Post.
Good points.
“Was Carlson right to “out” the private comments of people who, for the most part, have no significant power?
-—My jaw dropped the floor when I read that. If you are a producer for NPR, you certainly do have some input on what the “news” is and your private hatreds expressed on a public Internet forum certainly are themselves fair game for criticism.”
Yeah, and when you consider that almost every single talking point of merit that the Obama camp used originated out of JournoList (and then spread to the blogs and upward), there was certainly significant power there- not that that’s somehow shocking...it’s just a shockingly inane claim from her. And she of course, side-steps the whole Jared Bernstein issue.
My guess: she probably had direct contact with some of these people (emails, etc.) in coordinating her own hit pieces on Palin. I can see why she’s so quick to defend them- she is dependent upon them to put thoughts into her empty cranium...
If the WaPo isn’t doing a “gotcha”, it’s whining about “why can’t we just get along”? The hypocrisy is unbearable.
Kvetch? This list was created so that liberal journalists would have a place to commiserate with other liberal journalists? Why? They live and work in an echo chamber full of like minded liberals. If they need to rant, just peer over almost any cubicle at these places and there will be another liberal feeling exactly the same. Better yet, go kvetch in the breakroom with the other progressives.
Parker uses “kvetch” in an effort to downplay what this list had become. It would be different if these Journalist members, instead, were a group of liberal truck drivers... or liberal sheet rock layers.... and were found to be mad at Bush or whomever they chose.
The difference is that these clowns have real power to shape politics and current events. Any idiot could see that they were agenda driven.
Once upon a time jounalists on the Washington beat were a bunch of hard-bitten Jews and Gentiles who would no more share an idea or a story with a competitor than fly to the moon. Now, the mass media, and I do mean mass, is replete with left wing New York self-hating pampered Jewish diaper babies. Their cabal has no use for the Republican party, the tea baggers, or anything that smacks of love for the history and traditions of this nation. I would wager that few have bothered to read the history of the Jewish- dominated German press of the nineteen thirties; their detestation for all things traditionally German was all the tinder needed to set the Nazi bonfire aflame. The diaper babies are playing a dangerous game. God help us should history repeat itself, and God help the cabal (yes, even the despicable athiests) who will certainly be consumed if it does.
Groupthink Mind Guard piece.
The left has a machine that writes these response pieces to provide groupthink members with a lousy piece of rationality through which they can discount the evidence.
Look up “DITZ” and there’s Parker’s picture.
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