Comments on: Charlotte’s Web and Wesley Clark

By: marc

marc — Fri, 16 Jan 2004 05:29:51 +0000

It also seems as if some people truly seem to read criticism of Bush as outrageous by definition. Read Sullivan; his shock that Bush is being questioned is palpable. Try reading Sullivan’s last few posts (as of Thursday evening) and see if you still think that he is ‘shock[ed]’ by any questioning of Bush. One is titled It’s Even Worse Than Your Think and concludes, “I’m afraid that the answer is that this administration simply doesn’t care what it’s spending or will spend. Deficits don’t matter, remember? These people are beginning to make Lyndon Johnson look like Herbert Hoover.” The next is titled And When In Doubt, Lie. That is followed by an endorsement of Moveon.org’s latest ad. A little later, in a post titled Bush in Iraq, he says that they screwed up the WMD arguement and much of the post war planning, and are too arogant to admit to having made a mistake. I assume I don’t have to mention his disagreement with the Bushies over gay mariage. Whatever else Sullivan may be, I think it’s past time that he can creditably be accused of being an uncritical Bush sycophant.

By: nofundy

nofundy — Thu, 15 Jan 2004 18:51:40 +0000

dennis miller and bill maher are at least funny in addition to being hacks. Miller is funny? On what planet? He used to be funny, back when he had decent writers.

By: Barry

Barry — Thu, 15 Jan 2004 16:21:05 +0000

Rick, that’s the best and most succinct comment of them all.

By: Rick Coencas

Rick Coencas — Thu, 15 Jan 2004 16:05:06 +0000

What if Newsweek or the Times printed erroneous and misleading stories and then hid behind a defence of “just kidding”? When you hear it on The Daily Show you know it’s satire, when it’s in Slate, they ought to give you a warning.

By: Nicholas Liu

Nicholas Liu — Thu, 15 Jan 2004 12:45:46 +0000

I’m looking for the satire, but I still don’t see it. I’d put it down to not being an American, but other people’s responses seem to indicate otherwise.

By: Doug

Doug — Thu, 15 Jan 2004 09:01:10 +0000

Or maybe Suellentrop’s piece is just badly written satire. If the audience didn’t receive what the author of a non-fiction piece intended to convey, I’d say the fault is the author’s.

By: Shai

Shai — Thu, 15 Jan 2004 06:45:45 +0000

andrew sullivan writes: “MOORE ENDORSES CLARK: That’s according to Drudge. It’s all you need to know really, isn’t it?” is this really a problem of perception? dennis miller and bill maher are at least funny in addition to being hacks. what’s andrew sullivan’s excuse?

By: Ted Barlow

Ted Barlow — Thu, 15 Jan 2004 05:56:47 +0000

Mike D, Here’s the link. I guess it’s possible that he’s being dishonest, but I didn’t make it up.

By: Barry

Barry — Thu, 15 Jan 2004 03:25:31 +0000

Rrrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiigggggggghhhhht. Considering it’s Slate, I’d stick with ‘he screwed up and got caught’. Slate is an example of the problems with today’s journalism. They had a nice subsidy from Microsoft, and could play with new niches. But it’s clear from Hitchen (and secondarily from) Saleton and Sullentrop that they really fear being rejected by the Kewl Kids of mainstream journalism.

By: Walt Pohl

Walt Pohl — Thu, 15 Jan 2004 02:19:27 +0000

Mike D: Suellentrop claimed it was satire on Slate’s comment boards.

By: mike d

mike d — Thu, 15 Jan 2004 01:46:50 +0000

It turns out that Sullentrop intended to satirically make the point that Clark wasn’t being covered like Dean. Ummm… I just glanced at Slate’s site, and I don’t see Suellentrop waving the ‘joke’ (err… ‘satire’) flag anywhere. Did I miss it, or did this realization spring fully-formed from your head?

By: Decnavda

Decnavda — Thu, 15 Jan 2004 00:22:29 +0000

I always thought it made sense for the humans to consider Wilber special – How amny pigs have spiders writing great things aobut them in English? Must be SOMETHING special about the pig to get that done for him. Of course, I did always wonder why none of the humans was similarly impressed by the SPIDER.

By: Glenn Condell

Glenn Condell — Wed, 14 Jan 2004 23:57:50 +0000

‘No one (including myself) realized that it was intended as satire.’ If it doesn’t fly, call it satire. If your game is rumbled, cry satire. David ‘I didn’t mean it that way’ Brooks can tell you all about it after his anti-neocon=anti-semite kite took a dive. So can Maureen Dowd, reprising the Al Gore ‘earth tones’ approach with Wesley Clark’s sweater. Apparently she was SATIRISING columnists who do that stuff. Honest! I seem to recall Thomas Friedman backtracking on one of his more offensive sallies last year, hiding behind ‘irony’ or something. They figure if they throw enough mud, much of it will stick no matter what minor comeuppance they have to endure afterwards. And they’re right.

By: seth edenbaum

seth edenbaum — Wed, 14 Jan 2004 23:19:29 +0000

Since when and by whose definition are Kleiman, Marshall and Drum left wingers?

By: Keith M Ellis

Keith M Ellis — Wed, 14 Jan 2004 22:57:24 +0000

I didn’t realize the Sullentrop piece was satire, but I also wasn’t persuaded by it. I recall thinking that a candidate is faced with an almost impossible task in preventing everything they say from being spun against them. I took Sullentrop’s piece seriously in the sense that I came away thinking that, though sisyphean, perhaps Clark should try harder. Reynolds et al should be embarassed that they’ve been trolled in the old-fashioned sense.