7 Comments

1. Patriot Henry  •  May 8, 2009 @2:50 pm
   

   “Note to My Team: We have the White House, the Senate, the House of Representatives and soon a lot of the Judiciary. Let them make fun of the fucking mustard.”

   Won’t be much longer before your team has possession of the rest of my life, liberty, and property, and thus destroys the means of production and the source of it’s power.

2. Ken  •  May 8, 2009 @2:51 pm
   

   I’m not On Your Team, exactly, Charles, nor am I exactly conservative or liberal. But the bottom line is that I don’t agree completely with your post.

   William Jacobson is, to be blunt, an opinion-porn performer. (I say “performer” because he actually produces opinion-porn content. He’s not a mere aggregator, like most of Drudge’s stuff. Drudge is more like a fluffer.)

   Being a opinion-pornstar does not make Jacobson unusually contemptible, nor is it a occupation pursued only on the right. There are plenty of left-wing opinion pornsters, and there are plenty on both sides that are worse than Jacobson. Jacobson is like the opinion-pornster who won’t do DP or watersports.

   Anyway, opinion porn has grown so vivid, so inane, so step-back-so-their-spittle-doesn’t-get-on-your-shirt-while-they-shout-at-you personality-disordered that it has grown increasingly difficult to distinguish actual opinion porn from satire or parodies of opinion porn. This is such an instance. After reading some of Jacobson’s other stuff, I just would not feel comfortable concluding with any certainty that he was being tongue-in-cheek rather than just, well, being himself.

   And with people who picked up on the story later — like Hannity — it’s even harder. Who can distinguish Hannity from a parody of Hannity? Consider this Colbert clip showing Colbert making fun of a Hannity routine about the Tree of Liberty. Say rather than playing Hannity’s clip, Colbert just read from a transcript. When we got to the part about the Apple of Commerce falling into the Crate of Socialism, would you feel confident guessing whether that was actually Hannity, or Colbert making fun of Hannity?

   And, once again, it’s just as hard distinguishing sincerity from irony on the Left. It’s hard to imagine Amanda Marcotte, or Michael Moore, or Janeane Garolfo saying something so bizarre that we could be confident it was satire rather than them just being Amanda, Michael, or Janeane.

   We’re able to distinguish satire from sincerity based on context. (Most) people understood that Jonathan Swift was engaging in satire — and not actually advocating the consumption of Irish babies — when he published A Modest Proposal. But say Jonathan Swift had spent the last tend years writing screedy pamphlets about how the Irish Peril was destroying the moral foundation of the United Kingdom, and how he was pretty sure the Irish were responsible for a conspiracy between the Tories and the French to overthrow the King, and that Irish people were constantly out to get him. Would you still be so sure it was satire?

3. Patrick  •  May 8, 2009 @2:52 pm
   

   So all I have to do to get control of your life, liberty, and power is allow you to make fun of my mustard?

   OK. I’m still a fan of French’s yellow. I’m a prole.

   Now where is my power?

4. Charles  •  May 8, 2009 @3:01 pm
   

   Ken: By “my team,” I didn’t mean to imply my co-bloggers at Popehat. I think everyone here is on many different teams and I get the impression that Democratic Party isn’t a team any of my fellow bloggers (even Ezra) play for.

   Patriot Henry: We should be so lucky.

   As for the mustard, French’s yellow is underrated, to be sure – but I’m a Coleman’s man. If we couldn’t get it here, I’d Quantum Leap a replay of the Revolutionary War.

5. Charles  •  May 9, 2009 @7:17 am
   

   Regarding the sincerity of Jacobson, I’ll trust your version of the context so I don’t have to bother reading it… and still stick with my take on the story. Calling the editing a media conspiracy was almost a throwaway line. The updates concerned themselves mostly with prior examples of Obama’s dijon addiction going back to his time in the Illinois Senate. You can’t talk about dijon mustard that much with any degree of seriousness.

   As for Hannity and the rest, none of them seemed to be playing up the media conspiracy angle. All of them seemed content to call Obama a homo. I suppose there is some red meat in there but I see that as mostly yuks for people with a warped sense of humor.

6. mojo  •  May 11, 2009 @2:59 pm
   

   Should you note that Barrack and Joe (hereinafter referred to as the “common guys”) could’ve sent a WH flunky down to Hell Burger if all they wanted was, yannow, some burgers?

7. Charles  •  May 11, 2009 @3:04 pm
   

   Why? Not that I think that the trip to the burger shop was authentic but … what is interesting about it? Nobody would read a blog dedicated to manufactured photo ops for politicians because it would update too often.

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