Pajamas Media shutters blog network

January 31, 2009 10:14 AM

Launched with much fanfare in 2005, Pajamas Media planned to harness the distributed power of dedicated bloggers to challenge the traditional news media. On March 31st, their blogging network will shut down, along with the ad revenues it channeled to conservative commentators. With the collapse of the blog advertising market, they've decided to focus their energy on the PajamasTV video network and its exclusive correspondents.
posted by verb (78 comments total)

"Help me, Joe the Plumber. You're our only hope."
posted by fatbird at 10:20 AM on January 31, 2009 [7 favorites]

I feel awful for them.
posted by empath at 10:24 AM on January 31, 2009 [4 favorites]

does this mean I have to change out of my pajamas?
posted by mannequito at 10:24 AM on January 31, 2009

PajamasTV video network and its exclusive correspondents.

I'll repeat what I said in the earlier thread on the subject: I find it shocking that a respected bastion of journalistic integrity like "PajamasTV" would stoop to such levels.
posted by dersins at 10:25 AM on January 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

If I have to live through the second Great Depression, so be it. I am just happy to be alive to watch Conservatism go from being a major force in American political life to a fringe group of wackos that the general populace recognizes as being dangerous incompetent nuts.
posted by ND¢ at 10:26 AM on January 31, 2009 [14 favorites]

That free market is a mother fucker sometimes.
posted by The Straightener at 10:29 AM on January 31, 2009 [13 favorites]

Remember that scene in Terminator 2 where the T-1000 is desperately shifting from form to form as it is destroyed in a vat of molten metal?
posted by fleetmouse at 10:32 AM on January 31, 2009 [32 favorites]

To some extent, I think this reflects the naivete of the idea that Instapundit's "Army of Davids" will also be an army of employed people. The payblogging felt as artifically inflated as the real estate market for a while there.
posted by verb at 10:35 AM on January 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

What!? Who will promulgate crazy-ass conspiracies about Obama's birth certificate now!?

Conspiracy theories aside, it's amazing what a bunch of loons these people turned out to be. I mean, totally resistant to any rational thought whatsoever. These people were a collection of loons and incompetents.
posted by delmoi at 10:36 AM on January 31, 2009

What, no bailout?
posted by matteo at 10:48 AM on January 31, 2009 [3 favorites]

No one could have foreseen "the collapse of the blog advertising market".

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA
posted by 2sheets at 10:53 AM on January 31, 2009 [3 favorites]

That AtlasShrugs site is one of the most hate-filled steaming piles I've ever seen. "I'm A Fan of Disproportionate Response", paired with the American and Israeli flags, a banner supporing Geer Wilders, anti-Islamic hate - yep, don't bother clicking. Makes LGF look like a Pete Seeger fan's Geocities page.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 11:04 AM on January 31, 2009

One thing you may not know about Pajamas Media is that their editor-in-chief is aware of all Internet traditions.
posted by shii at 11:09 AM on January 31, 2009 [4 favorites]

What!? Who will promulgate crazy-ass conspiracies about Obama's birth certificate now!?

The same loons. They'll just stop getting paid for it.
posted by rokusan at 11:10 AM on January 31, 2009

Just to be clear - I mean "don't bother clicking the AtlasShrugs" link. It's a hate site. The other links are fine, as is the FPP.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 11:15 AM on January 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

The only reason for reading PM died with Cathy Siepp.
posted by Sassenach at 11:17 AM on January 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

It's a good day when assholic racists fail.
posted by cell divide at 11:17 AM on January 31, 2009

...and somewhere, Barbra Streisand crosses another item off her list and cackles wildly, thunderbolts flashing in the background.

BTW, is there any indication that a video "network" would be any more profitable than a collection of blogs? The potential audience can't be any bigger, and probably would be smaller (not every survivalist compound has the bandwidth for streaming video). Not to mention increased server and bandwidth costs. Plus, they'll be in more or less direct competition with Fox News and their jolly band of merrymakers.
posted by PlusDistance at 11:23 AM on January 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

As Christopher Moltisanti once wondered, "How can I express how little I give a fuck?"

As one of five Mefiers who actually reads conservative sites (Frum, Daniel Larison, Douthat, among others) I long ago came to the conclusion that PM simply did not publish anything worth my time. The hiring of Wurzelbacher amply confirmed my judment that these were not serious people.

On preview: What Sassenach said. Siepp passing was a real loss.
posted by mojohand at 11:24 AM on January 31, 2009 [3 favorites]

Some of the cruelest writing I've ever read has been Vanity Fair writer James Wolcott having fun on his blog at the expense of Pajamas Media. Not to be missed...

I wonder what other bad political websites, besides Pajamas I mean, will run out of money now that the election's over. I'm surprised that Pajamas couldn't capitalize on Obamaphobia, but maybe people just aren't as scared of him as The National Review wanted us to be.

But it also seems as if some of the dumber anti-Bush sites (and I mean no offense to smart liberal sites like TalkingPointsMemo) will suddenly find themselves without a purpose. A similar thing happened in the mid-1980s when Reagan beat Mondale so bad that the conservative direct mail fundraising machine, which had raked in a fortune by scaring Red State folk with warnings of baby-killing liberals angling for the White House now ran out of juice, left without a credible threat to peddle.
posted by Kirklander at 11:28 AM on January 31, 2009

I'm happy to see BuzzFlash is keeping the Spirit of 1999 HTML alive.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 11:30 AM on January 31, 2009 [2 favorites]

.
posted by iviken at 11:32 AM on January 31, 2009

As one of five Mefiers who actually reads conservative sites (Frum, Daniel Larison, Douthat, among others) I long ago came to the conclusion that PM simply did not publish anything worth my time. The hiring of Wurzelbacher amply confirmed my judment that these were not serious people.

There are a lot of smart and interesting conservative writers and bloggers out there, but they tend to be associated with more "publication" minded sites. David Larison is one of the people that gives me hope; even though I disagree with him on a number of issues, he's as disgusted with the race-to-the-bottom in the conservative blogosphere as any liberal I've talked to.
posted by verb at 11:32 AM on January 31, 2009

Ugh, that should be DANIEL Larison.
posted by verb at 11:33 AM on January 31, 2009

Who will promulgate crazy-ass conspiracies about Obama's birth certificate now!?

Chuck Norris.
posted by T.D. Strange at 11:37 AM on January 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

I thought the letter they sent out was pretty cute. "Wow! PJTV is gonna be so awesome! Too bad you're not going to be part of it, bye-bye-see-ya!"
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 11:38 AM on January 31, 2009

I read The Corner everyday. It's like an itch I can't help scratching.

If I want real crazy I go to Hillary Is 44, though.
posted by empath at 11:40 AM on January 31, 2009

i wonder if blogads will be next. i know they've been struggling also ... but at least they have Perez Hilton. if they didn't have him they'd been bankrupt by now. political blogs aren't making money as we used to even though we helped build these advertising networks.
posted by liza at 11:40 AM on January 31, 2009

You mean ..I'm not getting paid for my remarks on Metafilter? I thought you could trade in your favorites for Pepsi points or something. I thought I knew everything about the net.
I guess I was wrong.
posted by doctorschlock at 11:40 AM on January 31, 2009

Surely John Cole is an exception to the "bunch of loons" label?
posted by jaronson at 11:41 AM on January 31, 2009 [3 favorites]

Surely John Cole is an exception to the "bunch of loons" label?

The 'long tail' of the PajamasMedia network includes a lot of mixed content; Cole joined up with them when he was staunchly conservative, and stayed with them after he turned from Bush. But, yeah, I do think there are good examples of reasonably sane folks. Unfortunately, all of their 'big name' bloggers seem to be the crazy ones -- the ones most likely to be kept around for PJTV as they shutter the larger, deeper network.
posted by verb at 11:47 AM on January 31, 2009

but john ran screaming from the dark side and into the side of the force :)
posted by liza at 11:47 AM on January 31, 2009

Yes, and Cole's blog is the only Pajamas Media blog I've found that's worth reading. What he's still doing under their umbrella I have no idea. It's like finding a rabbi at the hog rancher's convention.
posted by fleetmouse at 11:49 AM on January 31, 2009

What!? Who will promulgate crazy-ass conspiracies about Obama's birth certificate now!?

Oh, they'll still do that, but now they'll be in front of a $30 webcam. Hopefully some extra crazysauce will be heaped on for visual effect: a homemade green screen behind them so they can add a looped video of "terrorist camps" and the WTC buildings falling and bin Laden and Hitler and a moment of Obama looking awkward and that cooking show host wearing a kefiya. Maybe they can all do that weird Malkin lady's face thing while regurgitating their crazy-ass conspiracies about Obama's birth certificate.
posted by NoMich at 11:49 AM on January 31, 2009 [2 favorites]

Maybe they won't be able to afford a plane ticket to bring Joe home from Israel?

But then... as much as the guy bugs me, I wouldn't want to inflict him on those sad sacks for the foreseeable future. That would just be mean, and they have enough to deal with already without having to worry about a non-licensed plumber running around bugging people with questions he doesn't think he should be asking.
posted by Evilspork at 11:59 AM on January 31, 2009

As one of five Mefiers who actually reads conservative sites (Frum, Daniel Larison, Douthat, among others)

I think you'd be surprised. I and a lot of other Democrats I know read Frum, Larison, and Douthat. I'd say all three are eminently sane, and the GOP would be in much better shape if they had more thinkers like them and fewer like Malkin and Limbaugh. Hell, I might still be a Republican.
posted by EarBucket at 12:04 PM on January 31, 2009 [3 favorites]

John Cole is leaving PJ Media March 1.
posted by merelyglib at 1:36 PM on January 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

Frum?

Author of "The Right Man: The Surprise Presidency of George Bush" and "An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror"?

Being "eminently sane" isn't nearly enough. If you're going to make it your job to explain complex issues and defend policy decisions, it helps if you're right at least some of the time. Frum may be more intelligent than your average PJ Media blogger, but by consistently advocating the wrong side of issues to large audiences he's probably more dangerous than any of them.

I'd much rather see the David Frums close up shop than these people like Pyjamas Media who exist primarily on the lunatic fringe of political discourse (thankfully). Instead we continue to get "commentary" from these people with impressive credentials who can't make the right call until years after the fact. And despite it all, some are even respected enough to run for office (I'm looking at you, Ignatieff).
posted by Hoopo at 2:12 PM on January 31, 2009

I now must sleep naked, having lost my pajamas. They were an amusing place to go to and know in advance what they would say about Lefties, Liberals, Obama, Tax and Spend Democrats...they lost credibility in huge hunks when they paid Joe the Plumber to go as a journalist (no background) to the Gaza war (no journalists allowed)...but he made a buck or two so that helped the economy.
posted by Postroad at 2:14 PM on January 31, 2009

Atlas Shrugged had this to say about Pajamas Media:

I thought PJM was going to rival AP, UPI, Reuters.

Guess they went the way of Rove's permanent Republican Majority.
posted by Ironmouth at 2:56 PM on January 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

empath: "I read The Corner everyday. It's like an itch I can't help scratching.

If I want real crazy I go to Hillary Is 44, though."

Red State is always fun if you want to read news from an alternative universe where W was the greatest president since Ronnie (of course) and everybody from Google to the AP is directly conspiring against them. I read it everyday.
posted by octothorpe at 3:31 PM on January 31, 2009 [2 favorites]

I pretty much avoid politblogs like the plague, but John Cole's has been pretty much spot on.

Sad thing is, it's time to watch the Left self destruct now.

Funny how both extremes ridicule moderates.
posted by Xoebe at 5:05 PM on January 31, 2009

Funny how both extremes ridicule moderates.

Moderates deserve ridicule.

I'm serious about that; it's not a joke, and it's not a one-off. To be a moderate is, ultimately, to have no ideology or systematic thinking about politics. Moderates define themselves as being "in the middle"; they have no position in and of themselves, because their politics are purely reactionary, and react not to prevailing social conditions or the state of the world but to the political climate. As the parties move in one direction or the other, so too does the moderate. It is a political position founded entirely on emotion and devoid of even the rudimentary reason that the conservatives have.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:02 PM on January 31, 2009 [10 favorites]

To be a moderate is, ultimately, to have no ideology or systematic thinking about politics.

So that's it, is it? Either fascism or communism? Totalitarianism or anarchy?

It is not true that moderates define themselves as being in the middle. I expect that many come up with their ideas for what the world should look like first, then apply a label to it afterwards. Your claim that moderates as chasing a position for its own sake, really, could could apply to people anywhere along the political spectrum.
posted by JHarris at 6:15 PM on January 31, 2009 [2 favorites]

(could could?)
posted by JHarris at 6:16 PM on January 31, 2009

So that's it, is it? Either fascism or communism? Totalitarianism or anarchy?

Not at all. There are myriad political philosophies which sit at various points of the spectrum, however you want to draw or construct that spectrum. The concept of "moderation" or "centrism" in politics is inherently crap because if moderates had a system of thinking about politics, or an organized set of principles and values rather than just "how does this issue make me feel?", they'd identify themselves with that philosophy or set of principles rather than using an identification which has no meaning beyond referencing their perception of a specific time and place's political environment.

There's also the fact that "moderate" as a label is insulting to everyone else. You might as well call your position the "sane" position or the "not raping babies" position. There is nothing about the names of liberalism, conservatism, communism, fascism, anarchism, or totalitarianism which serves as an insult to everyone who does not share in these views. To say "I am moderate" is to explicitly name all who disagree with you as crazy, or extreme, or radical, or unreasonable.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:39 PM on January 31, 2009 [5 favorites]

mojohand wrote As one of five Mefiers who actually reads conservative sites

As others have pointed out, the number likely isn't that low. I read FOX News, Redstate, and cruise past LFG and the Free Republic daily. Its important to know what the enemy is up to. Admittedly, none of those is likely to give me much respect for serious conservatives, but I figure there isn't much point in listening to what they have to say since they're obviously out of power and considered traitors by mainstream (ie: crazy) conservatism.
posted by sotonohito at 6:51 PM on January 31, 2009

To say "I am moderate" is to explicitly name all who disagree with you as crazy, or extreme, or radical, or unreasonable.

I fully understand what you're saying here - my grandfather used to say "The only thing you find in the middle of the road are dead skunks" - but to be fair, there are self-identified moderates who actually mean "I adopt policies from different political schools of thought and mix them together" or even "I'm kind of on a journey here, politically, and haven't quite made up my mind, so I'm gonna be Switzerland until I get it sorted." I know the word "moderate" is loaded, because it implies, as you said, that anyone who disagrees must not be moderate, i.e., unreasonable. But I've taken it to mean the Mixed Fruit & Nuts variety of politico, most of the time anyway.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 7:02 PM on January 31, 2009 [2 favorites]

Hopefully some extra crazysauce will be heaped on for visual effect: a homemade green screen behind them so they can add a looped video of "terrorist camps" and the WTC buildings falling and bin Laden and Hitler and a moment of Obama looking awkward and that cooking show host wearing a kefiya.

Wait, Alex Jones works there?
posted by mrbill at 7:24 PM on January 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

that cooking show host wearing a kefiya.

Ha! You know, I don't know what's more absurd about that entire kerfuffle - the fact that Rachael Ray wasn't even wearing a keffiyah, or that the keffiyah in the Arab world carries about as much political message as a trucker hat does here.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 7:52 PM on January 31, 2009

Tbogg's take.

I'd be curious to get numbers on political bloggers who have a full-time job outside of their site broken down by lib/con tendencies. Hugh Hewitt on the right is a law professor (scary thought), but I was surprised to find out how many con-bloggers made their nut off of blogging entirely (not so many now I guess). The lib blogs I like most are all done by people whose main source of income is from a non-blog source (then again, now that some of them have written books, I guess the line between professional blogger and professional lawyer/teacher/analyst is kind of muddled).

Lib blogs I read almost daily:

Glenn Greenwald? Lawyer and author.
Digby? Actually not sure. Does she blog for a living?
Americablog? Lawyer.
Oliver Willis? Works for Media Matters.
Dkos? Well, here's the dream of all political bloggers I guess. Lawyer and ex-military guy who starts a blog as a side thing but becomes wildly succesful, making over 1 million dollars in ad revenue for 2008, enough so that he hires eight full-time staffers.
Talking Points Memo? Another Dkos-like success story, where he actually makes enough to hire staffers and consider himself something of a self-sufficient news and opinion provider.

There was a lot of con-blog welfare going on, and I'll cop to the heaping amounts of schadenfreude I'm currently rolling in. Anyone who expects to make a living off of blogging, political or otherwise, deserves a stern talking-to from my father about the wonders of Dental School. Then again, you have to admire success stories like Dkos and TPM. They aren't propped up on wingnut welfare by any means, but rather on giving a like-minded audience a forum in which they can participate.
posted by bardic at 7:55 PM on January 31, 2009 [3 favorites]

Alright, that's not entirely true. The keffiyah is beloved by Palestinians as a national symbol. Trucker hats are beloved by Ashton Kutcher as a symbol of being that guy who's determined to make everyone in Hollywood hate him.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 8:09 PM on January 31, 2009

"Moderate" is just another word for "conservative" if you think about it.

It just means you basically like things the way they are, doesn't it? That you don't want to rock the boat?

People we call 'conservatives' now are really 'reactionary', because they want to go back to the past, not preserve the present.
posted by empath at 8:12 PM on January 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

Slavery was a "traditional" American practice for a very long time. Women not being able to vote was also quite "traditional."

To be fair though, the Republican party was founded as an anti-slavery party, if not quite an abolitionist one. The whole thing flip-flopped in the 1950's, however.
posted by bardic at 8:38 PM on January 31, 2009

Anyone who expects to make a living off of blogging, political or otherwise, deserves a stern talking-to from my father about the wonders of Dental School.

The rise of 'pro-bloggers' fueled a really annoying scramble towards mindless chicken-soup-for-the-SEO-professional's-soul vibe. Aggregation networks and top-ten-list linkbait blogs, blogs about getting people to read your blogs, blogs about what other blogs were blogging ablog blog about blog, and so on and blogforth.

People who have interesting insights and can communicate them clearly will, if they have a little personal time and a tool for publishing what they write, generate content and eventually generate readers. Over the long haul, some of those people can make a living off of it while others will just keep doing what they were doing and write on the side until they lose interest.

Some people, like Kos and Josh Marshall, are doing things that can hardly be called "blogging" at this point. They're attempting to run their own mini-PACs, and produce independent journalism complete with real actual reporting, not just commentary on other peoples' stories. Pajamas Media, IMO, was an attempt to jump-start that kind of thing by setting up a portal and funneling ad revenues to the top-traffic-earners. That's a Gawker-like model, though, not a DKos/TPM model, and the results were going to be different no matter what they claimed.

PJM had the benefit of the wind at their backs when they launched: online advertising was booming and getting boomier, and after the initial buzz of their launch wore off things started gearing up for the contentious 2006 and 2008 election cycles. The wind died out and they spent some time thrashing. Despite what postroad mentioned, Joe The Plumber wasn't the turning point; PJM has been hemorrhaging credibility for a while, memorably with their 2007 "breaking news story" that the leader of Iran had died. They splashed it all over their landing pages for a couple of days, citing their 'highly credible sources', until it just kind of faded out and they quietly removed the headlines.
posted by verb at 8:46 PM on January 31, 2009 [2 favorites]

"Some people, like Kos and Josh Marshall, are doing things that can hardly be called 'blogging' at this point."

Well put. But I doubt either of them expected to develop into what they've become now. They started out as political activist type dudes with blogs, nothing more.

I do think it's worth stating the obvious, however: Kos and TPM are success stories (for now), and the conservative blogosphere hasn't produced much in the way of self-sustaining success stories. Certainly none to rival Moulitsas or Marshall. And on top of that, Kos raised a hell of a lot of money for Dem candidates in 2006 and 2008. This more than anything is a testament to his hard work.

I'll stand by my instinctual opinion that lib blogs tend to have more success because they're written by professional people who come to blogging and do it, at least at first, as a supplement to their careers and personal interests. It seems like way too many con blogs were propped up by some sort of outside hand-out.

To wit, if Protein Wisdom had so much readership, why couldn't he just go to the standard model that most probloggers use? Why all the rending of garments and gnashing of teeth? (I'll admit, other than Andrew Sullivan I don't read con blogs. And most cons would say Andrew Sullivan is a gay hippie commie anyways, so go figure.)

And it's worth mentioning that Culture11 just went down the crapper. Some conservatives (if Andrew Sullivan is to be believed) thought this was just the thing the con blogs needed -- thoughtful, young, and sometimes willing to challenge the status quo type bloggers doing a joint venture together. Poof.

At the end of the day, the proof is in the number of hits your blog gets. Lib blogs seem to be getting them, con blogs not so much. Probably a mixture of the national mood and a cultural resistance to computers (as opposed to say, talk radio, where no lib can raise a finger to the con dominance).
posted by bardic at 9:04 PM on January 31, 2009

Up yours Pope. Us moderates and tolerants are always the first ones to get burned for the crime of patience and understanding. Say something like: "There's two sides to every issue" and someone like you accuses me of lacking logic or endorsing the politics they dislike. :P
posted by Phalene at 11:46 PM on January 31, 2009

Moderates deserve ridicule.

For seeing shades of gray?

"Moderate" is just another word for "conservative" if you think about it. It just means you basically like things the way they are, doesn't it? That you don't want to rock the boat?

No.
posted by pmurray63 at 1:18 AM on February 1, 2009

"Moderate" is just another word for "conservative" if you think about it.

I consider myself a socialist. In my youth, I was a card-carrying member of the CPGB. However, as I got older and my ideology was fuelled less by resentment and tempered more by exposure to empirical reality, I came to recognize that all actions have unintended consequences, and radically untested ideas, translated into practice, often hurt the very people they were intended to help.

So as I got older, I came to see that small incremental changes were generally more desirable than grand sweeping revolutionary acts grounded in wishful thinking and desire rather than secure knowledge about the outcomes. If they work, do it more. If they don't, stop doing it.

In short, I became a moderate.

I don't think this makes me conservative though. I still believe in the same principles of economic redistribution I've always believed in. I just think it means I'm no longer quite as dumb as I used to be.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 4:02 AM on February 1, 2009 [4 favorites]

Up yours Pope. Us moderates and tolerants are always the first ones to get burned for the crime of patience and understanding.

It has nothing to do with patience or understanding, both of which are qualities found at nearly every point on the spectrum.

(Also: "Fuck you, I'm totally tolerant and moderate and chill!")

Say something like: "There's two sides to every issue" and someone like you accuses me of lacking logic or endorsing the politics they dislike. :P

There aren't two sides to every issue. There is only one valid side on the slavery issue, only one valid side on the human rights issue, only one valid side on nearly every issue that exists- or will you argue that we need to find a balance between "no rape is ever acceptable" and "rape forever!" Moderates can say idiotic shit like "There's two sides to every issue!" and "The truth is always somewhere in the middle!" because, as I've said, there is a total absence of reflective, systematic thought on the topic. There are issues that reasonable people can honestly disagree on, but they are in the vast minority of issue. It is only the degree to which most issues are settled (for example, pretty close to everyone agrees that genocide is a bad thing) that allows the centrist to ignore them in pursuit of inane folk wisdom that seems to support his/her psuedo-position.

For seeing shades of gray?

See, this (and the whole "we're the only tolerant ones!" piffle from above) is exactly what I'm talking about when I say that you folks come right out and insult everyone else. You haven't got an ideology, you haven't got any serious thought beyond the fact that actually taking a position makes you scared and nervous. There's a goddamn difference between being open-minded and completely lacking judgement.

In short, I became a moderate.

You can only become a "moderate" by framing the political spectrum to basically exclude everyone to the right of Labour. Social democracy is a perfectly valid position.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:57 AM on February 1, 2009 [2 favorites]

There is ... only one valid side on nearly every issue that exists.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and predict that, coincidentally, it's the side you're on.

you folks come right out and insult everyone else

Excuse me, but you're the one who started this. But then I guess it's easy to feel insulted, knowing that you hold the One True and Acceptable Way of Thought about political issues, and some of us just don't understand that.

Your sweeping generalizations are breathtaking, I'll say that.
posted by pmurray63 at 8:28 AM on February 1, 2009 [2 favorites]

Like they were ever going to parrot this administration's talking points. In lieu of that what was their purpose?
posted by Challahtronix at 9:30 AM on February 1, 2009

I'm going to go out on a limb here and predict that, coincidentally, it's the side you're on.

What's hilarious here is that you think you've burned me sooooo badly by accusing me of thinking that I'm always right. Newsflash: every human being believes that every position they hold is correct. Anyone who says otherwise is objectively lying. If you believed that your positions were wrong, you'd change them. You're not exempt from that, no matter how warm the feelings are that you get from thinking you are.

Excuse me, but you're the one who started this.

Your very self-identification, as I've noticed, is an active insult to everyone who disagrees with you. Look at this thing that you say:

But then I guess it's easy to feel insulted, knowing that you hold the One True and Acceptable Way of Thought about political issues, and some of us just don't understand that.

You're doing the exact same thing! The difference between me and you isn't that one of us thinks he's right and you know better, it's our attitude toward other political philosophies. Of course I think I'm right- everyone does. But I acknowledge that there are valid political philosophies, and that disagreeing with me doesn't make you extreme, or irrational, or intolerant. Moderate-ism would be inoffensive if it didn't make that claim to solely embody reason and insight. It's not offensive that moderates claim to be able to see shades of grey. It's offensive that moderates appear to believe that they alone possess that power.
posted by Pope Guilty at 9:51 AM on February 1, 2009 [1 favorite]

Pope, I'm sure you have a perfectly functional rational facility. There are actually usually more than two sides to every issue, and any number of these sides can exist in the same head. For example, as you probably know, the brain's two halves are connected by a bunch of axons that run down the middle, called the corpus callosum. Sever these, and you will produce interesting results in that person's behavior. For example one of these patients who underwent this process (for epilepsy) was recorded as beating his wife with one hand and protecting her with the other.

I think you are mistaking tolerance (which includes say, setting hard limits on how I deal with people who trample my delicate sensibilities, for example my atheism does not extend to persecuting the religious, but I do tell doorbell missionaries to hop it) for passivity and submission, both of which are still extremes. I feel entitled to tell you to shove it, because you decided that my particular moral stance was somehow impinging on you and responsible for causing great harm, and I calculated that you are adult enough to get my sense of strong emotion about the topic, but not soch to violate social norms, actually injure anyone or poison discourse. I am not chill and never made a pretense of being chill. I'm just, unlike you, unimpressed by the idea of extremes.

I like a little socialism, a little free market. I understand that war is part of existing and keeping a competitive national advantage, but I don't think I like the process very much. I'm pro-population control, but I don't advocate ceasing to breed, I'm pro state funded education, but I still believe in individual right to educate your child as you wish. And so on. I personally think that these left/right distinctions we make are cultural shibboleths we use to define identity to justify fighting. In the company of those who claim to embrace the left, I'm a cruel conservative meany. In the company of the right, I'm a hysterical liberal softie.

Hence I indentify as moderate, because I think political extremes aren’t just a polarizing form of conflict liable to drag me in, if they’re making a pretence of being an absolute, that’s usually a giant lie. This is why you get people who argue only good feminists hate porn and feminist porn stars, both of which are probably working from equally valid starting points. Hell, I even understand that too much moderation can lead to apathy in the face of atrocity… but on the other hand, too much of what you’re advocating, and I’m another one of those types who gets tied to the stake for lack of fanatic fervor.

And yup, I can find a grey area in your rape/no rape dichotomy. I'm pro-violent porn, S&M faux rape and I accept it's physically impossible to remove rape from the human species without fundamentally changing what we are. That places me somewhere in the middle. I know this middle is defined by the wildly fluctuating and arbitrary poles of other people’s politics, but that doesn’t make me ‘reactionary’ (which according to my political science textbook definition refers to the sort of conservative trying to move back to the good old days) and it doesn’t make my politically conservative by the standard definitions of my era, it means that I’m not a very good team player. It’s a shortcoming as well as strength, but some of us were meant to join the resistance in the woods and some of us were meant to stay behind, but that doesn’t make me a societal dead weight or a source of danger.
posted by Phalene at 12:22 PM on February 1, 2009 [1 favorite]

Roger Simon sayeth:

Actually that part of our business has been losing money from the beginning, so the people getting their quarterly checks from PJM were getting a form of stipend from us in the hopes that advertisers would start to cotton to blogs and we could possibly make a profit. Didn’t happen. No wonder those people are kicking and screaming now that they are off the dole.
...
I’m sorry if people found the word “dole” insulting. I didn’t intend it that way.

posted by CCBC at 1:42 PM on February 1, 2009 [1 favorite]

in the hopes that advertisers would start to cotton to blogs and we could possibly make a profit. Didn’t happen

But who wouldn't want their product associated with batshitinsane ignoramuses?
posted by fleetmouse at 2:27 PM on February 1, 2009

Don't feed the troll, people.
posted by tkchrist at 3:21 PM on February 1, 2009

But who wouldn't want their product associated with batshitinsane ignoramuses?

Depends what the product is. If you listen to the late-night "Alien lizard people are setting up a New World Order with the power of telepathy" radio shows, you'll notice an awful lot of ads for snake-oil of all flavors, from "healing" copper bracelets to "make money fast in real estate" courses.

If you want to sell to gullible people, you go where the gullible people are.
posted by Sidhedevil at 8:22 PM on February 1, 2009 [2 favorites]

Moderates deserve ridicule.

μηδέν άγαν.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 10:57 PM on February 1, 2009

I think it's amusing that Pope Guilty chose rape as an example in his statement above:

...or will you argue that we need to find a balance between "no rape is ever acceptable" and "rape forever!"

When he previously posted a comment mocking someone for refusing to recognize nuance in the issue of rape.

No, I didn't go through his history looking for posts that contradict his positions here. I looked for that specific FPP because I was going to make the point that there are two sides, even for the rape example. It was just a lucky coincidence that he happened to have a contribution in that thread that was inconsistent with his all-moderates-are-dumbasses argument.

You haven't got an ideology, you haven't got any serious thought beyond the fact that actually taking a position makes you scared and nervous.

See, Pope Guilty, you can say that, but it doesn't make it true. You've created a straw man to beat up, but no self-identifying moderate exists as you've described. Forget what you've assumed about lily-livered nihilists and understand this: there is no weakness in entertaining the merits of viewpoints other than your own. That's what being a moderate really means, that you start with the question and seek the answer instead of the other way around. What's more, you can change your mind later, even on emotionally loaded issues, if you find out that your reasoning was flawed.

I'm sure you think that's a bunch of idealistic claptrap, and that no one holds to those principles entirely. And you'd be right... we all have our "sacred cows" that we're unwilling to question, and sometimes we simply can't be arsed to do the proper research on every single issue. Sometimes we'll even say a question is unanswerable altogether, which I'm sure you'd look upon with disdain as the last refuge of an intellectual coward.

To that I say, it's not a perfect system and nor does it need to be. But it's better than the alternative. What you're defending is public discourse in which all important truths are held to be self-evident, and as far as I'm concerned that's just a recipe for theocracy and fascism.
posted by Riki tiki at 2:34 AM on February 2, 2009 [1 favorite]

There aren't two sides to every issue. There is only one valid side on the slavery issue, only one valid side on the human rights issue, only one valid side on nearly every issue that exists- or will you argue that we need to find a balance between "no rape is ever acceptable" and "rape forever!"

No. There are far more than two sides to almost every issue. It's just that most of them are wrong. And even when the principles are right, the implementation can make it worse than doing nothing.

As for the rape case, the question is what counts as rape and what steps we should take. Consent needs to be given (of course). But does drunken consent count? Does implied consent count? Do we need to go to the rules at whichever liberal arts college it was where every step needed permission of the woman? Or should we go the whole way and encase all people in hermetic bubbles as some men and a few women are potential rapists (which is the logical conclusion of "no rape is ever acceptable and we should take all necessary measures to prevent it ever happening").

Slavery is wrong. War is wrong. Was the American Civil War and however many deaths involved worthwhile given that it ended slavery in America? You've got two competing categorical imperatives there. And I would question the intelligence of anyone who thought it was a simple question.

For a good example of the sort of stupid extremist who will not work with moderates, have a look at PETA. Yes, animal rights are important. But the approach taken by PETA is one that makes them a laughing stock unless their deliberate goal is simply to try to shift the Overton Window.

There aren't just two sides on any issue once you start counting methods. There normally aren't just two hundred. Although a good 90% of them will be wrong. And the extremists tend to latch onto the most simple and direct method they can find - which tends to upset the passionate (and dispassionate) moderates because by doing so they are risking a whole lot of other gains elsewhere.
posted by Francis at 5:16 AM on February 2, 2009

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:15 PM on February 2, 2009

Is it okay that I am fanatically moderate and endorse extreme temperance.

TAKE IT TO THE MIDDLE OR DIE! WELL, NOT DIE EXACTLY, BUT PERHAPS EXPERIENCE DISCOMFORT OF SOME SORT!
posted by tkchrist at 5:55 PM on February 2, 2009

For seeing shades of gray?

Us moderates and tolerants are always the first ones to get burned for the crime of patience and understanding. Say something like: "There's two sides to every issue" and someone like you accuses me of lacking logic or endorsing the politics they dislike.

But then I guess it's easy to feel insulted, knowing that you hold the One True and Acceptable Way of Thought about political issues, and some of us just don't understand that.

there is no weakness in entertaining the merits of viewpoints other than your own. That's what being a moderate really means, that you start with the question and seek the answer instead of the other way around. What's more, you can change your mind later, even on emotionally loaded issues, if you find out that your reasoning was flawed.

See, this is exactly what I'm talking about. You think that somehow, only moderates entertain other viewpoints, that anyone with a position other than your own has started with that position and only sought evidence to support it. That is arrogant to a level I can't even begin to approach, try though I might. You- no matter who you are and what you believe- are not the only reasonable person. Your positions are not the only reasonable positions, and having your positions does not endow you with, nor is it a mark of, having reason, empathy, tolerance, or any other positive trait in a way that other positions do not endow or signify.

This is what gets me about moderates- if you folks simply had your position, I'd still condemn it as inane, but that would be as far as it would go. The constant, seemingly universal arrogance of moderates who claim to be uniquely reasonable and tolerant and able to side multiple sides of an issue is absolutely infuriating.
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:05 AM on February 3, 2009

You think that somehow, only moderates entertain other viewpoints...

Yes, I do think that. On any given issue, you are a moderate by my definition if you are able to entertain the merits of other viewpoints.

...that anyone with a position other than your own has started with that position and only sought evidence to support it.

No. Wrong. And if you'd read and understood what people are writing here you wouldn't be asserting this.

As an example: I'm anti-death penalty. If you're pro-death penalty, and I ask you why, you could give any of the arguments I mentioned here (or any rational argument I haven't thought of) and I would respect your opinion, assume you came to an educated conclusion, and consider you a moderate on the issue. Maybe you don't call yourself a moderate, but I call you a moderate. To reiterate: I disagree with you, but I still consider you a moderate, and still respect your opinion.

Maybe you're imagining moderates as a political party, concerned about our collective message and solidarity. That is not accurate. I don't care one whit if other self-described moderates agree with me. It's not about the positions you take, it's about whether you came to them rationally.
posted by Riki tiki at 3:40 PM on February 3, 2009

Just to say, I think Pope Guilty's response to my comment is totally rational and valid.
posted by JHarris at 4:28 PM on February 5, 2009

Hmmm, Pope, maybe I think everyone's a moderate about something. You can't be very passionate about all things, as you would have time for more vital tasks like eating, between stoning people or having love-ins.

I believe if you say 'the other position has a measure of validity', you are a moderate. You also don't have to have a firm position based on the options provided by someone else's political ideas, and there is no moral obligation to hear everyone out on any issue, any more than you're obligated to allow strangers to present a case for why they should be allowed to have sex with you.

The fact that you are so hot under the collar about moderates suggests you're the one with the problem, since provided that they're not actively impinging on me or trying to abrogate my rights, I feel about extremists as I do about football fans. It's nice it makes other people happy, but I'm not interested. This disinterest does not preclude me being able to respond to extreme statements like 'I think all women should stay home and have babies/be sterile career minded lesbians' with 'Pfffft!' and dismissive hand gestures. I'm still a moderate, just a crabby one. I'm moderate in this respect, because I don't go to ladies against feminism or a male free lesbian commune to be dismissive, I merely respond if it passes through my radar.
posted by Phalene at 6:52 PM on February 6, 2009

I believe if you say 'the other position has a measure of validity', you are a moderate.

The problem with this is that you're still taking a positive trait which is present across the board and assigning it exclusively to your group. That you acknowledge its widespreadness is meaningless because you're essentially saying that anyone who has this trait is part of you. Well, I'm not part of you. We probably disagree on a great number of issues. We could certainly be grouped together in the larger group of "people who consider the possibility of multiple positions being correct", but to assign language to that which implies political similarity is, to my mind, dishonest and insulting.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:03 AM on February 8, 2009