I wear the cheese. It does not wear me.
Salon is making a list of notable bloggers and naturally we are rooting for our favorite blogger to take her place in history. War Room's Hack 30, the "thirty worst pundits in America," "are the most predictable, banal, intellectually dishonest and all-around hacky newspaper columnists, cable news shouting heads and political opinion-mongers working today....We cut the list down to 30 people whose continued employment most baffles us, and then we ranked them in order of shamelessness."
What could be more shameless than Megan McArdle's flagrant double standards, as well as her lies and more subtle omissions and shadings? What could be more predictable than her heart-felt and unwavering support for bankers and their compensation? What could be more intellectually dishonest than her attacks on Paul Krugman, Elizabeth Warren, and anyone too smart to support invading other countries for no reason?
Salon must choose McArdle. What other pundit has made a name for herself by specializing in failure, thereby becoming the living embodiment of the irresponsibility and selfish destructiveness of the corporate media?
31 comments:
I'm going Jonah. He is a best-selling author!
Joanh's a shoe-in. But surely McArdle will make the cut too? The suspense is killing me.
Bill Kristol (!) couldn't even crack the top 15, coming in at number 17.
There is only suspense because you will have to wait for #1...
I don't know. We are a country rich in hack pundits.
I would have to go with Jonah too. But, you know I want to make sure we get some of the top "reasonable" pundits too-- that would be Broder and Friedman.
Then you have your evil Hoover institution hacks-- Vic Hanson and Thomas Sowell.
It is quite suspenseful and exciting.
I do hope there will be some sort of awards ceremony. (yes, yes, I know-- quite often the Pulitzer Prize for Opinion writing works quite well for this purpose.)
There's only fifteen spots left? You could fill that up with only TownHall d00ds.
The fact is you could fill the entire list of thirty with just Chuck Norris.
I suppose they're not delving into the bottom of teh blogger barrel and some minimum level of influence is required. Although, SE Cupp not only made the cut, but the logo as well.
Anyways, I'm going with the surprise twist "balance" pick for #1 - Krugthulu.
Yeah, SE Cupp threw me too. She's not as mainstream or influential as McArdle, although the former did get on Maher.
Its not enough. Just holding these people up to the light isn't enough. Still, I have enjoyed the little precis.
aimai
That SE Cupp quote is pure gold. Especially since her genes are not likely to get as far as great grandchildren if she keeps eating that trout out of the Housatonic. [link is pdf]
I'm not so optimistic that Megan will make it. Fingers crossed indeed.
I have to second the vote for McAddled. Who else would blame a magnitude of 10 mistake on her calculator?
Also too, she comes from "a family of academics who are actually intellectually intimidating".
P.S. Thanks, Susan, for the supporting comment at Edroso's Running Scared (I'm "David in NYC" over there).
Salon's writers are pretty hacky themselves, Greenwald aside. Not exactly the Blind-mocking-the-Blind, but close.
With 10 left to go, Karnak predicts:
Beck
Limbaugh
Coulter
Broder
Cohen
Matthews
Modo
Tinky
Breitbart
Hannity
As a pundit, Megan has never made the bigs. For the record:
11. George Will
12. John Fund
13. Roger Simon
14. David Ignatius
15. Mort Zuckerman
16. Michael Barone
17. Bill Kristol
18. Tina Brown
19. Joe Klein
20. Howard Fineman
21. S.E. Cupp
22. Tucker Carlson
23. Howard Kurtz
24. Dana Milbank
25. Mickey Kaus
26. Jeffrey Goldberg
27. Pat Caddell
28. Andrew Malcolm
29. Matt Bai
30. David Brooks
Coulter, Beck, Limbaugh and Breitbart? Not sure. The impression I got from the list is that it focuses on serious pundits (read: shit-for-brains some people actually take seriously) and there McMegan would fit the bill perfectly, whereas ScaryLady, Commander CuckooBanana, Rushbo and Fuckbart are hacks, plain and simple. I therefore vote/predict Our Lady of the nuclear fusion (still my favorite bit of hers, confusing fusion with fission), Friedman and Jonah making it into top ten and I hope that obnoxious limey prick Sullivan will be included as well.
Given the nickname "Sully the Pooh", I can only wish him a fiery end. Unfortunately, the Sullivan collective has a minimal connection with reality, and the common element so far is that the pundits lie like rugs.
Plus, this is kind of funny -
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/03/alien-vs-pooh.html
George Will is #11. They're going for the big guns now. I think McCardle is too niche. I would really like to see the mustache at the top of the list (with links to Taibbi's seminal works, of course). I think his evilness is more insidious. I'm tired of being told we need to become engineers and work 30 hours a day. I'm tired of being told that new features on your cell phone is the same as a rising standard of living. I'm tired of his incredible hypocrisy when it comes to the environment (and his inability to grasp that unlimited economic growth might have environmental consequences).I'm tired of the way he pretends that he was right all along about the two wars we're fighting. Mostly, I'm tired of the fact that someone who is so consistently wrong on pretty much everything continues to have such a bully pulpit.
Things are looking grim if you are gunning for McAddled. MoDo, Peggy Noonan-- we're in more rarefied company now.
Noonan, then Ingraham and Dowd. Yeah, definitely creme de la creme.
Probably gonna pass over people who had their big start as bloggers or else Glenn Reynolds would be on there already.
Megan is barely on Pareene's radar anyway.
Yes, it looks like McArdle is too B-List to make the cut. But I have confidence that if the New American Foundation continues financially supporting and promoting McArdle one day she, too, can rise to the top of hackdom.
McArdle needs to write a book right away. It will give her gravitas and give me more material.
Predictions: Friedman, Broder, Hanson, Sowell will be in there. Maybe Sullivan.
..or maybe Marty Peretz if he counts.
Where will Krauthammer place?
Nooners, Theissen, MoDo, Pantload & Ingraham
I'm starting to think that instead of the individual WaPo miscreants, he'll bring out Hiatt.
"McArdle needs to write a book right away. It will give her gravitas and give me more material."
Gack! Wash your mouth out, SoT!
Besides, she can't afford a ghostwriter to do a book, and she's too lazy to copypasta her own from past blog entries.
-AWS
@Downpuppy:
"I'm starting to think that instead of the individual WaPo miscreants, he'll bring out Hiatt."
He probably could have done that in the first place and saved quite a few spots for other hacks. The WaPo pundit stable is especially full of ... hacks.
-AWS
Yeah, but what kind of book would it be?
A recipe book for yuppies I'm thinking.
"How To Serve Man"
I dunno. Don't you think Kathleen Parker deserves a good slamming?
McMegan was robbed! (It must be the getting married thing; people using McSuderman diminishes her influence.)
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