Marcotte's A Piece Of Work Theater

I've seen some complaints or disagreement over the whole Amanda Marcotte affair. I don't get it. They don't call it BushCo. for nothing. Arguably the most important decisions every US President makes involve hiring and appointing everything from judges, cabinet secretaries, to assistants. The decisions Edwards makes now are the only examples we have of his judgment. And the judgment of his judgment can't be good.

If someone can't express themselves politically over a period of years without constantly using filth - a filth that betrays a pretty sad and twisted view of the political world, then they don't belong on a serious campaign.

Invoking memories of Leonard Pinth-Garnell, a theatrical look at some of Amanda Marcotte's less than masterful work via Hot Air.

Update: Sopho-moronic, yes - but it seems the name of Marcotte's blog was intended as an insult to the Pentagon. No doubt Edwards will be sure and mention that in any press release using the blog name. And you need the Wayback link above to see it, as the post has been deleted. Didn't Marcotte learn anything about the Internet, or real world politics in all this time? And, if she was such a panda-gone of wisdom on the Left, why so ashamed about her blog now?

The Definitive Answer
Why is this site named Pandagon?

It started back in my freshman year of college. I give great hugs (and this is not just my estimation, but the opinion of literally hundreds of hugged people over the years). This, and a bunch of college kids sitting around deciding what our spirit animals would be.

Anyway, I needed a name for a website. I was joking around with someone, and we came up with the idea of a military-industrial complex full of pandas, given that pandas are actually large, surly, angry animals who would be warlike if it involved food. And this complex would be called the Pandagon.

Originally, it was just supposed to be a satirical take involving a series of ever-escalating panda wars, but then I decided that the idea wasn't actually that compelling - but I loved the name.

So, ladies and gentlemen - the story of Pandagon.

Comments

[Zifnab]

"The decisions Edwards makes now are the only examples we have of his judgment."

Because Heaven Forbid we judge him on his voting record or his charity work.

[Carl]

2 words for you sheep: Harriet Myers. Now get back to staying the course and completing the mission.

[Dan Riehl]

I am completing it. I'm on a mission from God, doncha know.

[JimK]

Carl, are you saying it's fair to judge Bush by the staff choices he makes, but it's not fair to judge Edwards the same way? If you judge Harriet Meyers as a poor choice - and you'd be right - and this poor choice reflects badly on Bush's judgement...then how can you be the tiniest bit put out that others would judge Edwards by that same criteria?

[Doug]

JimK nailed it. There is absolutely no difference between appointing someone to the highest court in the country and hiring someone to write for a campaign blog. And shame on you libs for suggesting that there is.

[JimK]

Doug, way to miss the frigging point. It's about judgment, and Edwards is asking us to elect him to the same exact job as Bush, where he will have to make the same decisions about staff and appointments.

Surely you aren't so thick that you don't see that?

[Legalize]

Jim, the point is that Bush nominated Harriet Myers to be an associate justice on the bench of the highest court in the land, yet she couldn't pass a first year con. law quiz. You would think, when making an appointment of that magnitude a little deliberation and vetting would be called for - just a little? Marcotte is a BLOGGER. And there is very little difference between what she does and what many many many bloggers, on both sides do. Do you see that the two matters of "judgment" aren't remotely analagous. Can you name a single employer who hasn't made a mistake in hiring someone?

[JimK]

Edwards is asking me, a net-savvy citizen and blogger, to trust him and elect him to the highest office in the land. If you are so blinded by party loyalty that you can't admit that his EVERY decision is up for review from now until he loses the primary to Hillary, then you're not exactly playing with a full deck.

He's asking for Bush's job. He's started out by hiring one of the most hateful, viscious little slanderers the blogging left has to offer in order to court me, the net-savvy voter who reads blogs.

Are you suggesting that doesn't reflect on his skills at reading people, picking employees and his judgment?

[The Liberal Avenger]

Nice update, Dan.

I'm sure that The Pentagon appreciates you defending its honor.

[Dan Riehl]

"who hasn't made a mistake in hiring someone?"

You decide to run for President (for the second time) - you're going to spend millions and ask an entire country to put their almost absolute trust in you ... and one of your first, albeit minor, decisions, right out of the gate is to put someone who has offended at least half the people you will need to vote for you to win, on your payroll? Add that to the whole house kerfluffle, which he could have managed to avoid by having it done before now ... and Edward's udgment, particularly his political judgment, looks incredibly weak. Maybe it comes from not showing up for work, as Cheney stated when he smacked him down in the primary.

Come on, this is all lighht-weight stuff. Hillary will eat Edwards for lunch.

[Purple Avenger]

"yet she couldn't pass a first year con. law quiz."

I'm no Myers fan or basher, but there is no constitutional requirement for a SCOTUS justice to even be a judge or lawyer previously. The framers must have wanted to allow for the a "common man" to be appointed. I believe its the only Federal judicial posting where prior legal experience is not required.

[Zifnab]

If Edwards wanted to make Marcotte the Attorney General, you'd be absolutely right in your criticism JimK. However, as has been previously stated many many times, that is not the case.

No one is faulting Bush for picking Harriet Miers as his personal lawyer. She graduated top in her class from her University and she's down well by him until now - or at least until he sacked her a few months ago. We're faulting him for picking her as a Supreme Court Justice when she doesn't have any bench experience and apparently can't handle simple law questions on demand. We're also faulting him for invading Iraq.

Edwards picked a blogger to run his blog. A sensible choice. If he'd choosen Janet Reno to run his blog, we'd have all piled on for making such a stupid mistake. Janet Reno doesn't have a blog and she has no blogging experience I am aware of.

That's the difference. Comprende?

[JimK]

"Edwards picked a blogger to run his blog. A sensible choice."

No, he picked a foul-mouthed, hate-filled little bundle of accusation, vitriol and lies posing as a blogger. One who is now desperately trying to sanitize her online history in order to fit in.

Can you "comprende" why that is grounds for questioning his judgment?

[Legalize]

Jim, he's not asking you to support him for presidnet. Net-savy you may be - his liberal base, no. I'm saying that the inane assertions that the choice is somehow a moral reflection of his judgment or character is absurd, especially coming from Dan Riehl of all people. It's a calculated political decision. If right wing blogs feel that they can be successful in perpetrating their manifestos via cartoons like Atlas Shrugged, it stands to reason that Edwards THINKS he can do the same. He's not after Riehl's vote.

You have to remember that his ONLY shot in this campaign is to capture the most liberal of primary voters, otherwise, yes Hillary and Obama will own him before 6 months is up; he can't afford to play the center like they can. There are alot of liberals looking for the anti-Hillary. They have a strong voice, but ultimately it will probably not carry the day. We had our Dean, and he failed. Edwards is not Dean and he will fail as well, but by tapping into the one bloc he can reach, he forces the terms of the debate to focus on the issues he wants to get out there. Hilary and Obama have to answer because at THIS POINT he is relevant. In any event, asking a BLOGGER to run a blog intended to access the only base Edwards has a real shot at tapping into is the most sensible thing he can do, short of not running at all. It will keep him around long enough to see Iowa maybe his home state. Otherwise he has no shot of getting anywhere close to Hillary or Obama, and no shot of shaping the debate.

[TheSpartan]

"No, he picked a foul-mouthed, hate-filled little bundle of accusation, vitriol and lies posing as a blogger."

I thought Dick Cheney already had a job?

[Teresa J Anthony]

I say.. continue what you're doing Edwards, and you will take a back seat to Hillary and Obama. This time you won't even get the VP nod. As far as the picking of Harriet Myers, I am sure that one of the reasons Bush picked her was because of the rant/chant that a woman should be picked to replace a woman justice. NOT the best reason for appointing someone to such an office. But, you libs love that type of ill-logic. The affirmative action type of thought process. However, if you are running for Office of the President and you pick a vile, vitriolic and vendictive voice to represent you on the websphere you are a fool wanting to be in last place... lends to the vetting process don't you think? Or is that just to much logic for a liberal? I know that is unchartered waters, but give it a try..

[Zifnab]

"No, he picked a foul-mouthed, hate-filled little bundle of accusation, vitriol and lies posing as a blogger."

Now you're just being redundant. And saying that on Dan Riehl's blog - one that just a week ago carried a now-deleted piece about his desire to see a bus full of anti-war protesters explode - carries with it a level of ironic redundancy that actually takes my brain a bit of time to work around.

"We had our Dean, and he failed."

Dean didn't fail the left, the left failed Dean. And then he picked them up and dragged them - kicking and screaming - to victory two years later. So if by "failed" you mean, "was pinned to the cross of 'electability', died, was burried, and on the next election cycle rose again to Judge the faithful" then yes. Howard Dean is Jesus.

But I probably wouldn't take the analogy that far as that would just be silly.

[Purple Avenger]

"Edwards picked a blogger to run his blog. A sensible choice."

There are plenty of liberal bloggers who aren't foaming at the mouth DU style loons. That he chose one who is is very telling.

[LOL]

okay dan "i hate comparisons to hitler" riehl

it's fresh to hear you commenting about a blogger's integrity

ur just lonely tho

[JimK]

"Now you're just being redundant. And saying that on Dan Riehl's blog"

I'm saying it here because here is where I found the discussion. I make no statements about Dan.

I also don't see him getting hired to run a presidential campaign blog, but we digress.

Can you imagine the President of the United States employing this writer?

---------------
In the meantime, I’ve been sort of casually listening to CNN blaring throughout the waiting area and good fucking god is that channel pure evil. For awhile, I had to listen to how the poor dear lacrosse players at Duke are being persecuted just because they held someone down and fucked her against her will—not rape, of course, because the charges have been thrown out.

Can’t a few white boys sexually assault a black woman anymore without people getting all wound up about it?

So unfair.

Yes, how dare a rape victim act confused and bewildered like she was raped or something.

Natalia, do you know the details of the case? If so, why do you think a women enthusiastically jumped into a sexual situation with men making slavery jokes at her? Furthermore, what is your theory on why she supposedly looooooved having sex with guys holding her facedown on the bathroom floor? There’s no “if” they behaved in a disrespectful manner. We have conclusive evidence that happened.

This is about race and class and gender in every way, and there’s basically no way this woman was going to see justice. In her part of the country, both women and black people are seen as subhuman objects to be used and abused by white men.
---------------

I can't even begin to list all the ways that should be offensive to progressives of any stripe, not the least of which is that it pisses on the concept of innocent until proven guilty.

[yyy]

Did Dan really remove the post about wishing the anti war protesters whould be hit by cars?

How typical.

[Zifnab]

Ok, for the record, everything that is wrong with FOX News is equally wrong with CNN except slightly less biased.

Secondly, Marcotte isn't the judge on the case. If she thinks they're guilty and she wants to run on that assumption, maybe its poor judgement, but it's not really poor blogging. Bloggers aren't encouraged to be lukewarm or lack opinions.

Thirdly, OJ Simpson was never criminally convicted of murder, but I still wouldn't try to hit on his ex-wife. I've seen Nancy Grace shout shrillier, nasty things. So this is hardly the be-all end-all of bad media ethics.

Fourthly, the "evidence" as presented by Nifong did seem to support the rape allegations. Marcotte isn't omnicient. And the right-wing was being particularly shrill about "poor disenfranchised rich white kids", calling the stripper a ho, saying she asked for it, and generally being giant douches. In the face of the rather callious and thick-headed cat calls coming from Right Blogostain, Marcotte was crying foul on the preconceived image of four lacross guys holding down a small black woman and raping her, which so many on the right didn't seem to have a problem with. The fact that later evidence disproved this senario doesn't make the senario less offensive or make Marcotte more wrong in being offended by it. It just makes her wrong in believing the prosecutor.

That's all she's really guilty of, believing the words of DA Nifong in the middle of a rape case and not holding her tongue till the verdict is in. If media outlets were gagged from making social commentary and half-assed prediction regarding an ongoing investigation, 24-hour news would need to fill an extra 23 hours. So, basically, give it a rest.

[RepusYort]

Funny how Dan went to all the trouble of digging up the "Why it is named Pandagon" post, but left off the byline. The fact that it was written by the then owner of Pandagon, Jesse Taylor, wouldn't be one of those uncomfortable facts that you left out in your need to get the lil' lady, would it Dan?

[alex]

I know this sounds like nitpicking, but Amanda actually didn't write the post you're referring to. That post was written by Jesse Taylor, who started Pandagon.

Attacking the judgment of a candidate for hiring someone who runs a blog whose name is based on some conversation that an entirely different person had with his buddies when he was probably 19 or 20, which is only insulting to the Pentagon if you're just looking to find insult, seems to me a bit off base.

[RepusYort]

Plus if you were gonna insult a building (and I'll leave aside questions about how the build had feelings to hurt) like the Pentagon, wouldn't it be far more truthful and hilarious to point out that from the air it looks like a giant anus than some cutsey animal nickname?

I mean I know as a lefttist moonbat, I'm supposed to be thrilled with disrespecting the pentagon, but c'mon.

[yyy]

The ring wing nutters just like the idea of destroying people. It wouldn't matter if this woman's blogs were the picture of modesty and thoughfulness rather than the somewhat immature reactionary stuff she posted. When they think they might be able to "get" someone, they go for broke. The nutters can ALWAYS find something that smacks of treason, terrorist loving, American hating or some other crime against humanity.

[RepusYort]

Errrr, "buildings with feelings to hurt". My error. Behold the power of the self correcting comment-o-sphere.

[LOL]

its no surprise dan would try to deceive his readers

[Dan Riehl]

"now-deleted piece about his desire to see a bus full of anti-war protesters explode ... How typical."

Liars, both of you - here's the proof.

http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/2007/01/think_positivel.html

[Zifnab]

In other news, Edwards has released his healthcare plan. But since he hired Marcotte to run his blog, it probably sucks.

[jj]

i can't decide whether dan is really this dimwitted and banal, or if this isn't some Colbert-style ruse... i give up!

[Kimberly]

"It wouldn't matter if this woman's blogs were the picture of modesty and thoughfulness rather than the somewhat immature reactionary stuff she posted."

Yes, it would. That was the ENTIRE POINT OF THIS POST. Her stuff is incredibly immature and stupid and it's mind-boggling that Edwards would hire her. I wouldn't trust her to be able to change a light bulb by herself without turning it into a screed about how evil all white men are.

Unlike most lefties, I believe in judging someone by their actions. Yes, perhaps as Edward's blogmaster she will change her tone, clean up her language, and post something actually worth reading, but I've seen little of her work so far to suggest that she is capable of rising above her pathetic bigotry. Her mind appears far too narrow for that.

[Pablo]

"There are plenty of liberal bloggers who aren't foaming at the mouth DU style loons. That he chose one who is is very telling."

As I've said repeatedly, he'd have been better off with Oliver Willis. And, he could pay him in Ring Dings.

[DansAmoonbat]

The thread was gone and now it's back.

Behold the power of the blog.

[Dan Riehl]

"The thread was gone"

Behold the power of intelligence, you moron. I could have deleted and banned the commenters if I were into hiding content. But if a few of you degenerate into baseless accusations against me, then I will move you on. We can argue and disagree, but do not accuse me of crap that wasn't done to try and score points. Keep it up and as I said, you're gone.

[Doug]

This is beyond hilarious. Amanda Marcotte wasn't even one of the original founders of Pandagon -- that post in which Dan tries to "expose" the origins of the blog's name was written, if memory serves, nearly a year before Amanda even joined it in the first place.

And the whole "Amanda deletes entire months' worth of posts!1!1!1!" non-scandal has been debunked.

Oh, Dan. I can just picture you with your little Matt Drudge reporter's hat, poring over the Internets for additional "evidence" of Marcotte's awfulness. I bet when you found that Pandagon/Pentagon thing, you got so excited you almost wet yourself, huh? Too bad it was lame, irrelevant, and inaccurate . . . though, in fairness, it's pretty much in keeping with everything else on this blog.

[RepusYort]

That's just suspicious and the last refuge of a coward. The post was unavailable, now its back. Obviously Dan is just waiving his hands here. Next thing you know he'll blame "technical issues" for all his other assinine posts that are currently unavailable.

(Not really I changed the name Amanda for Dan in a comment I saw elsewhere.)

[jimbob]

A commenter raised a pretty good point. If Marcotte is the standard for "unhinged blogger", then Dan, by his own standard, would then not only never be able to work for any politician, but should probably be kept away from the rest of society.

[RepusYort]

Funny how nearly a hour after it was pointed out (and two front page posts, so we know you're there, Dan) he still hasn't properly attributed the quote he cites properly.

If the EMMM-ESSS-EMMM were this sloppy we'd be on "MISQUOTE GATE" volume MXLIV, replete with six dozen posts from Malkin, a vaugely words but threatening post from powerline, a couple of random comment threads from LGF, that always seem to degenerate into rants about "Mooselimbs" and a post or two of banality from our own Dan.

Instead we get uncorrected errors. Way to replace the Emm-Ess-Emmm with something better, Dan.

[scarshapedstar]

This is piling on, but who cares? I remember reading that post when it was new. And that was back in the Jesse and Ezra days. This post is wrong... Riehlly wrong!™

But, yeah, I'm sure the world is shocked and horrified to know that... Jesse Taylor is cuddly?

[RepusYort]

Still no correction on the by line of the quoted post? I'm shocked I tell you, SHOCKED that such a blantant mischaracterization would stand on such a highly rated (snicker) blog!

What about the self correcting nature of the wank-o-sphere? I suppose the next thing you'll be telling me that there's no Santa, either.

[Pablo]

RepusYort, where is the statement about the byline that needs correction? I don't (snicker) see one. Can you (snicker) quote it?

BTW, Santa is really Maj Gen. Rick "Blood and Guts" Ellersburg. It's time you knew that.

[RepusYort]

It was offered in a post about Amanda Marcotte, and given the fact that Dan went to the trouble of cutting and pasting everything but the by-line one would easily assume that was written by the subject and not in fact a third party having nothing to do with the question at hand.

Dan really needs to change that. His "credibility" such as it is might suffer.

[Seitz]

If someone can't express themselves politically over a period of years without constantly using filth - a filth that betrays a pretty sad and twisted view of the political world, then they don't belong on a serious campaign.

You mean like Dick "Go fuck yourself, you big time asshole" Cheney?

I wonder if Dan would write a similar post if a conservative candidate were to higher Senor Cockslap.

[Seitz]

"higher"

Oops, make that "hire".

See, Dan, that's what a correction looks like. Still waiting for your correction on the Pandagon excerpt above, liar.

[Granda Cee]

WhaddaImiss?? Did Amanda threaten to put rat poison in Bush's puddin'? Or call Laura a dyke? Insult Marvin? Did she call McCain's wife names?

Always go first for the denigration of a woman's appearance! You shoulda call her bushbaby! That would have fixed her wagon.

[The Liberal Avenger]

Always go first for the denigration of a woman's appearance! You shoulda call her bushbaby! That would have fixed her wagon.

That's our Dan!

[JimK]

Do blog-trolling lefties ever stay on topic, or is this really the level of discourse that KosKids and DUers bring to the table?

Amanda is a hateful, vile human being who could not be a worse choice to represent a man who wants to be president. Everything else being yammered about in this thread is a distraction.

STOP FALLING FOR THESE PATHETIC TRICKS, PEOPLE. Stay on topic - what a horrible human being Amanda Marcotte is.

[scarshapedstar]

As Rush Limbaugh might say:

The Self-Correcting Blogosphere Held Hostage, Day One...

[Pablo]

RepusYort, can I take that as "No, I can't quote that which I insist requires correction."?

Man, leftists are funny.