Sadly, No!

Amy Alkon says she has outed some guy who posted a mean comment on her blog.

Somehow this has something to do with us. We gave this person his ‘marching orders’ or something.

My own view is that mockery is lots of lulz, etc. but stupid mockery like asking someone, ‘Are you a tranny?’ is, well, stupid. And offensive. And anti-lulz. I would personally but strongly advise not doing that kind of shit.

Gavin adds: I’m reading Alkon’s narrative, where she tracks the poor guy down, calls him at work, and bullies him on the phone, and I have truthfully never seen a more sobering example of batshit-crazy, out-of-all-proportion, obsessive-compulsive meanness.

I think if we take her side, even notionally, we lose a bit of our humanity. She was getting back at us through the guy she tracked down — and it would seem that she did it because the rush of campaign-waging that she so enjoys, the center-of-attention thrill of righteously waving her arms and yelling at someone, had started to fade, since we were no longer despicably assaulting her free speech by making fun of her on the Internet. That is, she needed to start it up again somehow. And voila, as so often happens, someone posted a brief, snarky comment on a blog post, giving her an excuse to go screamingly bonkers.

…Against the world, as it were, as represented by some particular person she can take on and ‘win’ against, through sheer force of attention span.

We told Alkon awhile ago that if she went this route, public opinion would be with the poor slob she ‘outed,’ and not with the public figure who went after him. This is the kind of thing that people notice, far outside the little world of political blogs.

Tintin adds: Welcome to the upside-down world of Amy Alkon. Posting a snarky comment on her site is an attempt to punish her for her free speech but, of course, tracking down the guy who made the comment and trying to get him fired isn’t an attempt to punish him for his free speech. And he’s punishing her by forcing her to take time away from writing her book to track him down at work, call his superiors and scream at him like a deranged homeless person, which, of course, takes only a fraction of the time it does to push the “delete comment” button.

I swear, every time you nip off to the store for a quart of milk, you come back to find that they’ve whooped up another one.

The Greek Temple thing has been wafting around the blogs for a little while, and it’s so far beyond the usual, day-to-day right-wing flapdoodle that it seems to have rendered John Hinderaker almost funny.* Now the GOP, apparently running low on ideas and messages or something, has taken it up as an actual complaint.

The ever-wise Jesse at Pandagon issues a plea:

Funkdaddy Supreme’s House O’ Speech

[…]

What is the proper method for such a presumptuous man as this to accept the nomination of his party? It’s obviously not in any way that a Republican would accept it, because the very acts of hubris that make a man like Obama a foppish dandy dippily doodling his way along to the Oval Office are tamed and converted into powerfully heterosexual normality by the sheer pulsating power of Reaganism. Shall Obama accept the nomination on an upscaled corner stoop, James Clyburn and Maxine Waters shuffling by with a curt, respectful head nod? Should the nomination of the first major party black candidate in America’s history happen in a gloriously reimagined welfare line, where a dolled-up John Kerry dressed as Uncle Sam hands him the welfare check of the $400,000 a year Presidential salary?

Please, you heartland patriots, design the Black Liberal’s Acceptance Speech. And don’t skimp on the Black Power salutes, either.

Above: The moment we’ve all been waiting for

* Oops, we spoke too soon — Hindy copied it from the zany jokesters in the McCain campaign. [Hanx! Doctorb]

Above: Motörhead – ‘It’s Obama’ (2:24)

Well, that’s that.

[…]

[…]

Doop-de-doop, watchin’ CNN.

[…]

…Oh, okay; let’s see what they’re saying over at Talk Left.

I keep thinking of that line from Star Wars
by Eleanor A on Wed Aug 27, 2008 at 05:05:42 PM EST

when the Senate votes for Palpatine: “So this is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause.”

Speaking for me only.

That sharp, wet explosion you heard before was Larry Johnson’s spleen.

ZOMG teh Great Orange Satan himself is, like, standing right across the table from me, talking with Jane and Pach. Hillary’s yakkin’ on the big screen. Ok, I shouldn’t say that — she’s very magnanimous and gracious. Oh, classy. God, I swear I can feel Kos’s Orangeness from here; I’m getting an Orangetan. I think I hate America and want an abortion. There’s free beer around here somewhere……

Holy shit there’s Atrios! I’m going to introduce myself as Adam Yoshida. BRB.

Update: Dude is so smooth. He’s all like, ‘Hi, Adam, how are you?’ Then I go, “Blargh! Put teh Muslims in human-sized microwaves!!!” And then I got a beer.

Update Crowd is beginning to thin. Jane and Pach have left. Spencer’s out partying. Most people have a beer in their hand; I, like a moron, got an IPA on accident. Ptooie! Big cheer here for Maxine Waters, and rightly so. OH, WANT: Athenae from First Draft has a ‘DFH’ sticker on her laptop. She’s so awesome. Okay, dude at the end of the table, from Flprogressive, made them. Now Jon Tester just showed up and got immediately surrounded or perhaps mobbed is a better way of putting it. His flattop is impressive in person.

Update For Jay in comments : Even more pathetic than milquetoast leftwing bloggers, you’re trolling that leftwing blogger, Jay. Fuck off.

Speaking of asshole Jays, a few people at the neighboring table led a raucous chant of “Jello Jay Sucks,” to great applause and approval. Ok, Jay Rockefeller, right. Terrible speaker.

ABOVE: Mencken on location

---

Welp, I’m on the phone trying to get Mencken, at long last, into the DNC Big Tent (population: 400 bloggers and blog-related people). Apparently, there’s simply no more room for a single other person, along with their having him down as Josh Marshall — and not being able to correct the name on the credential because what if Josh Marshall shows up unannounced?

In short, it hasn’t reached the vodka and sobbing stage yet, but it’s still early in the afternoon.

Anyway, we know for a fact that there’s room for one more in the Big Tent, because what about this guy?

Reply to: [email protected]
Date: 2008-08-26, 9:36AM MDT

This is a credential that will get you into the what’s called the perimeter. You’ll be able to move around the entire pepsi center but not actually inside the pepsi. You will have access to the media pavilions and get into all events the press has been invited to

Classy move, Yglesias. Like you really needed the extra hundred bucks.

This just in, as well:

Blue Dog party shuts out Amy Goodman, Glenn Greenwald, and Jane Hamsher despite credentials.
by: ctrenta
Wed Aug 27, 2008 at 07:05:12 PDT

h/t to Raw Story for covering this. Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now!, and A-list bloggers Glenn Greenwald and Jane Hamsher were all shut out of a Blue Dog Democrat party sponsored by AT & T. All three of them had press credentials. Here’s how Amy Goodman covered the event [link]. Welcome to the Dems version of Dick Cheney’s energy council.

Because, you know, for awhile there we were thinking it was something against us personally.

Welp, back to business…