Perhaps her greater strength lies in the after party.

Lotta Blue Doggie privilege in her comments. Appalling how they find each other, whether in the blogosphere or cleaning up after cocktail parties.

I thought they’d put a leash on her commenting after the Taibbatrocity, but she’s completely impervious.

Megan McArdle (Replying to: Downpuppy) July 10, 2009 6:52 PM
No, his facts are wrong, his conclusions are wrong, and only his discomfort with Goldman Sachs’ role in our public life is correct. Since that’s about 5% of the essay, and he doesn’t even explore THAT in any interesteing way, F-

Reply

Megan McArdle (Replying to: Megan McArdle) July 10, 2009 9:48 PM
Or perhaps a better way to say it is that the facts are right, but the mini narratives are ludicrously wrong, which makes the meta narrative suspect.

She’s dumber than Palin. All those goddamned Palins.

What, is stupid the new chic? If I pull stuff out of my ass can I write for Atlantic (Esquire, NYT, WaPo) too? This is one of those times in history when thoughtful editorialists could help to give us some perspective and instead we have a confederacy of ignorant, illiterate, cocksuckers endlessly trying to convince us that working out their their personal obsessions and bizarre hangups in print is profound and insightful.

You’d think that after everyone in the known universe whapped her over the head for inaccuracies in her writing about health care, that she’d take some time to educate herself on the subject. The Atlantic should be ashamed.

My oldest son pulls well-reasoned, factually correct BRILLIANCE out of his ass, and he hasn’t hit the big time in journalism yet. He’s not a hater, you see, or a Podhoretz.

Or well connected within the incestuous cesspit that is The Village. I hope that your son doesn’t become disheartened and that he keeps on. He has my best wishes.

Americans have been dinged for an extra $2.5BB since the public option was shut down in the 90’s. Oh well…the issue isn’t going away. We’ll continue the flogging until the last lobbyist gets his claim denied. Then we might see reform.

You’re presuming that McMegan has a core competence. I’m not sure that’s warranted.

Took the words right out of my mouth. Megan wouldn’t know competence if it bit her in her bony little ass.

Oh my FSM. As much as I enjoyed the recent epic smackdowns of McArdle, that one should be bronzed and preserved for the ages.

“Let me lecture you on Renaissance theater! Wait, who’s this Shakespeare fellow of whom you speak?”

Ya know what else has gone up in price since 2002? Food. Cars. Beer. Cigarettes. Porn subscriptions (at least according to my … ahem .. buddy Erick). Car insurance. Marijuana. Socks. Pretty much everything costs more than it did in 2002, the only thing that has deflated is the quality of dipshit wannabe pundits. Belize, here I come.

Stupid is now a REQUIREMENT for publication. I spent 30 years as a professional writer and editor. Earlier this year, I submitted a freelance piece on a fairly technical aspect of proposed aviation rulemaking. The magazine’s editor kicked it back with a page of notes of things he wanted removed from the article because he felt the details of the story would just be too much for his (highly technically literate) audience to deal with. In subsequent conversations, it turned out he really wanted a piece about how the proposed new rules “felt” and he did not want to discuss the technical aspects or the possible operational impacts because he did not understand the issue.

So, yeah, McMegan is right in the groove for the new wave of “journalism” that abjures facts. Colbert’s satirical “truthiness” is now the gold standard of editorial accuracy.

I would very much like to play with Beckham’s ears right now. Everything else is so depressing I feel as tho cutting my throat might be a lot more pleasant than it’s been given credit for.

If he blogs, put up a link.

Bite me, MM. You can’t even be bothered to look up that one simple fact? Not only are you vapid and vain, you’re vile as well.

STFU already! It’s a good thing I have my two black cats flanking my sides. I need a good cuddle.

“A Confederacy of Cocksuckers” — tasteful and spot on. Pretty much sums up The Village right there. I do believe I shall run with that phrase from now on, if you don’t mind…

Rule to live by: Beware of anyone pretentious enough to write premia when discussing payments for health insurance, especially amateur economists. (I suppose this derives from Megan’s familiarity with all those Food Emporia on the Upper West Side.)

I propose term limits on pundits.

I would say that epic fail and monumental stupid are McMegan’s core competencies.

It’s yours. The Law of Averages provides me with a “good one” approximately every 500 posts. Today was our lucky day.

I feel the same way. The injustice of paying these idiots big bucks (as well as Beck, Rush, etc) while very talented and intelligent people are scraping for freelance work if they haven’t given up altogether. I read a Time Magazine cover piece recently by Caitlin Flanigan (? sp) that nearly caused a blood vessel in my brain to burst. It was a piece on how infidelity is ruining marriage. It wasn’t an editorial, a column, an op-ed, it was a cover feature. It was so full of assumptions, stereotypes and her own personal experience/opinion that it was worthless. I am sure that she was well compensated for it.

This is what happens when Daddy pays for everything and your Atlantic gig income is spent on lattes, IPhones, and holidays in the Hamptons.

Derelict @13 hit it: these publications want their columnists to write about how they feel – as if anyone gives a flying fuck about that. Truthiness is as good as truth for them because it’s all about how they feel about reality and not about anything as mundane as reality itself. If they were good writers, or even competent writers they might come up with something worth reading every now and then but, their prose is as muddled as their thinking. The measure of their narcissism is that they actually believe that their sophomoric logorrhea should be published for others to read.

when normal people are wrong, it’s unfortunate and a bit embarrassing. but when right-wing ideologues are wrong, it’s and interesting and thought-provoking comment on the blatant liberal bias which permeates nearly all facts and events. therefore we need more wrong right-wing ideologues.

i think that’s on the default masthead .DOT template.

Almost also applies to shotguns and the game of horseshoes. I suspect it applies to nuclear weapons as well but I certainly don’t want to test that hypothesis.

Don’t forget it also applies to slow dancing.

Derelict nailed it — I’m also a professional writer and editor (10 years now) and the overall intelligence level and abilities of those in the higher ranks has just plummeted. It’s like going from a lineup of All Stars to one of … well, the KC Royals. (I’d normally type, “Thank gawd for football season!” but the Chiefs will probably blow dead goats this year as well.)

I could blame both the chase for profits (which are earned when someone writes something stupid or inflammatory enough to sell lots of copies or get lots of viewers/readers) and the desire to compete with all media at once (the Internet, cable, etc.) instead of focusing on a core competency and doing it well. Both are certainly part of it.

But the most blame has to be placed squarely on editors who let this crap get published, and the managers/directors/execs who hired those incompetent editors despite their glaring lack of knowledge and/or skills.

It’s basically gone from “Let’s Publish Articles From Smartest Folks we Can Find” to “Who Can I Get To Publish What I Want?” or “What Will Get Us Noticed, Good or Bad?”

It’s disgusting, and MM is just but one example.

/thesis

Now, you have to remember that everybody in America The Upper Class has a right to a job sinecure and we wouldn’t want a bunch of poor little babies like McArdle sitting at home bored and useless, would we?

We prefer them being useless right out there in public.

And will she clean up or double down on stupid?

Asked & Answered.