Hillary Clinton, Sexism, and Hot Air
Jazz Shaw has some perfectly reasonable things to say in response to my posting “Hillary Clinton, Sexism, and Male Privilege.”
The Hot Air commentariat . . . not so much.
Jazz Shaw has some perfectly reasonable things to say in response to my posting “Hillary Clinton, Sexism, and Male Privilege.”
The Hot Air commentariat . . . not so much.
I’m sorry, James, not going into the Hot Air sewer just now. I want to sleep good tonight.
The comment sections on most right-wing blogs are cesspools.
The fact that the blogs choose to allow those comments while removing others says a lot about the blogs in question.
Sorry, James. I went there, but his argument was silly from the get go. This was his second sentence:
“One of the “advantages” of having presidential campaigns which consisted entirely of Rich Old White Guys was that people at least pretended to focus on the issues of the day as the election crawled toward the finish line.”
One can ask which presidential campaign he is thinking of where the Rich Old White Guys focused on the issues of the day. 2004 with the Swift Boat Veterans arguing about what John Kerry did or did not do in the jungles of Vietnam about 35 years before? 2000 with whether Al Gore said he invented the internet in the 1980’s? 1996 with whether Bob Dole was too old to be President? 1992 with whether Bill Clinton inhaled in the early 1970’s?
@PJ:
Fixed that for you. Seriously, it even applies outside politics. Try a mass market sports—or, hell, cooking—site some time.
@Moosebreath: There was always silliness in political campaigning and it’s been getting steadily worse in the 24/7 communications era. Races going back to 2008 focused more on race and gender silliness because of the candidates but they’d have been sillier than 2004 just because of the era.
The title of his post is so precious…
Perhaps if there were no racism and no sexism we wouldn’t be discussing such things, but since both are active and very relevant…meanwhile…
Yes, if only the media wasn’t doing this, there’d be no talk of gender…please…
@James Joyner:
“There was always silliness in political campaigning and it’s been getting steadily worse in the 24/7 communications era. Races going back to 2008 focused more on race and gender silliness because of the candidates but they’d have been sillier than 2004 just because of the era.”
So in other words, you don’t think the race of the candidates has anything to do with it. Then exactly what do you see in the article to make it worth reading?
@An Interested Party:
Indeed. That was the main weakness in Shaw’s piece for me, the old familiar whine: The media, the media, the media.
As if we don’t live in the age of Facebook and Twitter and blog comments. On April 19th at 7:47PM, “Hornetsting” wrote this comment on Shaw’s post: “Lying, frumpy, entitled old hag. Did I miss anything, honey?”
If “the media” is the problem, and we’re the media….doesn’t that mean we’re the problem?
@James Pearce: Well, there is that problem, too.
FYI to James: The “24/7 communications era” began in my late 20 with the founding of CNN–I’ll be 63 this July. If “[r]aces going back to 2008 focused more on race and gender silliness,” it’s not because of the 24/7 communications era, it’s because race and gender silliness are hard wired into the body politic of our society.
Just got back from Hot Air. I can see why James liked the article, it was almost substance free, but Jazz has an ability to make word salad seem deep and thoughtful.
The commentariat? They make Jenos and superdestroyer see absolutely erudite and thoughtful by comparison–but they also explain how Shaw can say almost nothing and appear to be brilliant.
I feel dumber for having gone there.
The nature of celebrity coverage is not the same as political coverage. In celeb coverage, men are asked what they are wearing, whereas very few people look at male politicians’ sartorial choices unless it seems extreme. They are not judged for their looks, even though some of them are ugly. Look at Ted Cruz with his pasty turkey neck, he looks oily! But do you see that in media coverage? No. But you will hear how much of a hag or harpy Hillary Clinton appears to be. These people are just animated by hate.
Tried to log on to the Anarchist Cookbook website to confirm Dr. Joyner’s observation.
First I encountered this:
Not wanting to be a “sheeple” I proceeded to “Terms of Service” where I read:
Say What?
What kind of anarchists are these that would even acknowledge the authority of a government?
Applicable law? WTF is that? anarchy demands that there be no codified law.
I don’t think I’ll be joining their gang.
They are way too authoritarian for me!
Strangest thing I’ve ever read on this site.
Of course the regular old time “I ain’t working for no ni99er woman.” kind of racism is still with us.
You can blame it’s existance on Huffington Post or KFVS Channel 12 News Cape Girardeau.
Take your pick.
@Moosebreath: @James: @Just ‘nutha’ ig’rant cracker: Rather obviously, the point of my link was to direct your attention to the comments section. Jazz’ comments are perfectly bland and directed at the media environment and yet they immediately spawn an absolutely horrendous series of attacks on Clinton well beyond the pale.
@James Joyner:
Sorry, but it wasn’t that obvious.
@James Joyner: Definitively not clear that was your intention.
That being said, what does it say about the “reasonable” Jazz that the comments section at the place he chooses to post look like that ALWAYS?
@SKI: @Moosebreath: Fair enough. But, yeah, my point was about the commentary.
Hot Air is an odd site, in that it has traditionally had really smart non-professionals as authors. It was a Michele Malkin spin-off but her authors were mostly really smart Regular Joe types vice the lawyers and PhDs that dominate much of the elite blogosphere and whatever it is OTB is. Jazz, Ed Morrisey, Mary Katharine Hamm and others who I’ve interacted with personally are really good folks offering perfectly reasonable takes on politics. Yet they’ve attracted a horrendously vitriolic commentariat from the outset. I honestly can’t explain it.
@James Joyner:
I think
goes a long way towards explaining it.