5:30 pm
The Bloggingheads Affair
Posted by Garance ()I suppose I need to say something about this. Having written about politics and the internet for a good three years, it’s amusing and a little bizarre to be on the other end things and part of a viral video moment that has made the jump to YouTube, been transcribed, and picked up by FDL, Atrios, Crooks & Liars, Red State, etc. etc.
There’s no need to say much about the episode itself, which has already been much commented upon. But I do want to provide some additional background to my use of the phrase “Jessica Valenti breast controversy,” which was neither intended to provoke nor chosen out of a a soup of total ignorance. In preparation for our BHTV encounter and to get a sense of Ann Althouse, since we’d never met and I mainly knew her through her New York Times columns, which I enjoyed, and the occasional persual of the cultural criticism on her blog, I watched her previous BHTV episdode with Glenn Reynolds and Helen Smith. It included a segment where Althouse and Smith went into some detail discussing various blogospheric breast controversies, including how one AutoAdmit commenter calling himself “Hitler Hitler Hitler” had said of Althouse that she had a “decent rack.” In that earlier episode, Althouse and Smith talked openly about blogospheric breast commentary, much of which I agree is incredibly juvenile and stupid, with amusement and good humor and suggestions that laughing off criticism is the best response. Althouse said (forward to 4:30): “They constantly talk about me and connect me to the subject of breasts. They constantly portray me as someone who, um, is opposed to the fact that women have breasts…Which is, I guess, sort of funny.” She didn’t seem particularly thin-skinned about the issue.
As I tried to say on the show, when Althouse started talking about meanies in the liberal blogosphere, I brought up “the Jessica Valenti breast controversy” only because she had complained about this controversy in her prior BTHV episode, though without mentioning Valenti’s name, and because it was the only such controversy of which I was aware.
After the episode, Althouse brought another controversy to my attention, in the shape of a rather nasty personal spat between herself and Scott Lemieux, with whom she apparently has a long-standing beef. So between Ezra’s prior comments at his personal site about the Jessica Valenti episode and the thing with Lemieux, I suspect that’s what she was talking about when she raised the topic of my co-writers at Tapped, and then her voice.
On a lighter note, there was a funny exchange about our hairstyles in the comments over at Althouse’s place, and one commenter dubbed me a kind of “Jewish Jackie O,” which I think was intended as some kind of insult against my nose, but which I think has a kind of nice ring to it. Now where’s my Ari?
March 27th, 2007 at 5:50 pm
That’s right, although why you’re responsible for what your colleagues write on their own blogs is unclear. (I should also say that from my perspective the criticism isn’t “personal.” I will (and have) criticized anybody who writes that Sam Alito is a moderate in major media outlets, etc.
March 27th, 2007 at 7:23 pm
You are remarkably restrained.
Btw, Althouse seems to have reacted to your earlier comments with a certain amount of paranoia (below from her website). It seems unlikely that AA was accurately interpreting your ’scheming’.
GARANCE: It’s one of the ways that people report. It’s a reporting technique. Being incredibly awkward. It’s a reporting technique. There’s also: seeming like you don’t know what you’re doing.
ANN: Oh! So it’s a scam?
GARANCE: Well, I mean, that was the whole book: “The Journalist and the Murderer.” Right? I mean…
ANN: Yeah, I read that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
GARANCE: I mean, there’s this idea that a journalist is inherently a somewhat… I mean, you’re forging a bond in which it’s very instrumental. It’s a very instrumental bond.
Althouse thought: So is this what you’re going to try to do to me in this diavlog?
March 27th, 2007 at 7:51 pm
I thought you handled that with a lot of class, and I hope you appear on bloggingheads again someday.
March 27th, 2007 at 8:11 pm
Garance,
I beg an indulgence to put an opposing view of events. I can’t say I’ve carefully conformed these comments to the rules, because the rules appear to be “Error 404 - Not Found; The page you are looking for cannot be found on this site. You can use the search box to the left to find the page or go to the home page.” Still, I hope to disagree agreeably.
Many commentators on this, let’s say event, are taken in by the illusion that bhtv contributors can see one another when recording. As you know, that isn’t the case, and so from the outset, it must be noted that body language is not a cue available when trying to gauge the intent of one’s interlocutor there. It seems clear to me, watching the video, that you were genuinely taken aback by how mad Ann got, but what isn’t clear is whether that was because you didn’t understand what was likely to happen or just didn’t expect to get called on it quite so forcefully.
Unavoidably (although many of Althouse’s detractors have attempted to sever the discussion from this, and evidently believe they have avoided it; they have not) your conversation with Ann happened in a context. Part of that context is general. It’s formed in part by the people with whom you are associated, who have treated Ann unspeakably in the last two or three years, both at Tapped in particular and your so-called “movement” leftosphere in general (I write this aware that I must reluctantly - and happily, temporarily - share a stage with the index case of Althouse Derangement Syndrome himself, the veritable Grand Inquisitor of anti-Althousiana). Part of that general context is also formed by the Valenti mess itself, wherein certain persons (some of whom are associated with Tapped particularly, and others just with the leftosphere that Tapped contributors such as yourself are assumed to be a part of) treated Ann even more despicably than was their previous fare, flagrantly misrepresenting her point and spinning it as being about a “Jessica Valenti breast controversy” in the service of creating a distraction from the ineluctable problem that they have no credible answer to Althouse’s actual criticism of Valenti.
The more specific context of the conversation is formed by the parts of your conversation before “the incident.” Part of that context is formed by your discussion at the beginning of the episode of techniques you could use to maniupate an interlocutor through - one of which was being “incredibly awkward,” and one of which was playing coy, both of which, from a viewer’s standpoint, you could reasonably be suspected of doing in the section before Ann blew her stack. Another part of that context is your plainly inflammatory remark at the opening of the section involved that “I don’t get this from your blog, per se, but I understand that you’re apparently a conservative?” This is the part (that dovetails neatly into the being “incredibly awkward” strategy) where - I’m sorry - I can’t and won’t presume good faith. Garance, if you had held up bait, tackle and a fishing rod and winked at the camera, you couldn’t have any more clearly hinted to the viewers at home that you were going on a fishing expedition. And that line necessarily set the tone for the rest of that segment: you adopted the standard leftospehere line towards Althouse, before subsequently dropping in passing a reference to a previous controversy that you presented in precisely the spin adopted by one side of that controversy.
Using the term “Jessica Valenti breast controversy” is no more neutral than using the terminology “the war between the states” in substitution for the more common appelation: in both cases, it is intended to telegraph which side is taken, and to frame the ensuing debate. If it weren’t for the context in which the discussion took place, general and specific, I might believe that it was totally innocent. But in the context discussed above, I can absolutely see why Ann interpreted it as an attack, in the context of that moment (I’d add that the operative standard for assessing her response is not whether she correctly interpreted your intent, but whether it was a reasonable snap judgment in the circumstances; I think it was, and I tend to think it’s vindicated in the cold light of day with time for reflection). That isn’t to say that having made that snap judgment she didn’t then overreact; that is a separate issue, and I don’t addresss it here. Ultimately, all things considered - body language included, a luxury unavailable to Ann - I’m inclined to agree with the judgment of one of Ann’s commenters, in the thread you linked to in your post, who observed that while (as you artfully put the point), your “use of the phrase ‘Jessica Valenti breast controversy[]’ … was neither intended to provoke nor chosen out of a a soup of total ignorance,” but rather, “was intended to sit there on the record, unnoticed by Ann, but picked up on the particular frequency that Tapped readers hear.”
Whatever the ultimate truth of the matter, it seems to be the case that Ann has far fewer defenders than detractors. That being so, I suspect that the internet lore of this event — certainly in Tapped circles, and certainly in that Sistine Chapel of Anti-Althousiana operated by the preceding commenter — will be that Althouse freaked out and handed you your head without any justification. Still, the prevailing internet lore is not actual truth, and presumably, if you do another bhtv with Ann a year from now, you’ll be less surprised if she snaps at you should your characterize this sad little event as “that time you went totally apesh*t on me,” a characterization no less foreseeably inflammatory than your characterization of the “Jessica Valenti breast controversy.”
March 27th, 2007 at 9:12 pm
That being so, I suspect that the internet lore of this event — certainly in Tapped circles, and certainly in that Sistine Chapel of Anti-Althousiana operated by the preceding commenter — will be that Althouse freaked out and handed you your head without any justification.
That seems pretty accurate to me.
You know, Althouse’s reaction reminded me of what happened when I was having a conversation with an ex-girlfriend of mine when I pointed out to her (she was editor of the school paper) that she was wrong about the facts in something she wrote, she blew up in front of a roomful of people. Obviously there were other issues involved .
A snippet from Althouse’s post about Ms. Valenti
This is really just a Rorschach test for Althouse. Sometimes you really should just take a deep breath before you hit the post button. Some thoughts should just be kept to yourself.
March 27th, 2007 at 9:30 pm
Randinho observed: “This is really just a Rorschach test for Althouse.”
I tend to think that this whole controversy is an Althousian Rorschach: as Dan Drezner observed, “Everyone watched the same video — but the reactions are very, very different,” and
I think that “viewers [are] see[ing] in the exchange confirmation of their prejudices about Ann.” “Who was a critic yesterday is a critic today; who was a so-called sycophant yesterday is a so-called sycophant today.”
March 27th, 2007 at 9:56 pm
Actually, I didn’t mean Althouse’s tantrum, I meant her original reaction to the picture of Jessica Valenti which I quoted above.
March 27th, 2007 at 10:16 pm
if you do another bhtv with Ann a year from now
I won’t presume to speak for Garance. But speaking generally, that seems a trifle unrealistic.
March 27th, 2007 at 10:34 pm
Simon, I’ve got to respectfully disagree. If Ms. Althouse isn’t aware that most of us in the blogosphere ONLY know of her because of her comments re: Jessica Valenti, well, that’s HER problem.
To be honest, maybe I’d read or seen references to her previously because of her guest blogging for Reynolds, but since I don’t read him, I can’t be sure. As best as I can recall, I followed a thread, probably from Atrios. Althouse made some highly inappropriate and, indeed, crass remarks about Ms. Valenti, based on a single picture, and the most casual of glances at Feministing. And by crass remarks, not only the whole breast kerfluffle (you know, I never thought I’d use those two words consecutively) but the Monica Lewinsky references in particular. Indeed, the entire post, as best as I can remember, was, well, puerile tripe.
I keep saying “as best as I can remember/recall” because I sure as hell didn’t obsess upon (no pun intended) Althouse’s post, the various reactions, or the anatomy of Ms. Valenti/Ms. Althouse. But I did chalk it up to a sort of Madisonian puritanism/conservatism. Althouse might not be a native Badger, but she’s not all that different from any number of Madisonians I met during my decade there (thank heavens I also met a LOT more Madisonians who are quite different from THAT): for whatever reason, they’ve decided to counter the perceived “liberalism” of the Capital City and often enough embrace their point of view with the zeal of a convert.
OK, so that’s pure speculation/interpretation on my part. And no apologies: to use Dubya syntax, the internets is still a wide-open highways, and I are entitled to my opinions…but it wouldn’t surprise me, particularly after reading a bit more of Althouse here and there…and seeing her incredibly ugly performance on BHTV today.
I think there might also be a bit of “how dare you question me” that I see in people who’ve attained the stature/status of Althouse. And hey, I’m not knocking stature/status: she’s accomplished quite a bit more than me, for instance. But her accomplishments don’t ENTITLE her to be, well, an ass–which she was re: Ms. Valenti, the subsequent reactions, and today’s interview, ESPECIALLY given her previous BHTV appearance.
Hell, there were myriad ways Althouse could have responded…and most of them would’ve resulted in, among other things, this NOT being today’s internets diversion. But she chose to be a bit of a bully about the whole thing. Fine.
As the saying goes, if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. As a tenured law professor, Althouse doesn’t have to be in the kitchen if she doesn’t want to be…if she chooses otherwise, well, she’s gotta realize that she might get burned. That’s life.
March 27th, 2007 at 11:08 pm
It appears Simon is doing his doctoral dissertation on l’affaire Valenti/Althouse/Franke-Ruta.
Whatever. Even if Garance’s innocent remark had given offense, the emotionally mature response would have been to wave it away, maybe use humor to let it glance off, move to change the subject, etc.
Althouse instead chose the batshit-insane option. It was ugly and disrespectful, and there was clearly an undertone of generational condescension (no doubt the fact that GFR is roughly 20 years her junior fanned this flame).
It’s clear from that moment when GFR put her hand on her chest that she was genuinely taken aback. Not the reaction of someone trying to set up her fellow blogginghead.
Props to Garance for not lashing back, even if her silence was the result of shock and a little bit of hurt rather than genuine forbearance.
March 27th, 2007 at 11:19 pm
From Memphis, I’ve stumbled onto the subject photo of the alleged breast trap of J. Valenti, and the BHTV piece characterized as a “blow-up” and it seems to me, very frankly, that YA’LL are some really thin-skinned, really self-important, really silly people. I don’t know where you’re “movement” is going but be sure to pack lots of band-aids and lollipops - boys and girls. And to Ms. Althouse, shame on you for participating in an inane conversation about breasts - in any conversation about breasts that is not focused more generally on their role in a woman’s health or in her child’s well-being. I know you are trying to make a point (no pun intended) but you simply are not. Aim that rage at the tip-toeing, over-the-shoulder-peeking Bill Clinton.
March 27th, 2007 at 11:20 pm
One more thing…if I had behaved as Althouse did, I would have posted an unqualified apology within 24 hours. Instead, she’s describing it nonchalantly as a “hot encounter” (as if Garance had also raised her voice) and playfully asking commenters to suggest future blogginheads pairings for her.
March 27th, 2007 at 11:58 pm
As you can probably tell, Simon is the official author of the Althouse Wikipedia entry. And he guards it zealously!
If you’re bored, venture over to the wikipedia and note all of his edits.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ann_Althouse&action=history
However, if you say something bad about Ann, all of her groupies will call YOU a stalker.
March 28th, 2007 at 12:16 am
It is interesting to note the many ways Althouse downplays what happened. And also interesting to note her pride in her behavior.
She downplays it by minimizing the time — it really was only 1-2 minutes and she apologized immediately. She downplays it by accusing GFR of Jedi Mind Tricks. She downplays it by letting people know that she reviewed it and stands behind every word. She downplays it by saying that people display emotions, and if you don’t like her emotion you are sexist or immature. She downplays it by accusing people that say her behavior was terrible of being sexist and protecting near middle aged Harvard Senior Editor GFR.
She is proud of it. She proudly claims it went viral (though it really hasn’t not when compared to real virals.) She proudly announced she wrote the captions for BHTV. She proudly asks her readers for other pairings.
It’s also interesting to see what she allowed to be said in her comments about GFR. During the comment session she deleted many comments, and banned at least two people, and then turned comment moderation on. So it is notable that she allowed the following to be said about GFR. GFR was disembowled. GFR needs a nose job. GFR talks like a valley girl. GFR’s voice is annoying. GFR baited Ann. GFR was a weasel. GFR has an irritating name. GFR sloppy evasions. GFR’s cheap shot. Garance denied what she did. GFR must have money. There is some vague talk that GFR (and AA) are lesbians at heart.
GFR, please remember, Ann Althouse (and her groupies) is the feminist, and the right blogosphere, as you admitted yourself on BHTV, is the courteous and cordial hemisphere.
March 28th, 2007 at 12:26 am
Wow! You are disingenuous. That remark was obviously intended to provoke - the kind of snarky cheap shot that you and your TAPPED cohorts excel at. Kind of like the mean girls table in the H.S. lunchroom. Complete with the little smirk when Ms. Althouse explodes. And now you play the sympathy card - poor little Garance! I’m not buying it.
March 28th, 2007 at 2:39 am
The idea that the words “the Jessica Valenti breast controversy” was some kind of loaded phrasing intended to provoke or otherwise “assassinate” Althouse is absurd. This is obvious to anyone who doesn’t have some kind of incredible emotional investment in the debate. Why someone would be so invested in a debate like this is beyond me. I guess Ms. Althouse inspires incredible devotion in her readers! I understand the tendency to become attached to someone and want to come to their defense, but this is just embarrassing. I guess its an example to us all though that we should always strive to put our personal biases aside, FOR OUR OWN SAKE. Otherwise you just end up making yourself look foolish, as we have seen.
Why doesn’t AA say she misconstrued Garance’s remark and apologize for her reaction? Why don’t her fans say “that was weird, but to err is human?” In other words, put the shovel aside, the hole is deep enough as it is.
Now that I think about it, this is kind of a microcosm of our public debate in the Bush years. Our public officials screw something up, and then blame whoever calls them on it. That’ll work up to a point, but at some point the house of cards will fall.
March 28th, 2007 at 2:58 am
You’re far too polite, Garance. Althouse flipped out because she is a bully, and you brought up an episode where she behaved badly and has no defense. She attacked Jessica Valenti with no justification, and then she attacked you with no justification. I then watched the next 7 minutes of the following segment, which was even worse. She’s snide, belittling, disrespectful, and has no knowledge of felony stalking & the *very real dangers* that go along with it, and autoadmit’s potential connections to it. What a tool.
March 28th, 2007 at 7:11 am
Score one point for Cass Sunstein…
One of the arguments that Cass Sunstein makes in republic.com is that the Internet allows people to filter their information flows so that they buttress to their prior ideological beliefs. Blogs call this “cocooning.” The extent to which this effect….
March 28th, 2007 at 9:09 am
MichaelF -
I appreciate the relatively calm response. :)
It really isn’t accurate to say that the leftosphere’s anger at Althouse stems from the Valenti-Clinton imbroglio; even a cursorary search shows that Pandagon, for example, was posting bitterly critical remarks about Althouse almost a full year before those events, and were I so inclined, it wouldn’t be hard to produce dozens of examples of the kind of routine attacks levelled against her. It seems to me that the Valenti-Clinton incident, no less so than the instant controversy, is very much the Althousian rohrschach I suggested previously: seized on by people with preexisting axes to grind.
In any event, it seems less relevant why people have made up their minds than to know that they have. (That also provides a nice opportunity to segue into a paranthetical to briefly respond to “a non”’s comment; I can’t and don’t seek to present myself as a disinterested, neutral voice on this matter, but that is irrelevant against the wider point, viz., that while I may be seeing events through the lens of my preexisting feeling about Althouse, that is no less the case for her detractors, all of whom made up their minds about Althouse a long time ago. And that isn’t a criticism, per se - Althouse inspires strong feelings, and I can entirely see that what to me engenders loyalty, affection and respect, to Lemieux, Klein et al engenders impotent rage. The point remains, however, though, that while my voice in this is not disinterested, neither are those of her detractors.)
All that said, I wouldn’t go as far as does C.S. in his comment, above. It isn’t absolutely plain beyond any doubt that Garance was entirely innocent in all this; this is a poor choice of exemplar, but I can’t think of a better one - if you’ve seen that Family Guy episode where Peter’s ancestor is on the raft with the black guy and can’t understand why the guy is taking offense at being called “Nigger Jim,” perhaps the same thing was at work here. Totally cocooned in the leftosphere where the prevailing fiction of what happened between Althouse and Valenti et al is indeed as you describe it, perhaps Garance really did believe that Valenti’s version of events was the ONLY version of events, in much the same way I’m sure that children raised and homeschooled in Confederacy sympathizer households might struggle to understand why, having ventured into the real world, people take offense when they talk (as might seem totally normal to them) of “the war of northern aggression.” Bias isn’t always conscious. If you watch Faux News, the bias is totally upfront: you find out that there are two sides to the story, and one side is only believed by a complete bunch of morons; if you watch CNN, it’s much more subtle - you don’t even find out that there is another side to the story, and I can totally believe that’s what may have happened here - that it might just never even have occurred to Garance that there was more to it than a “Jessica Valenti breast controversy”.
So, y’know, there are also other reasonable interpretations of what happened that get Garance off the hook. Unlike C.S., I say only that Ann had to make a snap judgment with what information and context was known to her at that time, and her response was within the range of reasonable conclusions.
March 28th, 2007 at 9:40 am
Lee:
Even assuming, arguendo, that your first sentence is correct (and needless to say, I do not accept that), it should have been readily apparent to anyone even passingly familiar with that incident (which includes Garance, since she broached the subject as an example of why lefties dislike Ann) that Ann would have significant emotional investment in the incident, given how she has been treated by Garance’s colleagues and co-combatants in the leftosphere’s so-called “movement.”
I’ve already addressed in a previous comment the observation that “we should always strive to put our personal biases aside” - no one involved in this has “put [their] personal biases aside,” because their preexisting personal bias about Althouse defines their reaction to this incident; as Dan Drezner noted, it defines what they see in the video. Of course I come to this incident inclined to jump to her defense; but it’s no less the case that “Trex” et al come to this incident ready to jump at the chance to stone the heretic again. Which is what this is really about, and what it’s been about long before Valenti or Garance entered the picture: it’s about “how dare you, a law professor.” It’s about punishing the apostasy of someone whose support the left feels traditionally entitled to, because she doesn’t kowtow and toe the line. Old battle, same combatants, new ammunition. To be sure, I’m sure that there are some folks who are genuinely doing nothing more than jumping to Garance’s defense, but the lion’s share are rubbing their hands in glee at yet another chance to hurl more abuse at Althouse.
March 28th, 2007 at 9:51 am
Simon–
1)Pandagon != “the leftysphere.”
2)If you want to believe that I would think that claims that Jessica Valenti’s invitation to the Clinton meetup was a plot to set her up with Bill Clinton or that Feministing is a “breastblog,” would be unobjectionable if someone else made them, that’s your privilege, but you’re quite mistaken. Unlike Althouse, some of us actually care about politics and substantive arguments.
March 28th, 2007 at 10:04 am
Uh, yeah. You’re incredibly restrained and kind to someone who I think has been incredibly unrestrained and unkind to her interlocutors. I do not know why people give Althouse the time of day especially when she not infrequently uses those occasions to generate a little controversy that drives traffic to her blog.
I guess I would’ve also appreciated you standing your ground a bit more. Simple questions like: “Why are you screaming at me?” and “Who exactly among my colleagues hates you?” would’ve more clearly shown her to be the fool that she is. I guess the best way to handle such a woman is to ignore her.
March 28th, 2007 at 10:04 am
I forgot to add in my previous reply to Lee -
She has apologized for losing her temper both in the diavlog and on her blog. Which I realize satisfies only one prong of your observation, but as I said at Drezner’s blog, there are actually two entirely separate questions being discussed as if they were one issue: (1) was it reasonable for Althouse to make a snap judgment — in light of all the context discussed in my first comment here — that Garance intended slight or snark, and (2) having so determined, was the response disproportionate. The answer to (1), it seems readily apparent, turns on how the viewer felt about Ann Althouse before this diavlog was even recorded. Nothing I say here is going to change anyone’s mind on this point. And Ann appears to have conceded (2).
March 28th, 2007 at 10:14 am
Simon is a loon. He is not a lawyer, but after hanging around AA, he has adopted what he considers the terminology and now dresses like a lawyer. He is the editor and defender of the Althouse wiki entry. Check out the history page of her entry for a few chuckles.
If AA is worried about stalkers, I sure hope she doesn’t piss Simon off. I ain’t no i-lawyer and I ain’t no e-psychiatrist, so I no shit about stalkers and I certainly am not saying Simon is a stalker.
I just don’t think AA should piss Simon off.
March 28th, 2007 at 10:35 am
A non - that’s the second time you’ve made your point about the Wiki article without explaining its relevance. See responses upthread.
She’s pissed me off plenty of times. I disagree with her on a lot of issues, some of which are of great importance to me. Naturally: She’s essentially a liberal, and I’m essentially a beastly, benighted conservative meanie; disagreement happens. When I’ve disagreed with her, I’ve said so, and when I’ve thought she merited strongly-worded criticism, I’ve not held back. But I’ll let you in on a secret: mentally stable people - people who don’t have ADS, people who have a grip on reality, in short, people who aren’t members of the leftosphere “movement” - don’t become psychotic when people they like say things they disagree with, and even when they say things they think are totally wrong.
March 28th, 2007 at 10:39 am
Oy. If you want to know everything you needed to know about Simon, today, Althouse compares her attack to Clinton’s attack on Wallace. And Simon pipes in to say that there was a difference, Althouse was genuinely pissed and Clinton’s attack was predetermined and from a script.
March 28th, 2007 at 11:18 am
“don’t become psychotic when people they like say things they disagree with, and even when they say things they think are totally wrong.”
This is excellent advice to give Althouse, I agree. I don’t know why she screamed at Garance for 5 minutes over an innocuous comment and responds to criticism with personal insults to avoid having to respond to criticism on the merits, but people who do this kind of thing really need to grow up.
March 28th, 2007 at 11:53 am
You handled yourself well, Garance. I assume this won’t substantively damage Althouse or impel her to change her rhetorical tactics — that doesn’t really happen to anyone on the internet, it seems — but this will, I think, help you in the long run, both through sheer exposure (just like the Star Wars Kid!) and through the episode’s emphasis on you as a reasonable, calm, well-intentioned individual. That’s the takeaway from the viewing for most. If you’ve got to star in a viral video, this is the best way for it to happen.
March 28th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
Anyone besides me starting to wonder if “Simon” is AA’s sock puppet?
March 28th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
Anyone besides me starting to wonder if “Simon” is AA’s sock puppet?
They seem to live in the same alternate universe.
We always thought Althouse inhabited it alone, but it’s possible that she created a race of mortals to worship her.
March 28th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
Laertes - I’ll take that as a compliment, but you’re wrong.
March 28th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
Simon said: “no one involved in this has “put [their] personal biases aside,” because their preexisting personal bias about Althouse defines their reaction to this incident”
Well if you’d never heard of AA before then you by definition don’t have any preexisting bias about her, right? Plenty of people have watched the video simply because other people are talking about it. Their reactions are always along the lines of (taken from YouTube comment section):
“Boy that blonde sure is a viscious [sic] piece of work, I think I understand why people might not like her, at all.”
or
“Wow. The woman on the right needed to pick up her phone and call a Waaahmbulance.”
I would challenge you to find even a single commenter who watched the clip not knowing who was involved and came away thinking that Garance took a cheap shot or was otherwise rude to AA.
March 28th, 2007 at 2:27 pm
Lee - that’s a red herring. It’s the people who don’t know the context of the remarks who are not going to understand why that characterization would prompt that response. The people who are familiar with the Valenti-Clinton imbroglio understand exactly why it pushed Ann’s buttons.
March 28th, 2007 at 2:47 pm
Lee - that’s a red herring. It’s the people who don’t know the context of the remarks who are not going to understand why that characterization would prompt that response.
Whereas, those of us who do understand the context are aware that Professor Althouse has a habit of saying irrationally weird things, and then insisting that everybody act as though they never happened.
She gets very angry when confronted with her own words. Ask us how we know this!
The people who are familiar with the Valenti-Clinton imbroglio understand exactly why it pushed Ann’s buttons.
Because Ann was confronted with a situation in which someone brought up one of her misdeeds, but couldn’t simply censor the person or delete their words.
March 28th, 2007 at 2:52 pm
PS:
This just in.
March 28th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
Yes, that terrible misdeed of raising a legitimate criticism of putative feminists who none the less fawn over a sexual predator who happens to be politically agreeable to them, and then having that point misrepresented and smeared for a year by people evidently incapable of actually replying to the point. Which, of course, is why Garance had her head handed to her for using a term to refer to the imbroglio that ratifies that misrepresentation and smear campaign.
If Ann were unwilling to talk about the Valenti-Clinton thing in the context of a forum she has no control over, she wouldn’t have discussed it with Glenn & Helen Reynolds, in the diavlog referred to by Garance; but context is everything, and unlike Garance, the Reynoldses are not associated with people who’ve spent a year verbally brutalizing Althouse.
March 28th, 2007 at 3:20 pm
Yes, that terrible misdeed of raising a legitimate criticism of putative feminists who none the less fawn over a sexual predator who happens to be politically agreeable to them, and then having that point misrepresented and smeared for a year by people evidently incapable of…
There’s a point in some conversations where sensible people start to drift off and think about their dry cleaning.
Ann Althouse is a bully, and like many bullies, she has enablers who help rationalize her toxic behavior.
The method for this is to emit smokescreens of words, all blowing in different directions. An example of this is displayed in this comment thread.
That’s about the end of this conversation, save for one thing: Honest people know dishonesty when they see it.
March 28th, 2007 at 3:23 pm
I do, and I’m looking right at it.
March 28th, 2007 at 3:35 pm
Which, of course, is why Garance had her head handed to her for using a term to refer to the imbroglio that ratifies that misrepresentation and smear campaign.
This is absolutely ridiculous. Althouse called Feministing a “breastblog,” and backed this up by flagrantly lying about the content of the site. In her podcast of the subject she mentions breasts again and again and again, along with various lunatic conspiracies about Bill Clinton. She personally insulted Valenti several times. Not only is it not a misrepresentation, the label is based on her words. And the idea that she was engaged in rational, substantive criticism is ludicrous (which is why she won’t engage on the merits, but shouts down anybody who brings it up.)
March 28th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
I mean, the bedrock here is how — for whatever reason — one interprets or has decided to interpret what Althouse’s original criticism of Valenti really was and all proceeds thence. I find it pretty difficult to look at her original posts and comments and see how anyone can seriously consider the point to be unclear, and so I see the reaction in the leftosphere as (at absolute best) disingenuous, meretricious and louche. If you didn’t and don’t see that point - or if you didn’t but are now in too deep to admit mistake - then I suppose you’ll take a different view of the response. And those opinions about what really happened vis-a-vis Valenti form both a part of the context in which this diavlog took place and a prism through which people are looking at it.
March 28th, 2007 at 3:46 pm
Scott - res ipsa loquitur, although apparently it says different things to different people. Nevertheless, I don’t debate the merits of protestantism with the Pope, and I’m not going to waste valuable pixels debating anything about Ann Althouse with the textbook example case of ADS. Continue in your peculiar little parallel universe.
March 28th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
Scott, we’ve had to deal with her through email lately, with the whole ‘controversy’ in which people have been making fun of her in our comments; and between that and the posts on her site, the exchange resembles in every way an encounter with a pathological liar.
I’m not saying she is one. I’m saying that you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference given those metrics.
March 28th, 2007 at 4:00 pm
I mean, the bedrock here is how — for whatever reason — one interprets or has decided to interpret what Althouse’s original criticism of Valenti really was and all proceeds thence. I find it pretty difficult to look at her original posts and comments and see how anyone can seriously consider the point to be unclear, and so I see the reaction in the leftosphere as (at absolute best) disingenuous, meretricious and louche. If you didn’t and don’t see that point - or if you didn’t but are now in too deep to admit mistake - then I suppose you’ll take a…
Shorter Simon: “Alas, if you merely had the intellectual decency to focus on the ways in which black shades evenly into gray, we could begin moving toward white.”
March 28th, 2007 at 4:15 pm
What Simon ignores (besides the real world) is that in the original post, AA didn’t come up with the “feminists should see Clinton as evil” theme, until AFTER AA attacked Valenti.
The main point of AA’s post was bloggers were taken in by power. This can be seen by AA’s links which were to: a post by TL that Clinton was not as bad as civil liberties/defense attorneys think, a post by John Aravosis from a blog that has little to do with feminism in which AA said, Aravosis fell for Clinton’s blue eyes (IIRC)
There was nothing in her original post about Clinton and feminism. (IIRC)
It wasn’t until AA and her readers started in on JV’s breasts that AA backfilled and made her claim.
There is someone in this comment page that refuses to look at reality for what it is. That someone is Simon.
March 28th, 2007 at 4:36 pm
Ah, so Simon borrows Althouse’s favorite technique of asserting that her opponents are “deranged” without a single word addressing the merits of their criticism. Res ipsa loquitur indeed.
March 28th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
I believe her favorite technique is accusing others of precisely the misdeed in which she herself is engaging.
For instance, the tirade at Garance for ‘attacking’ her. Then the redux, in which she decried ‘passive-aggression.’
But yep, Simon is doing that too. Kindred hearts, apparently.
March 28th, 2007 at 8:13 pm
A non - virtually as soon as it became clear that the blogger in the photo was Valenti, Althouse made explicit her criticism:
“I really don’t know why people who care about feminism don’t have any edge against Clinton for the harm he did to the cause of taking sexual harrassment seriously, and posing in front of him like that irks me, as a feminist. So don’t assume you’re the one representing feminist values here.
For all the strum und drang about how Althouse is engaging in post hoc rationalization, the supposed “rationalization” has been part of the record since, literally, day one. And while it perhaps overstates the case to say that no rejoinder has been offered to that criticism, the vast majority of critics have instead chosen to hide the real issue behind a catty smokescreen (to mix a metaphor).
I appreciate the compliment, blackguard though the source may be and backhanded though the intent may be.
March 28th, 2007 at 9:48 pm
>Yes, that terrible misdeed of raising a legitimate criticism of putative feminists who none the less fawn over a sexual predator who happens to be politically agreeable to them, and then having that point misrepresented and smeared for a year by people evidently incapable of…
There’s a point in some conversations where sensible people start to drift off and think about their dry cleaning.
Ann Althouse is a bully, and like many bullies, she has enablers who help rationalize her toxic behavior.
The method for this is to emit smokescreens of words, all blowing in different directions. An example of this is displayed in this comment thread.>
Yup.
p.s.
“blackguard?” ‘zounds! fie upon you, cur!
seriously, the woman’s behavior speaks for itself. it is nice to see chivalry, or, um, something, isn’t dead, though.
March 28th, 2007 at 11:33 pm
For all the strum und drang about how Althouse is engaging in post hoc rationalization, the supposed “rationalization” has been part of the record since, literally, day one. And while it perhaps overstates the case to say that no rejoinder has been offered to that criticism,
Well, I’ve addressed this silly argument more than once. But the staggeringly dishonest rationalization lies in pretending that this is all she said, hence leaving out the vicious personal attacks, erroneous characterizations of Valenti’s blog, crackpot conspiracy theories, etc. Anything a blogger writes is fair game; there’s no rule that says you have to focus on one particular point someone wants to emphasize post hoc because the other stuff they wrote about the subject is an indefensible embarrassment. She said a lot of appalling things, was called on it, and rather than defending these comments she and her defenders want to pretend they didn’t exist and people were reacting strongly to a sober political analysis rather than the personal attacks, which is obviously silly.
March 29th, 2007 at 1:25 am
It’s worse than that Scott.
The particular point has been responded to many times, but Ann and Simon still refuse to acknowledge that. The point they say has not been responded to is Ann’s claim that Clinton was bad for feminists and therefore feminists should shun Clinton. That point has been rebutted by pointing out a) just because Ann and Simon say feminists must believe that … doesn’t mean that feminists must believe that … b) there is good reason to feel that Clinton was good for feminists even if you think that their affair was bad, c) the feminists involved aren’t interested solely in feminism and it is reasonable to think that if he was bad at feminism he was good in other areas, d) how old was Jessica Valenti during Monica Gate, 9-11? e) the affair was between consensual adults and a good portion of feminists believe that women are rational and effective actors and can make their own sexual decisions. Ann and Simon will never acknowledge that because it takes away their best and most bogus claim. And they won’t acknowledge that anyone apart from Ann and Simon can determine what feminism stands for or should stand for.
But also, look at the original post. As I said, the original post was not about Clinton and feminism. It was about selling out and it was about tits.
The original post was made at 7:59am. That original post was about selling out for a lunch and about Jessica Valenti.
http://althouse.blogspot.com/2006/09/bill-clinton-lunching-with-bloggers.html
The claim the post was about feminism cropped up from Ann at 12:03, four hours later, and long after the readers in her blog had been talking about JV, and encouraged to do so by Ann with additional comments like: “He [Clinton] could be inflamed with sexual desire.”
The whole argument from AA and Simon that the post was always or primarily about feminism and Clinton is just bunk and their claim that no one will respond to their argument that Clinton was bad for feminism is just bunk to.
Simon: bunco artist.
But they won’t acknowledge that either as again, it makes AA look like an idiot.
March 29th, 2007 at 5:24 am
Despite Simon’s generalizations, I hadn’t read Garance before today, hadn’t read Ann, hadn’t heard of the Jessica breast controversy. Instant impression: Ann was incredibly rude and out of line, owes Garance a very public apology (like on this site and with profuse sincere flourishes). From what I’ve since read of the Jessica controversy, Ann missed another opportunity there to show herself something other than a loud-mouthed bully. And Ann, since you asked, that’s probably why the right blogosphere welcomes you so warmly. Garance, the fact you managed to maintain a civil conversation with this person after such an outrageous outburst wins you extra points in my book.
March 29th, 2007 at 6:44 pm
[…] Yes, I’m going to be talking about the Ann Althouse vs. Garance Franke-Ruta dustup. In particular, I wanted to discuss one aspect of the Jessica Valenti Breast Controversy™. What really gets my goat about the whole exchange is that she seems to think that it’s okay for her to hyperventilate over the slightest criticism of her over-the-top ad hominem attacks on legitimate feminists for the crime of being seen with an alleged sexual harasser, and then turn around and dismiss out-of-hand complaints about actual felonious threats and general misogyny as <Althousian sneer>so much clutching at pearls</Althousian sneer>. […]
March 31st, 2007 at 2:20 am
I’ll have you know I voted for Clinton twice. I voted for Russ Feingold. There’s this little thing called “9/11,” maybe you’ve heard of it.
Garance used her tricks on my mind to make me explode like that, I mean, not explode. To make me call her on her character assassinating language, I mean.
Did you know that Barack Obama can infiltrate your mind and take over your thoughts? It’s true.
Mark Schmitt said it’s like he’s Lex Luthor.
It’s true.
See?
Right here: http://bloggingheads.tv/video.php?id=192&cid=952&in=42:00
I blogged about Obama’s nefarious mind-control powers here: http://bloggingheads.tv/video.php?id=192&cid=952&in=42:00
—Ann Althouse, Professor of Law
[This is a sock-puppet item and not actually by Ann. — GFR]
August 3rd, 2007 at 4:09 pm
I have to say, that I could not agree with you in 100% regarding The Bloggingheads Affair, but it’s just my opinion, which could be wrong :)