I think we need to see pictures of Amanda Marcotte in a bikini. Since we can’t have some cheese, then we’ll have to settle for some cheesecake to go with her whine.
And let’s be honest: that’s what she is doing. She’s whining.
She can talk all she likes about being “smeared,” about being the victim of some evil right-wing conspiracy, about being persecuted for committing the offense of being an outspoken gyno-American, But it all boils down to one thing:
All the “smears” involved simply repeating things she said and wrote, of her own volition, and freely published and put out for all to see and hear.
Ms. Marcotte could stand to learn a few lessons I learned a long, long time ago:
- Never say anything you would not be willing to repeat under oath.
- Never say anything you would not want to see plastered across the front page of the newspaper.
- Never write when you can speak.
- Never speak when you can nod.
- Never nod when you can wink.
I’m coming up on my third anniversary here. I’ve passed 2,500 postings. And I can’t think of a single piece I’ve written that I wish like hell I hadn’t.
Yes, I’ve been notably wrong on numerous occasions. But I’ve learned from each, corrected myself, and made appropriate apologies. And I’ve used some very inflammatory language a time or two, but each time I carefully weighed the pluses and minuses, then followed my own best judgment.
And yes, that means that the times I used terms like “sand niggers” or “nips” and “Japs”, it was not the careless slip of a bigot, but an attempt to express and capture the racist attitudes of the people I was discussing.
I’ve also been free with profanity at times. Again, it was deliberate, and I have no regrets about calling Dan Rather a “miserable lying sack of shit,” because that was a fair reflection of the outrage I felt at the moment I wrote it. And yes, I dropped the f-bomb a couple of times when it wasn’t strictly called for, but just made my point so perfectly I had to use it.
Life is all about choices, Ms. Marcotte. You chose what sort of image you wanted to project, and by all reckoning you were remarkably good at it. You seem to take pride in being “edgy” enough to make the mainstream uncomfortable, at best; it should come as no surprise that after all your work to make the mainstream so edgy that they hesitate about embracing you.
A lot of people like bomb-throwers. But bomb-throwers are lousy houseguests. Lyndon Johnson’s aphorism about it better to have certain people “inside the tent pissing out than outside pissing in” does NOT apply in every case, only in the case of those who are going to be very, very close to the tent in the first place — and you, Ms. Marcotte, are no Hubert Humphrey.
