Flame War

It all started when a writer I like a lot, Matt Taibbi, wrote this piece for the Rolling Stone entitled "Obama's Big Sellout"

Which drew this response about percieved or real inaccuracies in the piece from Tim Fernholz entitled "The Errors Of Matt Taibbi"

Which then, of course, drew this response from Matt Taibbi entiteled "On Obama's Sellout"

Now I encourage you to read all 3 pieces in their entirety and come to your own conclusions and decide for yourself who you think is more right or more wrong. But I will say this, while I like both Taibbi and Fernholz generally, it does seem like Taibbi had an agenda with his article in the Rolling Stone, especially after reading his response to Fernholz. Basically in his response he makes it seem as if they both have the same facts but he interpreted them differently from Fernholz. That is all fine and good but did he express any of that balance in his piece? Balance that he himself in his response admits is basically valid even though he doesn't agree?

I didn't see any.

Basically while Fernholz points out that many of the things Taibbi takes issue with President Obama over happened during President Bush's tenure, Taibbi still feels without any explanation that Obama should be held responsible for it because of the advisors that were chosen for his economic team. Again, its ok for him to have that opinion, but that's just what it is, an opinion. His article for me was ok as an op-ed but definitely not ok as a piece or actual reporting.

And here is my last major point in all of this. Fernholz takes Taibbi to task for flogging yet again the $23 Trillion dollar worst case scenario number for the bailout. Here is the graph where it appears in Rolling Stone:

But whatever jobs the stimulus has created or preserved so far — 640,329, according to an absurdly precise and already debunked calculation by the White House — the aid that Obama has provided to real people has been dwarfed in size and scope by the taxpayer money that has been handed over to America's financial giants. "They spent $75 billion on mortgage relief, but come on — look at how much they gave Wall Street," says a leading Democratic strategist. Neil Barofsky, the inspector general charged with overseeing TARP, estimates that the total cost of the Wall Street bailouts could eventually reach $23.7 trillion. And while the government continues to dole out big money to big banks, Obama and his team of Rubinites have done almost nothing to reform the warped financial system responsible for imploding the global economy in the first place.

Here is how Fernholz addressed it:

"Neil Barofsky, the inspector general charged with overseeing TARP, estimates that the total cost of the Wall Street bailouts could eventually reach $23.7 trillion." It could, if every single loan guaranteed by the Federal government failed at once and all of the assets bought with those loans were destroyed -- and many of those loans are to homeowners, including low-income homeowners, through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, or to small businesses. Some of that money went to Chrysler and GM in what was primarily a job saving move. TARP's actual outlays are only $518 billion (still nothing to sneeze at), including foreclosure relief for homeowners. More money has been actually allocated so far on fiscal stimulus, including funds to reinforce the social safety net, than on the bank bailouts.

Here is Taibbi's response to Ferholz:

First of all, Barofsky did use that number, so let’s get that out of the way — there’s no factual issue with the passage I wrote. The Prospect writer wants to take issue with Barofsky’s number and imply that the use of it is misleading. Obviously Barofsky’s number is a worst-case scenario. But let’s cut the bullshit about the bailouts being intended to help ordinary homeowners and save auto workers. We could have paid off every subprime mortgage in America for about $1.4 trillion and instead shelled out at least ten times that to Wall Street, primarily to pay off derivative bets made by bankers on those assets.

The writer notes that the total TARP outlay was only $518 billion, and implies that this is the entire outlay for the bailouts when in fact the TARP is just one small slice of the bailout package — most of the bailout monies went out through little-known Fed programs like the TALF, the TLGP, the TIP, the PPI, and the Maiden Lanes. The number my friend Nomi Prins is using now for the bailouts is about $14 trillion in total outlays, and just as Barofsky pointed out, that number could rise. But to imply that the bailout outlay is not only comparable to the $700 billion stimulus but smaller than it is totally disingenuous.

The bailouts have been a massive boon to Wall Street, not so much to the rest of us (again, see Nomi’s report on that). Most of the bailouts came in the form of very cheap money lent out to the same banks that caused the crisis, who then took that money and lent it out at market rates, pocketing the difference.

That’s where all these billions in bonuses for the major banks are coming from this year; it’s almost impossible to not make mountains of money when you’re borrowing your money from the government basically for free. Moreover we issued government guarantees for all the least responsible banks in the country — so while you and I have to keep our same old shitty credit scores, all the people who leveraged themselves to the hilt and bet the farm on subprime mortgages that we ended up bailing out now get squeaky clean, brand-new AAA credit ratings to borrow from. The cost of credit for them plummeted thanks to these guarantees, while we’re paying the same old rates to borrow our money.

This, again, is perfectly in line with the basic premise of the article. Geithner and Ben Bernanke continued a bailout policy that rewarded the very people who were most responsible for the crisis. The rest of the population did not see those same benefits. We can argue about the motives behind Obama’s bailout decision, but the numbers are not really a factual issue.

Now I pasted the whole response to be as fair as possible to Taibbi but its really his response at the beginning that is the tell.

First of all, Barofsky did use that number, so let’s get that out of the way — there’s no factual issue with the passage I wrote. The Prospect writer wants to take issue with Barofsky’s number and imply that the use of it is misleading. Obviously Barofsky’s number is a worst-case scenario. But let’s cut the bullshit about the bailouts being intended to help ordinary homeowners and save auto workers.

Let's cut the bullshit indeed. First of all, I don't know how anybody reads Taibbi's article and gets that its "obviously...a worst case scenario". In point of fact anybody reading the article probably thinks its highly likely or at least reasonable to assume that the number WILL reach $23 Trillion. Time and time again Taibbi has flogged this number as a kind of gotcha moment in his articles and when he has had TV interviews. At no point have I personally seen or heard or heard of him caveating it as a worst case scenario. And when confronted on it by Fernholz his reaction is not to admit he should have caveated it this time, but to say it was "obvious".

Really?

Because I can guarantee you that there are folks on both side of the political spectrum who quote that $23 Trillion dollar figure as if it were gospel. It definitely doesn't seem so "obvious" to them. And again I have to point out that the article isn't "Bush and Obama's Big Sellout", its "Obama's Big Sellout" as if he were President when TARP was signed into law anyway.

And just look at the rest of Taibbi's response which is constructed of all manner of strawmen. Fernholz isn't holding the bailouts out as to being meant to help "ordinary homeowners" or "save autoworkers". In point of fact TARP WASN'T about helping anybody but Wall Street from its inception and when you REALLY sit down to think about it, the fact that President Obama and his team broadened the scope of TARP to help homeowners and help the auto industry doesn't that kinda, you know, kick Taibbi's point on the matter squarely in the junk?

Just sayin...

Now I know there are some folks that believe President Obama should never be criticized, and there are others who think he should always be criticized and anybody who criticizes the people who level that criticism of him from the left are "apologists". I think if you go through my posts in this blog its clear that I fall into neither category. When Obama is fucking up I say so. When people on the left are full of shit in their criticism of him, I say that too. It is what it is.

But I have to say that for me, in this particular situation, Fernholz carries more weight. Matt Taibbi set out to write an article bashing President Obama essentially as guilty by association because of the economic advisors he chose and where he chose to put them. Again that's fine and dandy by me. But the problem for me comes in when he tried to mask it as actual reporting on President Obama's record since being, you know, President. When those facts are lined up against his opinion then his article becomes what it should have been, an op-ed.

But do the people reading the article realize that?

Somehow I highly doubt it because just like that $23 Trillion number, I just don't think its that "obvious".

OOOOOOOOO This Is Gonna Get Good!

You want further proof that the Tea Baggers are gonna be the end of the GOP?

I was trolling memeorandum this morning having my cup of coffee when I came by this headline:

Dick Armey: Sarah Palin More 'Cheerleader' Than Captain...

Immediately I thought about how this could be the beginning of an all out, no holds barred, flame war between the Dick Armey astroturfed tea bagging crowd and the pro Sarah Palin, truth and knowledge don't matter, denizens. Alas when I clicked on the article Armey didn't really go after her like I thought he would although he did take some digs out of her for basically standing on the sidelines and also not doing the work necessary to become a viable candidate.

But then my dissappointment quickly evaporated as I remembered that wingnuts don't need any actual insults or slights to throw a hissy fit. So I go back over to memeorandum and sure enough there is a link to a post by "Conservatives 4 Palin".

Oh, its on BEYATCH! LOL

Armey really steps in it when he claims Governor Palin is just a "cheerleader". I don't know if he's being misogynistic or merely obtuse, but either way this is beneath the Dick Armey I thought I knew. I'd like to think he's simply having difficulty grasping the possibilities that technology allows in the hands of the right person. Governor Palin has always been a pioneer, both in spirit and in practice. This is who she is and how she has conducted her previous campaigns. She has never done things the conventional way. Perhaps Mr. Armey is unable to grasp the fact that yes, she can and is leading the modern conservative movement in a new and, perhaps, unconventional way. He is living in the past and needs to realize that there are new and better ways of doing things. As someone who has long supported Mr. Armey and his brand of libertarian conservatism for years, I hope this is the reason for his ill-conceived comments today.

snip

Today in a piece for Commentary Magazine, John Podhoretz writes that whatever Governor Palin's is doing to remain an influential player in American polictics is working just fine:

...Sarah Palin is dominating the news once again in advance of the release of her book. Which is to say, front-page stories, the lead stories on the morning shows, all using tiny tidbits of information about the book and a few clips from Monday’s Oprah. Whatever Sarah Palin is, she is also, as all this makes clear, a huge star. With the very prominent exception of Barack Obama, she’s the sensation in American politics this decade. And a person who can make news just by opening her mouth is a person to be reckoned with, a person who is not going away, a person who is going to play a role in American politics for a long time.

It is clear, to say the least, that Mr. Podhoretz has a much better grasp on Governor Palin's influence than Mr. Armey. Dick Armey can either get on board and help, or step aside.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

What makes this particular flame war perfect is that its between to people who are out of elected office and not likely to run again at least for the next 3 years or so. That means neither will have any motivation to hold back or apologize because there are no voters for them to cow tow to. This has all the earmarks of escalating, especially with Palin's history of not just letting things go. And it really doesn't matter who wins, as long as it keeps heating up because no matter what as long as it keeps going its gonna keep fracturing the GOP base.

Now all progressives and liberals, we need to for the most part just get the hell out of the way and let this happen. If we jump in and start antagonising for either side it may well backfire and derail this whole implosion by giving them a common target to unify against. Trust me on this one, they don't need any help at all to make this train wreck happen.

Instead I propose that we all hold back on criticizing Sarah Palin or at least criticizing her as much as we were. As everybody knows I have a moratorium on posting on any Sarah Palin stories (and technically I am still in compliance because this isn't about her per se, this is about the sychophants who follow her and the paid sychophants that follow Armey) and so far the world hasn't come to an end. At this point she has so destroyed her own credibility that you have the AP and even FoxNews jumping out to fact check her before some of our own blogs have a chance to do so.

So instead just sit back, grab some popcorn, and enjoy the fireworks that are sure to come!

Wingnut Flame War!

I was trolling memorandum a few weeks back and noticed the flame war between Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs and the rest of the wingnutosphere. To put it bluntly, I was shocked shitless because the people he was warring with were long time allies of his. At that time the bone of contention was his criticism of Glenn Beck and his dangerous rhetoric and antics. Well now Dave Weigel has published an article about what's behind this flame war and damn its some powerful stuff!

But in the early days of Barack Obama’s presidency, LGF has become better known for the various fights it picks with many on the right — including conservative bloggers, critics of Islamic extremism, and critics of Islam in general who used to be Johnson’s fellow travelers.
Johnson has blasted Fox News host Glenn Beck, promoting a video from a Beck-inspired party that shows conservatives ranting about evolution and arguing that “this turn toward the extreme right on the part of Fox News is troubling, and will achieve nothing in the long run except further marginalization of the GOP.” In response to the news that the Department of Homeland Security was watching for increased right-wing extremism — something that most of the conservative blogosphere, like most Republicans, responded to with angry ridicule — Johnson pointed to the recent arrests of right-wing terrorists and criticized bloggers for buying into “distorted claims” about the DHS report. When Obama genuflected before King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, Johnson found archival video of President Bush bowing to take a medal from the King and urged conservatives to turn down their “hyperventilating nonsense.”

This has the blogger’s peers asking themselves the same question, over and over: What the heck happened to Charles Johnson?

“I don’t think I’ve changed,” Johnson said. “I’ve always been pretty independent. This is something I’ve really tried to put out there on my blog. I don’t consider myself right-wing.”
It sounds strange coming from a blogger who played an underrated role in forcing CBS News to back down from its 2004 story on President George W. Bush’s Texas Air National Guard service, and whose first reaction to Obama’s election in November — after a quick post congratulating him — was to note that the Muslim Brotherhood, “the world’s largest jihadist organization,” was pleased.

Johnson supported Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in 2008, but he spent some of the campaign attacking anti-Obama conspiracy theorists, and he rejected the idea designs were malicious, rather than merely naive. Johnson worries, in conversation and on his blog, that his old allies have been duped by far-right European political parties and have bought into wild attacks on the president that discredit their own causes.

“I don’t think there is an anti-jihadist movement anymore,” Johnson said. “It’s all a bunch of kooks. I’ve watch some people who I thought were reputable, and who I trusted, hook up with racists and Nazis. I see a lot of them promoting stories and causes that I think are completely nuts.”

Johnson’s disgust with the terrorism-focused conservative blogosphere has had a traumatic effect on a dogged and dogmatic community of bloggers and scholars. When Johnson began blogging about Islam and terrorism after 9/11, he inspired untold other supporters of an aggressive war on terror to start their own Websites, link up, and push back against “Dhimmitude” — organizations and foreign policy decision makers that were “soft” on terrorism. Now, some of his followers have started blogs that track Johnson’s “madness,” while a video that portrays Johnson as Adolf Hitler going mad in his bunker makes the rounds.

“He’s the reason I started blogging,” said Atlas Shrugs editor Pamela Geller, a New Yorker who says she was “mugged by Sept. 11″ and started reading LGF for news and fellowship. “I wrote birthday messages to him. I respected and admired him.”

Robert Spencer, the director of JihadWatch and the author of the bestselling, “Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam,” had an established career as a critic of militant Islam before he met Johnson. “But right after 9/11, he was the only one out there reporting on this,” Spencer said. “He built my Website. I learned how to blog from reading his stuff.”

Johnson has turned hard against Spencer and Geller, attacking the former for joining a “genocidal Facebook group,” while referring to the latter as a “shrieking lunatic,” and labeling both of them “hatebloggers.” Johnson now points to Geller’s posts about Barack Obama’s heritage and her quest to fund a headstone for the victim of a Muslim honor killing as proof that “the woman is deranged.” Other bloggers in the movement have been purged from Johnson’s blogroll or pilloried on the site, never to be mentioned again. The most successful sites that arose in LGF’s wake, including Gateway Pundit, Gates of Vienna, and Brussels Journal, are also on the outs.

snip

Johnson’s former allies can pinpoint the month, if not the moment, when he started to turn on them. In October 2007, some of the leading terrorism-focused conservative bloggers flew to Belgium for a Counterjihad Summit sponsored in part by the Center for Vigilant Freedom (now the International Civil Liberties Alliance), an outgrowth of the LGF-inspired blog Gates of Vienna.

“It was the best conference I ever went to,” remembered Geller. But the summit included members of Vlaams Belang, a controversial Belgian political party that criticizes Islam and Shariah law, and had been attacked within the Netherlands for its connections to extremism and racism. Johnson went to work exposing this, and the attendees reeled from the negative attention.

“He chose to portray the Brussels Conference as evil and he unconscionably slandered the people who attended,” said Dymphna, one of the editors of Gates of Vienna. Baron Bodissey, the other site editor (both editors use pen names), worries that Johnson “did serious damage to the American blogosphere’s view of European nationalists who oppose the EU, even those who have no anti-Semitic tendencies.”

“Not only that,” said Bodissey, “he made it harder for certain American anti-jihad groups to raise funds if they failed to repudiate his designated ‘fascist-enablers’ like us.”

Johnson is unapologetic about his actions. While he was attacking the attendees of the Counterjihad Summit, he was also blasting Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) for taking money from, and being photographed with, the owner of the extremist Web site Stormfront.org.

“Some people at that summit in Belgium were not people we should have been associated with,” Johnson said, pointing out that since 2007 the terrorism-focused conservative bloggers have become supporters of Dutch politician Geert Wilders , who wants to outlaw Islam in his country. “Some of these people outright want to ban Islam from the United States, which I think is crazy, completely nuts. That’s not something we do in this country. These people will outright defend banning the Koran or deporting Muslims. That’s popular with the Geller/Spencer crowd.”

snip

Some of Johnson’s former allies experienced a decrease in traffic numbers when he started attacking them, but they all now feel they’ve recovered from the break. “LGF tried to destroy my reputation so I wouldn’t have the access I have to my sources in law enforcement and academia,” said Spencer, “but that hasn’t happened.”

Geller has rebounded with increased prominence — she was a guest on the Fox News show “Red Eye” last week — and she said she has survived the “besmirching” of her reputation and she now fills the information-spreading role that Johnson once did. “I get my stuff from people on the inside,” she said, “from people in Europe. I field 800-900 emails a day. We all depend on our readers for these tips. That’s where Charles was getting his stuff. And now he’s cracked and he’s not getting that anymore.”

Johnson brushes off that kind of criticism. LGF is his site, and if it has to name names and shame the people who are debasing the movement against extremist Islam, he’ll do it. “I’ve definitely seen an uptick in craziness since the election,” he sighs. “Well, I don’t know if Geller got crazier. She always was nuts.”

As enjoyable as it was the read that article, and believe me I enjoyed it a lot, I feel the need to point out that when Charles Johnson is the voice of reason for the wingnutosphere you know that they have all totally jumped he shark. Such is the state of right wing bloggers.