She'll Huff and She'll Puff and She'll Post Your House Down

Matt Welch | May 9, 2005

Le Huffington Post est arrive! And I kinda like it, too. Blog down the left side, Drudgy headlines and pics to the right, a breathy Huffington Post Exclusive! about yet another Craig Unger book about the Saudis, a threatened Harry Shearer media column, and so on. The real fun is in the star-studded blog. Some examples:

• John Cusack, on Hunter Thompson's funeral: "Outside his wife offered liquid acid to people in the driveway."
• Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., on Yalta: "No conceivable diplomacy could have saved Eastern Europe from Soviet occupation."
• James Pinkerton, on the Internet: "So while the details of this or that claim about the Net might be correct, in a literal sense, the basic claim about the Net--that it is individually and socially empowering--is likely to prove to be a lie. A Big Lie. And if the lie about the Net is big enough, then all little truths about the Net are effectively irrelevant, in the same way that sugar-coating a cyanide tablet doesn't change the ultimate reality of the tablet; such a tablet is still poison."
• Jon Robin Baitz, on, ummm...: "I have a new play starting previews in New York this Friday called The Paris Letter. I'm sure I'll write about it later. But I had other blogging plans today. Today I was going to write about the re-opening of my favorite taco stand...."

Comments

|5.9.05 @ 1:41PM|#

"Outside his wife offered liquid acid to people in the driveway."

That's a generous door prize.

bob_misses_SUCK|5.9.05 @ 1:51PM|#

If Huffington's site continues to lack the ability for readers to comment on the articles, I'll be surprised if it will be of much interest after a few months.
If I wanted to passively listen to talking heads, I'd watch TV.
Harry Shearer really is one funny bastard, though.

|5.9.05 @ 2:08PM|#

What? No ability to comment on the articles?

LA-AME!

|5.9.05 @ 2:20PM|#

First I read that Topic A has been cancelled, right here on this blog, and then I read Tina' own thoughts on the matter.

I mean, I could read them. If I cared.

Anon

|5.9.05 @ 2:23PM|#

And Pinkerton is apparently doing a series of, er, blog posts on how the internet has not lived up to the dreams of early-90s WIRED writers hopped up on ginko. Or is it that internet users are smart enough not trust the internet as an information source in the same mindless manner newspaper folks would like you to trust their wares? Hard to say, but whatever he's going on about, it's, you know, deep.

|5.9.05 @ 2:24PM|#

And Byron York kicked off the blog name-checking Scalie and dissing McCain-Feingold? Shrewd play on everyone's part.

Anon

|5.9.05 @ 2:47PM|#

"What? No ability to comment on the articles?"

The salon queen invites us plebeians to listen in at one of her dinner parties, and you dare complain about not being included in the conversation!

...how rude!

|5.9.05 @ 2:51PM|#

*gasp*

Hit and Run is not on their Blogroll!

The Lonewacko Blog|5.9.05 @ 3:04PM|#

Meanwhile, over at Huff And Blow, they haven't been able to make it through their first day without someone dying. RIP Zeke Whittle.

|5.9.05 @ 3:23PM|#

I like how it says 'DELIVERING NEWS AND OPINION SINCE MAY 9, 2005' at the top, you usually see that stuff and its like, wow that was a long time ago, but that's today! In many years when a young child first sees that and says 'wow, since May 2005!' I will be able to tell them I was there.

|5.9.05 @ 3:26PM|#

"Outside his wife offered liquid acid to people in the driveway."

Damn, great way to hold a memorial service and no doubt, somebody was talking to Hunter's spirit. Anybody spill it on their sleeve?

Ken Layne|5.9.05 @ 3:37PM|#

I like how the dumbass who ran the RIAA doesn't know how to import songs on her freakin' iPod.

That was the only one I clicked, because I thought there HAD to be a punch line. Nope!

Is this what it's really like at Brentwood dinner parties? Jesus, no wonder so many of those people turn to cocaine.

The post by the Maxim UK guy is pretty funny, although without a link to the Guardian pre-launch parody it doesn't make any sense -- especially if, like me and probably most people, you have no idea who the guy is & have no interest in reading the little linked bios.

I can't imagine ever looking at the Minor Celebrity Blog again, but I'll probably check the news part once in a while ... even though it's a very odd mix of bland wire stories, pointless quotes from other blogs and the weirdo news. The news part *should* develop into a worthwhile aggregator, but it's hardly going to replace Drudge and TotalFark as the sites I keep open & refreshed every waking hour.

|5.9.05 @ 3:45PM|#

It looks like the Onion.

|5.9.05 @ 3:51PM|#

"Outside his wife offered liquid acid to people in the driveway."

Now that's hospitality if I ever saw it!

|5.9.05 @ 3:52PM|#

"I like how the dumbass who ran the RIAA doesn't know how to import songs on her freakin' iPod."

we have discovered the reason comments are not enabled for the celebloggers.

i can't even figure out what she's talking about. of course you can drag mp3s or whatever onto an ipod, via itunes, on a pc no less...

|5.9.05 @ 4:11PM|#

Yeah, that Hillary Rosen thing was weird.

Does ANYONE know what she's talking about???

An MP3 is an MP3 is an MP3, right? I've certainly used another music service with my iPod.

|5.9.05 @ 4:13PM|#

...without a link to the Guardian pre-launch parody...

I thought the Guardian parody was pretty funny too, and wondered what to expect. Now after reading a few of the first days posts I've got one thing to say; I thought that parodies were supposed to be funnier than the original.

|5.9.05 @ 4:59PM|#

*gasp*
Hit and Run is not on their Blogroll!

Pretty insulting when you consider that Adam frickin' Curry's blog made the cut.

|5.9.05 @ 5:22PM|#

The Larry David bit on Bolton is one of the funniest things I've read. Especially if you think of him reading it aloud.

|5.9.05 @ 5:24PM|#

I know this may not sound politically correct, but as someone who has abused and tormented employees and underlings for years, I am dismayed by all of this yammering directed at John Bolton. Let's face it, the people who are screaming the loudest at Bolton have never been a boss and have no idea what it�s like to deal with nitwits as dumb as themselves all day long. Why, even this morning my moronic assistant handed me a cup of coffee with way too much milk in it. I was incensed.

|5.9.05 @ 5:34PM|#

Wow... of the 41 people posting on the "blog" page, i have heard the names of 11. Of those 11, I actually know a thing or two about 7 or 8 of them. That would include Larry David and JL Dreyfuss. Cronkite was the only one on there i was tempted to read, and i just couldn't bring myself to bother. WFT is this thing?

And if they're going to feature self appointed self important boring leftist pseudo intellectual wannabees, where the hell is Eric Bogosian? Man that guy used to bore the shit out of me. Now you never see him any more. Which is fine. I just featured having him aboard was standard procedure for this kind of thing.

|5.9.05 @ 5:35PM|#

in the last sentence, "featured" should = "figured". lousy brain....

Nathan|5.9.05 @ 5:37PM|#

Rosen is annoyed that Apple's DRM is not interoperable with other online music vendors and music listening devices. Well DUH! That's the whole point of DRM, and her previous job as head of the RIAA was all about making sure DRM was everywhere! This is so ludicrous, it makes me think she is on the take from Rob Glazer.

Plus anyone who writes that Steve Jobs "is as laconically casually cool as Bono and makes really good cartoon movies too" must be a fool.

|5.9.05 @ 5:44PM|#

Yeah, how do NRO and Yglesias make the blogroll, but H&R doesn't? Oh, because it doesn't fit into any of the nice little political buckets that people have created.

I do like that one of Rosen's cobloggers has a post called "What is Hillary Rosen Smoking" and calls her for trying to be a we is me consumer when she did more to limit consumer choice than anyone.

|5.9.05 @ 5:47PM|#

"we is me" should be "woe is me"

|5.9.05 @ 5:50PM|#

Rosen doesn't like DRM lockouts. Now isn't that just a succulent ort of irony.

|5.9.05 @ 6:16PM|#

If Huffington's site continues to lack the ability for readers to comment on the articles, I'll be surprised if it will be of much interest after a few months.

Just like lack of comments brought down Drudge and Instapundit?

|5.9.05 @ 6:35PM|#

I think it'll probably be sucessful, like Air America is, anyway.

|5.9.05 @ 6:39PM|#

The news comments are *moderated*.

What a waste of webspace.

|5.9.05 @ 7:00PM|#

" That would include Larry David and JL Dreyfuss."

It's interesting to consider that Julia Louis-Dreyfus is probably the wealthiest poster on that site. Or, at least, she will be when her inheritance comes in.

|5.9.05 @ 7:45PM|#

Is it just me or did anyone else get the same feeling of oozing celebrity self-congratulation one gets when watching the Oscars?
What a crock...
Not even Larry David's post could offer an oasis of entertainment/engagement...it reads like his wife wouldn't let him watch TV till he contributed something so he came up with that little 5-minute diddy.
I noticed Drudge has got a link to the H.P. but no such reciprocity from the Huffer

|5.9.05 @ 8:00PM|#

LD's wife sounded reeeeeeeally annoying. No wonder he has such anger issues.

|5.9.05 @ 8:15PM|#

Is it just me or did anyone else get the same feeling of oozing celebrity self-congratulation one gets when watching the Oscars?

No, it's not just you.

|5.9.05 @ 9:33PM|#

"The news comments are *moderated*."

shit, what do you have to do to get moderhated by teh Huff?

|5.9.05 @ 9:34PM|#

"I think it'll probably be sucessful, like Air America is, anyway."

The question in any vanity project is whether the backer has more time and money than vanity. ...unless it garners enough attention to turn a profit.

...Is Ariana Huffington vainer than she is bored and wealthy? Stay tuned!

|5.9.05 @ 10:34PM|#

Nikki Fink said it best:

LA Weekly Column

|5.10.05 @ 12:26AM|#

El Reg has a nice critique as well:

"Arianna Huffington's blog has gone live and it's funnier than anyone could have imagined.

What was billed as a mecca of famous, liberal commentators has turned out to be a satire site in the tradition of The Onion. Yep, Arianna has done it again and fooled us all. Kudos.

At first glance, The Huffington Post has the look and feel of an average but at least real web site, if you ignore the site's name. It has supposed entries from the likes of Walter Cronkite and John Cusack. But the dead giveaway that this is a spoof after all comes from the blog entry titled 'Steve Jobs, Let my Music Go'...

|5.10.05 @ 1:52AM|#

Sometimes I imagine Huffington is the person for whom the term "famous for being famous" was created.