A Bit More About Arianna Huffunpuffstuff (Let No Celebrity Brain Fart Go Unnoticed Edition)

Nick Gillespie | May 18, 2005

At first read, I thought my colleague Matt Welch had done a funny job of paraphrasing the celebrity doucheblogs over at The Huffington Post (see below). But just so there's no confusion: Those are actually direct quotes from the various supergeniuses themselves.

Like sniffing glue, baiting bears, and the initial season of The Osbournes, The Huffington Post is great fun for a while, but I suspect we'll all be tired of it by this time next week. So it's worth getting in all the commentary on it we can stand before we go back to pushing needles in our eyes.

La Huff was on CNN's Reliable Sources this past Sunday, yapping about the essential public service her site bravely provides. The Wash Post's Howard Kurtz ran down the list of Huff Compost contribs and noted that the Larry Davids, Bill Mahers, and Walter Cronkites of the world "don't need an online forum, they've got TV shows and columns and access to the media...you are giving voice to people who are already famous." To which AH said:

I believe the blogosphere is so important, it is changing the way we receive information so dramatically that I wanted to make sure that those people, who, as you say, have other platforms, would also have an online platform, because the truth is even though they could probably all write a column and send it to "The New York Times," the chances are they would not do that. They are busy, they have other things to do, but they can blog a thought that they have, a reaction to something that is happening. They can express a passion, because that is the beauty of blogging.

Your thought doesn't have to have a beginning, a middle and an end. It can be put out there. Others respond. It can start a conversation and you can get on with the rest of your life.

Whole thing here.

Given the first week or so of material, I'm starting to believe that Huffington is actually a deep plant for the GOP, that she never actually changed her politics from her old Republican days, when she was playing Angela Lansbury to then-husband Michael Huffington's Laurence Harvey (perhaps Al Franken was the Frank Sinatra in the low-stakes Manchurian Candidate ripoff that was MH's thankfully short political career?). As Matt W suggests below, all you have to do is scan the site to realize that it reads like a red state parody of blue state jackassery, one that can only do damage to liberal causes worldwide.

Or maybe it's just the latest Andy Kauffman project.

Comments

|5.18.05 @ 5:37PM|#

I'm glad it is out there. I am tired of people telling me that liberals don't REALLY say things like that. I am tired of the whole Reality Based Community, We Are Empiricists While They Are Fanatics line that we all hear. This sort of thing illustrates nicely that the level of reason is NO higher in the left coalition. Keep talking Baldwins all. Keep talking.

Garrison|5.18.05 @ 5:41PM|#

You criticize the celebs' posts as if the blogosphere isn't already dominated by such stupidity. Yes, it's comical that Huff and Co. think they're raising the bar, but it should be obvious to anyone familiar with the medium that her site is just as stupid as everything else.

|5.18.05 @ 5:49PM|#

She says that you can respond to the celebrity bloggers - but that's not really true. At least you can't respond directly. That would be too much fun.

Luke Thomas|5.18.05 @ 5:54PM|#

Peep this joint:

http://huffington.isfullofcrap.com/

|5.18.05 @ 6:09PM|#

I'm with you, JL. That's all the HuffPost is good for, showing off elite stupidity.

|5.18.05 @ 6:22PM|#

Peep this joint:

http://huffington.isfullofcrap.com/

Gads, but I love the intarweb.

|5.18.05 @ 6:23PM|#

All I know is that whenever I read her site I can't believe it's for real. Apparently it is.

Luke Thomas|5.18.05 @ 6:33PM|#

"Gads, but I love the intarweb."

Mediageek, you have no friends and no one likes you. Stop trying to be funny. You are not funny. No seriously, please stop because you're far more annoying than you are funny. In fact, you're far more ANYTHING than you are funny, so please stop trying to be cute. Honestly, you're terrible. Please cease and desist.

You probably thinking "Oh, he's just joking", but I'm not joking. You're attempts at humor are atrocious and everyone talks about what a loser you are behind your back. Please stop. We all beg of you. Again, stop trying to be funny.

Your posts remind everyone of things like cancer and AIDS either because they are nightmarish or because they'd rather have those two diseases instead of their eyes which have been corrupted from reading your posts.

One last time, no one ever wants to get to know you because you suck at life. Help yourself and help us by refraining from attempts at humor. Seriously stop.

You have no friends.

|5.18.05 @ 6:57PM|#

For real? :(

Luke Thomas|5.18.05 @ 6:58PM|#

No, I was joking.

|5.18.05 @ 7:00PM|#

*whew*

|5.18.05 @ 7:14PM|#

I just went to the site for the first time. Where are the links so users can post comments? I couldn't find any. You gotta be kidding me.

|5.18.05 @ 7:18PM|#

You�re probably right Nick. There�s Breibart on staff. Plus, the Corner links to them more than any other blog. In fact, most of the links to the site have been from right leaning blogs. (That I've seen anyways)

To steal a Sports Guy gag, if political punditry were pro wrestling I could see this situation. Imagine a tag team match Limbaugh and Coulter vs. Huffington and Moore. Karl Rove plays the part of Mr. Fuji for L&C. Moore throws his patented belly buster from the top rope and gets ready for the pin on Limbaugh. All of the sudden, Hail to the Chief blares over the loudspeaker and the announcers shout out, "Oh no, is that the Administration�s music?!?!" Rove throws a 2 by 4 to Huffington who proceeds to pummel Moore. Then the trio throw Moore through the Spanish announcer's table and finish with the pin.

Constantine|5.18.05 @ 8:30PM|#

You know what my problem with the site is? The front page web design looks way too much like a ripoff of The Onion.

I could get into the issue of why it's not worthwhile to read a blog with so many different voices and raise the standard objections against a weblog of celebrities we can read about any time, but at the end of the day, I can't help but go to the front page of the site and mistake it for The Onion.

|5.18.05 @ 10:10PM|#

--->For real? :(


BWA HA HA HA!

|5.18.05 @ 10:37PM|#

"doucheblogs"

That's great. I'm still laughing.

|5.18.05 @ 10:59PM|#

...if political punditry were pro wrestling...

I resent that analogy; pro wrestling is much too dignified...

|5.18.05 @ 11:52PM|#

Did a search for Diane Keaton, having read this article...
Found an interesting blogger with a funny post: http://www.citizenofthemonth.com/2005/05/18/letter-to-diane-keaton/
He's trying to "steal" her away from the Huffington site. I couldn't have said it better myself. (or, maybe I could?....)

David Rossie|5.19.05 @ 1:12AM|#

Sure, it's funny to point and laugh at silly liberals and to hypothesize that Huffington is a GOP plant on the left, but let's get serious. Liberal celebrities often serve the purposes of consevatives, who count on the right-wing masses to cherry-pick weak arguments from the left instead of engaging serious liberals (for example, Yglesias and DeLong). Be careful not to get caught up in the "your goons are dumber than my goons" catfight between the right and left.

|5.19.05 @ 2:38AM|#

"Rove throws a 2 by 4 to Huffington who proceeds to pummel Moore."

[Jesse Ventura Voice ON]

I'm tellin' ya MacMann, in all my years in politics, I've never seen sucha heinous act!"

Ayn_Randian|5.19.05 @ 3:07AM|#

David---

Can we help it if they POSTULATE themsevles as the serious left-wing? I mean, on what other criteria should we engage?

|5.19.05 @ 7:34AM|#

I originally contemplated it would be fun if there were a Republican version of the Huffington blog, but changed my mind. The worst kind of liberal is a moron. The worst kind of Republican is an evil cocksucker.

|5.19.05 @ 9:04AM|#

David,

My only comments about your point is that it is intrinsic to the liberal position, especially the flavor held by Yglesias and DeLong, that liberalism is rooted in reason and empiricism while Pat Robertson is the model for all conservatism. See DeLong's ongoing rants about the complete absence of Grown Up Republicans (i.e. liberals), or the smugness with which the whole Reality Based Community crap is flung around.

They define themselves to be the center and define their policy preferences to be 'rational' (as opposed to 'preferred'), choosing straw men wack jobs in the other coalition to demonstrate the superiority of welfare states and high regulation. Given all that, I'm very comfortable pretending in a public space that all liberals are like the uninformed screaming loons on Huffnpost.

|5.19.05 @ 9:40AM|#

Someday the Dems will realize that latching on to celebs is doing them more harm than good and they'll have to change their approach. So maybe this celeb blogging thing will do some good after all.

Rob Reiner: Hi Howard! I'd like to help out with the 2008 Democratic Party presidential race in any way I can.

Howard Dean: You can help immensely by staying as far away from it as possible.

|5.19.05 @ 10:12AM|#

Hey, what's this about not being able to comment on the Huffblog? You people need to read more carefully:

"We read every comment submitted but only publish comments that are on topic and have the potential to interest other readers. This means there will be a delay before your comment appears. Please post only once."

So there. You can expect the frank, uncensored discussion and persistant fact checking sorely lacking in today's MSM news.

[sarcasm off]

|5.19.05 @ 10:35AM|#

"Reality Based Community" is how a Bush staffer (if memory serves) described those in opposition to the neoconservative agenda. If liberals are throwing the term around, it's because it was handed to them on a silver platter.

R C Dean|5.19.05 @ 10:35AM|#

The worst kind of liberal is a moron. The worst kind of Republican is an evil cocksucker.

Spoken like the worst kind of liberal.

|5.19.05 @ 11:03AM|#

Mark,

I know where it came from. What annoys me is that it is treated as a meaningful phrase with broad implications. The left sees it as an 'aha!' moment that proves there are no 'grownup Republicans'.

|5.19.05 @ 11:04AM|#

Or the best kind of cocksucker.

|5.19.05 @ 11:12AM|#

"The left sees it as an 'aha!' moment that proves there are no 'grownup Republicans'."

Wrong, Jason. The left realizes there are many grownup Republicans. What's noteworthy is the way they get shunted aside and bullied into obedience by the faith-based crew that's running the show now.

|5.19.05 @ 11:28AM|#

Joe is right. There are grownup Republicans, and pretty soon they'll see what's wrong with being Republican and become Democrats like the rest of the grownups.

|5.19.05 @ 11:34AM|#

"What's noteworthy is the way they get shunted aside and bullied into obedience by the faith-based crew that's running the show now."

You can't seriously believe the left is any different? Wait, this is joe, what am I saying?

|5.19.05 @ 11:36AM|#

Josh,

"There are grownup Republicans, and pretty soon they'll see what's wrong with being Republican and become Democrats like the rest of the grownups."

Thank you for the first laugh I've had today.

|5.19.05 @ 11:38AM|#

Shunted aside by Democrats: Zell Miller

Shunted aside by Republicans: Arlen Specter

New Democratic Senate Leader: Harry Reid

New Republican Senate Leader: Bill Frist

Bush's top two candidates for Atty General were Marc Racicot and John Ashcroft. He picked Ashcroft. Think about that.

R C Dean|5.19.05 @ 12:28PM|#

joe, if you think Arlen Specter is symbolic of anything other than rank political opportunism and maniac egotism, well, I doubt you'll find much company.

|5.19.05 @ 1:51PM|#

It wasn't egotism or opportunism that makes him unpopular with the leadership, RC. It's the fact that he's not a wingnut.

|5.19.05 @ 2:48PM|#

"What annoys me is that it is treated as a meaningful phrase with broad implications. The left sees it as an 'aha!' moment that proves there are no 'grownup Republicans'."

I don't know what the left thinks. I know that I, as a moderate liberal, think it explains a lot of things about the current administration and its reckless behavior.

|5.19.05 @ 3:14PM|#

BTW, here's a piece from the Huffington blog by Al Franken that Kos linked to:

. . . The Sunday morning after the White House Correspondents dinner, I ran into Senator George Allen at a brunch thrown by John McLaughlin and his wife. Allen had never heard of the missing $8.8 billion, or at least that's what he told me. And he's on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Stunned, I went up to Susan Page of USA Today and her husband Carl Lubsdorf of the Dallas Morning News, two veteran Washington political reporters, and told them about Allen's ignorance of this huge scandal . . . Turns out that Page and Lubsdorf had also never heard of the unaccounted-for $8.8 billion. For a moment I thought that maybe I had been imagining things.

Then I spotted my friend Norm Ornstein, scholar from the American Enterprise Institute. "Would you believe it if Norm Ornstein told you about the $8.8 billion?" I asked Susan and Carl.

"Sure." I brought Norm over, and indeed I had not been imagining things. "It was a huge story," Norm told them.

"Was it in the New York Times?" Carl asked Norm.

"Yes," Norm assured him.

Does this count as something more than a celebrity brain fart?

|5.19.05 @ 10:15PM|#

joe,
That you use "faith-based" as an insult *might* have something to do with your (collective "you" here) recent string of electoral triumphs.

|5.20.05 @ 12:52AM|#

I just saw this piece on the Huffiana Post by Representative John Conyers:

"Arianna posts an excellent blog on today's article in The New York Times that the leaking of information regarding the military's doubts about the ultimate likelihood of success in Iraq is significant."

The Huffiana Post needs a lot of things, but it doesn't need an editor. Just keep postin' those blogs and let it roll!

...better than the Onion!