Bill Kristol in Pajamas?

A historic moment: Over at The Weekly Standard's blog, Bill Kristol is lured into writing his first ever blog post by the "unhinged" "fringe" commenters at Huffington Post, and their homicidal tendencies:

Arianna disapproves of those of us who called attention to the comments posted on her site Tuesday morning lamenting the failure of a suicide bombing in Afghanistan Tuesday to kill Vice President Cheney. These commenters "make up a very, very small unrepresentative portion of our readers," she now assures us.

How does she know? If the HuffPost commenters are unrepresentative of HuffPost readers, how does she divine the views of her readers?

Enlighten us, Arianna. Poll your readers. Ask them: Are they pleased that the attempt against Vice President Cheney failed? Are they grateful that he is alive and well? Do you hope the U.S. prevails in Afghanistan? In Iraq?

And if the poll turns out the way you hope, perhaps you should arrange to moderate the commenters so they don't convey the impression that your readers are--as you put it--"unhinged" and "fringe."

No word on whether Kristol was sitting at home in his pajamas when he wrote this.

Comments

[tros]

Yes, that's right, we can unhinge the doors of perception and they grow legs and walk around and get hit by radiation and grow really big and scream like godzilla ROOOAAAR UHINHINGED

[Smappy]

Right, Bill. Like GOPers would have been heartsick over a successful assassination attempt on Gore or Clinton.

[Sex Offenders Union]

Meanwhile, the Weekly Standard's site doesnt allow comments at all.

Gee, I wonder why.

[VM]

ppssssttttt. joe - your handle.

Right now John et al are sitting back at their desks, "I knew it!"

[joe]

D'oh!

[Moose a la Viking]

🙂

[Warren]

Kristol is a straight up war-mongering hate baiter. Doesn't mean Huffingtonians aren't exactly what he says they are.

[SM]

Ay Carrumba ! The great Kristol condescends to wag his handkerchief from the Straussian commanding hieghts, calling for more gatekeepers. Who let the unwashed into the intertubes and why ain't they fighting in Iran already ?

[John]

Glen Reynolds gets ripped on by the left all the time for not allowing comments. His response is that he feels responsible for what is on his site and he doesn't want some nutcase writing stuff in the comments that is later associated with him. I think that is a pretty good policy.

As far as crazy commenters go, I defy anyone to top KOS or DU for pure entertainment value. Nothing on the right even comes close to some of the nutcases over there.

[Fluffy]

I think the appropriate response here would be to sift through the Comments section at Freerepublic and make Bill Kristol specifically account for each and every last sentiment expressed there.

[ChicagoTom]

Poll your readers. Ask them: Are they pleased that the attempt against Vice President Cheney failed? Are they grateful that he is alive and well? Do you hope the U.S. prevails in Afghanistan? In Iraq?

Because as we all know internet polls are notoriously accurate and can't be tainted by anyone with an agenda.

[ChrisO]

Blogging about blogging.

[ChicagoTom]

Glen Reynolds gets ripped on by the left all the time for not allowing comments. His response is that he feels responsible for what is on his site and he doesn't want some nutcase writing stuff in the comments that is later associated with him. I think that is a pretty good policy.

True. He prefers to write the nutty stuff himself -- like calling for the covert assassination of atomic scientists and religious leaders in foreign lands.

He wouldn't want his commenters to steal his thunder.

[Grotius]

ChrisO,

And now folks are blogging about blogging that is about blogging. 😉

[Malcolm J.]

"As far as crazy commenters go, I defy anyone to top KOS or DU for pure entertainment value. Nothing on the right even comes close to some of the nutcases over there."

There's always LGF or RedState, but YMMV.

[VM]

Is Glen involved with "Coast to Coast AM"?

enough, Gro! can't. keep. up. 🙂

[Kwix]

Malcolm J.
You hit it on the nose.
LGF:DU as RedState:DailyKOS
They are nothing more than partisan wakaloon wankfests.

[_____]

Reason's comments are so infested with unhinged left-wing nutcases it makes it hard to enjoy the occasional libertarian unhinged nutcase.

[thoreau]

Of all the reasons to not take Arianna Huffington seriously, the best that Kristol can come up with is her blog commenters?

Yet another reason to not take Kristol seriously.

[jasno]

I never understood why a slashdot style moderation system didn't catch on in the blog-o-sphere.

To summarize - regular members are randomly given moderation points which allow them a limited ability to moderate posts. It used to be 5 points, one point per moderation change. You could then filter your viewing based on post's moderation level. Everyone could also moderate the moderators, so it helped keep the power out of the hands of the weirdos.

I guess in the end blogs aren't designed as message boards, which is really what they've turned into.

[Groucho Marx]

I once shot Bill Kristol in my pajamas. What he was doing in my pajamas I'll never know.

[Grotius]

SM,

Whether Kristol is a Straussian or not, I'd just like to note that Straussians are spread out through the ideological spectrum. In other words, there isn't just one type of Straussian.

[Lamar]

So, does this mean that Reason is now defined by the commentors on its blog? And shouldn't we be getting paid as the public face of Reason magazine? Seriously, you don't think that editors, writers and support staff run the magazine, do you? It's all about the commentors, super-awesome hunks of freakmeat that we are.

[highnumber]

Do I have to take responsibility for you all now?
Damn! I can hardly handle myself, let alone the family.
All right, here goes!

VM, clean your room!
Grotius, did you finish your homework?
No, Stevo, you may not smear lightning bugs on your cheeks. No, not even those cheeks.
John, joe, hug each other and say you're sorry.

[lunchstealer]

Gro, I believe the full expansion would be commenting about blogging about blogging about commenting about blogs.

[jf]

And if the poll turns out the way you hope, perhaps you should arrange to moderate the commenters so they don't convey the impression that your readers are--as you put it--"unhinged" and "fringe."

I think Kristol is missing something here. Last time I commented there, I still got the notice that the comment was awaiting moderation (or something like that). If they do still moderate comments, Ariana's defense looks like nothing more that standard CYA bullshit.

[Aristotle]

Grotius - Dunno 'bout all over, or even whether you'd find some/any left[ist] Straussians, but none are stupid if not all are wise.

[Jon H]

jasno writes: "I never understood why a slashdot style moderation system didn't catch on in the blog-o-sphere."

Probably because moderation would end up being done based on politics and ideologies, not on more objective or neutral bases such as the quality of contribution to the discussion.

For example, look what happens on Red State if you deviate from the increasingly narrow accepted range of views. Blam! You're banned.

[Jon H]

At the risk or raising Kristol's ire, I do think our country would be far better off if John Yoo and David Addington would vanish in a plane over the Bermuda Triangle. I ain't saying they should die... if they mysteriously reappear unaged 1000 years from now, post-Singularity when we're all digital and post-war and Israel has physically moved its entire territory to a terraformed Mars, that'd probably work as well.

They really are cancerous influences, and Yoo isn't even in government anymore.

It probably wouldn't hurt the nation and world if Cheney were on the Triangle-bound plane with them, along with Frank Gaffney, the Kagans, Richard Perle, Feith, Wolfowitz, various Ledeens, Kristol, Lieberman, Reuel Marc Gerecht, Danielle Pletka, Laurie Mylroie, etc.

Ideally, a AEI/Weekly Standard Hegemonic Vacation would go missing in the Triangle. The mean intelligence and rationality of DC would skyrocket.

Um, and no, I don't really believe in a mysterious bermuda triangle effect, but it would be really useful in this case.

[Ken Shultz]

"Enlighten us, Arianna. Poll your readers. Ask them: Are they pleased that the attempt against Vice President Cheney failed? Are they grateful that he is alive and well? Do you hope the U.S. prevails in Afghanistan? In Iraq?"

I hope Kristol gets the runs.

[Karen]

I've always thought that much of the fun of blogs was to attract lunatic comments. If I want to read thoughtful commentary, I'll get The Atlantic Monthly or a book. If I want to read insane rantings and feel superior, I'll read blogs. Lately I do a lot more of the latter than the former, but hey, that's just me. (And one reason I like H & R is that it generally doesn't attract the blog equivalent of streetcorner preachers.) Honestly, Kristol really has lost it if he feels the need to complain about Huffington's comments. If he wants to complain about HuffPo's writers being pompous and arrogant, that's another story. Also, I agree with Malcolm. LGF is so partisan as to be unreadable.

[Apostate Jew]

Kristol really has lost it ...

As have a lot of his ilk.

It's one of the very few good effects of the war. It hasn't turned out the way they knew it would. Rather than think about why that it is and why they were wrong they prefer to insist that they were not in fact wrong and attack those who ruined their fantasy.

I imagine it must be very trying for ole Bill Kristol to keep up appearances knowing that his capital has been exhausted.

Knowing you're wrong but refusing to admit it and continuing to act as if you're right leads to all sorts of comedy (tragedy as well).

[Grotius]

Aristotle,

As I recall, there were a couple of self-described Straussians in the Clinton administration.

[Aristotally, Man is a politica]

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22straussians+in+the+clinton+administration%22

Oh, well.

Of course, self-described Bush-Administration Straussians are not all other-described Straussians.

It's a cipher.

[bago]

You know, via bayesian analysis you can prove this. This has already been done in video games. Read the white paper done by bungie and halo on matchmaking.

The gaming realm has been dealing with griefers, sockpuppets, and trolls far longer than the blogosphere.