This Week Only: Cavanaugh vs. Gillespie; Audience Declared Loser

Over at the site Jewcy, Reason Editor-in-Chief Nick Gillespie and former Web Editor Tim Cavanaugh (now with the Los Angeles Times) participate in "Movable Snipe," an ill-tempered and ill-conceived series of back-and-forth epistolary attacks on various blogs picked by Jewcy's honchos (Michelle Malkin, Kausfiles, Wired's Danger Room, Glenn Greenwald, and Time's Swampland).

Here's a snippet from the first installment, in which Gillespie muses in run-on fashion:

That stink filling the room isn't simply my own decaying prose, Tim-I'm about to head over to Time mag's Swampland, "a blog about politics in the nation's capital." Only a gigantic journalistic behemoth such as Mr. Luce's mag could marshal the resources required to deliver Jay Carney's laser-like insight into a new 5-minute "testimonial" video by Bill Clinton about his better half that's posted at Hillary's official website. "The question, of course" writes Carney, "Is the video effective? Or does it backfire? Will Bill's fluid and persuasive delivery remind people that Hillary's not nearly so good a politician as her husband? Or will having the ultimate political salesman making the pitch on her behalf be a net benefit? Having watched it a few times, it feels to me like a net plus for Hillary. But I could be wrong."

Goddamnit, Tim, why can't you and I write prose like this? Does this guy eat dilithium crystals for breakfast?

Seriously, journalists everywhere-and especially at your misbegotten rag, which can only do 20 percent ROI, so it's understandable why your billionaire owner has to start cutting the fat-are always bitching about how penny-pinchers are shutting down foreign bureaus. Read a couple of items into Swampland-"That's Hagelian!" reads one groaner by Joe Klein-and you'll be complaining that Time hasn't shut down enough of its domestic bureaus yet.

More here. Look for Cavanaugh's response by close of business--or opening of the bars--today.

A past edition of Movable Snipe featured National Review's John Derbyshire and novelist-cum-spanking enthusiast Daphne Merkin taking cheap shots at Hit & Run along with a bunch of other blogs. More on that here.