Another victim of the Van Jones incident was a blog called Little Green Footballs that had risen to prominence due to Dan Rather's shoddy attempt to scuttle George W. Bush's run for a second term as President of the United States. Since Little Green Footballs in the past few days has been desperately trying to defend Van Jones from his own words, the once much respected site has finally succumbed to it's long predicted death as a result. LGF delenda est.
Hat-tip: Karagush for finding the cartoon.
9 comments:
I'm not sure I read it the same way. LGF is pretty down on Glen Beck, but the apparent only issue in defense of Jones is the "Truther" question. He's been pretty much forward on the pseudo-science of Jones, the convicted killer defense aspects of Jones, the communist supporter of Jones, etc.
I don't have a problem with villification when a villain is guilty, but don't have one either with pointing out obvious exaggerations when the villain isn't that guilty.
The truther issue was just another brick in the wall...
Ed, speaking as someone who got purged for daring to voice just once disagreement with one of LGF's favourite posters, the place is not as benign as it seems. About a dozen got purged that night for giving one brave soul an upding because they thought one of Charles' monitor lizards was being cruel by attacking a father with an autisic child during one of the vaccine threads. I actually side with Charles on vaccines, they do more good than harm. But because I agreed that a vicious verbal attack on that father was wrong, I got banned from that site. Others have been labeled creationist and banned. At last count, 1000 registered posters from LGF have been banned by Charles. Charles has even looked at who is logged in to Roses' Parachat room, compared names, and banned people from LGF - he got five that way. Disagreeing with Charles's defense of Van Jones' Truther connections has gotten a dozen banned this weekend. Frankly Charles has gone off his rocker.
This is why I say the Van Jones incident was the last straw for the relevance of Charles and his blog.
Ed Rasimus,
I will disagree with you on a number of issues. CJ repeatedly said that Jones was widely respected in the environmental community as if that lent credence to his credentials. When a commenter said that this did bode well for the enviros, CJ attacked the commenter. Secondly CJ said Jones was now a capitalist. As anyone who read even a portion of Green Collar Economy knows, this is untrue. Jones wants to replace capitalism with a State directed economy, replete with racial reparations and the destruction of European cultural manifestations. Those that pointed this out were called to the carpet. Even when Powerline hosted a video of Jones saying the same thing, that was linked. No. We are seeing slow drift to the site becoming an Obama praise machine even as it purports to be otherwise. I find it greatly entertaining.
I can't disagree with any of what you both have said. I track LGF maybe three or four times a week, and as with all blogs on my regular stops list, I find occasional items to disagree with, but usually offer some latitude for quibbles. You've lifted the corner on some behind the curtain stuff which makes it less benign.
The bigger problem remains, however, the pervasiveness of anti-capitalist, eco-weirdos with deep racist backgrounds in the administration and the slack-jawed acceptance of the under-educated electorate. Increasingly I see this as not ending well. I'm getting more like Beck every day--Billy, not Glen!
I stopped reading LGF about 2 years ago and have only gone back periodically since. Seeing your post I decided to have a look, and LGF is worse than ever. Charles Johnson seems to have become an Obama supporter and conservative hater.
I never did like that he restricts comments to those who agree with his posts, and that any disagreement is apparently grounds for excommunication.
LGF sucks- it is a hate site. Ignore it, don't bother with it. I was happy to read another web site deleted its link to it. Chuckie Smuckie is NUTS.
Well, one problem cured. LGF no longer can link to Powerline. Problem solved.
("Sir. May I have more porridge?")
Ed, I worry about the progressive side as Obama tries to manuever and stay afloat. Those are some seriously agitated individuals after 8 years of hate-fest and then having the keys to the kingdom handed to them, only to see everything get stymied. I think of them as two-year olds armed with cell-phones and the odd Molotov cocktail.
Tom, it has become a cesspool and as Legion intimates with colourful language, Charles threw a hissy-fit when Powerline delinked him. Would you believe more people got banned over that? They did.
Ok. I left lgf a couple of months ago. Not for anything specific, just a change in direction. After reading this post and all your comments I went back and checked it out again.
I won't be returning. Charles has taken on a definite defensive tone and spends entirely too much time in attack mode. Maybe he's been attacked himself too much. Maybe it's something else. Whatever it is, he seems fixated on a few enemies (especially the 'nirthers')and his dismissive posts on the Tea Party movement really put me off. As did his support for obama's health care proposal.
No. It's definitely not the same lgf I started reading long ago.
Pity really. Charles at his best was very good indeed.
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