The Manchurian President
Thanks to Little Green Footballs, here’s a preview of Comrade Dear Leader Barack Obama’s speech with which he will indoctrinate our youth with Socialist-Leninist-Maoist ideology. Clearly, the Comrade President’s exhortation to school children to turn off the television is a lightly-veiled attempt to subvert Fox News. The President’s disdain for video games — dominated by PSP2′s– is a dog whistle assault on Japan’s noble and admirable Imperial legacy and its current capitalist system.
As one of our fine commenters pointed out earlier today, you KNOW you’re a certified wacken-nut when you find yourself to the right of Charles Johnson and his LGF blog.
A necessary disclaimer here. I met Charles a few times and while I certainly don’t agree with his basic politics, I actually found him to be a reasonable and open-minded fellow with whom it was very easy and affable to discuss conflicting viewpoints. He’s basically a bike-riding, quiet-tempered, simple-living musician affected by an overdose of Islamophobia. This was all about three or four years ago when Pajamas Media was being launched and I — and David Corn– were brought in an attempt to pepper the venture with some ideological diversity. Johnson was one of the co-founders of the operation.
He soon found himself rather marginalized within it as co-founder and CEO Roger L. Simon feared that too much of Johnson’s influence might discredit the nascent site. Problem is, Pajamas never did find any reasonable equilibrium or credibility. For a brief moment in 2006, it looked like we were going to be able to reach an agreement that Pajamas would become a place that would lure and promote those on the right an left seeking common ground, or attempting to transcend rigid dogmas.
That moment lasted all about two weeks. Just as we were about to formally launch such a notion (we even recorded a never-posted podcast annoucing the shift in direction away from being a pure right-wing site, there was a pull back by Simon and, apparently, his funder. And since then, the place has continuously drifted (or better, steamed, deeper and deeper into the Fringe Right. I mean, take a gander at this nutjob piece! After I gave up on PJM, David Corn hung in there for a stretch longer but eventually left. After David left, the only left of center presence they had was our friend, Bill Bradley of newwestnotes.com . But he couldn’t put up with the craziness either (having Michael Ledeen’s stuff headlined on your blog sidebar ain’t that much fun). And then Bill also left PJM and went independent.
Some folks at PJM, maybe even co-founder Simon himself, still engage in the charade of thinking of themselves as “centrists” or whatever. The site, however, speaks for itself and is an alliance of neo-cons, neo-neo cons, nut cases, and just some very bad bloggers who apparently never had a date in high school. (Don’t know if it’s still on the air or not, but the show PJM Political is, without question, the most laughable slot to be found on the XM Sirius POTUS channel, hopefully it’s off the air by now). But it sounds, or sounded, like a couple of high school drama kids with penciled-on moustaches and gray shoe polish in their hair pretending to be, God help us, pundits! Stupid politics. Horrible radio. Wonderful if unintentional comedy.
Bottom line: There’s a great irony here in that in 2009 Charles Johnson and the often off-kilter LGF is now infinitely more rational, more readable and more sensible than Pajamas. Kudos to Johnson for calling out the nutjobs who, at times, have championed him. Wow.
September 5th, 2009 at 8:03 am
All I could think of when I saw a screen cap of Michelle Malkin, Glenn Reynolds and Joe Wurzelbacher on PJTV was Shemp, Larry & Moe.
September 5th, 2009 at 10:18 am
LGF “off-kilter”?
More like a strange fruit combination of neo-nazi and Zionist jihadi nutjobs, with a strong tinge of Stormfront.
September 5th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
Roger L. Simon thought Charles Johnson was going to discredit HIM ?
September 5th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Charles Johnson is going to be drummed out of the rightwing blogosphere. I wouldn’t even be surprised if he pulls an Andrew Sullivan within the next year or two and breaks openly with his old comrades. Meanwhile, PJM has posts up touting all of the demons and hobgoblins that inhabit “the conservative mind” these days, including a “call to arms” for parents against against Obama’s “totalitarian-type telecast.” I’m not kidding.
(I talked to my sister this morning and her small midwestern city newspaper had an utterly alarmist, non-factual “news story” about this issue on the front page. She was disgusted, in particular by the amateurish and hysterical nature of the story, which even brought “birther” concerns into play as to why it was wrong for the President to speak motivationally to school kids. This is a town in which the Assembly of God has taken over the local schoolboard. The formerly-excellent schools have been run into the ground while these morons debate their ideological hobby-horse issues. If you want a “totalitarian-type” worldview you needn’t look farther than that crowd.)
September 5th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
‘matter’ says:
“LGF “off-kilter”?
More like a strange fruit combination of neo-nazi and Zionist jihadi nutjobs, with a strong tinge of Stormfront.”
This is outrageous. LGF has led the fight AGAINST neo-nazis and fascists in the “counter-jihad”. Charles Johnson is hated by the sickos at Stormfront. What a completely ignorant thing to say this blog. You clearly have no idea what you’re talking about. I suggest you do some research BEFORE opening your mouth and proving yourself a fool.
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/tag/stormfront/or/1/25/
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/tag/neo-nazis/or/1/25/
September 5th, 2009 at 7:17 pm
Reg, unlike Andrew Sullivan, Charles Johnson has class.
September 6th, 2009 at 4:45 am
This is the best repsonse yet to this “controversy”
http://www.dailykostv.com/w/002101/
September 6th, 2009 at 8:44 am
Dark Falcon- Andrew Sullivan has more class than anyone else I can think of who calls themselves “conservative” – with the possible exceptions of Bruce Bartlett and Jeffrey Hart. Breaking with the Cheney torture regime and the Krazies like Malkin and Kranks at NRO is evidence of some sense of decency on Sullivan’s part.
September 6th, 2009 at 10:16 am
I published a few articles about Russia on PJM. I was happy to take their money despite their rightwing nuttiness though I never got as much traffic to my blog from them as I hoped.
After a few pieces that tried to look at what is going on in Russia in a (god forbid) more nuanced way, they stopped asking. I always assumed that it was partially political. Marc, your rundown now has me convinced it was. Thanks.
September 6th, 2009 at 6:56 pm
“Charles Johnson is going to be drummed out of the rightwing blogosphere.”
You’re right on the mark there, Reg, though I’d go one farther and say that for all practical purposes it has already happened. LGF has been, for quite some time now, relentlessly showcasing the nutty fringes of the far right, effectively joining league with the many liberal sites that espouse the image of conservatives as being just a bunch of racist, ignorant, Jesus-freak, fascist mouth-breathers. Gone is any pretense otherwise, though it does seem that there are a limited number of right leaning folk who haven’t yet recognized this, but they soon will. By betraying his conservative constituency who are responsible for his site’s popularity, he has ultimately relegated LGF to a downward spiral leading to obscurity.
The best of luck to you, and have a good night.
September 6th, 2009 at 8:08 pm
That must be why traffic at LGF is up, huh Cole?
Go ahead and join truther tax rallies, and push creationism in schools. Real Conservatives like Goldwater and Buckley would be ashamed of you.
September 6th, 2009 at 8:40 pm
Wow… What a silly response.
September 7th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
LGF has basically gone from dishonestly focusing on extreme nutbars on the left as if they are representative of most liberals to dishonestly focusing on focusing on extreme nutbars on the right to smear conservatives, using the usual rhetoric about “taints”, guilt by association and “not doing enough to distance yourself from them”. It’s tedious either way and attempts to substitute ritualised shunning as a substitute for debate.
Charles Johnson is only a “centrist” in the sense that the people he is prepared to respectfully disagree with inhabit the region plus or minus 5% from the middle of the ideological spectrum. Everyone else is an “extremist” whose opinions are beyond the pale and should not be dignified with a response etc etc. How boring. This is why meaningful political debates no longer happen.