Ann Althouse, during a meltdown on BloggingHeads TV after Garance Franke-Ruta of TAPPED mentioned Althouse’s attacks on Jessica Valenti following the blogger meeting with Bill Clinton in September:
I don’t like it being brought up as just a way to undermine me and make me look bad in an out of context way…You are on a blog TAPPED that includes these people who do things like this. If I searched TAPPED for my name I’d find vicious things about me that are disconnected from anything that I recognize about myself and that has no connection to any attempt to try to persuade me, or include me, or convince me to be on that side. It just seems to be dominated by vicious, ugly people.
Shorter Ann Althouse: I’m a narcissistic asshole with a selective memory.
Sorry Ann, but saying “I don’t think I’m a bad person” is not a defense. You picked a fight with Jessica on the basis of her looks and you made enemies because of it. TRex writes:
Jessica, by the way, is one of ours, a top-notch writer (unlike yourself), a true feminist (ditto), and a brave American patriot who believes whole-heartedly that this nation must be wrested back out of the hands of the incompetent elites who have used the last decade to drive the US straight into a ditch. You fuck with Jessica (or her breasts) and basically, you’ve fucked with us all.
And that’s why we find you so repellent. Not because we’re enforcing some kind of ideological conformity and think you should be more like us, but because whatever you may tell yourself your political leanings are, ultimately, you’re working for Them. You are perpetuating toxic Right Wing narratives and frankly, your tepid support of progressive causes is worse than no support at all.
The fact that you like yourself is irrelevant. When your dust-ups with the liberal blogosphere happen whenever you open your mouth and slur liberal bloggers, it’s time to recognize that we’re not the problem. You are the common denominator. You are the cause to this “flame wars” you so hate. The sooner you recognize that we will never care how much you love yourself while you’re levying attacks against our friends and allies, the sooner you’ll stop being disappointed when people don’t love you or your piddling writing.
Technorati Tags: Ann Althouse, Jessica Valenti
March 27th, 2007 at 10:37 am
Gee Matt,
GOP talking pointy head footballs are all the rage today. Kick’em where you find’em lying around. heh
March 28th, 2007 at 11:22 pm
gah, i was trying specifically to avoid reading T-Rex. “one of ours.” whatever. i’ve seen enough of what he’s levelled at ” NOT one of ours;” Mssr. Pot, Mme Kettle is on line two for you. and: even if I didn’t like Jessica, I still wouldn’t think Althouse’s behavior toward her was okay. hey, I stuck up for Jane Hamsher when Van der Leun was excreting over her for having -breast cancer,- and i still think she’s a big ol’ bullying asshole in her own right. it’s not a fucking football game. it’s about decency, and -trying- to be grownups occasionally; or what’s the point?
all that said, Althouse is a truly splendiforous example of a giant guano-bomb of a narcissistic emu, yes: that is the bottom line.
March 29th, 2007 at 5:26 am
As far as I know TRex has a good relationship with Jessica. He was heavily involved in kicking Althouse and the other right wing sexual harassers/fantasizers around during the September ordeal. He’s posted in defense of Jessica and brought up this incident a number of times since then. THere’s really no comparison between him and Althouse and his repeated rejections of her and defenses of Jessica, Vanessa & Jill are evidence of that.
April 2nd, 2007 at 1:47 pm
It’s not his relationship with Jessica that I have a problem with.
the Liza/Culture Kitchen thing, among others, for example, was a good example of what happens to people who aren’t “one of ours.”