The weirdest thing about watching that diavlog is seeing Althouse adjusting her hair. Garance does it too, and I'm sure that I would if I were on BloggingHeads, but it's still odd. It sucks that even when we are appearing wholly because of our ideas, for discourse, we're still thinking "do I look ok?"
Please don't use "diavlog" ingenuously, leblanc.
Why "diavlog"? If you're going to add a consonant to "dialog" which introduces a flavor of "blogging", it seems like the logical choice would be "b", right? Or is the "v" in there to bring "video" into the portmanteau?
I'm sure she meant to put it in quotes.
"diablog" might also lend itself to accusations of satanism I guess.
Or is the "v" in there to bring "video" into the portmanteau?
As far as I know, yes. The derivation is from "vlog" rather than directly from "blog" (which is of course the origin of "vlog" as well).
6 demonstrates my ignorance -- I was unaware of the term "vlog". So "diavlog" had me scatchin' my head; as if the dandruff were not enough on its own.
Every single time I see, hear or read Althouse, my opinion of her goes down. I've gone from "she's dumb" to "she's dumb, mean and petty" to "She's a dumb, mean, petty, sick fuck."
Garance gives way, way too much ground on the relative nastiness of left vs. right blogs.
"The right is always nice to me, the left is always mean to me. Why is the left so mean to me? [Garance explains.] Waaah! now you're being mean to me! Don't bring up old blog stories! The left is mean to me on blogs! Apologize for the left! Vicious bitch! Waaah!"
Garance should have hung the fuck up on that asshole.
Garance is clearly not well practiced at talking to excitable people.
In the first segment, Garance talks about how she uses awkward silences as a journalistic technique, to get the interviewee to say things they otherwise wouldn't just to fill the silence. I think she's well-practiced at it, it's just a sort of hidden skill.
My god Althouse is a manipulative bitch. Look at her verge of tears face when she says she's been mistreated. She's so twisted.
And she gets off on bullying Garance. Ugh, hate hate hate.
14: yeah, I noticed the smirk that followed the tantrum.
Also: what happens when you actually search Tapped, as she suggests, for her name. Turns out, not so vicious.
12: Yeah, to give Garance her due, I could see how what she was doing might work if the idea were to get quotes for an interview -- just back all the way off and keep Althouse talking. It looks funny on video, though -- Althouse ranting, and Garance thinking "The scary lady can't come through the monitor to get me, can she?"
And, of course, Garance is an attractive young woman, which type we already know Althouse absolutely can't handle.
I seriously cannot get a read on GFR from her body language. Shes so crypto- its just flabbergasting to see her on diavlalogs.
11 is awesome. Enraged bunny devastates Ann Althouse!
Jesus Christ, that was embarrassing for Ann, and I don't even like her. She keeps talking about how boring old flamewars are, to erase the subject, but can't keep herself from screaming contentlessly about it for five minutes. I agree with the BH commenter who said she should have realized that she came off as insane and begged for this not to be shown.
I don't even like her s/b I think even LGM gives her more credit than she deserves.
I wish GFR had phoned a friend on the relative kinds of nasty in the blogosphere. The left is more likely to reach for "doughy pantload" in a discussion of a political opponent. But the most hostile rightwing sites employ eliminationist rhetoric, which is simply untoward.
she should have realized that she came off as insane and begged for this not to be shown
That would require at least a dollop of self-awareness, which she lacks. She doesn't see any criticism of her as ever being substantive.
After looking at the BH comments, I went to AA's blog. Here's what she has to say:
Some folks think I should pull my punches and adopt some sort of mentoring role. Ridiculous!
Althouse has stumbled upon the mot juste.
I've never seen anyone so intent on making a fool of herself.
Her punches? The ones she administered repeatedly to herself? Because I didn't see any others.
Haters, revel in this: I am the most Althouse-vortex-obsessed person here, and I can't watch this because I don't have the right plugin. I am Tantalus.
I used to not be able to watch bloggingheads videos for some plugin-related reason, but this one loaded just fine. I still didn't watch it, though.
If Teo and FL just trade computers everybody will be content.
("Everybody" is used here in a very restrictive sense.)
If Labs wants my computer, he'll have to come here and get it. And if he does I'll most likely hand it over because he's really big.
1-8: "Internet Debate Team Nerd Fight Movies"
Could work?
IDTNFM for the aware nerd.
I doubt I'll be content at the end of the exchange, however.
I seriously don't give a shit about the ideology.
What I give a shit about is the lack of humility, self-awareness, proportionality or capacity for critical thought. Oh, and add to that a sense of humor. All of that Althouse appears to lack to an almost diagnosable extent, based on that video.
What is so hard about saying, "Oops, I lost it a bit there"? What kind of model of adulthood requires that after making a mistake, you blame other people, go on the attack, etcetera?
I'm not seeing any commonly understood sense of "content" that would accurately describe my likely condition.
35: This seems right to me. What AA sees as the purification of the liberal blogosphere is not, as far as I can tell, along any ideological lines, but more on issues of tone.
Your person would be all that's left of the content that used to be on your computer.
It's not too surprising to me that the same trait that makes bloggers so dog-with-a-bone in their blogs would cause Althouse to lose all composure and keep harping on the same issue so idiotically in person.
Why does anyone take Althouse seriously? She and Hewlitt regularly show that they lack the ability to think rationally.
What kind of model of adulthood requires that after making a mistake, you blame other people, go on the attack, etcetera?
Tim, come on, you've been to faculty meetings.
I swear I read this as 'Ann Coulter' and was wondering vaguely why it was news that she lost it and so didn't bother to click the link.
FL, the stories I could tell....
10: "Garance gives way, way too much ground on the relative nastiness of left vs. right blogs."
That's what I thought, too, while watching. But TheGarance's aggressive passivity struck me as being devastatingly effective in the end. What could she have said that would have made it more clear that AA is a paranoid, self-absorbed nitwit? ("Nobody is particularly hostile to you, you fucking twit." See? It just doesn't work.)
Slightly OT: I just came home from hosting a talk at which a dude from the community showed up totally drunk, sat himself next to the wine, refilled his glass not-so-surreptitiously about five times during the talk, passed out several times, and then, at the end, asked no fewer than five ridiculous questions during Q&A. It was really embarrassing. How do you have an open-community policy without hosting a bunch of crazy drunks and freeloaders who ruin the conversation?
You have to not have alcohol. Or have it after the formal part of the meeting is over.
47: The serving of alcohol during our talks is part of what we're known for--a collegial coversation around a table where everyone has sufficient refreshments and isn't eyeing the table the whole time. Or, as it usually goes, everyone has a drink while they say hello and then sits down at the table with a plate. Maybe we just need to make sure there isn't an anti-social person's chair set next to the booze.
But part of the problem is that half of the people who showed up, though not drunks, were not academics and were extremely confused and bored by the speaker's complex analysis and slept through half of it, but they filled the whole Q&A period with exactly the kind of questions his talk was framing as no longer interesting or necessary. I'm sure it felt to him like he was sitting in a room with a bunch of people who weren't listening to him.
45: You do what a well-known philosopher at Harvard is said to have done for a long time to ease the interactive decision problems of visiting speakers. Namely, sit up the front with a sign reading "LOON", and hold up said sign at the appropriate moments -- e.g., when a "dude from the community" asks yet another stupid question.
Alternatively, you admit collectively that an open door policy is a well-meaning liberal fantasy constructed around a bad theory of what is meant by "community."
Yeah, doing this talk-hosting job for two years has really spoiled my sense of who the "community" is. As far as I can tell, if they're not alcoholics, they're (a) there for the food, (b) there to blather about the genius of Teh Founding Fathers!!!1!, or (c) there to take naps. I am soured on it.
Was this lecture publicized any differently than others in the series?
The author of the talk (coming from the UK, where, perhaps, there are no community loons) gave his talk a jaunty title that named one of the famous early colonists of our fair city. It's a sure bet that if a talk names a founding father of some kind, the "I think I read a blurb on that once" crowd shows up in droves.
53: Yep. Disciplines are ongoing conversations. Like when some random, drunk person barges in on your own conversation demanding to know what the hell every topic is about or every reference means or hey why don't we talk about this topic instead, etc, etc.
53: That's just it, EB. I don't like feeling that way, and, in the abstract, I don't. And if it were just curious folks showing up and being a little bored, I wouldn't care. But they're so rude! Not a single student or prof could ask a question or talk to the speaker bc one of the community people would start giving a 10-minute lecture to the speaker on a thing he thinks he might have read once that the speaker egregiously failed to mention, followed by the drunk guy yelling "I wasn't done with my question! I have another question!"
"It's a sure bet that if a talk names a founding father of some kind, the "I think I read a blurb on that once" crowd shows up in droves"
I think that "Free Samuel Adams" is a bad name for a talk.
Are refreshments mentioned whenever it's advertised?
heebie, it's not the refreshments, it's the loons.
58: No, they're not, but it's SOP. Word gets around. Plus, the drunk guy seemed really serious about doing some kind of misguided honor to the subject by protecting him from historical analysis.
It was annoying for the other people who attended, but I worry more that it's a horrible experience for the speaker. Someone offers you a twenty-page paper during his overseas vacation time, and you'd think we could give him a nicer welcome.
Am I super gullible if I re-explain 58?
We had a fun talk last year by a speaker who was, as far as I could tell, afflicted by a lethal combination of drunkeness and thinking way too highly of himself even when he was sober.
Course there was also the extremely well-known military historian I heard speak when I was an undergraduate who came into the talk heavily soused and proceeded to give his theory, blearily and with considerable digressions that had their own incoherent charm, about the fact that war ultimately stems from the fact that men aren't allowed to wear makeup.
I'm not actually being serious about charges of elitism, you know. I like the idea of open talks, but the couple of times I've attended the "open talk" that was part of a conference (which I did not attend), this kind of thing has happened, although without the drunkenness and passing out. Just the speech like questions that turn out to be comments.
Am I super gullible if I re-explain 58?
Sorry heeb. Too much meta is bad for conversations. Disciplines, too. I mean, look at the English department.
I listened to a talk online a while ago which turned out to be a speaker doing his best to be that annoying audience member who goes on and on. It was like he had just attended talks given by all the people whose work he found fault with.
I haven't watched the Althouse video, but here's a threadjack while we're talking about the "funniest video I've seen all day". The little monkey thinks ducks are funny. (Video plays best if you scale your window down to a reasonable size rather than playing full-screen. Not sure why the sizing seems so screwy.)
He doesn't think it's funny when I quack, only when my wife does it. He just stares at me, stone-faced.
(If I've now inadvertently revealed my secret identity, someone please at least let me know so I can take appropriate remedial action.)
You're kinda young for a lawyer, Brock.
I'm not sure I understand the joke (?) in 70.
I am implying that the adorable ragamuffin is you.
40: The thing is, Althouse is just like that on her blog, too (eg, the whole Valenti thing, plus this ridiculous blogfight over, I think, the Weblog Awards that can be best understood by searching her blog for 'the moderate voice').
You know who else thinks ducks are funny? A future mentor for the "little monkey", perhaps.
Garance's eyebrow was the best thing about that discussion. Every time Ann would charge off into crazy land 'mid snow and ice, Garance's eyebrow would flick upward. It was as good as a giant blinking sign saying 'Lunatic!'
Also, babies are very strange. He is a beautiful one, though.
As with all these things, I'm sure it's obvious to us that Althouse made a fool of herself, and obvious to the wingnuts that Garance got schooled.
42: Or any corporate meeting at the VP level or above.
Like FL, I couldn't watch without some plug-in that I couldn't identify, so I downloaded the whole thing, which is presently running in the background. I haven't gotten to the big fun Alterhouse meltdown yet, but so far, I find Garance far more unpleasant to listen to than Althouse.
I can't bear to watch video like this, but the description of AA as 'on the verge of tears' reminded me of this story, which hasn't been linked to this thread yet. It's not just the liberal blogosphere that 'hates' Althouse -- read about what happens when libertarian writer Ron Bailey shares a table with her at a conference. Yow.
I find Garance far more unpleasant to listen to than Althouse
Garance does sound like she has cotton in her mouth. It might be overenunciative nervousness.
82: Garance sounds like a Vassar girl in the 50s. I fully expected her to announce that the calla lilies were in bloom.
Also, Brock, your wife has cute boobs. I'm just beating one of the guys to the punch here.
Althouse in her comments.
Most of the conversation was pleasant. The friction was about 2 minutes in a conversation of well over an hour. But much as I regret having friction, I didn't say anything I didn't mean. I've rewatched what I said several times and I don't consider myself to have misspoke.
Brock's boobs aren't bad, either.
I'm just beating one of the guys
We were already doing that on our own, Cala.
72- No, ben, 72- No, ben, 72-no, ben, I'm the far-less-cute one on the right. Or at least that's what I look like when I haven't slept for weeks. Normally my eyes don't have such big dark circles.
I don't consider myself to have misspoke.
"Misspoken," I think.
But later.
You know, sometimes human beings show emotion. It's not such a big deal. I was being taunted, I said I intended to stand my ground, and then I did. Sure, I wish I'd maintained a steely demeanor throughout, but I'm not all that upset that I didn't. I'll maintain a steely demeanor defending myself against the charge that I failed to take a steely demeanor. I mean, really, what is the big deal? Have you read the crap that is written about me on a daily basis by Tapped contributors? If not, you don't understand why I felt like hitting back.
"I was being taunted." We all realize that this woman is nearly certifiable, right?
Garance sounds like a Vassar girl in the 50s
Between the sibilance, lip acrobatics, and uptalking, I couldn't do a campier impersonation of an ivy sorority girl no matter how drunk and surrounded by rowdy queens I was.
Hmm now I wonder if maybe I shouldn't be commetnnig drunk. That seems like it was a mistake.
Ann is such a voracious consumer of comments about herself. I hope she's really enjoying this thread.
fixed, I think. everyone ignore 88. I'll stop polluting your thread now.
I'll maintain a steely demeanor defending myself against the charge that I failed to take a steely demeanor.
Steely demeanor? Does she think she's the lead character in a pulp novel or something?
94: Aw, I was just going to say you have a mini-me. He looks so much like you.
The old AA/JG Bloggerheads chat is cracking me up, in the context of this new one. I never thought I would think Goldberg was the reasonable one, but AA is being ridiculously inflammatory, making weird comments about the Liberty Fund being "cult-like" and "a right-wing conspiracy." Who is she to say that "breast controversy" (think of another way to describe it?) is just being said to needle and slander her? I mean, the Liberty Fund creeps me out too, but I wouldn't try to start a reasonable conversation by telling JG that the shape of the tables makes it like a "cult."
Ugh, Althouse just called the liberals lightweight and GFR just reflexively agreed. This is painful.
She doesn't have children, does she?
If she did, how would that affect our attitude toward her?
Uh, "Bloggerheads" s/b "Bloggingheads," duh.
"Although there is no change in my patrician facade, I assure you that inside my rage is seething."
Actually, it should be "Bloggerheads", if it wants to be a real play on words. I'm boycotting it until that name change occurs.
96- well, I do make this face a lot, so you may be on to something...
She doesn't have children, does she?
She does, I think.
oops.. thought that was the shift key.
Ugh, Althouse just called the liberals lightweight and GFR just reflexively agreed. This is painful.
Where in the dialog does that happen? I honestly can't bring myself to watch the whole thing.
What is your most treasured possession? > A videotape of my sons when they were little. (They are both in their 20s now.)
...
What talent would you most like to have? > A beautiful singing voice.
What would be your ideal choice of alternative profession or job? > Television talk show host.
link.
Perhaps it's getting late. I was just about to write that Brock's secret identity was vulnerable because someone could run his Flickr photos through "facial recognition" software.
You know, mcmc, that would be the ideal solution, surely, but believe it or not (and I think our overlords can confirm this fact if you believe it not), I"m at work right now. Drunk and doing client work. (Had way too few too many glasses of wine at a client dinner.) Which is going to take me half the damn night because I work sloooowly in this state if I'm going to avoid errors. So slowly I don't even bill, because it just doesn't make sense. I'm only doing the work to meet a deadline. And since I"m not billing, I find myself wasting time here instead of getting work done...
I just came home from hosting a talk at which a dude from the community showed up totally drunk, sat himself next to the wine, refilled his glass not-so-surreptitiously about five times during the talk, passed out several times, and then, at the end, asked no fewer than five ridiculous questions during Q&A.
So what was the problem?
I don't consider myself to have misspoke.
She means "misspoken".
I honestly can't bring myself to watch the whole thing.
Yeah, don't bother. I hate all you people who made me watch this. I know the idea was to laugh at what a loon Althouse is, but jeez, a rightwing blogger who's an unbalanced loon? Oversensitive when the tables are turned? Who woulda thunk it? Meanwhile, out-of-her-league GFR totally rolls over so Altcrazy can get in some extra kicks and overall does our side absolutely no good at all.
AAARRGHHHHH! Just now:
"Dailykos not as transparent as the NYtimes editorial board."
Guess who said THAT? The loony wingnut, or the "liberal?"
I have to go drink a whole lot now.
I should have read all the comments before posting 112.
Hey, I pwned w-lfs-n. It's like I'm a real boy now, or something.
9 gets it exactly right. Althouse is clearly taking a lot of pleasure in browbeating Garance. Then she goes back to her blog and posts about how Garance is a lightweight. [smirk, smirk]
What I hadn't expected was the degree to which Althouse has maintained a kind of seductive allure in her age. The still photos haven't been so flattering to her, but that half-smile, that coy look-away, those careful hairflips: her vanity is still in her looks.
HEY LABS: I've never been able to load BloggingHeads in Firefox, but my IE (version who the hell knows?) worked just fine.
Another thing that's sickening is that Althouse seems well practiced at the aggrieved freakout. I'm going to lose it and act offended, you'll apologize profusely, and I will have established some kind of dominance...
Yes. I didn't believe for one instant that she had actually "lost it." If she apologised or regretted her rant later, it was because she might have miscalculated: an error of judgment, not and excess of passion.
If she apologised or regretted her rant later, it was because she might have miscalculated: an error of judgment, not and excess of passion.
Indeed. For thousands of y ears instigators of evil overtaken by mockery have felt no different than Althouse with regard to their transgression
: something has unexpectedly gone wrong here
, not: I should not have done that
.
Of course, it was totally, transparently, bullying. I'm SO FRUSTRATED at having to watch Garance sit there and eat it. Althouse totally ran that "diavlog" [retch] from start to finish.
I guess it takes a while for young people to learn to get pissed off when their good intentions are being taken advantage of.
Althouse seems well practiced at the aggrieved freakout
Cereb is right. Franke-Ruta comes off looking like a passive child getting slapped by Momma. (There's a reason everyone is referring to Althouse as "Althouse" but Franke-Ruta as "Garance.") If you're going to go head-to-head in something like this with someone like her, perk up and argue your corner.
One's blog is called "Althouse" and the other "The Garance." Though I agree with the rest of 122.
There's a reason everyone is referring to Althouse as "Althouse" but Franke-Ruta as "Garance."
I think that's just because "Ann" is too generic to be identifying, and Franke-Ruta is awkward to type. Also, "Garance" is an awesome name.
My impression has been, though, that BloggingHeads usually operates more like a self-moderated NPR debate rather than like an O'Reilly segment. (Not that I've ever watched any of the others, mind you.)
I didn't watch the whole video (because: why?) but in the portion that everyone is focusing on I don't see why Garance just sitting back and letting Anne go crazy on video is particularly problematic, Garance's case is made without any need for her to do more.
There's a reason everyone is referring to Althouse as "Althouse" but Franke-Ruta as "Garance."
I would suggest that reason is: "Garance" is an uncommon name in the United States, "Anne" isn't.
One's blog is called "Althouse" and the other "The Garance."
OK, fair enough. No wait -- I mean, I'M INSULTED BY THAT.
Having watched the stupid segment, I can see how Ann's been honing her agenda-setting and browbeating techniques for years on 1Ls. But really, Franke-Ruta ought to have more to fight back with than the ole Harvard Raised Eyebrow.
Garance's case is made without any need for her to do more.
No, it's not. In cases like this, you have to respond. You don't have to yell back, but you have to reject the premise --- in this case, the Althouse calculated outrage and all the associated posturing.
Is that Franke-Ruta's first bloggingheads? If so, I'm willing to cut her some slack, especially because, as JM says, she probably wasn't expecting something so adversarial and heated and reacted in a way befitting a personal, rather than public and professional challenge.
She did one with Daniel Drezner a few weeks ago.
A moderator would have managed either to change the topic or introduce some evidence into the debate. Instead, what I saw was that the person with the most experience managing conversations and attention won.
Garance's case is made without any need for her to do more.
Dude, assuming that teh crazy is self-evident is why Republicans got free reign to fuck up our country for the last six years. Wingnut whack-a-mole is a game best played with a very heavy sledgehammer.
reacted in a way befitting a personal, rather than public and professional challenge.
Yeah, the bloggingheads setup is doubly strange, too, because when you're doing the recording you don't actually see the person you're talking with. Your webcam just records you. A, uh, friend of mine was approached about doing one a while ago and this kind of thing makes me glad it didn't work out.
Hey, I wonder what La Althouse thinks of this.
Be sure to scroll down on that one btw.
One of the many things that's so unnerving about Althouse is that she seems to be ready to turn the most seemingly casual settings into an opportunity to advance her public career. As far as I can tell, that sort of semi-public venue is where she does best---and often by surprising the hell out of her opposition, who had assumed she was a friend or a colleague.
you don't actually see the person you're talking with
I was wondering about this--it's also how most TV segments work; DeLong used to go on about how it takes practice to be still and interact with the camera as if it's a person, and that fidgeting and facial expressions that are perfectly normal in face-to-face interaction make you look like a loon on TV.
glad it didn't work out
I don't have a higher opinion of anyone since seeing them on bloggingheads. Writers should write, though the lure of becoming an image is strong.
That said, I would totally do a bloggingheads with Althouse.
Hey, I wonder what La Althouse thinks of this.
Jesus.
it takes practice to be still and interact with the camera as if it's a person
Yeah, that's the rationale behind Errol Morris's use of the Interrotron.
139: You should make a Max Headroom-style avatar for that purpose.
That said, I would totally do a bloggingheads with Althouse.
I would pay to see this.
135: Wow, that's some seriously fucked-up shit.
Not to diss ogged's debating skillz, but the matchup I would pay to see would be Althouse v. LizardBreath.
Althouse v. LizardBreath
Aw. Yeah.
Not to diss ogged's debating skillz
There's no real debate to be had with a screwball like AA. I just want someone to properly goad her into on camera insanity.
But that being said, LB might be a good candidate for this as well.
Yeah, GFR seems awfully, awfully young in that exchange. I kept wanting her to ask Althouse for, you know, specifics: *who* is mean to you? What did they say, specifically, that's mean to you? The right isn't mean? What about when they publish people's identities and home addresses? Etc.
But the advantage of her not doing that is that it left Ann just saying the same thing over and over and over again, even before she started yelling at GFR: "the left is so MEAN! to ME!' That's got to be the most narcissistic thing I've ever heard in or about a narcissistic medium. Wow.
125 and 130 are right. I think these things depend on a certain degree of comity, and I don't think GFR could have expected what was coming, even from La Althouse.
The Bloggingheads I want to see is Oshry vs Althouse. How long would it take them to figure out they couldn't out-insane each other?
when does the tantrum happen? I want to see it but there is no wayyyy that I am watching an hour of this malarkey.
I think both the 'engage and destroy' and 'never murder a man who is committing suicide' have advantages and that taking either path forgoes the advantages of the other. The latter is certainly the path of least resistance, and I think is thus underused, but it's not necessarily the 'best' response to having someone go insane right before your eyes. Given that retreat is my own pathologically-well-trained response to social aggression, I have a lot of sympathy for Franke-Ruta's strategic deployment of the classic 'enough rope' technique.
Also, Althouse is a despicable bully. It surprises me that she was willing to throw her little so-practiced tantrum on camera; such things are much less transparent in the moment, when one is the target, than later with leisure and distance to actually think rather than simply react.
135: I'm sure Althouse would think it was lightweight. After all, it's happening to someone other than Althouse.
133 - It might not be satisfying, but I think it's more likely to keep her from wasting space on the Times op-ed page ever again.
153: Go to a little bit before 5 minutes in -- the freakout starts a few seconds after 5 minutes.
146, 148: I was actually thinking about that; I have no idea if I'd be effective under those circumstances. I almost certainly would have started cracking up at the freakout, and calling her 'Dude', but I don't know that that would have looked good on camera.
dsquared v. Althouse might be most enjoyable of all.
122: "Franke-Ruta comes off looking like a passive child getting slapped by Momma."
True. I guess it's a matter of taste who you think comes off better in an exchange like that, but I'll go with the passive child. You lose some battles simply by joining them.
Ah, from the C&L excerpt, I think the Garance's approach works well. "I didn't realize it was such a touchy subject...I heard you bring it up with Glenn Reynolds, so I thought it was ok" is great.
All you can say about it is, 'what the fucking fuck?'
To clarify my previous comment: After watching bloggingheads, has anyone ever thought "that was a good use of my time."
Way back at the very beginning of bloggingheads, when they mentioned Unfogged, that was worth my time because it was funny.
166: Who mentioned Unfogged? Is the video still up?
160: Ooo, you betcha. Except you'd need some powerful incentives to prevent walkouts -- Althouse was threatening to hang up on Garance, which suggests that a dialog with dsquared would be short.
Ogged's original post is here, and they mention it here.
Garance's case is made without any need for her to do more.
You lose some battles simply by joining them.
But the advantage of her not doing that is that it left Ann just saying the same thing over and over and over again
This seems to be a common tendency among liberals -- that your case is best made by allowing your opponent to speak freely and expose her idiocy. I imagine this has a lot to do with why TV political talk shows prefer to book conservatives -- if you book a liberal he will just sit there smugly, thinking he has already won the debate.
Maybe if you already agree with him, but it seems clear to me that the side that's explicitly argued will invariably be the side that comes off looking stronger. In fact, interrupting your opponent in order to repeat the same dumbass thing you just said is a well-established tactic on cable news and from the external evidence, it appears to work quite well. Perhaps Americans have a tendency to trust passionate speakers.
Another thing that's sickening is that Althouse seems well practiced at the aggrieved freakout.
Oh, yeah, totally. Pity whoever's in a relationship with her. Because she doesn't seem like the kind of person to understand the difference b/t her personal life and whatever the fuck she's doing in that video.
Also, since I'm here, points to GFR for keeping it understated. It's one thing to fantasize about how she "should" have acted; it's another to actually be stuck there with the crazy person.
I do kind of have to agree with 170; while Althouse made herself ridiculous, I think her behavior was probably fairly effective to anyone who was either prejudiced in her favor, or didn't know anything about the subject under discussion. GFR didn't win any points there. (She looked sane and courteous, but didn't effectively advocate for anything.)
her behavior was probably fairly effective to anyone who was either prejudiced in her favor, or didn't know anything about the subject under discussion
Not to argue, but on those givens, what was GFR going to say or do that would have persuaded such a person?
The double bind is famously summarized in the book of Proverbs:
--Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest ye be like him.
--Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.
Shorter Proverbs: when talking to a fool, you can't win.
Pity whoever's in a relationship with her.
Anderson is apparently not clear on the concept. I obviously still have a lot of work to do.
173: Talk more -- I didn't watch the whole thing, but the ratio of time spent talking has got to be three to one in Althouse's favor. Throw out some information. Tell her to get over herself during the freakout: "Whatever you want to call it -- pick a descriptive phrase. You asked why people didn't like you, and I told you that a lot of it went back to THE INCIDENT THAT MUST NOT BE NAMED. I don't care what the descriptive phrase is, but that was a precipitating factor. Now can we move on?"
The thing that pissed me off most about Althouse was when she said she voted for Bush "because 9/11 happened", and gave that little "but of course" nod. Like, of course she was willing to sell out women's rights and civil rights in general, to the point of defending torture, because Big Daddy-in-a-Flight-Suit was going to keep her safe from the deadly peril of terrorism facing Madison, Wisconsin. Yet she calls herself a progressive? And even more amusingly, a feminist?
Yeah, I caught that 9/11 thing, too -- again, she said it as though talking to a small child.
Well, like I said, not to argue. I think GFR could have danced circles around her, and the Althouse fan club would have remained true to their idol.
You know what would have been funny? If GFR has flashed Ann and dared her to flash back. But she's so prissy.
she voted for Bush "because 9/11 happened"
That was such a "now I'm outraged by Chappaquidick" moment. You know why people think you're a conservative, Ann? Because you buy entirely the conservative 9/11 narrative.
That was such a "now I'm outraged by Chappaquidick" moment.
Precisely.
179 is correct, except that they couldn't see each other.
Also it might have led Althouse to post some nude photos of herself from the Swinging London era and talk about how tasteful they are in comparison to today's hookup culture.
170: I'm not saying that liberals shouldn't fight. Just saying liberals should choose their fights. What liberal has done well on O'Reilly's show by confronting him? (That's not a rhetorical question. I'm really curious.)
I do recall Jon Stewart single-handedly bringing down Crossfire, but I would argue that Tucker Carlson isn't really in the Althouse/O'Reilly class. And Barney Frank is really good at that sort of thing. Bill Clinton made Chris Wallace look like a hypocritical fool.
But this is an extremely tough thing to do, and I think TheGarance did nearly as well by letting AA vent.
More effective would have been little cutting tweaks during Althouse's freakout that would have sent her even further into Yosemite Sam mode. Then derisive chuckling.
Perhaps Americans have a tendency to trust passionate speakers.
It's not just Americans. I don't want to violate any of the corollaries to Godwin's Law. but also see Benford's Law of Controversy.
"Passion" = "Truth". There have been enough interviews with jury members to demonstrate the effect, and any kid into the Terrible Twos already knows this. There's also the Detective's Rule of Suspicion; "The innocent get angry, the guilty stay calm".
(170 was me)
Shorter Proverbs: when talking to a fool, you can't win.
That's why the only thing to do is talk past her. Althouse was not the intended audience, clearly. (Although how many people really watch this crap?) Letting her talk means letting her win, and worse.
I can't critique this video much more without actually, y'know, watching it, but I can imagine the optics to people who weren't already on one side or the other. One person gets extremely emotional; the other person keeps saying 'sorry.' Thus, it looks like the first person is passionate and the second person is being offensive.
If you add to that that the second person doesn't say much of anything, you've got a picture that is flattering to Althouse: the liberal is being mean but has nothing to say.
Yes, some actual laughter on TheGarance's part would have made it clear to us commoners who don't understand the eyebrow language.
The thing that pissed me off most about Althouse was when she said she voted for Bush "because 9/11 happened", and gave that little "but of course" nod.
Right, and this dismissed GFR's interesting point -- that as a reaction to 9/11, Althouse's response was unusual. Not many Gore voters voted for Bush in 2004, despite 9/11; Althouse's use of 9/11 as an obvious explanation for the flip doesn't fly.
Althouse isn't a master confusionator the way O'Reilly is. She should have baited Althouse a little more than she did, and then made snarky little digs to keep her going.
Not that I watched it or anything. My comments are restricted to Unfogged meta Talking Heads.
The O'Reilly comparison seems apt, really, because that's what O'Reilly does -- he gets loud and huffy, he runs over his guests, he makes them look stupid by leaving them speechless in the face of his fiery passion. Right?
In the light of the next day, I feel a little guilty that my reaction was so directed at GFR. I'm just so exasperated from seeing conservative bullies so constantly mop the floor with liberals. Cliff Schecter needs to give workshops on media appearances.
It seems to me that since only delusional and/or narcissistic people can get angry enough on command to actually appear passionate on one of these talking-head things, while a person who has actually thought about the issue is hoping to have a chance to explain things reasonably once the nonsense dies down, the probability approaches 1 that the forces of evil will triumph.
re: 192
There's no problem getting angry with these fucks -- you don't have to fake it. They do after all have heinous views and support a government responsible for the deaths of thousands and thousands of people.
the probability approaches 1 that the forces of evil will triumph.
Lots of empirical evidence for that.
"When you're done screaming and stomping like a constipated 5-year-old and are ready to resume an adult discussion, let me know. I'll give you a couple minutes to get it out of your system." [glance at watch]
It's not that hard to turn that stuff back on somebody. Still, there's no reason for anybody remotely rational to go on O'Reilly.
192: the probability approaches 1 that the forces of evil will triumph.
That's a realistic view of human nature and backed up by the history books. Actual progress comes only during periods of social exhaustion after the blood-letting.
No need to worship at GFR's feet. I don't think she was brilliant in getting AA to flake out, I think it just happened. And I think that GFR was way too weak in agreeing how icky liberal bloggers are.
GFR made an ass of herself a few days earlier when she expressed her sentiments that Ezra Klein, Matthew Yglesias, Scott Lemieux and males at TAPPED didn't like Hillary because she was a girl and they were sexist patriarchal males.
Yes, AA is a complete idiot. No, I am not ready to worship at GFR's feet yet for getting AA to flip out. The Reason crowd saw it happen, Jonah Goldberg saw it happen, I have seen it happen at AA's blog many times.
AA can take a flying fuck, and GFR needs some unsexist sensitivity training.
193: I think the problem is that the more likely you are to actually have non-nonsensical views on the issue, the more concerned you will be that if you lose your cool you will become incoherent and unable to explain yourself. People who are incoherent no matter what mood they are in don't have this concern. And whenever this sort of thing degrades into a shouting match, the person who starts shouting first is the winner, and the person who starts shouting first is inevitably the person who has less to lose by reducing his argument to gibberish. Sensible people make the mistake of thinking that it has less than a 100% probability of degrading into a shouting match.
(this applies to "debates" involving only two people. Four-person round tables can avoid becoming shouting matches as long as at least two people are sensible.)
Even the US liberals who tend to "win" these things are the liberals whose opinions don't seem to really be thought out very well, like Chuck Schumer.
re: 198
There's no reason why rational people can't be passionate and angry while remaining rational.
There's no reason to cave in and get all quiet and withdrawn when someone else starts yelling.
Ok, wait a minute. In my universe, the person who starts shouting is usually the uncontrolled, even bullying loser who needs to calm down before anything productive or reasonable can happen.
And this is why you are all doomed ...
GFR made an ass of herself a few days earlier when she expressed her sentiments that Ezra Klein, Matthew Yglesias, Scott Lemieux and males at TAPPED didn't like Hillary because she was a girl and they were sexist patriarchal males.
I was thinking about posting on this. I'm not voting for Hillary either in the primaries, and for very much the same reason that the TAPPED crew aren't -- I don't like her on the war, and I don't like her political instincts generally. But I still think GFR is right about the tone of the opposition she gets: while she's not the Democrat I'd vote for, she's not unusually bad for a Democrat. If she won the election, likely nothing terrible would happen. But from the way people talk about her, they make her sound like the Queen from Aliens.
I gave up on writing the post, because on an issue purely of tone, it's hard to separate out possible oversensitivity from a real problem. But I do think that while in a perfectly non-sexist world, Hillary wouldn't necessarily have more support than she does now, I think the opposition to her would be less vehement than it is.
190 - leaving them speechless s/b cutting their mikes
197 - That's a slanted view of what GFR, who isn't my favorite blogger at the Prospect, actually said. But I think staring at AA's meltdown (I originally wrote "melthouse", which sounds like a bad roadside chain) is a perfectly understandable outcome. Who expects the blog world's version of the Diane Rehm show to feature people screaming about imagined slights? While it might have been nice to see GFR knowing a bit about AA's consistantly self-serving rhetoric and a little less willing to cede the ground on how mean bloggers are, she might feel that way since she takes much more (generally deserved) shit than the other people who write on her website.
There's no reason why rational people can't be passionate and angry while remaining rational.
I've never seen it happen in real life while an audience was watching the exchange. You people have a tradition of "debating societies", though, where people are trained in that art.
Why isn't it l'Althouse instead of "la Althouse"?
Hey, Labs: Try this—download Real Player, start the application, then try watching the Bloggingheads clip. Worked for me.
download Real Player
Bad idea already.
204: Oh, Bill Clinton can do it -- I can't remember the interview, but there was one in the last year or so. And I've seen it done under other circumstances as well.
I would've liked to have seen GFR express a little more incredulity toward Althouse's claim that liberals all hate her. "You really believe that? Hm. Have you always believed this? Tell me about your Mother?" 195 gets it exactly right. I probably would've hung up on her as soon as she raised her voice.
Actually, while it's occasionally fun to see the writers I read in person, so to speak, Bloggingheads is a stupid idea (inevitable, maybe, but still stupid). Screaming matches have already replaced news on television. I don't know why the internet needs more of the same.
I guess one of the things that makes us Democrats is that we watch that clip and spend much of our time focusing on what *Garance* should've done differently ....
I doubt any of the wingnuts are writing threads about "while GFR was insufferable and properly put down, maybe Ann should've kept her spittle from spraying out quite so vehemently."
re: 204
Yeah, you see it here reasonably often. You get a lot of bloviating wankers, obviously, but you can watch a program like Question Time or even catch a parliamentary debate in which someone is both righteously angry and rational and sensible.
The attitude from US liberals always seems to assume that quiet superiority will win the day -- and it won't. [as others have already said in this thread]
209: I think this is maybe because the consensus here is that Althouse was using an effective technique, which she executed well. So the remaining available topic was GFR's response.
the consensus here is that Althouse was using an effective technique, which she executed well
??????????????????????????? ... ?
212: I thought the consensus was that Althouse came off like an ass, but that Garance should have helped things along.
I almost, kinda, agree with politicalfootball. Althouse sounded substantively ridiculous, but she kept GFR from getting a word in edgewise, and she did look effective -- she's much better with the camera than GFR. With the sound off, I would have assumed Althouse had the best of the altercation, and even with it on, all of Althouse's wounds were self-inflicted. If she'd made just a little more sense, I'd think she cleaned GFR's clock.
I thought she resembled someone punching herself in the face over and over while screaming continuously, being watched by a distressed but ineffectual witness. I don't think that's a particularly effective technique. I wish someone more competitive and less empathetic had been on Garance's side of the screen, for sure.
Yeah, clearly GFR was taken by surprise, but the best way to respond was not "I'm sorry I made you angry" but "what the fuck is wrong with you?"
213: Remember that Althouse was trying to defend a series of propostions that were substantively nuts: That the blue blogosphere is less civil than red blogosphere, and that she provoked harsh attacks from the left only for minor departures from leftist orthodoxy. When GFR astutely raised the Valenti incident as an example of an Althouse provocation, Althouse was in a corner. How could she defend that unambigously despicable bit of behavior?
Althouse, O'Reilly and the Swift Boaters can all be accurately described as unhinged and vile - and even ludicrous. But let us not kid ourselves on whether or not they are effective. I may be overstating when I characterize all 200-plus posts here, but I would argue that nobody here (or on conservative blogs) will propose a better *tactical* approach for Althouse because there clearly isn't one. (Yes, plenty of folks here think Althouse would be better off were she not such an awful person, but red blogistan can't be expected to agree with that.)
Eric Alterman:
A few months ago, Bob Wright asked me to do a BHTV with Ms. Althouse. I knew nothing about her at all, except that she accused a female liberal blogger who met with Bill Clinton of having breasts ... or something. I never could figure out what it was really. I said "OK," with the caveat that I wanted her to talk about why she, as a woman, thought it appropriate to call attention to the fact that another woman standing near Clinton happen to have breasts. I mean, my daughter will have breasts one day, and I want to be able to prepare her in case she needs to apologize for them. When Althouse emailed me to discuss potential topics, I said what I said to Bob, which was that we could talk about anything, as long as it included that topic. She got all huffy and pulled out of the discussion. Then she attacked me on her blog and again on the op-ed page of The New York Times.