Oink
: The mudslinging continues and bloggers are complicit in the crime.
I was thinking of calling them Manchurian bloggers, for it seems as if some of them (pick your side) are hyp-no-tized to attack on command. In some cases, it’s quite out of character. They just can’t help themselves. They keep attacking. See mud. Must sling.
But that doesn’t quite capture it. It doesn’t grab the glee they have at hurling the dirt.
It’s all crap and they all know it but they’re talking crap rather than jobs or health care or Iraq or terrorism or education or anything that really matters. They’re adding nothing but nothing to the campaign.
The’re wallowing in mud.
They’re the political piggies.
Yeah, that’s it: Piggie, piggie, piggie. I’ll speak their language. That’s what I’ll call them now, the mud wallowers, the mud slingers, the dirty ones. Oink away, piggies. I don’t care.
raymi has returned because there is a God and He loves us. i keep telling you this. none of you listen. but it’s cool. it’s cool.
speaking of which, jeff jarvis wants us to lay off the hate and the evil and the mudslinging when blogging about this presidential election.
at first i was all, “come on hippie, isnt half the fun of a blog to have not only the ability to sling a little mud, but then sling a little more?”
but, as usual, i was wrong.
half the fun of blogging is getting nice emails from hot chicks who want to get naked with you. the other half is getting a chance to practice writing three times a day in front of hundreds of people.
there actually is no room for mudslinging in a proper blog that aspires to be taken seriously. a gentleman should leave that for the discussion boards.
blogs should be setting the standard. we should be setting the tone that tv and newspapers and magazines once had. and even if we shouldnt be, we could be, so therfore we should be.
To which Ken Layne retorts:
Tony Pierce says we should follow Jeff Jarvis’ advice and quit the mudslinging.
I say Nuts to That. Why should anyone quit now, right when it’s getting good? Who walks out of a prize fight right when the bloodied halfwit underdog jumps up and knocks the other dude across the ring? Besides, you and I have as much chance of stopping such a fight as some spectator in the nose-bleed seats. Close your eyes, run for the bathroom, do whatever you must do for yourself, but that fight will continue until somebody is Knocked Out & carried away on a stretcher.
But here’s my favorite call for mud disarmament — step back from the pigsty, piggies! — from Rex Hammock. What he says:
But I want to be on record as agreeing with Jeff Jarvis that at some point, this whole gotcha campaigning crap has got to stop. I know the history of American presidential politics is filled with mud-slinging and rumor-milling that makes the Kerry-Bush accusation-duel look like a kindegarten squabble. But still, enough already.
Who cares who served in Vietnam…or avoided it? Didn’t the election of President Dole, the WWII hero, over Bill Clinton, the draft dodger, settle that as an issue? And frankly, if Kitty Kelly’s book claims that back in the 1980s, George W. Bush performed abortions at Camp David while dancing naked on a table, drunk and on cocaine, it won’t influence my vote. And frankly, if some veteran steps forward tomorrow proving John Kerry cut himself shaving and tried to leverage that into a Congressional Medal of Honor because he thought it would help him get a date with Jane Fonda and would look good on his campaign resume, it won’t influence my vote. Hell, you could tell me that John Kerry and George Bush were once secretly married to each other in a private Skull & Crossbones ceremony at Yale, and I would be too desensitized by this campaign to give a rip.
Is anyone actually going to vote this November based on something that happened during the Vietnam war or based on decades-old DUIs or anything other than the economy or the threat of terrorism or a personal conviction related to a specific public policy isisue? No one.
Bottom line: George W. Bush has served as president for the past four years. We’ve all had a front row seat to how he’ll likely serve if he’s re-elected to the office. Vote against him or for him based on what you, yourself, have observed and based on your personal convictions. Or vote for or against John Kerry based on your perception of his service in the Senate and on what you think of him today or if you are convinced that he’ll be a better president. Or vote for someone else if you think neither of them is fit for the office.
All that other crap is noise.
Amen, blogging brother.
