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Ignorance is bliss… for Eric Alterman

48 comments on Ignorance is bliss… for Eric Alterman

Ignorance is bliss… for Eric Alterman

: Eric Alterman admits today that he doesn’t like to do any actual reporting or research.

He starts by bragging that he didn’t watch the State of the Union address. He went to see Chick Corea instead. Cool, dude, cool.

Then he admits that he doesn’t read Iraqi blogs (my emphasis):

Never have I ever accused any Iraqi blog of being a CIA front or receiving CIA funds. The fact is, I have never even looked at an Iraqi blog, could not name one (save perhaps Salam Pax, which I once red an article about, but never clicked on, and I don

48 responses to “Ignorance is bliss… for Eric Alterman”

  1. Luciferous Avatar
    Luciferous

    What is the difference between a bar-fly’s boozy, specious opining and Alterman’s high-tone, cerebral commentary?

  2. Hugh Avatar
    Hugh

    A couple of drinks?

  3. Dishman Avatar
    Dishman

    Translation, “Actually, I’m just talking out of my ass.”

  4. TomTomTommy Avatar
    TomTomTommy

    Alterman’s funny. All Jeff does anymore is preach at us.

  5. Richard Heddleson Avatar
    Richard Heddleson

    Oh, Jeff, please tell us a joke or give us some MoDo commentary. /sarcasm

  6. Dishman Avatar
    Dishman

    If Alterman’s really a comedian, I’m ok with that.
    I’m thinking of someone along the lines of “Ace Ventura” right now.

  7. Mike G Avatar
    Mike G

    I’m convinced that in some sense, Iraqis aren’t real to the Left, hence why would anyone want to read blogs by them?
    That’s why they can be upset about 50,000 imaginary Iraqis we’ve killed but would have done nothing to stop the actual slaughter that went on for 30 years there.

  8. Charlie (Colorado) Avatar
    Charlie (Colorado)

    This is your level of journalistic and intellectual curiosity and credibility?
    This is a rhetorical question?

  9. TomB Avatar
    TomB

    Alterman’s funny.

    Yea, but we are laughing AT him, not WITH him.

  10. ShrinkWrapped Avatar
    ShrinkWrapped

    The left, including much of the MSM and the professoriate, exalt language at the same time they devalue the language by disconnecting it from reality; in effect, they act as if the value in what they say is related to the elegance with which they say it, as opposed to the ideas they mean to convey (which are so often nosensical to even a cursory reading). Further, they act as if the reality blurred by their words is unimportant and uneffected by their words. How else to explain Jordan, Boxer, Alterman? We are meant to listen to the sound and beauty of their words, and ignore their real world effects. Besides, in the unacknowledged racism/bigotry of the liberal, they are only Iraqis or Red State Americans (soldiers) at risk.

  11. Kat Avatar
    Kat

    Speaking of ignorance being bliss, that leftist bitch on Air America,Janeane Garofalo, is likening the blue finger salute of Iraqis to Nazis.
    http://www.mediaresearch.org/cyberalerts/2005/cyb20050203.asp#5

  12. Seyed Razavi Avatar
    Seyed Razavi

    Sorry I’m confused. Why are you discussing the journalistic approach of someone who is not doing journalism?
    Perhaps I am dumb but surely if someone speaks about something he has not even looked at and publicly admits to it then he by the same token is not proclaiming himself a journalist.
    I thought a journalist had to actually report something. You know, find some information and bring it back to share.
    I mean otherwise there’s no distinction between journalism and regular speech right?
    As I said I may be being dumb about this but I don’t understand why criticising Alterman on the basis of his journalism is relevant. Just because he publishes doesn’t make him a journalist does it?
    Or is he presenting himself as such? I just assumed columnists weren’t journalists but paid cranks. Or are we suddenly to treat opinion and gossip columns as some form of reporting? I mean surely there’s a vast difference between, say, Seymour Hersh and Paul Krugman. Or is merely the act of publishing qualification of journalism?
    Again my apologies for not getting this at all.

  13. John Avatar
    John

    Well, Newsweek and any other publication is free to choose who they offer their column space to in order to voice their opinions. But if the person they pick is openly boastful about commenting on an issue in which they go out of their way to avoid doing any research, that does say something about what both that person and the publication they’re working for think about their readers.
    Alterman is one of those who comes at an issue with his conclusion already reached, and arranges the facts within his column to meet those preconceptions, as opposed to looking at all the facts and then coming to a conclusion. It’s intellectually lazy, but if a writer is good at turning a phrase and throws enough red meat to their side of the political aisle — whether it be an Eric Alterman or an Ann Coulter — they can last a long time preaching to the chior, but they’re not likely to win any converts with their arguments.

  14. disappointed Avatar
    disappointed

    I usually enjoy reading your blog, but your recent posts regarding Eric Alterman are over-the-top. I can’t imagine the invective you’d have to dredge up if Alterman were actually an evil man.

  15. APF Avatar
    APF

    Alterman isn’t necessarily evil; he’s just an ignorant-by-his-own-admission troll with a large microphone.
    -Adam

  16. LT Avatar
    LT

    hey guys
    You’re forgetting something. Alterman is an “intellectual” first, and a journalist second. Whatever. How bout “intellectually impaired?”
    LT

  17. Franky Avatar
    Franky

    Jeff,
    Can you win the $10,000 or not?

  18. RachelCohen Avatar
    RachelCohen

    Chick Corea is a $cientologist.

  19. Mumblix Grumph Avatar
    Mumblix Grumph

    Dammit, Jeff…who told him about your friends at Langley?
    That was supposed to be classified info!
    I gotta stop missing the staff meetings…

  20. Franky Avatar
    Franky

    Well, the point is that Jeff has been going on about misrepresentation in the media. Now, from reading Alterman it seems that Alterman never once accused the ITM of being CIA agents but rather thought out loud that it wouldn’t surprise him if the CIA were funding some pro-US blogs in Iraq. That’s a big difference from what has been portrayed here (I can’t find a transcript pf the debate in question, but if someone can, this would clear the whole thing up).
    Now if it turns out that what Alterman is saying is true, that he never accused a particular blog, the recent high-pitched shrills we’ve been hearing about endangering lives is remarkably ill-conceived.
    If Alterman did accuse specific bloggers of being CIA stooges then he did indeed jeopardise lives needlessly and ignorantly.
    And regardless of this particular issue, Alterman explained why he didn’t listen to the State of the Union address – because he thinks Bush is full of it. Surely that’s the part you attack with argument, rather than what he did instead.

  21. Eileen Avatar
    Eileen

    Franky,
    He claimed the CIA link on MSNBC, for all the world to hear. I listened to his debate with Jeff. Further, if he didn’t choose to listen to the SOTU address, it only further proves his utter Lack of ‘intellectual’ acumen. Jeff has really been way too kind.

  22. LT Avatar
    LT

    Franky
    i’m not sure, but i thinked a portion of the transcript is archived on this site. and Eileen you’re right, Jeff has been way too kind.
    LT

  23. Dean Esmay Avatar
    Dean Esmay

    Christ. Just… Christ.

  24. Sissy Willis Avatar
    Sissy Willis

    You know who DOES read Iraqi blogs? Deputy Secretary of State Paul Wolfowitz. He quoted from several — including our own Mohammed and Omar (“I moved to mark my finger with ink, I dipped it deep as if I was poking the eyes of all the world’s tyrants.”) during a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee this week. I caught it on C-Span in the wee hours. Sleeplessness has its rewards.
    Yes, but do you read blogs?

  25. Dropped you from my daily list Avatar
    Dropped you from my daily list

    I agree with disappointed. I read this blog often. When it becomes a schoolyard, I’m not interested.
    This looks like vanity, Jeff.

  26. J. Peden Avatar
    J. Peden

    Alterman, Moore, Krugman, Boxer, Boxer – what’s the difference?
    Nothing, a non-existence well described by Shrink Wrapped. The nothingness of thought chaos.

  27. -asx- Avatar
    -asx-

    Oh go bite yourself, Jarvis. You are deliberately misrepresenting and misconstruing what Alterman said, and you know it. You simply cannot draw the conclusions you do —
    (1) that Alterman “does not actual reporting” and
    (2) has no journalistic or intellectual credibility or curiosity
    — on the basis of the evidence: that he has not read Iraqi blogs and he didn’t watch the SotU.
    You obviously know this. You obviously understand that watching the SotU or reading Iraqi blogs are not the criteria for journalistic/intellectual credibility/curiosity.
    Your argument is transparently foolish.

  28. Jeff Jarvis Avatar
    Jeff Jarvis

    Well, asx, if you’re going to go on a news show to talk about Iraqi blogs and you now admit — hell, brag — that you’ve never read them, yes, I’d say that boggles good sense.

  29. J. Peden Avatar
    J. Peden

    asx, your nothingness is transparent.

  30. jason cravat Avatar
    jason cravat

    I agree with Alterman–although he’s a blowhard–a LOT more than I agree with Jeff Jarvis, who seems (despite his Kerry vote) to be altogether too confident about the U.S. “strategy” in Iraq. I know that being there on 9/11 changed his world forever, but that seems to me all the more reason to be skeptical about what Bush & Co. have done in the name of that horrible crime against the U.S. and humanity. THAT SAID, I am disgusted by Alterman’s admission/boast. Alterman has held forth for years now about the situation in Iraq and the Bush administration’s lies, and has never once–not ONCE–been moved to read the many, many words of Iraqis themselves, on both sides? He once read ABOUT Salam Pax, but never actually clicked on a link? WHAT THE BLOODY F–K IS THE MAN DOING? AND WHY IS HE BOASTING ABOUT IT??? That one of our leading left-wing pundits could be THIS much of an ass boggles the mind. Evidently, his time is too valuable, and his mind is too closed. Shame on him.

  31. JH Avatar
    JH

    Um, you know, I too think the CIA might use bloggers to spread misinformation.
    And I haven’t read an Iraqi blog, which is entirely irrelevant to my first comment.
    Am I also a murderer?

  32. eddie Avatar
    eddie

    I’ve never seen so many CIA apologists in one place. How do you think the orgranization operates? To think they would do what Alterman implies is not beyond the realm of possibility.
    Enough with questioning people’s patriotism. It just doesn’t work any more.

  33. APF Avatar
    APF

    “Um, you know, I too think the CIA might use bloggers to spread misinformation.”
    Personally, I feel Abu Musab al-Zarqawi might use bloggers to spread misinformation.
    So now that we’ve summarily dismissed the contributions of Iraqi bloggers entirely, why not move this speculation to bloggers of all nationalities and throughout the political spectrum? Reductio ad absurdum, *all* blogs are potentially bought-and-paid-for: political blogs by those parties they support; technology blogs for those technologies they discuss; photoblogs for the tools they use or the subjects they photograph, etc. Perhaps, rather than simply speculating out of one’s ass, one could actually provide some substantial backup for such a huge and potentially dangerous claim? That’s what separates intellectually-mature commentary from demagogic trolling.
    -Adam

  34. mike Avatar
    mike

    Uh, hey jarvis, mr. tvguide, who the hell are you to be journalistic credibility?? You should stick to writing about the latest americal idol rather than post sections of alterman out of context and write like you know what you are talking about. oh and all the other right-wing nutjobs, just because you question your government’s actions does not make you unpatriotic! Donkeys or elephants, demorcracy is about checks and balences something you kooks would just as soon do away with (our founding fathers would be horrified).

  35. Jim Avatar
    Jim

    Mike G (February 3, 2005 07:23 PM) wrote:
    >I’m convinced that in some sense, Iraqis aren’t
    >real to the Left, hence why would anyone want to
    >read blogs by them?
    >That’s why they can be upset about 50,000
    >imaginary Iraqis we’ve killed but would have
    >done nothing to stop the actual slaughter that
    >went on for 30 years there.
    Whoa there. While the USSR was in Afghanistan, the US (Reagan, Bush 1) supplied lots of money and arms to Afghanis to fight. After the USSR pulled out of Afghanistan, Reagan/bush stopped the money from the U.S. This allowed, eventually, the Taliban to come to power and (indirectely) to 9/11. So it was Reagan/Bush who didn’t give a damn about people in Afghanistan. If they had, they could have made that country an ally and the Taliban would never have come to power.
    As for Iraqis “not being real to the left”, this is clearly not true. The roughly 100,000 dead civilians over there are not real to the right. We levelled Faluja to “save it”. Further evidence that Iraqis are not real to the right.
    Yeah, Alterman should have watched the SOTU. Maybe even tuned in a blog on occasion. But the failure of him to do that doesn’t make him wrong. He has a better take on American politics than 99% of Americans. Read some of his books. “When Presidents Lie” is a historical look back at what happened when our Presidents have lied. Surprise, he writes mostly about Dem Presidents. “What Liberal Media” explodes the myth that our corporate owned media gives a liberal slant.

  36. JFisher Avatar
    JFisher

    Funny stuff, Jeff.
    You’ve got that conservative hysterical incredulity at the benign down pat.
    You should work at the FCC.

  37. dodo Avatar
    dodo

    http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/02/04/web.us/index.html

  38. Rita Avatar
    Rita

    The operative word is “speculate.” Which is exactly what he did. Which makes him accurate, you an overreactor. That he chose Corea over Bush as Wed. nite’s entertainment makes him wise.
    PS TV Guide is a pabulum publication.

  39. kbo Avatar
    kbo

    Here are some wild and crazy, nearly unbelievable, speculations:
    It is conceivable that a US President will lie to cover up a break-in at the opposition parties HQ.
    It is conceivable that a US President may lie under oath about sexual relations with a White House intern.
    It is conceivable that a major pop music star may be indicted for sexually abusing little boys.
    It is conceivable a leading Democratic presidential candidate will be ridiculed for days by the liberal media for an exhuberant scream at the end of a prp-talk to his supporters.
    It is conceivable that many, many, many, more people might watch an episode of a FOX reality TV show than a SOTU address.
    It is conceivable that terrorists could possibly coordinate the sumultatious hijacking of several airplanes, fly them into large buildings, and murder thousands of Americans.

  40. Anon Avatar
    Anon

    Wow.
    I don’t care for Alterman, but you lost this debate to him.
    What JFisher said.

  41. Patterico Avatar
    Patterico

    As a prosecutor, I work in an office that deals with murderers and criminals. So I feel pretty confident talking about murderers and criminals. Terrorists are murderers and criminals.
    Meanwhile, I don’t read Eric Alterboy, other than forcing myself to read his exercise in sophistry called “What Liberal Media?”
    But it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that murdering terrorists are paying him to say everything he has been saying.
    I

  42. Patterico Avatar
    Patterico

    For the dense: that was parody.

  43. Tom Avatar
    Tom

    Actually Patterica, your post doesn’t really rise to the level of parody. It’s more like the blustery whining of a pussy who’s trying to sound tough.
    Got it, Mr. tough-guy prosecutor?
    What Alterman said was completely true. What you wrote is libelous. Get some help. Try to focus on reality. As for your parody writing – keep your day job, dude.

  44. Patterico Avatar
    Patterico

    What I said was no more libelous than what he said. He doesn’t have a scrap of information to suggest that these guys are funded by the CIA, any more than I have to suggest that he is being funded by terrorists. I wrote what I wrote in the same exact style that he wrote his junk.
    I suspect that you are Alex from Martini Republic, too scared to use your own name. Your insulting and name-calling style are the tipoff. Jeff J., you might want to report this guy’s IP address.

  45. Tom Avatar
    Tom

    Patterica,
    Strange that someone who calls Eric Alterman “Alterboy” – and accuses a true American like him of “being funded directly by Osama bin Laden” would be so wounded by “name-calling,” – and even threaten to whine about it to daddy. Grow up, Mr. tough-guy prosecutor. Real men expect to get back what they give out, and they don’t whine to daddy about it when it happens.
    I hope that, if you actually ever think, you will comprehend the immense difference between someone pointing out that the CIA funds sophisticated disinformation campaigns, and someone recklessly accusing a REAL patriot like Eric Alterman of “being funded directly by Osama bin Laden”
    There’s a world of difference there. Your cheap shots lower the level of our national conversation on extremely important issues. It’s called demagoguery.
    Stop it. It’s hurting our country.

  46. merl Avatar
    merl

    ignorant wingnut hack. how much of my tax money are you being paid?

  47. Angus Jung Avatar
    Angus Jung

    “There’s a world of difference there. Your cheap shots lower the level of our national conversation on extremely important issues. It’s called demagoguery.”
    Did you hear about that plan to feed Irish children to the British? It’s an outrage!!!

  48. Patterico Avatar
    Patterico

    Thanks, Angus. At least there’s one other sane person on this thread.
    I am more convinced than ever that Tom is Martini Republic Alex. Alex has called me “Patterica” before — I don’t think this is coincidence. Alex must himself be banned from Buzzmachine, or he wouldn’t be pulling such a silly stunt. My guess is that he’s also merl.