iran-contra redux? (via atrios)

The internet's supply of ill-informed commentary about Iraq is second only to its strategic reserve of porno. That isn't going to stop me from expounding at length an idea that can and has been expressed much more efficiently. But at least I've taken the time to couch it in an awkward and confusing rhetorical construct.

wow. if there's one thing i didn't realize about blogging, it's how much bitterness there is out there if you're not a huge-name blogger who gets hundreds of hits a day.

this isn't solely referring to michele of a small victory, whose accusation of wonkette using SEXX to sell her site is weird and silly. (wonkette is a like a 31 year old married house wife in the d.c. burbs who writes snarky, often hilarious posts about d.c. gossip; and she didn't come out of nowhere. she worked for several other publications, most notably www.suck.com. and she also doesn't post like half-naked pictures of her self in abercromie tshirts or anything.)

but tons of commenters on that post referenced below seem to be incredibly bitter about wonkette's ability to 'use her sexuality' to 'increase her readership':

Wonkette gets press from old media because she was a journalist before she was a blogger. She's like Sully in that way.
Big bloggers link to her because they think they should because the old media is giving her attention.
And i'm sure going to U. of Chicago and Berkeley doesn't hurt any. Plenty of snobbery in blogdom.

I think it's only a matter of time before the blogess in question spews out some Kos-like venom or some Dowdy idiocy. She's a flash in the pan. I've noticed that most of the lefty bloggers who seem reasonable to all of you MOR types blow it in the end. She is so '90's as to be a little pathetic. Maybe there will be an opening at Vanity Fair or the NYT. I find you much more readable, honest, and real, and the Command Post is an achievment that she could never touch.

It is annoying - but your words will last and hers will be ... covered in semen, I guess.
Don't begrudge someone their 15 minutes of fame for being sensationalistic - it's very likely all they've got. And once the 15 minutes is over, there will be another sensation, and they will be forgotten.
Besides, remember who is lionizing her - do you really want to be "admired" by that crowd? Didn't think so!

Don't worry about the silly little bitch. Her time will pass and her fame with it. As for her looks--mweh. Someone should have told me anemic, anorexic redheads were "in" this year just so I could thank God more often that I'm "out." Gratitude's important in life.

So, you're confused as to how a suburban Washington reject with no writing skills and the intelligence level of an untrained chimp was able to get full color banner ads and individual posts dedicated to her at a number of sites, such as one particular site with more than 100,000 readers per day?
Don't be. By my guesstimates, Nick Denton paid more than $1 for every reader Ann Marie Cox was handed. One wonders how long Denton will hang in there for Cox now that it's patently obvious she suckered him into financing another outsider liberal blog, just like the thousands of others that are already out there. Two things that are for sure are that (1) Cox has already burned any chance at anywhere near the "inside scoop" in this town (as predicted), and that (2) she won't be around for long after Denton cuts off the advertising gravy train.

Something I said, somewhere else:
"The thing she's forgetting is that, while the "whores" may get attention, no one pays them any attention. Kinda like car alarms, you know? "

hot damn. clearly, these people need to have some sex.

also, i think i'm going to theorize that many conservative bloggers are ugly. or at least cripplingly insecure.