Matt Taibbi

No, what she wrote about Taibbi seems absolutely accurate?

― Frederik B, Monday, December 11, 2017 3:09 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

considering that the stuff she’s referring to has been pretty extensively litigated on twitter and elsewhere, i don’t really think it’s fair to say it’s been “ignored”.

she's not saying everyone ignores it, but a hypocritical "we" that excuses harvey weinstein (okay i don't know anyone excusing harvey weinstein but you get the point..)

hmm, sounds like it might be lazy writing

The only thing that’s surprising is how many of the men who have long abused their power have gotten away with it in part by hiding it behind a sheen of progressive politics and claims of feminism.

Harvey Weinstein champions female directors, so how bad can he truly be? Mitchell Sunderland works at a feminist publication, so there’s no way he facilitates the harassment of women online. Matt Taibbi writes celebrated pieces about the misogyny and corruption of politicians, so we ignore his boasting about sexually harassing women who worked for him.

It's pretty clearly about the pre-Weinstein world, and it's fairly spot on? Did you read it before you wrote about how lazy it is?

you're pretty big on the "did you read it??" line for a guy who also writes things like "I read the beginning of the document, that was absolute bullshit. I'm perfectly fine dismissing it."

i don't know what the currently fashionable essentialist take on the ability to change oneself for the better but i still believe in it

yes, what a British friend of mine (formerly a NYC resident) calls the Preachy US Left will have none of this, ever.

(I have a different name for it which would be much more unpopular here)

...but they do resemble religious fundies, only they're making up scripture as they go along.

I don't have a problem with Taibbi per se (and certainly don't believe his career should be ended because of something he wrote years ago and has apologised for), I just think it's a jerk move for him to single out Crispin and suggest that she negligently misrepresented him when afaict she didn't write anything inaccurate, and the blame really lies with him for writing the stupid book rather than her for referring to it in her article.

JD: You do realize there isn't any contradiction there, right?

soref otm. It hurts the whole thing about him having apologized as well.

agree. "stop digging" iirc

seems like unless he is still writing the same kind of books, boasting should be "boasted in a book published 17 years ago". but then Tabbi helpfully points out she isn't wearing her journalist hat so maybe the rules of time and space don't apply

No, the grammar works the way Crispin wrote it.

xp I agree Crispin could have been a little clearer about the timescale and/or ambiguity over whether the passages were fictional, but tbh I don't think the onus is on her to do so, certainly not when it's a single passing reference in a piece that isn't about Taibbi (if she'd written an entire article about Taibbi that would be different, maybe). but Taibbi apologising for the misogynistic content in the exile book sits awkwardly with him then complaining about people referencing that content without giving all the exculpatory details.

I think what is rubbing him the wrong way (and me too, in this thread) is that now there is just this casual notion that he is a sexual harasser that is being thrown around kind of like the millions of other lazy (and often inaccurate) pieces of conventional wisdom that circulate unchallenged in the media. It’s not enough that there aren’t any actual accusers, he is now just having to push back against the notion that “hey, it’s out there.”

Then he probably shouldn't have put it out there himself.

hmm, i participated in the glee of a potential MT takedown earlier itt because i can't stand the guy, but if anything more substantial existed, it would've come out by now. the regular bi-weekly relitigating of the eXile conversation just seems like people who hate MT trying to work with thin gruel

The 'substance' of this is whether or not Matt Taibbi is a sexist piece of shit, and whether or not that should be a problem for a selfproclaimed leftist writer. Him calling out a woman columnist for an entirely accurate description doesn't really help his cause.

i'm sure you know this, but he was accused of being a rapist and a workplace abuser, not just a "sexist."

btw you calling out a female journalist upthread for making what you call "the most pathetic defense yet" of taibbi and then loudly insisting on your right not to read her work isn't exactly a good look, either.

Dude...

I read several pages of that bullshit, btw, just to stop you from mentioning that a billionth time.

"Sexist piece of shit?" smh

the verdict is in

You might disagree, but that is the substance of the discussion. Because nobody, other than himself and Ames, has in the end accused him of worse.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/outlook/the-two-expat-bros-who-terrorized-women-correspondents-in-moscow/2017/12/15/91ff338c-ca3c-11e7-8321-481fd63f174d_story.html?utm_term=.882f66425b6e&__twitter_impression=true

&__twitter_impression=true

"America has been here before, piloted by mentally adrift presidents. Bob Woodward's Veil described how the CIA had to produce movies about foreign leaders because Ronald Reagan couldn't take in information (like who the heck Hosni Mubarak was) any other way:

Since Reagan did not read many novels but watched movies, the CIA began to produce profiles of leaders that could be shown to the President... One was of the new Egyptian President. 'SECRET NOFORN' flashed on the screen as the narrator began, 'This is Hosni Mubarak...'

George W. Bush was a similar figure. He spent much of his first presidential campaign lugging around a biography of Dean Acheson in a widely derided effort to convince the press corps he read books.

Bush in office openly admitted to not reading newspapers, relaying with surfer-dude insouciance that instead he got briefings from people who did. He was genuinely proud of knowing nothing.

We survived episodes like that, and a few others. (There is a story, perhaps apocryphal, that James Buchanan bought a ten-gallon jug of whiskey every week.)

Trump by most accounts is worst of all, and the horror effect is enhanced by the seemingly total absence of redeeming qualities in his personality. But a guy who fell backwards into the presidency and has been too brain-hampered upon arrival to do much with the office – there are worse narratives."

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/taibbi-why-michael-wolffs-book-is-good-news-w515045

good points

lol. i remember some story about bush and cheney having a "book club" contest to see who could read more. ahahahhahahahahhahahhahha

“I also read three Shakespeares.”

'Will, Bill & William'

it's true, having incurious simpletons as president before worked out really great for everyone. i feel much better now.

YEP, THAT'S ZACKLY THE POINT

to do much with the office except roll back environmental regulations, sign a tax increase on the middle class, defund health care for millions of americans, pack the courts with crazy unqualified "conservatives", and fail to enforce sanctions on russia for interfering in his election (and fail (so far) to safeguard from it happening again)

it remains that most of that is Republican SOP

Good share thx Morbs

I shiver to read the comments and reactions to that piece however, for fear that they are filled with bros explaining how Hillary is the actual comic book villain and aren’t we lucky the electoral college gave us the fat idiot

2nd piece on the Wolff book follows Matt’s 2nd passthru the time, only with more summarizing of the various bits.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/taibbi-tldr-guide-to-michael-wolffs-fire-and-fury-w515359

As he puts it, it aint necessarily factually accurate, but the psychodrama depicted sure as hell is

I have reached an amicable settlement with the Nation, an organization whose work I have held in high regard. I wish them success in their future endeavors. I am happy this matter could be resolved. pic.twitter.com/q9SGuG8CtC

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) February 14, 2018

Yeah but still
― Frederik B

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/taibbi-the-legacy-of-the-iraq-war-w518193

This piece seems to echo what my hard-left friends are posting all over Facebook, which is this sort-of political version of hipsterism: Why are you all so upset NOW? W/Obama were just as bad/worse than Trump, and you never said anything back then. I get it, but it feels like another form of whataboutism that ultimately ends up feeling like an argument for continuing not to care.

iirc quite a few of us were upset with O for declining to investigate Bush admin officials over it

if it practically depresses activism then it's not a great argument but on its own merits pointing out that trump isn't historically bad and that many of the issues being highlighted now have been building over the past few presidencies has the advantage of being true.

yeah i mean i think enough people sincerely believe everything bad started on November 9, 2016 and are legitimately unaware or woefully uninformed about the extent to which O continued in W's footsteps abroad.

O's personal charisma depressed activism during his presidency more than anything else by a long shot imo

rank-and-file Dems are out of the habit of protesting Dems in office, period

likely related:

In the new issue of Harper's, I've got a piece on American amnesia, which I analyze with the help of Philip Roth, Barbara Fields, Louis Hartz, and Alcoholics Anonymous. https://t.co/2V9PaAiw5A pic.twitter.com/gxtWKOrErg

— corey robin (@CoreyRobin) March 19, 2018

So otm

Robin:

Little in Trump surprised me, except for the fact that he won.

Whenever I said this, people got angry with me. They still do. For months, now years, I puzzled over that anger. My wife explained it to me recently: in making the case for continuity between past and present, I sound complacent about the now. I sound like I’m saying that nothing is wrong with Trump, that everything will work out. I thought I was giving people a steadying anchor, a sense that they — we — had faced this threat before, a sense that this is the right-wing monster we’ve been fighting all along, since Nixon and Reagan and George W. Bush. Turns out I was removing their ballast, setting them afloat in the intermittent and inconstant air.

xp - ha!
From that same (excellent!) piece:

When Trump became a contender for the White House, I saw him as an extension or fulfillment of the conservative movement rather than a break with it. Almost everything people found outrageous and objectionable about his candidacy — the racism, the contempt for institutions, the ambient violence, the hostility to the rule of law — I’d been seeing in the right for years. Little in Trump surprised me, except for the fact that he won.

Whenever I said this, people got angry with me. They still do. For months, now years, I puzzled over that anger. My wife explained it to me recently: in making the case for continuity between past and present, I sound complacent about the now. I sound like I’m saying that nothing is wrong with Trump, that everything will work out. I thought I was giving people a steadying anchor, a sense that they — we — had faced this threat before, a sense that this is the right-wing monster we’ve been fighting all along, since Nixon and Reagan and George W. Bush. Turns out I was removing their ballast, setting them afloat in the intermittent and inconstant air.

He then wraps it up with a "yeah but still." I'm still not convinced that these arguments are helpful, though they are definitely true (as Mordy pointed out).

I think it'd be good to consider as much truth as we can get to be helpful; rationing it has put us here.