Eye on Winer

Dear Dave,
Get real. I suspect that there isn’t a single Republican on the planet who gives so much as half a damn what you think. For starters, this paragraph is pretty blatant ass-kissing:

I know some of you are honorable people, good Americans, taxpayers, people who love your families, pay your taxes, do your best to live by the Golden Rule. People who try to do the right thing, whatever that is. It’s to those Republicans that I wish to have a few words.

After all of the screeds we’ve read about your disdan for Republicans, how they’re stupid and evil, to then turn around and try to butter them up is just absurd. If you believe what you wrote, you owe those Honorable Republicans a gigantic apology for the way you’ve maligned them for simply having a (R) next to their names in the past. I suspect, though, that you don’t mean it, and that’s fine, because someone has to off-set the crazy Republican partisans, and that job falls to crazy Democratic partisans.

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Dave’s pieces get more out-there and bizarre every day and the election is still a month away. How much longer can the descent into complete lunacy take?

Dave wrote a novel today. Let me give you the executive summary:

I have a bunch of prejudices against conservatives and republicans. Allow me to explicate them in great detail. Except, instead of calling it “prejudice” I’m going to call it “truth”. Now do you see how terrible Republicans are? (Not that I’m a Democrat, no sir!)

Republicans hate me because I’m so awesome. I’m such an incredible American and they’re all just jealous of all of my knowledge and wisdom and worldliness. They’re stupid because they don’t want to go to Europe.

In summary, I am great, and the reason that the discourse in this country is so terrible is because so many people are too stupid to know they should just listen to me. But fuck them, because they’re stupid and I’m not.

That was the gist of the article. I still don’t understand what the point of it was, if not to stroke his own ego a little bit and reassure himself that he is, in fact, superior to everyone who thinks differently than he does.

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First off, to respond to this comment from the comments: “Eye, didn’t you once say you don’t live in the US and are not an American?” I’ve never said such a thing, and I have no idea where you’d have gotten that.

Okay. From the links: Winer for CTO of the United States?

Dear Mr. Riley,

Have you lost your fucking mind?

Signed,

People with more than seven braincells

Despite all of the press he gets for “inventing” RSS and Blogging, relative to people with real CTO capacity and experience, Dave knows zero about technology. A golden retriever would be a better fit — at least they’re likable.

Then there’s this laughable piece of logic:if Paulson’s plan is for real, Bush and Cheney should quit to prove how serious they are about it.

Pardon?

In what world does that make sense? I will say, though, that the post seems to employ so many logical and rhetorical fallacies that he may have just created a new one.

…for some insightful, intelligent, or just not completely insane political commentary out of Dave. I suspect I’ll have to wait a while. Probably forever. Substituting for those:

• Calling Palin a Stepford Wife is not at all sexist, right?
• Likening a female VP candidate to a chick-flick plot: also not sexist.
• Republicans shouldn’t get air time. Why do they get air time? Because if they didn’t it would invite some pretty serious legislation. To say nothing of the fact that, whether Dave likes Republicans or not, the goal of the media is not to promote a party, but to inform. Getting into a petty pissing contest with a political party is not exactly “journalism”.
• Dave writes: “He assumes, like royalty, that Republicans always know what’s right”. This from a post titled Frum’s annoying wrong idiotic argument. Sad he could put that all together and not notice the delicious juxtaposition. Probably because he thinks he’s always right.

I guess, at the end of the day, we’ve not learned anything new. Like many partisans, Dave will stretch logic, consistency, and integrity to their absolute breaking point — and then some — in order to defend his party and their politicians.

I think “citizen journalism” has a long way to go.

One of Dave’s oft-used canards is that he’s an Independent, not a Democrat. He claims this whenever it’s convenient — basically when he thinks it makes him more credible on a particular issue. After all, a Democrat might skew or exaggerate, but he’s an independent, right?

Yeah, right. Nobody really buys it, except maybe Dave himself. He clamors for respectful debate, but that seems to only apply to people who aren’t Republicans, which should really tell you everything you need to know about his alleged independence, but today’s post about McCain’s potential Vice-presidential pick really does away with any pretense (emphasis supplied):

I hope he chooses Lieberman — I think he’d be the easiest to run against. I don’t see too many Republicans going for him, and no one wants a traitor a heartbeat from the Presidency . . .

A traitor to whom, exactly? A true independent welcomes the idea of politicians who make their decisions based on ideas and ideals rather than party affiliation. I think both Democrats and Republicans can agree that there’s not a huge gap, practically speaking, between McCain and Lieberman… so, really, who’s being betrayed?

Simple: partisan Democrats and nobody else. No wonder Dave feels the way he does.