The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Wow. New York Times Article About Charles Johnson Is Reasonably Accurate

Posted on | January 22, 2010 | 64 Comments

Unlike the fawning Los Angeles Times column that spoiled my breakfast in Burbank a couple of weeks ago, Jonathan Dee’s article takes time to examine the pivotal episode in the Little Green Footballs meltdown, the 2007 Brussels conference:

It seems borderline ridiculous that the political character of an extremist Belgian party, which in the last parliamentary election captured just 17 seats out of 150 in the Chamber of Representatives, should become the issue over which a kind of civil war among American conservatives broke out, but that is what happened. . . .
Johnson first hinted, and eventually demanded, that [Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer] publicly distance themselves from both Vlaams Belang and the conference itself, and when they demurred, he publicly distanced himself from them. . . .
Johnson broke off relations with blogs that claimed openly to owe their own existence to him. He called the syndicated columnist Diana West and the investigative reporter Richard Miniter fascist sympathizers. He threatened to take down Michelle Malkin. In some ways, it was an exploration of the limits of his own influence: all over the blogosphere, you were either with him or with the fascists. . . .

Read the rest, and remember that it was in October 2007 that Geller first stood up against Johnson’s bullying.  It was not until November 2008 that I first spoke up in Geller’s defense, and September 2009 when Johnson came after me. If the two weeks when I did battle against LGF seemed to me to stretch out like an endless nightmare, think of what it was like for Geller and Spencer to endure it for months on end.

For far too long, then, Geller, Spencer and a handful of others were pretty much alone against the once-awesome might of Little Green Footballs, and a lot of other people ignored it because it wasn’t in their interest to get mixed up in someone else’s blog war. But there were larger issues at stake, and conservative bloggers would have been wiser to heed the alarm bell when it first rang.

At least Dee’s New York Times article doesn’t buy into Johnson’s self-serving claim of a road-to-Damascus awakening about global warming as the origin of his war on the Right. What happened to Charles was a lot more personal than climate change. His attacks on others were an externalization of his own inner demons — scapegoating and projection — and because he lacked the manhood to confront his failures, he couldn’t back down or admit the possibility of error.

Tuesday night on blogger’s row in Boston, Pamela Geller was seated between Karen Tumulty of Time magazine and Kerry Picket of the Washington Times. When the band played, and the balloons dropped and confetti filled the air . . .

Well, Charles Johnson wasn’t there. He was somewhere else, infinitely and miserably alone.

UPDATE: Graydon Carter hires Barrett Brown?

Somehow, I managed to get myself involved in all of this despite having no real connection to the conservative movement other than enjoying a couple of Ted Nugent songs, or rather just one of them.

“Managed to get myself involved” = belatedly jumped on the dogpile after everyone else had become bored with the sordid mess at LGF.

Evidently Vanity Fair‘s editors decided that permitting that pretentious phony James Wolcott to befoul the blogosphere wasn’t enough, so now they’re grooming young Brown as a sort of junior varsity Wolcott.

Infinitely less interesting than VF‘s photos of Stephanie Seymour nude but, then again, isn’t everything?

(Graydon: Let Wolcott and Brown handle the boring-and-obnoxious-writing business. All I want is that photographing-nude-hotties gig.)

UPDATE II: Robert Spencer of JihadWatch reacts to the New York Times article but is strangely silent about Stephanie Seymour nude.

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Category: Atlas Shrugs, Charles Johnson, Rule 4

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  • svh

    Graydon Carter? Is this the same Graydon Carter from Spy magazine? The same Graydon Carter who sliced, diced and shredded by TAS and Emmet Tyrell?

  • svh

    Graydon Carter? Is this the same Graydon Carter from Spy magazine? The same Graydon Carter who sliced, diced and shredded by TAS and Emmet Tyrell?

  • svh

    Graydon Carter? Is this the same Graydon Carter from Spy magazine? The same Graydon Carter who sliced, diced and shredded by TAS and Emmet Tyrell?

  • http://DeathBy1000Papercuts.com pat

    Not only are those who disagree blocked, but they are often subject to a group think interrogation and criticism via down dinging. While I suffered little of each, my stance that AGW was hardly conclusive and that the warming was likely a combination, fortuitously I might add, of solar magnetic chaos, the Pacific decadal oscillation, and a El Nino at exactly the right time, all perfectly natural and quite predictable with a margin, was highly objectionable to Charles. Who then went on to delete my ability to [post any links. Followed a month or so later by a quiet and announced ban at 2:00 AM in the morning, near as I can tell
    Kirly keeps a roll call of the banned.
    http://kirls.blogspot.com/2009/05/banned-monium.html

  • http://DeathBy1000Papercuts.com pat

    Not only are those who disagree blocked, but they are often subject to a group think interrogation and criticism via down dinging. While I suffered little of each, my stance that AGW was hardly conclusive and that the warming was likely a combination, fortuitously I might add, of solar magnetic chaos, the Pacific decadal oscillation, and a El Nino at exactly the right time, all perfectly natural and quite predictable with a margin, was highly objectionable to Charles. Who then went on to delete my ability to [post any links. Followed a month or so later by a quiet and announced ban at 2:00 AM in the morning, near as I can tell
    Kirly keeps a roll call of the banned.
    http://kirls.blogspot.com/2009/05/banned-monium.html

  • FeralCat

    Charles Johnson is an emotional six-year-old with extraordinary powers to control the blog where he rules by simply wishing away people and things that anger or confound him. Charles has the mind and imagination of a typical lunatic. The people at LGF have to look like lizards all the time, think lizard thoughts, and say lizard things, because that’s what Charles commands and, if they disobey, he can wish them into a cornfield from whence they are never to be seen or heard from again.
    What few adults remain try nervously to think like lizards and tell Charles that he’s a good boy, hoping that Charles’s terrible power
    won’t be turned upon themselves.

  • FeralCat

    Charles Johnson is an emotional six-year-old with extraordinary powers to control the blog where he rules by simply wishing away people and things that anger or confound him. Charles has the mind and imagination of a typical lunatic. The people at LGF have to look like lizards all the time, think lizard thoughts, and say lizard things, because that’s what Charles commands and, if they disobey, he can wish them into a cornfield from whence they are never to be seen or heard from again.
    What few adults remain try nervously to think like lizards and tell Charles that he’s a good boy, hoping that Charles’s terrible power
    won’t be turned upon themselves.

  • http://www.hollycrud.com David Jack Smith

    I note that there is some loon posting pretending to be another loon called Charles “Not So Big Now” Johnson.

    Please ban him immediately. I sense he’s not very “evolved” global warm-mongering science denying charlatan.

  • http://www.hollycrud.com David Jack Smith

    I note that there is some loon posting pretending to be another loon called Charles “Not So Big Now” Johnson.

    Please ban him immediately. I sense he’s not very “evolved” global warm-mongering science denying charlatan.

  • Mike Razar

    Who the hell is Charles Johnson? Why should anybody care what he says?
    One sided blog sites are way nowhere near as much fun as ones with real debates.
    Is anything more boring than the the daily kos or the arriana post? You can’t trust their purported facts. Do ya think maybe they are afraid to tolerate differing views?

  • Mike Razar

    Who the hell is Charles Johnson? Why should anybody care what he says?
    One sided blog sites are way nowhere near as much fun as ones with real debates.
    Is anything more boring than the the daily kos or the arriana post? You can’t trust their purported facts. Do ya think maybe they are afraid to tolerate differing views?

  • A to the F

    The news that Chuckie has a fiance (presumably of the female persuasion) is all I needed to hear to understand his insanity and ensuing betrayal. Clearly she must be a treehugger epic proportion to bend his will so quickly and viciously in order to prove his love to her.

  • A to the F

    The news that Chuckie has a fiance (presumably of the female persuasion) is all I needed to hear to understand his insanity and ensuing betrayal. Clearly she must be a treehugger epic proportion to bend his will so quickly and viciously in order to prove his love to her.

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