The Other McCain

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

News From the HuffPo ‘Veal Pen’

Posted on | May 24, 2011 | 22 Comments

In 2009, lefty blogger Jane Hamsher used the phrase “veal pen” to describe the way liberals had surrendered their autonomy to the Obama administration.

Lefty blogger Matt Osborne invoked the phrase while describing his decision to delete his archived articles at Huffington Post:

I see the point many of the 9,000 or so unpaid contributors have made about deserving some kind of compensation, even at a token rate per post, as thanks for building the product she has sold for a fortune. But it wasn’t personal avarice that led me to this; I don’t desire any part of Arianna Huffington’s AOL millions, for in my mind that money is cursed. Just ask Ted Turner.
Instead, my participation in HuffPuff — the growing online rebellion against Arianna and her newly-mintworthy media empire that began at the Adbusters website in February — is the culmination of many months of disillusionment and growing disgust. The sale of Huffington Post represents exactly the sort of “veal pen captivation scheme” that firebagging lefties constantly project on anyone with the temerity to question their paranoid conspiracy theories and character assassinations.

Exactly what Osborne intends to signify by the expression “firebagging lefties,” I’m not sure. Obsorne seems to have an overblown sense of his own importance, and his interpretations of Arianna Huffington’s politics are dubious. Nevertheless, Osborne is correct that what Huffington sold to AOL was a readership, including readers of  uncompensated contributors such as himself. Rather than filing lawsuits against HuffPo, however, he has asserted his own autonomy by deleting his previous HuffPo contributions (transferring the posts to his own domain) and encouraging others to do the same.

Let Arianna choke on her ill-gotten gains. Just don’t let her claim ownership of your uncompensated work. Ayn Rand would understand.

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Category: Huffington Post

Comments

  • Joe

    AOA over paid.  A lot. 

  • http://www.osborneink.com OsborneInk

    “Firebagging lefties” — a term derived from FireDogLake, where bashing president and party is de rigueur for proving one’s own “legitimacy” as a progressive/liberal/democratic socialist (the words are only interchangeable among firebaggers and teabaggers). The term implies an equivalency to teabagging, as both groups exist outside the mainstream, relish their supposed independence at the fringe, and undermine their own best interests in the process. Convinced they are pulling an “Overton Window” in their preferred direction, teabaggers and firebaggers have more in common than they admit and flirt with each others’ candidates (e.g., the Ron Paul fans at FDL).

    As for “an overblown sense of his own importance,” coming from this website I’ll take that as a compliment. My moral compass applies only to myself here, not others. My “uncompensated work” still appears at LeftInAlabama.com as well as CrooksAndLiars.com; Ayn Rand wouldn’t understand me at all.

  • Joe

    I like veal a lot.  It is delicious. 

    http://pages.simonandschuster.com/blindallegiancetosarahpalin?mcd=z_110518_CLP_Blind-Allegiance-to-Sarah-Palin_BlogAds1And this idiotic thing just popped up on my screen.  This is the sort of thing that gives Andrew Sullivan and immediate errection. 

  • Anonymous

    I think she would understand you better than you think. It’s not like folks of your sort didn’t exist before the Internet.

  • http://www.osborneink.com OsborneInk

    “Folks of my sort” — my, what do you mean? How much do you actually “know” about me? Because I can just as easily say “folks of your sort” and be thinking of pedophiles. See how that works?

  • Joe

    Yeah, I see how that works.  I would not call you a pedophile OsborneInk.  But this is your vehicle. 

  • http://rightnetwork.com Van der Leun

     Don’t like “overblown?” I agree it is off the mark. I’d categorize your work as “the random splugings of an overblown autofellationist.”

    Ayn Rand would understand you all too well. She just wouldn’t waste the powder it would take….

  • http://rightnetwork.com Van der Leun

     Don’t like “overblown?” I agree it is off the mark. I’d categorize your work as “the random splugings of an overblown autofellationist.”

    Ayn Rand would understand you all too well. She just wouldn’t waste the powder it would take….

  • http://www.osborneink.com OsborneInk

    Nope. Don’t live in a van by the river. I drive a sedan. #fail My pedophile transport of choice would be a minivan, preferably upscale, with a DVD player where I can “accidentally” show young pickups video of Andrew Breitbart fornicating with Newt Gingrich and Arianna Huffington.

    But we do have some lovely parting gifts. Thanks for playing, Joe!

  • http://www.osborneink.com OsborneInk

    I would shoot her dead with a .38 before she ever got close. I’m not totally opposed to the idea of taking the offensive with a Remington 300 magnum if I sensed the danger.

    See, you assume a lot of things, like that I don’t have a carry license and a collection of weapons. There is no part of my house where I am not in immediate reach of a weapon with which to dispatch the undead.

    I am town hall zombie ready.

    As for Ayn, I have some questions. Like, is man a social creature? Or: what do you make of the tea party?

    I have no doubt she’d be horrified by the tea party, actually. She would spit out her cigarette and possibly vomit. The tea party is an alliance of culture warriors and glibertardians that seems to rally around a right to life that ends at birth. She would look at the people carrying John Galt’s name and nausea would reach its peak.

    Look at the wind-up toy in the sidebar. I’m talking about Herman. Herman’s got all the right rhetoric to please the tea party “base,” but ask him a real substantive question and he’s Sarah Palin.

    She would find the tea party “movement” a mediocrity.” That is what is so sad.

  • http://www.osborneink.com OsborneInk

    I like veal too. I should like land one day and raise a yummy calf. Mmm! I’ll invite the barbecue media. McCain will love that! Of course, I mean that other McCain.

  • http://www.osborneink.com OsborneInk

    AOL. See, there’s an edit function. Spelling is important.

  • http://twitter.com/daingel Domenica Iacovone

    Wouldn’t a pedophile vehicle sort of more than likely resemble  a Catholic School Bus?

  • http://www.leftbankofthecharles.com Charles

    Laugh at Hamsher and Osborne now, but Mit Romney may be your veal pen.

  • http://twitter.com/MagicLoveHose Magic Love Hose

    “Clever, Mister Osborne. I would not expect a man who was in the Army to carry a gun – you are truly the master of the unexpected. But can you defeat my army of KILLER RANDROIDS!?”

    At which point we all fight killer Randroids on top of a blimp. I think all political arguments should be in the style of James Bond films.

  • http://www.osborneink.com OsborneInk

    It is simple! I know I have exactly enough men to stop your killer randroids with a human shield. When all your killer androids are destroyed, I win!

  • http://www.osborneink.com OsborneInk

    “Mitt Romney may be your veal pen.”

    Yep, and Hamsher’s got veal pen potential too.

  • Anonymous

    No slam intended. I was referring to the fact that you write for free from an ideological perspective, and Rand was familiar with that sort of person. Haters gotta hate, though.

  • http://www.osborneink.com OsborneInk

    Haters. I hate Ayn Rand’s writing style. I don’t hate you, though. I don’t even know you.

  • Pingback: Liberal explains liberalism « Don Surber

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  • http://rightnetwork.com Van der Leun

     I think Don Surber’s got you down with:

    “Now who can argue with that? I think we’re all indebted to Gabby
    Johnson, er, Matt Osbourne for clearly stating what needed to be said.
    I’m particularly glad that these lovely children are here today to hear
    that speech. Not only was it authentic frontier gibberish, it expressed
    the courage little seen in this day and age.”

    http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/archives/34537

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