The Other McCain

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

Because @MikeElk Deserves a Reply

Posted on | December 10, 2013 | 80 Comments

An e-mail arrived at 9:50 a.m. today:

Subject: u still sore you lost the civil war?

From: Mike Elk ([email protected])
To: Robert Stacy McCain

Shit son, I am about to go visit some Civil War battlefields where we kicked the fuck out of you degenerate Confederate bastards. I bet you are still sore you guys lost that one Bobby.
—
Mike Elk
In These Times Staff Writer
Cell: (412) 613-8423
Twitter – @MikeElk

Simple courtesy required a polite reply:

Sir:
You have an obnoxious habit of making your personal superiority the point of every argument, and you always seem disappointed that others do not admire you as much as you admire yourself. Declining your invitation to join the Mike Elk Fan Club, I will also waive the opportunity to tutor you in grammar, but must make a few additions to your pathetically small store of historical knowledge.
My Alabama ancestors were not degenerate, and were certainly no less patriotic than my wife’s ancestors from Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio who fought for the Union. However — and perhaps this touches also on your erratic grammar — your first person plural pronoun would seem misplaced: “we kicked the fuck out of you,” et cetera.
To whom does your “we” refer in that context?
In an e-mail to Eli Lake, you said your grandparents were “the children of Russian Jewish immigrants.” In which Civil War regiment did your ancestors serve?
My own paternal grandmother was the daughter of Private Winston Wood Bolt, who served in the 13th Alabama Regiment, Company K. The colonel of my great-grandfather’s regiment was Birkett Davenport Fry, and they were brigaded under A.H. Colquitt (at Seven Pines, South Mountain and Sharpsburg), then under J.J. Archer at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. Both General Archer and my great-grandfather were captured in the first day’s fight at Gettysburg when the Union’s famed “Iron Brigade” turned their right flank. I’ve walked the ground where Winston Bolt was captured — just east of Willoughby Run, a hundred yards or so from where Union General Reynolds was killed — but regret that I’ve never had an opportunity to visit Fort Delaware, where my great-grandfather spent the next two years as a prisoner of war.
At any rate, it seems quite likely your ancestors never fired a shot at any of my ancestors, and so your use of the first person plural “we” is wrong. But you’ve never let being wrong stop you before, and I doubt you’ll let it impede you in the future. All you ever do is boast and threaten and insult, then claim to be a helpless victim when someone calls attention to the symptomatic traits of your warped and sadistic personality. My confident prediction is that these habits of yours will eventually bring you unhappiness and misfortune in life, and that in the near term you will be deeply offended by anyone’s effort to counsel you against continuing in your present course of conduct. Your conceited sense of superiority has the effect of alienating you even from those would-be friends who might dissuade you from your doomed folly.
You will excuse me if I take the liberty of publishing our correspondence immediately, as I consider it a waste of time to respond privately to a deliberate insult.
— RSM

 Don’t expect Mike Elk to appreciate such courtesy. Fools never do.

UPDATE: It took six minutes for Elk to reply:

Subject: Re: u still sore you lost the civil war?

From: Mike Elk ([email protected])
To: Robert Stacy McCain

By we I mean boys from my home state of Pennsylvania. Look at this monument, those keystone boys sure cleaned up at orchad’s knob — makes me proud to be a Pennsylvanian think of the slavers ass that they kicked
Sent from my iPhone

He’s proud to be from the same state as Jerry Sandusky? The mere accident of having been born in Pennsylvania instills in Mike Elk such fierce emotion? Exactly where this “orchad’s knob” is located, I’m not sure. No photo was attached to his e-mail.

UPDATE II: A Google search for “Mike + Elk +Pennsylvania” turns up this typically demented rant against Penn State:

“As a native Pennsylvanian, I never once considered attending Penn State University. Penn State always seemed like a place full of cliquish white people recalling their glory years of making fun of the dorky kids in high school. More progressive white people and people of color went to big city state schools like Pitt or Temple while whiter, more conservative types tended to dominate the settings of the rural, fraternity-heavy Penn State campus.”

Read the whole thing to get an idea of exactly how long Mike Elk has been a blustering fool (i.e., his entire life).

 

Category: History, Journalism

Comments

80 Responses to “Because @MikeElk Deserves a Reply”

  1. CHideout
    December 10th, 2013 @ 12:34 pm

    Because @MikeElk Deserves a Reply: An e-mail arrived at 9:50 a.m. today: Subject: u still sore you lost the ci… http://t.co/Lv5MAqKFgF

  2. MrEvilMatt
    December 10th, 2013 @ 12:34 pm

    Because @MikeElk Deserves a Reply: An e-mail arrived at 9:50 a.m. today: Subject: u still sore you lost the ci… http://t.co/Av7M27Z34K

  3. jwbrown1969
    December 10th, 2013 @ 12:34 pm

    Because @MikeElk Deserves a Reply: An e-mail arrived at 9:50 a.m. today: Subject: u still sore you lost the ci… http://t.co/npgYo6fi1h

  4. Lockestep1776
    December 10th, 2013 @ 12:34 pm

    Because @MikeElk Deserves a Reply: An e-mail arrived at 9:50 a.m. today: Subject: u still sore you lost the ci… http://t.co/yDOgy0stHW

  5. Resista38176897
    December 10th, 2013 @ 12:34 pm

    Because @MikeElk Deserves a Reply: An e-mail arrived at 9:50 a.m. today: Subject: u still sore you lost the ci… http://t.co/ZdrBiIqbLG

  6. Citzcom
    December 10th, 2013 @ 12:34 pm

    Because @MikeElk Deserves a Reply: An e-mail arrived at 9:50 a.m. today: Subject: u still sore you lost the ci… http://t.co/AAis1ihwzd

  7. rsmccain
    December 10th, 2013 @ 12:43 pm

    RT @Citzcom: Because @MikeElk Deserves a Reply: An e-mail arrived at 9:50 a.m. today: Subject: u still sore you lost the ci… http://t.co/…

  8. Mike Elk = BSC | Batshit Crazy News
    December 10th, 2013 @ 12:45 pm

    […] Update: Robert Stacy McCain responds to Eli Lake’s latest rantings: […]

  9. Howard Earl
    December 10th, 2013 @ 12:49 pm

    Do you think this SPAZ named Mike Elk will ever come to realize he is as sharp as a SPORK?

  10. DaveO
    December 10th, 2013 @ 12:55 pm

    Looking at a history of Jewish immigration to the US, two things stand out: the South had a long, rich Jewish culture up to the mid-20th Century. And, Russian Jews did not start immigrating until the Tsarist pogroms of 1880-1914.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_the_United_States

  11. Mm
    December 10th, 2013 @ 12:57 pm

    Additionally, seeing that he was born in the 20th century and did not fight in the War, the use of “we” is unseemly. I would also edit your opening by adding one word: “You have an obnoxious habit of making your ILLUSION personal superiority the point of every argument….”

  12. Mm
    December 10th, 2013 @ 12:58 pm

    “Of.” forgot the “of.”

  13. Howard Earl
    December 10th, 2013 @ 1:04 pm

    Mike Elk also seems the type that wouls credit “himself” with the win or loss of his favorite sports collective. “WE WON THE SUPERBOWL”, when in fact, the closest he’s ever come to a football is screwing pigs.

  14. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    December 10th, 2013 @ 1:05 pm

    There is an easier explanation: B.S.C.

    http://batshitcrazynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/eb0634d648a4f2b0feedd9bd513167ea.jpg

  15. MikeElk
    December 10th, 2013 @ 1:06 pm

    In which a neo-confederate blogger researches my ancestors & concludes that they didn’t fight for the union http://t.co/t3O6cV42uM

  16. robertstacymccain
    December 10th, 2013 @ 1:08 pm

    Damn those Tsarist pogroms!

  17. robertstacymccain
    December 10th, 2013 @ 1:10 pm

    My opposition to Tsarist pogroms to be perversely misrepresented by Mike Elk as an expression of anti-Semitism in 3, 2, 1 …

  18. Earl Scruggs
    December 10th, 2013 @ 1:13 pm

    Why do all these batshit crazy lefties insist on calling you “Bobby”? Do they think the diminutive form diminishes you, personally? Or do they think they annoy you by calling you by (a form of) your Christian name rather than the name you go by?

  19. robertstacymccain
    December 10th, 2013 @ 1:14 pm

    It is, as I say, symptomatic.

  20. JeffWeimer
    December 10th, 2013 @ 1:24 pm

    I can trace my American ancestry to Pennsylvania and 1751, and he wintered over at Valley Forge, twice. This guy is a piker.

  21. Adjoran
    December 10th, 2013 @ 1:45 pm

    Is this the same Mike Elk who likes little boys, or a different one?

  22. RS
    December 10th, 2013 @ 1:48 pm

    For someone who undoubtedly dismisses the sovereignty of the various States and would disparage those who display, what he would denounce as jingoistic parochialism as opposed to his own we are the proletariat world internationalism, Mr. Elk seems inordinately attached to the state of his birth.

    As far as the “orchard knob,” to which he refers, I assume he’s referring to Day Two and Barksdale’s attack on the Peach Orchard. That particular part of the battle was a tactical success for Lee and resulted, inter alia in Meade losing his leg. But, as we know, history is never the Left’s strong suit, preferring meta-narratives and outright fabrication when the facts don’t support the argument.

  23. Stogie Chomper
    December 10th, 2013 @ 1:48 pm

    Mikey’s puerile comments reflect the typical B.S. so popular with Yankees. As for “kicking the fuck” out of the Confederacy, I doubt the 360,000 dead Yankees left behind in Southern graves would see it that way. Theirs was a pyrrhic victory.

    My great grandfather also fought for the South, as a private in L Company, 4th Alabama Cavalry under General Phillip D. Roddy. He was captured in March 1865 and spent a couple of months as a POW in Camp Chase, Ohio.

  24. robertstacymccain
    December 10th, 2013 @ 1:51 pm

    No, as it turns out, he’s referring to a minor skirmish in Tennessee, where the Union troops were under the command of General Thomas, a native of Virginia. But don’t let facts get in the way, eh?

  25. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    December 10th, 2013 @ 2:10 pm

    I bet you didn’t like Fiddler on the Roof either…you big H8er!

  26. rsmccain
    December 10th, 2013 @ 2:14 pm

    RT @commonpatriot: via @rsmccain: Because @MikeElk Deserves a Reply http://t.co/fbBxca8Crl #tcot

  27. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    December 10th, 2013 @ 2:21 pm

    I thought they liked “Bobby” As in Bobby Kennedy.

    Now if they called you Edward, that would be fighting words.

  28. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    December 10th, 2013 @ 2:31 pm

    He has Asperger’s, but he learned to love himself in Brazil…so there you big H8er.

    While he is self admittedly crazy, does he not know you should never try to out crazy Robert Stacy McCain?

  29. AMartel
    December 10th, 2013 @ 2:37 pm

    Some people are born to greatness, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them. Then there’s Mike Elk and the rest of the progressive left who will never be great and so must coopt the greatness of others, however unlikely the cooption process may be.

  30. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    December 10th, 2013 @ 2:37 pm

    He got into it with Little Matt Yglesias too (including criticizing Yglesias over guns) Given his autism, it is probably good Mike Elk does not like guns.

  31. AMartel
    December 10th, 2013 @ 2:40 pm

    Or they pool their resources and achieve greatness in numbers. (See, e.g., the Borg.)

  32. BobBelvedere
    December 10th, 2013 @ 2:41 pm

    Because @MikeElk Deserves a Reply by @rsmccain http://t.co/rcVcABP3S8 Beautiful.

  33. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    December 10th, 2013 @ 2:44 pm

    Well most of them Union Solders died due to disease and feckless leadership–but dead is dead and it is probably a bit worse when it is due to stupidity and carelessness.

    But Mike Elk is a poser who deserves a good ass whoopin, just for principal sake.

  34. tlk244182
    December 10th, 2013 @ 2:54 pm

    And dont get in a verbal jousting match with him either. That was a smackdown for the history books. So to speak.

  35. tlk244182
    December 10th, 2013 @ 2:55 pm

    Now THAT’S funny!

  36. JeffS
    December 10th, 2013 @ 2:57 pm

    I can understand @MikeElk’s spelling and grammar issues, considering his autism, but that does not excuse his vile and abusive personality, nor his lying and smearing. Those are different matters, except when he uses his mental issues as an amnesty card.

  37. Professor_Why
    December 10th, 2013 @ 2:59 pm

    Because @MikeElk Deserves a Reply http://t.co/NybbVmIVh5

  38. Art Deco
    December 10th, 2013 @ 3:01 pm

    The chap is twenty-eight and his entire employment history consists of opinion journalism, mostly for a publication that can likely not afford to pay its contributors more than lunch money.

    I cannot figure the point of his striking attitudes about the state universities in Pennsylvania. He actually attended a small town liberal arts college that has 3,600 students and a full-freight tuition that is 2.6x that of privileged while-male sinkhole Penn State.

  39. RS
    December 10th, 2013 @ 3:02 pm

    My bad. I read Pennsylvania and immediately think Gettysburg.

  40. Art Deco
    December 10th, 2013 @ 3:07 pm

    Per the Census Bureau, the urban settlement around State College, Pa. has 87,000 people in it. I guess he’s not picky about the meaning of the term ‘rural’.

  41. robertstacymccain
    December 10th, 2013 @ 3:17 pm

    Words … meanings …

    You understand that’s racist talk, right?

    Also: Facts are hate.

  42. texlovera
    December 10th, 2013 @ 3:34 pm

    The only instance in which Mike Elk could correclty use the term “we” is if he’s referring to the glorious members of The Douchebag Collective

  43. Wombat_socho
    December 10th, 2013 @ 3:35 pm

    I know a fair number of autistic people who aren’t vile and abusive, and they also manage to write clearly – without spelling and grammar errors. No, this Elk person is just lazy, ill-educated and a jerk.

  44. rustypaladin
    December 10th, 2013 @ 3:45 pm

    Mr. McCain, I think Mr. Elk is taking the “neo-confederate” label some from the left have placed upon you at face value. I seriously doubt you actually care what the Alabama regiments did during the Civil War. Heck, if he was any sort of a history buff he would have brought up Little Round Top during the Battle of Gettysburg not some minor skirmish in Tennessee. The left flank was held by the 83rd Pennsylvania as well as the 20th Maine against the 47th and 15th Alabama. None of these regiments were bad (The history of the 15th looks pretty good) but the 20th Maine just happen to have a quick thinking commander that knew when to make a gamble. This is why the 20th Maine gets all the credit.

  45. Mm
    December 10th, 2013 @ 3:50 pm

    Oh, like some people use Parkinson’s?

  46. SPQR9
    December 10th, 2013 @ 3:54 pm

    Spelling is racist too.

  47. McGehee
    December 10th, 2013 @ 4:16 pm

    Hey, @MikeElk, you want to disparage my Civil War ancestor?

  48. ckilpatrick
    December 10th, 2013 @ 4:28 pm

    The secret’s out: unlike GI JOE, @MikeElk is *not* in fact A REAL AMERICAN HERO™ http://t.co/2XBmTyWdHA

  49. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    December 10th, 2013 @ 4:30 pm

    I know plenty of people who declare themselves Democrat and Liberal who are unbearable to be around.

  50. Rich Vail
    December 10th, 2013 @ 4:32 pm

    RSM, well said sir. In my case, I have ancestors who fought on both sides…My fathers great uncle (4 times removed) was a guy name Picket, George who went to west point. My great-(5 times removed) grand father and 4 of his 5 brothers (Geo Wash Vail woudn’t fight his brother in law) were killed at the battle of Picket Mills Georgia (a little irony there) fighting in the 23rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry as part of the Army of the Ohio (part of Gen Sherman’s army group who took Atlanta). So…having family on both sides, your answer was brilliant, sir.