Congratulations to @AlecMacGillis, Hacktastic Douchebag of the Day

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“Alec MacGillis, staff writer of the Washington Post, needs to leave journalism immediately to find a profession in which he is half-competent.”
— Brad DeLong, March 27, 2008

Alec MacGillis is a douchebag who has lately been busy carrying “phony scandals” water for the Obama administration. As was once said of Sidney Blumenthal, if MacGillis were hired by the White House tomorrow, his first assignment would be to collect his back pay.

None of that distinguishes MacGillis from dozens of others of partisan Democrat hacks, who seem to think doing steno work for Media Matters and the DNC is courageous and innovative journalism. What sets Alec MacGillis apart is his lack of self-awareness, his evident belief that nobody is ever going to notice what a pompous fraud he really is.

MacGillis is a former Washington Post reporter who is now employed by The New Republic, a magazine that was sold last year to Facebook gazillionaire Chris Hughes, so you might think MacGillis would have a clue about which way the media winds are blowing. Sadly, no:

Craigslist’s Craig Newmark has not bought the Post, thank goodness — that would be too much to bear. But Amazon’s Jeff Bezos as the white knight provokes only slightly less shock and dolor. We knew the other guys had won a long time ago . . .

(“The other guys” = the ones who make profits.)

. . . but it’s another thing when they can waltz in and, in the charmless guise of “Explore Holdings LLC,” drop $250 million in cash for a legendary paper (that’s a mere one percent of Bezos’s net worth), as flip and easy as plucking an Apollo rocket engine from the ocean or building a $42 million, 10,000-year clock in West Texas.

(But what about Chris Hughes waltzing in, huh?)

There are already hopeful noises coming out of the corner of 15th and L about Bezos as owner, compared with other possibilities. He is promising independence. He is, for now, keeping the leadership team in place (let’s hope in particular that he keeps editor Marty Baron, under whose leadership the paper has been doing some notably hard-edged and influential journalism). His politics are not visibly objectionable. . . .

(Please tell us, Mr. MacGillis, what sort of politics are “visibly objectionable” to a professional journalist like yourself?)

But let’s not kid ourselves here: The company that made him one of the richest men in the world has had a less than benign impact on our nation. It has devastated the publishing industry, from the big presses to the small booksellers. It has exacerbated the growth of the low-wage economy, to the point where the president feels the need to celebrate an increase in warehouse jobs that will pay barely more than minimum wage. . . .

(Hey, f–k you, Alec. What I consider “less than benign” is not that Amazon warehouse workers are paid so little, but rather that you are paid so much, you worthless dishonest hack.)

More generally, Amazon has embodied, more than any other of the giants that rule our new landscape, the faster-cheaper-further mindset that scratches away daily at our communal fabric: Why bother running down to the store around the block if you can buy it with a click? No risk of running into someone on the way and actually having to talk to them, and hey, can you beat that price? No thought given to the externalities that make that price possible –the workers being violently shocked every time they pull a book off the warehouse shelf, or losing a chunk of their lunch break to go through the security checkpoint set up by their oh-so-trusting employer. They’re Somewhere Else, working for a company that is Out There, in the cloud. . . .

(Shop now for big savings at Amazon!)

I avoid buying from Amazon as best I can, but I’ll keep subscribing to my old paper as long as they keep printing it . . .

And so much for your influence, you hacktastic douchebag. Nobody really likes you, and this is not their fault, Alec MacGillis.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers!

 

146 comments

  1. Exactly: If the FBI ever decides to crack down on the Douchebag Mafia (and frankly, a crackdown is way overdue), Alec MacGillis will become Public Enemy No. 1.

  2. Man, I just hate getting what I want, shipped right to my door, with just one or two clicks, and a happy merchant thanking me for my business, and asking me for my feedback.

    Reminds me how I seethe when It turns out that I can always find a parking space, and then buy most of what I need for really low prices at Wal Mart.

    Talk about horrible experiences!

  3. “The company that made him one of the richest men in the world has had a
    less than benign impact on our nation.”

    Because it can only be malign that EVERYONE in the nation has instant access to all the books for sale anywhere in the world!

    “It has devastated the publishing
    industry, from the big presses to the small booksellers.”

    Good! Electronic self-publishing means you can quickly and cheaply publish and make your book available to the entire world *without* having to pay, or deal with, the Leftist publishing gatekeepers in New York City.

  4. My understanding is that the Amazon shipping process is actually “greener” than all of us rural folks driving to stores. That is, there is less waste and pollution from the UPS truck than many folks driving to shop. Information like that is hard on lefty brains.

  7. And on the self-published stuff, the price is set by the authors, who get to make profit off their stories that would otherwise have been sucked up by PC creeps and gatekeepers (BIRM) at the New York publishing houses. This is a Good Thing.

  8. Not Bezos. He was smart enough to avoid getting stuck with that turkey, and he’s not on the hook for retirees’ pensions either.

  11. I think Bucky there only gets that haircut because he’s afraid all the big journalists will give him a swirly….

  12. I’ve got ten+ acres of land, a creek, no neighbors within five miles and the whole freaking world on my computer whenever I want it.

    God I wish I could stay a sophisticated city dweller. *snork*

  15. “–the workers being violently shocked every time they pull a book off the warehouse shelf”

    WTF?

  17. I agree. Stacy, you could have just stopped at “Alec MacGillis is a douchebag”. But the rest of your post is excellent, too!

    Although I thnk CRAPTASTIC douchebag sounds better…

  19. We knew the other guys had won a long time ago . . .
    (“The other guys” = the ones who make profits.)
    So making profits is bad. How does the Douchebag get pay? Where does the money come from? From Obama who confiscates the profits from the other guys? The Douchebag really has the brains of a douchebag.

  23. Who cares if you want to buy like a luddite. It’s your life and your money. I would suggest that a little less paranoid hatred of free market free enterprise would make you a happier and more productive person

  25. He’s the same sort of hack that would complain of them new fangled water mills that grind wheat. He’s be bit**** about all the hand grinders that were put out of business. Knock, knock bozo: the future is about adapting. You know, the earth really isn’t flat and we aren’t the center of the universe.

  26. Damn well put, K-Bob.

    I agree with you 100%.

    I don’t want too much flash [pun intended]. I’ve been able to score out-of-print books more easily there than anywhere, and at reasonable prices.

  28. Amazon Prime here! Love the service, lack of sales tax and free shipping. convenient.
    And WaPo?
    Not much there for me. They hate everything traditional. They cover for a lying president.
    Good luck, Mr Bezos.

  29. And please don’t forget to make all of your purchases from Amazon by clicking on any one of the Amazon ads here at The Other McCain.

    Doesn’t matter if you end up buying what’s featured in the ad you clicked, Stacy still gets a percentage of whatever you buy.

    I make all my purchases from Amazon through Stacy’s site.

    -Bob Belvedere for Lucky Strikes -L.S.M.F.T.

  31. Yep. A lot of tiny bookstores selling through Amazon. I like thinking some little bookshop in Maine is making a few bucks selling me that like-new copy of Roger Penrose’s “The Road To Reality”.

  33. Amazon sucks. Nothing can beat the experience of getting into your car on a hot summer day, burning your legs on the seat as you wait for the AC to cool the interior down, then enjoying the drive through traffic with people who think doing their makeup and texting while driving is completely safe.

    And oh, the thrill of that empty shelf where the product you want is supposed to be! That really gets the blood pumping and lets you know you’re alive! But maybe you’ll get lucky and it’ll be in stock so you can have the joy of paying a massive markup so the store can cover the salary of that obnoxious and illiterate white trash clerk. Now *that* is what community is all about.

  34. I’m one of those, I’ve been disposing of my old books and “gently played” CDs for a few years now, instead of just throwing them away. I tried a few years ago to give them to libraries, but in big cities there are hundreds of people like me also trying to give these away, and the libraries are swamped. Goodwill keeps a semi trailer on their collection site that keeps getting filled up, so I decided to try to find the people who want what I have and are willing to pay a dollar or three each for them.

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