Doubtless most of you have already seen Dave Weigel's take-down of the Very Serious Larry Johnson, proprietor and agent provacateur of the anti-Obama hate site No Quarter.
As a former blogger-bombthrower, I have my own thoughts on Mr. Johnson, and needless to say I think we should all be prayerful (even those of us who are mostly irreligious, such as myself).
Weigel, a reporter for Reason, writes the story of how Johnson and his merry band of rogues and misfits (who are not a cult!) launched and perpetuated the story of the mythical (read: non-existant) Michelle Obama "whitey" tape.
When contacted by Weigel for his side of that story, Johnson wrote back:
You and Reason in the same sentence? Now that's funny. I don't recall soliciting an email from you so fuck off.
Johnson, who is Very Serious, stands by the story, based on numerous alleged hearsay statements made by friends of friends of people who saw the alleged tape.
Now some of you folks may remember the wee spot of trouble we folks over at BurntOrangeReport got into a wee spot of trouble after reporting rumors that Texas Governor Rick Perry was involved in an adulterous, possibly homosexual affair.
We ultimately walked it back, and (at least speaking for myself), felt pretty bad about the affair. As Andrew Dobbs wrote:
Alright, enough is enough. I know that we kind of got our name in the world of blogging by reporting (not creating, not even promoting, but simply reporting) on the the rumors that were swirling around the governor's sexuality earlier this year. At the time it seemed like a lot of really well-placed sources were saying the same things- Perry was sleeping with Geoff Connor, he was going to resign, Anita was going to leave him. As a result, we did what we do and we reported on them.
Now I'm not so sure. I don't know if Perry is gay or not- I suppose only Perry and anyone he has slept with would know that for sure (and I haven't slept with him, to my knowledge). But it appears that what happened was a very well coordinated whisper campaign orchestrated by someone aligned with Carole Strayhorn's office. The only thing more despicable, in my estimation, than a gay person hiding their sexuality and scoring political points off of discriminating against their own people would be to score political points off of people's bigotry by cowardly suggesting that your political opponents are gay. I don't know which is true but to be on the safe side, don't vote for either of them.
I think the worst part for us was the realization, later on, that we were getting played like harps by the Strayhorn people, and then being used as a scapegoat by the Perry people.
Barack Obama is a big boy and if Larry Johnson wants to make unsubstantiated attacks on him, fine. But I wonder --
Does he recognize the credibility he is losing?
Does he recognize that he will probably end up regretting this?
Byron, Andrew, and I were a bunch of college kids, and we fell for something that you'd expect a bunch of college kids to fall for. Larry Johnson is supposed to be an adult, and is some kind of CEO/security expert or something.
So sad...