Did you enjoy the solstice yesterday as much as I did?
- A friend and mentor of mine, the one and only David Dayen, retired from blogging yesterday:
And to you, the reader. Over the past couple weeks since I made this announcement that I would step aside, I have been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support and kind words from countless folks. People who do this for a while will tell you that they always, in the back of their mind, fear (and probably are just convinced) that they are merely screaming into a dark void. It means so much to me that you all have reached out to let me know that, in some meager way, I managed to have a measure of impact, at least at that individual level. This is all a writer can really hope for, and I’m humbled by your comments and emails and tweets.
My wife Mary is the most wonderful, patient person in the whole world, and I’m certain she will be pleased to get to go to sleep at night without the piercing light of an active laptop to contend with. The biggest thanks goes to her since none of you, at least as far as I know from my vantage point, have to put up with that. Also I’m sorry I left the back door open last night. Like blogging, marriage is a work in progress.
I really and truly have no idea what I’m going to do next as far as this part of my life goes. My wife tells me that I’ll last a month, tops, before crawling back. I don’t really think so (I gave a fuller explanation of my thought process in making this decision on Sam Seder’s radio show, if you’re interested), but she seems to know me well. So we shall see.
If anything does change, I’m sure I’ll let people know @ddayen. And if I do move forward, I hope I can count on you to move forward with me.
This has been a great privilege. Thank you.
For many, David's blogging has been a staples of news and advocacy, especially on the subject of the banking sector and financial reform. For me personally, David's more than that. In 2009, we served together on the editorial board of Calitics, a blog dedicated to covering progressive politics in California, and he had been instrumental in covering California's continuous budget crises from a progressive point of view. He taught me so much of what there is to know about California politics and the financial sector, and on both of these subjects, he has forgotten more than most of us will ever know--unless we read every one of what he has tabulated to be 22,000 blog posts over the course of his blogging career.
David explained his decision to retire in a very worthwhile interview with Sam Seder's Majority Report, and it's worth a listen for his comments on the blogosphere in general. Knowing David's passion, intelligence and desire, I know he will continue to advance a progressive agenda in some way--but the blogosphere is certainly worse for his departure, and his voice will be sorely missed.
- Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle all the way:
The internal disputes roiling the website founded by the late conservative provocateur Andrew Breitbart broke out into the open Friday, when a star blogger sued to be freed from her contractual obligations to the site.
St. Louis talk radio host Dana Loesch, also a frequent guest on CNN, alleges in the suit filed in federal district court in St. Louis that the site is refusing to publish her work while "sabotag[ing] her attempts to labor in a similar fashion elsewhere through public misstatements and private threats to sue those who would otherwise employ Loesch."
Loesch is seeking her freedom from the company and at least $75,000 in damages.
I'm not sure I'd classify anything Loesch does as "work," but this is Breitbart's standards we're talking about.
- The New York Times editorializes on Wayne Lapierre's epic press conference of crazy:
Wayne LaPierre, the executive vice president of the National Rifle Association, would have been better advised to remain wherever he had been hiding after the Newtown, Conn., massacre, rather than appear at a news conference on Friday. No one seriously believed the N.R.A. when it said it would contribute something “meaningful” to the discussion about gun violence. The organization’s very existence is predicated on the nation being torn in half over guns. Still, we were stunned by Mr. LaPierre’s mendacious, delusional, almost deranged rant.
And that's the nice part.
- Apparently, you can be fired for being too sexy. I'll never have to worry about that, but ...
- Joe Klein, on Kerry, Hagel and the nomination process in general:
I think the President has a responsibility here–to make a decision fast. It may be that Obama hasn’t made up his mind yet (in which case, the Administration shouldn’t have leaked his name). There are other fine candidates, like Deputy Secretary Ash Carter and defense intellectual Michelle Flournoy. Hagel is a good choice, too; he would the first Vietnam veteran to serve as Secretary of Defense. But the current state of play–Hagel twisting in the wind, his reputation slimed by such flamingly patriotic individuals as Bill Kristol and the saintly bloggers at Commentary–is unfair and not very classy. It is the exact opposite of what a nomination process should look like.
It hurts me to put these words down, but I agree with Joe Klein on this. It was painful to watch Ambassador Susan Rice be pilloried by these jokers without even having a nomination process to go through.
- Charles Pierce at Esquire on the impending nomination of Sen. John Kerry to Defense:
But the key is the Swift Boats. If some senator brings it up — or, worse, if some of the old poolroom liars are trotted in front of the Senate committee sitting on Kerry's nomination — and if the courtier press doesn't emphasize at every moment that everything that was said about John Kerry and Vietnam in the 2004 presidential campaign was a lie and an embarrassment to American politics and the American media, then we have on our hands yet another case of journalistic malpractice, and we have had enough of those, thank you. Those people should be ignored. The "controversy" should be relegated to the guy with the pompadour on the Ancient Aliens TV show.
Damn right. It's hard to think about Senator Kerry without mentioning the context of the national journalistic shame that was the Swift Boat incident.
- From the blog of the bigoted, hateful, anti-gay National Organization For Marriage. Offered without comment, because it's what passes for intellectual among these circles.