Wonkette
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Peering through the seedy side of Washington. [Eva Mendez /Flickr]
In 2003 I was looking for a job and spending a lot of time sitting on the couch and watching C-SPAN, yelling at Scott McClellan as if he could hear me and respond. I was a natural candidate to start a blog and so I did and when I did, I found myself surrounded by three kinds of people: middle-aged men looking for a way to vent in their free time, underemployed young men looking for a way to vent in their free time, and Ana Marie Cox.
Ana Marie was the first blogger at Wonkette, a site she built into an institution. She has been portrayed on The West Wing and she showed up on the cover of the New York Times Magazine; she is unserious and scathing and disdainful and less obsessed with politics than she is with politicians. She is described as “snarky” or “breezy,” but to see her on a panel with fake White House reporter Jeff Gannon is to understand what Madam Defarge might be doing, were she alive today.
She skewered him, in short.
Lots of skewering to do in the coming months, particularly with the promise of indictments to come on the event she’s begun to refer to as “Abramoffukah”; what do we want to ask of Ana Marie Cox, and what of Washington do we want her to help us understand?
We have, by luck or coincidence or our clearly unimpeachable reputation, pulled together a holy trinity of understanders of Washington: the Wonkette, the wonk and the screenwriter.
I also, over three hours at Charlie’s Bar in Harvard Square last night, went and read most of Cox’s novel, Dog Days. Some quotes:
She asked Julie, who didn’t even glance up from her Vogue magazine. ‘Oh please, congressmen? They’re like interns. Why bother learning their names?’
There was something quaint and stupid about all the time bloggers put into these deconstructions. … She had heard that bloggers called it “Fisking.” Julie called it “fish slapping,” after the Monty Python sketch in which two men took turns prancing up to each other, slapping each other with a mackerel, and prancing back.
The book is, though, in its own strange way surprisingly sincere.
Of course there were payoffs and dirty tricks in the past, but the issues themselves weren’t so thin and packaged. They played the game back then, too, but it somehow seemed more worth winning.
And, in the first person, from the acknowledgements:
But most of all, thanks for working so hard for so little when so much was at stake. Campaigns can be foolish; what you’re fighting for isn’t.
Ana Marie Cox
Josh Marshall
- Blogger, Talking Points Memo and TPM Cafe
Lawrence O’Donnell
- Author, analyst, former Hill senior staffer, producer and writer for “The West Wing”
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January 4th, 2006 at 11:19 pm
AWSUM! Does this mean decorum will be waived for the night on the blog? It’s fun to be a potty-mouthed little sex-obsessed skanky gossip and endlessly find ways to insert mention of sodomy into a discussion. Now playing: it’s Kickback Mountain, starring Jack-’em-up Abramoff and a cast of hundreds–of legislators! HEYNOW!
January 5th, 2006 at 12:31 am
Kickback Mountain?
it’ll make millions.
January 5th, 2006 at 10:11 am
“mdhatter”: Already has! Nyuk. Woob.
January 5th, 2006 at 10:11 am
As a veteran blogger myself, I must express my deep respect for Wonkette and all she’s done. But I also wanted to communicate that wonkette is so deeply entrenched in washington dc goings on that at a certain point I just felt in need of a shower after reading it. Its not so much her as the game… I hate the game which made the blog sickening to read after a while.
Looking forward to the show however.
January 5th, 2006 at 10:14 am
“bicyclemark”: It’s true that Rome-on-the-Potomac is a sewer without any help from Ms. Dire Tongue, but hey: when in Rome…eh?
January 5th, 2006 at 10:21 am
Ah, Brenda, this is really cute.
January 5th, 2006 at 10:22 am
Oops, I hope that doesn’t stick.
January 5th, 2006 at 10:54 am
Trancend
I had a dream two days ago. Granted, I was feverish at the time, suffering from too much attention to those mundane, repetitive feminine duties that dampen goddess energy, no doubt. I won’t waste my time looking for clickies…
January 5th, 2006 at 11:22 am
“Dakota”: If “goddesses” would stop buying Hummels that “need” dusting, they might be less tired. Of course, many “goddesses” are out working to pay for real stuff instead of buying tchotchkes that a tired man has paid for (involuntarily) and they tire of that work too. And then some are just women, not goddesses, and seem to tire so much less easily. I guess being a goddess is an extraordinary responsibility–thank, uh, God(-dess?), that not everywoman has to be one. You have all my sympathy–hope it’s enough. Good luck–I hope you can “tranScend”, as I think you meant with “tran-cend”. BTW, what are you talking about?
January 5th, 2006 at 11:23 am
“Raymond”: Are you calling Coach Brendan “Brenda”?! We’re gonna hafta paste a beatin’ on ya in the locker room, boy…
January 5th, 2006 at 11:34 am
Nope. I just type and read the screen badly. My apologies to Brendan.
January 5th, 2006 at 11:42 am
“Raymond”: Don’t feel bad–I think badly, but unfortunately it usually makes it to the screen intact, so I have very few friends.
January 5th, 2006 at 2:01 pm
SO sorry to hear that she’ll be on the show. She’s such a lightweight.
January 5th, 2006 at 3:25 pm
I highly doubt that I have the ability to write witty quips that would do justice to the great Ms. Cox. Let me apologize in advance if I post more comments to this thread in the future that lack the witty flair that veteran bloggers (dare I include Brendan) deserves.
January 5th, 2006 at 3:54 pm
Ana Marie Cox is a rather rare combination.
… rather nice to look at
… has a brain, and uses it
… is not afraid to be irreverant.
Must be a deadly combination in male-dominated DC.
Great stuff – if you are not looking for pretense.
What to ask her? Is there anything she wants to say that doesn’t make it into her weblog? (This I rather doubt!) I’m sure she will be worth a listen.
January 5th, 2006 at 4:32 pm
Nice. Someone went and threatened locker-room violence on my behalf, something that never actually happened in real high school, just here in virtual high school.
Also, I think Dakota’s non-sequitur is not her fault. It’s a trackback on a completely different topic that links to us. I have to deal with trackbacks better on this site, one of the many things I have to fix. Sigh.
Anyway, now we’ve booked Josh Marshall and Larry O’Donnell for that hour, too, so it looks like we’re going to be talking about Abramoff. And DC. And what Abramoff teaches us about what we don’t know about DC.
January 5th, 2006 at 5:27 pm
Brendan,
Are you auctioning off spots on the show? While it may not be moral to book a guest in exchange for a Rolls Royce, few would question your intelligence to take a good deal…
Maybe you could put “Open Source” spots on eBay…
January 5th, 2006 at 5:50 pm
For the blog novices among us: what’s a ‘trackback’?
January 5th, 2006 at 5:52 pm
Okay, so now there are new guests. This is a very different show. How did it go from being about the Wonkette to being about Abramoff and the ugly game behind the scenes? Are there two shows here? Or not enough interest in Wonkette and what it is to be her?
January 5th, 2006 at 6:42 pm
Guess I’ll sit this one out, since fun isn’t welcome when a subject that merits leaden gravitas, such as Wonkette, is on the agenda. BTW, “allison”, a trackback is a wormhole that rends the fabric of the blog/time continuum and allows visitors from another dementia to access, even unintentionally at times, an unrelated thread. Wish I weren’t tech-challenged, Brendan, but the only thing I have to offer is attempting to console with the purportedly best medicine. G’night, Gracie…
January 10th, 2006 at 4:34 am
One of my favorite all-time wonkette exclusives was when she interviewed and would often talk about the blogger by the name of Washingtonienne. This was the girl who worked for a congressmen and who was involved in all sorts of Washington sexcapades, and would blog about it openly (changing the names of course). she would get lots of gifts as well and write about it. Later I believe she was found out and got fired, later getting a book deal and if Im not mistaken, appearing in playboy. And wonkette covered it very well.
January 10th, 2006 at 4:31 pm
If there is going to be talk about the Abramoff scandal, I would like to ask the following: When is lobbying a desired part of the democratic process (a place for everyman to voice his political needs) and when is it corruption (money changes everything)?
I heard a lobbyist speaking today quite soberly about the value of lobbyists. He was arguing that in the ideal they are the facilitator of communications between the average citizen and policy wonks. Does it really work this way?
Also, we hear a lot about how money influences campaigns and legislation. Is anyone tracking how money influences regulating agencies and other places where legislation is supposed to be enacted and enforced?
If there is a value to lobbying, does anyone have ideas about how to keep money from corrupting the process?
January 10th, 2006 at 6:29 pm
Questions for Wonkette: Who’s the new “Washingtonienne”? And are there any male versions of Washingtonienne “serving” the the Washington, AC/DC area? There must be an undercover Jeff Gannon; and also some stud for the women power-brokers in Sodom-on-the-Potomac! Also, doesn’t the demon Abramoff have any passion other than pure power? I mean, where’s the sex part of the scandal? These guys are so bent, they can’t possibly be playing str8 in that way. Pant! Drool! Tell us!!!
January 10th, 2006 at 8:27 pm
don’t ever forget that this abramoff scandal is a totally
republican scandal- he was laundering money and influence
for the republican party- the press dropped the ball on this
unamerican republican power grab- that party deserves to
go back to minority status as quickly as possible.
Bush should be impeached his supreme court picks need to
go back to their spider holes.
January 10th, 2006 at 8:31 pm
To “Abby” above from Jan. 5th: She’s no lightweight. She’s just not “all sugar and spice and all things nice”–you know, like girls are supposed to be. I’d like to hear her interviewed by Stern on satellite radio so she could “speak easy”.
January 10th, 2006 at 9:03 pm
“pindrew”: Yeah, man, the Democrats are saints.
January 11th, 2006 at 8:05 am
Wonkette was too amused by things that disturb me. The whole scene is material for her. Lawrence O’Donnell said ( more than once) that if the Democrats were in power they’d be doing the same thing ( or did the same thing). But then the name Dan Rostenkowski ( he’s still alive!) came up and we remembered that his big sin had something to do with postage stamps. And for that we lost his otherwise valuable contribution. But maybe it was Josh Mashall who said it. The difference between what is going on with Republicans in power has to do with the lack of internal tension whilst Democrats have those tensions to keep them in check. My interpretation of that is that while Democrats need the money even more than Republicans, the Democratic voting “base” is much more diverse, multi-ethnic, multi-class, interested in social programs etc. I may not have stated that too well but that’s the idea. The point is, I think that O’Donnell is flat wrong. Democrats were not and I believe would not be so depraved.
January 11th, 2006 at 8:07 am
ALYB- no they are not saints.
January 11th, 2006 at 8:15 am
“Potter”: The Democrats are as venal as the Republicans. They aren’t dominant now, so they are marginally humble. As soon as they regain some seats, and maybe have (gulp!) Shrillary in the Whitehouse, they’ll get all cocky (again). “Sometimes an innocent man is sent to the legislature.” -Kin Hubbard
January 11th, 2006 at 9:59 am
ALYB- I have not seen evidence of that. But if I concede at all we would still be talking about new heights, new levels,of corruption achieved, blatently, arrogantly, in the buying and selling of legislation. No we have not seen this before. You are projecting “if’s” as well, Maybe so, but it has not happened yet.
Let’s contribute to Jonathan Tasini’s campaign
January 11th, 2006 at 10:43 am
I haven’t done a full number crunch and I have no love for what are practically the same party (D and R).. but one thing that seems worth mentioning when comparing who’s worse: less people died while the democrats were misbehaving. And that makes a hell of a difference.
January 11th, 2006 at 12:34 pm
“bicyclemark”: That is absolutely false–many more Iraqis have died (mostly children) under the economic sanctions of Iraq begun on Slick Willy’s watch, than have died so far under Team Bush–although they intend to set a world record, I believe. Clinton was a war criminal in the Balkans. too. I am not a partisan, and this is not a partisan issue. If we do not dismantle the government as it now exists, we can be assured of more of the same. “War is the health of the state.” -Randolph Bourne (see Antiwar.com)
January 12th, 2006 at 8:53 am
Saddam gamed the sanctions which were UN sanctions. We were all ( the UN) too slow to react/realize/ pay attention to the results and some few at the UN were apparently even making money on it. So a degree of responsibility for those deaths is appropriatley laid on the UN/US supported sanctions. Sanctions are a blunt instrument and it is hoped useful to avoid war. Saddam, sociopath/thug, was directly responsible however. He was building monuments to himself and living lavishly even despite humanitarian alterations in the sanctions policy. We can give perverse credit to Bush for bringing the subject up again regardless of what followed or his suspect intentions.
Regardling the numbers, I do not know. Intentions matter in my book even if they pave the way to hell.
Regarding the Balkans, a big topic. I remember many clammering feeling uncomfortable about the genocide in Kosovo which apparently was not a genocide we learn after. Still… I think Clinton’s action also had a lot to do with our shame about not acting in Rwanda. And still again quite a long time went by before Clinton did anything in the Balkans. We were waiting for the Euros to act. I am just remembering off the top of my head.
Where is Samantha Powers?
January 14th, 2006 at 8:40 am
Excerpt from Hertzberg’s Abramoffed but read the whole thing:
“Abramoff, Bush told Fox News, “was an equal money dispenser.â€? The scandal, numerous commentators have assured us, is “bipartisan.â€? Was he? Is it? Well, that depends on your definitions, and your measurements.
If a scandal is defined as something exceptional—as an unusually egregious display of political squalor that sooner or later involves prosecutors and indictments—then this one is as Republican as privatized Social Security. By the charitable giveback standard, it’s either eighty per cent Republican and twenty per cent “bipartisan� (i.e., Democratic) or 83–17, as measured by, respectively, the party affiliations of the givers-back and the aggregate amounts they let go of. By the standard of straight (apparently legal) campaign contributions, the scandal is sixty-four per cent Republican: of the $5.3 million Abramoff funnelled to candidates and PACs through clients and associates from 1999 through 2004, “only� $1.9 million went to Democrats. But Abramoff, who is forty-six, has been a Republican operative since his college days. Every dollar of his personal political giving—two hundred thousand dollars since 2000—has gone to Republicans. He is a Bush-Cheney “Pioneer,� meaning he raised more than a hundred grand for the ticket. The shinier baubles—skybox fund-raisers, jobs for wives, lavish golfing trips, meals at Abramoff’s upscale restaurant—went almost exclusively to Republicans, especially those in the circle of Tom DeLay, the suspended House Majority Leader. And of those fingered in the Abramoff indictments as being involved in unlawful activities, from Abramoff himself to “Representative #1� and “Staffer B,� one hundred per cent are Republicans.
Abramoff was the apotheosis of the “K Street Project,â€? a highly successful, years-long effort to turn the capital’s “lobbying communityâ€? into a Republican auxiliary, by pressuring lobbying firms and trade associations to support a broad conservative agenda, hire only Republicans, and give money overwhelmingly to Republican politicians. In some ways, the K Street Project is a national, and grander, version of the big-city political machines of old. But those machines, corrupt though they were, had their Robin Hood aspects.”
Regarding what Bush told Fox news,can he be believed about anything?
January 27th, 2006 at 7:43 am
This was a fascinating show, but I was very amused by Lawrence O’Donnell’s comment about the AP wire changing in reaction to what bloggers are writing. As an AP staffer, I can definitely say this is not the case.
We a) don’t have the time to read blogs at work and b) are quite capable of having our own discussions about the news thank you very much.
The fact that there is a convergence between AP’s focus on a story and what bloggers are saying can have two explanations: either journalists and bloggers are capable of reaching the same conclusions independently, or bloggers are taking their cue from the AP. Now there’s a thought…