The most recent 20 comments posted to Electrolite by language hat:

I'm impressed too, but not enough to change my overall opinion of him.

The flag-burning amendment is a very bad position, in my opinion, but I don’t doubt that it is sincere.

Um, I don't think the point is that it's insincere, the point is that it's a terrible idea. Bush might (I'm stretching here) be sincere about every one of his positions; who cares? They're terrible positions.

Patrick: I'm sorry if I offended you; such was not my intention. I'm just very surprised that anyone could read even one piece by Taibbi and be shocked, shocked, that he says offensive things. It's his shtick. As Martial says very well, he does go overboard sometimes, but different people will pick different quotes where they think that happens. Above all, I'm puzzled by "I can't trust a fucking word of it." You can't trust anything someone says because they said one thing that was over your personal line? We're not even talking about actual racism here; I doubt anyone seriously believes that Taibbi thinks Somalis et al are superior races. No, we're talking ironic mock-racism that's not quite arm's-length, not mock enough, for people's taste. I hate to bring up this moth-eaten phrase, but this is the work of political correctness, foax. ("I can't trust anything he says -- he can't spell 'folks'!") It's depressingly prevalent in the left-leaning segments of the internet, and its frosty effects can be felt all over; just this morning I found Caterina raving about the humor of Randall Jarrell's Pictures at an Exhibition, quoting one bit and then saying "And the paragraph after that was funnier, but offensive." Funnier, but offensive, so she daren't quote it online. Randall Jarrell. This chills me a lot more than ironic mock-racism. Your mileage may vary.

Oh, for heaven's sake. Taibbi is one of the liveliest writers out there, with deep knowledge of ex-Soviet reality and corporate shenanigans; his style is not for the faint-hearted, but he's hilarious and much closer to the mark than the oblivious sheep who man the opinion/analysis desks at Major Media Outlets. If you have a weak stomach, by all means skip him, but you'll be missing a lot of information. (His former paper, The eXile, was far more consistently right about Russia than any other Western publication.)

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