Blog War: John Cole vs. Big Tent Democrat

I don’t normally get too involved in the various disputes in the blogosphere, but I couldn’t help finding some enjoyment in seeing John Cole smack down Armando/Big Tent Democrat. I think there is pretty widespread agreement that Big Tent Democrat had some of the weakest and most irrational attacks on Obama to be seen throughout the election campaign (while he also claimed to back Obama). Most of the time I ignored him, but I did respond on occasion such as here and here.

Big Tent Democrat set himself up as an easy target for debunking as soon as he raised the nonsense of the Obama cult in the first item John Cole responds to. I previously responded to the nonsense of an Obama cult here and here. Most of the arguments from the past months no longer matter, and Cole decided to summarize them quickly rather than dwell on them:

With Democrats like this, who needs Red State? If there was anyone who was more tedious during this last election cycle than Armando, aka Big Tent Democrat, let me know. Besides turning one of my favorite sites, TalkLeft, into a pseudo-Puma cess-pool during the primaries (But he supports Obama, dont’cha know- speaking for him only!), BTD’s bigger sin was dispensing bad advice to the Obama campaign on an almost daily basis. If concern trolling was an art form, BTD would be Michelangelo and the 2008 Democratic primary his Sistine Chapel.

Because I am short on patience, and, at heart, a compassionate person, I am not going to go through the TalkLeft archives and dig up where BTD gravely intones that Obama can not win the white vote, can not win the Jewish vote, can not win the Hispanic vote, and on and on. I will not dig up all the stupid god damned advice he gave to the Obama campaign (which they, thank GOD, ignored). I will not look up the umpteen posts where the left’s own pompous village idiot warned that Obama could not win without Hillary on the ticket. I will not dig up the polling data that he consistently misread and always curiously interpreted as showing a need for Hillary on the ticket. I will let you do that for yourself, and you can enjoy your own historical retrospective into BTD’s idiocy. Yes, I voted for Bush twice, but I proudly state I am not as stupid as BTD. Period.

After debunking the attacks Big Ten Democrat has made on Obama, Cole concludes:

In other words, there is a lot of bullshit floating around out there. No one knows what is going on, no decisions have been made. The press is in a vacuum, publishing rumor and innuendo, and you have no clue what Obama’s opinion on torture, Gitmo, or anything else is beyond what he has publicly stated repeatedly and campaigned upon, and for you, working from a profound position of ignorance (your normal state, I might add) to state that Obama all of a sudden supports torture but “merely wants greater oversight,” deserves nothing other than a firm round of South Park, the Musical ( link is totally NSFW, totally immature, and totally encapsulates my firm feelings about the biggest bloviating moron writing for a left-wing blog). I know you are still fondly dreaming of a Hillary 2012 challenge, but could you base the need for this on something other than speculation in the WSJ a mere week after the election (and two months before he is inaugurated)? Was the Corner busy? You couldn’t get any inside scoop from Michael Goldfarb at the Weekly Standard?

And before I close, let me finish with this. I left the right because they were such assholes I could not stand it anymore. You left good graces with the left because you were too much of an asshole, and they troll-rated you into oblivion. I may have been wrong about a lot of things in the past, and will be in the future, but I left the GOP because it was a cult. I was the one who was suspicious about Obama in the beginning. I think I have a solid eye for bullshit. And for the record, if you want to see what a “cult” looks like, you might want to check your own comment policy. We allow dissent here, and appreciate it. You are so dimwitted and thin-skinned you delete anything that deviates from your own bizarre dogma. Keep that in mind when I say this:

Yes, right now the “Cult of Obama” wants you to STFU. At least until he, you know, actually does something that deserves your derision. And if and when he does, we will join you. Until then, amuse yourself writing diaries for No Quarter, and while you are at it, do us a favor and ask Larry about the “Whitey” tape. Wanker.

Unfortunately, should there be any who really want to watch an all out blog war, John Cole is fighting an unarmed opponent in this battle of wits. Big Tent Democrat can only respond with an incoherent post which falls back on claims that those who backed Obama are cultists and which he denies making all the irrational arguments we have seen him make throughout the campaign. It is possible that Cole might have erred and maybe BTD did not make every single argument Cole attributes to him, but overall Cole captures the gist of the arguments coming from BTD throughout the election.

Update: John Cole responds to Big Tent Democrat’s claims that the posts he mentioned do not exist by searching the archives and showing that they do.

5 Comments

  1. 1
    lambert strether says:

    Classic!

    Two-time Bush voter Cole smears BTD by claiming he posts at No Quarter, all the while providing no link. Here, this gets transformed into “overall Cole captures the gist.” I thought respect for accurate citation was a liberal characteristic and, indeed, an enlightenment value?

  2. 2
    Ron Chusid says:

    Lambert,

    I have demonstrated my resepect for accurate citation while you are demonstrating your disregard for such honesty. You certainly have something in common with both BTD and No Quarter–a disregard both for fact and rational discourse. You can come up with no better response to my post than a comment which distorts what is written?

    As obviously I am not the author of John Cole’s post I cannot control whether every single fact is correct. Out of respect for the principle of accuracy I even pointed out, in a post supportive of Cole, that there may have been some inaccuracies, but despite this his overall argument holds up.

    This is really a fact of life in evaluating arguments from two different sides. It is quite common that each side will be right on some points but wrong on others. Often, such as in this case, the argument goes predominently to one side regardless of whether that side gets every single fact right. Liberals who are accustomed to rational debate are well aware of this.

    The claim that BTD wrote at No Quarter is just one tiny part of Cole’s post, and your decision to charaterize his entire post (as well as my response) based upon one throw away comment is just outright dishonest.

    I would also point out that starting your comment with “two-time Bush voter Cole” is just another cheap shot. Cole has admitted he was wrong in his previous support for Republicans, and this is irrelevant to his current argument.

    It is also consistent with liberal thought to show more respect for  the arguments of someone such as Cole, who has evaluated arguments and admitted when he was once wrong, than to respect the shrill nonsense often seen at Corrente, Talk Left, and No Quarter. Whether or not BTD actually wrote at No Quarter, his nonsense certainly would fit in well there.

  3. 3
    Tom Hilton says:

    I usually find it distasteful to pile on, but…damn, this is some really enjoyable piling on.  Well done. 

    (And by the way, the “amuse yourself writing diaries for No Quarter” line is pretty clearly a comment on where BTD belongs rather than a representation that he is or ever has been posting there.  It’s what we call an ‘insult’.  Only someone as congenitally stupid and habitually dishonest as Lambert could either think or claim to think it was otherwise.)

  4. 4
    Ron Chusid says:

    Tom,

    Thanks. I wouldn’t have piled on this way if it was just a blog post somewhere, but if someone wants to come here and comment I felt justified in defending myself.

    From reading the John Cole’s I also suspected that he was writing as you describe rather than literally writing at No Quarter but there is some room for confusion in how it is written. I figured it didn’t really matter. John might be correct on every charge, or he might only be right on the vast majority of his statements as to BTD’s posting. Regardless of whether there was room for nit picking details he is correct in his overall argument.

  5. 5
    gil mann says:

    there is some room for confusion in how it is written

    Only if you’re spectacularly disingenu… oh, right.

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