Grow the eff up, and learn how to be responsible for what you write. Failing that, don’t write something that could come back and bite you in the ass.
Shorter-shorter Meryl: Don’t blog angry.
Update: Looks like they took my advice. I’m two for two this week.
How, exactly, does Amanda need to “grow the eff up?” Did she throw a tantrum about this anywhere? Or do you merely mean she needs to clean up her language? I don’t recall where she used any four-letter words in her work at the Edwards web site. What she wrote at Pandagon might well have stayed at Pandagon were it not for KC Johnson, a man so obsessed with the Duke lacrosse case he devotes an entire blog to it, in addition to spending all day hanging out in Jeralyn Merritt’s Duke case forums. KC pushed it up to Dan Collins, and it took off from there.
But it’s Amanda who needs to grow up.
As for being responsible for what she writes, I’m thinking that’s why she overwrote the Duke post in the first place: To spare her employer potential embarrassment. Part of being responsible is making amends for actions you’ve taken that could potentially harm others. It’s the same reason you and Dean agreed to scrub your blogwar posts when you started looking for work. I agree that “don’t blog angry” is excellent advice, but as the Dean wars demonstrate, even you don’t always take it (and Dean never does, but that’s a whole other can of worms).
Finally, I’d think you could appreciate someone who drew fire from William Donohue. Blogging angry is well worth it if it means you piss off that jerk.
Ilyka, if you want to work as a blogger, and you’re running on your reputation as a blogger, then you need to be prepared to defend the things that you wrote as a blogger.
I’m not saying I’ve never written anything controversial or embarrassing. I’m saying that the entire time I’ve blogged, I’ve realized that a potential employer could read what I’m writing, and I have written things accordingly. I tamed my language years ago for a variety of reasons. That’s the part about growing up: Either accept the consequences of your actions, or change your actions to avoid those consequences in the first place.
I never scrubbed my blogwar posts. They’re all still there. I asked Dean to change the title of the post where his insult to Judith and me came up in the first search engine page.
What I am trying to say is: Feel free to do what Amanda has done, but don’t feel free not to have people quote your words back at you.
I think the fact that she apologized shows that she figured this out. I’m actually glad that she’s been retained. It may stop this ridiculous “Gotcha!” game. Amanda didn’t plagiarize, and she didn’t out someone or reveal an anonymous blogger’s name. She had strong opinions, expressed in strong language. Hey, I’m shocked. No, really.
However, and I know you’re not going to like this: I laughed my ass off at Michelle Malkin’s reading of Amanda’s words. Now that was funny.
Fair enough. We agree on more about this than I thought initially.
(But not Malkin. Malkin personally bullied one of my best online friends. I don’t forgive that.)
Now: Shall we begin the countdown to Dean’s arrival, complaining that it’s so unfair your blogwar posts are still up?
ilyka,
It’s not true that KC pushed this up to me. Amanda came onto my radar when she wrote a piece about my paranoia regarding “Jamil Hussein.” I’d read some of her scrapes with Jeff G before, so I found it mostly humorous. But then I found out what she’d said about the Duke case.
When I found out that she’d been hired by Edwards, who hails from NC, I was amazed and amused. Independently, Pablo and I notified Jeff, who posted on Edwards’ site, but whose post disappeared from there.
On numerous occasions, I urged Amanda to retract her comments about the “Duke rapists.” She’s been defended throughtout by a variety of people whom I consider wackjobs. Although I’m a Catholic, I didn’t want to make this an issue of religion, which is not a matter susceptible to reasonable proofs. Was I offended? Well, I considered the source.
Somebody dropped a dime with Lopez at NRO. It got kicked over to Donohue, whom I consider a humorless putz. It was no longer in my hands.
Personally, I think that Edwards did the right thing by keeping them, in part from the selfish anticipation of having a lot of ridiculous things to write about. HOWEVER, I think it’s insanely disingenuous of the two “ladies” to assert that they never, ever intended to be anything but satirical and that they respect other people’s faith. I’ll be kicking that around for a long time.
I’m not hostile to them because they’re feminists, ilyka. I’m hostile to them because they are willfully idiotic liars who expect us to countenance their idiocy, and when we don’t, expect us to countenance their insincere “apologies.” I just find it insulting.
Hm. It’s a Dan, not a Dean. Sorry, Ilyka, but the predictions should be left to the Prediction Queen here. (That would be me.)
Dan, I’m not seeing where Ilyka said you were hostile to “them” because they’re feminists. We’re talking Amanda here, and Ilyka brought up the Duke rape case, but that’s all I’m seeing. No f-word.
If you’re bringing some baggage over from another blog, please check it at the door and leave it there.
Gee, Meryl, did I sound hostile to Ilyka? Didn’t mean to. I’m trying to set the record straight about who said what to whom.
Y’know, before Fitz gets involved.
Dan, if you’re looking for a fight, take it somewhere else. I was quoting you. You used the word “hostile,” not I. Here’s the exact sentence:
Not only are you pulling a fight out of some other blog, but you’re seemingly unable to remember what you wrote, or understand what I say. That is a very bad combination in my comments.
Actually, this is what Ilyka said:
Maybe you don’t see it, but I do.
Once again, Dan, she never said that here. We are talking about what Ilyka said on my blog. If you have a response to what she said on her blog, go over there and make it. If you have something to say over what she said here, then say it. Or shut up.
If you have a problem with that, tough.
You aren’t making a good first impression here.
And oh yes—if you think that if you repeat yourself long enough, I’ll give up, you are very badly mistaken.
Well, that’s a very interesting policy. One must never refer to information that you don’t have on your blog, even when speaking to someone else. And if then you are accused of positing a straw man to attack, say, Ilyka, then you mustn’t make clear the reference. And if you are trying to explain, in a civil way, how someone is misinformed, then you’d better assume that anything Meryl doesn’t understand is subject to her judgment anyway.
A fascinatingly hermetic experience. Thanks.
You know, if a reader only read the above comment, and nothing else, s/he would get the idea that Dan is being mistreated on this blog, or even that he has a point.
When in reality, Dan came over here specifically to argue with Ilyka over something she said on her own blog. That is known as hijacking the topic. It has always been a faux pas on the Internet, but I understand that many political bloggers, who have only known political blogging, have absolutely no concept of online behavior. Netiquette? Never heard of it, right?
You are posting quotes from Ilyka’s blog—unlinked quotes, in fact—with the explicit intent of discussing her post on my comments thread.
This will not happen. I repeat: If you have something to say about her post, go say it over on her blog. I notice you have not commented there. One might wonder why not.
What’s the matter, Dan, are you afraid of bad ol’ Ilyka on her blog? Was she really, really mean to you in her comments thread so you had to take it over here, where she isn’t surrounded by her regular readers? Think you’ll have a better chance over here?
Trust me when I tell you that you and I, and probably Ilyka, are the only ones even reading this thread anymore. It’s dropped down the front page, my regulars don’t care about the topic, and I’m not a high-traffic blog to begin with.
You are wasting your time, and mine. This will be my last word on the subject.
You are wrong on all counts. I came over here to set Ilyka straight about an account that she fashioned on your blog. I addressed her, rather than you. Despite the fact that you both reference something about Dean that I’m unaware of, you then find it somehow out of bounds that I should comment on something you don’t know about. You choose, ex post facto, to assert the right to define what it is we are talking about, and then you have the incredible solipsism to say that someone who addresses himself to someone else on your blog needs a course in netiquette, because that amounts to threadjacking. It seems to me that the problem is, in fact, that you cannot control your impulse to kvetch.
And we’re done here.
Okay, no, we’re not.
Here is the quote to which I referred in my first post. I suppose I should have actually, you know, referred to it, but I thought that since most of the of your first comment was in response to Ilyka’s comment, but this was about something that neither of you were talking about on this blog, that perhaps you could infer what I meant by my comment about not bringing in baggage from any other blog:
As for the Dean references: We are referencing something that took place mostly on this blog. It isn’t my problem that you have no history here. Don’t expect us not to reference things that happened before you started reading my blog.
This has nothing to do with my “impulse to kvetch” (did he just call me a bitch?), and everything to do with your pretense of innocence.
And we’re done here.
Dan, problems with me should be taken up with me. Basic internet etiquette, you know? Don’t pester Meryl.
Who said I had a problem with you? You got something wrong here. I straightened it out here. The problem, I guess, is that I addressed you, rather than Meryl.
And now, somewhat absurdly, we’ve managed to pester her here some more.