The Flight of the Fairy Blogmother: The Washington Post, Maryscott O'Connor, And The "Angry Left"

It's been a real interesting time looking in at all the foofoo going on over Friday's Washington Post lead article featuring My Left Wing's chief founder/Fairy BlogMILF...errrrrrr, Blogmother...Maryscott O'Connor as the prototype of today's "Angry Left". Never mind all the mudslinging over the accompanying pic of Miz MSOC scrawling over her PC in her PJ's and a wine bottle loaded with Diet Coke, plotting what obscenity she will use to match the latest obscenity of the Bush Crime Family and their enablers on the Democratic side; all over the portside anchor of Blogoliciousville there has been charges and countercharges of Maryscott either being the most brilliant and passionate liberal writers in this century or merely a publicity whore who used appearences on John Gibson's FOX News gabfest shows and the WaPo article to undermine the supposedly more sensible and even tempered critiques of a kinder, quieter liberalism.

(Personally, I lean towards the former...but then again, I happen to have a soft spot for intellegent, pretty women who aren't afraid to drop a few f-bombs and kick a lot of asses in defense of truth, justice, and the progressive American Way. And you know my fondness for sexy Irish women, too.)

Anyways, Maryscott has just tonight posted at MLW a resoundingly beautiful rebuttal to all the criticism and the praise for her fame; here's a small sample of what she wrote (with additional emphasis bolded by me):

Everything else, from quotes to descriptions, was factually correct. What Finkel didn't quite capture was some of the context, and I'm fine with that. My son isn't scared of me; in fact, we usually recite the Howard Beale speech together. His backing away was more about the presence of a stranger and his unwillingness to be my trained monkey than about being "startled" or afraid. Of course, Finkel couldn't know that, and I am not upset about it. It bothers me somewhat that some people think I'm a bad mother -- but among the hate emails I've received, many express the sentiment that I'm sending my child to hell for being a liberal and instilling him with liberal values, so I guess an accurate context of our Howard Beale routine wouldn't exactly mitigate my image in the eyes of that type of audience, anyway...

I am a smoker. I quit every few months, with varied lengths of success. I do not enjoy smoking, I do not like cigarettes and I consider my continued failure to quit and stay quit one of the biggest problems in my life. I do NOT need anyone to tell me how harmful it is, how unattractive or how much longer I will live if I quit now.

I do not drink. I do, however, have a number of silly affectations, one of which is drinking Diet Coke in a wine glass. I drink non-alcoholic beer, and there is .05% alcohol in it -- I am aware of this and I choose to drink non-alcoholic beer AND non-alcoholic wine anyway. IF some people consider this inappropriate choice for a recovered alcoholic, it is their right to believe so. It is also their right to mention it. Once having received my validation of their opinion and heard my decision to disagree, it is then incumbent on them to shut the fuck up about it. The same should be assumed about the smoking thing.


I do not consider, nor have I ever promoted myself as the Spokesperson for the Angry Left. The fact that I have been designated or implied as such by two members of the corporate media is beyond my control; I deny such a claim, I repeat that I speak only for myself, and that is the best I can do. To those who would advise me that I should eschew the media altogether, I can only reply that it is an absurd suggestion. I blog because I want to be heard; when offered the opportunity to be heard by increasingly large numbers, I accept it. If anyone is offended by the very idea of my speaking my opinions into a larger megaphone than theirs, they are free to say so, but it is not for them to tell me what I may and may not do. To suggest, as someone actually did, that I ought to have asked permission of the left blogosphere to go on television and be profiled in a newspaper as a liberal blogger, is the height of surreal arrogance.

I chose to allow a reporter into my home to observe and listen to me, and to report what he heard and saw in a major newspaper. I was under no illusion that I might be portrayed flatteringly or maliciously. I believed he would report the truth, and that, he did. Whether anyone feels it was flattering or malicious is irrelevant; we see what we choose to see, more often than not, and objectivity is an illusive and often impossible goal. Every word of the story was factual and true and real. If that offends people, so be it. If it encourages people, so be it.

Now, personally, I do think that the WaPo did manage to graft what could have been a decent piece on progressive blogging into a basic hit piece villifying the "Angry Left" blogosphere as beyond the pale...but that is merely par for the course for them and their basic Center-Right politics. But I do kinda wish that they would spend some time with a few of the countervailing blogs on the starboard side....you know, blogs like RedState.org, FrontPage.com, Human Events, Mistress Malkin, and a few other of the "conservative blogs" and compare their anger to that of MSOC. Or, if they really want to take a chance, pay a visit to a site like Free Republic or Conservative Underground or even Little Green Footballs...compared to them, Maryscott's a freakin' Zen master of restraint.

Oh, but I forgot...that wouldn't be so fair to the Right blogosphere, since the Post has already pissed them off too much by firing that blogger plagarist Ben Domenech who was actually on the WaPo payroll as a blogger after the not-angry consevatives complained about the "liberal" bias of the Post....right after they ran that editorial dismissing Dubya's admission of involvement in the CIA Plame leaks as
just fine with them.

Gee...perhaps that might have more than a little bit to do with all the "anger" of the Left....well, that, and the looting, and the spying, and fiscal mismanagement, and the war, and the torture, and the racist greedheads exploiting poor people for profit, and the abandonment of and basic values....nah, the Left's just being hysterical, that's all.

All this is is just another suck up to power and privilege...the Right has all of it, and the Left has none. Guess who's going to get the short end of the scapegoat stick, as always???

Brava one more time, Maryscott, for poking them with the stick of truth. A few more principled liberals like her, and I might have still remained a Democrat. Might.

And BTW...I was only kidding about the MILF thing. ;-)


More of the fallout on MSOC and her WaPo article can be found at these fine places:

Shakespere's Sister
Pandagon
The News Blog

Update: Get a load of Jesus' General's nice smackdown of the WaPo; it is an instant classic.