Matt Taibbi’s “Generation Squeeb”

Matt Taibbi just keeps getting better and better:

The word “squeeb” is a crude mix of squid and dweeb, and by inventing it I mean no disrespect to the squid, which in most respects is an excellent and admirable animal. In the ocean there’s almost nothing you’d rather be than a squid, one of nature’s most perfect predators — fast, resilient, ruthless, more intelligent by leaps and bounds than your average fish, and able to squeeze into impossibly tiny cracks. In the ocean, there is no hiding from a squid, I tell you.

But on land, a squid is about as useless as it gets. It’s a spineless, squishy little hunk of seafood that wouldn’t stand a chance in a cage match with a baby squirrel. It has no heart, and its first instinct when trouble comes is to hide in a cloud of its own excretions. This is why a squiddy word like squeeb seems to me to be a good way to describe the American voter during a presidential election season.

That’s especially true now, during a “controversy” like this latest flap over Barack Obama pastor Jeremiah Wright. This Wright business is a perfect example of the American electorate at its squeeby worst — panicky, gutless, acting more on reflex than thought, incapable of retaining information for more than a few minutes at a time. It’s also a great example of how the presidential election process has become more about enforcing the attitudes of a cultural orthodoxy than a system for choosing leaders. Through scandal after idiotic scandal, the election process has become a painfully prolonged, deeply irritating exercise in policing conventional wisdom, through a variety of means keeping the public in a state of heightened, dumb animal panic, and ultimately turning the election itself into a Darwinian contest — survival of the Squeebiest.

Read on.

MORE: Both of his collections, Spanking the Donkey and Smells Like Dead Elephants, are excellent reads.  Highly recommended.

Posted by Kevin K. on 03/28/08 at 08:59 AM • Permalink

When I was in Moscow we found The Exile, an english-language paper founded by Mark Ames and Matt Taibbi.  Sort of like the village voice, if the village voice reviewed brothels and had a photo section called “Death Porn”.  Which I believe Taibbi was the editor of.  Check it out.  http://exile.ru

Yeppers, same Taibbi.  He used to be a lot more of a bombthrower than he is now. He also got fired for something he wrote in the New York Press.  Can’t remember what it is now. Something about the Pope, I think.

I think he means an octopus not a squid… octopi are the smart guys who can squeeze into tiny crevices etc… “octoweeb”