What are they huffing at HuffPo?

It’s not like I have high expectations: The “liberal media” outlet very often resembles Open Mike Night at Miss Huffington’s Home for Hairspray Huffing Hacks.

The HuffPo line-up includes can’t-write-her-way-out-of-a-bowl-of-bean-curd Clinton fetishist Taylor Marsh. Then there’s Lady-Lynn-de-Poopchute-panty-sniffer Amy Siskind. Hell, there’s even BushCo bag man Ken Blackwell—all find a platform at HuffPo because god forbid Fox hogs all the nutbaggery.

But now the site has outdone the combined efforts of even those luminaries by publishing the “Diary of First Lady Michelle Obama” by Laura Ingraham, who is angling to supplant Ann Coulter as the She Wolverine of the teatard set. If you’re familiar with Ingrahamagram’s oeuvre, the piece is about what you’d expect. An excerpt:

Gulf Coast!?! To think I had to waste an afternoon (cut my workout short and everything) to make those Tea Baggers along the Gulf Coast think we give a damn. It’s one thing to go down to Diddy’s or Kanye’s house on Star Island in Miami, but Panama City is a disaster. This place is known for one thing: endless strip malls. Do I look like I shop at Payless Shoes? This is supposed to be our vacation time and I’m blowing half my day in a hell hole like Panama City!!

But what could I do? Axe, Rahm and the rest of the gang told me if we wanted to vacation in Maine this week, one of us had to go placate the oiled up yahoos down South. I’m still mad that Barack had to interrupt our Memorial Day weekend in Chicago to sympathetically stroke some greasy pelicans! But I suppose I must do my part. But I needed this trip like Hillary needs an extra fifteen pounds of thigh fat.

Honestly, I think we’ve done all we can for the Gulf Coast. On my way out of town I even stopped by the Pink Pelican Ice Cream Bar to enjoy a luscious treat called the “Chocolate Hurricane.” (I have to remember to e-mail Ray Nagin about that one.)

Emphasis mine. Aside from an elevated count of sexist, honky-harpy dog-whistles, it’s pretty unremarkable stuff. The only puzzling thing is that HuffPo posted it in the “Comedy” section instead of under “Politics,” which is a bit like covering the Jeffrey Dahmer trial in the “Food” section.

I was going to offer an Ingrahamagram parody diary as a counterpoint, but you know what? Fuck it. Ingraham is not only NOT worth the effort, she’s fully self-parodying and therefore a singularly unrewarding subject.

Posted by Betty Cracker on 07/13/10 at 10:18 AM • Permalink

Categories: Politics • Barack Obama • Hillary Clinton • Nutters • Teabaggery • Our Stupid Media •

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One writing form I generally hate as a series (as opposed to a one-off post, if—and only if—done well) is these supposed “diaries” of public figures.* It’s just an excuse for the writer to project their inner unpleasantness on a person who doesn’t necessarily share their prejudices and viewpoints.

Translate it as if Ingraham is writing in the first person as herself. She types the shit, she gets to own it.

As for HuffPo, well it is what it is. I hope Ingraham takes big heat from some of the commenters over there (provocation = page views, after all).

I mostly visit there for the occasional decent article (for instance, Jason Linkins can be very on point) and to keep up with the sources of some of the dafter and less constructive memes that leak out across the blogosphere.

One thing that drives me mildly potty is their subediting regime. How often have you clicked on a damning and inflammatory HP frontpage link only to find that the actual article title is a lot less extreme, along with the article content? It’s a cynical ploy to drive traffic.

* Same goes for pisspoor “one-act plays” by not-so-closet past-clinging smalltime racists.

Comment by YAFB on 07/13/10 at 10:49 AM

L.I. is just marking time until the Whitey Tape shows up.

Comment by Hunger Tallest Palin on 07/13/10 at 10:53 AM

It’s a shame how far HuffPo has fallen. Arianna has allowed more and more wingnuts posting since she’s had some competition in the all things to all people portal business with The Daily Beast and Mediaite.

Since Dems are in power (at least for now) I guess it makes some sense to gin up page hits and traffic by kowtowing to the party out of power, but I have to say that I rarely go there anymore unless somebody sends me a link or I see on here.

Comment by gimmeabreak on 07/13/10 at 11:17 AM

Let’s see, Michelle Obama pops up regularly in polls as one of the most admired women in the world.

Laura Ingraham pops up regularly at the remainders table at Borders.

I think Michelle comes out ahead, but I’m not good at wingnut math.

Comment by Oblomova on 07/13/10 at 11:29 AM

Apparently somebody is gunning for “And I’ll form the head” of Teabagger Voltron this month.

Comment by Zandar on 07/13/10 at 11:46 AM

A combination of Firebagging, Comment Carnival Dunking Clown Syndrome, and Lucrative Opposationalism seems to be at work at Huffpo. I think Arianna’s miscalculating the views she can generate with constantly screaming headlines versus the viewers she drives into helpless, unclicky despair.

Comment by Mrs. Polly on 07/13/10 at 12:05 PM

Let’s see, Michelle Obama pops up regularly in polls as one of the most admired women in the world.

Laura Ingraham pops up regularly at the remainders table at Borders.

I think this bears repeating. So I just did.

Comment by YAFB on 07/13/10 at 12:07 PM

It just goes to show that Uppity Negro humor never goes out of style.

Who says conservatives aren’t funny! (if it was 1953…)

Comment by t4toby on 07/13/10 at 12:29 PM

which is a bit like covering the Jeffrey Dahmer trial in the “Food” section.

Goes straight into the simile hall o’ fame.

Comment by trollhattan on 07/13/10 at 12:52 PM

My comments aren’t going through over there. Between Siskind, Ingraham, and Palin, it’s fascinating to see the wingnut women of the revolution reveal themselves as too weak to handle uncensored online comments. But then, GOP ratfuckers have always been cowards.

Comment by Oblomova on 07/13/10 at 01:04 PM

Huffpo has less value than the Daily Mail and only slightly more than Drudge.

I was surprised by gimmeabreak saying that “it makes some sense to gin up page hits and traffic by kowtowing to the party out of power.” I don’t remember any media outlets doing this during the eight long years of the Bush maladministration. Did i miss something?

Comment by karen marie on 07/13/10 at 01:54 PM

Jeezus christ, the projection in that column is amazing. It was, in fact, BARBARA FUCKING BUSH who had to be induced to go down and show some sympathy for those suffering after Katrina, and who famously said that it was “all working out very well” for those people who really had led such impovershed lives beforehand that squatting near dead bodies in an abandoned sports stadium was lookin’ up for them.

someone, somewhere—alicublog?—recently said that the projection on the right was so great that pretty soon they would be insisting that Bush had been a hard working, black, scholarship kid raised by his single mom.

aimai

Comment by aimai on 07/13/10 at 01:57 PM

someone, somewhere—alicublog?—recently said that the projection on the right was so great that pretty soon they would be insisting that Bush had been a hard working, black, scholarship kid raised by his single mom.

And they won’t know if they mean it as a compliment or not.

Comment by Hunger Tallest Palin on 07/13/10 at 03:00 PM

I wish conservatives would finally realize they are not funny.

Just replace the names in that piece with Republicans and then read it. It’s still not funny!

It’s a one-liner stretched into several paragraphs.

Comment by Glix on 07/13/10 at 03:25 PM

someone, somewhere—alicublog?—recently said that the projection on the right was so great that pretty soon they would be insisting that Bush had been a hard working, black, scholarship kid raised by his single mom.