Digby won a Hillman Prize. Great news!
But you know who else won a Hillman Prize recently?
by DougJ| 121 Comments
This post is in: Blogospheric Navel-Gazing
Digby won a Hillman Prize. Great news!
But you know who else won a Hillman Prize recently?
Comments are closed.
schrodinger's cat
Cannot be Hitler since he has been dead for a long time.
Big R
Worse than Hitler. OBAMA. He sold us out for the Hillman Prize.
Melissa
Hitler? Oh, he’s dead.
Greenwald?
jayackroyd
Dougj!! Don’t sully a good thing.
besides:
2009 Blog Marcy Wheeler
Gin & Tonic
Your dear friend Sullivan.
schrodinger's cat
@Gin & Tonic: You mean the misogynist godbotherer?
schrodinger's cat
The only Hillman I know is Joanna.
DougJ
I used to read a nerdy baseball blog where “You know who else (achieved some statistical milestone)?” meant “Bert Blyleven”.
ranchandsyrup
@DougJ: you know who else only made 2 all star teams?
also too, babe ruth only won one MVP.
Thomas F
What is most impressive about Digby is that she has reliably issued withering criticisms of the current administration’s monumental failures in the arena of social policy and national security. Lest it be overlooked.
cokane
much as sullivan is a myopic idiot about policy, science, and general reality, he’s pretty business savvy about the blogging/publishing thing.
Omnes Omnibus
@cokane: So you are saying that he is good at self promotion?
ranchandsyrup
Sully is great at providing “soft” assistance to conservative positions unless they personally affect him.
Roger Moore
@ranchandsyrup:
Sure, because during the prime of his career their either wasn’t an MVP or there were rules against honoring the same player twice./pedant
ranchandsyrup
@Roger Moore: yup, no MVP given out for a large chunk of his career. Still, a very odd stat.
Amir Khalid
Hilfe mir! I’ve been moderatered! And all I did was link to a JPEG. Hilfe mir!
patrick II
Salon has an article “Blow up the Times Op-Ed page” asserting the NYTIMES should fire Friedman, Brooks and Dowd.
So, who would I replace them with? Billmon (if I could talk him/her out of semi-retirement), Digby and Chris Hayes (who actually writes better than his MSNBC show). All of them eloquent and with something both rational and insightful to say and able to handle the short form.
Those would be my choices, but admittedly I am not particularly well read, so any other suggestions?
Eric U.
@patrick II: Ta-Nehisi Coates always comes to mind.
? Martin
@ranchandsyrup: Eh. FTFY, even in the Babe’s day.
Betty Cracker
For coining the phrase “the Villagers” alone, Digby has done a great service. It got under the skin of “the Villagers,” not that that particular bit of ref-working has appreciably changed their tone. Still, I take satisfaction from their noticing and being disturbed by it.
phantomist
You know who else gave up 50 home runs in a season?
That’s right, nobody.
Punchy
Who’s Digby and why should I be concerned?
patrick II
@Eric U.:
I understand that they have already hired Ta-Nehisi or he would have been at the top of my list. I don’t know how often he writes there though, I think as just a “guest columnist”, so I would move him to full-time.
JustRuss
@schrodinger’s cat:
I guess that rules out Generalissimo Franco too.
schrodinger's cat
@patrick II: I nominate Betty Cracker.
@ranchandsyrup: Your are describing the entire Village, including the other Brooks who contributes to the NYT opinion pages. His think tank wants to reduce the minimum wage.
cokane
@Omnes Omnibus: ya a good way of putting it. he’s undeniably a shrewd businessman tho
Roger Moore
@ranchandsyrup:
Tris Speaker, Ty Cobb, and Eddie Collins only won one MVP apiece. Nap Lajoie, Honus Wagner, and Pete Alexander were shut out. The guy who stands out in that group of early HOFers is Walter Johnson, who somehow managed to wrangle two MVPs.
John O
@Punchy:
I used to read Digby all the time, and even met her once, but she’s so good it started to depress me so I stopped. Google, “What Digby Said.”
She’s just another powerful small voice shouting into the wilderness with eloquence and passion and skill.
SatanicPanic
@Eric U.: He said no to the gig.
vtr
I thought that Salon article dissed Charles Blow.
ranchandsyrup
@Roger Moore: Walter was that good. I’d take the time machine back to watch him after i fixed a bunch of other things with said time machine.
SatanicPanic
Digby is too down on Obama. Not really interested in hearing how disappointed she is by him.
Quicksand
Digby gave up fifty home runs in a season?
WaterGirl
It appears that they make better choices in the even numbered years than they do in the odd numbered years.
Edit:
Hmm. Maybe my sample size was too small. Three years. Now I have to take it back because of Marcy Wheeler, or maybe I just need a new formula that works for Marcy, Digby and Coates.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Pretty mild. I thought MoDo benefitted from faint damnation, but I suppose Pareene has been over that ground before
piratedan
because it’s all OUR turf?
David in NY
@Quicksand: “Digby gave up fifty home runs in a season?”
she’s got a hell of a fastball, but if they connect … BOOM!
Seriously, I’d say the inside slider that always sneaks over the plate is her regular pitch.
Kevin
Much deserved. Her continued vigilance about social security cuts has been invaluable to mobilizing people against it.
It does get depressing, but I’m glad there is someone there keeping watch, making sure people are held accountable. As powerless as we all are, enough people screaming seems to stop some things once in awhile.
SiubhanDuinne
@patrick II:
I agree, mostly, with Pareene’s critiques in the Salon piece, but I feel impelled to note that Frank Bruni had a really good takedown of Jenny McCarthy, America’s Anti-Vaxxer, a few days ago. I know, I’m surprised, too. For the most part, I’ve stopped reading the NYT Opinion pages, and wouldn’t have seen the Bruni column only that someone put a link on Facebook. Worth the read, and some of the comments are great.
On topic: Congratulations to Digby! I’m not sure I had realized that she came up with the term “Villagers.”
David in NY
@ranchandsyrup:
I remember browsing his stats a few decades ago and thinking, “Oh my God!” So long ago we spelled it all out. And as I recall he was just as good after the advent of the Ruth-ball as before (but my memory does play tricks these days). Anyway, you could look it up.
schrodinger's cat
@SiubhanDuinne: That was a good column!
David in NY
@SiubhanDuinne: yeah, I always thought “Villagers” belonged to Atrios, but he has always credited Digby. Indeed, I believe that “What Digby said” is his.
Glocksman
If the NYT editorial page were the Harry Potter universe, Friedman would be Gilderoy Lockhart, Dowd would be Hermoine Granger at her most annoying know-it-all stage, and Brooks would be Percy Weasley while working for Fudge.
You could assemble an editorial page made up of random names from the NYC telephone directory and get better, more insightful and accurate columns than you currently could from the unholy trio.
SiubhanDuinne
@schrodinger’s cat:
Loved your piece on “the other Brooks” and the accompanying photo of the One-Percenter Kittehs.
@David in NY:
I always thought those were just internet memes. But I suppose every internet meme has to start with someone, somewhere.
patrick II
@SiubhanDuinne:
That was a good takedown of McCarthy. I think the second part of what Bruni wrote was the more important since I have some sympathy for hysterical mothers of sick children but have no sympathy for those who gave her a platform to spread her dangerous lies.
David in NY
On general blogging, Josh Marshall continues to be an ass. My latest example is a significant omission in his description of the rise of lefty blogging as a response to people’s feeling they weren’t alone in views generally not expressed elsewhere. Here’s Marshall:
Note the gap between the year 2000 and the “Dean movement.” Whatever was going on there? And what was the “Dean movement” about, anyway? Wonder if Josh remembers, or if not, why he’s choosing to forget?
El Tiburon
Digby is also a HUGE Glenn Greenwald fan. As is John Cole. But Charles Johnson hates Greenwald.
Therefore, BJ commenters = Charles Johnson.
Yeah, I got Greenwald in there.
Suck it, haters.
David in NY
@SiubhanDuinne: “internet meme”
Sometimes there is an origin. Take “and a pony.” It’s out of Calvin and Hobbes via this, http://examinedlife.typepad.com/johnbelle/2004/03/if_wishes_were_.html , one of the best blog posts ever, and the definitive takedown of libertarians, too.
AxelFoley
@Thomas F:
You mean she’s a one-trick pony.
AxelFoley
@El Tiburon:
No, since you like Greenwald, you can suck it.
schrodinger's cat
@SiubhanDuinne: Thanks! Those could be my kittehs, except that I have two instead of three. It is their bed, they just let me sleep on it.
Betty Cracker
@Glocksman: Hahahaha, good one!
@El Tiburon: Greenwald and Johnson are both flaming assholes. So there.
MomSense
@Glocksman:
Actually I think Maureen Dowd would be Rita Skeeter.
Betty Cracker
@MomSense: You’re right — even Granger at her worst never matched the awfulness of Dowd!
taylormattd
@Punchy: Digby is the most favorite lefty blogger of all time, if we use a time machine and head back to 2006 or something.
taylormattd
@SatanicPanic: Well, how could she not be down on Obama, I mean, look at how that uppity guy treated Hillary back in 2007 and 2008!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Unfair! To Hermione. If Peggy Noonan didn’t have the Dolores Umbrage thing sewn up tight, MoDo would be in the running.
Belafon
@Betty Cracker: Thing is, in Hermione’s case, she really did know it all, at least when it came to magic.
Amir Khalid
@MomSense:
I concur.
Belafon
@El Tiburon: I think you’re going to need to see either a chiropractor or proctologist after that.
Mike E
@MomSense: Right on the nose.
eta @Belafon: I didn’t think it was possible, but apparently it can be done, what he did there.
FlipYrWhig
@taylormattd: Remember when she had that co-blogger who was always ranting about Nutella?
Soprano2
Good for Digby, that’s fantastic. I knew her when she was posting on the “Brill’s Content” message boards, her posts stood out even then. I posted on a private board with her for awhile after Brill’s closed down, but eventually she got too busy for that. I don’t have enough time to read her often anymore, sadly.
schrodinger's cat
The fictional character David Brooks reminds me of is Uriah Heep from David Copperfield, he is so ‘umble.
Roger Moore
@David in NY:
Your memory is playing tricks on you. He hurt his arm halfway through the 1920 season and took a few years to get his fastball back. Even then, he didn’t have the stamina he had before the injury, and his strikeout rate wasn’t the same. He was very good in 1924-25 (hence the 1924 MVP) but not otherworldly the way he was in 1912-13.
burnspbesq
@patrick II:
Why replace them? Why not leave those positions vacant?
If you feel you must fill those positions, how about Bethany MacLean and Marty Lederman?
burnspbesq
Speaking of whack-jobs, Scalia has struck again.
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/12-794_87ad.pdf
burnspbesq
@El Tiburon:
We all have our blind spots. Digby is pretty uneducated on Con Law, and is therefore susceptible to being hoodwinked by a loud mouthed charlatan.
srv
She’s just another dudebro now
Kristin
I have gotten kind of tired of her Eeyore shtick (and some of her defenses of Greenwald are weird), but, overall, she’s brilliant, so good for her.
Kristin
I have gotten kind of tired of her Eeyore shtick (and some of her defenses of Greenwald are weird), but, overall, she’s brilliant, so good for her.
Chyron HR
@El Tiburon:
Has it ever occurred to you that no matter how fanatically you police the comments here, you can’t stop people from blaspheming against The Great Greenwald in their hearts? Kind of makes your life’s work pointless, don’t you think?
Kristin
@Chyron HR: These are the same people who keep screaming, “BUT IT’S NOT ABOUT GREENWALD.” I find that hilarious. It’s obviously very much about Greenwald for them.
David in NY
@Roger Moore: I was thinking of the years (’24-’25) the Senators were in the series, but you’re right, he was never so overpowering after 1920. But the game had changed, too. He won 33 games one year in the ‘teens and didn’t even lead the league in wins.
When Bob Gibson had stats like his for a couple of years (’66-’68), they lowered the mound to fix that.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kristin: It’s the Eeyore schtick that drove me away too. I have no problem with coherent criticisms of Obama, but Digby– back when I was still reading her regularly– could never acknowledge any good that Obama had done, or any of the real limits on his actions due to political realities or Constitutional restraints.
different-church-lady
Hillman?
different-church-lady
@JustRuss:
Franco is not dead. Franco is still dead.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@different-church-lady: Cliff Huxtable.
Thomas F
@AxelFoley: Not what I meant at all. What I meant is that she did not suddenly abandon her progressive scruples on January 20, 2009.
Kevin
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Why do you need a cheerleader? What she does is far more valuable. Although I have seen her acknowledge the good he has done, the fact is, the world has so many problems, we need people speaking out about them.
How many blogs will keep Obama in check about his plans to cut social security? Digby is constantly on that beat, and it’s a good thing that there are people like her on it. So to her I say keep on doing what you are doing. The world doesn’t need more cheerleaders. Last one started a pointless war in Iraq.
SatanicPanic
@Kevin: Has he ever really planned to cut Social Security?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I don’t. But I prefer to read political writing by people who acknowledge reality.
geg6
Great news about Digby. I don’t read her much any more, but she was one of the first lefty bloggers I found back in the dark days of the dawn of the C+ Augustus era. And I’ll always be grateful to her for coming up with The Village. I use the term all the time and even low info friends of mine get it right away with a very small amount of explanation. She’s way too Debbie Downer for me now, mostly because she’s a Greenwald hysteric and she can’t shake the pony brigade’s conspiracy theory about how Obama is secretly plotting to dismantle Social Security. But she’s done good work on other issues, especially the overuse of tasers, and goes down in my own personal Hall of Fame for the Villager framing alone.
Kevin
@AxelFoley: Yeah, a total one trick pony. Social security, civil rights, war and peace, equality (economic, racial, gender).
Are some of you so hurt by any criticism of Obama that you can’t see the value in an intelligent, bull dog of a critic who will always fight to push the window to the left?
Kevin
@SatanicPanic: I think so. He offered cuts to chained CPI multiple times, and it was Boehners stubbornness that stopped it from happening. He even said that it is still on the table (after taking it off the table, he made sure to say it is still there for the taking).
Kevin
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: How does she not acknowledge reality? I find that she is one of the only people who is. Maybe you don’t see it, but she has given him his due for passing health care, for lilly leadbeater, for supporting gay marriage. But those things are easy. It’s the stuff she focuses on daily that is so needed, the “reality” that all too many don’t acknowledge.
Digby is no firebagger, but she is also no cheerleader. And I think that’s much needed.
different-church-lady
@Kevin:
Word salad like this makes my head hurt.
eldorado
digby is fantastic and we are all very lucky to have her on our side. @Kay as well. they both write with clarity and conviction.
FlipYrWhig
@Kevin: You have swallowed the Digby line (that there’s surely a stab in the back coming) and the Digby rationale for maintaining that line (that constantly yelling about how there’s surely a stab in the back coming is precisely how to avoid getting stabbed in the back). The one perfectly validates and reinforces the other. Of course, if neither is true, it’s just a bunch of shouting and moping and moping and shouting, but, you know, I guess some people like that, and give out prizes for it.
FlipYrWhig
@Kevin: Also, I don’t know how any of that pushes anything to anyone’s left.
patrick II
@FlipYrWhig:
FOX has certainly pushed the window to the right by asserting far right positions. Is it a one way window? And Digby certainly isn’t as far to the left as FOX is to the right, or maybe it doesn’t seem as far because its nearer to where I am.
lol
@FlipYrWhig:
Obama has been an imminent threat to announce massive cuts to Social Security for many years now.
Elizabelle
@Kevin:
Excuse me? You is familiar with our congress o Teatards?
Kevin
@different-church-lady:
?Word salad? Are you denying that Obama has offered cuts in chained CPI calculations multiple times in budget deals? Do you really want to go on the record with that?
Or are you saying that changes in the CPI formula aren’t cuts to social security? Again, would you like to go on the record with that?
Yeah…I’m done with this debate, some of you are just sad.
FlipYrWhig
@patrick II: No blog could possibly have the influence Fox News has. I don’t think any wingnut blog has done anything to move “the window” rightward, and I don’t think any liberal blog has done anything to move it leftwards. At best, blogs keep up a sense of solidarity among people who are already likeminded. I happen to think that harping on doom and dolchstosse is antithetical to that sense of solidarity, but most liberal-to-left blogs fall prey to it anyway. Like the scorpion said to the frog, it’s our nature.
FlipYrWhig
@Kevin: I understand why you enjoy Digby so much.
ETA: Being hung up on chained CPI is like being hung up on the individual mandate. Both suck in isolation. Good thing they’re not in isolation, then, but parts of larger and more comprehensive proposals. Not that you’d know that from a reading habit devoted to feeling so good about feeling so bad.
J.Ty
@Elizabelle: I think he was saying that acknowledging the good was easy.
Thlayli
@Kevin:
Are you going to deny that Obama never offered up chained CPI by itself? Are you going to deny that it was always paired with tax increases, which is why Boehner never went for it?
Do you want to go on record with that?
You want to talk about sad, look in the mirror.
Kevin
@Thlayli:
So I’m supposed to say taking money away from old poor people is totally fine as long as rich people pay higher taxes? Yeah, sorry, no.
different-church-lady
@Kevin: There’s no such thing as “cuts in chained CPI”.
Chained CPI was proposed as an alternative way of calculating increases in Social Security. Some people feel that is equivalent to a cut. But it is not a cut IN (or to) chained CPI, it is chained CPI itself.
Your word salad makes it appear that you have a superficial understanding of an issue you feel quite passionate about.
(ETA: edited for clarity)
Thomas F
“Acknowledging reality” increasingly means “couching every criticism in a way that reflects positively on Obama.” That Digby seems too much like Eeyore to people in the BJ commentariat simply signifies that she’s told it straight since the beginning. Too many in this crowd demand unwavering clapping for the Administration.
different-church-lady
@Thomas F: The line between criticism and kneecapping is thin. Some people don’t show the slightest interest in walking it.
Mike E
@Kevin: Forget it, Jake…it’s BJ-town.
eta @Thomas F: Clap. Clap. Clap.
dmbeaster
@phantomist:
Interesting stat when you think about it, since there are many capable of performing that feat, but only he was given the chance for some reason.
different-church-lady
@different-church-lady: ETA (except I’m too late to edit the actual comment): I mean this as a general observation, not a knock on Digby specifically.
FlipYrWhig
@Thomas F: that’s the Greenwald logic too. All critics are beyond reproach because they’re critics, and criticizing the critics can only be out of mindless adoration for the critics’ targets. Or, to put it another way, boo harder. It shifts the “Overton window.”
dmbeaster
I am in agreement that Digby’s point of view and writing style can be depressing, but there is not much wrong with the substance of what she says, and she says it well. Obama is fairly moderate on the political spectrum — there are many things for which he falls short if you have a left point of view. Digby points that out regularly on many issues.
Examples are austerity and Social Security during the 2010-2012 years (which to some extent had to do with their re-election strategy), anything regarding by Rahm, anything having to do with treasury and Geitner (and the non-prosecution of anyone in the banking world), the national security issues, the non-prosecution of all of the Iraq war crimes (which is going to bite us again some day, just as lackluster responses to past Republican lawbreaking results in rinse, repeat), treatment of whistleblowers, and a few other items. There is plenty there meriting at least a raised eyebrow, no matter what good has been done elsewhere by Obama.
J R in WV
@Amir Khalid:
Please Amir, it is no big thing, they will un-moderate you in just a little while. In the meantime, enjoy your temporary minor martyrdom!
I’ve been moderated many times, and I’m white bread (well, really corn bread) as they come in middle America!
Kristin
Just to be clear, I was not talking about Digby’s take on Obama as being her “Eeyore shtick.” She has always been Eeyore, even when Bush was president. It’s always, “but nothing will ever get done to fix this and we are doomed forever.” I’m not concerned about her criticisms of Obama. Just the way she generally presents as pessimistic and doom and gloom.
Yes, reality is pretty doom and gloom, but something about the way she presents is too depressing.
The Fat Kate Middleton
@patrick II: I’m a little surprised no one’s put up Charlie Pierce for the NYT. That could rev up the comments section …
@schrodinger’s cat: I love it. Uriah Heep is perfect. And I too enjoyed your most recent blog entry.
Spinoza Is My Co-pilot
Digby was one of my favorite and regular (daily even, for a while) blog-reads during the darkest years of W’s misbegotten reign.
But, like Kristin, I also eventually got tired of the Eeyore tone (I called it that very thing, too) and then later the over-the-top Obama-bashing, where she gave him little credit for anything and didn’t seem to realize he hadn’t been elected king.
Sure, there was often substance to both the pessimistic tone and the Obama critiques, but both just went too far for me and I stopped reading her blog.
Balloon Juice became my primary political blog-read, and has remained so for some time.
I’ll still always remember Hullaballoo very fondly, though.
Good for Digby on the award.
patrick II
@The Fat Kate Middleton:
Re: Charlie Pierce: seconded.
mai naem mobile
@Spinoza Is My Co-pilot: i’m another one who couldn’t handle digbys negativity.I think she’s a really talented writer but I just cannot handle this every day the world’s going to hell. I’m guessing she didn’t have anything positive to say even during Obama’s 1st inauguration.
mai naem mobile
@Thomas F: its not continuous applause for the admin. It’s the difference between the left and right. The right accomplishes a small step and celebrates the small step and builds on it. The left bitches about how enough was not done and beats each other up for reaching the goal right now!
nellcote
Sally Quinn must get some credit (?) for the Villager meme
schrodinger's cat
@The Fat Kate Middleton: Thanks!
Ripley
Exactly zero.
different-church-lady
@Kristin: In one of the few lucid moments over at Daily Kos since, say, 2010, what you are describing was termed “the pornography of despair”. The person who coined the term advised people not to succumb to it.
Instead a lot of people decided to spray it down with a hose and wallow in it.
Kevin
@Ripley:
Don’t know if I would say none. It was the blogs that put pressure to stop the nomination of Larry Summers. That seemed to piss Obama the hell off, but he listened.
And it was the blogs that put pressure on congressmen and senators to oppose any cuts to social security. Maybe this pressure doesn’t work…but i think it has had some effect.
you can complain about tone and negativity, but Digby is always beating the drum for a good reason. If people aren’t beating the drum loudly, other people won’t call or write their representatives, and maybe they just go along and pass whatever turd sandwich they feel will get some “bipartisan” votes.
Socoolsofresh
It is so surprising to see that regular commenters here don’t read Digby anymore because they find her too negative on Obama! I love reading how they try to rationalize by calling her Eeyore, rather than admitting that they are just a tribalist cheerleader.
steve
@mai naem mobile: Digby’s dissatisfaction with Obama started long before the inauguration. During the 2008 campaign, Digby was harshly critical of Obama’s campaigning skills and complained endlessly that he was blowing the election. She often mocked the rosy-eyed optimists who thought Obama would cruise to an easy win over McCain. When he did just that, Digby smugly announced that she was going to spend the next four years holding his feet to the fire. I stopped reading shortly after that.