When you lie on your CV but still get the job. pic.twitter.com/srRk1VNB8o
— Paul Bronks (@BoringEnormous) May 4, 2018
As a break from the earnest / tragic business of national politics at this moment in time…
Here's a name that would shake up the New York AG race: Hillary Clinton
— Chris Cillizza (@CillizzaCNN) May 8, 2018
Here's another one: Mike Piazza. And here's a third: William Jennings Bryan. https://t.co/nrxfxFCoLQ
— David Roth (@david_j_roth) May 8, 2018
… I offer this brilliant brutal handbagging* of the worthless Chris ‘Mad Bitchin’ Cillizza:
Chris Cillizza’s job isn’t as easy as it seems, although it also isn’t nearly difficult enough to justify the salary he receives for doing it. What that job is even supposed to be is kind of a moving target, to be honest, but much of what Cillizza does in his current position as a political reporter and editor-at-large at CNN comes closer to blogging about celebrity fashion than it does conventional political writing. Fundamentally what he writes about is political style—hot new innovations in institutionalized incompetence; particularly deft or buzzy bits of toxic pettiness; what’s trending in the collapse of everything the country ever pretended to hold dear.
This feels, from one frothy burble to the next, like a very specific type of fashion writing, not of the kind that an astute critic or academic or even competent industry-facing journalist might write, but of the kind that you find on social media in the threaded comments attached to photos of Rihanna. Cillizza does not really appear to follow any policy issue at all, and evinces no real insight into electoral trends or political tactics. He just sort of notices whatever is happening and cheerfully announces that it is very exciting and that he is here for it.…
Anyway, because he is to all appearances an absolute fucking doorknob, Cillizza excels at this work. But while he makes it look easy, even an eager-beaver Politics Noticer like Cillizza must eventually notice that this fun sport that so thrills and delights him is also generally debasing everyone participating in or otherwise subject to it and leading to infinitely more suffering than any sport should…
(* I originally used ‘pig-bladdering’, but that felt like insulting Cillizza’s genetics.)
As to the serious topic enthusiastically spittled by The Mad Bitcher — don’t worry, the grownups have things in hand:
New acting state AG Barbara Underwood quickly picks up where disgraced Eric Schneiderman left off in Trump fight, @gblainnydn reports https://t.co/wSKndhHddM
— Dareh Gregorian (@darehgregorian) May 9, 2018
Barbara Underwood was 1st in her law school class. The 1st woman US Solicitor General. And now, the 1st woman to serve as NY AG.
I wish the circumstances were different, but it’s incredibly meaningful to watch New Yorkers get to know this brilliant woman. https://t.co/GqNqxYyzfQ pic.twitter.com/0zUq5PGI2Q
— Amy Spitalnick (@amyspitalnick) May 10, 2018
Friday Morning Open Thread: Spume on Troubled Political WatersPost + Comments (200)