Comments on: Scattershot Notes

By: dylan waco

dylan waco — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 03:10:33 +0000

Taibbi calls the Democrats cowards..as he openly cheerleads for them in spite of this. In a way he’s sort of the Ann Coulter of the Democrats. He can be witty and funny and highly critical, but he’s not straying from the plantation. Coulter had Mitt Romeny. Taibbi’s fallen hero was John Edwards and it was really, really obvious.

Dan,

I don’t blame you guys for not allowing comments. I’ll be reading anyhow. It has been great reading so far. Keep up the good work.

Dylan

By: xenos

xenos — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 15:23:57 +0000

Wow, as a great admirer of Mencken I am confident I did not compare Taibbi to H.L. Mencken. I said he grew up idolizing Mencken. I was only trying to say that he doesn’t seem to worship HST or try to do things as HST would, as some people who write about him like to think. That’s all.

And Taibbi a shill for the Democrats? That’s kind of funny. What shilling is he doing for them? Is calling them cowardly idiots a new kind of shilling?

By: Scott Lahti

Scott Lahti — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 15:13:08 +0000

Which River Cities of the center-right blogosphere have had “trouble” with a capital C for Comments lately? Could it be…

http://tinyurl.com/2eur9l

By: Daniel McCarthy

Daniel McCarthy — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 14:26:05 +0000

I think Taibbi’s former eXile colleague Mark Ames is the really talented one. I agree with Dylan: I liked Taibbi better a few years back. He’s several steps down from HST, let alone the Olympian Mencken.

Interesting to hear that HST fans may not rank *Campaign Trail* so highly. It’s actually been the HST book that’s most often been commended to me, though considering my line of work that’s maybe not surprising.

No plans for comments on @TAC. I’d like to add them, in the best of worlds, but the headaches might not be worth it, especially considering the trouble certain other right-of-center sites have been having with their comments lately.

By: brooklyncopperhead

brooklyncopperhead — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 14:19:33 +0000

I like Taibbi but he has a hugely inflated ego if he thinks he’s more Mencken than Thompson.

By: John W. Payne

John W. Payne — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 11:04:00 +0000

Although I suppose I might count as a member of the HST cult–I have a t-shirt endorsing his run for sheriff for God’s sake–most of the people who belong to said cult probably haven’t read *Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail*. It’s too political and, over three and a half decades after the fact, abstruse for most people under 55. In fact, many of them probably haven’t read much Thompson at all; mostly they are vapid hippies that just know he was that writer guy who did tons of drugs, and that’s cool, know what I mean, bro?

But you are spot on about writers ruining themselves by trying to emulate Thompson. I last tried that when I was 16, and I left it there where it belongs. Thompson was sui generis, trying to emulate his style will only lead to suffering. In my view, a writer shouldn’t consciously try to ape anyone but instead find their own voice.

By: dylan waco

dylan waco — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 08:11:03 +0000

Taibbi was a much more interesting writer, when he was a less transparent shill for the Democrats.

Dan..will you guys be adding a comment function on the TAC blog?

Dylan

By: xenos

xenos — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 07:32:42 +0000

Everybody today compares Matt Taibbi to Thompson, and as much as Taibbi claims to hate that comparison (he grew up idolizing Mencken), I think it fits rather well. Check out his work (also as a political correspondent for Rolling Stone) if you haven’t already.