Okay, whatever my insecurities about Blogher ‘08, I’m ready to rage against one small-dicked guy named Robert Stacy McCain who basically snarked and made fun of blogs by women and by extension the entire women’s blogosphere. A somewhat shallow NYT article is what gave him his opening. (Response from the NYT to criticism here.)
Robert Stacy McCain Diagnosis: Small Penis disease. Prognosis: equally shrunken brain, with ever-enlarging asshole. Treatment: smackdown by the very bloggers he disdains.
Not only did he dismiss Queen of Spain’s critique of the NYT article on Blogher (which got it moved from Fashion & Style to the Technology section), he made fun of and belittled what a lot of women write about: fashion, relationships, pets, and children. He pissed all over “mommyblogging” and said it was trivial, and HE DID SO IN THE MOST SUPERFICIAL, CONTENT-FREE WAY POSSIBLE. Pot. Kettle. Black.
Shit-stir much, “The Other McCain”? Need a little traffic boost of your own, by hijacking a sexy topic that you know will get you a lot of hate mail? (Sadly, it also seems to have gotten a lot of virtual high-fives from fellow cro-magnon men.) I’d say that case of Small Penis Syndrome is kinda terminal. As is the permanent Big Asshole condition he’s got going there.
It turns out he’s not only misogynist, Robert Stacy McCain thinks the lynching of Emmett Till (an adolescent black child who was chased down and hanged by a white mob for reportedly whistling at a white woman) was “not a public crime, but a private crime.” No, stupid, it was a crime no matter how you look at it and his murderers were criminals no matter how you look at them. Clearly has some issues with race as well, this “Other McCain.” (I can’t decide who makes who look worse, the senator or his namesake?)
So, misogynist and racist, all rolled into one. What a package.
ETA: the big orange planet of progressive netroots peeps, DailyKos, had a diary that also weighed in on the NYT article here. I was heartened to see the roll call of powerful, smart, forceful women who are respected in the political blogosphere in the diary’s comments and the diary itself.
And of course Digby, one of the aforementioned Powerful Blogger Ladies of political blogging, weighed in on the NYT article here.
For these last two and Atrios, H/T to Deb over whom I obsess at i-obsess.