Wonkette in L.A.
From "Reluctor"
Someone asked Ana Marie Cox, creator of the "Wonkette" blog who performed something of a star turn in Los Angeles tonight, whether America had entered a "golden age of satire."
"It's a golden age for targets of satire," came the tart reply. "Washington is a target-rich environment for what I do."
What Cox does is skewer members of the nation's political elite on a daily basis with barbed and unbridled humor -- humor a with decidedly liberal bent.
Speaking at the Riordan Central Library in downtown Los Angeles, with fellow political blogger Mickey Kaus as affable interlocutor, Cox delivered a number of surprises.
One came in her recounting of a conversation with Sen. John McCain (R.-Ariz), as they were both waiting to appear on a television show. The topic turned to Iraq. It looks like we're fighting to a draw over there, Cox jibed. "I wish it were a draw," she reports the senator as replying, suggesting that his view of events in Iraq was much more pessimistic than he had communicated in other statements.
If McCain is a favorite ("candid to a fault" is how she described him), Cox holds others in Washington in less high regard.
She described White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove, for instance, as "a giggling bully" and "the fat kid [in school] who now has power."
Regarding George W. Bush, she expressed distaste for those who take the "Bush is Hitler" tack. "That turns him into a cartoon character, but he's much more frightening than a cartoon character."
The talk turned to blogs and their future. She acknowledged reading mostly conservative blogs, describing them as "energizing," and joking that she enjoyed the "friction" they create.
Cox also expressed concern that blogs and bloggers are becoming too much like the "mainstream media" they so often criticize, "pack-driven, selfish, cliquish" -- qualities that, in her view, may lead to the same errors of judgment made by some in the established media.
She pointed to the Powerline blog, which played a key role in establishing the "CBS memos" on George Bush's National Guard service as fakes. Ironically, Cox said, Powerline took a disbelieving approach to a Senate memo on political opportunities created for Republicans by the Terry Schiavo case. The Powerline bloggers "wanted so bad for it to be a Democratic dirty trick" and hammered on that theme repeatedly. The result was embarrassment when it turned out that the memo's author was on the staff of Sen. Mel Martinez (R.-Fla.)
Cox spoke at the Central Library's Mark Taper Auditorium as part of the "Zocalo" series, a public affairs program sponsored by the Library Foundation, and drew a full house.
Someone asked Ana Marie Cox, creator of the "Wonkette" blog who performed something of a star turn in Los Angeles tonight, whether America had entered a "golden age of satire."
"It's a golden age for targets of satire," came the tart reply. "Washington is a target-rich environment for what I do."
What Cox does is skewer members of the nation's political elite on a daily basis with barbed and unbridled humor -- humor a with decidedly liberal bent.
Speaking at the Riordan Central Library in downtown Los Angeles, with fellow political blogger Mickey Kaus as affable interlocutor, Cox delivered a number of surprises.
One came in her recounting of a conversation with Sen. John McCain (R.-Ariz), as they were both waiting to appear on a television show. The topic turned to Iraq. It looks like we're fighting to a draw over there, Cox jibed. "I wish it were a draw," she reports the senator as replying, suggesting that his view of events in Iraq was much more pessimistic than he had communicated in other statements.
If McCain is a favorite ("candid to a fault" is how she described him), Cox holds others in Washington in less high regard.
She described White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove, for instance, as "a giggling bully" and "the fat kid [in school] who now has power."
Regarding George W. Bush, she expressed distaste for those who take the "Bush is Hitler" tack. "That turns him into a cartoon character, but he's much more frightening than a cartoon character."
The talk turned to blogs and their future. She acknowledged reading mostly conservative blogs, describing them as "energizing," and joking that she enjoyed the "friction" they create.
Cox also expressed concern that blogs and bloggers are becoming too much like the "mainstream media" they so often criticize, "pack-driven, selfish, cliquish" -- qualities that, in her view, may lead to the same errors of judgment made by some in the established media.
She pointed to the Powerline blog, which played a key role in establishing the "CBS memos" on George Bush's National Guard service as fakes. Ironically, Cox said, Powerline took a disbelieving approach to a Senate memo on political opportunities created for Republicans by the Terry Schiavo case. The Powerline bloggers "wanted so bad for it to be a Democratic dirty trick" and hammered on that theme repeatedly. The result was embarrassment when it turned out that the memo's author was on the staff of Sen. Mel Martinez (R.-Fla.)
Cox spoke at the Central Library's Mark Taper Auditorium as part of the "Zocalo" series, a public affairs program sponsored by the Library Foundation, and drew a full house.
posted by Tim McGarry at 10:38 PM
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