Head in the Cloud

John Cloud, the author of the recent love note to Ann Coulter in Time, has given an interview on CJR to respond to his critics who say he's a pretty crummy journalist who tried to give the imprimatur of "heartfelt" and "funny" to Coulter's viscious diatribes.

Well, the interview shows him to be a great deal more than a crummy journalist. He's thin-skinned and bitchy too! Oh, and a dweebish punk, as well. Good for him!

I'll spare you, Dear Reader, the more absurd aspects of his rejoinders to his "liberal" critics, here's the money quote for me.

BM: We're obviously in a very different world journalism-wise than we were even five years ago, because you've got all these people with the instant analysis on the Internet, and some of it is pretty vitriolic. I'm just curious if it's bothering you.

JC: What I'll say is that I think Eric Alterman and Ann Coulter engage in the same kind of debate. They don't often make actual arguments. Instead, they throw names around. This is the point of my article. This is the way politics is engaged in debate now. And I think that his response to my article proves our point that this kind of dialogue, which is the Ann Coulter kind of dialogue, now holds sway.

What an ass. First of all, Eric Alterman does not engage in the same kind of "debate" as Coulter. Eric Alterman may be a self-absorbed jerk with a strange obsession with "The Boss," but he does not call people who's politics he disagrees with, "traitors." He does not express disappointment that Timothy McVeigh didn't blow up the Times building, then later clarify the quote by saying he meant that McVeigh should only kill the editors and reporters. Alterman doesn't simply make up things to support outrageous arguments. But beyond that, if Ann Coulter kind of dialogue now holds sway it is because Entertainment Weekly...er...I mean Time magazine and Cloud, with his Little Junior Reporter Kit, are providing legitimacy for her and her violent rhetoric.

And in the reader comments following the interview he explains why he's attracted to wheezing drag queens like Coulter.

For the definitive take down of Cloud, Somberby has dedicated an entire series to this.