Where did you go? Did you get kicked off ObWi for being a conservative?

No, not at all. I'm just taking a little hiatus. The commentary got to be a little too annoying. One can only be called a heartless bastard or stupid git so many times before you need a break.

Take heart (if you've got one). Not everyone there is like Jes over there. A lot of people thanked you for posting that even though they disagreed with you.

I gotta be honest with you though. It's time to put Jes in the "ignore" pile. There is no point.

My favorite is the condescending tone. You can tell that even the nice ones think that we are just sloooooow.

Oh, I realize that. The deciding factor for me was actually jaywalker's comment that I would come over from the dark side once I realized I was wrong, or some such. It gets tiresome to realize that I am expected to constantly check my premises and be prepared to change my position, but they are under no such requirement. Their position is the right one, QED. I don't mind reexamining my beliefs, but I'd appreciate the same courtesy from those I'm arguing with.

"I gotta be honest with you though. It's time to put Jes in the 'ignore' pile. There is no point."

If one is really lucky, one can get her to decide that you're so rotten, she pretends you don't exist, which is what happened to me a year and a half or two back.

I'm a crazy (and dishonest) right-winger, after all.

:-)

Jes tends to translate what people say into what, you know, they Really Mean (according to the voices in her head).

She did that with me, and I pointed out that, no, I'd said no such thing, and she then concluded and asserted that, aha, I was being dishonest about what I'd said, because I denied saying what the voices in her head told her I meant!

That's my version, anyway. I believe hers is a tad different.

In fairness, I think she has some valuable points to make at times; she's not a complete lunatic by any means. She's just incredibly rigid and dogmatic about What Things Mean much of the time.

"Their position is the right one, QED."

I know you know this, but it's important to remember, when facing the pack, that everyone is an individual, with plenty of differences amongst themselves, as well.

Gary,

Indeed, I recall trying to make that very point a few weeks back. And getting clobbered for it. ObWings' commentariat is so strongly liberal now that it seems that, as a designated 'right-winger,' many of the commenters are not reading what I write to see what I think, but they're just looking for areas where they can pick me apart. That gets tiresome. Fortunately, hilzoy and von are posting frequently enough that I don't think my absence hurts anything.

I actually like Jes, despite myself. Which makes it all the more frustrating when I can't communicate with her; I dislike giving up. On the other hand, it seems that discretion may be the better part of valor in this case. If she's got you on the right-wing, I have no hope at all.

Again, there are plenty of commenters that I enjoy interacting with. But as Enrak noted above, I often get the feeling that, even with those who aren't trying to prove that I dine on roast peasant every night, there's an element of condescension. 'Aren't those conservatives cute? You'd almost think they had real principles.'

Or perhaps I'm just hypersensitive. ;)

You mean you don't dine on roast pheasant every night?

Seriously: don't let Jes (or jaywalker) get to you. Or anyone else, for that matter. For reasons that I don't understand, the commentariat has gone unpleasant over the past few days; that's not normal for them, and I don't much like it. Maybe it's just that Israel is so much in the news, which in my experience does not bring out the best in people. Or maybe just the heat.

You should know that since your arrival, I have gotten a flurry of emails saying: great move! yay! (from people who are under the impression that it was my move, which it wasn't. I hate that.) Orders of magnitude more than on any other development concerning the blog. (Which isn't saying all that much, since it's not as though I get torrents and torrents of blog-related emails, but well into double digits is, in my experience, unprecedented.)

About Lieberman: I haven't actually noticed many bloggers claiming or expecting credit for a Lamont victory, if one happens, and quite a few (Atrios, Mark Schmitt, the whole TAPPED crew for starters) explicitly saying they think it's not a blogger-driven thing. So absent some evidence that I'm just not reading the relevant blogs, I'm inclined to treat the idea that "bloggers will, of course, claim credit for this" as a media invention, like the idea that it's all about the war.

hilzoy,

I saw something this morning about Markos explicitly disclaiming credit for Lamont's success, so I think you're on target there. Although I think the netroots do deserve some credit, as their enthusiasm did generate publicity about the race, if nothing else.

Perhaps the left blogosphere is less prone to blogger triumphalism than the right.

And, for the record, I didn't misspell 'peasant.' 'Twas intended as a small pun.

Clever me didn't even notice 'peasant' before I rewrote it in my mind. Surely there's a lesson here somewhere...

Most of the furniture doesn't talk to me. Only the mirror on the wall ;)

And no sooner do I surf away than I come across one more blogger disclaiming responsibility:

here.

Even Jane Hamsher says:

"We can do a lot of things but we can’t deliver elections. We write about the Connecticut race because it is a good story; it is not a story that exists because we write about it.

So I’m always happy to see a bit of local pushback against the boneheaded DC punditocracy canon that this race has everything to do with their own personal obsession — a couple of bloggers — and nothing to do with what is happening in Connecticut, or the country at large for that matter."

(Don't worry; I'm not going to come back each and every time I find such a comment. The first one just amused me since I had literally just left here; and I bothered with Jane Hamsher just because if she, Atrios, and kos have all said these things, then (given that I can't imagine Kevin Drum or Josh Marshall or digby being dumb enough to take credit) I can't imagine which first-tier liberal bloggers whoever says this could possibly be thinking of.

Sorry, my comment was meant as a joke not as an offense. You cite Babylon 5, I prefer Star Wars (the originals).

I apologize. I did not want and did not expect to hurt you. Your positions are actually not that far from mine.

What I meant was that you are a great addition to Obsidian Wings, a conservative open to reasoning. Actually, a veiled compliment which has somehow gone horribly wrong.

hilzoy,

Given Jane's recent difficulties, I'm not sure she's a good source for such quotes. She has every reason in the world to push the idea that Lamont has nothing to do with bloggers.

jaywalker,

No harm done. I think I let other problems affect how I was reading things at ObWings. One of my many unfortunate habits.

I think that the character of ObWings commentary is unfortunately particularly strident when it comes to Israel/Palestine issues. Every time I get heated up on one of those threads, or one on the 2000 election, I end up swearing off the subject. You wouldn't know it, but I have a much better long term record of restraint on these issues than I've shown over the last two weeks. Sorry if I've played a part in your displeasure with the ObWi experience.

Are you watching the game in the Trop right now? The boys are doing pretty well, but they're really going to have to do better if they're going to get and stay ahead of the Yanks.

Charley,

I don't have any TV where I'm currently deployed. But my wife has already relayed to me how we managed to blow it. I think we may be waiting for next year; the injury bug has just been too great for us to overcome this year.

And for the record, I haven't been displeased with ObWings, I just got a little frustrated, which I think was largely the result of unrelated stressors in my personal and professional life. Right now I just need to get posting again; when I pause, I often have difficulty getting the creative juices flowing again.

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