Comments on: Oh, That’s Why They Call it “Hot Air”

By: Xrlq

Xrlq — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 06:15:11 +0000

Agreed. For the benefits of those following in this thread (yes, both of you), Patterico was right about the dowdification, which in fact appears to be an error in MSNBC’s own transcript. He’s incorrect in assuming that I hadn’t heard the video, but admittedly, I heard it through the lens of having read the transcript first. With that, I’m closing this comment thread so the discussion can continue in one place.

By: Patterico

Patterico — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 05:54:03 +0000

I believe that you did indeed bollix up the response, by making the mistake of relying on a secondary source (a transcript) instead of the original source (the video), which, ironically, you could have viewed by accessing the Hot Air post. But the discussion is going full tilt here, so at the risk of being accused of driving traffic to my site, I think it should stay in one thread for simplicity's sake.

By: Xrlq

Xrlq — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 14:00:48 +0000

You appear to have totally bollixed up your interpretation.

As I noted in the response, I don't think so, and if his follow-up questions were any indication, neither did Chris Matthews. Nor, it seems, did anyone else who watched the interview himself and formed his own conclusions independently of Allah's commentary.

By: Patterico

Patterico — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 05:57:01 +0000

I just now read your comments on my site, X. You appear to have totally bollixed up your interpretation. See my comment there. [Link added by X.] Can I trust your site any more? After all, you seem to have made a mistake!!

By: Anwyn’s Notes in the Margin » Blogfight

Anwyn’s Notes in the Margin » Blogfight — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 05:16:28 +0000

[...] But he’s hot and bothered now about Hot Air, one of my favorite sites. He finds Allahpundit & Co. to be too quick in jumping the gun, downright wrong about some things (comments #33 and #39), and unwilling to listen to corrections because the comment section is limited to registered commenters culled during short, limited registration periods. His disdain came as a surprise to me, because while I’ve known Michelle Malkin, who runs Hot Air, isn’t his favorite person in the world, I had no idea he harbored a similar opinion of Hot Air, which, almost needless to say, I don’t share. Hot Air is a great political site, which helps to concentrate many of the issues I care about in one place and brings me relevant video clips that I don’t watch when they’re on TV because I’m too busy watching, um, serial dramas, and if the comment section is not the easiest at which to find good discussion, it is not quite the Sycophants’ Hall of Fame that Xrlq finds it to be. [...]

By: Anwyn

Anwyn — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 04:05:03 +0000

Well, yes, by the time I posted the above comment I’d seen your stuff at Patterico’s but the original post still came out of the blue. And at Patterico’s you only cited one other Hot Air post. Ah well … reading on.

By: Xrlq

Xrlq — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 03:17:59 +0000

Anwyn, as you know from the comment thread on Patterico’s, my distrust of Hot Air is not limited to this particular blogger or this particular entry. What I see is a general culture, from the top down, that seemed bent on shooting first and asking questions later. Patterico effectively admitted as much, even while attempting to make nearly the opposite point, by praising Allah for his “Drudge-like ability to know everything the second it happens.” Drudge himself can be every bit as bad in this regard. One man’s “know everything the second it happens” is another’s “repeat every rumor that sounds good the second you hear it.”

My next post will provide a bit more detail as to what I think is wrong with that site, and what I think ought to be done about it.

By: Anwyn

Anwyn — Sun, 29 Oct 2006 17:44:33 +0000

All right, you have two issues with Hot Air: you don’t trust what you read there as much as others of us do, and you don’t like the closed commenting system.

About the latter: You meant that the comment section at Hot Air is heavily skewed toward sycophants, and I realize that’s not the same as “you’re all sycophants,” but it hits a little too close to the latter even so, as I think Patterico also felt. I also think the comment section as a whole can get a little piled up with “liberals never address the issue, you’re a troll” but I’ve also found good discussion there. As for “most of us don’t even bother trying until we have something to say – and then the gate is closed to make room for those who don’t,” If you’re wanting to comment, I think Allah has been known to open registration to people who email him and ask. But even though I can see the merit in your opinion that it should be open commenting, I don’t think it’s such a horrible idea to have it closed that it scuttles the merit of the site.

About the former: that’s the baby and the bathwater. If you have a laundry list of other issues where you’ve found Hot Air wrong, misleading, untrustworthy, etc., that’s one thing, but you pop up with this thing of Ian’s and suddenly you’re on the warpath to discredit the whole of Hot Air. It was somewhat shocking to me to see you go off like that; if you’ve had a longstanding problem with Hot Air, okay, but since I never knew about it this post seemed rather over the top and like throwing out baby with bathwater.

Just because some people apparently can’t tell the difference between fact and Allah’s or Ian’s or Bryan’s opinion doesn’t mean those opinions aren’t important. I hate to break out a cliche, but do you really expect anybody to be right 100% of the time? It sounds like–again, all taking place on the toneless interwebs–you’re hopping mad because Hot Air isn’t run by omniscient pundits.

Okay, I think that’s all I’ve got. Basically, your ire at HA just seemed to come out of nowhere for me, and it sounded like you were calling us (me and Pat along with the rest of the bathwater) sycophants. Which, dammit, my huge interwebs crush on Allah is my own private business

…er, I disagree with him all the time and only joined comments so I could stick it to him. Yeah.

By: Xrlq

Xrlq — Sun, 29 Oct 2006 14:37:36 +0000

Anwyn, I never said that 100% of the registered commenters at Hot Air are sycophants (Hot Airheads?). What I said was that their Byzantine system heavily skews their comment section in that direction. It’s nice that you had the foresight to register early and often, but most of us don’t even bother trying until we have something to say – and then the gate is closed to make room for those who don’t.

Not sure I follow your baby/bathwater analogy at all. Who is the baby, who is the bathwater, and how does my criticism of either amount to throwing it out?

By: Anwyn

Anwyn — Sat, 28 Oct 2006 05:54:23 +0000

Xrlq, the site is a business. It exists to bring in readers as well as to inform. Blog readers like to comment. Scarce commenting privileges can work as a draw. I’m not a sycophant just because I was reading Malkin every day back then, saw “new site, comments will only be open temporarily,” decided I might someday want to comment on an entry, and registered, even though I barely read there, much less commented, for a good many weeks after it started.

I think you’re a little hot and bothered yourself, and I really don’t understand why. Without even reading every last detail, I’m perfectly ready to concede you showed Ian the door on that post. Why isn’t that enough? And isn’t one of the very good things about the blogs supposed to be the way they keep each other on the straighter and narrower? You did that. Why throw out baby with bathwater?