When It Comes To Koch Apologists, Slate’s David Weigel Is “Chairman Of The Bored”

Koch Whores / September 7, 2011

By Mark Ames

Slate’s David Weigel is one of the few libertarian media figures who at least has had the courtesy to disclose, on occasion, his past relationships with Koch-funded outfits (Institute for Humane Studies, Reason Magazine…). But half-disclosures can be deceiving. The record shows that every time the Koch-machine finds itself under media scrutiny, and its unnerving influence on our political and economic culture is exposed, you can count on David Weigel to rush to the scene and declare, “Nothing to see here folks. Boring. Seen it all before. Don’t have a cow.” He did it again yesterday, in reaction to the Mother Jones exclusives on the Koch Brothers’ secretive oligarch-gathering in Vail. Weigel’s response? “No surprise.”

As you’ll see, this “no surprise” yawn is the same response just about every time.

Which would be fine, except that as far as the public is concerned, David Weigel is a columnist for Slate, the Washington Post Group’s respectable online magazine. Readers are barely aware of Weigel’s long relationship with the libertarian nomenklatura and Koch-funded outfits. So unless Weigel drops one of his occasional disclosures, the public reads Weigel ho-humming the latest Koch scandal, and assumes he means it without having a personal stake in it. So that when Weigel says there’s no story there, most readers will assume that maybe Weigel gets it, as a Slate insider, in a way that they, John Q. Reading Public, can’t get.

And that is why David Weigel is such a valuable asset to the Koch PR Machine.

Here are some highlights of the David Weigel playbook of “Pretending The Koch Expose Isn’t A Big Deal”:

On yesterday’s breaking story from Mother Jones exposing the Kochs’ secretive meeting and the names on the list of their “Million-Dollar Donor’s Club,” Weigel laughed knowingly and dismissed the hullaballoo with the all-knowing sneer of a graying, grizzled veteran reporter:

“The Koch Brother-Anna Nicole Smith Connection”
Mother Jones uncovers the Hope Diamond of liberal anger circa 2011: Audio from a private Koch brothers et al retreat, in which the names of people who donated at least $1 million to the Kochs’ causes are identified.
No surprise: Most of the money on this list is coming from people who stand to make even more money in the energy industry if more leases are given out and more regulations are deep-sixed.

No surprise indeed. This is a classic example of the David Weigel Koch-Defense Strategy: Declare it’s “no surprise,” roll contemptuous all-knowing eyes at all the rest of us excitable novice reporters who clearly don’t “get it.” We should feel lame, we who are given to hysteria when we read about the Kochs and their billionaire friends’ anti-democracy arrogance and power, and their smarmy bigotry towards Obama (not to mention the appalling provincialism of their hate, right down to the Birther/Teabagger Muslim-baiting).

That’s “no surprise” to Weigel. And he wants us to think it’s no surprise too. So rather than focus attention on what every reporter and his dog knows is the real story–the rare glimpse of the oligarchy unplugged and unmediated, provided by the Mother Jones scoop–Weigel flaps his arms to distract his Slate readers: First, by claiming there’s no story in the Mother Jones scoop; and then, once that’s established, by pretending that a real ace investigative reporter (such as Weigel) looks at that material and spots the real buried lede here–the Anna Nicole Smith-Koch connection, overlooked by all the do-gooder mediocrities and liberal elitists.

Did you hear that, budding cub reporters? The real story according to David Weigel is the Celebrity Idiot angle. If we’re to believe Weigel, the way to really fight the power of the the Kochs is to stop prying into the rich and powerful figures gathered together in Vail; and instead, focus on the celebrity/RealityTV part of the story: Anna Nicole Smith, the dead Playmate who OD’d on elephant tranquilizers or whatever! It’s so whacky! Because focusing on celebritards worked out so well for American journalism during the Bush years, why not keep it rolling into this decade too?

Weigel’s “nothing to see here folks” reaction to the Mother Jones expose is almost identical to his quasi-jaded reaction a year ago, when details emerged about last year’s secret billionaires’ Koch Cartel meeting in Aspen. Most Americans who read about that secret Koch oligarchy-gathering were shocked; not Old Man Weigel, who’s seen it all, ‘n’ done it all:

“The Banality of the Koch Conspiracy”
…Indeed, the Kochs’ “secret meeting” in June with investors and high-profile journalists was written about at the time by Tim Carney, who has another take on it today. The details of who shows up at such things are sort of interesting. The fact that these things happen is completely banal — elevating it is really just the left’s revenge for a decade or so of the right attempting to scandalize and criminalize the influence that George Soros and other billionaires have on Democrats.

It’s like reading a fashion blogger commenting on a hipster’s open-toed ankle-boots, only applied to the world of power and corruption. “Gawd, you’re so banal! You’re so two seasons ago, omigawd!”

Every time someone shines a light on the Kochs’ democracy-killing power and influence, the jaded 29-year-old-going-on-92-year-old David Weigel grows wearier and wearier. For example, a couple of months ago, The Nation and the Center for Media and Democracy published a powerful and in-depth investigation into another Koch-backed outfit, ALEC, revealing how they coordinate legislation at the state level. While most Americans were shocked to discover how deeply their state legislatures were in the pockets of corporate interests, David Weigel shrugged and rolled his eyes:

REVEALED: Libertarian Pro-Business Group Writes Libertarian Pro-Business Legislation
Behold AlecExposed, a new project from the Center for Media and Democracy which makes available all of the American Legislative Exchange Council bills that had been locked behind an incredibly pricey paywall. The revelation that ALEC writes model legislation for conservative/libertarian legislators is surely among the least surprising news ever, but the project is worthy — you can see where those mysterious bills introduced by GOP freshmen actually came from.

Yes, it’s the least surprising news ever. In the history of unsurprising news. Now, Anna Nicole Smith, a celebrity on drugs, mixing with a billionaire whose son did business with Charles Koch...now thatsastory! [Note: This ALEC Exposed story just won the Sidney Hillman Award for Investigative Journalism.]

Dontcha feel stupid now, you who fell for the whole “ALEC is a terrible thing for a country that wants to be a democracy” angle? You poor naive fools! Like, how lame are you, you know? David Weigel already went through his ALEC phase like 2 years ago, you’re so outta date, omigawd!

Earlier this year, when the Wisconsin protestors zeroed in on the Kochs’ influence (thanks in part to the great Ian Murphy prank call to Gov. Scott Walker), Weigel quickly arrived on the scene in Wisconsin to declare, again, how this was all old hat, calling out liberal hysteria, telling everyone to keep moving along, nothing to see here folks, just a bunch of paranoid liberals who don’t understand things the way Old School 29-year-old David Weigel of Slate does:

“Public Enemies Nos. 1 and 2: How did everyone in Wisconsin become obsessed with the Koch brothers?”
When it comes to the Kochs, progressives in Wisconsin are ready to believe the absolute worst. Inside the capitol there are dozens of agitprop signs accusing the brothers of buying the election for Walker. There are detailed lists of Koch companies and which products to boycott in order to starve them. There are articles taped to the walls from Forbes magazine (“Texas Koch Brothers Behind Wisconsin Effort To Kill Public Unions”) and the New York Times (“Koch Brothers’ Money Fuels Wisconsin Fight“). On Wednesday, a new sign started appearing around the halls, informing protesters of a picket outside the stately office building, not far from the capitol, where Koch Companies have hired seven lobbyists.
In sum: They have found the enemy, and it is Koch.

The Kochs’ media monkeys have three basic rhetorical tricks that they keep trying to play to counter all the bad light shined on their Masters’ vast oligarchical influence: 1). It’s lame, it’s yesterday, it’s not a big deal, you don’t really get it; 2). Unions do it too, only worse (ignore the fact that union power has completely collapsed over the same time period that the Kochs’ wealth has soared exponentially to over $45 billion, and that he’s comparing two completely unrelated numbers); 3). It’s lame, you’re a conspiracy theorist, you’re lame. Lame, lame, lame.

Here is more Weigel in the same article, deploying the second of the three Koch-defense tricks at the height of the Wisconsin battle:

How can we judge how deep the Kochs’ influence runs? That New York Times story points out that all Koch-affiliated companies and employees gave about $1.84 million to Republicans, nationwide, in the 2010 election cycle. Americans for Prosperity, the nonprofit Tea Party-organizing group co-founded by David Koch—he’s still on the board—had a $40 million budget in 2010. (On Tuesday AFP announced a $342,000 ad buy supporting Walker.) Nationally, the labor movement spent far, far more than this. To take one example, AFSCME, whose green-shirted members have made their presence known in Madison, spent $87.5 million on the election.

There, the false-equivalency between moribund-union power and Koch oligarchy power: That’s “Koch-Defense Rhetorical Trick #2.”

And at end of the same sly Koch-apology article, Weigel plays Koch-Defense Rhetorical Trick #3, deployed to ensure that any of you respectable types who worry about being socially-cool will feel all lame and uncool and stuff if you continue to pursue the Koch Brothers’ story:

How did the Kochs become the villains of Madison? They have, for decades, bankrolled libertarian think tanks and programs, and they help put on conferences where conservative ideas are spread. Among the ideas they end up spreading are drug legalization and opposition to the Patriot Act. The Tea Party was the first movement funded in part by the Kochs that really took off.
So why credit everything that Republicans are trying to do now to Kochs’ influence? Partly because they do have some influence, and partly, as the Assembly Democrats kept goading Republicans, because they are shadowy “New York billionaires.” A complicated fight over public-sector unions can be broadened into a stand against secretive malefactors of wealth, who can be connected somehow to every conservative victory or idea. And the fear and paranoia grows, because, theoretically, they could be spending more than anyone knows.

Weigel is a smart guy, yet even he can’t stop himself from deploying these crude tactics to protect the Kochs from the scrutiny and anger that they, as the most influential and powerful oligarchs in the country, with decades of political and ideological activity on a scale we’re still getting a handle on, deserve. No matter what the controversy his former funders fall into, Weigel can be counted on to show up and announce to the world how underwhelmed he is.

For example, earlier this year, controversy erupted when the Kochs essentially bought Florida State University’s economics department. Most Americans were appalled, including university students and professors. Weigel, however, rolled his jaded been-there-seen-it-all, 29-year-old eyes and delivered another ho-hum verdict, with some added snark designed to make you feel lame if you actually were lame enough to care ‘n’ stuff:

The Kochs Invade Florida State Unviersity!
The deal was in place two years ago. (My headline is a bit over the top, so, sorry about that.) How’d it get attention all of a sudden?
Endowed academic positions are so prevalent that they’re unextraordinary.
…The Koch pushback continues, as non-controversial donation after non-controversial donation is blown up into a controversy — a byproduct of the brothers’ new fame.

No, don’t apologize for the headline David, it actually helped a lot of reporters and others worried about the Kochs’ influence realize how lame they were being–being lame, that’s worse than death, you know?

Weigel also added a new rhetorical defense strategy to help the Kochs: paint critics of Koch corruption as McCarthyites. Characterize those who worry about the corruption of academia as the real problem, the real oppressors, the real corruptors. Anyone who objects to the billionaire Kochs’ vast investments into the vulnerable field of academia is nothing but an anti-intellectual Stalinist out to oppress those who disagree with them (roughly the same argument used by Koch-funded climate-change-deniers). Here is Weigel in the same Florida State ho-hummer:

But one point of scandalizing this when it’s relatively new is to start raising questions about what comes out of FSU’s economics department. It’s very easy for Republicans to come out with a letter from X number of economists saying Y Obama policy will destroy freedom and drain your precious bodily fluids. But what if you can challenge the authority of those economists by saying this one or that one is just a shill for Charles G. Koch? Oh, sure, he’ll be matched by lots of other economists who don’t have any particular lucre convincing them that Murray Rothbard was right. But raise a couple of questions and you discredit the source.

It’s an old attorney’s tactic played whenever they have to defend their filthy rich corrupt clients from public wrath–declare the client a victim of tyranny and a martyr to the Constitution. Apparently Weigel isn’t ashamed to use it at Slate.

He even has a change-up strategy to defend Masters Koch. Even as jaded as ol’ David Weigel usually pretends to be, he too can be susceptible to the same sort of “gollee, look-ahere!” naivete he usually trashes. Though he seems to get afflicted with gullibility at just the right time for a pro-Koch PR campaign. Like this “Santa Koch” PR campaign, designed to counter the Kochs’ increasingly bad image as one of the country’s biggest polluters and the largest funders of anti-environmental legislation and propaganda:

SCANDAL: David Koch Wants Rich People to Fund Cancer Research
The irony seeps through the screen in this report on David Koch at the opening of the MIT cancer research center he donated $100 million to build.

For once in his Koch-watching career, David Weigel didn’t have a “no surprise here” or “nothing new” snide dismissal; as in, “No surprise here: a billionaire opponent of climate change science and notorious polluter gives charity money to cancer research to improve his image, it’s the oldest trick in the Rockefeller Foundation book.” This time, Weigel dropped the Jaded Old Veteran Reporter schtick, and celebrated the hilarious side-splitting irony of it all, irony so delicious it just had to be fattening…

To be fair to David–and I have to be honest, I’ve met him and I found his friendly Spock-like ability to make Rutherford B. Hayes analogies kind of disarming–he has at least disclosed more than the rest. His disclosure goes pretty much like this, and I mostly quote: David Weigel spent two and a half years at Reason magazine, which receives some funding from the Kochs, and in January 2009 Weigel attended and received payment for a Liberty Fund meeting in Alexandria, Va. — one of the frequent intellectual salons organized by the Institute for Humane Studies, funded in part by the Kochs.

That may not seem like a lot to those unaware of what the Institute for Humane Studies means, or until you factor in the fact that Weigel’s only 29, and so a good third of his media career has been funded by or affiliated with Koch-founded outfits. That doesn’t include Weigel’s stint as editor of the rightwing-libertarian student newspaper Northwestern Chronicle, one of several Dartmouth Review-like student newspapers that emerged out of a project launched in 1979 by Irving Kristol, godfather of neoconservatism, and William Simon, former Nixon Treasury Secretary and one of the main forces in the rise of rightwing think-tanks in the 70’s and 80’s. Weigel’s paper emerged from the Kristol-Simon Institute for Educational Affairs. The IEA’s first college newspaper project was run by none other than John “Tiffany Normanson” Podhoretz while he was a student at the University of Chicago…other alumni include Dinesh D’Souza, Laura Ingraham, Michelle Malkin, and just about every other rank hagfish we’re stuck with today.

What makes this even more depressing is that Weigel probably isn’t all that aware of his journalistic corruption. By this point, it’s too deeply ingrained. Hell, his employer, the Washington Post Group, survives on fleecing poor and often minority youths via the WaPo Group’s for-profit education scams. These days, he’s not alone; in fact, among his libertarian peers, David Weigel is probably the best there is.

Would you like to know more? Read Mark Ames’ article “The Koch Whore Archipelago: How The Billionaire Kochs Screwed My Scoop While Screwing America.”

Mark Ames is the author of Going Postal: Rage, Murder and Rebellion from Reagan’s Workplaces to Clinton’s Columbine.

Click the cover & buy the book!

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44 Comments

Add your own

1. _dog_star | September 7th, 2011 at 2:12 pm
“nothing see here” [sic]
2. John Drinkwater | September 7th, 2011 at 2:20 pm
Good work exposing this dipshit. Slate sucks, and Dave Weigel is one of the worst, most boring journalists I’ve come across in the last couple years. He’s always there, writing something, but does anyone actually look forward to reading the latest David Weigel article, hot off the press? He’s usually wrong about everything, but even when he’s right, it’s always trite and obvious.
3. aleke | September 7th, 2011 at 2:42 pm
“Acid Rain is Wet” by David Weigel
4. Fluffer | September 7th, 2011 at 2:45 pm
This dude is like a ninja…. he’s sucking on Koch while at the same time acting like it’s no big deal at all.
I have to give him props, he’s an excellent stealth propagandist- it’s easy to dismiss the rantings of a guy like Glenn Beck but David Weigel is able to disarm people and exploit their trust in Slate.
….
Btw,
“Liberal Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein has disbanded the “Journolist,” an e-mail list-serv catering to liberal journalists, professors and think tank experts, after e-mails from one of its prominent members were made public yesterday.
That Journolist member, Washington Post reporter David Weigel, resigned Friday. E-mails disclosed by The Daily Caller showed he disparaged conservatives he covers for the Post and rooted for Democrats to succeed on key issues such as health-care reform.
Meanwhile, key conservative anti-tax group Americans for Tax Reform informed Weigel he would no longer be permitted to attend the group’s weekly off the record gathering of conservative activists. In e-mails revealed by The Daily Caller, Weigel told the roughly 400 members of Journolist what took place at one of ATR’s meetings.
In profanity-laced e-mails obtained by The Daily Caller, Weigel hoped top conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh would die, called Matt Drudge an “amoral shut-in” and heaped criticism on a range of other conservatives.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/06/25/washington-post-reporter-david-weigel-resigns-amid-political-e-mail-revelations/#ixzz1XJ06jGyA”
I just looked him up on Slate and he was praising an article about Drudge.
So Weigel really is a flaming liberal but he’s just a sellout who knows there’s more money to be made in a being a conservative whore (thanks to billionaire think tanks) than a keeping it real liberal.
5. Fluffer | September 7th, 2011 at 2:48 pm
http://www.slate.com/content/slate/blogs/weigel/2010/10/01/rush_limbaugh_on_family_guy.html
Lol, after talking about how he prayed for Limbaugh’s death now he’s whoring out for an episode that makes Limbaugh look good.
Complete hypocrite, his values are totally for sale. I don’t think Weigel actually enjoys sucking on Koch but it’s just something he does because it pays very well.
6. CaptainK | September 7th, 2011 at 2:59 pm
http://twitter.com/#!/daveweigel
Hmm… the Weigel man is pretty OCD about posting all the time on Twitter.
As fun as it may be to call him a young buttboy in love with the Koch, I want to do something more….
So, where can we go to fuss about him to Slate.com and MSNBC, his current non-Koch employers?
7. thor | September 7th, 2011 at 3:14 pm
Libertarian ‘intellectuals’ are very openly establishing themselves as some sort of bizarre priestly caste dedicated to negating accusations and sidestepping discussions of their own principles, replacing the classic Republican arrogance with an approach more typical of high school debate clubs. What’s pleasant is that Ames has already traced out how to counterattack this sort of bullshit, so I hope leftist media outlets pick up on this – we’re not to the point where they can quit barking and get down to the biting, so call them out on their bullshit as frankly as possible.
8. Zhu Bajie | September 7th, 2011 at 3:35 pm
Actually, most ordinary Americans are NOT shocked to discover Big Business has massive clout, writes the laws, etc.
9. vortexgods | September 7th, 2011 at 4:23 pm
The fascinating thing to me about Kochism, is how it comes in so many different flavors. You have the openly racist Tea Party thugs, who are so very uncool, unhip and proud of that fact. Out there in their faded glory American Flag shirts.
But the on the other hand you have the Reason Magazine hipster libertarians. They pose as radical partier types (“Legalize it, man”) in order to gain some street cred, “We’re so radical, watch us hassle the man as we show up in bikini briefs for our TSA protest!” so they can presumably shame hipsters into not being Lefties.
My favorite is when it backfires, which is when the two groups mix. Like when the “Protest Warriors” brought their ironic hipster libertarian signs to a proto-Tea Party pro-Iraq War Protest and got roughly handled by the unhip crowd.
So, anything we can do to bring these two groups into contact with each other should have amusing results.
10. Edmund Dorkey | September 7th, 2011 at 4:45 pm
Exholes, meet Eric Golub: http://communities.washingtontimes.com/staff/eric-golub/
– Edmund Dorkey, Turks & Caicos Islands
11. Edmund Dorkey | September 7th, 2011 at 5:52 pm
Speaking of libertarian hipsters, check out these Williamsburg production values on this rag: http://www.parcbench.com/
These are NYU/HYP dufuses.
– Edmund Dorkey, Turks & Caicos Islands
12. Sith Master Sean | September 7th, 2011 at 6:24 pm
People of Exiled, there are only two kinds of people on this planet: those who support the Empire, and those who oppose it. If you are not with us, you will be annihilated. The Judeo-Christian/Socialist intellectual axis which has prevailed for so many centuries is now utterly bankrupt, having led our civilization to the brink of ruin. The future belongs to the disciples of the prophet Nietzsche, to a new kind of global futurism that transcends all ethnic and national borders. This New World Order is what we Sith call “the Empire.”
If you are not helping to bridge the gap between man and superman, to bring about higher levels of order, organization, civilization and psychic power on this planet as a prelude to the Galactic Empire, you are nothing but a savage. Human beings exist to struggle, to cultivate the Force and to express their Will to Power. In this way life evolves upward from primordial slime to humanity to the galactic supermen of the Imperium. The peace-makers, equality-mongers and Last Men are degenerates preaching a lie, and must be overthrown. While they may not possess full Sith consciousness, the disciples of Leo Strauss and Ayn Rand seem to understand enough of this that I consider them allies in our global revolution.
Please note that this is not the rant of a deranged, drug-addled or delusional mind. I am quite sane and sober, and aspire to be nothing less than the prophet of a New Order for the next billion years and beyond. Look around you; isn’t it obvious that Western civilization is floundering because there is no Darth Vader to take decisive action, keep people on schedule, crush Rebellions, make Captain Needa-style examples of incompetents and remind everyone that the Emperor is even less forgiving than him? If you would like to live in a civilization that is going somewhere, led by supermen with an unlimited cosmic vision, you must join with us as we lay the foundation for the galactic empire of the future. The Empire is mankind’s only alternative.
Allow me to close with a Sithy quote from Ayn Rand that I quite like:
Here is quote from Rand that I quite like and agree with:
“In the name of the best within you, do not sacrifice this world to those who are its worst. In the name of the values that keep you alive, do not let your vision of man be distorted by the ugly, the cowardly, the mindless in those who have never achieved his title. Do not lose your knowledge that man’s proper estate is an upright posture, an intransigent mind and a step that travels unlimited roads. Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it’s yours. Also, does anyone know where I can pick up my Social Security check? Mum’s the word!”
13. Esmerelds | September 7th, 2011 at 7:39 pm
Meanwhile, Ames is getting some love in Snob.ru. Did you see?
http://www.snob.ru/thread/132#entry_40296
14. lulz__IQ__ | September 7th, 2011 at 8:41 pm
“Spock-like ability to make Rutherford B. Hayes analogies kind of disarming”
That begs a few questions. Also, why the un-exile-y backhanded praise for Weigel’s intelligence and charm? Is the guy tall or something? Because Ames ain’t impressed by anyone lacking NBA size.
15. Duarte Guerreiro | September 7th, 2011 at 8:58 pm
@12 Sith Master Sean
I really enjoyed that. I can’t even tell if it was censored amidst the crazy.
Also, death to traitors.
16. CAW | September 7th, 2011 at 9:18 pm
“Waaaahhhhhhh!!!!! WwWWWWwwwaaaAAAAAHHHHH! When I troll this site trying to find any little error I can find, as I was taught to do in my 3 years at Harvard, when I think I’ve found an error, what I do is cite wikipedia as my evidence. That’s just how mentally-handi-capable I am!”
My name is Joel B. Pollak, and I approve of this comment.
17. HueyFreeman | September 7th, 2011 at 10:57 pm
A night or two ago there was this great politician who was a Republican (believe it or not) being denied entry to the debates that was on Daily Show….
Who said the biggest problem in America was too much corporate money in politics completely corrupting the system. He drew more applause from the audience with that line that most any other guest in their history.
We all know that the Koch Brothers would have the most to lose if the system got fixed as they’re the biggest pollutant in the system.
http://www.slate.com/id/2302761/
Naturally, the liberal buttboy of the Kochs David “Limbaugh must Die while I watch and laugh!” Weigel wrote an article dismissing him utterly long ago the moment that anti-Koch message first started getting distributed.
Fuck you David Weigel, you’re nothing more than a liberal Uncle Tom.
You want some respect? Then pull those Kochs out of your asshole, start owning up to your propaganda bullshit, and earn some fucking respect the real authentic way.
You can sprinkle as much whipped cream and ice cream on top of what you say as humanly possible, but at the end of the day all you’ve got is cowpie inside your brownie ice cream sundae.
18. Moopheus | September 8th, 2011 at 6:25 am
Technically, Weigel is a Koch brownosed monkey pup. His natural environment is a large room of some sort, preferably an office with a bunch of cubicles and a big oligarch boss always watching and instructing the young monkey on what to do. He loves to be surrounded by wealthy people collude in secret to weaken democracy for their own benefit, are we really surprised? No. It is what we expect. It is clear that what the Kochs and those like them really want is essentially a state of feudal aristocracy. However, to suggest that we should then turn away from this, to make no effort to expose it or resist it, to not be angered by it, is to say that we should just accept it. So, please, continue to kick Weigel’s butt.
19. Cum | September 8th, 2011 at 8:28 am
@12
Thankyou.
-A politics-obsess Star Wars fanatic
20. Nazidethpig | September 8th, 2011 at 8:56 am
Mr. Ames,
You’re worth every penny. I like my knife fighters not to cut in a slashing manner like these stylistic right wing pussies but to plunge the blade deeply and repeatedly. I like to see blood splashing out.
Lots of it too.
21. AMY ALKON | September 8th, 2011 at 10:10 am
HELLO MR. AMES, IT’S ME AGAIN. I’M JUST SURFIN’ IN ON MY CATO INSTITUTE SWEDISH PROXY AGAIN TO DEMAND THAT YOU TO CEASE AND DESIST. YESSIR, THAT’S RIGHT, AMES, I AM GOING TO HAVE MY LAWYER THREATEN YOU IF YOU DO NOT REMOVE YOUR “RAPETARD” POST. SUCH NAMES, MR. AMES, ARE VERY OFFENSIVE AND TRAUMATIZING TO SOMEONE WHO HAS UNDERGONE A VICIOUS SEXUAL ASSAULT (SHE TOUCHED MY LABIAA OHHH) AT THE HANDS OF A TSA BULLDYKE.
NOW, I KNOW WHAT YOU MIGHT BE SAYING — OH I KNOW YOU, MR. AMES. SURELY YOU’RE SAYING SOMETHING LIKE,
“DON’TCHA THINK, GUYS, THAT ANY ‘RAPE’ VICTIM WHO LOOKS LIKE THIS:
http://www.parstimes.com/gallery/latimes_bookfair07/57.jpg IS ENGAGING IN A BIT OF WISHFUL THINKING?”
TO THAT I WILL RESPOND COMPLETELY INSINCERELY AND CYNICALLY BY ACCUSING YOU OF MALE CHAUVINISM. SEE, GUYS, AMES IS A MALE CHAUVINIST, A TWEAKER AND A DIRTY, DIRTY PEDO. THEREFORE HE HAS NO CREDIBILITY. ONE THING THEY TEACH US AT THE LIBERTARIAN CATO INSTITUTE IS THAT WRITERS WHO LACK CREDIBILITY MUST BE COMBATED WITH ALL OF THE FORCE ONE CAN MUSTER.
OHHHHHHHHHHHH
22. HueyFreeman | September 8th, 2011 at 10:24 am
http://www.slate.com/id/2147071/
You can contact David Weasel’s peers here.
And yes, from now on I’m calling him The Weasel because that’s ultimately all that he is.
23. HueyFreeman | September 8th, 2011 at 10:27 am
Er, scratch that, I’m calling him David Weasel, not “THE Weasel.”
Pauly Shore is “The Weasel” and it’d be an insult to compare him to a talentless hack like David Weasel.
24. Casey Jones | September 8th, 2011 at 10:37 am
Ames,
I read Slate almost daily and this turd had really been setting me off lately. Thanks for the takedown.
Jaysus his live tweet of the debate last night was insufferable
25. MF | September 8th, 2011 at 10:48 am
I’m loving these takedowns. Keep exposing the twerps for what they are.
26. Dom | September 8th, 2011 at 12:11 pm
Looking forward to a proper “amy alkon vagina monologue” post.
I’ve image-googled that Amy creature and I’m willing to volunteer as an expert witness in the upcoming trial that NOBODY will touch her vagina voluntarily. We hold these truths to be self-evident.
27. Jetto Jagga | September 8th, 2011 at 1:22 pm
TELL ME WHY
libertarians,
IS IT HARD TO MAKE ARRANGEMENTS WITH YOURSELF?
You’re such beautiful fish
flopping on the summer sands
28. Cum | September 8th, 2011 at 2:46 pm
Hahaha now the oligarchy press is calling you a rapist and a publisher of fascist propaganda, it must feel like you never left Russia…
29. John Drinkwater | September 8th, 2011 at 3:41 pm
Do you have Amy Alkon’s cell?
30. John Drinkwater | September 8th, 2011 at 3:57 pm
@22 Since Weigel’s editors appear to be as stupid and bland as he is, I’m not sure what good it would do. Jack Shafer is the only good reporter that Slate has left. Chris Hitchens is a great writer, but he’s been tugging water for his corporate masters at least since 2001.
31. maus | September 8th, 2011 at 4:29 pm
@28: Neocons learn from the best.
32. Phoenix Woman | September 8th, 2011 at 8:46 pm
Of course he’s an incoherent Koch whore. He’s shown his dishonesty for quite some time: http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/01/15/writing-about-politics-is-hard/
33. helplesscase | September 8th, 2011 at 11:39 pm
The all-caps comments by AMY AKLON in the last two articles made me seriously laugh out loud. All hail the mighty eXiled Censor.
34. David Weigel | September 9th, 2011 at 8:05 am
The comments on this thread remind me of the fast-burning hatred I used to generate on Reason’s Hit & Run blog. So, thanks! The “you interviewed Budddy Roemer, why do are you dismissing Buddy Roemer?” stuff is especially convincing.
35. Sir Charles | September 9th, 2011 at 2:22 pm
David Weasel, let me just say this…. there is about as much logic in the notion that you’re an honest, respectable journalist as there is logic in the following movie trailer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F1cOvZ3nS8
…. Actually, there’s a -lot- more logic in the movie trailer. So you either slam with the best or jam with the rest…. but you ain’t slammin or even jammin, you’re just knockin on Kochin!
Go join the B-Ball Removal Department because son, you ain’t never going to be balla!
P.S.- Bill O’Reilly interviews smart, honest people too but that doesn’t make him smart or honest.
36. Sir Charles | September 9th, 2011 at 3:39 pm
Btw, I have a very large penis because I once interviewed Ron Jeremy.
You seem like the type that should probably consider interviewing Ron Jeremy.
37. Mad Props | September 13th, 2011 at 7:39 am
you know another guy who doesn’t get near enough scrutiny/shit is glenn greenwald
38. Anyway | September 13th, 2011 at 12:36 pm
Anyway, I hope this article (and the comments) inspires David W to become a better journalist.
In one year (or even 3/6 months, whatever) Ames should take another look at David to see if he’s still sucking on Koch or if he’s been sufficiently shamed into reclaiming his integrity and values.
So David, if your improve your game (and stop shilling for billionaires) then maybe the Exiled will forgive you someday. (or you could just keep being a hack and maybe keep getting bashed like his on a yearly basis)
39. Rehmat | September 22nd, 2011 at 3:00 pm
Eric Sapp says Christians must choose between Ayan Rand and Jesus.
http://rehmat1.wordpress.com/2011/07/01/christians-must-choose-christ-or-anti-christ/
40. Out-sold | October 19th, 2011 at 9:41 pm
http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2011/10/19/leave_the_heritage_foundation_alone_.html
The Heritage Foundation is a notorious billionaire-founded propaganda machine.
Weigel’s not 100% shilling for them nor is he 100% attacking them… sigh, he’s still pulling a Weasel. 🙁
41. Out-sold | November 15th, 2011 at 9:45 pm
A weasel never changes it’s tail.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2011/11/occupy_wall_street_why_protesters_just_don_t_want_to_leave_.html
Weasel- “Dearie me! The corporate media, owned by greedy asshole billionaires, is insisting these mobs disperse but, gasp, heaven’s to betsies- they refuse!
What fools they are, don’t they know if they’d just blindly follow the media like a dog being led on a lease that it would send them to the promised land?”
42. Out-sold | November 17th, 2011 at 7:35 pm
http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2011/11/16/remember_how_ows_was_more_popular_than_the_tea_party_well_.html
When gleefully citing “The Tea Party is more popular than OWS” statistics, Weasel neglects to mention that the mainstream media (especially Fox) basically felated the Tea Party as unhappy Patriots, while they then demeaned O.W.S.
It’s amazing how this one article would me more cognizant of Weasel’s manipulations.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPtT9aV2v0I
Also, here’s an interesting interview with David Weasel above.
Also, the one year anniversary of the Ames article.should be… September 7th, 2012. Not too hard to forget, given it’s proximity to something more famous. I wonder if Ames will acknowledge the anniversary?
Even if he doesn’t, this article gives me somewhere to vent every time I catch the Weasel engaging in b.s. propaganda.
43. Robert | February 17th, 2013 at 5:37 am
Weigel has been despised by Libertarians for a long time as a Koch stooge.
He is always vtrying to conflate Libertarian with conservative ideas and attacking Libertarian leaders ( as opposed to GOP moles) in the USLP IMHO.
44. Mitch | September 6th, 2013 at 10:52 pm
Yawn. Did you get that? I pretended to yawn even though I took the time to read this article, get worked up, and post a comment. Thank god the AEC is still around to improve my retarded baggerbrained comments.