Matt Taibbi - Moral Leper.

Taibbi wrote the humor piece on the death of John Paul II, that was so offensive that it has been expunged from the internet, but his stock as a leftwing journalist is unblemished.

//he bottom line, though, is that "not a single woman has been hurt by me," says Roosh. "I've never been accused of rape, I've never been charged. No follower of mine has read something of [mine], and then gone on to rape, because I know if they did hurt a woman it'd be all over the news."

The whole thing calls to mind two more male writers: Matt Taibbi, probably best known for his work at Rolling Stone, and Mark Ames, who now writes for outlets such as Pando. The pair worked together at an English-language newspaper in Russia in the late '90s and subsequently published a book about the experience called The Exile: Sex, Drugs, and Libel in the New Russia. Within this book, there are scenes of the mostly-male Exile editors sexually harassing their administrative staff—going so far as to tell secretaries they must sleep with them to keep their jobs—and Ames threatening to kill his pregnant Russian girlfriend if she doesn't get an abortion. The men never claimed it was satire or nonfiction. In explaining, Ames was prone to saying things like "Russian women, especially on the first date, expect you to rape them."

Despite this, Taibbi and Ames have continued to flourish as leftist writers, and as far as I know no feminist groups or Canadian mayors have tried to prevent either from visiting the country. Perhaps they're just lucky to have come of age in a different Internet era. Perhaps it helps that their politics and progressive credentials are otherwise right. //

So, moral panic and double-standards....just another day for the philosopher kings who want to run your life.

Spot the Idiot.

Matt Taibbi and other alleged journalists worked with the "Occupy movement" to gin up the message they wanted to report.

Note to media: it’s the ethics, not the ideology!


Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi, also exposed as one of the alleged journalists working with the Occupy movement behind the scenes and undisclosed, offers up a weak defense of the inherent lack of ethics of those involved. Let’s square the circle and call it weak tea.

There is nothing terribly interesting in any of these exchanges. Most all of the things written were things all of us ended up saying publicly in our various media forums.

It likely fell to a mostly politically irrelevant Taibbi and Rolling Stone to lead the push back as a distraction from NBC’s big problem, Dylan Ratigan. The pigeon-coiffed man with the big mouth has some explaining to do, including to NBC suits and anchor, Brian Williams.

In Taibbi's case, playing "spot the idiot" is particularly easy.

Are Nuns "God's Punchline"?

In one of those periodic "two minute hate" passing as "humor," the New Yorker has published an article depicting Pope Benedict's recent use of 'twitter."  It contains such gems as:

• Sometimes, when I’m all alone, I like to put on my cassock and spin around really fast and pretend I’m a tepee.
• During a papal audience, I put folks at ease by asking, “Are you gay?” Then I say, “Kidding!” Then I go, “No, seriously, are you gay?”
• It’s hard to tell all the cardinals apart, so sometimes I put different dinosaur stickers on their backs.This is so embarrassing, but whenever I see Orthodox Jews I always think they’re waiters.
• If people ask, “Why does God allow war and evil?,” I ask, “Why do the high-school students on ‘Glee’ look forty?”
• When I stand on my balcony and wave to the faithful and millions more via satellite, I think, Kate Middleton must hate me!
• If someone questions papal infallibility, I reply, “I know one thing for sure: you shouldn’t be wearing horizontal stripes.”
• When I ponder why I was elected Pope over so many others, I wonder if it’s just a popularity contest. Then I think, Gosh, I hope so.
• Proof of God’s existence: St. Patrick’s is right next to Saks.
• Certain Christians think that they have to attend church only on Christmas and Easter, and I have a word for those people: lucky.
• Whenever people doubt that angels are real, I ask them, “Excuse me, but have you seen the Jonas Brothers in concert?”
• I hate to say it, but nuns are God’s punch lines.
• Michele Bachmann is not Satan. Satan doesn’t have split ends.

And:

• I loved that best-seller about the boy who momentarily died and went to Heaven, but all I wanted to ask was, “Did He say anything about me?”
• I counsel couples who are about to marry, “If it feels good, stop.”
• Nancy Grace: perfect name for a gay Pope?

Funny stuff.  I'm waiting for the New Yorker piece that shows Obama twittering about his secret love for watermelons and how he really likes to sing minstrel songs.

Oh, wait, that wouldn't be funny would it?  It might seem to be a racist attack masquerading as humor, perhaps?

But the New Yorker has no problem depicting the Pope as being fashioned-obsessed, gay-obsessed, celebrity-obsessed and doesn't like conservative women and likes shopping and thinks that women religious are total jokes.

Hmmm... does he sound, I don't know, maybe, totally gay?

Is there, perhaps, an agenda here besides good humor?  Might the New Yorker be catering to a kind of bigotry prevalent in upper-class, elite, Eastern enclaves?  Would anyone be surprised to find out that the author of this piece is a jewish, homosexual playwright?

Ethnic humor is difficult. When it comes from inside, it can be a celebration of our uniqueness. From the outside, it can be used to put a group into a box and invite everyone to laugh at that group. The entirety of Rudnick's humorous take on Benedict's twitter had the cumulative effect of the latter on me.

It's not that I put jokes at the expense of Catholicism automatically off-limits. Despite my better judgment, I found "Dogma" funny because it was so over the top and seemed innocent of any real agenda. On the other hand, after listening to a ten minute series of drunk Irish jokes at one Rotary meeting on a St. Patrick's day, I found myself actually feeling insulted for being Irishman for the first time in my life.

Rudnick's schtick remind me of this ugly bit of bigotry by anti-catholic bigot Matt Taibbi.

Nuns are not God's punchline. They are, for the most part, a model of devotion. It is part of Catholic tradition that we do not distinguish between the Church and ourselves. An insult to the Church is an insult to the body of Christ which is an insult to Catholics.  It was not for nothing that Christ's initial reproach to Paul on the road to Damascus was "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?"
Catholics should not permit hit and run, passive aggressive attacks on their faith to pass by without challenge out of fear that they will be accused of not having a sense of humor.  That's the tactic of bullies - pick on someone, define them as the Other, and then protest that it was all a joke when they get called on their behavior.