Friday, August 17, 2007

A Crash Course in Vitriol

Methinks the lady doth protest too much

Apparently, uniquely committed bloglodyte and troll of non-hysterically-left-wing blogs Red Tory has a complaint about a comment contributed here at the Nexus.

In a comment on a recent post, Nexus valued collaborator and soon-to-be contributor to our guest feature, 100 Things for a Better Canada, Spinks properly described Red Tory as "vitrioliuc". Red Tory himself has responded by whining that Spinks' 101 People Who are Screwing Up Canada is vitrioluic.

Then again, Spinks has been categorically praised for the non-partisan value of his work, as he takes aim at Liberals (Jean Chretien, #7), Conservatives (Ralph Klein, #91), the NDP (Svend Robinson, #14), the Bloc Quebecois (Gilles Duceppe, #4), judges Beverly MacLachlin, #5) and the media (the paliamentary press gallery, #10).

Red Tory, on the other hand, is noted for the petulant glee with which he attacks bloggers of differing political stripes, and is praised by people who share his penchant for purile attacks on political opponents.

Perhaps 101 People Who are Screwing Up Canada isn't very nice. Then again, it does lack the vicious rhetorical hysteria of "Blogging Tories and Eternal Fascism".

Then again, it is hard to find a blogger anywhere who has managed to make himself a hypocrite half as often as Red Tory.

But thanks for reading.

9 comments:

  1. I find it all rather interesting.

    There are radicals on both sides of the spectrum (part of the reason behind 101 and why there's a variety of choices from across the board. It isn't all politicians) but more often than not I find those on the far left prefer to dabble in name calling.

    RT's site is a prime example in which blogs that don't conform with his view are trashed and called names. Given what he's called the nexus blog, I got off easy.

    I'd say thanks for the publicity to RT but 101 is already quite well publicized throughout the blogosphere and any traffic from there barely registered except for a couple of nasty e-mails from his readers. More vitriol I can do without.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Red Tory himself has responded by whining that Spinks' 101 People Who are Screwing Up Canada is vitrioluic.

    I never said that. Learn to read before you write.

    ReplyDelete
  3. "I have no idea what the standards of refined civility and such Mr. Spinks adheres to when he’s methodically slagging the 101 people who are screwing up Canada, but given that his apparent hyper-sensitivity to “vitrioloic” nastiness and his high regard for the bogus, fact-challenged hackery of Bill O’Reilly’s fawning pet, Bernard Goldberg, it’s not that difficult to imagine."

    And what is is, again, you have to say about Bernard Goldberg?

    "You don’t have to go far. On page 10 of Arrogance here’s what the sensitive, delicate scribe has to say about former CBS anchorman Dan Rather: “If CBS News were a prison instead of a journalistic enterprise, three-quarters of the producers and 100 percent of the vice presidents would be Dan’s bitches.” Nothing vulgar or nasty about that is there? Or how about on page 109 where he says USA Today columnist Peter Johnson that he “would break his nose on Dan’s behind if the anchorman ever stopped quickly.""

    You've gone out of your way not only to compare Spinks to Goldberg (certainly less than unfair given the similarity -- however intentional -- of their work), but also to the most vitriolic stuff that Goldberg has written.

    For someone who's clearly depending on people reading between the lines to get your point, you sure do protest a little much when someone does read between the lines, and does get your point.

    Finally, the irony of someone who resorts to vitriol because he's afraid of genuine debate complaining about being labelled "vitriolic" is pretty delicious.

    But thanks for reading, Red.

    ReplyDelete
  4. You guys are too funny. Yes, let’s see… where did “101 People” rate on Alexa? Rank #2,983,508, I believe. That would put you at about #70 on the list of top Canadian Political Bloggers, right down there with Adam Daifallah. Oh, and I’m sure people went to the trouble to send “nasty e-mails”… what a crock.

    p.s. I don't read you. Too boring. I do however look at the comments. Mercifully, that doesn't take long. ;)

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  5. Oh. Lookit that. He's mad again.

    Frankly, RT. I don't know why you feel the need to lie about reading my blog.

    I know you read the post because there were no comments to read when you posted your first comment on it. Spinks' comment had yet to be moderated at the time.

    But even if it weren't for the fact that you clearly are reading it, it would only prove that my belief that your criticisms of my blog are merely empty criticisms is correct.

    Thanks for reading.

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  6. So let's get this straight RT. You criticize and trash a blog but don't read it? I'll take the criticism with a grain of salt then.

    Yeah I'm baffled as to why people whould go to the trouble to put vitriol in an e-mail, comment on a blog they hate, or start message threads and forums to trash it. However some like yourself apparently can't stand that their heroes are getting called on their actions. For something so beneath you, you're giving it enough attention. If you have that much contempt, ignore it and don't let the door hit you on the way out.

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  7. Forget about it, Spinks. You can't deal with people like RT. All they care about is partisanship. They can't conjure the honesty to properly evaluate a criticism.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Why when Red Tory is challenged on something he said(or implied) does he always resort to the my blog's bigger than your blog argument? Who cares? Grow up.

    ReplyDelete
  9. What RT seems to miss is that it's easy to rely on sensationalism and partisan viciousness to get your blog over, but it's much harder to provide people with quality.

    ReplyDelete

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