Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Rebecca Traister: Joan Walsh's Mini-Me at Salon.com

Who wouldn't love a junior version of yourself? The rumblings are afoot that Joan's going to get herself a tv show. But who will replace her? Could she be passing the baton to Rebecca Traister? Or is "imitation the sincerest form of flattery?" Who knows... Our intercepted email may have the elusive answers...


13 comments:

Anonymous said...

How old is Joan Walsh? I think Rebecca Traister is 32 or 33. Fifteen years' difference would make Walsh 47 or 48. But I am pretty sure Walsh is about 17 years old, or at least that's how old you would expect somebody to be when they spend all their time pretending to be objective while simultaneously behaving like a partisan shill.

Madame De Stael & Friends said...

Joan Walsh is going to be 50, I believe. At least that's what I think she's said. I seem to remember a whine about turning 50 buried in the middle of one of her usual blathering diatribes!

Anonymous said...

Great one. The TV references are right on the money. Somehow I knew she had TV carry over a long time ago.

Wow, another 800 comment article. I haven't even read it or the comment thread. The last few I read looked to be a whole new crop of suckers. Did I get that right or are the usual suspects still around?

stich said...

Rebecca Traister is Wishy Washy Walsh's all in one pet squirrel and errand girl.

Villemar said...

Now Walsh is giving backhand props to Ralph Nader, stirring up the handful of screeching Ivory Tower absolutists who loudly stomp their feet about how they're voting for Nader because Obama isn't ideologically pure enough for them.

I give Walsh credit, she's taking a break from mining the PUMAs and their Republican enablers, and rousing the NUMAs and their Republican enablers! Excellent parody fodder (wink wink :-)

stich said...

Traister is Salon's slender vendor of all things havin' to do with gender.

stich said...

Does anybody remember Traister's infamously idiotic "Obama Boy" article of some months back when Hillary and Obama were still competing in the primary? Traister alleged that Hillary's female supporters were being intimidated (physically intimidated?? death threats??) by Obama's male supporters! I was amazed. Hell, I even started to wonder if perhaps Obama supporters (of which I am one) are perhaps some kind of nefarious underground He-man woman haters crime syndicate. The abominable anti-female black hand fraternaty for Obama maybe?

Villemar said...

Oh yeah. Traister is Walsh's battle axe. Obama boys. Who knew that I was a latte-sipping, effete, limp-wristed Ivory Tower neanderthal knuckledragging misogynist? I had no idea.

Oh and by the way Stich I responded to you on the other thread. Proof Joan reads this parody site! Figures, she does seem to be the egocentric narcissist; always gotta control your image and take note of who's committing thought crimes.

Best,
Joey Bishop

stich said...

Traister is a traitor to the truth, can this be blamed on mere mundane stupidity, or the impetuousness of youth?

Anonymous said...

Wish I could out myself, but I need my paycheck. Just so you know, a few of us here at Salon actually think this site is hilarious.

And the whole thing is absolutely driving Joan over the edge.

(No surprise, but she's not known for having an especially robust sense of humor.)

Anonymous said...

Yes....I recall that idiotic (I can't keep using the term "self-congratulatory" EVERY time I discuss of Traister's typings) article "Back Off, Obama Boys!"

I read it to some friends (none of whom are salon readers) the night I first read it....and they simply laughed. We particularly relished Traister's friend who, as I recall, is some sort of legal "specialist" in abuse/misogyny/sexual-discrimination/whatever......that woman had no problem declaring that she couldn't CITE anything specific or point the finger at aynone in PARTICULAR.....but she just KNEW there was misogyny involved (!!!!)...somehow indicated all the more unmistakably by the very ABSENCE of any actual discrimination. I stopped paying attention to that sort of talk the last time I walked out of a gradskool seminar on deconstructive semiotcs (1992 or so).

Oh....the woman was quoted by La Traister as saying (and I'm paraphrasing) "I do this for a LIVING!..." The logic was just wild-ass.....finally, all we could figure out was that, if Traister and her friends say something is so, well, then it's so.

Do recall, also, that Traister led the charge during the Duke Lacrosse scandal. Once that was "over", all she and Broadsheet had to say (having previously pilloried the three accused students) was a variant on "Oh...now we'll never know what they did, since the prosecution was so messed-up."

At the time, I just wanted to ask Traister & Co..."Well, how about the government hauls you in and charges you with grand larceny, and ,when the charges are dropped, they simply decide to keep you in jail...I mean, you must have done SOMETHING, even if it's not what you were formally charged with, right? Maybe some tax-evasion or a bad check.....? Wouldn't that be a fine justice system?..."

Traister and Co. sounded (and acted) like a Mississippi sheriff and his deputys, circa 1962..."go round me up three or four boys down in colored town and bring 'em in...if they didn't do this, you know that they'll have done SOMETHIN'..."

Oh...I forgot. Traister's other response was "NOW I'm worried that all of this will discourage rape victims from coming forwards....blahblahblah..."

...Nothing whatsoever about the outcome's perhaps discouraging women from coming forward with lies and irretrievably damaging the lives of three young men.

Oh well....Traister, like Walsh, is using "Salon" as a springboard, and gutting it in the process.


---david terry
www.davidterryart.com

stich said...

I never read Traister unless the title of whatever she's written is so asinine that it has to be experienced. On second thought I guess that happens pretty often.

stich said...

This just in: Don't miss Rebecca's new startling Salon video on how to cure bacon!