Pet Peeve

8 Comments

1. 

   Lodus on August 30, 2010 at 10:35 am

   Ah, the hideous id of the Republican party. But even Adam Nagourney can understand why they feel that way:

   Orange County has been a national symbol of conservatism for more than 50 years: birthplace of President Richard M. Nixon and home to John Wayne, a bastion for the John Birch Society, a land of orange groves and affluence, the region of California where Republican presidential candidates could always count on a friendly audience. . .

   At the end of 2009, nearly 45 percent of the county’s residents spoke a language other than English at home, according to county officials. Whites now make up only 45 percent of the population; this county is teeming with Hispanics, as well as Vietnamese, Korean and Chinese families. Its percentage of foreign-born residents jumped to 30 percent in 2008 from 6 percent in 1970, and visits to some of its corners can feel like a trip to a foreign land.

   The demographic changes that have swept the county reflect what is happening across the state and much of the nation. It has happened slowly but surely over the course of a generation, becoming increasingly apparent not only in a drive through the 34 cities that fill this sprawling 789-square-mile county south of Los Angeles, but also, most recently, in the results of a presidential election. In 2008, Barack Obama drew 48 percent of the vote here against Senator John McCain of Arizona. (By comparison, in 1980, Jimmy Carter received just 23 percent against Ronald Reagan, the conservative hero whose election as California governor in 1966 and 1970 was boosted in no small part by the affection for him here.)

    

   • 

     Phil Perspective on August 30, 2010 at 10:51 am

     There is a reason he’s called AdNags, and it’s not because he’s a good reporter.

     • 

       BooMan on August 30, 2010 at 10:54 am

       I think it’s a perfectly fine piece of reporting, which certainly isn’t the norm for AdNags.  I was interested to learn that Orange County has a bigger population than Iowa or Nevada.  No wonder the Republicans are struggling to compete in California.  

     • 

       Lodus on August 30, 2010 at 11:07 am

       Yeah, I know he puts out crap all too regularly for being the paper of record’s star reporter. But I thought he did a surprisingly good job here. I definitely learned something, and the OC is in my backyard.

2. 

   Phil Perspective on August 30, 2010 at 11:02 am

   Boo:
   The Hill is far from the only one.  Look at Drudgico.  Look at almost any newspaper.  They are all infested with RWNJ trolls.

3. 

   Geov Parrish on August 30, 2010 at 11:31 am

   Actually, one of the reasons I value The Pond is the merciful absence of this sort of thing. I learn things from the comment threads here, and even when I disagree with them (or the original post), the dissents, even the occasional trolls, are almost always thoughtful. That’s better than not only rags like The Hill, or the execrable threads of my local daily paper (where the “zoo” comment would be considered mild), but 98% of the blogs on the left, too.

4. 

   Man Eegee on August 30, 2010 at 12:46 pm

   That’s teeball compared to what you see on the sites of local rags, especially out here in the desert.  Every thread ends up as an opportunity to do some bashing, no matter the topic.

5. 

   DaveW on August 30, 2010 at 2:11 pm

   I get the impression that there are wingnuts who, whether for pay or just self-medication, sit in front of their dozens of browser windows 24/7 waiting to turn every story into the same old moribund rants about Obama, liberals, taxes, dark persons, Muslims, immigrants, “big government”, blablabla. Never any content, just the same boilerplate parroted ad infinitum. If they seemed smarter I’d wonder whether they had an auto-keyword search-and-replace going that turns any topic, from a new bus route to an oil spill to a terrorist attack to a WH easteregg hunt, into one of their dozen obsessions.

   As others have noted, if you think the Hill’s section is nuts, have a look at the local papers (the Chicago Trib is especially choice), the NYT, Huffington, or pretty much any other “major” “news” outlet. Or don’t — it just makes you afraid to get in a car knowing that creatures like these are out there operating dangerous machinery. We’ve always had the idiots and the crazed among us, but they do manage to make most news site comment sections useless. Despite all the promises about the great democratic breakthrough of the Internet, I often find myself nostalgic for the good old days when papers just published 6 or 8 selected letters to the editor.