Though his obsessive habit of denigrating anyone he disagrees with can become grating, there is no getting around the fact that James Wolcott is a tremendously talented writer*. I read him all the time.
But this post hit me as both humorous and logically unstable.
Glenn Beck Must Love Hitler, He Has Him on the Show So Much
So while I was writing the post below, I had Fox News on mute, and glanced up at one point to see Hitler’s face staring back at me in closeup. Then a three-quarter shot of Hitler, montaging into another evil, menacing closeup.
It was Glenn Beck’s show, of course. And not the first time I’ve seen him parade the Fuhrer across the screen.
Glenn Beck must love Hitler, he has him on the show so much. Those mesmerizing eyes, staring at us from the deathly depths of psychopathic depravity, yes there’s something about those twin dark pools that Glenn Beck can’t resist.
If we allow that Glenn Beck “must love” Hitler because Glenn Beck purportedly features the notorious despot repeatedly on his television show, certainly we can deduce that James Wolcott must love Rush Limbaugh ( at least 96 mentions on his blog), Sarah Palin (276), Michelle Malkin (39), Jonah Goldberg (56) and Glenn Reynolds (28)/Instapundit (13) .
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*by “talented,” I am referring to prose style not substance.
12 comments ↓
Oh sure. Why on earth would Glenn Beck look to the past and try to discuss history and attempt to apply lessons learned to the challenges we face today? What a crazy fool he is…
“…there is no getting around the fact that James Wolcott is a tremendously talented writer. I read him all the time.”
Except for the fact that you’ve offered no proof to substantiate your argument. But other than that, the moon is made of brie.
There is no getting around the fact that you are a moron. QED.
“there is no getting around the fact that James Wolcott is a tremendously talented writer” – - the fact that ? ….. Wolcott might light your fire or get your juices flowing, or whatever is your particular metaphor that substitutes for a “fact,” but most of us uneducated folk might be of the opinion that he is a BS-er and gasbag and tremendously ignorable.
W.F. — You can be a “BS-er and gasbag and tremendously ignorable” — and a talented writer.
As a writer, Wolcott’s a wanker, and he wouldn’t have any prominance whatsoever if Graydon Carter had not assembled a circle of slightly tardier ejaculators to fill the pages of Vanity Fair.
Ace pretty well destroyed the idea that James Wolcott was a good writer, simply by looking at the opening page of Wolcott’s novel “The Catsitter.”
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/179712.php
James Wolcott. Fat, queer and stuck at Vanity Fair.
I avoid Wolcott’s writting, and Sully’s for the same reasons..
No matter the skill level of the mudslinger, it’s rather hard to marvel at their expertise while they smack you in the eye with a well aimed ball of aged sewer sludge..
a good writer or not, he’s still wrong, and that just makes his skill a waste of talent.
Oh, Wolcott can turn a phrase. He always goes the wrong direction, though…
I concur with those with a low opinion of Wolcott’s writing. The substitution of flash and wordplay for substance and careful development is hardly an indication of writerly skill. There are plenty of writers who can sling similes, metaphors, metonymies, synecdoches, and hyperboles from sunup to sunset without ever making a point. It takes little skill, especially when one reflects that the essence of a literary device is the distortion of the true meanings of words, to bend them to a use for which they were never intended. Of course, the literati would prefer that you not think about that too much.
Hey, Old Dad,
“Except for the fact that you’ve offered no proof to substantiate your argument”…
except this: “…James Wolcott must love Rush Limbaugh ( at least 96 mentions on his blog), Sarah Palin (276), Michelle Malkin (39), Jonah Goldberg (56) and Glenn Reynolds (28)/Instapundit (13)”
Guess you be da moron.
Having read Wolcott’s novel I can assure you that the limits of Wolcott’s talent as a writer are well limned and the fact is easily traversable.
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