Mike Allen, Revealed! Okay Not Really.
"Over by the jambalaya, Alan Greenspan picked up some Mardi Gras beads and placed them around the neck of his wife, NBC's Andrea Mitchell, who bristled and quickly removed them." That's the second most-fascinating moment of this coming Sunday's New York Times mag cover story on Politico's Mike Allen. (The disclosure about how the reporter of the piece intimately knows and has worked with everyone involved is the third-most interesting moment, no doubt.) Well, there are probably criticisms to be made of this piece from all sorts of angles-the Times commenters all seem baffled but in different ways, mostly depending on their political orientation. But I couldn't help but I feel I just hadn't learned anything about the general from the very specific that is digital-age Mike Allen.
But.
Choire: "Allen sends out Playbook using Microsoft Outlook to a private mailing list of 3,000. A few minutes later, an automatic blast goes out to another 25,000 readers who signed up to receive it. An additional 3,000 or so enter Playbook from Politico.com, which adds up to a rough universe of 30,000 interested drivers, passengers and eavesdroppers to the conversation."
Choire: I enjoy Mike Allen! And… but… that = a 8000+ word NYT mag cover story??
Balk: He drives the conversation!
Choire: I am waiting for the proof of that!
Balk: The proof of that is an 8000 word NYT mag cover story, no?
Choire: Oh.
Wonkette comprehensively destroyed "Playbook" in Ken Layne's post analyzing yesterday's email: http://wonkette.com/414964/explosive-article-about-political-websitepaper-to-rock-internets-foundations
(in summary, it's all cut-and-paste of old news)
"…which is an Important Bat Signal for certain editors who lack the masochistic streak necessary for actually looking at political blogs."
Also, if you look closely, the Wonkette post is a 4/20 Post!!
Even lazy-ass Jim Newell, who writes comedy for Wonkette, posted his version of the Gregory Craig/Goldman story a whole 10 hours before the magic Playbook email went out to a loathsome group of Beltway people who so hate their spouses that they need to scan Mike Allen's Best of the Web links before saying "Good morning" or "Let's get a divorce." = so awesome
Read more at Wonkette: http://wonkette.com/414964/explosive-article-about-political-websitepaper-to-rock-internets-foundations#ixzz0lkkDrJwf
Was the thing about his John Bircher propagandist dad old news, or the thing about him being a compulsive hoarder who ruins his apartments? (I honestly am not sure.)
Oh, the Birchers are totes mainstream, credible, A-okay now. It was the "never-married 45-year-old" that makes it tragic.
Play "Misty" for me. Er, Shadow Editors?
That last exchange read like a conversation between Rick and Neil from The Young Ones.
!!! Am I think only one that remembers and loves that show?
"dust off the duvet, mates." — when one of the housemates thinks the landlord is a landlady and plans on seducing her.
"I've tried it a hundred times; there's NO WAY to get in the last nail." — Neil referring to Rick's crucifixion.
"We plant the seed, nature grows the seed, we eat the seed." There must have been five guys dressed as Neil for Halloween at my HS when the show was on MTV.
Boom shanka!
That was the boringest story about I've ever read, ever.
DID YOU GET PERMISSION TO RUN A PICTURE OF HIM WITHOUT HIS MASK??? GET GABBY ON THE LINE.
He (Allen) became animated when discussing a long-ago reporting job in Fredericksburg, Va. His favorite story there was headlined, "Hot Dog: A Meal or a Snack?"
That HAD to have been the Free-Lance Star. They recently did a story on a pedo who claimed to have been molested by Bigfoot: http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2008/032008/03262008/366262