Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Wednesday, May 28, 2008

The Blame Game

By Cernig



I confess I'm feeling a bit grumpy today - I'm irked by all the attention Scottie McLellan's tell-all memoir is getting.



I mean...yes, I read the Politico's report and I ruefully chuckled some at McLellan's smackdowns of the Bushies. But come on, get real.



McLellan and all the rest of the Bush administration's memoir-writers have, by and large, told us nothing of substance we didn't already know or suspect. Not one of them had the cojones to speak up while still part of the administration but they have all tried to shed blame themselves while casting it upon their former colleagues. At least we know that, if trials are ever opened at The Hague, it will be easy enough to get them all tattling about each other but did we really expect rats to act any differently? In the meantime, political chatterers have yet another distraction from what's going on right now.



I find it makes me nauseous - so much energy spent over exactly who lied where in the run-up to invading Iraq while so little is spent seriously examining the current narrative for attacking Iran running largely unchallenged in the stenographic media. "Deja vu all over again" doesn't even begin to cover it.



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3 comments:

  1. nait dethMay 28, 2008 at 5:09 AM

    You're exactly right Cernig, and I had the very same reaction while driving into work this morning (NPR). I wanted to retch Exactly the same with Douggie Feith's 'tell all.' Exactly the same with Tennant's 'tell all' Those that spew propaganda are just as culpable as those who wrote it. A LOT of blame falls on us, the American people, for being duped by such obvious charlatans. That still doesn't excuse them.
    'Did we really expect rats to act any differently?' that sums it up perfectly right there.
    - nait

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  2. KatMay 28, 2008 at 2:06 PM

    Agreed, Cernig. But I think PSoTD is even grumpier:
    "If there was only a way for me to continually drop bucketloads of turds on Scott McClellan, I might be able to communicate the feeling I have towards him and his book right now."
    Nait deth said, "A LOT of blame falls on us, the American people, for being duped by such obvious charlatans."
    Unfortunately, even those of us who were duped by the Iraq propaganda, but have since woken up, continue to be duped by propaganda about other issues - such as drilling in Anwar being the solution to high oil prices. Like Bush, some of us have no capacity for reflection, on themselves or the issues.

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  3. CarolMay 29, 2008 at 2:59 AM

    yes, this pretty much sums up how I feel about the "story." I hope no one buys his book. What a loser.
    I do, however, highly recommend Ron Suskind's book "The Price of Loyalty- the Education of Paul O'Neill." Paul O'Neill, the 1st Secretary of the Treasury, was axed very early on because his morals didn't jive with what Cheney and Rove were trying to accomplish. It's an amazing book, which not only offers an insiders view to the beginning of the nightmare (of this administration), but also an insiders view to Alan Greenspan. Just read it and try not to scream as you are scrounging for spare change to buy a loaf of bread.

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