Why Does John Cole Get Traffic?
MAJOR CORRECTION/RETRACTION; SEE BELOW

Seriously. He's actually less thoughtful than even I am, he's less funny than Oliver Willis, and he's less unpredictable and "bravely independent" in his tediously repetitive partisan catrerwaulings than, yes, even Andrew Sullivan.

Goldstein answers Cole's question as to why the nutters rightwing bloggers have stopped writing about Beauchamp. Um, I wrote about it yesterday, and I like to think of myself as "nutters."

But here's the reason we've stopped writing about it as much as when it broke, Genius John:

Because there was quite a bit of new information about it last week, and rather less new information this week.

Are we supposed to keep recycling the same already reported, already analyzed crap over and over again every day?

No thanks, Johnny Boy. That's your job.

As TNR is on vacation, and the Army is still investigating the claims, what are we supposed to report? That Matt Sanchez interviewed over fifty people on the smallish FOB Falcon and not a one of them remembered the horrifically disfigured woman with the nauseating melted face?

Oh, right -- I did that. Just yesterday.

Trust me, Johny Boy: When the US Army issues its report, there will be comment aplenty. I'll duly note it if my hunches are wrong; will you do similarly?

Yeah. Not bloody likely.

Inidentally, Johnny Boy makes an issue of Matt Sanchez' sexuality as a reason, I guess, to distrust his reportage.

Hey, Johnny Boy-- if that's the game we're playing, I've got some questions about Scott Beauchamp's "colorful and far-ranging sex life" too. I've never brought them up before, not realizing they were terribly relevant, but if Johnny Boy -- one of those brave nonparitsan voices out there who always, curiously enough, just seems to find himself pandering to the exact same partisan crowd -- thinks that such questions are relevant, well, by all means, let's talk about Beauchamp, eh?

CORRECTION/RETRACTION: I'm sorry, I headlined this post "Why Does John Cole Get Traffic?"

My bad.

Turns out he doesn't, really. So my entire premise was factually flawed from the outset.

Was that dickish?

Yeah, I guess so, and smaller bloggers may take that as a slap in the face. Eh, what can I say -- there was a time when I tried linking my blog on Cole's in order to get some traffic.

I don't, uhhh, bother doing that too often anymore.

Just saying: His audience has become, like Spinal Tap's, more selective.

Bear in mind: Cole is not running a new blog. He was in the first wave of bloggers.

And the first-wavers have that big first-to-market advantage.

Like the fact he's on everyone's "legacy blogroll." You know, how so many established bloggers have links to the same old first-wave dudes? Because, at the time, they were among the only prominent bloggers out there? And we all wanted to suck up to them? So their blogs are linked by EVERYBODY (Gary Oldman yell) just because?

Well, that's one advantage of being a first-waver. Ken Layne has that advantage. His blog is in half the blogrolls out there and yet he hasn't actually blogged on his own blog since, like, the Hell's Angels killed some hippies at Altemont.

Not a huge advantage, but anytime someone's on one of the big blogger's sites, there's that John Cole Balloon-Juice sitting right there, all convenient-like, and yet, not quite tempting enough to click on.

Plus, like six years into this crap. Six years to establish traffic and base and all that. Six friggin' years.

Seriously, sorry to be such a prick, and I know this is totally douchebaggish, but, if I can offer a mitigating circumstance in my favor: I really despise him, at least when I read him, which is about never, which is, it seem, the same as most blog-readers read him, so I think I'm as good an expert as anyone on John Cole's oevure.

I'm willing to go cheap on him, because he deserves it. He's a useless, tedious, witless git and this is one time the SiteMeter doesn't lie.

So permit me my Howard Stern my-ratings-are-better moment. Okay, not quite Howard Stern. How about Slick Rick & His Zoo Crew dominating their morning-drive market in Ocala, Florida?

posted by Ace at 02:24 PM

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