August 29, 2008
Asshole of the Week
Have a nominee for Asshole of the Week? Send it to us!
Unless you were living under a rock this week, you knew that the Democratic National Convention was being held in Denver. And all the hurrah built up to Barack Obama's acceptance of the party's nomination for Savior President of the United States. And while many Hillary Clinton supporters hadn't drunk the Obama Kool Aid before the convention, and there are still a fair number who are unconvinced, almost all have accepted, and come to terms with, the fact that Obama is the Democratic nominee for President. And then there's Montgomery County lawyer Philip J. Berg.
Berg filed a lawsuit arguing that Obama is not a citizen of the United States and therefore not constitutionally permitted to be President. Berg's complaint, which happens to be pretty horribly written, basically alleges that Obama [a/k/a Barry Soetero a/k/a Barry Obama a/k/a Barack Dunham a/k/a Barry Dunham, I shit you not] may not have been born in the United States, and that even if he was, he lost his citizenship when his mother married and relocated the family to Indonesia for a time. (This is where those a/k/a names come from—"Dunham" was Obama's mother's surname, and "Soetero" his stepfather's.) The lawsuit might be more interesting, though less hilarious, if it wasn't (1) so terribly written, and (2) filed by the same crackjob who alleged that the Bush administration was behind the 9/11 attacks. Uhhh, yeah, we're gonna pick this lawsuit as a loser, although "electional astrology" indicates that it's going to go Berg's way. Right.
This ridiculous lawsuit earned Berg "Lawyer of the Day" honors over on Above the Law earlier this week, and now it gets him an Asshole of the Week trophy to add to his mantle. Congratulations, Philip!
Image Credit: Flickr user seiu_international
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I thought you were naming Barack Obama as "asshole of the week" as first. Glad I actually read it! ;)
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Yeah, this guy is a complete tool. I wonder if he'll reference Larry Johnson and the Quest for the Holy Whitey Tape if the case ever comes before a judge.
Which it won't.
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what kind of editorial message did you mean to send by posting a huge picture of barack obama under that kind of headline?
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The kind that we couldn't get ahold of any Creative Commons-licensed photos of Mr. Berg to use.
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personally, a more thoughtful alternative would've been appreciated.
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Dude, it's a weekly column meant to be incendiary. Relax.
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i get that the column is incendiary. as editor, i'm surprised that you'd let the post be published like that - i'm not even the only commentor to say something about it and i'm told to "relax." there are hundreds of philly news blogs that do a good job of monitoring their journalistic qualities while still being clever and witty - this is slowing becoming one i can do without.
pardon me for expecting more from phillyist.
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We can understand where you're coming from, but in the first instance, we're not a news blog. But even leaving that aside, to the extent that we have a responsibility to monitor our "journalistic qualities," I don't think there's anything inappropriate about the photo. As Spencer pointed out, it's only misleading if you don't bother to actually read the column. And the image is relevant to the subject of the column.
Besides, if you looked at the title of the post, and the photograph, and then went ahead and read the column because the connection between the image and the title evoked an emotional response from you, then the photo more than served its purpose: it got you to read the article, which you otherwise might not have.
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One other person—a former Phillyist writer, by the way—made a comment about being confused by the photo. He never implied anything about our editorial message, which, if anything, tends to lean toward the left. As Ross mentioned, we're under strict obligation to use photos that fall under a Creative Commons license. As you pointed out, I'm one of the editors, and as one of the editors, I have to make sure that our writers don't get sued because they used a photo that wasn't licensed for use on the site. Because there were no photos of the subject, Ross did the next best thing and used a photo of somebody else who was in the story, and of whom Creative Commons-licensed photos did exist. If you'd like to bankroll our use of Associated Press photographs, we'd be more than happy to choose our images more precisely.
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In fairness, there was a video relevant to the story, but I went out on a limb and guessed that no one was going to actually watch a 26 minute long video of a phone interview with Mr. Berg, in which Berg doesn't even appear physically.
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i also understand where you're coming from. but shocking a reader into continue reading a post out of morbid curiosity instead of just being compelling with your words is how you intend to retain your traffic might not be the best strategy. especially when you're truncating posts on your homepage - for me, and almost for the first commenter, you were the "ist" that just called barack obama an asshole.
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Haha. Point taken!
If you're logged in as a commenter, the posts on the homepage shouldn't be truncated, but sometimes, your cookies can get confused and do it anyway. If at the top of the page (on the white bar), you change your view to "full view" (even if it says that it's there already), you'll get full posts, or at least full-to-the-break-where-the-author-intended-it posts.
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Hmmm, just out of curiosity, what if we did call Barack Obama an asshole, for unreasonably getting up people expectations about what he can accomplish (and how much it's going to cost in taxpayer dollars)? Would that not be okay? But would it be okay if we called John McCain an asshole for giving up the experience card so easily in making a VP selection that was a transparently desperate play to lure some Hillary voters while appeasing the conservative base?
We have no obligation to be liberal shills. And if Obama does something (with local implications) that merits being called out in this column, then he will be. We don't expect that to happen, but we don't see why he should be off limits.
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i totally agree, and that's sort of what i like to hear. if you want to be the blog that calls barack obama an asshole, i would hope that you would have well-stated, thought-provoking reasons for it, and i'd sort of respect you for being totally ballsy.
it'd be a lot better than being the blog that called barack obama an asshole on accident.
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Barack Obama touched me inappropriately, and I'm still voting for him.
Now THAT'S incendiary!
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You realize that's The One Ring To Rule Them All that he's flashing, right?