What Color is his Parachute? Remote is Relative

Andrew Sullivan has a guest blogger posting from Dutch Harbor.

by Dave Weigel

UNALASKA, AK -- When I agreed to blog here for a week I gave a quick word of warning: I was set to spend a week in Dutch Harbor, the remote fishing town made globally famous by 1) the series "Deadliest Catch" and 2) fish.

"Remote" is a word we like to misuse, like "awesome" or "ironic" or "electable." You go to a hunting cabin in West Virginia and you say you're in a remote location. But I am about as far from the great mass of humanity as I could be right now. This is obvious if you open a map and notice that the island is closer to Pyongyang than it is to Seattle. . . [it goes on here]

He parachuted in from DC and thinks he's remote. Of course the people who come from Dutch Harbor think DC is remote.   And maybe being far from the great mass of humanity gives one a chance to connect with the earth and life as most humans knew it before they all moved to the big cities.  But as long as he can get to Dutch Harbor's bars and internet, he's still far from where he can truly bond with nature.  And by the way, most of the guys with the Alaska T shirts aren't from Alaska.  [You have to read the rest of his post to get that.]

The center of the universe is where ever 'home' is. If you look at a map of the US and draw a line down the middle, Chicago is clearly to the right, or east, of that line. But as the settlers all started on the East Coast, they thought Chicago was in the Mid West.  And they still call Chicago the Mid West even today.  They think the East Coast is the Beijing of the New World.  Growing up in LA, I was always confused by references to us in 'the Far West.'  I lived there.  It wasn't far at all.  It seemed that New York was more appropriately the Far East.


So what is Dave Weigel doing in Dutch Harbor?  I guess he was trying to get as far away from his known world as he could.  The Washington Post reports:

David Weigel, who was hired by The Washington Post to blog about conservatives, resigned Friday after leaked online messages showed him disparaging some Republicans and commentators in highly personal terms.

Weigel, whose tenure lasted three months, apologized Thursday for writing on a private e-mail exchange that Matt Drudge should "handle his emotional problems more responsibly and set himself on fire." He also mocked Ron Paul, the Texas congressman, by referring to the "Paultard Tea Party."


The Daily Caller reported more inflammatory comments on Friday, with Weigel writing that conservatives were using the media to "violently, angrily divide America" and lamenting news organizations' "need to give equal/extra time to 'real American' views, no matter how [expletive] moronic." When Rush Limbaugh, who has called for President Obama to fail, was hospitalized with chest pains, Weigel wrote: "I hope he fails."[to continue reading the post]

I guess the editors don't read too many blogs.  Weigel probably assumed that it was ok to    write like that in private since most bloggers do it publicly on their blogs.  But if this was supposed to be "Inside the conservative movement" why did they have someone who doesn't sound at all like an insider.  Or maybe this is a glimpse into what it looks like on the conservative inside.

The Washington Post Ombudsman, on a story about the firing, raises a similar point.

. . . But his departure also raises questions about whether The Post has adequately defined the role of bloggers like Weigel. Are they neutral reporters or ideologues?

And, given the disdainful comments in his e-mails, there is the separate question of whether he was miscast from the outset when he was hired earlier this year. . .

So Dave, if you have some time in Anchorage on your way home, give a shout and meet some not very remote Alaskan bloggers.