October 01, 2015
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Nix cautioned me not to be too full of myself for having spotted Goldberg’s trolling back in March, when Walsh and the others were lapping it up:
A lot of the language Goldberg used goes into troll territory right off the bat. Here’s the first example I found: “Anti-feminist, anti-multicultural, anti-immigration, and/or anti-equality ideology.” It’s obvious to anyone who has made eye contact with a leftist that leftists are usually not pleasant people, but that’s simply not how leftists phrase things unless they are a troll.
In other words, it isn”t that I”m smart, but that other right-leaning bloggers are dense. I”m just desperate enough to take that as a compliment.
In the end, maybe conservative bloggers need phony stories more than leftist bloggers because whereas left-wing hacks thrive on stories about things that are “racist” or “sexist” (breakfast, lunch, and dinner; guacamole; air-conditioning; etc.), right-wing hacks thrive on stories about left-wing hacks. So a troll like Goldberg, or an insignificant nobody like Monica Foy, or an obvious satirist like Pupinia Stewart, can be a real lifesaver when it’s deadline time and no one at Salon or MSNBC has said anything juicy that day.
Leftist blogs appeal to their readers by saying stupid things. Rightist blogs appeal to their readers by ridiculing leftists who say stupid things. So trolls, hoaxers, and satirists who say stupid leftist things on purpose can be assured of finding a Walsh or a Taranto or a Treacher to make them famous. And while it’s admirable that Taranto and Treacher have offered public mea culpas, it should be noted that PJ Media and Michael Walsh have refused to update any of Walsh’s six “Tanya Cohen” pieces to reflect the fact that he was taken in by a fraud (Walsh refused my requests for comment).
On PJ Media, Tanya Cohen lives on. For Joshua Goldberg, perhaps that small comfort can ease the pain of trading his mom’s basement for a prison cell. He may no longer fool neo-Nazis, ISIS, or the U.S. government, but at least he”ll always have PJ Media to preserve and assist his trolling for years to come, getting hits and shares by continuing to promote the “Tanya” character as genuine. In honor of Michael Walsh, I”ll end on a note straight out of Casablanca: Picture Walsh and Goldberg, strolling side by side down the runway of a fog-shrouded airport. The music swells as the conservative hack turns to the Jewish troll to acknowledge their mutual dependence, delivering the final line in a farce masquerading as a political drama: “Jewey, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
Fade out.
