Alterman vs. Wonkette

Whiny-brat finger-pointing name-caller Eric Alterman started it, by dissing Time magazine for filling its opinion pages with “vitriol, anger and abuse, almost always directed at liberals.” He called out (again) Joe Klein (for the sin of “frequently praising the centrist Democratic Leadership Council”), Andrew Sullivan (whom Alterman described as “famously gay”), and “fire-breathing neocon columnist Charles Krauthammer.”

Then he stuck it to new Time contributor

Ana Marie Cox, a putative liberal whose specialty on her blog, Wonkette, were posts about–sorry, Mom–”ass-fucking,” as if to prove the conservatives’ point about liberal perversity.

Cox responded (and drew blood) on Romenesko. I reprint in full:

From ANA MARIE COX: Just a small note to add to Eric Alterman’s rather petulant column on the rightward tilt of TIME columnists. He calls me a “putative liberal,” which is sweet, because I thought the Huffington Post comedy police had torn up my liberal credentials completely when I didn’t laugh hard enough at Stephen Colbert. He also claims that my “specialty” on Wonkette “were posts about — sorry, Mom — ‘ass-fucking.’” Sorry, indeed. By even responding to Eric’s off-hand remark, I am probably opening myself up to all sorts barbs — as it were — but I wrote 10 posts a day for almost two years. If most — or even a large portion — of them were about sodomy, surely I would have been paid extra. While I am not ashamed to have delved occasionally into the nether regions in my search for pointed political humor, it saddens me that Eric remembers me for those jokes and not, say, the ones at his expense.

And she linked to the handy chart you see below (from April 1, 2005). Sweet.