I wouldn't beat yourself up over it.  At a glance, CJ puts on a sane face, but if you dig deeper into his behavior and history it becomes clear that his ego and paranoia trump intellectual honesty (pretty much every time).  There are so many contradictions that, after years of paying attention to what goes on over there, I don't know if he really believes in anything that he posts.  I've commented before that he may just fancy himself as an entertainer who plays the role of online provocateur (for hits, or attention, or whatever).  Or, maybe he does have screws loose (like you say).   I'm not sure, but it is easy (and fun) to call him out on all of it.

 

BTW- He fooled Alan Colmes, too.  And poor Alan didn't notice that CJ had called him "dim-witted" and "pathetic" just a few years before. 

http://www.alan.com/2010/01/24/little-green-footballs-charles-johnson-and-the-right-wing-flame-war/

 

As far as my fellow DoDers go, I don't mind anyone engaging them on the comments that they're leaving.  Heck, many of them were my mortal enemies on LGF, back when I was a polite "lefty" on the conservative LGF.  Done honorably using wit and reason, the flame war is one of the most entertaining things the blogosphere has to offer.   I play by the rule that if you resort to name-calling and ad hominems, you've lost.  So, by all means...

 

Anyway, if you want to hit CJ where it hurts, I would suggest taking steps that would permanently tarnish the LGF wikipedia page.  He has been fiercely defending that for years, and won't let it go if something he doesn't like winds up in there.  The problem is, no "media type" has sufficiently pointed out the revisionism and hypocrisy that we prove all the time, which leads the wikipedia editors without sources to reference.  We try to provide the evidence as solidly as we can, but since us disgruntled ex-LGFers come off as biased they won't put it in there.  So, perhaps with your connections in the media or whatever you can make sure that someone else "discovers" this stuff, therefore providing the necessary references (the closest that we came was Tim Blair who noticed that inconvenient threads and text had disappeared into the memory hole, but was removed later since Blair only linked to another blog).

 

take care, and see you around

 

-cz

 

 

 

----- Original Message -----
From: "Barrett Brown" <barriticus@gmail.com>
To: "chen zhen" <chen.zhen@comcast.net>
Sent: Wednesday, December 22, 2010 12:58:27 PM
Subject: Re: On DoD tonight

Yeah, I'm really embarrassed at having written such glowing things about him. Guys absolutely nuts. I do check in to your blog regularly now, but sometimes just to run psychological experiments on some of your more deranged commenters. Of course I do want to keep tabs on whatever Charles says about me just in case something comes up that requires a response.

On Wed, Dec 22, 2010 at 1:54 PM, <chen.zhen@comcast.net> wrote:

Hi Barrett-

 

Not sure if you care anymore, but you might want to tune in for some epic CJ hypocrisy that will be revealed in a thread I have scheduled tonight at 7pm EST.

 

Like most of my threads, I present them in a factual way that can't really be defended.  CJ and the gang just has to sit there and take it (which makes it more fun, and why he doesn't like me very much).  He knows that most of his regulars read DoD, but he's got to play it off like he doesn't.  But we all know he does.  It's a hoot.

 

Instead, he lashes out at you:

 

http://diaryofdaedalus.com/2010/12/21/tuesday-night-screencap/#comment-22310

 

As if revealing that CJ shares and requests personal info on commenters with/from other bloggers wasn't embarrassing.  In his mind, we are enemies of the state, and therefore deserve it I guess.

 

-cz

--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302