80 blog reactions to http://www.politico.com/blogs/michaelcalderone/0308/Wash_Post_editor_says_controversial_piece_was_tongueincheek.html

on the state of the mainstream media today that they can still publish pieces that call women stupid and flighty, and not make any more substantive response to their numerous A-list blogger critics (and a flood of negative reader response) than to call Allen's piece "tongue in cheek". Firedoglake shows how phony this defense is with a description of Allen's previous work, and her obvious long-term agenda of dismantling feminism. It seems likely, instead, that Pomfret published these articles for two reasons: pushing the

This Allen chat is a deeply confused act. What are the chances that Allen is not going to start defending her arguments as real arguments, her evidence as real evidence? Very slim. And that will undermine the editor’s explanation: this was tongue in cheek, we were just having a little fun with you guys, sorry if we offended…. Besides, where has all the criticism focused? On the Post’s decision to publish the piece. The writer cannot be faulted for that.

of Wheat, Allen asserts, "Depressing as it is, several of the supposed misogynist myths about female inferiority have been proven true." After the column's publication, the Washington Post has done a little dance of mollification: First the editor explained that the piece was "tongue-in-cheek," and Wednesday the paper printed its own scathing rebuttal of the piece, "A Dumb Argument." But when any article receives 1,000 comments and 10,000 blog responses, why not make hits while the sun still shines? So

Barack Obama ("We Scream, We Swoon. How Dumb Can We Get?")--I mean, it was so stupid it passed out of my head about as fast as my daily horoscope--but then I see where John Pomfret, the Outlook editor who commissioned it, was quoted as saying the piece was tongue-in-cheek. To which I can only reply: No, John, it wasn't tongue-in-cheek. It was head-up-ass. I swear, weeks like this I find myself thinking newspapers can't die fast enough. It's not like people can't be sublimely stupid on the Internet, but at least they

Post ombudsman Deborah Howell was also offended by last week’s controversial Charlotte Allen piece in Outlook. Guess she didn’t think it was "tongue-in-cheek" either. According to Newsweek, every single woman over 35, regardless of party, thinks the media hates Hillary. Ironically, the writer mentions Maureen Dowd and Samantha Power in the same graph. I kind of doubt those 35-plus women agree with the writer

also happens to be one of the most prominent, respected papers in the country—would publish something so illogical, mean-spirited, and insulting to its readers. John Pomfret, the editor of the Post’s Outlook section says the essay was “tongue-in-cheek” and supposed to be thought-provoking. Which is one explanation—except the article isn’t funny, and since when is calling someone stupid a way to stimulate intelligent debate? If, as Pomfret claims, Allen pitched it to him as Obama-mania vs.

petty nonsense. Instead, the fault lies with Washington Post editors who thought Allen’s anti-feminist hit-job deserved to be published on the front page of the paper’s Outlook section. A few days ago, the WaPo’s Outlook editor took a moment to respond to criticism, saying the piece was intended to be “tongue-in-cheek.” Today, Post Ombudsman Deborah Howell added some insightful thoughts on the subject, conceding that she was “offended” by Allen’s opinion piece, which she called

weigh in but perhaps nobody says it better than KJ Lopez (per Lindsey Beyerstein and Jeff Fecke at Shakesville. More after the jump. The WaPo tried to play this column off as a bit of "irony" gone wrong. WaPo Outlook Editor John Pomfret:"If it insulted people, that was not the intent," Outlook editor John Pomfret told me this morning, calling the piece "tongue-in-cheek." Pomfret said that Allen pitched the idea to him as a riff on women fainting at Obama rallies, and similarities

(Note that rings true doesn’t equal is true, evil lies can be funny, you just have to work a lot harder). The more insulting a piece, generally speaking, the higher the threshold for ringing true or being clever. The piece as originally pitched, comparing Obama fandom to Beatles fandom, doesn’t excite me but could have worked. The trouble is the piece that was written, while still "tongue-in-cheek" was far more insulting than it was clever or true.

special mentoring and role-modeling the 21st century can provide, the number of women in these fields will always lag behind the number of men, for good reason. It's all written in a cutesy style that allowed the Washington Post editor John Pomfret to claim that it was just a joke, written "tongue in cheek". Tongue-in-cheek humor only works if your audience knows you don't seriously believe what you've written. There is the possibility that Allen is just a poor writer. So, is that the case? The Post hosted a live Q