On Friday, The New Republic suspended one of its editors, Lee Siegel, for posting comments on his TNR culture blog while posing as somebody else. Today, TNR editor Franklin Foer posted an apology on the magazine’s Web site.
“After an investigation, The New Republic has determined that the comments in our Talkback section defending Lee Siegel’s articles and blog under the username ‘sprezzatura’ were produced with Siegel’s participation,” noted Foer. “We deeply regret misleading our readers.”
Afterwards, bloggers piled on.
“Siegel was the perfect example of a kook,” writes Wis[s]e Words. “Smart, intelligent and convinced of his own intelligence, quite likely convinced that he always was the smartest person in the room, with a career that must’ve confirmed his own beliefs over and over again, who then finds himself in a situation he can’t control, confronting people who are far less impressed with him then he himself is.”
To nobody’s surprise, longtime TNR antagonist Markos Moulitsas Zúniga (a.k.a. Kos) reacted to the Siegel debacle with notable glee.
“It’s not like TNR isn’t a target-rich environment,” comments Kos. “But none was more mockable than Lee Siegel. From ‘blogofascism,’ to the terrors of wearing baseball caps, to psychoanalyzing my childhood, to wishing he had screwed a 16-year-old Uma Thurman, none illustrated the irrelevance of The New Republic more than their so-called ‘culture’ writer.”
Others were busy excavating the oeuvre of “sprezzatura” — such as the Cheese Sandwich, who dug up a few gems.
“And I ask myself: why is it the young guys who go after Siegel?” wrote Siegel as “sprezzatura.” “Must be because he writes the way young guys should be writing: angry, independent, not afraid of offending powerful people. They on the other hand write like aging careerists: timid, ingratiating, careful not to offend people who are powerful.”
Elsewhere, bloggers debated the relative harm of “sock puppetry” — that is, the practice of posting comments on one’s own site while using a cyber-disguise.
“It seems to me that most incidences of sock puppetry come from writers who are moving to the blogosphere from another medium, and who are unused to a) the immediate feedback, b) the vitriol, and c) the freedom to be whatever or whoever you want to be,” observes Lawyers, Guns and Money. “I also, like Gavin, think that sock puppetry is a relatively mild crime as blogospheric sins go. Siegel’s examples were particularly pompous and mean-spirited, but I still suspect that sock puppetry is the excuse more than the cause for his suspension, and that the real reason is that his blog proved to be an embarrassment (and perhaps even legal liability) for TNR.”
Finally, one blogger rallied to Siegel’s defense. Sort of.
“Oh, who cares,” writes the Poor Man Institute. “Siegel was fun, at least. What’s Marty Peretz’s excuse? This injustice will not stand! Free Lee Siegel! I’m putting together an all-star anti-blogofascism benefit concert to raise awareness for this important cause! Who’s with me?”
Andrew Bielak was a CJR intern.