Updated 04-May-2020.
Mondo shtuff from around the internet, all about WONKETTE!
Wonkette’s Jack Stuef wrote an item Monday poking fun at a poem that had been posted by Team Sarah for Trig’s birthday, with the refrain “Oh little boy, what are you dreaming about?” Stuef cracked: “What’s he dreaming about? Nothing. He’s retarded.” Trig Palin has Down syndrome.
It took about 36 hours, as David Weigel noted at Slate, but the conservative blogosphere, led by Big Journalism editor-in-chief Dana Loesch and Big Government writer Derek Hunter, picked up on the post and used it to drive a campaign to pressure Wonkette’s advertisers to drop the site.
Advertisers began announcing their plans to stop advertising on Wonkette via Twitter. By Loesch’s count, so far the boycotters include Papa Johns, Huggies, the Vanguard Group, Holland America Cruises, Nordstrom, Bob Evans Farms, Reliant Energy, DealSwarm and Coldwell Banker.
As Brand Channel points out, such boycotts are complicated because most of Wonkette’s banner ads are served by an ad network, meaning different ads appear each time users refresh the page.
Wonkette editor Ken Layne told Weigel that he had placed Stuef on probation.
The post has since been updated with an apology from Stuef:
UPDATE: I regret this post and using the word “retarded” in a reference to Sarah Palin’s child. It’s not nice, and is not necessary, but I take responsibility for writing it. For those who came and are offended by this post: I’m sorry, of course. But I stand by my criticism of Sarah Palin using her child as a political prop.
Update: Wonkette has removed the offending post.
“We have decided to remove the post as requested by some people who have nothing to do with Sarah Palin, but who do have an interest in the cause of special needs children. We apologize for the poor comedic judgment,” reads an editor’s note.
The post has been replaced by the note and commenting has been disabled.
Burgess Everett contributed to this report.
My botty best at summarizing from Wikipedia: the editor since 2012 is Rebecca Schoenkopf, formerly of OC Weekly . the site covers U.S. politics from Washington, D.C. to local schoolboards . Taking a sarcastic tone the blog was founded by former suck.com editor Ana Marie Cox . cox announced her resignation as Wonkette’s editor on january 5, 2006 . she promoted her book, Dog Days, and after pareene and Layne’s departure in October 2007, a team of new editors was installed . new editors included John Clarke, Jr. and Megan Carpentier . longtime contributors Princess Sparkle Pon readership hit new records between the 2008 election and the 2009 inauguration . past and current guest editors and contributors include Reason magazine editor Nick Gillespie . in April 2011, blogger Jack Stuef wrote a post mocking Stuef was placed on probation and apologized for the post . the name of the site is a play on the slang word wonk, meaning a “zealous student of political policy” Gawker Ayn Rand’s Adventures In Wonderland: America 2010: Serial graphic novel by cartoonist Benjamin Frisch. The series has concluded. : Op-ed column by comedian/radio host Sara Benincasa. Josh Fruhlinger is the author of The Comics Curmudgeon . named for George W. Bush’s 2004 debate performance mention of “rumors on the Internets” it’s Morning In America: Daily news briefing peggy noonan’s writing often recasts as either the work of a Tory from the 17th century . she is nominated in the humor, politics and group-blog categories in the 2009 and 2010 “wonkette is Bush-era liberalism frozen in amber, motionless and immortal” “as long as it is here, we must celebrate its inanity,” writes Alex Nichols . “the site is it doesn’t prove a point about anything, and it isn’t an example of any trend or political tendency . it makes it all the more baffling … Wonkette simply exists .