Here’s the pattern:
- A lefty does something very stupid in service of whichever cause he’s upset about.
- The lefty gets a taste of his own medicine.
- The lefty then insists he’s the victim.
It never fails. Now this has happened to one of the witty geniuses at Gawker, and it couldn’t be more wonderful.
Yesterday, Gawker’s John Cook posted the following:
You don’t need to read it, because it’s Gawker, but the post claims to contain a “446-page list of every licensed gun owner in New York City.” Just like the Journal News did, get it? That paper has gotten a lot of publicity for “outing” licensed gun owners, and people aren’t reading Gawker the way they used to, so it’s some good cheap linkbait. Besides, it’s a lot easier than listing all the unlicensed gun owners in NYC. Not to mention a lot safer.
In an attempt to preempt criticism that such tactics violate the privacy of law-abiding citizens, Cook wrote:
It’s clear that many of the Rockland County and Westchester County gun owners who are outraged at having their addresses plastered on the internet have had those addresses plastered on the internet for years without it causing a problem.
Did you catch that? Because it’s going to come into play in a second. Cook is saying that it’s okay to publish personal information for political purposes because hey, it was publicly available anyway.
A few hours after Cook’s triumphant Gawker post, when he should’ve been basking in the afterglow of his victory over all those law-abiding “assholes,” instead he was dealing with this:
People are tweeting my address. I didn’t publish anyone’s address.
— John Cook (@johnjcook) January 8, 2013
Ahem: It’s clear that the Gawker writer who is outraged at having his address plastered on the internet had that address plastered on the internet for years without it causing a problem.
I’m not going to post somebody’s personal info just because he stupidly posted other people’s info (and if you try it in the comments, it’ll be deleted). But I’m not going to stifle my laughter at the irony.
Incidentally, just last week Cook posted a heartfelt 4,500-word apology for his teenaged verbal bullying, which Slate’s Emily Bazelon summarizes here:
In a confessional piece on Gawker last week, John Cook wrote about himself as a craven junior high bully. He was part of a trio of boys who got their hands on an early Mac and used it to produce a scandal sheet with messages like “Jenni Greenwald, please commit suicide,” rumors about a girl named Holly W. losing her virginity, and racist rants against black students and teachers. At the time, Cook and the two boys he was trailing—they were popular and he wasn’t, he says—thought of themselves as rebels anonymously publishing an underground newspaper. They sold 80 copies at school in one day before they got caught.
As an adult looking back in horror at his 13-year-old self, Cook called Jenni and Holly (not their real names) to apologize and to find out what effect the targeting had on them.
That’s nice, but clearly, he didn’t learn anything from it. John Cook hasn’t changed since he was 13. He’s just found a new excuse.
Look on the bright side, Gawkerites. Sure, now some creeps are threatening you for what you did, but you have a 446-page list of people who might want to help protect you. Unless… you’ve somehow alienated them?
One last thing:
Amusingly, what @gawker has done today is given a one word answer to those who are asked, “why on earth do you oppose gun registration?”
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) January 8, 2013
(Hat tip: Twitchy)
P.S. Cook is a riveting prose stylist, but somehow I glossed over his explanation for why he didn’t include the registered gun owners’ addresses. Politico notes:
So why didn’t Cook include addresses in his list?
“Because the NYPD is more interested in raping and/or eating ladies and spying on Muslims than it is in honoring public records law, the list contains only the names, and not the addresses, of the licensees,” Cook wrote in the article.
Well, I’m sure the NYPD will be eager to listen to Cook’s complaints now…
